Hugh LaFollette - The International Encyclopedia of Ethics - Volume 3, D-Fal-Wiley-Blackwell (2013) PDF

Praise for The International Encyclopedia of Ethics
“The International Encyclopedia of Ethics is breathtaking in its ambition and scope.

This nine-volume masterpiece draws on the expertise of more than 600 authors
from 23 countries to present the most comprehensive reference work ever devoted
to the field of ethics. The editor, Hugh LaFollette, has done a magnificent job in
guiding authors to write entries that will be of great benefit to intelligent laypeople,
students, and professionals alike. Each entry offers substantial background and
analysis of the topic in question and provides a valuable list of references, cross-
references, and suggested readings to guide further research. Every major research
institution in the world will need to acquire or have access to it, as philosophers and
non-philosophers alike will turn to it again and again for illumination of the many
ethical concepts and issues that are so important in our lives. There is simply nothing
else like it!”
Larry S. Temkin, Rutgers University
“The International Encyclopedia of Ethics draws on the work of many leading

contemporary philosophers to provide an outstanding guide to current thinking
about ethics.”
Peter Singer, Princeton University
“With its distinguished international editorial board and contributions from a star-
studded cast of authors, the International Encyclopedia of Ethics lives up to its
ambitious name. In its nine volumes it is able to cover an impressively broad
and comprehensive array of pertinent topics, movements, and figures – Western and
non-Western, historical and contemporary, religious and secular, metaethical
and normative alike. Bibliographies are generous, cross-references are ample, and
entries are both accessibly written and cutting edge. With entries on topics as diverse
and wide-ranging as ‘Glass Ceiling’ and ‘Savior Siblings,’ it is not just an indispensable
resource for students and scholars, but one that invites the kind of spontaneous
browsing that can creatively transform scholarship.”
Jennifer A. Herdt, Yale University
“The International Encyclopedia of Ethics will be a major resource for anyone

interested in becoming familiar with the best scholarship on just about any topic in
ethics. The editors have done a superb job, and the entries are of the highest quality.
Highly recommended.”
John Martin Fischer, University of California, Riverside
View the online edition, and submit comments or suggestions, at

www.internationalencyclopediaofethics.com.
LaFollette_Vol1_ffirs.indd i 11/6/2012 11:35:50 PM

LaFollette_Vol1_ffirs.indd ii 11/6/2012 11:35:53 PM
The International
Encyclopedia of Ethics
Edited by
Hugh LaFollette
Volume I
A–Bub
A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication
LaFollette_Vol1_ffirs.indd iii 11/6/2012 11:35:53 PM

This edition first published 2013
© 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in February 2007. Blackwell’s publishing
program has been merged with Wiley’s global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business to form
Wiley-Blackwell.
Registered Office
John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK
Editorial Offices
350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK
The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK
For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services, and for information about how to
apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.
wiley.com/wiley-blackwell.
The right of Hugh LaFollette to be identified as the author of the editorial material in this work has
been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior
permission of the publisher.
Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print
may not be available in electronic books.
Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All
brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or
registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or
vendor mentioned in this book. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative
information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher
is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is
required, the services of a competent professional should be sought.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The international encyclopedia of ethics / edited by Hugh LaFollette.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4051-8641-4 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Ethics–Encyclopedias.
I. LaFollette, Hugh, 1948–
BJ63.I58 2013
170′.3–dc23
2012023052
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover image: All images courtesy of Shutterstock. Compass © Tobias Machhaus; desert floor © Galyna
Andrushko; forest © Lane V. Erickson; paving stones © CoolR.
Cover design by cyandesign.co.uk
Set in 10.5/13pt Minion by SPi Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India
1 2013
LaFollette_Vol1_ffirs.indd iv 11/6/2012 11:35:53 PM

1
Research Ethics
David B. Resnik
Introduction
Research ethics is a type of applied (or professional) ethics that addresses the
questions, dilemmas, and issues related to the ethical conduct of scientific research
(see professional ethics; dilemmas, moral). Topics that fall within the domain
of research ethics range from practical problems, such as assigning authorship, to
more abstract questions, such as resolving conflicts between normative principles.
Though ethical issues have always arisen in science, research ethics began to emerge
as a distinct academic discipline in the mid-1980s, when scientists, humanists, and
policymakers came to terms with well-publicized scandals in research, such as data
fabrication and falsification in federally funded science, abuses of human and
animal research subjects, and conflicts of interests in clinical trials. These and other
events drew the attention of journalists, who published front-page articles on scien-
tific fraud and other problems with research; Congressional leaders, who held hear-
ings on misconduct in science; and federal agencies, which issued new ethics
regulations and training requirements (Shamoo and Resnik 2009). During the
1990s, governmental and scientific organizations released a number of influential
reports on integrity in science, professional associations held conferences and work-
shops on research ethics, and scholars published textbooks and anthologies on
research ethics (National Academy of Sciences 1992; Resnik 1998; Macrina 2005).
New scholarly journals, such as Science and Engineering Ethics and Accountability in
Research, were founded to address ethical, social, and legal issues in scientific
research. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, social scientists, psycholo-
gists, and other empirically oriented researchers had gathered considerable data
concerning ethical behavior in research and developed explanatory models (see
explanations, moral).
Foundations of Research Ethics

In thinking about research ethics as a discipline, it is important to distinguish
between descriptive and normative approaches (see is–ought gap). Descriptive
approaches use surveys, questionnaires, focus groups, and experiments to gather
empirical evidence to test hypotheses and theories used to describe and explain the
ethical behaviors, attitudes, and opinions of researchers. Descriptive studies also
investigate the social, cultural, economic, and political factors that affect research,
and examine the effectiveness of different teaching methods for research ethics.
Empirical disciplines such as psychology, sociology, anthropology, political science,
The International Encyclopedia of Ethics. Edited by Hugh LaFollette, print pages 4563–4573.
© 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee001
2
history, and economics conduct descriptive studies of research ethics. Normative

approaches use logical, conceptual, and linguistic analysis to study the ethical prin-
ciples, theories, and norms that guide ethical decision-making in research and jus-
tify ethical behavior. Normative approaches also examine the concepts and policies
related to the ethics of research. Disciplines such as philosophy, ethics, religious
studies, and law take a normative approach to research ethics. Both descriptive and
normative approaches offer useful insights into research ethics. It is important to
understand not only how scientists behave in research, but how they ought to
behave. Descriptive studies answer the former question, while normative ones
answer the latter.
Some of the important empirical research on research ethics conducted in the last
two decades includes:
● surveys of data fabrication and falsification, plagiarism, and ethically question-

able research practices;
● surveys of ethics policies at research institutions and journals;
● studies of the role of financial interests in research;
● studies of data sharing and withholding in research;
● studies of mentoring, education, and training in research ethics (see ethical
issues in teaching);
● studies of the institutional, social, economic, cultural, and political factors that
affect research integrity;
● studies of peer review in scientific journals;
● studies of the informed consent process in research with human subjects.
The questions examined in normative research ethics can be divided into four
categories: metaethics, theoretical ethics, applied ethics, and methodology. Metae-
thics deals with the justification of ethical beliefs, judgments, decisions, and norms,
and the meaning of ethical concepts and terms. The metaethical questions that arise
in the ethics of research are basically the same as those that arise in disciplines with
ethical standards: Are there universal standards of ethics in research (see relativ-
ism, moral)? Are ethical standards in research objective? What are the foundations
of research ethics? Theoretical ethics examines the theories, principles, and values
that guide ethical decision-making and conduct in research. Many of these theories,
principles, and concepts are similar to those that apply to other disciplines. For
example, respect for autonomy, justice, honesty, and social responsibility apply to
ethical conduct in research as well as ethical conduct in medicine and law. Applied
ethics concerns particular decisions and practical problems related to the ethics of
research, such as deciding whether to exclude an outlier from a dataset or pursue a
patent on a human gene. Methodological issues have to do with the way that deci-
sions should be made in applied ethics. How do ethical theories apply to particular
decisions? How should decision-makers balance competing principles or values?
The following is a set of steps for making decisions in applied ethics (see methods
of practical ethics):
3
● identify the main ethical issues or problems;

● gather relevant information;
● consider the different options;
● apply ethical standards and the relevant information to the different options;
● resolve any conflicts among ethical standards;
● choose the best option, in light of the information, options, and ethical standards;
● implement the decision.
Ethical Standards for Research

The following is a list of commonly accepted ethical standards (i.e., norms or prin-
ciples) for research. Most of these standards have been expressed in professional
codes, guidelines, laws, and regulations, and have been discussed by various writers
and organizations (Resnik 1998; Merton 1973; National Academy of Sciences 1994;
Sigma Xi 1999).
● Honesty: Be honest in all phases of research; do not fabricate or falsify data.

● Objectivity: Be self-critical and open to criticism; minimize bias and self-deception
in research.
● Carefulness: Minimize technical, human, and methodological errors.
● Openness: Share data, results, ideas, methods, and techniques with other
researchers.
● Confidentiality: Protect confidential information in research, such as classified
research, trade secrets, and private human subjects data.
● Fair credit: Give credit where credit is due in research; attribute authorship and
inventorship fairly; do not plagiarize ideas, words, processes, images, or other
products of intellectual labor.
● Respect for colleagues and students: Treat colleagues and students with respect.
● Respect for human research subjects: Protect the rights and welfare of human
subjects in research.
● Animal welfare: Protect the welfare of animals used in research.
● Respect for the law: Honor and obey laws, regulations, and institutional policies
that apply to research.
● Stewardship of resources: Make good use of material, technical, and financial
resources in research.
● Social responsibility: Avoid causing harm to other people, society, or the envi-
ronment in research; strive to benefit other people, society, and the environment.
These ethical standards should be understood as general guidelines rather than

absolute rules. Sometimes the standards conflict with each other or with other
important principles or values. When conflicts arise, researchers must decide which
principle or value should take precedence. For example, openness frequently con-
flicts with confidentiality in research. While openness is important in research, the
sharing of information (including data) can be restricted to protect other important
4
values, such as human rights or welfare. One way that scientists have resolved the
conflict between openness and confidentiality in research with human subjects is by
removing personal identifiers from data that they share. Sometimes researchers
must decide whether to obey the rules of scientific ethics or protect their own well-
being. Researchers sometimes encounter situations where they haveto decide
whether to “blow the whistle” on unethical or illegal activities. For example, suppose
that a scientist employed by a pharmaceutical company discovers that the company
has hidden important safety data from a regulatory agency. The scientist has a social
responsibility to inform the agency about the safety data, since this could save
human lives. However, if the scientist blows the whistle on the company, he could
lose his job and face legal action from the company for violating the terms of his
contract or trade secrecy laws.
There are several sources of justification for these ethical standards. First, these
standards help to promote the progress of science. For example, honesty and objec-
tivity in analyzing and interpreting data are essential for obtaining truth and avoid-
ing error (see lying and deceit). Many of the ethical standards promote the
progress of science by encouraging collaboration and trust among researchers,
which are also important for promoting the goals of science. For example, fair allo-
cation of credit and protection of intellectual property help to create a climate in
which researchers feel comfortable sharing their data, ideas, and methods (see
trust). Second, ethical standards help to promote public support for research and
hold scientists accountable to the public. For example, people are not inclined to
support research that harms human research subjects, threatens public health, or
wastes public funds. Third, ethical standards in research can be derived from broader
moral standards, i.e., standards that apply to all people in society. For example, the
obligation to be honest in research stems from the moral obligation to be honest.
The obligation to share credit fairly in research is based on the moral obligation to
treat people fairly.
Topics and Controversies

Some of the important topics and controversies in research ethics include those dis-
cussed in the following subsections.
Research misconduct
Some types of unethical behavior in science are classified as “misconduct,” which
means that they violate specific laws, regulations, or policies for ethical conduct in
science. According to the US federal regulations, misconduct is fabrication or falsi-
fication of data or plagiarism (Office of Science and Technology Policy 2000).
Someone who has been found to have committed misconduct while doing research
supported by the federal government can face significant penalties, including loss
of employment or loss of the privilege of receiving federal contracts or grants.
Someone who commits misconduct may also be charged with fraud under civil or
5
criminal laws (Shamoo and Resnik 2009). At one time, the federal definition of
misconduct included fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism (FFP) as well as other
questionable practices that significantly deviate from accepted scientific norms.
This definition was narrowed to FFP in 2000, because of problems with defining
“other questionable practices,” but some countries and organizations include ques-
tionable practices in their definition of misconduct, as well as other misbehaviors,
such as violating human research rules. The lack of international agreement on a
definition of research misconduct can pose significant problems for investigating
and adjudicating allegations of research misconduct involving researchers from
more than one nation (Shamoo and Resnik 2009). Although the incidence of FFP
in research is thought to be very low, it is still a significant problem, because it
threatens the integrity of science and undermines the public’s trust in science (see
integrity).
Data analysis and interpretation

Scientists often face complex and difficult choices related to the analysis and inter-
pretation of data. For example, an outlier is a data point that falls outside the main
distribution of data. Most scientists would consider a data point that is more than
two standard deviations from the mean of a normal distribution curve to be an out-
lier. Outliers may be due to human or instrumental error, or statistical variations in
the data. Excluding outliers for the purposes of data analysis is a part of good scien-
tific method, provided that this exclusion does not affect the overall results of
research, since excluding outliers can improve the clarity and strength of statistical
associations among variables. However, sometimes outliers should not be excluded
because they indicate trends or patterns in the data that deviate from the normal
curve. Exclusion of outliers should be discussed and explained in publications or
presentations. Similar dilemmas concerning the treatment of data can occur when
applying statistical techniques or image enhancement technologies. The key point is
that researchers should be honest and open when presenting their data; they should
not deceive or mislead their audience (Shamoo and Resnik 2009).
Conflict of interest
In the modern research environment, there often are complex financial relation-
ships among scientists, academic institutions, and private companies. Many scien-
tists and universities own stock in companies that sponsor the research on campus,
and some have leadership positions in those companies. Scientists and universities
also own intellectual property related to research. These and other relationships
can create conflicts of interest in research. A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation
in which a researcher has a financial, personal, or other interest that compromises
his or her scientific judgment and therefore interferes with his or her ability to
honor legal or ethical obligations in research. COIs can undermine the objectivity
and integrity of science, and decrease the public’s trust in research. Research insti-
tutions, such as universities, can also have financial interests that undermine their
6
collective decision-making and can be regarded as institutional COIs. There are

three basic strategies for dealing with COIs in research: (1) disclosing financial (or
other) interests to concerned parties; (2) taking extra steps to manage the conflict,
such as additional oversight or peer review; and (3) avoiding or prohibiting
the COI. Most of the normative questions concerning COIs focus on the appropri-
ateness of different strategies for various aspects of research, such as providing
science advice for the government, conducting a clinical trial, or reviewing a
research proposal or journal article. There has been considerable empirical
research on the COI policies adopted by various institutions and on the effects of
COIs in research (Shamoo and Resnik 2009).
Authorship
Many disputes among people who collaborate on research projects involve
questions about authorship: Who should be an author? What should be the order
of authorship? Authorship issues are important in science because authorship is
essential to career advancement, enhances prestige, and conveys responsibility.
There is evidence that many researchers have been named as authors on
publications without making substantial contributions. For example, laboratory
directors have insisted that they be named as authors on all publications coming
from their labs; researchers have granted authorship as a favor to colleagues; and
people have demanded to be named as authors in exchange for providing data or
reagents (Shamoo and Resnik 2009). Also, pharmaceutical companies have paid
academic researchers to serve as authors on manuscripts that they have not writ-
ten. The manuscripts were actually written by ghost authors, i.e., industry employ-
ees who did the research but did not appear as authors on the manuscript. In some
research misconduct cases, collaborators on published articles have eschewed
responsibility, claiming they knew nothing about fabrication or falsification of
data (Shamoo and Resnik 2009). To help deal with questions and issues related to
authorship, many journals have adopted policies that state criteria for authorship
(International Committee of Medical Journal Editors 2008). Some journals also
require authors to provide information about their specific contributions to the
manuscript and to sign a statement declaring that they have read the manuscript
and agree with its main points (Shamoo and Resnik 2009).
Peer review
It is often said that science is self-correcting. Over time, erroneous ideas,
theories, and hypotheses are eliminated as a result of careful observation,
controlled experimentation, and rational debate. Peer review is essential to this
self-correcting process. Most scientific journals use peer reviewers, i.e., scien-
tists with expertise in the relevant discipline, to assess the quality and originality
of articles submitted for publication. Funding organizations also use peer review
to evaluate research proposals. In science, peer review is usually single-blinded:
the identities of the reviewers are not revealed to people who submit their work
7
for review. Some journals use double-blind review, in which the identities of
both parties are not revealed to each other. In the last two decades, scientists and
scholars have discovered various flaws with peer review, including bias, unreli-
ability, resistance to new ideas, conflicts of interest, incompetence, personal
attacks, misuse of privileged information, and theft of ideas. Various proposals
for reforming peer review have been debated, including double-blind reviewing,
open review (no blinding), and better training for reviewers (Shamoo and Resnik
2009; Godlee 2000).
Intellectual property
Intellectual property plays an important role in stimulating innovation, discovery,
and investment in science (see intellectual property). Though the sharing of
ideas is important in science, scientists (and research sponsors) also want to protect
their ideas in order to profit financially and professionally from their investments of
time and labor. Altruistic motives, such as pursuing truth or contributing to human-
ity, coexist with more selfish ones, such as seeking money or prestige (Shamoo and
Resnik 2009). The laws that protect intellectual property attempt to strike a balance
between communal and private control of ideas. For example, when a person
receives a patent on an invention, the patent application enters the public domain.
Patents rights are limited to 20 years from the time the person submits the applica-
tion. Copyright law allows for fair use of original works. In general, a person may
use a copyrighted work without the owner’s permission if the use is for noncom-
mercial purposes and does not diminish the economic value of the work (Shamoo
and Resnik 2009). Most of the ethical and policy controversies related to intellectual
property concern the best way to strike a balance between public and private control
of intellectual property. Some of these controversies include disputes about the
patenting of genes, cell lines, computer programs, and other items vital to basic
research; developing nations’ access to patented drugs used to treat HIV, malaria,
and other infectious diseases; and scope of the fair use clause in copyright law
(Resnik 2007).
Animal research
Scientists use animals for a variety of purposes, such as testing new drugs and
other chemical compounds for toxicity, studying behavior, and investigating
mechanisms and processes in physiology, anatomy, immunology, cytology, neu-
rology, embryology, and other biological sciences (see animal experimenta-
tion). Most countries have a variety of laws and regulations to protect the welfare
of animals in research. The most basic issue in research with animals is whether
animals should ever be used in research. The basic argument for using animals in
research is that this benefits human beings. Philosophers have challenged this
argument on the grounds that animals have rights, or that animal welfare should
not be given less weight than human welfare (Regan and Singer 1989). Animal
rights activists have protested (sometimes violently) against the use of animals in
8
research. Activists have released animals from cages into the wild, destroyed
equipment and facilities, and threatened researchers (Shamoo and Resnik 2009).
Most laboratories that conduct animal research have taken security measures to
prevent protestors from disrupting research. Aside from the fundamental ques-
tion of whether animals should be used in research at all, there are also a variety
of other important ethical questions concerning the use of animals in research,
such as using some primates and other intelligent animals in research and per-
forming experiments that inflict severe and uncontrolled pain on animals. Scien-
tists have developed alternatives to animal experimentation, such as experiments
with cells and tissues and computer modeling. It is likely that the number of ani-
mals used in research will decrease as improvements are made in these alternative
methodologies.
Human research
Human beings participate in research in a variety of disciplines, including
medicine, nursing, pharmacology, psychiatry, psychology, sociology, and
anthropology (see human subjects, research use of). Experiments range
from complex, risky medical experiments, such as clinical trials of new cancer
treatments, to straightforward, low-risk surveys or questionnaires. Even though
numerous laws, guidelines, and ethics codes have been developed to protect
human beings who participate in research, there are still many ethical contro-
versies related to this subject matter. Some of these include (Shamoo and
Resnik 2009):
● Research design: When is randomized assignment to a treatment group justified

in medical research? When may placebos be used in research? Should a clinical
trial be stopped early to prevent harm or improve benefits?
● Risks and benefits: How should one balance benefits and risks in research? How
should risks be minimized? Are there limits on the risks that human subjects
may be exposed to in research?
● Informed consent: What do research subjects need to know to consent to an
experiment? What conditions constitute coercion and undue influence in
research? What is an appropriate amount of payment for participation in
research? Should people ever participate in studies that they do not consent to
(see informed consent)?
● Vulnerable subjects: Do children, prisoners, mentally disabled people, and other
vulnerable subjects need extra protections in research? Are there types of studies
that vulnerable subjects should not participate in? Is it unfair to exclude
vulnerable subjects from studies that could benefit them or other people with
their disease or condition?
● Exploitation: What constitutes exploitation of research subjects or populations?
How can exploitation be avoided in research? How should researchers and
sponsors share benefits with subjects and populations (see exploitation)?
9
Social responsibility
Scientists face a variety of ethical dilemmas related to their responsibilities to
society. During World War II, physicists such as Einstein, Oppenheimer, and
Bethe wrestled with questions concerning their participation in the war effort
(see nuclear weapons). After spearheading research on the atomic bomb,
Oppenheimer was a leader in the “atoms for peace” movement to try to control
the proliferation and use of nuclear weapons. Though the proliferation of nuclear
weapons is still an important problem in the twenty-first century, the use of
biological and chemical weapons by unscrupulous nations or terrorists is also a
major concern, as illustrated by the anthrax mailings in the United States in the
fall of 2001 that killed five people, the sarin gas release in a Tokyo subway in
1995 that killed 12 people, and the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction
(WMDs) by terrorist organizations, such as al-Qaeda (see terrorism). Scien-
tists, professional journals, and research organizations have considered whether
to take steps to control the publication of research that could be used by people
to manufacture WMDs or cause significant harm to society. Universities have
also enacted policies to control access to dangerous chemical, biological, and
radiological materials.
Scientists also often must deal with ethical dilemmas concerning their participa-
tion in public policy debates. Scientists serve as expert witnesses in legal cases, give
interviews to the media, and provide expert advice to the government on a variety of
issues, including climate change, pollution, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, health care,
crime, air traffic safety, and urban development. Scientists can play an important
role in these controversies by providing information and expert advice. Some scien-
tists may also express political or social opinions or advocate for particular view-
points. Though scientists, as citizens, are entitled to participate in the political
process, they also have obligations, as scientists, to remain objective. Scientists who
participate in public policy debates must find a way to serve the public without
compromising their objectivity.
See also: animal experimentation; dilemmas, moral; ethical issues in

teaching; explanations, moral; exploitation; human subjects, research
use of; informed consent; integrity; intellectual property; is–ought gap;
lying and deceit; methods of practical ethics; nuclear weapons;
professional ethics; relativism, moral; terrorism; trust
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research was supported by the Intramural Program of the National Institute of
Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of Health. It does not represent
the views of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences or the National
Institutes of Health.
10
REFERENCES
Godlee, Fiona 2000. “The Ethics of Peer Review,” in Ann Jones and Faith McLellan (eds.),
Ethical Issues in Biomedical Publication. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
pp. 59–84.
International Committee of Medical Journal Editors 2008. Uniform Requirements for
Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals. At http://www.icmje.org, accessed
January 2, 2009.
Macrina, Francis (ed.) 2005. Scientific Integrity: Textbook and Cases in Responsible Conduct of
Research, 3rd ed. Washington, DC: American Society for Microbiology Press.
Merton, Robert 1973. The Sociology of Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
National Academy of Sciences 1992. Responsible Science, vol. 1. Washington, DC: National
Academy Press.
National Academy of Sciences 1994. On Being a Scientist. Washington, DC: National Academy
Press.
Office of Science and Technology Policy 2000. “Federal Policy on Research Misconduct,”
Federal Register, December 6, 2000, 65, 235: pp. 76260–4.
Regan, Tom, and Peter Singer (eds.) 1989. Animal Rights and Human Obligations, 2nd ed.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Resnik, David 1998. The Ethics of Science. New York: Routledge.
Resnik, David 2007. The Price of Truth. New York: Oxford University Press.
Shamoo, Adil, and D. Resnik 2009. Responsible Conduct of Research, 2nd ed. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Sigma Xi 1999. The Responsible Researcher: Paths and Pitfalls. Research Triangle Park, NC:
Sigma Xi.
FURTHER READINGS
Broad, William, and Wade, Nicholas 1993. Betrayers of the Truth: Fraud and Deceit in the
Halls of Science, 2nd ed. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Emanuel, Ezekiel, Christine Grady, Robert Crouch, Reider Lie, Frank Miller, and David
Wendler (eds.) 2008. Oxford Textbook of Clinical Research Ethics. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Kevles, Daniel 1998. The Baltimore Case: A Trial of Politics, Science, and Character. New York:
Norton.
LaFollette, Marcel 1992. Stealing into Print: Fraud, Plagiarism, and Misconduct in Scientific
Publishing. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Martinson, Brian, Melissa Anderson, and Raymond de Vries 2005. “Scientists Behaving
Badly,” Nature, vol. 435, pp. 737–8.
National Academy of Sciences 1997. Advisor, Teacher, Role Model, Friend: On Being a Mentor
to Students in Science and Engineering. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
National Academy of Sciences 2002. Integrity in Scientific Research: Creating Environment
That Promotes Responsible Conduct. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
National Institutes of Health 2007. Guidelines for the Conduct of Research in the Intramural
Research Program at NIH, 4th ed. At http://www1.od.nih.gov/oir/sourcebook/ethic-
conduct/Conduct%20Research%206-11-07.pdf, accessed January 6, 2009.
Resnik, David 2004. Owning the Genome: A Moral Analysis of DNA Patenting. Albany: State
University of New York Press.
11
Shrader-Frechette, Kristin 1994. Ethics of Scientific Research. Lanham, MD: Rowman &
Littlefield.
Steneck, Nicholas 2007. ORI Introduction to Responsible Conduct of Research. Washington,
DC: Office of Research Integrity.
1
Adorno, Theodor W.
Espen Hammer
Theodor W. Adorno (1903–69) was a key member and Director of the Institute for
Social Research, which opened in 1924 and later became known as the Frankfurt
School. His writings cover the philosophy of art and culture, epistemology, and meta-
physics, as well as reflections on history, politics, and society. Although his essays and
books often display and advocate ethical ideals, Adorno’s systematic contribution to
ethics was mainly negative, focusing on the limitations of traditional approaches to the
moral domain within a contemporary social framework. Not only did he not develop
a moral philosophy of his own, but he believed that such an endeavor is in itself deeply
questionable. The conditions, he argued, for leading a good or moral life are in the
modern world simply not present. Philosophers interested in morality should there-
fore think more about what these conditions are and how they can be implemented,
rather than, as most do, look for accounts of the good life or of moral principles
independently of considerations about the world in which they are to be applied.
In many of his ethical reflections, Adorno presupposes that principles and actions
can only be deemed fully good if the social totality within which they are imple-
mented is in some sense good or rational. The fact that the Holocaust took place – a
systematic, industrial mass killing of six million people undertaken by the purport-
edly most culturally advanced nation in the Western hemisphere – means for
Adorno that the social totality cannot be good but must in fact be radically evil.
After Auschwitz, Adorno argues, there can be no richtiges Leben – right or real life.
There is, on the contrary, a “guilt context” (1973: 372) emanating from Auschwitz
that renders all of culture – that which led up to this event, and that which follows
after it – deeply problematic (see guilt).
Although the Holocaust plays a major role in Adorno’s reflections on the modern
world, it is not the only expression of radical evil. Indeed, in his philosophy of his-
tory, Adorno argues that, rather than being thought of as a relatively isolated event,
Auschwitz should be viewed as the culmination of an emerging historical triumph
of a deep-seated human drive to violently dominate and control the environment.
Serving that function, reason has become purely instrumental: disregarding ques-
tions about ends, it exclusively focuses on means-oriented calculation without
regard for the interests of vulnerable, individual agents. This view of reason becomes
the basis for conceptualizing modern societies. In monopoly (or corporate) capital-
ism, as well as in communism, Adorno sees the same degradation of people to
things, and the same consolidation of bureaucratic rationality, as that which lead to
Auschwitz. Life in contemporary society is “cold” (1973: 363). The individual has
retreated to the private sphere; relations between human beings are almost without
exception inextricably linked to some form of commercial interest. Rather than
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee003
2
being organized around the pursuit of socially acknowledged conceptions of virtue

(see virtue), individual lives obey the laws of the marketplace.
Adorno (2000: 163–6) rejects virtue ethics on the grounds that modern ways of
living largely prevent the formation of virtuous character. He does, however,
endorse a set of specific virtues clustering around the notion of resistance. All
men, he argues, and especially artists and intellectuals, should strive to resist “the
totally administered society.” Both philosophy and art should eschew all forms of
affirmation. Instead they should turn their backs to society and become unrelent-
ingly critical and negative. Closely related to the emphasis on resistance is the
German notion of Mündigkeit, a term whose meaning combines autonomy, criti-
cal self-reflection, and maturity. As an antidote to the kind of mindless mass
behavior that in the first half of the twentieth century led to authoritarianism and
totalitarianism, Adorno argues that education should be geared toward the pro-
motion of Mündigkeit.
It is possible to see in the idea of Mündigkeit an affinity to Kant’s ethics (see kant,
immanuel). Like Kant, Adorno (1998: 193) valorizes the self-determined, rational
individual capable of Selbstdenken – autonomous thinking. He also believes that it
is possible to identify categorical imperatives – injunctions to act that are valid
independently of contingent interest, and that hold unconditionally (see categor-
ical imperative). That Auschwitz should not happen again is for Adorno
(1973: 365) one such categorical imperative, an imperative which he argues should
structure all future ethical reflection. He is, however, skeptical of Kant’s emphasis
on pure duty, arguing that it can lead to a concern with personal purity that may be
in tension with one’s moral obligation. Like Hegel (see hegel, georg wilhelm
friedrich), he also claims that Kant’s ethics places too rigorous demands on the
self. Morality should not require the sacrifice of empirical inclination. The auton-
omy of the moral agent which interests Kant should rather be theorized in terms of
a release from compulsion. Drawing on Freud, Adorno understands such a release
as a strengthening of the self. Ultimately, the guiding ideal behind this idea is that
of reconciliation. In the fully rational society, which for Adorno must remain uto-
pian, there would no longer be a conflict between the universal and the particular,
ego and the unconscious, law and inclination.
By contrast, contemporary society is riveted with tensions and contradictions.
Thus, in Minima Moralia and Problems of Moral Philosophy, Adorno turns to
contemporary moral life and analyzes the implications of a number of particular
forms of commitment. Health, for example, may seem like a morally worthy ideal.
Yet the desire for freedom, happiness, and self-realization that seems to follow from
today’s obsession with the perfect body is in fact expressive of conformism with the
commercial demands of contemporary culture. The more we try to actualize
ourselves as individuals, the deeper are we caught up in the capitalistic system.
Generosity is another example. Real generosity, Adorno (1974: 42) argues,
presupposes the giver’s active anticipation of the recipient’s happiness. “Real giving
had its joy in imagining the joy of the receiver. It means choosing, expending time,
going out of one’s way, thinking of the other as a subject: the opposite of distraction.”
3
Today the art of gift-giving is about to get lost. As a result of the reifying effect of
commercialism, the dominant expectation is that the gift is some sort of means to
achieve something else, a bribe. Exchanges beyond those of the marketplace have
almost become impossible.
Adorno’s general stance toward moral philosophy can be interpreted in various
ways. Some see him as a mere moral skeptic. His student Jürgen Habermas, for
example, has repeatedly argued that once reason is defined as instrumental, there
can be no room for the kind of deliberation about ends that moral, and indeed also
all forms of normative, reflection requires. Evidence of such a view can be found in
the co-authored Dialectic of Enlightenment, where Adorno (1972: 118) and his
co-author Max Horkheimer seem to accept the Marquis de Sade and Friedrich
Nietzsche’s view that, if reason is instrumental (and it is, given Adorno’s account of
modernity), then on the basis of reason no argument can be offered against the mur-
der of innocents. Since Adorno rejects the existentialist account of authenticity – the
view that an acknowledgment of absurdity can itself spurn moral responsibility (see
responsibility) – as ideological, this analysis clearly leads to moral nihilism (see
existentialism; authenticity). Another view more consistent with the strong
emphasis on resistance and ideology-critique is that Adorno’s moral philosophy
takes the shape of utopianism. If richtiges Leben is unavailable in the false society,
then, presumably, it must be possible to characterize the antithesis to this society as
making possible all the things that the false society denies it. Proponents of this view
may focus on Adorno’s passages describing the highest good (summum bonum).
Unlike Aristotle, who sees the highest good as consisting in perfect virtue, and
unlike Kant, who sees in it the perfect unification of morality and happiness, Adorno
(1974: 61) associates the highest good with blind somatic pleasure or happiness in
the materialistic sense of extreme bodily well-being (see well-being). This vision of
the utopian shows up similarities with that of Sigmund Freud in Civilization and
Its Discontents, yet its classical source lies in hedonism (see freud, sigmund).
The opposite of such extreme bodily well-being, of course, is bodily suffering. Thus,
on this account, Adorno’s moral philosophy may be considered as centering on a
version of hedonism which commands us to maximize bodily well-being and
minimize bodily suffering.
If this is right, then it could be tempting to view Adorno as a consequentialist
(see consequentialism). Although it is true that Adorno criticizes Kant for being
oblivious to the moral difference consequences of actions make, he warns, how-
ever, against consequentialism (and especially utilitarianism) on the grounds that
it would be too complicit in what makes right living impossible: the radically evil
society which overwhelms us. A more plausible view would see him as espousing
an ethics of compassion. In some passages he expresses skepticism about such an
ethics, arguing that it lacks an understanding of the context within which morally
bad action takes place. Yet, in other passages, Adorno refers to a solidarity with all
living beings, a respect for everything vulnerable and transient. This is linked to a
more general philosophical concern, namely to conduct a critique of identity.
Identity-thinking is the tendency to grasp and approach entities in terms of their
4
general characteristics – the ways in which they are identical with other entities
belonging to the same class or group. Since Plato, philosophy, and in particular
metaphysics, has been obsessed with sameness and universality, and the object has
been understood to the extent to which it could be subsumed under a higher-
order term. Against such identity-thinking, Adorno (1973: 5) seeks to invoke
notions of difference, heterogeneity, and otherness, the radically new which
cannot be reduced to what has been. Implicit in this critique is an attack on
the standardization of the world as Adorno sees it displayed in mass culture,
commodification, science, and collectivist action patterns. However, there is also
an ethical urgency here, a desire to defend whatever falls outside of the reign of
identity-thinking.
This comes to the fore in Adorno’s reflections on hurt and injury. Rather than
theorizing them in relation to a general principle, he suggests that ethical demands
arise from an encounter with hurt and injury. Of course, reflection on the basis of
instrumental reason alone will not allow an agent to accept such demands. According
to instrumental reason, a living being is ultimately to be viewed as a means to the
achievement of something else: it can never be an end in itself. Yet the experience of
pain and suffering seems itself to call for nurturing and support. A person who
lacked the capacity for empathy with a vulnerable individual would thus be “blind”
to the material inference that Adorno believes arises from such an experience: that
the other’s pain implicates or obligates me in a morally relevant and binding manner.
Adorno’s ethical reflections are intimately connected to social and political theory.
His allegiance to Marxism, which emphasizes collective social change over individual
virtue, explains some of his reluctance about straightforward ethical theorizing.
More important than uncovering principles of right action is to analyze and under-
stand society with a view to implementing rational social change. That said, Adorno
is also an original moral philosopher whose views are likely to continue to influence
ethical debate.
See also: authenticity; categorical imperative; consequentialism;

existentialism; freud, sigmund; genocide; guilt; hegel, georg wilhelm
friedrich; kant, immanuel; responsibility; virtue; well-being
REFERENCES
Adorno, Theodor W. 1973 [1966]. Negative Dialectics, trans. E. B. Ashton. London: Routledge.
Adorno, Theodor W. 1974 [1951]. Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life, trans.
E. F. N. Jephcott. London: New Left Books.
Adorno, Theodor W. 1998 [1963]. Critical Models: Interventions and Catchwords, trans.
Henry W. Pickford. New York: Columbia University Press.
Adorno, Theodor W. 2000 [1963]. Problems of Moral Philosophy, trans. Rodney Livingstone.
Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Adorno, Theodor W., and Max Horkheimer 1972 [1947]. Dialectic of Enlightenment, trans.
John Cumming. New York: Continuum.
5
FURTHER READINGS
Bernstein, Jay M. 2001. Adorno: Disenchantment and Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Freyenhagen, Fabian 2008. “Moral Philosophy,” in Deborah Cook (ed.), Theodor W. Adorno:
Key Concepts. Stocksfield: Acumen.
Geuss, Raymond 2005. Outside Ethics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Hammer, Espen 2005. Adorno and the Political. London: Routledge.
1
Inheritance
D. W. Haslett
Philosophers challenge conventional beliefs, beliefs that most people, without much
thought, simply assume to be justified. One such belief is that it is quite natural, and
justified, for wealth to be inherited. But, long ago, the inheritance of political power
was, for good reasons, abolished virtually everywhere. Why not now, it might be
asked, abolish the inheritance of economic power, of wealth?
Traditionally, the main philosophical argument in support of inheritance has
come from natural-right philosophers, such as the libertarian Robert Nozick, who
argue that human beings are endowed with certain natural, or human, rights, and
that among these is a right to use our justly acquired property as we please, as long
as we are not, in doing so, violating the rights of others (Nozick 1974). Using our
property as we please includes, they say, bequeathing it to whomever we choose
(see human rights and religion; libertarianism). The main philosophical
arguments against inheritance have, traditionally, come from utilitarians (see utili-
tarianism). Utilitarian philosophers believe that rights are neither “natural” nor
unqualified, but are justified only insofar as having them results in more overall
well-being than not having them. And any justified right to property, utilitarians
claim, must be qualified by exceptions, such as an exception for taxes, or an excep-
tion for eminent domain. Certain utilitarian philosophers, such as John Stuart Mill,
have argued that the right to property should be qualified in yet another way: by
abolishing, or severely restricting, inheritance (Mill 2008 [1848]).
Consider, for example, this proposal. All proceeds from people’s estates are, like
ordinary taxes, to go to the government – with, however, three exceptions. First,
unlimited bequests are to be permitted to spouses. Second, unlimited bequests are to
be permitted to charitable organizations. Third, generous bequests are to be permit-
ted to care for one’s minor children, and other dependants for as long as they remain
dependent. And all real property that the government, or a charitable organization,
gets from people’s estates – land, stock, factories, and the like – is, by law, to be sold
on the open market to the highest bidder within a certain period of time, with the
government, or charitable organization, keeping the proceeds. Finally, since the
whole point of abolishing inheritance could, through large gifts, easily be defeated,
extremely large gifts are to be prohibited as well, subject to the same three exceptions
set out above. Prohibiting extremely large gifts does not, of course, mean that
ordinary birthday presents, Christmas presents, and the like, are to be prohibited. It
does not even mean that moderately large gifts, such as automobiles, are to be pro-
hibited. But gifts large enough to amount to even a small fortune are to be prohibited.
The main political ideal that this proposal for abolishing inheritance helps realize
is equal opportunity. Abolishing inheritance creates a more level playing field, one
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee004
2
where the children of the poor could compete for economic success on more equal
terms with the children of the rich (see equality of opportunity). But abolishing
inheritance helps realize other important ideals as well. One widely held view of
what constitutes a just distribution of income and wealth throughout a nation is
this: To all according to the productivity of their labor, or the productivity of prop-
erty they have acquired in return for the productivity of their labor (see justice).
Abolishing inheritance eliminates the most conspicuous way in which wealth fails
to be justly distributed according to this view. Abolishing inheritance also helps
realize the ideal of personal freedom in the broad sense, the sense in which freedom,
or autonomy, is the absence of constraints upon what one wants to do, have, or be
(see autonomy). Abolishing inheritance does, of course, decrease the freedom to
give vast wealth to whomever one wishes, a decrease in freedom that would apply
primarily to the rich. But, by spreading wealth more evenly throughout society,
abolishing inheritance tends to increase the political, social, and economic freedom
of almost everyone other than the very rich, an increase in freedom that is greater,
and more important, than the decrease. And abolishing inheritance, while still
permitting unlimited charitable bequests and gifts, encourages charitable giving,
thereby helping eliminate poverty and realize other worthy goals supported by
charities (see charity).
The most common practical objections against any proposal for abolishing inher-
itance, along with possible replies to these objections, are as follows. First, it is often
objected that a prohibition upon bequests and large gifts could never be adequately
enforced. From secret Swiss bank accounts to simply passing money under the table,
there would, so this objection goes, be too many ways to evade any such prohibition.
On the other hand, if the abolishment of inheritance really is justified, then, eventu-
ally, it is likely to have popular support. With popular support, there will indeed be
enough violations uncovered, and punished, for there to be adequate enforcement.
Probably the most common practical objection against abolishing inheritance,
but also one of the weakest, is this. People work hard so that they can, through
inheritance, provide their children with a better life than they had; so if inheritance
were abolished, people would lose their incentive to work hard, thereby decreasing
national productivity. No doubt many people are in fact motivated to work hard by
a desire to provide their children with a large inheritance. But these same people
will also have other powerful reasons for working hard, such as providing them-
selves and their families with a good life while they are still alive, saving for their
retirement, and, through their career achievements, earning the respect of others.
These other reasons are sufficient to motivate most people to work hard even if they
cannot leave their wealth to their children. After all, people with no intention of
ever having children generally work just as hard, and are just as successful, as those
with children. Also, consider this. Two people in a foot race will try hardest if they
both start at the same point, rather than if one is given a huge head start. Similarly,
people are likely to work hardest to succeed in life if they start at essentially the
same point financially, rather than if, through inheritance, some are given a huge
financial head start.
3
But there is another practical objection to abolishing inheritance that is potentially

far more serious than the no-reason-to-work-hard objection. Being able to leave
wealth to loved ones is a major motivation for saving. But, so this objection goes, if,
by abolishing inheritance, people are no longer able to leave wealth to loved ones,
they will save less, consuming their wealth instead. And, so this objection concludes,
less savings, and thus less investment, will undermine economic growth. This
objection, if sound, is indeed serious. It is not clear, however, to what extent it is
sound. Investments by individuals are not society’s only source of investments.
Corporations invest through “plowing” profits back into the business rather than
distributing them. Governments invest through infrastructure development, federally
supported research, and the like. Neither of these will be affected by abolishing inher-
itance. And, as a result of the increased charitable donations resulting from abolishing
inheritance, charitable investment will increase as charities fund more research into
curing diseases and undertake other investment projects. Finally, it is far from clear
how much the abolishment of inheritance would affect saving and investment even
by individuals. People would still need to save for retirement and other things. And
since they would no longer be able to count upon receiving, eventually, large gifts or
bequests, they might be motivated to save even more, not less, for their future.
The final practical objection to be considered here is this. Abolishing inheritance
will strip families of heirlooms, family farms, and other family businesses, which
are often worth far more to family members than to outsiders buying them on the
open market.
The savings objection and the family heirloom/business objection do indeed raise
legitimate concerns about the above proposal for abolishing inheritance. These
concerns are, however, mitigated by an alternative, probably better, proposal: that of
establishing instead a lifetime inheritance (and large gift) quota. Here is how it
would work. No limitation is to exist upon how much a person can give, or bequeath,
to others, and there are to be no taxes upon any bequests, large gifts, or inheritances.
But there is to be a strict limit, or quota, upon how much any person, throughout a
lifetime, may receive from bequests and large gifts. The size of this quota might, for
example, be set at the average value today of an adult’s estate at death, with automatic
adjustments in the future for inflation. And, like the previous proposal, this proposal
permits unlimited bequests to spouses and charitable organizations, as well as
generous bequests for taking care of dependents left behind.
Suppose the quota was $100,000. Once a person had, throughout life, reached
$100,000 in large gifts and bequests, he or she would then not be eligible to receive
more. People, in their wills, would list beneficiaries in some order of priority, all of
whom would, in the order of their priority, inherit to the extent that they had not
already reached their quota. Most people would know at least 10 eligible people to
whom they would want to leave their wealth – children, grandchildren, nieces,
nephews, other family members, close friends, perhaps even loyal employees. Ten
times $100,000 equals a million dollars. Relatively few people today leave estates
valued at over a million dollars; thus, with this quota, most people would have
about as much incentive to save for purposes of leaving wealth to loved ones as they
4
have today, which mitigates the savings objection. And if the truly rich wanted to
leave their wealth to individuals, they would have to spread it out among many
individuals indeed, thereby helping achieve one of the main objectives of having a
quota, that of equalizing opportunities. No ordinary tax upon inheritances, as
opposed to a quota, could achieve this objective as successfully. Moreover, one
could always use one’s quota as a down payment for buying a modest family farm
or other family business, thereby mitigating the family heirloom/business objec-
tion. And prudent parents, if they were able to obtain the funds, could give their
child his or her quota at birth by putting the amount in trust to be invested on the
child’s behalf, and distributed to him or her at, say, age 21. After 21 years, a quota
wisely invested could well increase five times or more, and could then be used as a
down payment for buying a more expensive family farm or other business, or for
financing some ambitious entrepreneurial project. And establishing such trusts for
one’s children as soon as possible would serve as still further incentive for savings
and investment.
But some types of family businesses, such as family farms, are far more capital
intensive than other types of family businesses; that is, they require far more land,
equipment and, in general, costly capital relative to the income they produce.
A capital-intensive family business will thus cost more to buy than a business
producing equivalent income with less capital. This, it might be objected, would all
too often make it impossible for the children of those who built capital-intensive
family businesses to buy them, even with the help of their quota. To avoid this
objection, those with capital-intensive family businesses could be given the oppor-
tunity to will to their children (or other beneficiaries) the option of not buying the
family farm or other business, but just “leasing” it for as long as they wanted at no
charge, with full rights to all income therefrom. This option would, however, have
to be qualified in at least two ways. First, children (or other beneficiaries) who
chose this option would have to subtract, from the income they get from their
“leased” capital, an appropriate amount for replacing depreciated capital when nec-
essary. Second, all proceeds from any sale of the capital, including land, would have
to go to the government.
In sum: by thinking creatively about inheritance rather than just taking it for
granted, perhaps valuable, new ways of helping equalize opportunities and achieve
other worthwhile goals can be found.
See also: autonomy; charity; equality of opportunity; human rights

and religion; justice; libertarianism; utilitarianism
REFERENCES
Mill, John Stuart 2008 [1848]. Principles of Political Economy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nozick, Robert 1974. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Basic Books.
5
FURTHER READINGS
Erreygers, Guido, and Toon Vandevelde (eds.) 1997. Is Inheritance Legitimate? Ethical and
Economic Aspects of Wealth Transfers. Berlin: Springer.
Haslett, D. W. 1994. Capitalism with Morality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Ch. 6.
McCaffery, E. J. 1994. “The Political Liberal Case Against the Estate Tax,” Philosophy and
Public Affairs, vol. 23, pp. 281–312.
1
Open Question Argument

Jussi Suikkanen
The Open Question Argument (OQA) is a crucial argumentative strategy in

metaethics. It is mainly employed against naturalist accounts of moral properties.
According to these views, moral properties (goodness, wrongness, cruelty, and the
like) are empirically observable natural properties, such as the property of being
approved or disapproved by the majority of people (see naturalism, ethical). The
defenders of the OQA tend to claim that this argument shows instead either (i) that
moral properties are some other, unique kind of properties, or (ii) that the function of
our moral language is not to refer to properties but rather to express our conative
attitudes (see nonnaturalism, ethical; non-cognitivism). Both these views would
support the idea that there is a distinction in kind between facts and values (see fact–
value distinction; is–ought gap; naturalistic fallacy).
A classic presentation of the OQA can be found from the first chapter of G. E.
Moore’s Principia Ethica (1993 [1903]: esp. §§11–14; see moore, g. e.). However,
philosophers such as Henry Sidgwick and Richard Price had already used similar
arguments before Moore (Sidgwick 1889; Price 1969 [1758]: 133, 141, 161; see
sidgwick, henry).
Even though only few philosophers today think that the OQA is effective in its
original form, it is still an important argument for two reasons. First, the debates in
metaethics during the previous century can only be understood as a development
based on different reactions to the OQA. Second, the common intuitions on which
Moore’s argument was based seem to show that there is something special about
moral statements (sometimes called “normativity”) which distinguishes them from
other statements. Thus, it is acknowledged that we are required to give some account
of these intuitions even if we reject Moore’s views. In this essay, I will first reconstruct
the OQA. I will then discuss some of its main problems, attempts to reply to them,
and some developed versions of the argument.
The OQA’s first premise is that two properties are one and the same if and only if
one of these properties can be defined in terms of the other. Thus, being a brother
and being a male sibling are the same property if and only if the property of being a
brother can be defined in terms of being a male sibling.
The second premise gives a criterion for correct definitions. A definition of a
property P in terms of some property Q is correct if and only if it is not an open
question whether something that has Q also has P. Because it is not an open question
whether someone who is a male sibling is a brother, this definition counts as a
correct one. Given the first premise, this guarantees that these properties are one
and the same.
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee005
2
Moore then introduced the “open feel” test for when a question is an open one.
When we consider the question “This object is Q, but is it P?” we should reflect on
whether we can begin considering how to answer this question (assuming that we
are competent users of the terms “P” and “Q”). When we cannot do so, i.e., when the
question does not have an “open feel,” beginning to reflect on what the answer is
would only signal that we have not yet mastered the given terms.
In considering whether a question has an open feel, we can also reflect on whether
the question “This object is Q, but is it P?” is the same question as the question “This
object is Q, but is it Q?” If these questions seem like the same question, then our
question is a closed one. The previous proposed definition of a brother seems to be
a closed question on this criterion. One can not even begin to reflect on whether
someone who is a male sibling is a brother. This would be just as odd as asking
whether someone who is a male sibling is a male sibling.
The third premise makes the crucial metaethical claim. It claims that, whatever
distinct property, X, we use to define a moral property such as being right, questions
of the form “This action is X, but is it right?” will be open questions. For example,
many have tried to define rightness as that which maximizes happiness. However,
Moore would claim that we can begin to think whether an action that maximizes
happiness is right without showing signs of conceptual confusion. We would also
deny that the question “This action maximizes happiness, but is it right?” is the same
as the question “This action maximizes happiness, but does it maximize happiness?”
Moore insisted that the same would be true of all attempts to define moral properties.
This is all Moore would seem to need for arguing against all attempts to reduce
moral properties to other properties. He can now claim, on the basis of the second
and third premises, that no definition of a moral property can be correct (because it
would lead to open questions). Given the first premise, this entails that no moral
property can be identical with a property specifiable in nonmoral terms. Thus,
moral properties are not reducible to natural or any other properties. Moore’s own
conclusion was that moral properties must therefore be of their own unique kind,
i.e., simple sui generis nonnatural properties.
This argument was first claimed to beg the question (Frankena 1938). It was argued
that the relevant questions in the third premise are open questions only if moral
properties cannot be defined in terms of other properties. Thus, to claim that these
questions are open is to assume that reductive definitions are false. However, this is
just what the argument needed to establish rather than to assume. The defenders of the
OQA would still owe us an independent argument against the reductive definitions.
It is not clear whether this objection is a good one. The argument does not merely
assume that the relevant questions are open. Rather, it consults the experiences of
competent users of the moral terms (see semantics, moral). Such speakers tend to
report that the relevant questions have an open feel. Therefore, there is some evidence
that they do not have the proposed definitions in mind when they use moral
language. This would support the idea that these definitions are not correct. This is
because the distinctness of the subject matter in ethics can be understood as the best
explanation for the competent speakers’ intuitions about the open questions.
3
The second objection to the OQA is often called the “paradox of analysis”
(Langford 1942). The argument seems to entail that only trivial definitions could be
correct. Any nontrivial definition would after all allow us to ask the open questions
which would make these definitions incorrect. However, there are some correct,
nontrivial definitions. For instance, the property of being an odd number can be
defined as being a successor of the product of a number and two. Yet, a person who
can pick out all the odd numbers can begin to reflect on how to answer the question
“Is something that is a successor of the product of some number and two an
odd number?” The open question test for correct definitions is thus too strict. The
previous example illustrates the fact that, contrary to what the OQA assumes,
there are analytical truths (ones based on the meanings of the given terms) about the
identity of properties that are not transparent to us.
There is an interesting reply to this objection. Moore’s open feel test assumes that
the grounds on which we apply a concept are transparent to us in a linguistic,
propositional form (Soames 2003: 46–7). In some cases, this is true. We know
immediately that someone can be a brother only if he is a male sibling. This is why
we cannot begin to doubt whether a male sibling is a brother.
However, the transparency assumption is not always true. In many cases,
concept-application is more like a skill – “knowledge-how” rather than “knowledge-
that.” This kind of practical knowledge is often difficult to put into words (Smith 1984:
37–9). For example, we know how to apply the term “is a grammatical sentence” correctly
even if we are unable to state the rules that determine whether a sentence is grammatical.
However, this does not make us doubt whether grammaticality can be defined in terms
of some more basic principles which correspond to our use of the phrase.
Similarly, some reductionists claim that we all master the skill of using moral
terms correctly. However, explaining what that skill consists of (i.e., what are the
implicit rules which we use to apply the terms correctly) might be just as difficult as
making explicit the rules of grammar which we apply in an implicit form. This
explains why there could be correct definitions of moral properties (i.e., opaque
analytic truths) which still give rise to the open questions recognized by Moore.
There is a way of improving the OQA to address this worry. One could claim that,
even if the grounds on which we apply moral terms are not immediately transparent
to us, they cannot be completely opaque either. As a result, it should be possible to
discover in due reflection a correct definition of a moral property. If we found such
a definition, it should feel natural to us to accept that it ultimately guides our
application of the defined term (Baldwin 1993: xix).
A defender of the OQA could claim that definitions of moral properties will never
satisfy this condition. We will never be completely comfortable with the idea that
when we classify actions as right we are merely tacitly classifying them as X. This
would be to say that the openness of questions such as “This action is X, but is it
right?” will persist no matter how much we investigate the grounds on which we
apply moral terms.
The third reply to the OQA claims that it commits the fallacy of drawing
metaphysical conclusions from premises about the meaning of words (see concepts
4
vs. properties, moral). The second premise of the argument claims that two
properties are the same when one of them can be defined in terms of the other. Yet,
the open feel test seems to only assess whether the terms on both sides of such
definitions have the same meaning. Hence, there seems to be a shift in the argument
from talking about the identity of moral properties to assessing whether the terms
used to talk about these properties mean the same.
Frege defended the distinction between the meaning of terms and their reference
(Frege 1892). That two terms have different meanings need not entail that they refer
to different things. By doing empirical scientific investigation, we have discovered
that water is H2O. Thus, the terms “water” and “H2O” refer to the same substance.
Yet, these terms do not mean the same. One can perfectly well understand talk about
water as a transparent, tasteless liquid that can be found from lakes, and yet be
ignorant about H2O, or be suspicious about the idea that water is that substance.
This means that there are necessary identity statements which are not analytical,
i.e., based on the meaning of the given terms.
Let us then imagine that the predicates “is right” and “is N” referred to the same
natural property. In this case, in the light of the previous distinction, one could still
accept that the OQA shows that the terms “is right” and “is N” do not mean the
same. So-called expressivists have thus claimed that, when we say that X is right,
we do not only refer to some natural property N which the action has (Hare 1952:
Ch. 5; Gibbard 2003: Ch. 2). We also prescribe or plan to do X or actions that have
the property N. This is the additional element of the meaning of the term which
purely descriptive terms lack. This emotive difference in the meaning of moral
terms and other terms has often been used to explain the open feel of Moore’s
questions.
Recent naturalist views have pursued a similar strategy (Sturgeon 2003; Boyd
1988; Brink 1989). According to these views, all moral terms refer to some natural
properties. This is because they can be deployed in good causal explanations. We
could think, for instance, that Hitler ordered the execution of the Jews because he
was an evil person. Furthermore, we usually assume that only natural properties
are causally efficacious. It is then thought that, by doing empirical investigation, we
could come to discover which natural properties play the relevant explanatory roles
specified by the moral terms and explanations. This would tell us which natural
properties the moral properties are identical with. It could even turn out at this point
that we previously lacked other naturalist terms which happened to pick out the very
same natural properties as the moral terms.
However that may be, this kind of naturalist view can accept that moral terms
have different meanings from naturalist terms even if perhaps some of these terms
co-refer. As a result, because the OQA is an argument based on our intuitions about
the meaning of moral terms (different from other terms), it will never be able to
show that, on the metaphysical level, moral properties are not natural properties.
The fact that these replies to the OQA seem convincing has not stopped some
philosophers from developing more effective OQAs even against expressivism and
the new forms of naturalism.
5
It is somewhat ironic that the OQA seems to pose a problem for the expressivists
who have traditionally thought of themselves as beneficiaries of the argument rather
than as its victims. Expressivists give an account of the meaning of moral terms in
terms of desire-like attitudes which moral terms are taken to express. Yet, there is a
difference between merely liking something and approving of it in a way that can be
expressed by using moral language. Expressivists tend to claim that the moral
attitudes are different in three respects (Blackburn 1998). First, when we think that
an action is right, we do not merely approve of it but rather also approve of others’
approval of the action, disapprove of those who do not approve of the action, and so
on. Moral attitudes are also more stable than mere likings, and, third, we have
higher-order attitudes of approving our own approvals.
The open question strategy against such accounts is to describe agents who have
these same attitudes toward, say, objects of art (Kivy 1992). In this case, it seems like
an open question whether the agent has moral attitudes or merely aesthetic attitudes
toward the object. If she had merely aesthetic attitudes, then the expressivist would
have failed to describe the distinguishing features of the moral attitudes. This gives
us grounds for doubting whether expressivism succeeds in reducing moral attitudes
to conative attitudes that can be described with purely nonmoral terms (Miller 2003:
§4.10).
A similar strategy can be pursued against the new forms of naturalism. These
views deny that the OQA is a problem because there are terms such as “water” and
“H2O” which differ in meaning but share the same reference. Yet, it can be asked
how the term “water” came to refer to H2O. The usual answer is that H2O is the
substance with which we have causally interacted while talking about the transparent,
tasteless liquid around us as “water.” Given our understanding of this idea, the
question “This substance has the property of being H2O such that its presence is
responsible for our perceptions of the transparent, tasteless liquid around us, but is
it water?” seems like a closed question. Thus, the naturalist reduction of water to
H2O can succeed only because we can close the relevant question about water and
H2O by providing more information about H2O as the reduction-base to which our
term “water” refers.
Now, some defenders of the OQA have claimed that similar questions can never
be closed in the case of moral terms, and therefore that moral properties are not
reducible to natural properties in the same way as water is reducible to H2O (Horgan
and Timmons 1992). Naturalists who claim that moral terms refer to natural
properties must tell us some story of how the meaning of these terms fixes their
reference to the given natural properties. This story would be based on causal
interaction like the one described earlier. Imagine then that the naturalist presents
us with such a story, and shows us how some natural property, N, is the natural
property which satisfies the requirements (set by the previous story) for being the
reference of the given moral term.
In this situation, it has been claimed that if naturalism were true, then the
question “This action has the natural property N such that it best explains how
[insert here the naturalist’s preferred story about how the reference of ‘right’ is
6
fixed], but is this action right?” should be a closed question in the same way as the
corresponding question about water is closed. Given that this will allegedly never
be the case, the improved version of the OQA shows that the naturalist reduction
of the moral properties cannot succeed by using the model adopted from the
scientific reduction.
It must be admitted that here the open questions become somewhat too abstract
to be easily assessable if one lacks prior theoretical commitments (Miller 2003:
§8.8). A naturalist might claim that he has found a closed question of the required
sort, while admitting that this claim itself would be difficult to verify, given that the
openness of these questions is not transparent. In this situation, it is not clear
whether the defender of the OQA can refer to a non-theory-based linguistic
intuition according to which the relevant candidate for the required closed ques-
tion in fact is still an open question. If this is right, then it seems questionable
whether the improved OQAs are argumentatively effective against the new forms
of naturalism.
See also: concepts vs. properties, moral; fact–value distinction;

is–ought gap; moore, g. e.; naturalism, ethical; naturalistic fallacy;
non-cognitivism; nonnaturalism, ethical; semantics, moral;
sidgwick, henry
REFERENCES
Baldwin, Thomas 1993. “Editor’s Introduction,” in Moore (ed.), Principia Ethica, 2nd ed.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. ix–xxxvi.
Blackburn, Simon 1998. Ruling Passions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Boyd, Richard 1988. “How to Be a Moral Realist,” in Geoffrey Sayre-McCord (ed.), Essays on
Moral Realism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, pp. 181–228.
Brink, David 1989. Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Frankena, William 1938. “The Naturalistic Fallacy,” Mind, vol. 48, pp. 464–77.
Frege, Gottlob 1892. “Über Sinn und Bedeutung,” Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Philosophische
Kritik, vol. 100, pp. 25–50.
Gibbard, Allan 2003. Thinking How to Live. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Hare, R. M. 1952. The Language of Morals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Horgan, Terence, and Mark Timmons 1992. “Troubles for the New Wave Moral Semantics:
The ‘Open-Question Argument’ Revived,” Philosophical Papers, vol. 21, pp. 153–75.
Kivy, Peter 1992. “Oh Boy! You Too!,” in L. E. Hahn (ed.), The Philosophy of A. J. Ayer.
La Salle, IL: Open Court, pp. 309–28.
Langford, C. H. 1942. “The Notion of Analysis in Moore’s Philosophy,” in P. A. Schilpp
(ed.), The Philosophy of G. E. Moore. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press,
pp. 319–43.
Miller, Alexander 2003. An Introduction to Contemporary Metaethics. Cambridge: Polity.
Moore, G. E. 1993 [1903]. Principia Ethica, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
7
Price, Richard 1969 [1758]. Review of the Principal Questions and Difficulties in Morals.
Selections reprinted in D. D. Raphael (ed.), British Moralists 1650–1800, vol. 2. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, pp. 655–762.
Sidgwick, Henry 1889. “Some Fundamental Ethical Controversies,” Mind, vol. 14,
pp. 473–87.
Smith, Michael 1984. The Moral Problem. Oxford: Blackwell.
Soames, Scott 2003. Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century, vol. 1. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
Sturgeon, Nicholas 2003. “Moore on Ethical Naturalism,” Ethics, vol. 113, pp. 528–56.
FURTHER READINGS
Baldwin, Thomas 1990. G. E. Moore. London: Routledge.
Ball, Stephen 1988. “Reductionism in Ethics and Science: A Contemporary Look at the Open
Question Argument,” American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 25, pp. 197–213.
Darwall, Stephen 2003. “Moore, Normativity, and Intrinsic Value,” Ethics, vol. 113, pp. 468–89.
Darwall, Stephen, Allan Gibbard, and Peter Railton 1992. “Toward Fin de Siecle Ethics: Some
Trends,” Philosophical Review, vol. 101, pp. 115–89.
Feldman, Fred 2005. “The Open Question Argument: What It Isn’t; and What It Is,”
Philosophical Issues, vol. 15, pp. 22–43.
Horgan, Terence, and Mark Timmons (eds.) 2006: Metaethics after Moore. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Kalderon, Mark Eli 2004. “Open Question and the Manifest Image,” Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research, vol. 68, pp. 251–89.
Regan, Donald 2003. “How to Be Moorean,” Ethics, vol. 113, pp. 651–77.
Rosati, Connie 1995. “Naturalism, Normativity, and the Open Question Argument,” Noûs,
vol. 29, pp. 46–70.
Rosati, Connie 2003. “Agency and the Open Question Argument,” Ethics, vol. 113, pp. 490–527.
1
Naturalistic Fallacy
Jussi Suikkanen
[1] The phrase “naturalistic fallacy” is used in two distinct senses which are not
always distinguished clearly enough. This tends to lead to unfortunate confusions
(see, e.g., Hauser 2006: 5). Hence, one of my aims in this essay is to clarify the
distinction between these uses in the hope that further confusions could be avoided.
I will begin by describing a common form of ethical reasoning which is widely rec-
ognized to be mistaken. Thus, it is often claimed that some actions are good because
they are natural. As the “Naturalistic Fallacy” entry of Wikipedia illustrates, the
instances of this kind of argument are often in the public discourse called naturalistic
fallacies or alternatively “appeals to nature.” Yet, even if these bad ethical arguments
could be so called for good reasons, they are not what the original user of the phrase,
G. E. Moore, had in mind in his Principia Ethica (1993a [1903]; see moore, g. e.).
Thus, after discussing these fallacies which are intuitively naturalistic, I will char-
acterize the more technical, metaethical sense in which Moore used the phrase to
describe certain views in moral philosophy. This is the more limited sense in which
professional philosophers tend to understand the phrase. One problem in explain-
ing what a naturalistic fallacy is in this sense is that Moore himself used the phrase
quite loosely. His main idea was that it is an error, a naturalistic fallacy, to think that
moral properties are identical with natural properties (see naturalism, ethical;
open question argument). I will end with brief reflections on how naturalists in
ethics can try to avoid committing naturalistic fallacies.
[2] The following two arguments illustrate the kind of moral arguments which we
often hear in the public discourse:
1 Cloning individuals is not natural.

2 Therefore, cloning individuals is immoral.
and
3 Eating meat is natural.

4 Therefore, eating meat is morally permissible.
The first premise of the first argument states that certain actions are not natural.
From this, it is directly concluded that those actions are wrong. Similarly, the second
argument infers from the naturalness of some actions that those actions are
permissible.
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee006
2
One problem with these arguments is that it is not immediately clear what the
term “natural” stands for in the premises (see nature and the natural). On the
broadest understanding, something is natural when it takes place in nature, that
is, in the reality around us which we can study scientifically. Yet, this is not what
“natural” could mean in these arguments because cloning too takes place in the
nature in this sense. The defenders of these arguments would not accept that this
implies that cloning is morally permissible. If “natural” was understood in this
broad way, then all actions which humans could ever do would be morally
permissible.
Sidgwick offered three other alternatives for what “natural” could mean in the
previous premises (1907: Bk. I, Ch. vi, §2; see sidgwick, henry). It could mean that
the actions are either (i) common instead of being exceptional, or (ii) original instead
of being later developments in human history, or (iii) not artificial in the sense of
resulting from sophisticated human planning. It seems appealing to read “natural”
in these ways in (1) and (3). It is common to infer that something is good because it
is either common, or original historically speaking, or not a result of complex human
designs.
It is easy to see why the inferences understood in these ways would be fallacious.
Diseases like dementia and cancer are common, and yet there is nothing good about
them. People originally lived in small hunter-gatherer tribes, but this hardly means
that larger communities are thereby immoral. And, it is difficult to deny that some
artifacts like eyeglasses are good. Given the wealth of such counterexamples, it is
implausible that an object’s being natural in the senses (i)–(iii) could itself entail that
it would be good.
There is, however, perhaps a better way of understanding the term “natural” in
these arguments. On this view, human beings have “a real self ” or “a true nature.”
This true nature is not what the person is actually like but rather what she ideally
would be like if all her mental faculties (including reason and conscience) were
functioning well in an orderly fashion (Butler 1827: sermon 3; see butler, joseph).
The notion of a true nature can thus be specified only by using evaluative and
normative terms. As actual persons, our purpose would, on this view, be to realize
our true natures. An action would then be natural if and only if it would be done in
similar circumstances by a person who has realized her true nature.
If we understand “natural” in this way, it will be more difficult to claim that the
inferences from actions’ naturalness to their goodness are fallacious. It seems legiti-
mate to think that an action is good because it would be done by more ideal versions
of us. However, two things need to be noted here.
First, the previous arguments lose much of their dialectic force if they are under-
stood in this way. The debates about the moral status of the given actions would in
this situation become debates about the equally controversial question of what is the
ideal, true nature of human beings (see disagreement, moral). This is because the
answer to the latter question would, on this view, also determine the moral status of
the contested actions. Second, the previous moral arguments understood in this way
still seem to commit naturalistic fallacies in the more technical sense (Moore 1993a
3
[1903]: §70). In order to see why this is the case, we must turn to Moore’s work on
“naturalistic fallacies.”
[3] By my calculations, Moore uses the phrase “naturalistic fallacy” 52 times in the
Principia Ethica. He accuses a number of ethical theories (or “systems” as he calls
them), moral assertions, and inferences of committing the “naturalistic fallacy.”
Furthermore, according to Moore, they are guilty of different kinds of mistakes, all
of which are naturalistic fallacies. Thus, it is not clear whether he attacked a single
target which would be the naturalistic fallacy.
In order to understand which mistakes were at least the central cases of naturalistic
fallacies according to Moore, we should begin from his posthumously published
manuscript “Preface to the Second Edition” of the Principia Ethica (Moore 1993b).
Here Moore emphasizes that he really intended to claim that one commits a
naturalistic fallacy if one identifies a moral property (such as goodness) with (i) an
analyzable property, or (ii) some natural or metaphysical property. It is clear that he
could not have merely assumed that these identifications would be fallacious
(Frankena 1939: 465). Before Moore could claim that they were, he had to show that
it would be an error to think that moral properties would fall under (i) or (ii).
Otherwise, his arguments against naturalist views would not amount to more than
name calling.
Moore thus first argued that one should not think that moral properties are ana-
lyzable properties for the simple reason that they are structurally simple. This is
what the famous open question argument was supposed to establish (Moore 1993a
[1903]: Ch. 1; see open question argument). It claimed that, whatever complex
property some action has (like the property of being what most people desire to
desire to do), it is always a further, substantial question whether that action is good.
Because of this, moral properties could not, according to Moore, be structurally
complex properties. This makes it a mistake, “a naturalistic fallacy,” to think that
they are. However, this does not yet in itself entail that moral properties could not be
simple natural properties of their own.
It should be noted that the open question argument seems just as effective against
the views which identify moral properties with simple natural properties to which we
can refer by other, nonmoral terms. Consider the suggestion that the goodness of an
object consists of its pleasantness. Moore could equally well object to this proposal by
insisting that it is an open, substantial question whether something that is pleasant is
good. However, this argument cannot be deployed against those who think that moral
properties are (perhaps simple) natural properties of their own, that is, different natu-
ral properties from the ones of which we can talk by using our nonmoral terminology.
Moore’s argument against the view that moral properties would be simple natural
properties in their own right was highly original (1993a [1903]: 93). By natural
properties, he meant properties which could be studied by natural sciences.
He claimed that these properties are “elements” of which natural objects are
“constructed.” Like all other physical parts of objects, they could also exist by them-
selves in space and time.
4
In contrast, he thought that one could not imagine moral properties existing by
themselves in space and time. This is because they are properties of actions which
always take place at a specific place and time. The existence of moral properties is
thus dependent on the existence of their bearers in a way that the existence of the
natural properties is not. This would mean that moral properties could not be
natural properties of their own. One problem with this argument is that it is
equally difficult to imagine many natural properties of objects existing alone in
space and time. How could, say, the weight of the stapler on my desk exist
independently without the stapler? If this is not possible, then Moore failed to
identify a quality of natural properties which moral properties would lack. But,
even if we are not convinced by Moore’s argument, there could still be other, better
arguments against naturalism of this sort (see Horgan and Timmons 1990;
Wedgwood 2007: Ch. 3).
This leaves us with the question of why Moore thought that moral properties
could not be simple metaphysical properties. Metaphysical properties would be
properties which actions would have in virtue of their relation to objects which exist
not in nature but rather in some “supersensible reality” (see divine command).
Thus, the property of being forbidden by God would be a property of this kind, as
would be the aforementioned property of fitting the realization of the ideal “true
nature” of human beings.
The problem is that all these properties are essentially structurally complex, non-
monadic properties and therefore they could not be simple properties as required.
After all, they are relational properties – properties which actions have in virtue of
being in some relation to some complex objects which exist in some eternal reality.
And, as Moore had already argued, moral properties could not be complex properties
(1993a [1903]: 176–9). Thus, these simple moral properties must be both non-
natural and non-metaphysical simple properties of their own kind. To think that
they would be anything else is to commit the mistake which Moore called the
“naturalistic fallacy.”
[4] One could think that that is a curious name for the previous, allegedly
mistaken views about the nature of moral properties. First, there is nothing “natu-
ralistic” about identifying moral properties with the type of metaphysically
extravagant properties mentioned above (Frankena 1939: 470). Second, to mis-
takenly think that moral properties would be complex, natural, or metaphysical
properties would hardly be a “fallacy.” This is because, properly speaking, fallacies
are unreliable inferences, that is, bad ways of reasoning. In contrast, a mistaken
view about the identity of moral properties is not an inference. For this reason,
Frankena suggested that those who fail to understand what moral properties
really are should be accused of “definist blindness” instead of “naturalistic
fallacies” (1939: 475).
Moore acknowledged that he had been misusing the term “fallacy” in this respect.
He thought that this didn’t really matter for the substantial issues in question
(1993b: 20–1). He also thought that the relevant mistaken views about the nature of
5
moral properties often play a role in unreliable inferences which could be more
correctly called naturalistic fallacies. What were these inferences which Moore had
in mind like?
Perhaps the most plausible suggestion comes from Arthur Prior (1949: 1–2).
According to him, the mistaken view that moral properties are natural properties can
be a conclusion of an erroneous line of reasoning which is the naturalistic fallacy. This
fallacy consists of inferring from the fact that some natural quality of actions neces-
sarily accompanies their goodness to the conclusion that being good just consists of
having that natural property. There is some textual evidence that Moore had this sort
of inference in mind (1993a [1903]: 62). It is interesting that whether this inference
from necessary co-instantiation to identity is fallacious is still a hotly debated topic in
contemporary metaethics (Jackson 1998: 122–3; Shafer-Landau 2003: 89–98).
Moore could also be understood to have been worried about a slightly different
inference in those passages. This would be the fallacy of thinking that, because
certain natural properties of an object are good, therefore the goodness of the object
would consist of merely having those natural qualities.
Moore could furthermore be understood to refer to a third type of ethical
inferences as naturalistic fallacies. In these inferences, the mistaken views about the
identity of moral properties are not conclusions but rather hidden premises of the
relevant inferences. Consider the argument:
5 Most people desire to desire to help their friends.

6 Therefore, helping friends is good.
In this argument, one draws a moral conclusion from a premise which states that
certain actions have a certain empirically observable natural property. Such an
argument is obviously logically speaking fallacious. After all, its form is the clearly
invalid “X is F; therefore, X is G.”
Nonetheless, it could be claimed that the above argument would actually be valid
if we recognize the hidden premise on which it is based. According to this premise,
an act’s goodness just consists of its natural property of being desired to be desired
by most people. If this is right, then the validity of the above argument would be
based on identifying goodness with a natural property. The argument would have
the valid form “X is F; to be F is to be G; therefore, X is G.”
In this situation, Moore would argue that the above argument would be a natural-
istic fallacy not because of its invalid form but rather because it would be unsound
due to the revealed false hidden premise. This diagnosis would make sense of his
claim that all arguments which are based on the (allegedly mistaken) naturalist views
of moral properties count as naturalistic fallacies (1993b: 21). And, indeed, the cru-
cial implicit second premise in the above argument would be the claim that the rel-
evant moral property is a natural property. Moore also recognized that if this were
the right understanding of the previous argument, then its defenders would not be
putting forward a further thesis about helping friends in the conclusion beyond
what has been already said in the first premise (1993a [1903]: 71). Given the hidden
6
premise, the conclusion ascribes the same natural property to these actions as the
first premise.
[5] This leads us to the question of whether all arguments from naturalistic premises
to moral conclusions would be naturalistic fallacies in the above sense (this question
is discussed in more detail in other articles: see autonomy of ethics; fact–value
distinction; is–ought gap). The idea that such arguments would be fallacious is
sometimes called “Hume’s law.” We must first acknowledge that naturalists today
defend highly sophisticated views according to which moral properties are ultimately
natural properties of some kind (see, e.g., Jackson 1998: Chs. 5–6). It is not obvious
whether all these views are vulnerable to the Moorean objections mentioned above.
If some such naturalist view about moral properties turned out to be defensible,
then there would be many non-fallacious, sound arguments from naturalistic prem-
ises to moral conclusions of the form described in the previous section. The true
claims about the naturalist identity of the moral properties could always be used as
a bridge in getting from naturalist premises to moral conclusions. If goodness of
actions consisted of any natural property N, all one would have to know in order to
be able to infer that an action was good would be that it had the natural property N.
That the property of being good is identical with the property of being N would
make this inference valid.
Yet, it is an interesting question whether all non-fallacious inferences from
naturalist premises to moral conclusions must go via such identity claims. It could
be suggested for example that, from two contradictory claims about the natural
properties of an action, one can always validly infer that the action has a moral
property. This is because contradictions entail all claims whatsoever. Of course, such
arguments would not be sound as one of the premises would necessarily be false
(assuming that no contradictions can be true). The question then is, could we get
from a possibly true set of naturalistic premises to a moral conclusion with a valid
inference that did not rely on an identity thesis?
Prior (1960) argued that this must be possible. Consider the disjunction “Either
tea drinking is common or friendships are good.” Either this disjunction is a moral
claim or it isn’t. If we assume that it is, then there is a valid inference from the
naturalistic claim “Tea drinking is common” to a moral claim, that is, the previous
disjunction. If we assume that it is a nonmoral claim, then there is a valid argument
from it and the nonmoral claim “Tea drinking is not common” to the moral
conclusion “Friendships are good.” Thus, no matter which way we understand the
disjunction, it seems there is at least one valid inference from a possibly true set of
nonmoral premises to a moral conclusion. However, there are technical reasons to
doubt whether instances of this kind of argument with possibly true premises could
ever be sound (see Karmo 1988).
See also: autonomy of ethics; butler, joseph; disagreement, moral; divine

command; fact–value distinction; is–ought gap; moore, g. e.; naturalism, ethical;
nature and the natural; open question argument; sidgwick, henry
7
REFERENCES
Butler, Joseph 1827. Fifteen Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel. Cambridge: Hilliard &
Brown.
Frankena, William 1939. “The Naturalistic Fallacy,” Mind, vol. 48, pp. 464–77.
Hauser, Marc 2006. Moral Minds. London: Abacus.
Horgan, Terence, and Mark Timmons 1990. “New Wave Moral Realism Meets Moral Twin-
Earth,” Journal of Philosophical Research, vol. 16, pp. 447–65.
Jackson, Frank 1998. From Metaphysics to Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Karmo, Toomas 1988. “Some Valid (But No Sound) Arguments Trivially Span the ‘Is’–‘Ought’
Gap,” Mind, vol. 97, pp. 252–7.
Moore, G. E. 1993a [1903]. Principia Ethica, rev. ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Moore, G. E. 1993b. “Preface to the Second Edition,” in Principia Ethica, rev. ed. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–27.
Prior, A. N. 1949. Logic and the Basis of Ethics. Oxford: Clarendon.
Prior, A. N. 1960. “The Autonomy of Ethics,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 38,
pp. 199–206.
Shafer-Landau, Russ 2003. Moral Realism: A Defence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sidgwick, Henry 1907. The Methods of Ethics, 7th ed. London: Macmillan.
Wedgwood, Ralph 2007. The Nature of Normativity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
FURTHER READINGS
Baldwin, Thomas 1990. G. E. Moore. London: Routledge.
Begum, Hasla 1979. “Moore on Goodness and the Naturalistic Fallacy,” Australasian Journal
of Philosophy, vol. 57, pp. 251–65.
Ethics 113, April 2003, special issue on G. E. Moore.
Gauthier, David 1967. “Moore’s Naturalistic Fallacy,” American Philosophical Quarterly,
vol. 4, pp. 315–20.
Hudson, W. (ed.) 1969. The Is–Ought Question. London: Macmillan.
Paton, H. J. 1942. “The Alleged Independence of Goodness,” in P. A. Schilpp (ed.), The Philosophy
of G. E. Moore. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, pp. 113–34.
Shaver, Robert 2003. “Principia Then and Now,” Utilitas, vol. 15, pp. 261–78.
1
Error Theory
Richard Joyce
To hold an error theory about morality is to endorse a kind of radical moral

skepticism – a skepticism analogous to atheism in the religious domain. The atheist
thinks that religious utterances, such as “God loves you,” really are truth-evaluable
assertions (as opposed to being veiled commands or expressions of hope, etc.), but
that the world just doesn’t contain the items (e.g., God) necessary to render such
assertions true. Similarly, the moral error theorist maintains that moral judgments
are truth-evaluable assertions (thus contrasting with the non-cognitivist), but that
the world doesn’t contain the properties (e.g., moral goodness, evil, moral obligation)
needed to render moral judgments true. In other words, moral discourse aims at the
truth but systematically fails to secure it. If there is no such property as moral
wrongness, for example, then no judgment of the form “X is morally wrong” will be
true (where “X” denotes an actual action or state of affairs). Advocates of this
position include Hinckfuss (1987), Joyce (2001), and Mackie (1977; see mackie, j. l.).
Various forms of moral skepticism – some of which are arguably instances of the
error theoretic stance – have been familiar to philosophers since ancient times (see
skepticism, moral).
Error theoretic views can be controversial – as in the case of religion and morality –
or widely agreed upon – as in the case of ghosts and phlogiston. It is important to
note that moral error theorists maintain that the judgments in question are erroneous
not merely because of the absence of any objective moral facts sufficient to render
them true, but also because of the absence of any nonobjective moral facts sufficient
to render them true. There is, for example, a kind of moral realist who maintains that
moral properties are objective features of the universe (see realism, moral). There
is also a family of metaethical views according to which moral properties are in
some manner constituted by us – by our beliefs, attitudes, practices, etc. We might
call the latter view “constructivism” (see constructivism, moral). The error
theorist opposes both positions, resisting the proposal that moral wrongness (say) is
a nonobjective property as resolutely as he or she denies that moral wrongness is an
existing objective property.
Why would someone maintain such a view? Isn’t holding a moral error theory a
pernicious and appalling position to adopt? Are we going to take seriously
philosophers who maintain that there was nothing morally wrong with Hitler’s
extermination of the Jews?
These common and understandable reactions must be treated with caution.
Consider the last claim: that moral error theorists don’t believe that there’s anything
morally wrong with genocide. Strictly speaking, this is correct. On the other hand, this
should not be acknowledged without also noting that the moral error theorist is just
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee007
2
as keen to deny that genocide is morally good or morally permissible as he is to deny

that it is morally wrong. The error theorist denies that anything is morally anything.
In the context of everyday conversation, to deny that there is anything morally wrong
with X implies that one thinks that X is morally good or morally permissible – but a
conversational context in which radical moral skepticism is a live contender is precisely
one where that implication breaks down. Attempts to embarrass the error theorist by
forcing him to admit that he doesn’t think that there is anything wrong with [insert
your favorite crime here] trade on equivocating between these contexts.
Is a moral error theory an appalling and pernicious position to adopt? Insofar as
most people are adamantly not error theorists, then we must accept that it is apt to
appall. But whether adopting and espousing an error theory is pernicious is really an
empirical question that has not been tested. The general concern is, presumably, that
various socially desirable behaviors that receive widespread moral endorsement will be
less likely to be performed if that moral backing is removed. And, mutatis mutandis,
socially undesirable behaviors will be more likely to be performed. There may or may
not be a sound basis to this fear; it is an empirical question. An important consideration
here is the fact that there are many effective ways of encouraging or discouraging action
that appear to have nothing to do with morality. A person may greatly desire to live in
a world without genocide (say), and it is not obvious that the force of that desire must
be diminished if the person resists categorizing genocide in moral terms. Compare a
person’s desire to protect his or her children from harm. There is no a priori reason for
assuming that “nonmoralized” preferences must be weak or whimsical. By analogy
(again with atheism): There no doubt was (and in some circles still is) a fear that a
widespread rejection of theism would lead to general social decline. But this does not
seem borne out by data; it is commonly allowed that a purely secular morality can
undergird social cohesion in a perfectly effective manner. When addressing the fear
that a widespread rejection of morality would lead to a general social decline we should
be open to the possibility that the same pattern might hold: that a purely nonmoral
suite of entrenched attitudes, preferences, and habits, etc. could step in and do the same
job just as effectively, or perhaps even better (Garner 2010; Hinckfuss 1987).
Just as the adoption of an error theoretic stance toward morality has no logical
implications for individuals’ behavior or preferences, nor does it have any logical
implications regarding what speakers do with their faulty moral vocabulary. The
natural assumption is that the error theorist should cease to employ moral
discourse – a position known as “eliminativism.” Of course, even the eliminativist
will continue to utter moral words on occasion – in making such claims as “There
are no such things as moral rights” or “Bush believes in evil” – but he won’t employ
moral sentences that imply the existence of moral properties (such as “X has moral
rights” or “Y is evil”). However, the error theorist is not forced by any logical con-
sideration to embrace eliminativism. Perhaps epistemological norms will pro-
scribe the continued assertion of such moral sentences (assuming that a
condemnation of lying is an epistemological norm), but that is not to say that they
proscribe their mere utterance. Instead of being an eliminativist, the moral error
theorist may adopt a fictionalist attitude (Joyce 2001; Kalderon 2005). The
3
fictionalist carries on using much or all of moral language, all the while believing
morality to be an erroneous system. (This, at least, is true of the so-called revolu-
tionary fictionalist. The hermeneutic fictionalist, by contrast, thinks that our atti-
tude toward morality has always been akin to pretense and hence is no error
theorist.) The key to pulling off the trick of carrying on with morality while not
believing it, without contradiction and without violating any epistemological
norms, is to adopt a kind of acceptance that is not belief and to employ a kind of
speech act that is not assertion. Since such categories exist, error theoretic fiction-
alism about morality is logically coherent, but whether it is a psychologically via-
ble option, and, if so, whether it would be a pragmatically good idea, are further
unresolved empirical issues.
Having noted that adopting a moral error theory may not have the detrimental
practical effects as is often assumed at first glance, we now turn to what positive
considerations might lead one to endorse it. It seems fair to say that the usual
motivation for the moral error theory is dissatisfaction with the alternatives, which
here are classified as non-cognitivism, constructivism, and realism. Since there are
many criticisms that may be leveled at each of the alternatives, the following
discussion is intended to give a flavor of the error theorist’s thinking, rather than
present any persuasive arguments.
The non-cognitivist maintains that moral sentences should not be interpreted
as aiming at the truth in the first place (see non-cognitivism). One kind of non-
cognitivist (who might better be called a “nonfactualist”) holds that although moral
sentences typically have a propositional grammatical structure (e.g., “Stealing is
wrong”) in fact their real logical status is nonpropositional; they can be translated
into something else (e.g., “Boo to stealing!” or “Don’t steal!”) for which the question
of truth shouldn’t arise (Ayer 1971; Blackburn 1998; see emotivism; prescriptivism).
Another kind of non-cognitivist allows that moral sentences really are propositional
but maintains that we don’t use them to make assertions; we use them to perform
some other kind of speech act, such as expressing our approval, or commanding
compliance, or revealing our adherence to a normative framework. (For this
distinction, see Kalderon 2005.)
The error theorist finds non-cognitivism unconvincing. There is, however,
something that the error theorist and the non-cognitivist share: a conviction that if
we take moral predicates at face value, then the enterprise of pinpointing actual
moral properties (badness, obligatoriness, permissibility, etc.) to assign to those
predicates – an enterprise necessary if our moral judgments are to be true – is doomed
to fail. The non-cognitivist’s response is that we should not take moral predicates (or
the speech acts that employ them) at face value, and thus the perennial search for
moral properties may be called off. The error theorist’s response is that there are no
actual properties to be assigned to the predicates, and thus moral truth is unavailable.
What makes many philosophers (including many error theorists) uneasy about
the non-cognitivist’s response is that it smacks of interpreting a discourse in an
eccentric manner simply to avoid philosophical difficulties. If there were some
independent evidence that moral predicates operate in an unusual way, some
4
concrete evidence that moral utterances are something other than common-or-
garden assertions, then the non-cognitivist’s case would be greatly strengthened.
In addition, many philosophers (including many error theorists) find that
non-cognitivism fails to adequately satisfy certain metaethical desiderata. It has
trouble accounting for the authority of morality: If S’s utterance of “Stealing is
morally forbidden” amounts to no more than an expression of S’s feelings (“Boo to
stealing!”) then why should anyone who is not antecedently inclined to care about S’s
feelings pay any attention? If the audience responds “Hurray for stealing!” then any
further discussion of the matter seems pointless. (That, admittedly, is a rather crude
version of non-cognitivism, but it is not obvious that more sophisticated versions do
much better.) There is also a longstanding concern about whether the non-cognitivist
can account for certain basic semantic features of moral discourse. Most famous
is the worry that if the underlying grammar of (say) “Stealing is wrong” is not
“X is P” but rather something like “Boo to stealing!” then how is the sentence going
to operate in logically complex contexts, such as the antecedent of a conditional?
For instance, the sequence of words “If boo to stealing then boo to stealing from
John” seems puzzling, to say the least; it does not even qualify as a sentence. The
orthodox truth-functional rules that allow us to understand what an “if … then …”
statement means do not seem to apply (see frege–geach objection).
If non-cognitivism is found inadequate (for whatever reasons), then we are left
with two broad alternatives to the error theory: realism and constructivism. Both
views take moral predicates and speech acts at face value, and both think that moral
assertions will often be true. Where they diverge concerns what they think is the
nature of those properties that render these assertions true. Roughly, realists think
that true moral assertions are true in virtue of the instantiation of certain objective
properties, whereas constructivists think that we (our attitudes, practices,
conventions, etc.) have an ineliminable and important role in the making of moral
properties. Speaking even more roughly, for realists morality is discovered, for
constructivists it is invented. Many philosophers are pessimistic that this distinction
can really withstand critical scrutiny (Rosen 1994), and some constructivists consider
themselves realists, but let us here sideline these complications and outline what the
error theorist is likely to find objectionable about each option.
The error theorist’s dissatisfaction with constructivism is likely to mirror one of
the sources of dissatisfaction with non-cognitivism – namely, that it seems to leave
the question of why anyone should care about morality unsatisfactorily open.
Consider a crude version of constructivism for illustrative purposes: Suppose that
“X is morally wrong” is given the relativistic interpretation “I disapprove of X.”
Hearing another agent report this fact about her feelings, why should anyone care?
Why should anyone (even someone who approves of X) feel inclined to debate the
matter? The mere fact that people feel approval and disapproval toward certain
things doesn’t seem to constitute or undergird the kind of binding normativity with
which we seem ordinarily to imbue morality.
Constructivism can be made less crude along several dimensions. Instead of the
idiosyncratic “I,” reference might be made to the collective response of a group of
5
people. These individuals might be improved in various ways: provided with full
information, ambitions to live in harmony, increased powers of reflection,
impartiality, and so forth. The relevant response may be something more subtle than
the blunt “disapproval.” And all this idealization necessitates that the modal relation
be altered: Instead of X being morally good if such-and-such folks do have a certain
kind of response to X, it will depend on whether these folks would have that response,
were they to be around to witness or contemplate X (see ideal observer theories;
response-dependent theories).
The error theorist remains doubtful, however, that these various “improvements”
address the concern. Suppose Mary recognizes that a certain action, φ, is such that
fully informed persons who share the aim of reaching free and unforced agreement
would endorse a norm in favor of φ. The presence of that dispositional property
may be of interest to Mary, but it may not be. Certainly its presence doesn’t seem to
constitute any kind of practical demand. Mary may be as unmoved by its instantiation
as she is when she reflects that φ is also such that drunken Vikings would mock its
performance. There seems nothing in the presence of the former disposition per se
that demands Mary’s attention and compliance. Even if Mary wants to be a fully
informed person engaged in reaching agreement with other fully informed agents
(in a way that she doesn’t want to be a drunken Viking), the presence of the
dispositional property does not demand her compliance. (As I sit in my office I may
yearn to be lying on a beach, but that doesn’t give me reason to put on sun block
now at my desk.) To recognize this is to acknowledge that, according to the
constructivist, moral properties – rightness and wrongness, virtue and duty – don’t
really constitute demands; they are properties that an agent need take an interest in
only if she is antecedently inclined to care about certain things. This lack of practi-
cal “oomph” in constructivist properties is likely to be what leaves the error theorist
unconvinced. (Of course, it may be something else entirely that leaves him unim-
pressed.) The error theorist is likely to maintain that some kind of special norma-
tive “oomph” is a distinctive and essential part of our very moral concepts, such that
the anthropocentric dispositional properties offered by the constructivist simply
cannot be the constituents of the moral realm (Joyce 2001: Ch. 2; Mackie 1977:
27–35).
In short, the practical relevance of any constructivist property comes from
internal sources – all versions of constructivism seem to make the normative
importance of moral rightness and wrongness depend on our prior attitudes – and
the error theorist judges that this fails to accommodate a key desideratum: that
moral norms and values are imbued with a kind of force that demands compliance
regardless of whether we care – demands that come from without. By contrast, placing
moral properties in an external realm, allowing them to be objective constituents of
the world, is the distinctive move of the moral realist. The error theorist applauds
that moral realist for seeing this – acknowledging that the realist has a better
appreciation than the constructivist of the conceptual commitments of moral
discourse. In fact, the error theorist may think that the moral realist understands
morality perfectly well at a conceptual level. But whereas the moral realist thinks that
6
there are properties in the world that actually answer to these conceptual
commitments, the error theorist thinks otherwise.
Compare our concept of the Loch Ness monster. It is the concept of an objectively
existing thing. Nobody maintains that the Loch Ness monster has the unusual
ontological status of being such that if a sufficient number of people believed in its
existence then it would somehow pop into being, as a “subjective” entity (like the
value of gold, say). Realists and skeptics alike are adamant that any constructivist
interpretation of the Loch Ness monster’s status can be rejected (as can be any
non-cognitivist interpretation of Loch Ness monster discourse). Where the realist
and the skeptic diverge is the all-important matter of whether there actually is
something swimming around that answers to the objectivist concept.
Sticking for the moment with an imperfect analogy: Why would one be skeptical
of the existence of the Loch Ness monster? A reasonable answer would be something
like: Because systematic attempts to find positive evidence have largely failed,
because hypotheses explaining how there could exist such an odd creature are
implausible given what else we know about the world, and because what positive
evidence has come forward is easily explained away. This very roughly reflects the
error theorist’s attitude toward moral realism. He deems that the numerous attempts
to delineate a set of objectively existing moral properties have all failed, that the idea
that there exist such properties is implausible (that such properties would be very
odd), and that there is no evidence that cannot be easily explained by alternative
“nonmoral” hypotheses (see queerness, argument from).
Note how the error theorist’s standard argument has two steps. First there is a
conceptual step of establishing what moral properties would have to be like. We
have seen that a reference to “objectivity” (or some equivalent notion) is likely to
appear in the error theorist’s conceptual analysis, thus excluding the constructivist
from the running. (Of course, other things will appear in the analysis too; if moral
properties were just objective, then the realist could simply point to cats or tables.)
The second step is ontological: establishing that there do not exist any properties
answering to the concepts in question. The second step might be established
through a priori methods (showing the concepts in question to be incoherent, for
example) or through a posteriori methods (concluding that the requisite kinds of
properties do not fit with an accepted worldview attained through empirical effort).
The systematic failure that the error theorist attributes to moral discourse might be
either a necessary failure (such that the error theory holds at every possible world)
or a contingent affair. For example, a moral error theorist who is also an atheist
might concede (a) that the existence of an all-powerful, omni-benevolent, etc. deity
would suffice to underwrite the existence of moral properties, and (b) that atheism
is only contingently true.
The error theorist is not obliged to employ this type of two-step argument in favor
of the position. She might, for example, instead be “pushed” into accepting an error
theory entirely through becoming thoroughly disillusioned with all alternatives, in
which case she need endorse no specific thesis about what moral properties
conceptually would have to be like (except, perhaps, denying that moral concepts
7
are concepts of items that exist if a sufficient number of people believe that they
exist). Nevertheless, it seems fair to say that the two-step argument is the error
theorist’s standard strategy – to such an extent that several critics have had trouble
distinguishing what it takes to be an error theorist from what it takes to endorse this
kind of argument (Dreier 2005; Finlay 2008).
The two steps of the error theorist’s standard argument throw up two kinds of
opponent. One opponent tackles the error theorist head-on: arguing that the moral
concepts outlined by the error theorist are in fact defensible (e.g., arguing that the
world really does contain objective norms that bind our actions irrespective of our
attitudes). The other opponent concedes that such properties really are unacceptably
odd and that we should not believe in them – but insists that it is a mistake to think
that morality was ever essentially committed to such oddities. Even if many people
have believed in this mysterious “binding force” (the concessive opponent maintains),
this would not suffice to make it an essential ineliminable component of our moral
conceptual framework. The head-on opponent accuses the moral error theorist of
making an ontological mistake: of underestimating what categories of things the
world contains. The concessive opponent accuses the moral error theorist of a
conceptual mistake: of overestimating what features are essential to moral concepts.
We may, thus, sum up the standard moral error theoretic strategy by saying that it
combines a rich view of moral concepts with a meager ontological view of the world.
Some will complain that its conceptual theses are too rich, and many will protest that
its ontology is too meager. But there is no obvious a priori or methodological pressure
to take the same attitude to both domains (i.e., both rich or both meager), and there
is no philosophical consensus on how either kind of dispute should be settled, and
thus this form of radical moral skepticism remains a perennial contender.
see also: constructivism, moral; emotivism; frege–geach objection;

ideal observer theories; mackie, j. l.; non-cognitivism; prescriptivism;
queerness, argument from; realism, moral; response-dependent theories;
skepticism, moral
REFERENCES
Ayer, A. J. 1971 [1936]. Language, Truth and Logic. London: Penguin.
Dreier, Jamie 2005. “Moral Relativism and Moral Nihilism,” in D. Copp (ed.), The Oxford
Handbook of Ethical Theory. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 240–64.
Finlay, Stephen 2008. “The Error in the Error Theory,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy,
vol. 86, pp. 347–69.
Garner, Richard 2010. “Abolishing Morality,” in R. Joyce and S. Kirchin (eds.), A World
Without Values: Essays on John Mackie’s Moral Error Theory. New York: Springer.
Hinckfuss, Ian 1987. “The Moral Society: Its Structure and Effects,” Discussion Papers in
Environmental Philosophy, no. 16. Philosophy Program (RSSS), Australian National
University.
8
Joyce, Richard 2001. The Myth of Morality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kalderon, Mark Eli 2005. Moral Fictionalism. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Mackie, J. L. 1977. Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong. London: Penguin.
Rosen, Gideon 1994. “Objectivity and Modern Idealism: What Is the Question?” in
M. Michael and J. O’Leary-Hawthorne (eds.), Philosophy In Mind. Boston: Kluwer,
pp. 277–319.
FURTHER READINGS
Burgess, John A. 1998. “Error Theories and Values,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy,
vol. 76, pp. 534–52.
Garner, Richard 1994. Beyond Morality. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Honderich, T. (ed.) 1985. Objectivity and Morality. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Joyce, Richard, and Simon Kirchin (eds.) 2010. A World Without Values: Essays on John
Mackie’s Moral Error Theory. New York: Springer.
Liggins, David, and Chris Daly 2010. “In Defence of Error Theory,” Philosophical Studies,
vol. 149, pp. 209–30.
Lillehammer, Hallvard 2004. “Moral Error Theory,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society,
vol. 104, pp. 93–109.
Miller, Alexander 2003. An Introduction to Contemporary Metaethics. Cambridge:
Polity.
1
Long-Term Care
Rosemarie Tong
Long-term care for the elderly exists in the region between medical services and social
services. As people grow older, they need more medical care for acute and chronic
conditions and/or more help with activities of daily living such as bathing, dressing,
toileting, getting in and out of bed, shopping, meal preparation, housecleaning, money
management and so forth. Global aging – that is, the likelihood that by the year 2050,
the population of adults over the age of 65 will be larger than the population of chil-
dren under 5 years of age for the first time in human history (Department of State and
the Department of Health and Human Services, National Institute on Aging, National
Institutes of Health 2007: 6) – is a transformative phenomenon that will necessitate
much in the way of social, political, and economic adaptation.
There are two major factors that have resulted in the phenomenon of global aging.
First, with some notable exceptions, fertility rates are plummeting in both developing
and developed countries. Since 1968 the worldwide fertility rate has gone down
from 5 to 2.7, and in a significant percentage of the developed countries, it has plum-
meted to 1.5, a number lower than the one needed to assure a stable population size
(Global Aging Initiative 2008: 2). Japan’s replacement rate of 1.3 is dramatically low
(AsiaSource 2003), but so too is the replacement rate of Russia, Ukraine, Germany,
Italy, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, and Spain (McAdams 2006). Moreover, opting to
be entirely childless is a growing trend especially in some European countries, where
anywhere from 12 to 16 percent of young women plan to remain childless.
The problem with failing to reproduce a sufficient number of children at precisely
the same time that adults are living to be 70, 80, or 90 years old is that, inevitably,
there will not be enough young people to provide old people with needed care. For
example, in the United States, 100 workers were available in the 1940s to sup-
port every 11 US retirees, but by 2050 that same number of workers will need to
support 40 to 50 retirees (Voice of America 2005: 2). More dramatically, and also by
the year 2050, there will be only two workers for every one retiree in the seven most
developed European countries (Department of State and the Department of Health
and Human Services, National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health
2007: 3). Furthermore, China is already facing the “1-2-4” problem, as the first
cohort of China’s one-child policy find themselves solely responsible for their par-
ents’ and grandparents’ long-term care (Kaneda 2006: 2).
In the future, most countries may have some difficulty meeting the long-term care
needs of their rapidly aging populations. At present, some countries, particularly the
Scandinavian countries, provide all their citizens with government-funded long-
term care, usually in the home (Pederson 2002). Families typically provide only
emotional care of their elders and, in some instances, supplementary private care for
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee008
2
amenities (Blackman 2001: 184). In contrast, in the United States, the government
provides long-term care only to impoverished citizens (Binstock 1998). Such care is
typically provided in institutions rather than in homes (Edlund et al. 2003: 2).
Like families worldwide, many US families fight hard to prevent the impoverish-
ment of their elders and their entrance into government-funded long-term care
institutions. They try to care for their elders either in their own homes or in their
elders’ homes. In fact, 80 percent of home-based long-term care in the United States
is provided by unpaid family members and friends, 75 percent of whom are women
(Hooyman and Gonyea 1995: 326). On the average, US female caregivers provide
assistance for one to four years, but it is not unusual for a US female caregiver to
provide care for a family member for five or more years (Stone et al. 1987: 616–26).
Because US female caregivers often find that family carework takes 22.9 or more
hours out of their week (Barrett 2004: 8), many US female caregivers give up or
substantially reduce paid work outside the home (Barrett 2004: 8).
Other countries have also resisted government-provided long-term care, not so
much because they feared that the quality of this care would be inadequate, but
because cultural norms mandated that young people take care of old people out of a
spirit of gratitude. For example, most Asian countries have traditionally looked
askance at children who did not provide hands-on, long-term care for their parents
and other elderly relatives. Specifically, in Japan the tradition has been for
daughters-in-law to take care of elderly relatives, preeminently their elderly
mothers-in-law. But because the traditions of filial piety are now weakening
throughout Asia, Asian women in the paid workforce do not want to give up their
economic rewards to provide unpaid long-term home care for their elders.
Although family-provided long-term care is somewhat optional in countries
that are relatively affluent, it is the only kind of long-term care available in the many
countries that are simply too poor to provide much in the way of healthcare to
their citizens. The number of such countries is very large, particularly in Africa.
For example, in Uganda 50 percent of the population lives on less than US$1 a day. In
the past, Ugandans hoped to live to age 60 or so – a rarity in Uganda – so that they
could be pampered by their families. But today, as a result of young people’s migration
from rural outposts to urban hubs, elderly Ugandans find themselves without family
caregivers (Curry 1998).
Families that do provide their elderly members with long-term care meet with
many challenges, not all of them financial. For example, US family caregivers report
a wide range of positive and negative feelings about their service, such as being loved
(96 percent), proud (84 percent), worried (53 percent), frustrated (37 percent), sad
or depressed (28 percent), and overwhelmed (19 percent) (Wurman 2004: 236). In
general, family members in the United States negotiate among themselves to
determine who will be the primary caregiver for an elderly relative. Factors that play
a role in making such a determination are family history (24 percent), proximity to
elderly relative(s) (21 percent), no competing obligations (15 percent), and access to
resources (15 percent) (Albert and Cattell 1994: 132–3). In other countries, an
individual’s place in the family hierarchy determines whether he or she will be the
3
provider of long-term care for elderly family members. For example, in China, sons
were traditionally responsible for their parents’ long-term care, even though their
wives or sisters actually delivered it on a day-to-day basis.
Although worldwide most elderly people prefer home-based long-term care, some
do not, particularly if they view themselves as a burden they would rather not impose
on those whom they love (Krothe 2007: 217–26). Moreover, even if home-based
long-term care is an elderly person’s preference, he or she may not be able to secure
it if family members or friends are unable or unwilling to provide it (see above).
Therefore, a considerable number of elderly people leave their home and move into
an alternative residential setting that may or may not be government subsidized.
In the United States, assisted-living facilities are among these alternative residential
settings. They serve elderly people whose medical needs and nonmedical needs are
relatively few. For the most part, the term “assisted-living facility” is used as a generic
term to designate both licensed and unlicensed residences, ranging from basic-
service housing (retirement homes, personal care homes, board, and care facilities)
to continuing care retirement communities which combine housing, healthcare, and
social activities and events (Wilson 1995: 52).
Despite the increasing popularity of assisted-living residences in the United
States, many of them do not provide the medical services that skilled nursing homes
do. Because entrance into a skilled nursing home signals for many elderly US people
loss of independence, diminishment of activity, and purposefulness, the ultimate
decision to enter one is often made very reluctantly. In other countries, elderly
people resist nursing home care primarily because they view placement in an
institution as a shameful sign of family rejection. Significantly, with the possible
exception of those Europeans who can count on excellent long-term care in an
institution as well as at home, skilled nursing homes are often viewed as houses of
death (Schoenberg and Coward 1997: 27–47). People’s fears about nursing home
quality are not unjustified. In the United States, the best ones provide residents with
many amenities as well as excellent care, but the worst ones are characterized by
conditions such as uncleanliness, numerous patients with bedsores, and poor
staffing levels (Johnson 2009). It is not unusual, therefore, for family members to get
into major arguments about placing an elderly relative in a skilled nursing home, for
fear that its quality might be relatively low.
Skilled nursing home residents in the United States generally fall into three
categories, categories that probably exist in some way or another worldwide. In the
first place, there are the residents who need only short-term rehabilitation for a
specific medical condition or long-term assistance with certain activities of daily
living. Most of these residents are both mentally alert and physically able to get
around.
A second category of residents in US skilled nursing homes are mentally
dysfunctional residents who suffer from conditions such as senile dementia and
Alzheimer’s disease. Over a period that lasts anywhere from two to eight years,
people with Alzheimer’s disease become unable to remember past events, to process
new information, to engage in meaningful conversations, and to recognize family
4
members and friends (Gorman 2000: 57). In addition, toward the end of their lives,
most people with Alzheimer’s disease become incontinent, incapable of eating or
even swallowing naturally, and entirely bedridden. Significantly, the population of
people with Alzheimer’s disease is particularly large in some of the poorest Latin
American and Asian countries (Prince and Jackson 2009: 27).
Another category of entirely bedridden residents in US skilled nursing homes is
persons in the end stages of a disease. Not only is it very costly to maintain such
patients, particularly if they are in a persistent vegetative state, but it is extremely
emotionally and physically draining to do so. Not surprisingly, there is increasing
debate in the United States whether it should follow the lead of some other countries
and provide only comfort care to this population of patients (Gross 1993: 8).
Although the average cost of a one-year stay in a US skilled nursing home is
US$70,000 (Andrews 2009), very few elderly people in the United States have
private long-term care insurance. They assume that the government will pay for
their long-term care needs, failing to realize that the government will come to
their rescue only if they impoverish themselves (Binstock 1998: 10). At present, an
individual in the United States may have no more than US$13,050 in total assets
to qualify for government-subsidized long-term care. In view of this fact, a grow-
ing number of young US people are purchasing long-term care insurance. They
worry that they will not be able to save enough for their long-term care needs and/
or that their families will not be able to help them in their hour of need. Other
countries are being more aggressive about making sure that their citizens have
long-term care insurance. For example, Germany and Japan both have publicly
mandated long-term care insurance programs for their citizens (Harrington et al.
2002; Ihara 2000).
Because people are living longer in virtually every country, and because old age
typically brings many chronic ailments and diseases, including life-sucking diseases
like cancer and organ failure, many healthcare ethicists and economists think that
countries cannot underwrite all the costs of healthcare for their respective citizens.
Nowhere is this more clear than in the United States, where by the year 2018, it will
need to spend 20 percent of its Gross Domestic Product on healthcare (Thomas
2009: 39), partly because it has no universal healthcare system. Yet, in order to get a
universal healthcare system implemented, the United States, says ethicist Daniel
Callahan, will need to follow the lead of those countries who do have universal
healthcare systems. He states that the US government will need to spend less on
technologies, surgeries, and treatments that are very costly and extend a livable life
for only a short amount of time, and more on relatively inexpensive modes of care
such as preventive care, primary care, and long-term care for people who are frail,
chronically ill, demented, disabled, or severely mentally ill, but still able to enjoy
some quality of life (Callahan 1990: 176).
Callahan’s prescription for covering the costs of healthcare, including long-term
healthcare, sounds promising. It may meet the needs of aging people without
expecting them to spend every penny of their life savings on healthcare, or
strangling them in bureaucratic webs that choke the dignity out of them. It is
5
important, however, to stress that, in the end, Callahan requires elderly people to
pay with their lives for government-subsidized long-term care. As he sees it, long-
term care is not eternal care. Wherever and whenever it is provided, long-term care
should, for the most part, take the form of comfort care that adds to the quality
rather than the mere quantity of elderly people’s lives.
REFERENCES
Albert, Steven M., and Maria G. Cattell 1994. Old Age in Global Perspective: Cross-Cultural
and Cross-National Views. New York: Macmillan.
Andrews, Michelle 2009. “4 Ways to Cover the Cost of Long-Term Care,” US News and World
Report. At http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/best-nursing-homes/2009/03/11/4-
ways-to-cover-the-cost-of-long-term-care.html?msg=socialweb_/, accessed January 2,
2012.
AsiaSource 2003. “Japan’s Aging Population: A Challenge for Its Economy and Society,”
AsiaTODAY. At http://www.asiasource.org/news/at_mp_02.cfm?newsid=102450/,
accessed July 1, 2008.
Barrett, Linda L. 2004. Caregiving in the U.S. Bethesda, MD: National Alliance for Caregiving
and AARP.
Binstock, Robert H. 1998. “The Financing and Organization of Long-Term Care,” in Leslie C.
Walker, Elizabeth H. Bradly, and Terrie Wetle (eds.), Public and Private Responsibilities
in Long-Term Care. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 3–22.
Blackman, Tim 2001. “Conclusion: Issues and Solutions,” in Tim Blackman, Sally Brodhurst,
and Janet Convery (eds.), Social Care and Social Exclusion. New York: Palgrave,
pp. 181–202.
Callahan, Daniel 1990. What Kind of Life: The Limits of Medical Progress. New York: Simon &
Schuster.
Curry, Natasha 1998. “Elder Care Across the Globe,” CareGuide@Home. At http://www.
eldercare.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=CG_Resources&file=article&
sid=965.
Department of State and the Department of Health and Human Services, National Institute
on Aging, National Institutes of Health 2007. Why Population Aging Matters: A Global
Perspective. Bethesda, MD: US Department of State.
Edlund, Barbara, Sylvia Lufkin, and Barbara Franklin 2003. “Long-Term Care Planning for
Baby Boomers: Addressing an Uncertain Future,” Online Journal of Issues in Nursing,
vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 2–3.
Global Aging Initiative 2008. “Global Aging Initiative,” Center for Strategic and International
Studies. At http://www.csis.org/gai/, accessed July 1, 2008.
Gorman, Christine 2000. “The New Science of Alzheimer’s,” Time, July 27, p. 57.
Gross, Myra 1993. “Dignity: The Keystone of Alzheimer’s Care,” Nursing Homes: Long Term
Care Management, vol. 42, no. 7, p. 8.
Harrington, Charlene A., Max Geraedts, and Geoffrey V. Heller 2002. “Germany’s Long Term
Care Insurance Model: Lessons for the United States,” Journal of Public Health Policy,
vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 44–65.
Ihara, Kazuhito 2000. “Japan’s Policies on Long-Term Care for the Aged: The Gold Plan and
the Long-Term Care Insurance Program” International Longevity Center, New York. At
6
http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/APCITY/UNPAN023659.
pdf, accessed January 9, 2012.
Hooyman, Nancy, and Judith Gonyea 1995. Feminist Perspectives on Family Care: Policies for
Gender Justice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Johnson, Megan 2009. “10 Worst States for Top Nursing Homes,” US News and World Report.
At http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/best-nursing-homes/2009/03/11/10-worst-
states-for-top-nursing-homes.html, accessed January 2, 2012.
Kaneda, Toshiko 2006. China’s Concern Over Population Aging and Health. Washington, DC:
Population Reference Bureau.
Krothe, Joyce Splann 2007. “Giving Voice to Elderly People: Community-Based Long-Term
Care,” Public Health Nursing, vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 217–26.
McAdams, Lisa 2006. “Russia Losing Battle in Population Growth to Disease, Low Birth
Rates,” Voice of America. At http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2006-03/2006-
03-08-voa29.cfm, accessed July 1, 2008.
Pederson, Kjeld Moller 2002. “Reforming Decentralized Integrated Health Care Systems:
Theory and the Case of the Norwegian Reform. Working Paper,” in Health Economics
Research Programme. Oslo: University of Oslo.
Prince, Martin, and Jim Jackson (eds.) 2009. Alzheimer’s Disease International: World
Alzheimer Report. London: Alzheimer’s Disease International.
Schoenberg, Nancy E., and Raymond T. Coward 1997. “Attitudes about Entering a Nursing
Home: Comparisons of Older Rural and Urban African-American Women,” Journal of
Aging Studies, vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 27–47.
Stone, Robyn, Gail Cafferata, and Judith Sangl 1987. “Caregivers of the Frail Elderly:
A National Profile,” Gerontologist, vol. 27, pp. 616–26.
Thomas, Evan 2009. “The Case for Killing Granny: Curbing Excessive End-of-Life Care Is
Good for America,” Newsweek, vol. 154, no. 12, pp. 34–40.
Voice of America 2005. “Populations Are Aging Worldwide,” Voice of America News No: 2. At
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/a-13-2005-11-30-voa69.html.
Wilson, Nancy 1995. “Long-Term Care in the United States: An Overview of the Current
System,” in Laurence B. McCullough and Nancy L. Wilson (eds.), Long-Term Care
Decisions: Ethical and Conceptual Dimensions. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
pp. 35–59.
Wurman, Richard Saul 2004. Understanding Healthcare. Newport, RI: Top.
FURTHER READINGS
Callahan, Daniel 1991. “Families As Caregivers: The Limits of Morality,” in Nancy S. Jecker
(ed.), Aging and Ethics: Philosophical Problems in Gerontology. Totowa, NJ: Humana,
pp. 157–8.
Callahan, Daniel 1995. Setting Limits: Medical Goals in an Aging Society. Washington, DC:
Georgetown University Press.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in Conjunction with the Health and Human
Services Website 2009. “Five-Star Quality Rating System,” Health and Human Services.
At http://www.cms.hhs.gov/CertificationandComplianc/13_FSQRS.asp#TopOfPage?/,
accessed January 2, 2012.
Dodds, Susan 2007. “Depending on Care: Recognition of Vulnerability and the Social
Contribution of Care Provision,” Bioethics, vol. 21, no. 9, pp. 500–10.
7
Doty, Pamela 2000. “Cost-Effectiveness of Home and Community-Based Long-Term Care

Services,” Office of Disability, Aging, and Long-Term Care Policy, US Department of
Health and Human Services. At http://aspe.hhs.gov/daltcp/reports/2000/costeff.htm,
accessed January 2, 2012.
Ducharme, Francine, Louise Lévesque, Lise Lachance, Marcellin Gangbè, Steven H. Zarit,
Jean Vézina, and Chantal D. Caron 2007. “Older Husbands As Caregivers,” Research on
Aging, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 3–31.
Engelhardt, H. Tristram, Jr. 2007. “Long-Term Care: The Family, Post-Modernity, and Conflicting
Moral Life-Worlds,” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, vol. 32, no. 5, pp. 519–36.
Estes, Carroll 2006. “Critical Feminist Perspectives, Aging, and Social Policy,” in Jan Baars,
Dale Dannefer, Chris Phillipson, and Alan Walker (eds.), Aging, Globalization and
Inequality: The New Critical Gerontology. Amityville, NY: Baywood, pp. 88–9.
Hardwig, John 2000. Is There a Duty to Die? And Other Essays in Medical Ethics. New York:
Routledge, pp. 119–36.
Held, Virginia 2006. The Ethics of Care: Personal, Political and Global. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Kemper, Peter, and Christopher M. Murtaugh 1991. “Lifetime Use of Nursing Home Care,”
New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 324, no. 9, pp. 595–600.
Kittay, Eva F. 1999. Love’s Labor: Essays on Women, Equality, and Dependency. New York:
Routledge.
Kittay, Eva F., and Ellen K. Feder 2002. The Subject of Care: Feminist Perspectives on
Dependency. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Lankford, Kimberly 2002. “Look Back Doesn’t Equal Take Back,” Kiplinger’s Personal Finance,
vol. 56, no. 4, p. 100.
Liu, Melinda 2008. “Playing with the Old Blood Rules,” Newsweek, March 17, pp. 27–9.
Parks, Jennifer 2003. No Place Like Home: Feminist Ethics and Home Health Care. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press.
Repko, Melissa 2008. “Medicaid Puts Greater Responsibility on Families for Nursing Home
Payments,” Buffalo News, updated August 20, 2010. At http://www.buffalonews.com/
incoming/article109273.ece.
Schmid, Randolph E. 2008. “Medical Care System Not Ready for Mass of Aging Baby
Boomers, Study Says,” AARP Bulletin Today. At http://bulletin.aarp.org/yourhealth/
policy/articles/medical_care_system_not_ready_for_mass_of_aging_baby_boomers_
study_says1.html, accessed July 1, 2008.
Walker, Leslie C., and Brian Burchwell 1998. “Access to Public Resources: Regulating Asset
Transfers for Long-Term Care,” in Leslie C. Walker, Elizabeth H. Bradly, and Terrie
Wetle (eds.), Public and Private Responsibilities in Long-Term Care. Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, pp. 165–80.
1
Vegetarianism and Veganism

Michael Allen Fox
Introduction
Most people, past and present, have never seriously questioned whether it is morally
acceptable to eat animals and treat them as resources. However, vegetarianism and
veganism, which have a lengthy history in both Western and non-Western cultures,
challenge these assumptions and clash with prevailing views about how humans
should conduct their lives and make use of the natural world. Religious practices
and ideas about diet energized early outlooks of this sort more than clearly focused
ethical reflections; but the latter have surfaced periodically, from the Greco-Roman
period to the present. Strong, sustained vegetarian and vegan movements today
coincide with the rise of the animal rights/liberation movement, and are fueled by
concerns about factory farming, climate change, healthy eating, and how to feed a
rapidly increasing human population.
Vegetarianism and Veganism Contrasted

Vegetarians as a rule eschew red meat, poultry, and seafood, although some condone
departures such as eating fish occasionally. Vegans go much further: “Veganism may
be defined as a way of living which seeks to exclude, as far as possible and practical,
all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals, for food, clothing or any other
purpose” (IVU n.d.). (For example, vegans typically abstain from using leather and
gelatin – byproducts of the food industry – and even from wearing wool and silk.)
The vegan outlook, then, is more uncompromising in its obligations and desired
outcomes than that of vegetarianism. A range of considerations underpin commit-
ment to vegetarianism and veganism, as will be seen in the following text. However,
the greater the number of connections one perceives between diet and the values
one lives by, and the more one seeks consistency of thought and action, the more
likely it is that veganism will be the compelling choice. While some initially opt
to become vegans for reasons of health, supporting ethical concerns typically
evolve later on. These frequently cluster around an attitude of compassion. As
one author contends, veganism is a “compassion-minded lifestyle [which] is a
matter of degree rather than essence because no matter where you are, you can
always improve” (Pavlina 2006). A pilot study concludes that: “For every vegan …
both logic and emotion played a role in the learning process” (McDonald 2000).
Vegans believe that only their way of life is completely dedicated to eliminating
what they perceive as unethical treatment of animals. Vegetarians might reply,
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee009
2
however, that veganism exceeds what is reasonable to consider morally obliga-

tory if it proscribes such things as honey, free-range eggs, pet ownership, or
horseback riding, and if it generally entails too high a level of everyday inconven-
ience and self-sacrifice.
Ethical Overview of Vegetarianism and Veganism,

and Some Objections
Vegetarianism and veganism generally share a defining moral standpoint: the
“vegetarian conscience” (Hillman 1989). This affirms humans’ integral place in
nature; the value and moral status of other life forms; the need to minimize our
impact on the planet; and a set of everyday practices supporting this vision
(see animals, moral status of). Those who defend and practice meat eating, on
the other hand, although they may also endorse one or more of these precepts,
reject vegetarianism and veganism. Reasons such as the following are often found
in the literature: that humans occupy a position of moral superiority to animals;
that because of this, the use of animals and animal products in the service of
human needs and wants is ethically justified; and that in any case, in living their
lives, practically speaking, humans cannot avoid infringing upon, even destroying,
animal habitats, competing with them for space and resources, killing predators
and “pests,” and relying on long-established, widespread patterns of animal use
(see anthropocentrism).
Arguments for Vegetarianism and Veganism

The vegetarian conscience yields numerous arguments, classified in the follow-
ing text according to their central themes. Vegetarians tend to interpret the
implications of these less strictly, vegans, more so. Emphasis is placed here on
secular ethical approaches. All of the arguments under review either explain or
presuppose animals’ moral standing (their being subjects of ethical concern).
Additional objections to vegetarianism and veganism are summarized in the
concluding section. Throughout what follows, the word “animals” refers to
“nonhuman animals.”
Animal suffering and death

According to one estimate, 60 billion land animals are killed worldwide annually for
food (CIWF n.d.). In this gigantic meat industry, the suffering caused – to tightly
confined hens, veal calves, and pregnant sows; by rough transportation; and on the
killing floors – is well documented (Baur 2008). Even on small, organic livestock
farms, it is argued, suffering cannot be completely eliminated despite the best inten-
tions, and in any case, slaughter is the animals’ ultimate destiny. If food animals are
sentient, and if pain and suffering are inherently undesirable as well as wrong in
3
general to inflict, then the adverse experiences of food animals ought to be of ethical
concern and eliminated. Indifference to the problem seems impossible to excuse or
condone (see sentience, moral relevance of; suffering). Furthermore, some
would maintain, it is wrong to kill innocent, sophisticated beings, capable of having
conscious, pleasurable experiences, and that evidently want to continue living
(see animal cognition). This sort of utilitarian approach is often supplemented or
replaced by another view which holds that such beings have basic rights that are
violated by the infliction of gratuitous suffering on them and by killing them
(see animal rights; utilitarianism). The negative effects of factory killing on
slaughterhouse workers are also of significant ethical concern.
Impartiality and disinterested moral concern

Most moral philosophers today agree that impartiality and disinterestedness (mean-
ing balance and fairness) are important hallmarks of ethics (see impartiality).
Peter Singer contends that equal treatment of beings with moral status (showing
disinterested moral concern) requires, not identical treatment, but giving equal
consideration to their interests, whatever these might be (Singer 2011; see moral
status). Les Brown maintains that “benevolence, the utmost impartiality of which
we are capable, and knowledge” of animals’ needs and well-being constitute the
proper basis for ethical judgments about them (Brown 1988: 40; see needs; well-
being). Thus, it is claimed, this fundamental ethical framework should be extended
to cover our interactions with animals.
Interspecies kinship and respect for other life forms

All animals are part of the scheme of evolution, and accumulating evidence shows
how closely animals resemble humans genetically, psychologically, and behavio-
rally. Each animal has a good of its kind that it strives to realize. A sense of
interspecies kinship has begun to replace the idea of humans as lords and masters
of the Earth. Biologist E. O. Wilson (1984) calls this deep-seated feeling of connec-
tion “biophilia,” and reflections of it are present in the “reverence for nature” ethic
of Albert Schweitzer (1929) and Paul Taylor’s “ethics of respect for nature” (1986).
For many, to have reverence, respect, and/or love for animals makes eating them
clearly at odds with such attitudes and hence morally unacceptable.
Caring and compassion

A care ethics spotlights natural feelings that move us to try to relieve suffering and
correct serious disadvantage when we encounter these, even when the object of
concern is not in a direct relationship with us (see care ethics). David Hume based
his moral philosophy on sympathy (see sentiments, moral). The Buddha and
German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer endorsed an ethics grounded in compas-
sion (see empathy). The caring approach readily supports a decision to prevent ani-
mal suffering as well by, among other things, adopting some form of vegetarianism.
4
Nonviolence
A nonviolent philosophy is central to many belief systems, from the words of Jesus
to the Jain religion of India to modern movements such as that inspired by Mohan-
das K. Gandhi (see nonviolence in religions). Governed by the precept “Do no
harm,” nonviolence is not a passive stance, but rather an active avoidance of harm
and a strong commitment to peacefully eliminating the causes of harm in the world
(see harm principle). Human–animal interactions are subject to scrutiny no less
than those between humans, and thus, for obvious reasons, a vegetarian diet may be
held to advance the goal of harm reduction. Religious beliefs that espouse steward-
ship of, rather than dominion over, nature also tend to foster nonviolence toward
animals.
Justice
First, following a utilitarian line of reasoning, it could be ventured that the amount
of suffering borne by food animals collectively outweighs the total amount of
pleasure humans derive from meat eating. One might also hold that animals’
individual well-being and lives matter more to them than the momentary and
intermittent taste sensations matter to those who eat them. And if the eating
pleasures of humans can arguably be satisfied equally well by a vegetarian regime,
then it appears that to continue killing animals for our nourishment is not only
unnecessary, but also wrong and unjust. Second, it is always unjust to benefit from
harms inflicted – especially for relatively trivial reasons – upon innocent,
unconsenting, uninformed recipients who have moral status, and to whom no
compensation is given. However, this model of wrongdoing may very well fit the
situation of using animals for food. Third, a society that tolerates large-scale
mechanized slaughter of sentient, morally significant beings makes a dubious
claim to be humane, decent, or just. Fourth, the injustice of world hunger would
likely be mitigated by vegetarian food production, which – using the same
resources – yields more food than meat production (Pimentel and Pimentel 2008;
see justice; world hunger). (See also the section below, “The environmental
impact of food production.”)
Interconnected types of oppression

While some early feminists were also vegetarians, it is only in recent decades that
feminist theorists have explored in detail connections between the oppression of
women and of animals. If we understand “oppression” as unwarranted and/or
arbitrary denial of freedom to some being that has a claim to it, and if animals
have a moral claim to freedom, then it is difficult to avoid concluding that
humans’ treatment of them is oppressive. Within a patriarchal culture, some
feminists maintain, women and animals are oppressed in similar ways: both are
subordinated by men; women are “closer to nature” and “more emotional,” while
animals’ lives are deemed to be “controlled by natural instincts alone”; men are
5
“rightfully” in control of women, just as humans are “rightfully” dominant over

nature and animals; and so on. Ecofeminists have argued that these dualistic
patterns of thinking (males vs. females, humans vs. nature and animals) form
“interlocking systems” (Collins 1990), and must therefore be attacked together
(see ecofeminism; oppression). Many (but not all) feminists therefore
believe that, to be consistent, they should choose vegetarianism. Those who
endorse this position are also likely to affirm Singer’s (2002) claim that the
oppression of animals is as morally objectionable as sexism and racism, and for
the same reasons.
The environmental impact of food production

The global demand for meat is sharply rising because it is status food, and increas-
ing affluence in the developing world also encourages a new culture of meat
consumption that replicates the diet of more economically advanced countries.
However, as many authors point out, today’s agricultural methods cannot meet this
demand indefinitely, nor can the planet sustain it. According to a UN report, animal
farming is already a major factor in the degradation of Earth’s atmosphere, land,
water, and species diversity, yet “Global production of meat is projected to more
than double from 229 million tonnes in 1999/2001 to 465 million tonnes in 2050,
and that of milk to grow from 580 to 1,043 million tonnes” (Steinfeld et al. 2006).
During this same period, the world’s population will soar from 6.5 to 9.1 billion.
Furthermore, one-third of the world’s grain supply now goes to feeding livestock,
with the food value of the output being many times less than that of the input.
Other resource requirements of industrialized animal agriculture (water, fossil
fuels, and so on) are very great and wasteful; soil erosion is massive; and abundant
amounts of polluting gases are added to the atmosphere, while large quantities of
toxic waste enter land and water environments. These trends seem irreversible so
long as the demand for meat accelerates. Nor can the oceans yield enough food to
keep pace with insatiable demand, because world fish stocks are already under
severe threat of collapse (FAO/UN 2010). Therefore, conversion to a vegetarian-
centered economy, many maintain, appears not only obligatory and desirable, but
also inevitable.
Evaluation of Vegetarianism and Veganism from

an Ethical Standpoint
The arguments examined in the preceding text are diverse, some taking factual
information into account and others being more theoretical and conceptual.
However, all of them converge on the same point: that either vegetarianism or
veganism is morally obligatory. Because of this convergence, their advocates claim,
the arguments are mutually reinforcing and carry more weight together than singly,
thereby strengthening the overall case. It is also worth noting that an ethics of virtue,
an ancient approach attracting renewed interest among contemporary philosophers,
6
fits in very well with several arguments: for instance, those touching upon respect
for other life forms, compassion, nonviolence, justice, and the environmental impact
of food production (see virtue ethics).
Opponents of vegetarianism and veganism, for their part, are not without
thoughtful responses to the ethical case against meat eating. For example, some
contend that eating animals is, in principle, an ecologically sound practice, grounded
in evolution, and that if the cruelties and environmental destructiveness of factory
farming were eliminated or reduced, the objections to meat production would be
neutralized (Dawkins and Bonney 2008). Others add that utilitarian reasoning would
then support, rather than undermine, using animals for food. As well, there are those
who urge that, in contrast to humans, death is not as great a wrong (or not a wrong
at all) in relation to animals. Finally, some philosophers dispute whether ethical and
political concepts, such as rights, impartiality, consent, justice, oppression, and the
like, apply to animals at all, and whether animals have a rich enough cognitive and
emotional life to warrant the more subtle kinds of concerns that run through several
parts of the case for vegetarianism and veganism (Leahy 1993). This last point
demarcates a vigorous and pivotal arena of debate that is especially likely to influence
ethical decisions concerning animals indefinitely into the future. However, conside-
ration of all these ethical issues would be thrown into disarray if the laboratory
cultivation of meat tissues ever reaches the stage of commercial viability.
See also: animal cognition; animal rights; animals, moral status of;
anthropocentrism; care ethics; ecofeminism; empathy; harm principle;
impartiality; justice; moral status; needs; nonviolence in religions;
oppression; sentience, moral relevance of; sentiments, moral; suffering;
utilitarianism; virtue ethics; well-being; world hunger
REFERENCES
Baur, Gene 2008. Farm Sanctuary: Changing Hearts and Minds about Animals and Food.
New York: Touchstone.
Brown, Les 1988. Cruelty to Animals: The Moral Debt. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire:
Macmillan.
CIWF (Compassion in World Farming Trust) n.d. “Your Food.” At http://www.ciwf.org.uk/
your_food/default.aspx.
Collins, Patricia Hill 1990. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics
of Empowerment. Boston: Unwin Hyman.
Dawkins, Marian Stamp, and Roland Bonney 2008. The Future of Animal Farming: Renewing
the Ancient Contract. Oxford: Blackwell.
FAO/UN 2010. The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2010. Rome: Food and
Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, Fisheries and Aquaculture Department.
At http://www.fao.org/docrep/013/i1820e/i1820e00.htm.
Hillman, Harold 1989. “The Vegetarian Conscience.” Philosophy and Social Action, vol. 15,
pp. 51–59.
IVU (International Vegetarian Union) n.d. “Veganism.” At http://www.ivu.org/faq/defini
tions.html.
7
Leahy, Michael P. 1993. Against Animal Liberation: Putting Animals in Perspective, 2nd rev. ed.
New York: Routledge.
McDonald, Barbara 2000. “‘Once You Know Something, You Can’t Not Know It’: An
Empirical Look at Becoming Vegan,” Society and Animals, vol. 8, no. 1. At http://www.
humanespot.org/content/once-you-know-something-you-cant-not-know-it-empiri
cal-look-becoming-vegan.
Pavlina, Steve 2006. “Why Vegan?” At http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/09/why-vegan.
Pimentel, David, and Marcia H. Pimentel 2008. Food, Energy, and Society, 3rd ed. Boca Raton,
FL: CRC Press.
Schweitzer, Albert 1929. Civilization and Ethics. The Philosophy of Civilization, Part 2, 2nd ed.,
trans. C. T. Campion. London: A. & C. Black.
Singer, Peter 2002. Animal Liberation, 3rd ed. New York: HarperCollins.
Singer, Peter 2011. Practical Ethics, 3rd ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Steinfeld, Henning, Pierre Gerber, Tom Wassenaar, Vincent Castel, Mauricio Rosales, and
Cees de Haan 2006. Livestock’s Long Shadow. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization
of the United Nations.
Taylor, Paul W. 1986. Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics. Princeton:
Wilson, E. O. 1984. Biophilia: The Human Bond with Other Species. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
FURTHER READINGS
Foer, Jonathan Safran 2003. Eating Animals. New York: Back Bay Books/Little, Brown.
Fox, Michael Allen 1999. Deep Vegetarianism. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Hill, John Lawrence 1996. The Case for Vegetarianism: Philosophy for a Small Planet. Lanham,
MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Jamieson, Alexandra 2010. Living Vegan for Dummies. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Kaplan, David M. (ed.) 2012. The Philosophy of Food. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Masson, Jeffrey Moussaieff 2009. The Face on Your Plate: The Truth about Food. New York:
W. W. Norton.
Sapontzis, Steve F. (ed.) 2004. Food for Thought: The Debate over Eating Meat. Amherst, NY:
Prometheus.
Spencer, Colin 1993/1995/2004. The Heretic’s Feast: A History of Vegetarianism. London:
Fourth Estate; Hanover, NH: University Press of New England; New York: Da Capo.
Walters, Kerry S., and Lisa Portmess (eds.) 1999. Ethical Vegetarianism: From Pythagoras to
Peter Singer. Albany: State University of New York Press.
1
Overridingness, Moral
Joshua Gert
Morality is one normative domain among many. That is, not only can we assess
actions as morally right or wrong, or as morally good or bad, but we can also assess
them as legal or illegal, prudent or imprudent, or as prohibited or required by the
rules of etiquette. It is quite obvious that these assessments need not always favor
and disfavor precisely the same actions. For example, it might be morally required in
some cases to perform an action that is prohibited by law, or – some might suggest –
it might be imprudent to do something morally good. The thesis of moral
overridingness is the thesis that moral verdicts are always in some sense supreme
whenever they come into conflict with the verdicts of a distinct normative domain.
This general thesis can be understood in a number of ways. To begin with, we need
to offer an interpretation of the claim that one verdict overrides another. One might
interpret this claim as entailing that, in conflicts of verdicts, it is irrational to go
against the moral verdict (see rationality). Or, one might interpret it as the claim
that the totality of practical reasons, taken together, always uniquely favors acting in
line with a moral verdict, even though it may not always be irrational to act in ways
that are not uniquely favored in this way (see reasons; satisficing). In making the
overridingness thesis clear, one also needs to specify which verdicts are relevant.
Very often, the thesis is understood as restricted to claims about conflicts of
requirements. This is an important restriction, since morality can yield the verdict
that an action would be morally good without being morally required. For example,
in many views, we are not morally required to volunteer our free time doing
charitable activity. In such views, morality favors such action, but does not require it
(see supererogation). On a common interpretation of the overridingness thesis,
the fact that morality favors such action does not imply that there would be anything
problematic in deciding against such a morally good action, and performing some
other action instead: say, an action that would do a better job of promoting one’s
own interests.
Something similar to the thesis that morality is overriding appears as early
as the first extended philosophical discussions of virtue and justice. Plato’s
Republic (359d–360b) famously contests the view that profitable injustice is to be
preferred when it can be done with impunity. Hobbes (1994 [1651]: Book 1, Chs.
13, 14), similarly, tried to show that injustice was always a bad idea from the
perspective of self-interest. And Kant (1993 [1785]: Ch. 2) argued that the demands
of morality are categorical in a way that no other demands can be. Sidgwick
(1981 [1907]: 508), on the other hand, had grave doubts about the possibility of
demonstrating, in a non-question-begging way, that the impartial perspective
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee010
2
characteristic of morality was to be preferred even to a strictly egoistic perspec-

tive. And utilitarians such as Mill (2001 [1861]: 31–3) were positively clear that
the morally correct action might be very different from the action that would
produce the greatest benefit to the agent. However, Mill also held the view that
we humans are psychologically determined to pursue only what we perceive to
be best for us individually.
Contemporary discussion of moral overridingness might be said to begin with
Philippa Foot’s “Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives” (1972). A
common way of attempting to show that morality is in some sense a supreme set of
norms is to point out that its commands are categorical, rather than hypothetical:
that is, that their applicability does not depend on our contingent ends or desires.
Foot raises important problems for this strategy, however. When it is spelled out
more explicitly, the thesis of categoricity seems either false, mysterious, or insuffi-
cient to support morality’s claim to supremacy. If “categorical” simply means “not
dependent on our contingent ends,” then we can truly say that moral verdicts are
categorical imperatives. After all, we do not withdraw the claim that our friend
should not cheat on her taxes just because we are reliably informed that she does not
have any ends that would be furthered by filling out her tax forms honestly. However,
this kind of categoricity seems purely grammatical. The requirements of etiquette
are similar in this respect; whether or not it furthers any of one’s goals, “the done
thing” is to answer invitations that are written in the third person by accepting in
the third person.
Foot’s second interpretation of “categorical” is “guaranteed to be backed by decisive
reasons.” However, since, according to Foot, reasons stem only from our objective
interests and subjective desires, there simply is no guarantee that a morally required
act always is supported by decisive reasons. One way of blocking this argument is to
extend the notion of a practical reason beyond the realm of interests and subjective
desires, to include, for instance, the interests of others. This strategy encounters other
problems, not specifically addressed by Foot.
Finally, there remains the thought that if one is morally required to perform some
action, then one “just plain ought” to do it, in a way that is false of the requirements
of etiquette, and that does not depend on the action furthering one’s interests or
desires. However, says Foot, this “just plain ought” is an incoherent fiction, and our
temptation to appeal to it is best explained by an upbringing that, unsurprisingly,
instilled in us a sense of the great importance of morality.
Rather than vainly try to defend the categorical nature of morality in any of the
preceding ways, Foot’s suggestion is that we simply abandon that ambition, and
recognize that the demands of morality will necessarily be backed by decisive reason
only for those who have a sufficiently strong contingent commitment to its ends – to
the welfare of other people, their fair treatment, and so on. However, this need
not undermine the importance of morality, especially to those who have this
commitment. This argument by Foot touched off a wave of attempts to show that
morality is in fact overriding in some significant way.
3
In arguing for the overridingness of moral verdicts, it is important to distinguish

overridingness from inescapability. To say that morality is inescapable is to distin-
guish it from, say, the rules of a club, from which one can escape by resigning, or
from the laws of a particular country from which one can escape by emigrating.
However, even if there is no escape from morality in this sense, it still might be that,
on some occasions, one has sufficient reasons to justify violating its requirements –
just as one might have such reasons to violate the laws of a country in which one is
living, or a club to which one still belongs. On such occasions, one would still be
doing something morally wrong – one would therefore not have “escaped” morality –
but one might nevertheless be justified in a more comprehensive way: for example,
one might be either rationally required or rationally justified in acting in a way that
morality condemns.
Some have attempted to defend a weakened version of the overridingness thesis,
according to which the reasons we have do depend on our contingent commitments,
but according to which any genuine commitment to morality entails regarding it as
one’s most important commitment (Phillips 1977; Shiffrin 1999), at least in cases of
conflict between its verdicts and those of some other domain. Against this strategy,
one might point out that there seem to be religious people who are honestly
committed to morality, but for whom religious requirements trump all other
concerns. Hence, this strategy, which is in some sense a psychological hypothesis,
seems falsified by empirical evidence.
The central conflict that most theorists have in mind when discussing the
overridingness of morality is the conflict between morality and self-interest. If this
is what one is primarily thinking about, then it may seem that one can defend the
overridingness of morality by noting that while verdicts regarding self-interest do
not take moral considerations into account, moral verdicts do take considerations
regarding self-interest into account. For example, it can count as a moral justifica-
tion for the violation of a promise, that keeping the promise would involve signifi-
cant hardship that was unforeseen at the time the promise was initially made.
Similarly, considerations of self-defense can sometimes morally justify the injury of
other people. It can thus appear that moral verdicts take other things into account,
and can be viewed as all-things-considered verdicts (Becker 1973). And, from this
conclusion, it is a short step to the further conclusion that what one ought to do –
full stop – is what morality requires. However, there are two worries about this line
of thought. The first is that morality may simply not take everything into account. It
is a common claim that certain considerations – ones that might in fact have a
psychological pull on us – are morally irrelevant. If any of these claims are true, this
means that morality does not in fact take them into account. It would take much
more than a simple appeal to a handful of cases in which self-interest is morally
relevant to establish that none of the considerations that are morally irrelevant are
ever themselves genuine practical reasons. A second problem for the strategy of
assuming that morality is all-inclusive is that, even if it is true that moral verdicts
take all the relevant practical reasons into account, those verdicts might not take
4
them into account in the same way in which, say, verdicts of prudence or self-interest
do. That is, to say that morality takes considerations of self-interest into account – as
the preceding examples show is sometimes true – is not yet to say that those very
same self-interested considerations might not justify, in some more comprehensive
way, acting against moral requirements. This would happen if morality took
self-interest into account, but discounted its importance to some degree.
One common way of thinking of the overridingness thesis is in terms of an overarching
normative system, which we might call “rationality.” This system takes as input the over-
all verdicts of special domains such as morality, prudence, and etiquette, and combines
them to yield an all-things-considered verdict. The overridingness thesis is that when-
ever one of these input verdicts is “morally required,” then the all-things-considered
verdict – the verdict of rationality – favors that action. What is distinctive about this
interpretation is that the overall verdicts of each special normative domain are treated as
distinct reasons, each quite independent of the other (see Haji 1998 and McLeod 2001).
One apparent problem with the view that the overarching domain of rationality
takes the verdicts of the special domains as inputs is that those verdicts are presumably
backed by reasons. To take those verdicts themselves as reasons seems to involve an
objectionable double-counting. For example, some plausible reasons why murder is
wrong are that it deprives someone of some part of the life he or she would otherwise
have lived, and that it causes suffering to the friends and family of the person who is
killed. These are reasons against murder – reasons that presumably should be taken
into account by any verdict issued by the overarching domain of rationality. However,
if the moral wrongness of the murder also counts as a reason relevant to an overall
assessment, these reasons seem to be counted twice.
The preceding problem with the verdict-based interpretation of overridingness
leads to another way of thinking of overridingness, and of thinking of rationality as
an overarching normative system. This interpretation begins with the idea that there
is a domain of generic practical reasons – reasons that have some power to require
us to act, and some power to justify us in acting against other such reasons. It also
holds that the rational status of an action is determined by some function of these
reasons. If one takes this view, then the bare verdicts of certain normative domains
might be shown not to entail the existence of any reason whatsoever. For example, it
may be that a requirement of etiquette just by itself provides no such reason. Of
course, this is consistent with the fact that one may have instrumental reasons to act
in line with such requirements: say, if one wishes to placate a powerful person who
takes such requirements very seriously. On the reasons-based approach to moral
overridingness, what one would need to show, in order to demonstrate that morality
is overriding, is that whenever an action is morally required, that same action is
favored by reasons that somehow outweigh – or decisively oppose in some other
way, such as by undermining – the reasons favoring any contrary action. This would
be enough to show that moral verdicts defeat the conflicting verdicts of any other
normative domain, except the overarching domain of rationality that gives sense
to the overridingness thesis. Nor could there ever be a conflict between morality
and rationality on this view. It should be noted that this interpretation of the
5
overridingness thesis is very closely related to the thesis of moral rationalism (see
rationalism in ethics). This is the thesis that moral requirements are somehow
the product of rationality (Nagel 1970: 3; Korsgaard 1986: 5).
However, the idea that overridingness should be understood simply in terms of
the weight of all relevant practical reasons also faces troubles – at least for those who
advocate the overridingness thesis. Sarah Stroud illustrates this problem by asking us
to consider a series of moral views. The first such view takes only other-regarding
reasons into account, and requires us to act in the ways maximally favored by
such reasons. The problem that this view presents for the overridingness thesis is
that the reasons that are excluded by this moral theory return to claim their due
when we turn to consider what action is favored by the totality of reasons. And there
is no reason to believe that they cannot yield a verdict that is opposed to the moral
verdict. Suppose then that we allow self-interested reasons some weight in the moral
theory – but not the full weight they receive from the general perspective on reasons
that is unattached to any special normative domain. The problem then remains the
same: from the general perspective, these “discounted” reasons become undis-
counted, and may yield a verdict at odds with the moral one. Even a purely conse-
quentialist moral theory, which considers the agent’s interests as equal to the
interests of other people, may create problems for the defender of moral overridingness
(see consequentialism). At least this is true if, as Stroud believes, “all else being
equal, a person’s reasons for pursuing her own aims are stronger than her reasons to
advance someone else’s” (Stroud 1998: 183).
Stroud argues persuasively that overridingness, interpreted in terms of reasons, is
incompatible with various moral theories. However, her point can be carried further
than she carries it. For if the claim of moral overridingness is simply the claim that a
morally required action is always uniquely favored by the totality of relevant reasons,
then the only kind of moral theory that could possibly vindicate overridingness is a
theory on which moral requirements are simply a subset (perhaps a maximal subset)
of those actions uniquely favored by reasons. Consider, for example, a contractualist
theory that explains moral requirements in terms of a set of rules that rational people
would agree on in certain hypothetical circumstances (see contractualism). There
is absolutely no reason to suppose that an action required by such a set of rules will
also always be maximally favored by the available reasons in the actual circumstances
in which an agent must decide how to act, for the choice of the set of rules is not even
the choice of an action – it is the choice of a comprehensive system. The reasons that
favor choosing such a system under certain hypothetical circumstances will derive,
at least in part, from the consequences of that system being generally known and
accepted. These reasons are simply very different from the reasons of relevance to
the decision of a specific agent regarding the choice of a particular action in particular
circumstances. And there is no reason to think that the action favored by the favored
system will also independently be uniquely favored by the available reasons in those
particular circumstances. Of course, the incompatibility of the overridingness thesis
with a contractualist theory by itself does not indicate which of the two ought to be
abandoned or modified.
6
A weaker hypothesis, closely related to overridingness, is that if an action is

morally required, then the available reasons never uniquely favor acting contrary to
that moral requirement. One way of defending this position would be to appeal to
incommensurability of reasons (see incommensurability (and incomparability)).
If the reasons that favor a morally required action are always incommensurable with
the reasons that stand behind other reason-backed verdicts such as the verdicts of
prudence or self-interest, then those latter reasons will not be stronger than the
moral reasons, and therefore the totality of relevant reasons will not uniquely favor
acting contrary to morality. A related suggestion is that generic practical reasons
play two roles: requiring action, and justifying action that the agent would otherwise
be required not to perform. If this is true, and if the reasons that stand behind moral
requirements always have sufficient strength in the justifying role, then it is possible
that one might never be required to act contrary to morality.
See also: consequentialism; contractualism; incommensurability

(and incomparability); rationalism in ethics; rationality; reasons;
satisficing; supererogation
REFERENCES
Becker, Lawrence 1973. “The Finality of Moral Judgments: A Reply to Mrs. Foot,” Philosophical
Review, vol. 82, pp. 364–70.
Foot, Philippa 1972. “Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives,” Philosophical Review,
vol. 81, pp. 305–16.
Haji, Ishtiyaque 1998. “On Morality’s Dethronement,” Philosophical Papers, vol. 27, pp. 161–80.
Hobbes, Thomas 1994 [1651]. Leviathan, ed. Edwin Curley. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Kant, Immanuel 1993 [1785]. Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, ed. James Ellington.
Indianapolis: Hackett.
Korsgaard, Christine 1986. “Skepticism about Practical Reason,” Journal of Philosophy,
vol. 83, pp. 5–25.
McLeod, Owen 2001. “Just Plain ‘Ought,’” Journal of Ethics, vol. 5, pp. 269–91.
Mill, John Stuart 2001 [1861]. Utilitarianism, ed. George Sher. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Nagel, Thomas 1970. The Possibility of Altruism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Phillips, D. Z. 1977. “In Search of the Moral ‘Must’: Mrs Foot’s Fugitive Thought,” Philosophical
Quarterly, vol. 27, pp. 140–57.
Shiffrin, Seana 1999. “Moral Overridingness and Moral Subjectivism,” Ethics, vol. 109,
pp. 772–94.
Sidgwick, Henry 1981 [1907]. The Methods of Ethics. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Stroud, Sarah 1998. “Moral Overridingness and Moral Theory,” Pacific Philosophical
FURTHER READINGS
Copp, David 1997. “The Ring of Gyges: Overridingness and the Unity of Reason,” Social
Philosophy and Policy, vol. 14, pp. 86–106.
7
Isaacs, Tracy, and Diane Jeske 1997. “Moral Deliberation, Nonmoral Ends, and the Virtuous
Agent,” Ethics, vol. 107, pp. 486–500.
McDowell, John 1978. “Are Moral Requirements Hypothetical Imperatives?” Proceedings of
the Aristotelian Society, suppl. vol. 52, pp. 13–29.
Nagel, Thomas 1986. The View from Nowhere. New York: Oxford University Press.
Taylor, Paul 1978. “On Taking the Moral Point of View,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy, vol. 3,
pp. 35–61.
Scheffler, Samuel 1992. Human Morality. New York: Oxford University Press.
Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter 1987. “Moral Dilemmas and ‘Ought and Ought Not,’” Canadian
Journal of Philosophy, vol. 17, pp. 127–39.
Terrell, Huntington 1969. “Are Moral Considerations Always Overriding?” Australian Journal
of Philosophy, vol. 47, pp. 51–60.
Tiberius, Valerie 2005. “Value Commitments and the Balanced Life,” Utilitas, vol. 17,
pp. 24–45.
Timmermann, Jens 2006. “Kantian Duties to the Self, Explained and Defended,” Philosophy,
vol. 81, pp. 505–30.
Wolf, Susan 1982. “Moral Saints,” Journal of Philosophy, vol. 79, pp. 419–39.
1
Companion Animals
Clare Palmer
Companion animals are nonhuman beings with whom humans choose to cohabit
for reasons such as companionship and entertainment, rather than for food or
profit. Households across the world include companion animals, most commonly
domesticated dogs and cats, but also other small domesticated mammals, reptiles,
fish, and even insects. Keeping companion animals raises a variety of ethical issues,
both general (in that such issues arise in all human–animal interactions) and specific
(concerning the domestication, breeding, and keeping of animals in human homes).
Most companion animals are believed to have the capacity to feel pain and pleas-
ure; their lives can thus be experientially better or worse for them. This conclusion
is fairly secure in the case of mammals; somewhat less so in the case of reptiles and
fish. On many ethical views (see utilitarianism) the capacity to feel pain provides
sufficient grounds for moral status (see animals, moral status of). Causing pain
to a companion animal, if unrelated to welfare, on this view would normally be
morally wrong – a position widely reflected in animal welfare legislation.
Some philosophers make stronger claims about the moral status of at least some
animals kept as human companions. Regan (1984) argues that adult mammals have
inherent value on the basis of various sophisticated mental capacities he claims
that they possess (see animal cognition; animal rights). This inherent value
underpins animals’ rights, including the right to respect, and, more specifically, the
right not to be killed, imprisoned, or tortured. The possession of such rights would
have implications for common ways of treating companion animals. For instance,
euthanizing healthy but unwanted companion animals would infringe on their
right not to be killed, while some forms of confinement might infringe on
their right to liberty. Keeping companion animals solely for their usefulness, where
this fails to recognize the animal’s independent interests, would also be morally
problematic.
Additionally, companion animals may be thought of as having special, morally
significant relations either to humans in general, or to the individual humans with
whom they have particular ties. Some philosophers argue that the relationship
between humans and all domesticated animals should be viewed as a kind of
contract, where humans provide care and protection in return for animal services
(Callicott 1989). This view is controversial, however, since animals are unable to
understand, agree to, or exit from such a contract (see contractualism). At the
level of particular households, it can plausibly be argued that in voluntarily agreeing
to care for a companion animal, a person has taken on special obligations to provide
for and protect it – in particular as doing so frequently closes down the animal’s
alternative options for living well (Burgess-Jackson 1998). Finally, creating animals
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee011
2
to be kept in human households raises vexed ethical questions about specialist

breeding, training methods, desexing, euthanizing, the treatment of feral companion
animals, and the interaction of companion animals with wildlife.
Companion animals, then, raise both general ethical questions about human
relations with animals, and more specific ethical problems concerning the creation
and care of animals – often dependent and in consequence vulnerable – that are
bred to live alongside human beings.
See also: animal cognition; animal rights; animals, moral status of;
contractualism; utilitarianism
REFERENCES
Burgess-Jackson, Keith 1998. “Doing Right by our Animal Companions,” Journal of Ethics,
vol. 2, pp. 159–85.
Callicott, J. Baird 1989. “Animal Liberation and Environmental Ethics: Back Together Again,”
in J. Baird Callicott (ed.), In Defense of the Land Ethic. Albany: State University of
New York Press, pp. 49–59.
Regan, Tom 1984. The Case for Animal Rights. London: Routledge.
FURTHER READINGS
Palmer, Clare 2006. “Killing Animals in Animal Shelters,” in Animal Studies Group (ed.),
Killing Animals. Champaign-Urbana: University of Illinois Press, pp. 170–87.
Podberscek, Anthony, Elizabeth Paul, and James Serpell (eds.) 2000. Companion Animals and
Us: Exploring the Relations between People and Pets. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Singer, Peter 1993. Practical Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tuan, Yi-Fu 1984. Dominance and Affection: The Making of Pets. New Haven: Yale University
Press.
1
Response-Dependent Theories
Joshua Gert
We need not doubt the sincerity or linguistic competence of someone in order to
think that some of her moral – or other normative or evaluative – views are in error.
This seems to support the idea that some evaluative properties are objective. On the
other hand, it is hard to understand how there could be evaluative properties “out
there,” independent of human sensibilities. There have been many philosophical
attempts to account for our thinking and talking about evaluative and moral matters
in ways that seem characteristic of objective domains while retaining the link to
human sensibility. Some of these attempts do not straightforwardly accept the exist-
ence of any objective evaluative properties (see quasi-realism). However, the strat-
egy of response-dependent theories takes its point of departure from a comparison
between evaluative properties and secondary qualities such as colors. The color of
an object is plausibly regarded as an objective matter of fact. However, this need not
force us to think of color properties as completely mind-independent. Rather, we
can think of color properties as powers to produce certain visual experiences in a
certain class of observers under certain conditions. And it can be an objective matter
whether a given object does or does not have such a power.
Broadly conceived, response-dependent theories of value can be understood as
theories that employ the strategy of explaining values – or our value concepts – in
terms of characteristic human responses. On this broad conception, we might
include Protagoras as a response-dependent theorist. For one way for man to be the
measure of all things is for those things to be in some way determined by the
responses of human beings. There is also a very plausible account of Hume accord-
ing to which he belongs to this tradition, since it is by appeal to common patterns
of approbation and censure that he draws the moral distinctions that he does (see
sentimentalism). It is also plausible to regard ideal observer theories as versions
of response-dependence, as long as the nature of the ideal observer has some strong
relation to human nature (see ideal observer theories).
At the highest level of abstraction, response-dependent accounts of value are ones
in which a biconditional of the following form plays a central role:
x has value V ↔ x is such as to have relation E to a response R in subjects S when

those subjects are in circumstances C.
This formula is open to a great deal of interpretation. To begin, the symbol “↔” can
be interpreted as a material biconditional or as something stronger. Next, the
biconditional can be taken to be a priori or a posteriori, necessary or contingent.
Also, it can be interpreted as an account of the evaluative property V itself, or as an
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee012
2
account of our concept of that property. Moreover, various important distinctions

with regard to V, E, R, S, and C yield importantly different kinds of accounts. One
central distinction is the following: the relation E that an object x has to the response
R can be either (a) that the object elicits the response, or (b) that the object merits
the response. Another important question is whether, in characterizing R, S, and C,
we need to appeal to the very property or concept V. If either R, S, or C are charac-
terized in this way, then the biconditional cannot pretend to be anything like
a reductive analysis of V. Despite this, of course, it still might have considerable
philosophical interest.
Over the past 30 years, there has been a great deal of interest in response-dependent
accounts of value. John McDowell (1985) and David Wiggins (1998) both defend
such accounts, explicitly relying on an analogy with secondary qualities such as
color. For McDowell, a secondary quality is one that we understand an object to have
in virtue of its disposition to present an appearance characterizable only by using a
word for the property itself; for example, we understand redness as a disposition to
produce visual experiences as of something red (McDowell 1985: 111). Values, on his
view, are similar to secondary qualities in that we understand them in terms of
responses that have to be characterized in the same self-referential way. However, in
the case of secondary qualities, the relation E mentioned in the preceding text is “x is
disposed to elicit response R,” while for values, on their view, it is “x merits response
R” (McDowell 1985: 118). Accounts of this sort can certainly be classified as response-
dependent. However, they can also be classified as fitting-attitude accounts: accounts
that understand values of various sorts as properties that make a certain attitude
fitting or appropriate (see value, fitting-attitude account of). Because of the
crucial appearance of the normative notion of merit or fittingness in the analysans,
these accounts have given rise to their own set of philosophical issues. It is therefore
perhaps best to see them as forming a separate category. We can call them normative
versions of response-dependent theories, as opposed to descriptive versions.
Descriptive response-dependent accounts hold that to have an evaluative
property is to be such as to elicit a certain response – at least in suitable subjects
under suitable conditions. If the relevant response includes some affective or
motivational element, then such an account has obvious promise in explaining and
supporting some version of internalism: a view according to which there is some
form of necessary connection between forming or holding an evaluative belief and
having some motivational attitude towards the object of that belief (see internal-
ism, motivational). Such an account also promises to provide a plausible episte-
mology of the normative, since our affective responses will have the same obvious
evidential value as do our phenomenal color responses (see epistemology, moral).
Even if a response-dependent account of value is descriptive, this need not entail
that it is reductive. It will be reductive only if the relevant response can be specified
without reference either to the target value or to a broader class of values to which
it belongs. Otherwise, it will be nonreductive. For example, a nonreductive but
nevertheless descriptive account might hold that an object O has value V just in
case, in appropriate conditions, the relevant subjects would judge O to have V. The
3
model here might be taken from a nonreductive account of color according to

which to be red is to appear red to relevant subjects. Because of this lack of reduc-
tion, descriptive response-dependent accounts need not count as naturalistic if one
understands naturalism as involving a perspicuous supervenience relation between
normative properties and the properties that figure in the natural sciences (see
naturalism, ethical).
David Lewis (1989) is one of the few philosophers who has offered an explicitly
reductive response-dependent account of value. On the view he defends, something
is a value if and only if we would be disposed to desire to desire it under conditions
of full imaginative acquaintance (1989: 121). Since Lewis understands second-order
desires in nonevaluative terms, this account explains what it is to be a value without
reference to anything evaluative. Lewis’s account is an account of the property of
being a value and not, or not merely, of the concept of being a value. Lewis’s account
is made more subtle by the fact that he acknowledges that our actual value terms are
semantically indeterminate, and that nothing may unequivocally deserve the name
“value” or “goodness.” He is offering his account as one good candidate. Also, his
view self-consciously leaves open the issue of who it is that counts as a member of
the relevant “we.”
It is Mark Johnston (1989) who can be credited with introducing the actual term
“response-dependent concept.” As this term suggests, Johnston’s target is a class of
concepts, not a class of properties. His technical understanding of the notion of a
response-dependent concept – not uniformly followed by those who currently
write on the topic – is the following: a concept, C, is response-dependent if and
only if there are substantial specifications of K, R, and S, such that it is a priori
knowable that:
x is C ↔ in circumstances of the kind K, subjects of kind S are disposed to have

x-directed response R. (See Johnston 1989: 145)
Here, the term “substantial” is meant to exclude a “whatever-it-takes” characterization

of the relevant subjects and circumstances such as “subjects of the kind that gets
judgments of C-ness right in K” or “circumstances in which the C-ness of x will
reveal itself to a subject of kind S.” Johnston’s view does not imply that response-
dependent concepts need be reducible to concepts of our responses, and he explicitly
allows the sort of position attributed to McDowell and Wiggins earlier, on which the
characterization of K, or S, or R will involve the concept C.
As with McDowell and Wiggins, when Johnston provides his account of what it is
to be a value, he makes appeal to a normative notion in a way that undermines the
possibility of a reduction of the domain of the normative. And, like them, he does
this explicitly and does not regard the circularity as a vice. A simplified schema for
the sort of biconditional that Johnston might endorse could be the following:
x is an instance of value V ↔ good practical reasoning supports valuing x in the

way characteristic of V.
4
To say that good practical reasoning supports the taking of some attitude is to say
that substantive practical reasons weighed against each other come down in favor of
taking that attitude. This account of the concept V is not directly response-dependent.
Nevertheless Johnston does count as a response-dependent theorist, because his
account of substantive practical reasons, and methods for weighing them against
each other, is response-dependent. For Johnston, the concept of a substantive practi-
cal reason is the concept of whatever we would stably come to take to be such a rea-
son under conditions of increasing information and critical reflection. And
reasonable methods of weighing reasons, similarly, are those methods that would
stably come to seem to us to be reasonable under similar conditions. These takings
and seemings are the responses which, under ideal conditions, make something
count as a reason, and make a weighing of reasons count as correct. And this makes
Johnston’s account response-dependent. We might call it a direct response-dependent
account of substantive practical reason, and a derivative response-dependent account
of values (see buck-passing accounts).
One advantage Johnston (1989: 154–5) sees in giving a privileged role to sub-
stantive practical reason in his account of value is that this helps to explain the
supervenience of the evaluative on the descriptive (see supervenience, moral).
On Johnston’s view, a purely causal or psychological account of the way in which a
value elicits its characteristic response – that is, an account that does not appeal to
substantive practical reason – cannot adequately explain this supervenience, since
it is merely an empirical matter that like causes cause like effects. However, it is
among the canons of practical reason that one cannot reach different conclusions
regarding the values of two different things without justifying that difference by
reference to some distinct underlying difference. This is in some sense a result of
his response-dependent account of good practical reasoning, since this canon of
practical reason counts as a canon because of our stably taking it to be one
(Johnston 1989: 162–3).
Crispin Wright (1988) is one of the central critics of a certain kind of descriptive
response-dependent account of value: one that takes values to be strongly analogous
to secondary qualities, in the sense that it is our responses that determine the
extensions of our evaluative terms. For purposes of criticism, Wright discusses
views according to which the relevant responses are beliefs: beliefs that a certain
object is red, or that a certain action is morally wrong. He defends the plausibility of
an a priori biconditional linking the redness of an object with the beliefs that appro-
priate viewers would form regarding the color of that object under normal condi-
tions. Importantly for Wright, the terms “appropriate” and “normal” here can be
interpreted in a statistical way, without having to mention redness or color (1988:
15–6). This allows our “best beliefs” about the colors of objects to determine the
extension of color terms, rather than tracking truths determined in some other way
(see euthyphro dilemma). Wright takes this fact about color terms to be what is
essential to thinking of them as response-dependent. In terms of our earlier and
more general description of response-dependent accounts, Wright is restricting his
use of the term “response-dependent” to descriptive accounts in which subjects S
5
and circumstances C are both specified in a noncircular way, but in which response
R need not be.
On Wright’s restricted understanding of response-dependence, concepts such as
“square” are correctly categorized as not being response-dependent. The reason for
this is that, in the case of squareness, we can defend an a priori biconditional similar
to the one that holds for “red” only if we specify that the conditions C under which
we form our beliefs about the squareness of an object are ones in which the shape of
that object does not change. That is, in an attempt to construct an a priori bicondi-
tional for squareness, C will have to be specified in a way that makes use of shape
concepts. The involvement of shape concepts in the specification of C undermines
any attempt to claim that it is our best beliefs about the shapes of objects that deter-
mine the facts about those shapes. It is this difference from “red” that Wright takes
to be characteristic of the difference between secondary qualities and primary qual-
ities. With this in mind, Wright argues that when we try to defend a similar a priori
of biconditional in the case of a term such as “morally wrong,” we get the absurd
result that moral wrongness is more like squareness than like redness: that it is a
primary quality, not a secondary quality, at least if it must be one or the other. For we
cannot specify what normal conditions are in a way that guarantees a priori that we
get the appropriate response from our subject, unless we specify that the subject is
morally suitable. This means that, as in the case of shapes, we cannot think of our
responses as fixing the extension of “morally wrong.” Wright’s conclusion is that we
ought to give up trying to explain evaluative properties in terms of a priori bicondi-
tionals involving the responses that such properties elicit (1988: 24).
One feature of Wright’s primary criticism of response-dependent accounts of
value is that it is based almost exclusively on an examination of one particular value:
the moral (dis)value of culpable insensitivity. However, the domain of the evaluative
is perhaps as large and heterogeneous as the domain of the descriptive, so that the
failure of response-dependence to give a good account of one particular evaluative
property has very little force against other such attempts. Hence, even though Wright
is correct in asserting that we have no reason to expect that a nonmoral characteriza-
tion of the relevant subjects will allow us to know a priori that such subjects will have
the appropriate response to instances of moral properties, the same might not be
true for other evaluative properties. For example, it may be a priori knowable that
normal people – specified in some sort of statistical way – are averse to harms.
Joshua Gert (2009) takes advantage of the heterogeneity that Wright seems to
ignore, and offers a response-dependent account of practical irrationality (see
rationality). The response of relevance to his account is the salient failure of a
mechanism that automatically interprets human behavior as intentional: a kind of
puzzlement response, though it need not have a particular conscious phenomenol-
ogy. Gert takes irrationality to be more basic than rationality, and he understands
rational action simply to be intentional action that is not irrational (2009: 725–7).
Gert’s account plausibly avoids Wright’s central criticism of response-dependent
accounts of value. At least, this it true if it is plausible that we can specify, in broadly
statistical terms, the kinds of subjects and conditions such that the responses of
6
those subjects under those conditions are plausibly taken to determine the extension
of the concept of irrational action. Gert’s account of rationality can also underwrite
an account of practical reasons, on the assumption that there are patterns to be
found in the extension of the concepts of rational and irrational actions. If there are
such patterns, then it may be possible to understand practical reasons as considera-
tions that make systematic and roughly quantifiable contributions to the overall
rational status of those actions to which they are relevant (see particularism). On
Gert’s view, there are many such considerations, and they include facts of the follow-
ing sort: that the action is likely to cause (or spare) the agent a certain amount of
pain, or that the action is likely to cause (or prevent) the death or injury of some
third party (2009: 732). Gert has argued that, with the notions of rationality and
reasons in hand, it may be possible to construct a moral theory that is not directly
response-dependent, but that imports no other normative notions and is therefore
just as naturalistically respectable as the response-dependent normative notions on
which it rests.
Ralph Wedgwood (1998) is a response-dependent theorist whose focus is very
clearly on certain properties, and not on our concepts of those properties. Indeed,
Wedgwood complains that most response-dependent accounts are only accounts of
what it is for a concept to be response-dependent, but say nothing about the intrinsic
nature of the properties which those concepts pick out. In contrast with these,
Wedgwood defends a view that makes heavy use of an intuitive but unexplained
notion of the constitutive essence of a property (1998: 46–50). To give the constitutive
essence of a property is not merely to give necessary and sufficient conditions for
an object to have that property, nor does it need a formula that gives a constitutive
essence be a priori: for example, the claim that water is H2O gives the constitutive
essence of water, but it is not a priori. Rather, to give the constitutive essence of
an object or property is to say what it is that makes something count as that object or
property. Wedgwood’s claim regarding response-dependent properties is that
their constitutive essences somehow involve our responses to objects that have those
properties. The most straightforward way of involving them would be for those prop-
erties to be dispositions to produce the responses. There is a possibility of circularity
here, if the responses of relevance have constitutive essences that involve the very
property to which they are a response. However, similar to most other response-
dependent theorists, Wedgwood is not bothered by the threat of this sort of circularity.
In contrast to Wedgwood, Jussi Haukioja (2001) takes the biconditional that is
central to response-dependent accounts to be noncircular. Also in contrast to
Wedgwood, he does not take the biconditional to give the essence of the target prop-
erty. On Haukioja’s understanding, we should interpret the biconditional as a refer-
ence-fixing “definition” of the response-dependent term. This yields a priori that the
relevant property is such as to elicit the corresponding response, but it also makes
this proposition contingent – at least if we take the class of relevant subjects to be us,
as we actually are, and if we take the resulting term to be a rigid designator (Haukioja
2001: 116). Although this approach, supplemented by empirical investigation, will
yield an account of the actual property, rather than the concept of the property,
7
Wedgwood would not regard it as a genuinely response-dependent account. This is

because the property picked out by the reference-fixing “definition” might well sim-
ply be some categorical property: in the case of the value of harm, for example, it
might simply be the disjunctive property “… is an instance of pain, or injury, or
permanent loss of consciousness, or …” Nevertheless, philosophers such as Haukioja
take response-dependence simply to entail that there is a contingent a priori bicondi-
tional for which the reference-fixing description is given in terms of human responses.
Kevin Mulligan (1998) points out and criticizes one apparent assumption in
many response-dependent accounts of value: the assumption that, for any given
value, there will be one specific appropriate response. Such accounts seem to take
the analogy with color very seriously and seem also to assume that, in the case of a
specific color, there will be a uniquely veridical response. In fact, however, the case
of color can itself plausibly be understood to imply that many response-dependent
properties will elicit (or make appropriate) a wide range of responses in normal
conditions. After all, a particular apple will not present the very same color appear-
ance outdoors at noon on a sunny summer day and in the afternoon on an overcast
autumn day. And yet, there is no principled reason for excluding one of these view-
ing conditions as abnormal. In this respect, secondary qualities are no different
from shapes, which present varying but equally veridical appearances under differ-
ent viewing conditions. Mulligan is correct that most response-dependent accounts
of value are over-simple in the way he describes. However, there is no obstacle to
response-dependent accounts of value allowing that the very same value – or the
very same instantiation of a value – might elicit a range of responses, depending on
the relation between the subject and the value. Such accounts can still qualify as
response-dependent if the patterns of response somehow determine the extension
of the associated evaluative concept.
Another way of trying to deal with Mulligan’s worry would be to hold that
response-dependence is only a reasonable strategy when there is a fairly specific
response that is uniquely appropriate. One might concede that this is not true for
many values, but that it nevertheless is true for some. In particular, one might hold
that “thin” values such as goodness and rightness elicit a wide range of emotions
because there are so many distinct kinds of goodness and rightness. However, one
might also hold that “thick” values can be thought of as related to thin values as
determinate to determinable (see thick and thin concepts). Given that the thick
values are more determinate, there is more plausibility to the claim that they will
elicit a more specific response in relevant subjects under appropriate conditions.
This is another way of motivating the idea that response-dependence need not be
seen as a monolithic strategy that is equally suitable for all normative notions.
One general worry about descriptive response-dependent accounts of value, dis-
cussed independently by Jeremy Koons (2003) and Sean Holland (2001), is that they
entail an objectionable relativism (see relativism, moral). In the case of color, we
would not be bothered if two populations had quite distinct extensions for their
color concepts. However, in the case of many evaluative concepts, if the relevant
responses (typically affective) were identical, then systematic and significant
8
discrepancies in the class of object towards which those responses were directed in
two communities (actual or possible) would not be as easy to accept. Indeed, it
would suggest that one of the groups was making an evaluative error. That is, if we
suppose that two groups use, say, moral language in formally similar ways (they
condemn the actions they call “immoral,” set up laws that prohibit such action, raise
their children to avoid it, and so on), but have very significantly different extensions
for such terms as “morally wrong,” then we will regard differences in classification as
genuine moral disagreements. However, a response-dependent account of moral
value runs the risk of suggesting that the two populations simply have different
“normal” subjects or “normal” conditions of appraisal, and therefore use “morally
wrong” to express distinct concepts. It is worth noting that normative response-
dependent accounts of value of the sort advocated by McDowell and Wiggins, which
can also be described as fitting-attitude accounts, do not suffer from this problem
about relativism. For example, even if a population has a response to torture very
different from ours, this need not put any particular strain on our view that, never-
theless, our response is the one that is merited. And if the horrific is what merits
horror, we can continue to regard torture as horrific.
See also: buck-passing accounts; epistemology, moral; euthyphro

dilemma; ideal observer theories; internalism, motivational;
naturalism, ethical; particularism; quasi-realism; rationality;
relativism, moral; sentimentalism; supervenience, moral;
thick and thin concepts; value, fitting-attitude account of
REFERENCES
Gert, Joshua 2009. “Response-Dependence and Normative Bedrock,” Philosophy and
Haukioja, Jussi 2001. “The Modal Status of Basic Equations,” Philosophical Studies, vol. 104,
pp. 115–22.
Holland, Sean 2001. “Dispositional Theories of Value Meet Moral Twin Earth,” American
Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 38, pp. 177–95.
Johnston, Mark 1989. “Dispositional Theories of Value,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian
Society, suppl. vol. 63, pp. 139–74.
Koons, Jeremy 2003. “Why Response-Dependence Theories of Morality are False,” Ethical
Theory and Moral Practice, vol. 6, pp. 275–94.
Lewis, David 1989. “Dispositional Theories of Value,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society,
suppl. vol. 63, pp. 113–37.
McDowell, John 1985. “Values and Secondary Qualities,” in Ted Honderich (ed.), Morality
and Objectivity: A Tribute to J. L. Mackie. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, pp. 110–29.
Mulligan, Kevin 1998. “From Appropriate Emotions to Values,” The Monist, vol. 81, pp. 161–87.
Wedgwood, Ralph 1998. “The Essence of Response-Dependence,” in Roberto Casati and
Christine Tappolet (eds.), European Review of Philosophy, Volume 3: Response-
Dependence. Stanford: SCLI Publications, pp. 31–54.
9
Wiggins, David 1998. “A Sensible Subjectivism,” Needs, Values, Truth, 3rd ed. New York:
Wright, Crispin 1988. “Moral Values, Projection and Secondary Qualities,” Proceedings of the
Aristotelian Society, suppl. vol. 62, pp. 1–26.
FURTHER READINGS
Blackburn, Simon 1993. “Errors and the Phenomenology of Value,” Essays in Quasi-Realism.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Bower, Bruce 1993. “Dispositional Ethical Realism,” Ethics, vol. 103, pp. 221–49.
Campbell, John, and Robert Pargetter 1986. “Goodness and Fragility,” American Philosophical
Cuneo, Terrence 2001. “Are Moral Qualities Response-Dependent,” Noûs, vol. 35, pp. 569–91.
Haukioja, Jussi 2007. “How (Not) to Specify Normal Conditions for Response-Dependent
Concepts,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 85, pp. 325–31.
Kawall, Jason 2004. “Moral Response-Dependence, Ideal Observers, and the Motive of Duty:
Responding to Zangwill,” Erkenntnis, vol. 60, pp. 357–69.
Lebar, Mark 2005. “Three Dogmas of Response-Dependence,” Philosophical Studies, vol. 123,
pp. 175–211.
Pettit, Philip 1991. “Realism and Response-Dependence,” Mind, vol. 100, pp. 587–626.
Railton, Peter 1998. “Red, Bitter, Good,” in Roberto Casati and Christine Tappolet (eds.),
European Review of Philosophy, Volume 3: Response-Dependence. Stanford: SCLI
Publications, pp. 67–84.
Smith, Michael 1989. “Dispositional Theories of Value,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society,
suppl. vol. 63, pp. 89–111.
Tappolet, Christine 2004. “Through Thick and Thin: Good and Its Determinates,” Dialectica,
vol. 58, pp. 207–21.
Thompson, Brad 2006. “Moral Value, Response-Dependence, and Rigid Designation,”
Canadian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 36, pp. 71–94.
Zangwill, Nick 2003. “Against Moral Response-Dependence,” Erkenntnis, vol. 59, pp. 285–90.
1
Phenomenology, Moral
Uriah Kriegel
In the philosophy of mind, the study of mental life has tended to focus on three central
aspects of mental states: their representational content, their functional role, and their
phenomenal character. The representational content of a mental state is what the state
represents, what it is about; its functional role is the role it plays within the functional
organization of the subject’s overall psychology; its phenomenal character is the expe-
riential or subjective quality that goes with what it is like, from the inside, to be in it.
The study of this third aspect of mental life is known as phenomenology. Thus, moral
phenomenology is the study of the experiential dimension of our moral inner life – of
the phenomenal character of moral mental states.
(The term “moral phenomenology” is sometimes used to denote a subject and
sometimes to denote a subject matter. Here, I will reserve it for the subject, and use
“moral experience” to denote the subject matter. Under this terminological regime,
moral phenomenology is the dedicated study of moral experience.)
Many different questions arise within moral phenomenology, but perhaps they
can be profitably organized into three types of question. The first concerns the scope
of moral experience: How much of our moral mental life is experiential? That is,
which moral mental states have a phenomenal character? The second concerns the
nature of moral experience: What is it like to undergo the various kinds of moral
experience we have? That is, what is the proper phenomenological analysis of
each type of moral experience? The third concerns the theoretical effect of
moral experience: How might our understanding of moral experience impact central
debates in moral philosophy? That is, what are the consequences of phenomenological
“results” on larger ethical and metaethical questions? We will now consider each of
these types of question.
In considering the scope of moral experience, the least controversial varieties will
involve areas of mental life that both are uncontroversially moral and clearly have an
experiential dimension. Moral emotions (see emotion) are a case in point: the
feeling of indignation at a certain injustice is clearly a moral mental state and has a
characteristic phenomenal character. The same holds for certain varieties of respect,
compassion, gratitude, contempt, (out)rage, guilt, and other moral emotions.
Likewise, there are certain agentive or conative mental states that clearly appear both
moral and experiential – conscious moral desire (see desire), moral intention (see
intention), and moral decision come to mind.
More controversial forms of moral experience are moral perception (see
perception, moral) and moral judgment or belief. They are controversial for
different reasons: it is clear that perception has a phenomenal character, but
controversial that any perception is genuinely moral; by contrast, it is clear that some
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee013
2
judgments/beliefs are genuinely moral, but less clear that any judgments or beliefs
have a phenomenal character. Thus, admitting the existence of these kinds of moral
experience involves certain substantive commitments. Sensibility theorists
(McDowell 1979; see sensibility theory), for example, will argue that there is a
kind of perception which is genuinely moral, and therefore that some moral experi-
ence is perceptual. Some proponents of cognitive phenomenology (Strawson 1994;
Pitt 2004) – philosophers who argue that purely cognitive mental states do some-
times exhibit a proprietary type of phenomenal character – could argue that moral
judgments/beliefs have a distinctive phenomenal character, and therefore qualify as
a type of moral experience.
An expansive moral phenomenology would admit not only moral emotion and
agency, but also moral perception and cognition (judgments/beliefs), and perhaps even
more (e.g., sui generis moral intuition), as forms of moral experience. A more timid
moral phenomenology would accept only moral emotion and agency, or perhaps even
less (e.g., denying moral agency is experiential), as genuine moral experience. How the
question of the scope of moral experience is settled will depend partly on empirical
results of the appropriate inquiry, but also on conceptual and methodological issues
concerning what it takes for something to qualify as “experiential” or “phenomenal,”
and how we ought to cull and analyze phenomenological data.
Let us move on, then, to the question of the nature of moral experience. Here, the
phenomenological investigation can be pursued at two levels, global and local. At a
global level, there are questions concerning the extrinsic relations that episodes of
moral experience bear to each other and to nonexperiential mental states: (i) how
much of our stream of consciousness is taken up by moral experience, (ii) how much
of our moral experience is emotional, how much cognitive, or how much perceptual,
(iii) what kinds of patterns of interaction can be found between moral and nonmoral
experiential episodes, etc. At a local level, there are questions concerning the
internal phenomenal character and structure of specific episodes of moral
experience: (i) whether there is a phenomenal feature which is common and peculiar
to moral experiences, and which can thus serve as the “phenomenal signature” of
moral experience, (ii) whether the phenomenal character of prototypical episodes
of moral experience is more cognitive or more conative in nature, (iii) whether any
moral experiences phenomenally present themselves as having objective pretensions,
etc. These local questions, as I have called them, are the questions that moral
phenomenologists have tended to focus on, and so will I.
One of the earliest modern dedicated discussion of the phenomenal character of
moral experience is in Maurice Mandelbaum’s (1955) book The Phenomenology of
Moral Experience (see Horgan and Timmons 2008a, 2008b). According to Mandelbaum,
the prototypical moral experience is that of a “direct moral judgment,” where one is
confronted with a morally pregnant situation calling on one to react. Such experiences,
claims Mandelbaum, involve a phenomenal character of felt demand. Mandelbaum
describes this phenomenal character as a sort of force, which like every force has a
source and a direction: the source is always experienced as external to us, and the
direction always as pointed at us.
3
Mandelbaum’s analysis casts the phenomenal character of moral experience as

having a straightforward objectivist purport. According to Horgan and Timmons
(2008b), however, things are a little subtler than this. They suggest that moral
experience has an objective purport only in a limited sense. It has objective purport
inasmuch as it has a belief-ish phenomenal character, and moreover phenomenally
presents itself as impartial, nonarbitrary, and reason-based. However, it does not
necessarily present itself phenomenally as answerable to external, mind-independent
facts, and to that extent it does not have a more robust objectivist or realist purport.
In a different vein, Loeb (2007) argues that while the phenomenal character of some
moral experiences has an objective purport, that of others does not, and so it is not
a constitutive or universal feature of moral experience that it has objective purport
in this way.
In other places, Horgan and Timmons (2007) make a similar claim by saying
that the phenomenal character of moral experience is cognitive but not descriptive.
What makes it cognitive is the fact that it exhibits, according to them, the
phenomenal hallmarks of belief, of which they suggest five: (i) involving a feeling
as of “coming down” on an issue, where (ii) there is an application of a sortal, or a
categorization of objects, in a manner that is experienced (iii) as involuntary, (iv)
as rationally imposed by reasons, and (v) as lending itself to verbal expression
through a declarative sentence. This fivefold character of moral experience does
not involve, however, presenting the experience as attempting to “get right” mind-
independent moral facts, which is what a descriptive phenomenal character would
involve. In fact, whether the phenomenal character of moral experience is descrip-
tive in this way is probably not introspectively accessible to us, claim Horgan and
Timmons.
Another phenomenal feature of moral experience, sometimes claimed on behalf
of moral experiences, is that they involve the feeling of being motivated to act on
it – that it is, in this sense, a desire-like state (Kriegel forthcoming; but see Smith
1994 for a contrarian view). This is in line with internalist (see internalism,
motivational), and often non-cognitivist (see non-cognitivism), approaches to
moral judgment, but whereas internalism as typically construed concerns the
functional role of moral judgments (whether it actually inclines the agent to act),
the claim here concerns their phenomenal character (whether it feels like a
motivational state).
Note that many of the claims just surveyed are based on the assumption that
moral experiences exhibit certain phenomenal features that are invariable across
different contexts. Gill (2008) argues against this, and Sinnott-Armstrong (2008)
goes further to argue that moral experiences (and indeed moral mental states in
general) have no features that are common and peculiar to them. At the back-
ground here are some very pressing methodological questions about how to con-
duct a phenomenological inquiry (see Gill 2008; Horgan and Timmons 2008a;
Kriegel 2008) – methodological questions that continue to haunt moral phenom-
enology, though no more than they haunt other areas of phenomenological
investigation.
4
Let us turn, finally, to the question of the theoretical impact and relevance of
moral phenomenology. Here too, it would be useful to distinguish two levels of
relevance: to normative ethics and to metaethics. On the one hand, moral phe-
nomenology can importantly inform debates within and among consequentialist
(see consequentialism), deontological (see deontology), and virtue-ethical
(see virtue ethics) ethical frameworks. On the other hand, it can also inform
debates between cognitivism and expressivism, realism (see realism, moral) and
anti-realism, etc.
To start, consider that there is a potential central role for moral phenomenology
in each of the major (first-order) ethical theories. Thus, in the most straightforward
version of consequentialism, the right action is identified with that which maximizes
the number of utiles (and/or minimizes the number of disutiles) in the world.
However, there are various possible views on the nature of utiles, the units of utility,
as can be seen from the disagreement already between Bentham and Mill (see mill,
john stuart). In particular, different positive mental states compete as potential
utiles. We could enumerate, in order of increasing sophistication and depth, pleasure
(see pleasure), joy, contentment, happiness (see happiness), and fulfillment, but
there are probably others. Observe, now, that what makes these mental states
“positive” is presumably their phenomenal character. Therefore, they are all open to
phenomenological analysis that would attempt to draw out their internal phenomenal
structure and character and the phenomenal differences (as well as similarities)
among them. The results of such phenomenological analysis can be expected to bear
on the question of which mental states we should designate as the ultimate utiles.
This illustrates the central relevance of moral phenomenology to one version of
consequentialism, and other versions are likely to either inherit the same relevance
or be susceptible to a parallel one.
Consider next the first version of deontological ethical theory to come to mind,
the categorical-imperative-centered (see categorical imperative) Kantian ethics
(see kant, immanuel). In its most intuitive formulation – the “humanity formula”
– the categorical imperative calls on us to treat humanity, whether ours or others’,
always also as an end in itself and never merely as a means to other ends. What this
comes to depends on what is involved in treating someone as an end. Note that the
formula does not prohibit treating others as means, only treating them as mere
means, and that this implies that it is possible to treat someone simultaneously as an
end and as a means (e.g., in asking someone for the time while being fully and
self-consciously respectful [see respect] of their rational autonomy [see
autonomy]). This in turns entails that it is impossible to analyze treating someone
as an end purely negatively, in terms of avoiding treating them as a means. Some
positive characterization of treating as an end is called for. This positive
characterization will likely address both the functional role and the phenomenal
character of the mental states of a moral agent who treats someone as an end. More
specifically, it is unlikely that the state of treating someone as an end could be fully
characterized without any phenomenological remarks on the agent’s experience
while treating a patient as an end: it is unlikely that a zombie could be correctly
5
described as treating someone as an end. (Furthermore, Kant explicitly mentions

several duties that appear to involve an experiential dimension, such as the duties to
“actively sympathize” with others and to avoid feelings of arrogance, malice, etc.)
Finally, consider the classical form of virtue ethics, as developed in Aristotle’s
Nicomachean Ethics (see aristotle). Here, the central maxim can be captured in the
principle that we ought to do the right thing “to the right person, at the right amount,
at the right time, for the right end, and in the right way” (1109a27-9). Compare giving
a generous handout to a homeless person with contempt versus with compassion in
one’s heart. And compare further the generously acting person who believes that
homeless people are her equal but cannot stop feeling a sense of superiority toward
them versus the person who feels that homeless people are her equal. The virtuous
agent does not only do the right thing, and does not only believe the right thing, but
also feels the right way. This raises the question of what the virtuous agent feels – what
is the distinctive phenomenal character of what she experiences as she acts gener-
ously. Annas (2008) argues that the phenomenology of virtue is the phenomenology
of flow, where the agent experiences no inner resistance to, and no need for effort in,
performing the right action. Other views of the matter are certainly possible, but it is
clear that a phenomenological investigation into the character and structure of the
experience of virtuous agency ought to be part of the program of virtue ethics.
As for the relevance of moral phenomenology to metaethics, it should be clear
from the preceding discussion of the phenomenal nature of moral experience that
there are immediate implications for central debates in metaethics and moral
psychology.
Consider the debate over moral realism. A traditional argument for realism is that
moral experience presents itself as answering to a realm of mind-independent moral
facts, and so we would be under massive illusion if there were no such facts. Although
some philosophers are willing to bite the bullet and adopt a so-called error theory
about our moral experience (Mackie 1977), most consider that this is a price very
much worth avoiding. To avoid paying this price, one could argue either (i) that the
inference from the character of moral experience to the reality of such moral facts is
problematic, or (ii) that moral experience does not in fact present itself as answering
to moral facts in the way realists have claimed (Loeb 2007). This latter strategy
requires engaging in some moral phenomenology. The result of this engagement
thus directly affects the cases for moral realism and irrealism.
Consider next the debate over cognitivism. The central argument for cognitivism
is probably that which relies on the Frege–Geach observation (see frege–geach
objection) that moral judgments have an inferential role characteristic of the
cognitive/descriptive (Geach 1960). However, arguably, the intuitive pull of
cognitivism owes much to the introspective impression that moral mental states feel
cognitive, or belief-like (Horgan and Timmons 2007). This is why technical
accommodations of the Frege–Geach problem by non-cognitivists (e.g., Gibbard
2003) do not undo the appeal of cognitivism. Thus, it would seem that the battle over
the respective merits of cognitivism and non-cognitivism must be fought on at least
two fronts: the Frege–Geach problem and the phenomenology of moral experience.
6
In conclusion, the area of moral phenomenology is of unmistakable relevance to

the most central issues of moral philosophy, and is relatively wide open in terms of the
number of issues within it that remain underexplored, concerning the scope and
nature of various types of moral experiences. Its pursuit has been limited and disparate
until very recently, but mostly because of a sense of intractability that attached to
phenomenology in general. Yet, in relevant areas of philosophy of mind and cognitive
science, this initial sense of intractability has ceased to be paralyzing some time ago.
It can therefore be expected with some justification that a parallel development will
enhance research in moral phenomenology over the coming years and decades.
See also: aristotle; autonomy; categorical imperative; consequentialism;

deontology; desire; emotion; frege–geach objection; happiness;
intention; internalism, motivational; kant, immanuel; mill, john stuart;
non-cognitivism; perception, moral; pleasure; realism, moral; respect;
sensibility theory; virtue ethics
REFERENCES
Annas, J. 2008. “The Phenomenology of Virtue,” Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences,
vol. 7, pp. 21–34.
Geach, P. T. 1960. “Ascriptivism,” Philosophical Review, vol. 69, pp. 221–5.
Gibbard, A. 2003. Thinking How to Live. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Gill, M. B. 2008. “Variability and Moral Phenomenology,” Phenomenology and the Cognitive
Sciences, vol. 7, pp. 99–113.
Horgan, T., and M. C. Timmons 2007. “Moorean Moral Phenomenology,” in S. Nuccetelli and
G. Seay (eds.), Themes from G. E. Moore. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Horgan, T., and M. C. Timmons 2008a. “Prolegomena to a Future Phenomenology of Morals,”
Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, vol. 7, pp. 115–31.
Horgan, T., and M. C. Timmons 2008b. “What Does Moral Phenomenology Tell Us about
Moral Objectivity?” Social Philosophy and Policy, vol. 25, pp. 267–300.
Kriegel, U. 2008. “Moral Phenomenology: Foundational Issues,” Phenomenology and the
Cognitive Sciences, vol. 7, pp. 1–19.
Kriegel, U. forthcoming. “The Moral Problem: One More Time, with Feeling,” in Z. Radman
(ed.), Critique of Pure Consciousness.
Loeb, D. 2007. “The Argument from Moral Experience,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice,
vol. 10, pp. 469–84.
Mackie, J. L. 1977. Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong. New York: Penguin.
Mandelbaum, M. 1955. The Phenomenology of Moral Experience. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
McDowell, J. 1979. “Virtue and Reason,” The Monist, vol. 62, pp. 331–50.
Pitt, D. 2004. “The Phenomenology of Cognition; or What Is It Like to Think that P?”
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, vol. 69, pp. 1–36.
Sinnott-Armstrong, W. 2008. “Is Moral Phenomenology Unified?” Phenomenology and the
Cognitive Sciences, vol. 7, pp. 85–97.
Smith, M. 1994. The Moral Problem. Oxford: Blackwell.
Strawson, G. 1994. Mental Reality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
1
Distance, Moral Relevance of

Gillian Brock and Nicole Hassoun
Overview and Significance of the Problem

What role should distance play in our normative theories? Does distance matter, for
instance, in deciding who we must help or who deserves moral concern, so that we
have stronger duties to those who are nearer to us than those further away? And
what does it mean to be “nearer to us”: Is this a geographical relation or can people
be nearer to us in other ways, such as emotionally, culturally, or temporally? These
issues are central to deciding some fundamental questions about the nature of our
moral commitments: Who is part of the sphere of moral concern – who deserves
moral concern? And what shape should that concern take? Does everyone deserve
some kind of equal consideration of their interests or is it permissible to give some
people’s interests considerably more attention in our moral deliberations?
Aristotle (Rhetoric 1386a, 1388a10) and Hume (Treatise 2.3.7) both argued that
distance matters, that we may discount people’s interests on the basis of differential
distance from us, but an influential classic view to the contrary is contained in the
Parable of the Good Samaritan in which, of three passersby facing the prospect of
helping a victim of a violent robbery, it is only the Good Samaritan, the one most
culturally distant of the three, who assists the needy, while the other two more likely
candidates (a priest and a fellow Jew) pass by. The tale emphasizes the moral salience
of our duties to assist across cultural, religious, and communal boundaries.
Introduction to Contemporary Debates

The contemporary discussion of these issues often begins with Peter Singer’s (1972)
case for the view that the interests of faraway needy strangers should count equally
to those of nearby needy strangers. The case famously proceeds through considera-
tion of a nearby “easy rescue case.” Imagine you are on your way to work when you
happen past an infant drowning in a shallow pond. All that is required to save the
child is that you wade in and drag her from the water. There is no one else about who
could do this. Traditional easy rescue cases are typically characterized by the
following kinds of features:
1 There is dire, urgent need.

2 The rescue involves low cost to the would-be rescuer.
3 The rescuer and person needing help are in close proximity.
4 There is no one else about who could assist, so the would-be rescuer becomes the
agent of last resort.
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee014
2
In cases in which (1)–(4) apply, it is commonly acknowledged that we would

have an obligation to assist the needy. Peter Singer believes the following principle
reflects this widely shared intuition: “If it is in our power to prevent something bad
from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral
importance, we ought, morally, to do it” (1972: 231). Now, add to this the fairly
uncontroversial view that “Suffering and death from lack of food, shelter, and
medical care are bad” (1972: 231), especially when nonvoluntarily suffered, and
some fairly extensive obligations seem to follow, such as that we are obligated to
give away surplus income to those who are starving, so long as we are not sacrificing
anything of comparable moral importance. In the original argument, Singer argued
that all our spending on expensive restaurant meals, stylish clothes, musical
recordings, and the like, was morally culpable in a world in which that surplus
income could be spent on saving lives, and this conclusion follows whether the
person is starving in our neighborhood or in faraway countries. In later work, in
the face of widespread criticism that his proposals are unachievable for typical
human beings (rather than saints), Singer argues for the more modest conclusion
that it is wrong for the average citizen of a developed country not to give
approximately 10 percent of her income to assisting the needy. The important point
for this essay is just that distance from the needy person makes no difference on
Singer’s account.
Singer’s arguments attracted a number of responses, which this short essay can-
not comprehensively survey (see aid, ethics of). However, at least a few common
responses bear mentioning. One such line is that continuously sending aid to the
needy makes their plight worse in the long run, because it undermines self-
sufficiency or otherwise disempowers people from taking more responsibility for
satisfying their own basic needs (Hardin 1976). Another is that highly demanding
requirements to assist the needy (such as those Singer originally defended) would
deprive people of life-enhancing goods, such as those that derive from legitimate
special attachments to people (friends, children, parents, and so forth), and that
some partiality associated with these attachments (or other more self-focused life-
enhancing goods) is permissible (Cullity 2004). Others question what counts as
effective assistance, whether this should take the form of individual contributions
or is best tackled at a more institutional level (Pogge 2002). Some suggest
implementing policies and institutional reforms that they believe result in more
employment opportunities for those who currently are unable to reliably meet
their needs for themselves (Kuper 2002).
This essay will focus only on views which suggest that some non-life-threatening
duties require proximity. Immediate proximity can, under certain circumstances
(such as when conjoined with circumstances described in (1), (2), and (4) above), be
sufficient to generate a duty of assistance, but is proximity necessary for triggering
other kinds of non-life-threatening duties?
In Intricate Ethics Francis Kamm suggests that proximity is necessary for triggering
some non-life-threatening duties. She starts by defending a temporal notion of
distance on which distance is measured in terms of how long it takes an unassisted
3
agent to assist a potential victim. Next, she argues that “we have a greater responsibility
to take care of what is going on in the area near us or near our (efficacious) means,
whether this involves needy strangers, threats or means belonging to strangers”
(2007: 376). On Kamm’s account we need not be near a victim to have a stronger
obligation to help. It is enough, for instance, if we are close to something threatening
a victim or if something we own that can be used to help a victim is near them. To
buttress these claims, she justifies her intuitions about the hypothetical cases she
provides by appeal to the principle that “we should focus on the agent’s relation to
the area near her rather than the victim’s claims on what is in the area near him”
(2007: 370).
One might object, however, that Kamm fails to adequately justify the moral
importance of all of the distinctions she relies upon. It is not clear, for instance, that
whose means can be used to help someone at a distance has the moral relevance
Kamm thinks it does. This depends on whether existing property rights adequately
reflect what rights there should be. Kamm cannot simply assume that they do. Her
theory also has some strange consequences. It entails, for instance, that those who
are on vacation in China have greater responsibilities to the Chinese than those
who are not on vacation there. Similarly, if one’s ATM number just happened to have
been entered into a machine in China one would have an obligation to allow one’s
money to be used to alleviate need there, whereas those whose banks just have an
ATM there do not (for only in the former case would one’s means be efficacious). At
least, it is not clear why Kamm’s arguments should convince those who do not share
her intuitions about particular cases and general principles.
If distance is to make a difference to our obligations that may be because of the
salience of something else that matters morally. Perhaps distance can affect how
efficacious our assistance is likely to be, because it can affect our knowledge of what
is required to help effectively or our ability to get the necessary assistance to those
who need it. But, in an age where multiple technological means provide access to
instant and vivid awareness of what is happening around the world, not to mention
the capacity to render effective aid within hours, this line of argument seems weak.
Perhaps special attachments can provide the moral missing link? Is partiality
toward those with whom we share special ties justifiable? If so, what are the limits on
any partiality we may show? Special ties can defensibly generate strong obligations,
such as parents typically have to their newborn infants. However, special ties are
subject to moral constraints. We may not defensibly deploy any and all means to
promote the interests of those close to us; for instance, we may not injure our
children’s sporting rivals so that they may win their soccer games.
Many others argue that distance can matter when it tracks the compatriot versus
noncompatriot distinction, that is the distinction between those with whom we
share a country and those who reside in other countries. There are many attempts to
show why this matters and next we examine a sample of such arguments. While
several theorists engaged in debates about the moral relevance of distance concede
that our strongest obligations may, within certain limits, generally be to those family
and friends with whom we have close personal relationships, a central challenge
4
revolves around whether these obligations are different as we move beyond state or
national boundaries and proceed to those more geographically or culturally distant
from us. Can the weight that is typically placed on the boundary between compatriots
and noncompatriots in determining the nature and strength of our obligations to
others withstand critical scrutiny?
Arguments for the Special Importance of Compatriots

In this section we focus attention on the compatriot–noncompatriot border and on
the arguments for why obligations are thought to alter when we cross this border, for
two main reasons. First, this border is thought to be highly salient in the world we
live in today. Second, many argue that we have weaker obligations to noncompatri-
ots. In showing the strengths and weaknesses with this case, we can appreciate how
other attempts to show how distance matters in our moral reasoning will have simi-
lar strengths and weaknesses.
Here we will have space to discuss only a representative sample of the many
arguments that have been offered for our having stronger obligations to compatriots
than noncompatriots. To begin, a few clarificatory remarks are in order. First, for
our purposes, we can take compatriots to include all long-term, law-abiding, fellow
residents of a country (Miller 1998: 205). Second, it is important to understand the
content of the purported special stronger obligations to compatriots. When people
say they have special obligations to compatriots, what they typically claim is that we
ought to show a certain priority for the interests of compatriots over the interests of
noncompatriots. So, for instance, in matters of distributive justice we should favor
the needs and interests of compatriots over others. Various accounts of the
favoritism we should show compatriots are available. One frequently endorsed
position is often called “compatriot favoritism,” namely, that we may favor the
nonbasic interests of compatriots over the basic needs or interests of more needy
foreigners (Miller 1998).
Even the most staunch defenders of views which advocate favoring the interests of
compatriots do not believe that noncompatriots count for nothing. If one came
across a small child drowning in a shallow pond in a so-called “easy rescue case,” one
would have a responsibility to perform the life-saving act of pulling the child to
safety, no matter whether the child was a compatriot or not. We have some basic
(even positive) duties to everyone, irrespective of their citizenship status. Almost
everyone would concede this much, at least in the abstract. Some of those who
defend the moral relevance of distance argue, however, that in certain kinds of
matters we may defensibly favor the interests of our compatriots, typically in
decisions concerning the distribution of resources, such as the distribution of state
benefits with respect to healthcare or education (Miller 2000; Tamir 1993). Some
claim that the connections between compatriots are more substantial and of the right
kind to generate stronger obligations of justice (Miller 1998; Blake 2002). We will
critically examine these arguments below.
5
With those clarifications in mind, we can turn now to the arguments for favoring
compatriots. First, what could be called the “Gratitude Argument.” Individuals grow
up in communities and, when they do, they owe a debt of gratitude for the important
role the nation plays in helping them become the people they become. Nations may
help one meet deep needs or desires, or they may help in the development of certain
characteristics, or membership in nations can benefit one in many other ways. Some
argue that human beings have deep needs that are satisfied by living among people
of their own nation, including needs to belong, to find self-esteem through
belonging, to create something coherent of ourselves and our lives (Glover 1997), or
to build the self-esteem essential to becoming a mature, autonomous agent
(Kymlicka 1995). According to these sorts of arguments, nations may help people
fulfill deep needs or desires, they may help people develop important characteristics,
or they may benefit compatriots in a variety of other ways. When nations help
people in these ways, people incur gratitude-based obligations to their nations
(McMahan 1997). These obligations are discharged by helping compatriots more
than others, thereby preserving, sustaining, or strengthening one’s nation and its
culture (Miller 2000).
If one does have an obligation in virtue of gratitude, critics maintain that it is hard
to see why the set of people to whom one should feel gratitude overlaps exactly with
all compatriots. Benefits that accrue from one’s upbringing would typically arise
through the interaction of a fairly small number of people directly involved in one’s
education, special relationships, and interactions of a highly localized or face-to-face
sort. If we are to take a broader view of those to whom we are indebted, it is once
again hard to see the special relevance of compatriots. We owe so much to those who
invented or developed various technologies that make modern life what it is, not to
mention those who fought for world peace, to take just two obvious examples.
Compatriots need not have played a role in either of these or in other gratitude-
inducing accomplishments. So, if we incur gratitude-based obligations, this does not
track well with the idea that we have stronger obligations to compatriots than others.
Recall some of the examples used to show why we incur stronger obligations to
compatriots and the benefits there identified. It was argued that the nation has
provided our language, the values that give our lives meaning, the intellectual or
artistic heritage that helps us understand ourselves and the world, “numerous
elements of the material and social infrastructures that make a decent life possible,
and so on, almost indefinitely” (McMahan 1997: 130). Again, none of these benefits
identified point convincingly in the direction of compatriots alone. Indeed, in most
cases we may be more indebted to noncompatriots than compatriots, as they are the
source of the benefits identified.
A second but similar argument points out that compatriots participate in a
mutually advantageous cooperative scheme (Dagger 1985). It suggests that when
one engages in beneficial cooperative endeavors one “acquires duties of fair play to
reciprocate” (McMahan 1997: 129). Compatriots are typically engaged in many
cooperative activities with each other, including political and economic activities.
Nations provide “the language in which one thinks and speaks, the intellectual and
6
artistic heritage that informs one’s sensibility and one’s understanding of both
oneself and the world, many of the values that give purpose to one’s life and
structure one’s relations with others, numerous elements of the material and social
infrastructures that make a decent life possible, and so on, almost indefinitely”
(McMahan 1997: 130). It is in virtue of these sorts of received benefits, our
participation in beneficial cooperative practices, coupled with the fair-play
conception of political obligation, that we are said to have stronger obligations to
compatriots than others.
Critics respond, however, that globalization effectively means we are either part of
regional cooperative schemes (such as NAFTA) or, more realistically, all part of one
cooperative scheme. Again, this argument points away from rather than in the
direction of stronger obligations to compatriots exclusively. Furthermore, if we are
talking about a cooperative scheme that would secure the goal of living in peace with
others, this requires at least regional, but more probably a level of global cooperation.
This unquestionably great benefit – that of living in peace with others – arguably
means our strongest obligations are to those who cooperate in sustaining our
peaceful coexistence (so to nonmembers), because they help sustain the most
valuable benefit of all.
A third argument takes its point of departure from our shared history. We share a
history with other co-nationals that can form the basis of special, stronger obligations
to compatriots (McMahan 1997). The force of this argument is highlighted especially
if that history has involved shared suffering or experiences of injustice. Shared
histories, especially ones cemented by shared suffering, can make us bond strongly
with others experiencing similar fates. But, critics maintain, this is a general
phenomenon that can accompany shared histories of many kinds. The special
salience of shared national history in grounding stronger obligations to compatriots
exclusively (above others with whom one has shared a special history, such as a reli-
gious, cultural, or linguistic one) remains undefended.
A fourth argument concerns the morality of affiliation. Obligations can arise
from belonging, identity, and relatedness (Tamir 1993). According to the morality of
affiliation, our memberships in certain constitutive communities, or constitutive
ties more generally, can be an important source of obligation. Membership in a
national community is of the right sort to generate such associative obligations, so
we can have special obligations to compatriots that are stronger than any obligations
we have to others (Tamir 1993: 95–116).
Critics maintain that this position begs the question of which association generates
the moral obligations. Being associated with others of my home city, co-religionists,
professional colleagues, fellow human beings, or indeed a range of wider or smaller
groups are all possibilities. Getting clear on which affiliation grounds obligations of
partiality (if any do) is critical, and proponents of compatriot favoritism have not
done this well enough.
A final argument centers on what would make our political lives work properly.
We cannot have a successful political system and, in particular, we cannot have a
successful democracy, unless we share a sense of solidarity with co-members (Miller
7
2000; Kymlicka 2001: 212). There needs to be such special bonding if compatriots
are to govern in a way that responsibly promotes the common good and can require
sacrifices on the part of their members. People need to be in relations of reciprocity,
mutual trust, and so forth to generate the necessary solidarity and so to act
responsibly. They need to believe they are in special relationships with other citizens
to sustain the necessary solidarity, and compatriot favoritism plays a crucial role in
expressing and cementing these special relationships. Not showing compatriot
favoritism would involve “excessive costs in lost social trust” and would mean we
had failed to “provide adequate incentives to obey the laws” we help create (Miller
1998: 210). So we need compatriot favoritism for our political lives to work properly.
This argument relies on several undefended empirical hypotheses. With the
increasingly international character of our political lives the need for social trust
may well extend across borders. Because we have to cooperate with others to solve
so many of our pressing political problems, failure to recognize the dire need of
noncompatriots and to favor the less pressing needs of compatriots may even result
in excessive costs in lost social trust in the international arena. These costs could be
devastating to everyone (including compatriots). Furthermore, a policy of compatriot
favoritism could result in a situation of extreme discontent among noncompatriots,
who then feel that they lack sufficient incentives to obey the terms of international
agreements we make with them. We may need some shared sense of trust, solidarity,
and values for responsible governance, but perhaps we need to enjoy these among a
much larger set of people than is assumed by this fifth argument. Some empirical
evidence is necessary to decide the case one way or another.
In sum, this section has argued that there are some interesting reasons to think
that our obligations to compatriots are stronger than those to noncompatriots, but
there are also some formidable objections that need attention if the case is to succeed.
The general form of some of the arguments and responses we have considered may
also be relevant to other ways of thinking about the moral relevance of distance. (An
analogue to the fourth argument may, for instance, suggest that a different kind of
partiality to those closer is justified by the importance of those ties to our identities.)
Conclusions
The vigorous debate about whether and, if so, how distance should matter continues.
While we owe some basic duties to everyone (such as in easy rescue cases) there is
disagreement about how our duties might vary with distance, especially in cases that
are easy rescue ones. One important contemporary version of this debate takes the
form of whether partiality to compatriots can be justified. Some of the discussion
about compatriot favoritism may, however, extend to other important ways of
thinking about the moral relevance of distance.
There are also many other salient issues this essay could not discuss. It did not
consider, for instance, whether we owe anything to those who are temporally distant
from us even though they do not yet exist (see intergenerational ethics). See
also the list of cross-references below for further related discussion.
8
See also: aid, ethics of; cosmopolitanism; intergenerational ethics;

international relations; justice; nationalism and patriotism
REFERENCES
Aristotle 1924. Aristotle, The Art of Rhetoric. With Greek Text, trans. John H. Freese.
Cambridge, MA: Loeb Classical Library/Harvard University Press.
Blake, Michael 2002. “Distributive Justice, State Coercion, and Autonomy,” Philosophy and
Cullity, Garrett 2004. The Demands of Affluence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dagger, Richard 1985. “Rights, Boundaries, and the Bonds of Community: A Qualified
Defense of Moral Parochialism,” American Political Science Quarterly, vol. 79,
pp. 436–47.
Glover, Jonathan 1997. “Nations, Identity, and Conflict,” in Robert McKim and Jeff
McMahan (eds.), The Morality of Nationalism. New York: Oxford University Press,
pp. 11–30.
Hardin, Garrett 1976. “Carrying Capacity as an Ethical Concept,” in George R. Lucas
and Thomas Ogletree (eds.), Lifeboat Ethics: The Moral Dilemmas of World Hunger.
New York: Harper & Row, pp. 120–31.
Hume, David 1987 [1739–40]. A Treatise of Human Nature, 2nd ed., ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge.
Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Kamm, F. M. 2007. Intricate Ethics: Rights, Responsibilities, and Permissible Harm. Oxford:
Kuper, Andrew 2002. “More than Charity: Cosmopolitan Alternatives to the Singer Solution,”
Ethics and International Affairs, vol. 16, pp. 107–20.
Kymlicka, Will 1995. Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
Kymlicka, Will 2001. Politics in the Vernacular: Nationalism, Multiculturalism, and Citizenship.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
McMahan, Jeff 1997. “The Limits of National Partiality,” in Robert McKim and Jeff McMahan
(eds.), The Morality of Nationalism. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 107–38.
Miller, David 2000. Citizenship and National Identity. Cambridge: Polity.
Miller, Richard 1998 “Cosmopolitan Respect and Patriotic Concern,” Philosophy and Public
Affairs, vol. 27, pp. 202–24.
Pogge, Thomas 2002. World Poverty and Human Rights. Cambridge: Polity.
Singer, Peter 1972. “Rich and Poor,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 1, pp. 229–43.
Tamir, Yael 1993. Liberal Nationalism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
FURTHER READINGS
Brock, Gillian 2009. Global Justice: A Cosmopolitan Account. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Caney, Simon 2005. Justice Beyond Borders: A Global Political Theory. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Chatterjee, Deen (ed.) 2003. “Moral Distance: Introduction,” The Monist, special issue on
Moral Distance, vol. 86, pp. 327–32.
9
Chatterjee, Deen (ed.) 2004. The Ethics of Assistance: Morality and the Distant Needy.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cohen, Joshua (ed.) 1996. For Love of Country: Debating the Limits of Patriotism. Boston:
Beacon Press.
Hurka, Thomas 1997. “The Justification for Nationalism,” in Robert McKim and Jeff
McMahan (eds.), The Morality of Nationalism. New York: Oxford University Press,
pp. 139–57.
Jones, Charles 1999. Global Justice: Defending Cosmopolitanism. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Miller, David 1995. On Nationality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nussbaum, Martha 1996. “Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism,” in Joshua Cohen (ed.), For
Love of Country: Debating the Limits of Patriotism. Boston: Beacon Press, pp. 3–17.
Nussbaum, Martha 2006. Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership.
Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.
Pogge, Thomas (ed.) 2007. Freedom from Poverty as a Human Right: Who Owes What to the
Very Poor. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rawls, John 1999. The Law of Peoples. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Shue, Henry 1980. Basic Rights: Subsistence, Affluence, and US Foreign Policy. Princeton:
Tan, Kok-Chor 2004. Justice Without Borders: Cosmopolitanism, Nationalism, and Patriotism.
1
Autonomy of Ethics
Frank Jackson
Introduction
One question is how things are. Another question is how they ought to be, including
what ought to be done. But the two questions are intimately connected. My judg-
ment that I ought to support Oxfam is based on what I believe Oxfam would do with
a donation. Your belief that you ought to vote for a certain candidate is based on
what you believe the candidate would do if elected. The autonomy of ethics is a the-
sis about the nature of the passage from how things are to how things ought to be,
including especially what ought to be done. As traditionally conceived since Hume
(A Treatise of Human Nature [1740], Bk. III, Pt. 1, §1; see hume, david), the thesis is
that we cannot deduce how things ought to be or what ought to be done from how
things are, or as it is often put, we cannot deduce, in the sense of a priori infer,
an “ought” from an “is.”
The thought behind the thesis, the surely plausible thought even for those who in
the end reject it, is that the step from what is to what ought to be done, is always a
step in a substantive sense (see is–ought gap). Knowing the facts is one thing; com-
ing to a judgment about what ought to be done given the facts is another. This means
that knowing the facts, no matter how comprehensive, always leaves open, in some
significant sense, the question of what ought to be done (Moore 1903: §13; Hare
1961: 29; see moore, g. e.; hare, r. m.).
Despite the simplicity with which our thesis can be posed and the case for it
sketched, there are a number of questions concerning how, precisely, we should
understand it. We will look at some issues of interpretation before reviewing some
of the arguments for and against the autonomy of ethics.
Issues of Interpretation
Consider the following inference
X is morally wrong
Therefore, X ought not to be done.
This is an inference from an “is” to an “ought,” and one that is plausibly a priori valid.
Isn’t it part of the meaning of “morally wrong” that any action that is morally wrong
ought not to be done? It might seem that we can reject the autonomy of ethics
without further ado.
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee015
2
This would be too quick. The autonomy of ethics needs to be understood against a
background which divides expressions into two classes: the moral and the nonmoral –
or the normative and the descriptive, or the ethical and the factual, or …. Terminology
varies. We will talk in terms of the moral versus the nonmoral (but it should be noted
that many of the issues that come up in discussions of the autonomy of ethics also come
up when discussing normativity in general; see normativity). In terms of the distinc-
tion between moral and nonmoral language, the autonomy of ethics claims that no
inference from premises framed in purely nonmoral terms to a conclusion framed in
moral terms is valid. The inference above fails to be a counterexample to the thesis so
understood because its premise includes moral terms, in particular the word “wrong.”
But what precisely is the distinction between moral and nonmoral expressions? The
response just given to a putative counterexample presupposes that “wrong” is a moral
expression, and one might think of the moral terms as made up of, say, “right,” “wrong,”
“good,” “bad,” and “ought,” and their synonyms. But now consider the inference
X is a case of murder
Therefore, X is wrong.
This inference is plausibly a priori valid. Isn’t it part of the meaning of “murder” that
any act that counts as murder is wrong? This is why an intentional killing that is a
case of justified self-defense is not a case of murder.
A defender of autonomy might respond by adding “murder” to their list of moral
expressions. This would mean that the inference immediately above would not be a
case of deducing a moral conclusion from a nonmoral premise. But now they have
trouble with
X is not a killing
Therefore, X is not a case of murder.
If “murder” is a moral expression, it is hard to see why this inference would not
count as the deduction of a moral conclusion (albeit one with a negative cast) from
a nonmoral premise.
Where does this leave the autonomy of ethics? One response is to insist that
expressions like “murder” can be thought of as conjunctions of the properly moral
and the nonmoral or descriptive. Roughly, the idea is that a murder is an intentional
killing that is wrong. A distinction is drawn between thin moral expressions like
“right,” “wrong,” and “ought,” and thick ones like “murder” and “courageous.” The
thin ones are the properly moral expressions and the claim is that the thick
expressions can be analyzed into a thin part and a nonmoral part along the lines we
illustrated for “murder.” The defender of the autonomy of ethics then argues that
their thesis should be framed in terms of thin or purely moral expressions and non-
moral ones. The thesis is, that is to say, that no inference from a premise or premises
framed in nonmoral terms – that is, in terms that are neither thin nor thick moral
terms – to a conclusion framed in purely moral or thin terms is a priori valid.
3
Moreover, even if one rejects the program of reducing the thick to the thin plus the
nonmoral as misguided (for discussion, see fact–value distinction; thick and
thin concepts), the thesis that no inference from a premise or premises framed in
nonmoral terms to a conclusion framed in thin moral terms is a priori valid is one
well worth discussing. It wouldn’t perhaps be, strictly speaking, an autonomy of ethics
thesis; it would be an autonomy of a fragment of ethics thesis. But no great matter.
However, even with this restriction in place, there is still interpretative trouble for
defenders of autonomy. Consider (the example that follows is modified from Prior
1960; for more detailed discussion and additional references see Jackson 1974; it
should be noted that Prior thought he was making a major objection to the auton-
omy of ethics, not merely raising a problem of interpretation)
Tea drinking is common

Therefore, tea drinking is common or abortion is wrong
This inference is a priori valid and goes from a purely nonmoral premise to a moral
conclusion framed using (thin) moral terms.
The defender of autonomy might understandably reply that the conclusion isn’t
really a moral one. It is a disjunction which has one nonmoral disjunct and one
moral disjunct. But consider the following inference:
Everyone drinks water

Therefore, there is no person who ought to be punished or there is at least one
drinker of water who ought to be punished
This inference is a priori valid and both disjuncts are framed using moral terms.
All the same, a natural reaction to this example (and the previous one if it comes to
that) is that it is a “trick” example of no relevance to real-life debates in ethics. The
defender of the autonomy of ethics might well insist that the essential insight behind
the doctrine is correct. However, there are a priori valid inferences not unlike those we
have been discussing that figure in “real-life” reflections on important moral questions.
Suppose Jane has serious reservations about abortion but nevertheless agrees to
pay for a close friend’s abortion. For her the a priori valid inference
I have paid for an abortion

Therefore, if anyone who has paid for an abortion has done something morally
wrong, I have done something morally wrong
corresponds to a line of reasoning that worries her a great deal.

There is, therefore, an important question about how, precisely, to state the auton-
omy of ethics. Despite this, it is fair to say that the inferences we have been discuss-
ing lately do not permit the drawing of substantive moral conclusions using
noncontroversially a priori valid inferences from the nonmoral to the moral. One
way to bring this out is to note that
4
I have paid for an abortion

Therefore, if anyone who has paid for an abortion has done something morally
right, I have done something morally right
is just as a priori valid as the inference we discussed immediately above. The same
point applies to the tea-drinking inference discussed earlier. The inference
Tea drinking is common

Therefore, tea drinking is common or abortion is right
which is the earlier inference with “wrong” replaced by “right,” is just as a priori valid
as the earlier version.
We should, therefore, think of the autonomy of ethics as insisting that you cannot
obtain a categorical moral conclusion (see categorical imperative) a priori from
purely nonmoral premises, while granting that a precise specification of what a cat-
egorical moral conclusion comes to may be difficult.
We now turn to the substantive issue.
Supervenience and Autonomy

Under the influence of Blackburn (1971) and ensuing discussions, the current
debate over the autonomy of ethics centers on the implications of the supervenience
of the moral on the nonmoral.
It is plausible that differences in moral properties imply differences in nonmoral
properties. If one action is right and another wrong, they must differ in how much
suffering they cause, the way they cause it, the motives with which they are per-
formed, or …, where the dots are filled with differences we can capture in nonmoral
terms: X and Y cannot differ in moral properties alone is the plausible thought. This
means that if X and Y are exactly alike nonmorally, they must be exactly alike morally
(see universalizability). When two classes of properties are related in such a way
that being exactly alike in respect to the first class implies being exactly alike with
respect to the second class, properties in the second class are said to supervene on
properties in the first class. Thus what we have been lately saying can be put as that
moral properties supervene on nonmoral properties (see supervenience, moral).
We learn, therefore, from the supervenience of the moral on the nonmoral, that
there is a sense in which ethics isn’t autonomous. The nonmoral fixes the moral
without remainder. The moral cannot be varied independently of the nonmoral.
What is more, the argument to this result steers clear of the issues about how, pre-
cisely, to divide the moral from the nonmoral that we touched on in our discussion
of the distinction between thick and thin moral expressions. Provided, as is plausi-
ble, that there is some way of dividing the moral from the nonmoral consistent with
the supervenience of the moral on the nonmoral, we have a simple argument to the
conclusion that the nonmoral necessitates the moral.
5
How can the defender of the autonomy of ethics respond? One way is to argue that
this conclusion is consistent with the autonomy of ethics understood as the denial of
patterned connections running from the nonmoral to the moral. A second way is to
argue that the conclusion that comes from supervenience is consistent with the auton-
omy of ethics understood as the denial that the nonmoral a priori determines the
moral (which is, as we saw, the way autonomy is traditionally understood). A third way
is to view the issue through the lens of an expressivist or non-cognitivist construal of
ethical discourse (see non-cognitivism). We will review these responses in turn.
Supervenience and Patterns

Suppose a computer assigns numbers to objects according to their shape: one num-
ber for each distinct shape. The assignment is random as far as the shapes are con-
cerned. This ensures that if X and Y are the same shape, X’s number will be the same
as Y’s. Numbers assigned to objects will, accordingly, supervene on their shape. But
there won’t be a patterned connection running from objects’ shapes to the assigned
numbers over and above the respecting of supervenience. For example, the fact that
two objects have different but very similar shapes will be no reason to expect that
they have similar numbers assigned to them.
This example tells us that supervenience is consistent with the lack of patterned
connections and opens the possibility of defending autonomy construed as the
denial of patterned connections running from the nonmoral to the moral. This is a
position suggested by some readings of the doctrine known as particularism (see the
introduction and papers in Hooker and Little 2000; see particularism).
However, autonomy in this sense is hard to square with a pervasive principle oper-
ating in moral debates. The principle is that different moral verdicts on similar cases
require justification. Many hold that it is morally permissible to eat cows but not
morally permissible to eat humans. The challenge from vegetarians is to justify treat-
ing the cases differently. Perhaps we can meet this challenge; perhaps we cannot. Either
way, it is hard to believe that the challenge is misconceived. The debate over same-sex
marriage provides another example. All parties accept that treating same-sex unions
differently from heterosexual unions requires justification. The debate is over the
implications of this point of agreement. But the principle that different moral verdicts
on similar cases require justification presumes that the passage from the nonmoral to
the moral is patterned. Indeed, one way of thinking of moral debate is as a massive
“compare and contrast” exercise. We seek to make our moral judgments across the
range of cases consistent, where this means playing off intuitive moral judgments
about cases against plausible principles connecting the nonmoral to the moral that
concern the relevant similarities and differences between cases (see reflective
equilibrium). This would be a nonsense if there were no patterned connections run-
ning from the nonmoral and the moral. (For more detail, references, and other prob-
lems for denying that there is a patterned connection, see Jackson et al. 2000.)
6
Determination without a priori Deducibility

It is widely accepted that the distribution of water determines, as a matter of neces-
sity, the distribution of H2O. This is because it is widely accepted that it is necessarily
true that water is, or is made up of, H2O (Putnam 1975; Kripke 1980). If this is right,
we have an example of determination in some strong sense that is not a case of a
priori deducibility. One cannot a priori deduce the distribution of H2O from that of
water, because the identity of water with H2O, although necessarily true, is a pos-
teriori. It was, and had to be, established by experiment. This suggests that we might
reconcile the autonomy of ethics with the supervenience of the moral on the non-
moral by holding that it also is a case of determination without a priori deducibility.
This proposal raises an important issue about moral language. The reason many
hold that the distribution of water determines, without a priori necessitating, the dis-
tribution of H2O is that they accept an appealing account of how names of natural
kinds like “water” work. In outline it runs as follows. The term “water” entered the
language as a term for a kind that made itself known to us as a widely distributed stuff
that is typically potable, odorless and colorless, and liquid at room temperature. The
term, however, is a name for the kind, and not a name for any widely distributed stuff
that is typically potable, odorless and colorless, and liquid at room temperature. This
means the reference of “water” is fixed to the kind and entails that finding the kind in
question to be H2O is finding that water is necessarily H2O. For it means that what is
discovered, despite being an empirical matter, holds true in every possible world. In
the absence of an account like this, we would have no reason to hold that water is nec-
essarily H2O and, therefore, no reason to hold that the distribution of water determines
or necessitates, without a priori entailing, the distribution of H2O. An important issue,
accordingly, for the proposal that the nonmoral necessitates without a priori determin-
ing the moral is whether a broadly similar story can be told for moral terms. Many
argue that it can (see Brink 1989 and references therein; see naturalism, ethical).
Autonomy and Expressivism

There is a quite different way of defending the autonomy of ethics against the
challenge posed by the supervenience of the moral on the nonmoral, one especially
championed by Blackburn (1971, 1985). It is to think of moral language as express-
ing attitudes rather than making claims about how things are. On this view, there
are, strictly speaking, no moral properties. The role of sentences of the form “X is
good” is to express a special kind of pro-attitude toward X by one who produces the
sentence; it does not ascribe the property of being good to X. Likewise, “X is bad”
expresses a special kind of con-attitude toward X.
On this view, the supervenience of the moral on the nonmoral cannot be the
thesis that moral properties supervene on nonmoral properties, for the view denies
that there are any moral properties to do the supervening. Rather, supervenience
morphs into a consistency constraint on attitudes. The constraint is that a necessary
condition for an attitude, pro or con, toward X to count as a moral attitude is that the
7
attitude in question must also be taken to anything exactly like X in nonmoral prop-
erties. However, this is consistent with the attitude taken toward X, as such, not
being determined by the nonmoral; what is determined is only that the attitude must
coincide with that taken toward any nonmoral duplicate of X. To that extent, if
expressivism is true, supervenience allows the moral to float free of the nonmoral
provided it does so in an internally consistent manner. Many expressivists see this as
one of the best reasons for being an expressivist.
See also: categorical imperative; fact–value distinction; hare, r. m.;

hume, david; is–ought gap; moore, g. e.; naturalism, ethical; non-
cognitivism; normativity; particularism; reflective equilibrium;
supervenience, moral; thick and thin concepts; universalizability
REFERENCES
Blackburn, Simon 1971. “Moral Realism,” in John Casey (ed.), Morality and Moral Reasoning.
London: Methuen, pp. 101–24.
Blackburn, Simon 1985. “Supervenience Revisited,” in Ian Hacking (ed.), Exercises in Analysis.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 47–68.
Brink, David 1989. Moral Realism and the Foundation of Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Hare, R. M. 1961. The Language of Morals. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Hooker, Brad, and Margaret Little (eds.) 2000. Moral Particularism. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Jackson, Frank 1974. “Defining the Autonomy of Ethics,” Philosophical Review, vol. 83, pp. 89–96.
Jackson, Frank, Michael Smith, and Philip Pettit 2000. “Ethical Particularism and Patterns,”
in Brad Hooker and Margaret Little (eds.), Moral Particularism. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, pp. 79–99.
Kripke, Saul 1980. Naming and Necessity, 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell.
Moore, G. E. 1903. Principia Ethica. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
pp. 199–206.
Putnam, Hilary 1975. “The Meaning of ‘Meaning’,” reprinted in Mind, Language and Reality.
FURTHER READINGS
Gibbard, Allan 1990. Wise Choices, Apt Feelings. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Hudson, W. D. (ed.) 1969. The Is/Ought Question. London: Macmillan.
Jackson, Frank 1998. From Metaphysics to Ethics. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Kurtzman, David R. 1970. “ ‘Is’, ‘Ought’, and the Autonomy of Ethics,” Philosophical Review,
vol. 79, pp. 493–509.
Pigden, C. R. 1989. “Logic and the Autonomy of Ethics,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy,
vol. 67, pp. 127–51.
Prior, A. N. 1949. Logic and the Basis of Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
1
Conflict of Interest
Michael Davis
Conflict of interest is regularly in the news – in business, government, the professions,

and even the sciences – because, it seems, we cannot help dividing loyalty, for exam-
ple between family and employer (see family; loyalty). We cannot help “serving
two masters.”
A conflict of interest is a situation in which some person (whether an individual
or corporate body) stands in a certain relationship to one or more decisions. On the
standard view, a person has a conflict of interest if, and only if, that person (1) is in
a relationship with another requiring the exercise of judgment on the other’s behalf
and (2) has a (“secondary” or “unusual”) interest tending to interfere with the proper
exercise of such judgment. The crucial terms here are “relationship,” “judgment,”
“interest,” and “proper exercise.”
“Relationship” is quite general, including any connection between one person and
another justifying that other’s reliance for a certain purpose, for example even giving
directions to a stranger on a street corner.
“Judgment” refers to the ability to make certain kinds of decision correctly
more often than would a simple clerk with a book of rules and all, and only, the
same information. Insofar as decisions require no judgment, they are “routine,”
“ministerial,” or “something a technician could do”; they have (something like) an
algorithm. Any difference between the decision-maker’s decision and that of some-
one equally well trained would mean that (at least) one of them erred (something
easily shown by examining what they did). Ordinary math problems are routine
in this way.
Where judgment is required, the decision is no longer routine. Judgment brings
knowledge, skill, and insight to bear in unpredictable ways. Where judgment is
necessary, different decision-makers, however skilled, may disagree without either
being obviously wrong. Over time, we should be able to tell that some decision-
makers are better than others. But we will not (except in extraordinary circum-
stances) be able to do that decision by decision; we will not be able to explain
differences in individual decisions merely by error – or even be able to establish
decisively that one decision-maker’s judgment is better than another’s in this or that
case. “Judgment” is less general than “expertise.” Some of what we expect from
experts is not judgment but merely special knowledge or routine application of a
special skill.
“Interest” refers to any influence, loyalty, concern, emotion, or other feature of a
situation tending to make a person’s judgment (in that situation) less reliable than it
would normally be, without rendering that person incompetent. Financial interests
and family connections are the most common sources of conflict of interest, but
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee016
2
love, prior statements, gratitude, and other “subjective” tugs on judgment can also be
interests. So, for example, a journalist investigating poor research practices in a drug
company has an interest (in the relevant sense) if its chief public relations officer is
a friend or enemy (just as she would if she owned stock in the drug company)
(see journalistic objectivity).
What constitutes proper exercise of judgment is a “social fact,” that is, something
decided by what people ordinarily expect, what the person exercising judgment or
the group to which that person belongs invites others to expect, what that person
has expressly contracted to do, and what various laws, professional codes, or other
regulations require. Because what is proper exercise of judgment is so constituted, it
changes over time and, at any time, may have a disputed boundary.
Having a conflict of interest is not wrong. What one does (or does not do) about
the conflict may be wrong – for one of three reasons.
First, the person exercising judgment may be negligent in not responding to the
conflict of interest. We expect those who undertake to act on another’s behalf to
know the limits of their judgment when the limits are obvious. Conflicts of interest
are obvious. One cannot have an interest without knowing it – though one can easily
fail to take notice of it or misjudge how much it might affect one’s judgment.
Second, if those justifiably relying on a person for a certain judgment do not know
of the conflict of interest but the person knows (or should know) that they do not,
the person is allowing them to believe that the judgment in question is more reliable
than it is – in effect, deceiving them. That deception is a betrayal of their (properly
placed) trust and therefore morally objectionable (see trust).
Third, even if the person exercising judgment informs those justifiably relying on
that judgment that a conflict of interest exists, the judgment will still be less reliable
than such judgment ordinarily is. The person may also perhaps appear less compe-
tent than members of the profession, occupation, or discipline in question should
be. Conflict of interest can remain a technical problem, affecting reputation, even
after it has ceased to be a moral problem.
What can be done about conflict of interest? Conflicts of interest not avoided may
be escaped, disclosed, or managed.
Escape ends the conflict. So, for example, a reviewer who discovers that he is
reviewing a friend’s submission can stop reading it, send the submission back to the
editor with an explanation, and recommend a replacement.
Disclosure, even if sufficiently complete (and understood), merely gives those
relying on someone’s judgment the opportunity to give informed consent to the con-
flict of interest, to replace that person with another, or to adjust reliance in some less
radical way (for example, by seeking a “second opinion”). Unlike escape, disclosure
as such does not end the conflict of interest; it merely avoids the betrayal of trust.
Managing, though often the resolution reached after disclosure (as above), need
not follow disclosure. Where disclosure is improper (because it would violate some
rule of confidentiality) or impossible (because the person to whom disclosure should
be made is absent, incompetent, or unable to respond in time), managing may still
be a legitimate option (see confidentiality; privacy).
3
Since the middle of the twentieth century, “conflict of interest” has been an idiom
(Luebke 1987). It is no longer a synonym for “conflicting interests” or “conflict of
interests.”
See also: confidentiality; family; journalistic objectivity; loyalty;

privacy; trust
REFERENCE
Luebke, Neil R. 1987. “Conflict of Interest as a Moral Category,” Business and Professional
Ethics Journal, vol. 6, pp. 66–81.
FURTHER READINGS
Davis, Michael, and Andrew Stark (eds.) 2001. Conflict of Interest in the Professions. New
York: Oxford University Press.
Spece, Roy G., David S. Shimm, and Allen E. Buchanan (eds.) 1996. Conflicts of Interest in
Clinical Practice and Research. New York: Oxford University Press.
Stark, Andrew 1995. “The Appearance of Official Impropriety and the Concept of Political
Crime,” Ethics, vol. 105, pp. 326–51.
Thompson, Dennis 1993. “Understanding Financial Conflicts of Interest,” New England
Journal of Medicine, vol. 329, pp. 573–6.
Wells, Paula, Hardy Jones, and Michael Davis 1986. Conflicts of Interest in Engineering.
Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt Publishing.
1
Whistleblowing
Michael Davis
Similar to the related terms “whistleblower” and “blow the whistle on,”
“whistleblowing” (in the technical sense relevant here) is neither an old term nor one
the meaning of which is altogether settled. The first use in print seems to be in Roche
(1971: 148), then president of General Motors (GM): “However this is labeled –
industrial espionage, whistle blowing, or professional responsibility – it is another
tactic for spreading disunity and creating conflict” (see professional ethics). Its
first use in the Philosopher’s Index was in 1980 (about the same time as the term
appeared in the Library of Congress catalogue). Discussion of whistleblowing in
government began about the same time. For example, the Government Accountability
Project (a nongovernmental organization) first published A Whistleblower’s Guide to
the Federal Bureaucracy in 1977. Though initially American, the term “whistleblowing”
has long since become international.
How whistleblowing is defined depends in part on the purpose for which the
definition is designed. Legal definitions tend to be broad enough to include many
acts not commonly considered whistleblowing, such as reporting organizational
wrong-doing to one’s direct superior. The purpose of legal definition is to make it
safer for certain people to reveal information the public would like revealed.
Philosophical definitions tend to be narrower, especially when the question under
discussion is whistleblowing’s justification. Philosophical definitions are designed to
include only acts that have the same justification. For purposes of this essay,
whistleblowing may be (roughly) defined as: (a) an individual belonging to a
legitimate organization, (b) going out of the organization’s normal channels, (c) to
report serious wrong-doing in the organization, (d) for morally permissible reasons.
“Whistleblowing” (in this sense) is not literally blowing a whistle. The term
plainly derives from a metaphor. There are at least three plausible candidates for that
metaphor. One is a train sounding its whistle to warn those on the track to get off.
This whistleblowing is a morally unambiguous warning. Another candidate
metaphor emphasizes wrong-doing. In some sports, referees blow a whistle to signal
a foul, stopping play. The whistle does not sound an alarm but merely starts the
process of penalizing the foul. A third candidate for the whistleblowing metaphor
combines elements of the first two. The police officer blows a whistle to stop
wrong-doing but – unlike the referee – also sounds an alarm. The sound of the
whistle should bring help, both ordinary citizens and other police, so that the officer
can, for example, catch a purse-snatcher.
What is striking about these candidates is that none seems altogether appropriate.
The first reduces whistleblowers to mere bringers of bad news. The second treats
them as “referees,” that is, as neutrals charged with enforcing the “rules of the
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee017
2
game.” With a few exceptions (such as internal auditors), whistleblowers are

never that. A whistleblower is more like a “member of the team” who calls a foul
on his own teammates, usurping the role of referee, an odd confusion of roles (Bok
1980). As with the referee, the police officer is not a “member of the [wrong-
doer’s] team” (as the whistleblower always is). “Whistleblowing” seems to have left
its original metaphor behind to become a mere idiom (much as “hitchhiking” is
for begging rides).
Discussion of whistleblowing often includes consideration of one or more of the
following six questions: (1) whether whistleblowing must be “external” to the
organization or if it can be “internal” as well (using an extraordinary channel within
the organization, such as a hotline); (2) whether whistleblowing must serve the
“public interest” or if it can serve the organization’s interest (without harming the
public in any way) – for example, reporting falsification of employment records
affecting profit but not the public; (3) whether whistleblowing must be “open” or if
it can be anonymous; (4) whether the whistleblower must have some chance of
success if the whistleblowing is to be justified, or if it can be justified in some other
way – for example, because it ends the whistleblower’s complicity in wrong-doing;
(5) whether the whistleblower must seek to serve the public interest or the
organization’s interest, or may (in addition or instead) be seeking to protect himself
or serve his own interests in some other morally permissible way (as when the indi-
vidual is motivated at least in part by the organization’s offer of financial reward for
blowing the whistle); and (6) whether the whistleblower must be an employee of the
organization or may have some other status, such as unpaid volunteer.
Answers to these questions tend to be both complex and controversial; they
also have an impact on what justification of whistleblowing is possible. For the pur-
poses of this essay, though, all that is important is that the definition is broad enough
to include the clear cases and narrow enough not to bring in wholly irrelevant
activities. Hence, for example, it distinguishes whistleblowing (reporting “serious
wrong-doing”) from mere “tattling” and industrial espionage (going out of channels
for morally suspect reasons) (see business ethics).
Whistleblowing has been a controversial activity since Roche first identified it.
The nature of the controversy is evident in that first use. For Roche, whistleblowing
is a challenge to his authority as GM’s president, as well as to the organization’s
privacy – in some respects, clearly a bad thing, such as industrial espionage, but, in
other respects, a good thing, such as professional responsibility (though Roche
thought otherwise) (see loyalty; privacy). Whistleblowing is philosophically
interesting primarily because it seems to need a moral justification. It seems to need
a moral justification in part at least because loyalty to one’s (legitimate) organization,
including preserving its secrets, seems a morally good thing, if not all things
considered, at least all else being equal.
There are today two main theories justifying whistleblowing. One, De George
(2006: 298–321), understands the whistleblower as a Good Samaritan, someone
who undertakes to warn the public of danger. For De George, the chief problem of
justification is explaining why whistleblowing is morally required – when it is
3
(Goldberg 1988). The other main theory, Davis (1996), understands the whistle-
blower as someone who, but for the whistleblowing, would be complicit with the
organization’s serious wrong-doing. For Davis, the chief problem of justification is
explaining how some whistleblowing could be optional (if any is). The only plausible
explanation is that whistleblowing is optional when the costs of ending complicity
are so high that it seems overall more desirable to allow the wrong to continue.
Given the costs of whistleblowing, there may be many such cases. Most organiza-
tions do not react with the same hostility to other manifestations of good character,
such as fairness or temperance. There are several possible explanations.
The most common explanation is that those who mistreat whistleblowers do so
because they expect to benefit from having fewer whistleblowers. The self-interest of
individuals or their organization explains the mistreatment.
Though no doubt part of the truth, this explanation seems only a small part. We
are in general far from being perfect judges of self-interest. Our judgment does not
improve simply because we assume an organizational role. We generally think of
information as power – and it is. However, thinking of information that way is no
small achievement when the information wrecks our plans. Even experienced
managers can find themselves telling subordinates, “I don’t want to hear any more
bad news.” The rationality of organizations is an ideal never more than partially
achieved. An organization that would ruin a simple bringer of bad news is unlikely
to respond well to the whistleblower – even if, as often happens, the whistleblower
serves the organization’s long-term interests. The whistleblower is, after all, not only
a bearer of bad news; he is bad news.
Discussions of whistleblowing tend to emphasize the undeniable good the accurate
whistleblower does (both directly, by revealing wrong-doing, and indirectly, by
deterring further wrong-doing). The incidental harm tends to be overshadowed,
perhaps because so much of it seems deserved. The harm done by inaccurate whistle-
blowing has received much less attention, perhaps because organizations do not like
to admit publicly that they have suffered such harm.
Whatever the reasons for ignoring the harm that whistleblowing does, the fact
remains that much of it is ignored and that harm is probably crucial to understanding
the typical organization’s response to whistleblowing (without giving reason to
approve of it). Consider: Whistleblowing is always proof of organizational trouble.
Employees do not go out of channels unless the channels at least seem inadequate.
Whistleblowing is also proof of management failure. Usually, several managers
directly above the whistleblower will have heard his complaint, tried to deal with it
in some way, and failed to satisfy him. However managers view the whistleblower’s
complaint, they are bound to view their own failure to “keep control” as a blot on
their record. Their superiors are likely to take the same view.
Whistleblowing can also be harmful to individuals on whom the whistle is blown.
What they were peacefully doing in obscurity is suddenly in the spotlight. They will
have to participate in investigations and “damage control” that would not otherwise
demand their scarce time. They will have to write unusual reports, attend special
meetings, worry about the effect of publicity on their own career, and face the
4
pointed questions of spouses, children, and friends. Moreover, they may have to go
on doing such things for months – or even years.
Insofar as whistleblowing has such effects, no one within the organization will be
able to hear the whistleblower’s name without having unpleasant thoughts. No
manager will be able to make a decision about the whistleblower without having bad
associations color his or her judgment. The whistleblower not only arouses overt
hostility within his organization, he can also generate strong biases against himself,
biases very hard to cancel by any formal procedure.
What must the whistleblower have become to blow the whistle? At the very least,
he must have lost faith in the organization. If he had kept faith, he would have
accepted whatever decision came through channels – at least once he had exhausted
all accepted means of appeal. For anyone who has been a loyal employee for many
years, losing faith in the organization is likely to be quite painful – rather like the
disintegration of a marriage. Few whistleblowers take their job thinking that they
might someday have to blow the whistle. They seem to start out as loyal employees –
perhaps more loyal than most. One day, something happens to shake their loyalty.
Further shocks follow until the loyalty collapses. While managers tend to think of
whistleblowers as traitors to the organization, most whistleblowers seem to think
that, on the contrary, it is the organization that has betrayed them.
This loss implies more harm. Before the whistleblower was forced to blow the
whistle, she trusted the organization. She took its good sense for granted. She gave it
“the benefit of the doubt.” That is no longer possible. Faith has become suspicion.
Since what we call “organizational authority” is precisely the ability of the organiza-
tion to have its commands taken more or less on faith, the “powers that be” now have
as much reason to distrust the whistleblower as she has to distrust them. She no
longer recognizes their authority. She is much more likely to blow the whistle than
before. She is now an alien presence within the corporate body.
Something equally bad may happen to relations between the whistleblower and
fellow workers. Whistleblowing tends to bring out the worst in people. Some friends
become implacable enemies. Others hide, fearing “guilt by association.” Most,
perhaps, simply lose interest, looking on the whistleblower as someone already
departed. These desertions can leave deep scars. Moreover, even when they do not,
they leave the whistleblower an outsider, a loner in an organization in which isolation
for any reason makes one vulnerable.
For these reasons at least, a potential whistleblower ought to think carefully about
blowing the whistle. He or she should also seek help. There is a substantial literature
advising whistleblowers, and a number of organizations providing advice or support.
Among the organizations most valuable to whistleblowers are: the Government
Accountability Project, National Whistleblower Center (USA), and Worldwide
Whistleblowers. All have websites, publications, and contacts.
See also: business ethics; loyalty; privacy; professional ethics

5
REFERENCES
Bok, Sisela 1980. “Whistleblowing and Professional Responsibilities,” New York University
Education Quarterly, vol. 11 (Summer), pp. 2–7.
Davis, Michael 1996. “Some Paradoxes of Whistleblowing,” Business and Professional Ethics
Journal, vol. 15 (Spring), pp. 3–19.
De George, Richard T. 2006. Business Ethics, 6th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Goldberg, David Theo 1988. “Tuning In to Whistle Blowing,” Business and Professional Ethics
Journal, vol. 7 (Summer), pp. 85–94.
Roche, James M. 1971. “The Competitive System, to Work, to Preserve, and to Protect,” Vital
Speeches of the Day, May, pp. 445–8.
FURTHER READINGS
Alford, Fred C. 2001. Whistleblowing: Broken Lives and Organizational Power. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press.
Grant, Colin 2002. “Whistle Blowers: Saints of Secular Culture,” Journal of Business Ethics,
vol. 39 (September), pp. 391–9.
Johnson, Roberta Ann 2002. Whistleblowing: When It Works – And Why. Boulder: Lynne
Rienner.
Kohn, Stephen M., Michael D. Kohn, and David K. Colapinto 2004. Whistleblower Law:
A Guide to Legal Protections for Corporate Employees. New York: Praeger.
Miethe, Terance D. 1999. Whistleblowing at Work: Tough Choices in Exposing Fraud, Waste,
and Abuse on the Job. Boulder: Westview Press.
1
Codes of Ethics
Michael Davis
The term “moral code” seems to be reserved for rules or other standards (written
or not) applying to rational agents simply because they are (more or less) mem-
bers of some “natural” (i.e., nonvoluntary) society. “Code of ethics,” when having
a distinct meaning, applies instead to participants in a legitimate voluntary
activity – such as a business, profession, or government. A code of ethics may
appear under other names, including “principles of professional responsibility,”
“rules of conduct,” and “ethical guidelines” (see business ethics; professional
ethics). However denominated, a code of ethics will belong to one of three cat-
egories: (1) professional, a code applying to all, and only, members of a certain
profession (e.g., Code of Ethics of the American Medical Association, which
applies to all “physicians”); (2) organizational, codes applying only to members
(or a certain class of members) of the association formally enacting it (e.g., the
Code of Ethics of the American Institute of Architects, which applies only to
“members,” or the Motorola Code of Ethics, applying only to employees of
Motorola); or (3) practical (such as the Computer Ethics Institute’s Ten Com-
mandments of Computer Ethics), codes applying to anyone involved in a certain
voluntary practice (using a computer).
Codes of ethics may include ordinary moral standards (“Don’t steal,” “Keep your
promises,” “Help the needy”). They may also be incorporated into law. For example,
the “Nuremberg Code” on human experimentation is now part of both inter-
national law and the domestic law of many countries (see international research
ethics). But a code of ethics is not simply law or morality. It must, of course, be
“a code,” that is, a systematic statement of rules (or other standards) of conduct.
It must also be “ethics” rather than (or as well as) law or morality (see morality,
definition of; natural law).
What does “ethics” mean here? “Ethics” cannot be a mere synonym for ordi-
nary morality. If it were, codes of ethics would be no more than a systematic
statement of ordinary morality; there would be no point in speaking of “ethics”
rather than “morality.” Those who insist on using “morality” and “ethics” inter-
changeably typically have a theoretical commitment not allowing them to see
what others, including dictionaries, recognize as a common distinction. The fact
that their theoretical commitments do not allow them to recognize an ordinary
distinction when others can seems to be a problem for their theories, not for
ordinary usage.
“Ethics” in “code of ethics” does not refer to what philosophers mean by “ethics”
(e.g., the attempt to understand morality as a rational enterprise). Codes of ethics
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee018
2
are not generally the work of philosophers, nor do they often include much of a
rationale (e.g., an appeal to moral theory).
“Ethics” also does not mean those standards of conduct that moral agents should
follow (“critical morality”) or happen to follow (“positive morality”). Codes of ethics
typically claim to be true moral standards, not merely what happens to be in place
(compare Ladd 1980).
“Ethics” is sometimes said to be concerned with moral good, with whatever is
beyond the moral minimum, while “morality proper” is said to set the moral
minimum. This is another sense that seems not to fit codes of ethics, for at least
two reasons. First, this ethics-of-the-good is still universal, applying outside
professions, businesses, and other voluntary activities, as well as within. Second,
codes of ethics generally consist, in part at least, of requirements, the right way
to conduct oneself in a certain activity, and not just good ways to. Any sense of
“ethics” that does not include the right cannot be the sense relevant to “codes of
ethics.”
“Ethics” can also be used to refer to those morally permissible standards of conduct
governing members of a voluntary group simply because they are members of that
group. In this sense, research ethics is for people in research and no one else; legal
ethics, for lawyers and no one else; and so on. Ethics – in this sense – is relative even
though morality is not; it resembles law and custom, which can also vary from place
to place or group to group. But ethics is not mere convention. By definition, ethics
(in this sense) must at least be morally permissible. There can be no thieves’ ethics
or Nazi ethics, except with scare quotes around “ethics” to signal an analogical or
perverted use. This seems to be the sense in which “ethics” is typically used in the
term “code of ethics” (Davis 2003).
This last sense of “ethics” may seem objectionable to moral theorists, such as act-
utilitarians, who think of ordinary morality as “very demanding,” that is, as the sole
standard of proper conduct. This sense should, however, not seem objectionable to
any theorist (or anyone else) who admits that individuals can change the standard
of proper conduct by their own voluntary act, for example, by making a promise.
A code of ethics, in this sense, though not a mere restatement or application of
ordinary morality, can be morally binding on those to whom it applies. How is that
possible? Some codes of ethics are morally binding (in part) because of a promise,
oath, or other express consent (e.g., one’s signature on a contract that makes
following the employer’s code of ethics a condition of employment). Other codes
of ethics seem to bind in the way that the rules of a (morally permissible) game
bind while one is a voluntary participant. While one voluntarily receives the
benefits of the code – the special trust that others place in those whom the code
binds – one has a moral obligation, an obligation of fairness or nondeception, to
do what the code says.
Since law applies to its subjects whether they wish it or not, law (as such) cannot
bind in the way a code of ethics (a voluntary practice) can. Since a code of ethics
applies only to voluntary participants in a special practice, and not to everyone, a
code (if generally followed) can create trust beyond what ordinary moral conduct
3
can. It can create a special moral environment. For example, a code of ethics can
justify trust in the claims of an engineer beyond what such claims would be entitled
to if an ordinary decent person made them. Engineers have undertaken to be
“modest” and “objective” in their professional claims; such special standards are part
of their “trademark” (Arrow 1973). Other people – managers, carpenters, politicians,
grandmothers, and so on – have not.
Attempts have been made to distinguish between short, general, or uncontrover-
sial codes (“code of ethics strictly speaking”) and longer, more detailed, or more
controversial ones (“code of conduct,” “guidelines,” or the like). While some such
distinction may sometimes be useful in practice, it is hard to defend in theory. A
“code of conduct” is as much a special standard as a “code of ethics” is (except where
the “code of ethics,” being a mere restatement of morality, is just a moral code –
adding nothing but a reminder to what was already due). “Codes of conduct” are
also (generally) as morally binding as “codes of ethics.”
Codes of ethics have at least six uses. First, and most important, a code of
ethics can establish special standards of conduct where experience has shown
that common sense is no longer adequate. Second, a code of ethics, being an
authoritative formulation of the standards governing a practice, can help those
new to the practice to learn how to act. Third, a code can remind those with even
considerable experience of what they might otherwise forget. Fourth, a code can
provide a framework, a common starting point for interpretation, for settling
disputes about what conduct is appropriate, even in disputes among those with
considerable experience. Fifth, a code – by amendment – can change practice
where change seems necessary. Sixth, a code can help those outside the group
(“the public”) understand what may reasonably be expected of those in the group
(Davis 1993).
A code of ethics can also be used to justify legal liability or punitive discipline, but
such a use turns it into (something like) law (Reiff 2005).
See also: business ethics; international research ethics; morality,

definition of; natural law; professional ethics
REFERENCES
Arrow, Kenneth J. 1973. “Social Responsibility and Economic Efficiency,” Public Policy,
vol. 21 (Summer), pp. 313–17.
Davis, Michael 1993. “What Science Can Learn about Ethics from Business and the
Professions,” Accountability in Research, vol. 3 (Fall), pp. 101–10.
Davis, Michael 2003. “What Can We Learn by Looking for the First Code of Professional
Ethics?” Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics, vol. 24, pp. 433–54.
Ladd, John 1980. “The Quest for a Code of Professional Ethics: An Intellectual and Moral
Confusion,” AAAS Professional Ethics Project: Professional Ethics Activities in the
Scientific and Engineering Societies, eds. Rosemary Chalk, Mark S. Frankel, and Sallie
B. Chafer. Washington, DC: AAAS, pp. 154–9.
4
Reiff, Mark R. 2005. Punishment, Compensation, and Law: A Theory of Enforceability.

FURTHER READINGS
Coady, Margaret, and Sidney Block (eds.) (1996). Codes of Ethics in the Professions. Carlton
South, Victoria: Melbourne University Press.
Davis, Michael 2007. “Eighteen Rules for Writing a Code of Professional Ethics,” Science and
Engineering Ethics, vol. 13 (July), pp. 171–89.
Frankel, Mark S. 1989. “Professional Codes: Why, How and with What Impact?” Journal of
Business Ethics, vol. 8, pp. 109–15.
Jamal, Karim, and Norman E. Bowie 1995. “Theoretical Considerations for a Meaningful
Code of Professional Ethics,” Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 14, pp. 703–14.
Schwartz, Mark S. 2005. “Universal Moral Values for Corporate Code of Ethics,” Journal of
Business Ethics, vol. 59, pp. 27–44.
1
Nursing Ethics
Steven D. Edwards
We can think of nursing ethics as the inquiry into how nurses ought to act in their
professional lives. Nursing ethics is one form of healthcare ethics; other forms within
the more general category of healthcare ethics include medical ethics and paramedic
ethics. Healthcare ethics is a subclass of applied ethics, which in turn is a subclass of
ethics (see bioethics).
In this essay, I will begin with some historical observations on the nature of nurs-
ing ethics. I will then describe a recurring problem within nursing ethics, one which
stems from the role of the nurse. Following this, we will look in more detail at a
concept which has been much discussed in nursing ethics, that of “care.” The essay
will proceed by discussion of other important approaches to nursing ethics, specifi-
cally virtue ethics, moral realism, empirical ethics, and, very briefly, the “four
principles” approach.
Historical Background
Ethics has been recognized as integral to professional nursing since its establishment
by Florence Nightingale in the nineteenth century. Some of the earliest published
work on ethics in nursing dates back to 1889 (HCC 1889) and 1900 (Dock 1900).
According to some commentators (see Fowler and Tschudin 2006 for further
discussion of the issues in this paragraph), these early contributions are more
properly characterized as dealing with matters of professional etiquette, as opposed
to ethics. However, others interpret them as much more than simply discussions of
etiquette. This is because, for example, such questions inescapably lead on to broader
ones, such as “What is the good nurse?” – a question posed in recent scholarship in
the context of virtue ethics.
Contributions to nursing ethics continued steadily throughout the twentieth
century. In addition to authored books, there have been numerous influential codes,
for example the code proposed by the American Nurses Association (ANA)
committee on ethics (1926), the first formally agreed ANA code for nurses (1950),
and the ICN code (1973) (see codes of ethics). Although nursing journals have a
history of publishing papers on nursing ethics, it was not until 1994 that the journal
Nursing Ethics was established in the United Kingdom by Verena Tschudin and
Geoffrey Hunt. This publication has gone from strength to strength, and now
appears bi-monthly.
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee021
2
Contemporary Nursing
Perhaps the most significant change in nursing practice since its early days concerns
obedience to authorities, especially to medical staff and senior nurses. It is reported
that obedience to the instructions of medical staff and senior nurses was an expecta-
tion (Dock 1900). In the modern era, by stark contrast, obedience has no such
prominent place in nursing ethics. Codes of professional nursing ethics routinely
stress the accountability of the nurse for his or her actions (e.g., NMC 2008; see
moral agency; conscience and professionals; professional ethics).
In spite of official rejection of the idea that the nurse should unhesitatingly follow
instructions of medical staff, nurses do have obligations to physicians as professional
colleagues. In many areas of patient care, it is the physician who has more special-
ized knowledge than the nurse, and different skills. Typically, it is the physician not
the nurse who has ultimate legal responsibility for the care of the patient. Hence, in
many instances, it would make sense for the nurse to accept the decisions made by a
physician about the management of a patient.
In addition to obligations to physicians, nurses have obligations to patients. This
dual aspect of the role of the nurse often creates moral problems. Obligations to one
party frequently conflict with obligations to the other. Hence, for example, a nurse
might be informed by a doctor that a patient is “not for resuscitation (NFR)” should
they have a cardiac arrest. In a situation of this kind, certainly as recently as the
1990s, such decisions would be made by medical staff, without involvement of the
patient, their relatives, or the nurse. In such situations, often, the nurse would think
that her obligations to the patient entail discussion of the decision with them. (The
nurse might think the same obligation resides with the doctor also.) Hence, the
nurse would be caught between obligations to follow medical instructions and obli-
gations to act as an independent, accountable professional. Such situations can arise
when a patient is judged “NFR” when the nurse believes this to be ethically
problematic; or second, when a patient, in the view of the nurse, ought not to be
resuscitated, yet there is no “NFR” order present.
“Truth-telling” cases comprise a further, familiar kind of scenario in which the
“in-between” nature of the nurses’ role generates ethical problems. Frequently, as
such situations are described, some information is withheld from a patient which the
nurse believes should be given to them. The problem is exacerbated for the nurse
because of the nature of the nursing role: the nurse would normally spend far more
time with the patient than would the doctor. Moreover, it is common for doctors to
provide information for patients which the patients then discuss more slowly with
the nurses caring for them. This important aspect of the nursing role is accompanied,
of course, by many complex moral problems. For example, a patient might consent to
undergo a medical procedure or to pursue a mode of treatment (e.g., chemotherapy,
radiotherapy) with significantly incomplete understanding of what he or she has
agreed to go through. During the period between the initial consent and the proce-
dure, the patient will often try to clarify just what it is that they have agreed to with
the nurse and will seek confirmation that they are doing the “right thing.”
3
Nursing and Care

The point that nurses, in general, spend more time interacting with patients than
other kinds of healthcare professionals has been exploited to try to develop a
distinctive ethical approach to nursing practice. For some commentators, there are
too many specifically nursing concerns and too many differences between nursing
and medicine for it to be plausible to think of nursing ethics either as a form of
medical ethics, or as a form of healthcare ethics common to both professions (Fry
1989). Thus, for example, it may be claimed that the primary focus of nursing is
“care,” whereas that of medicine is “cure.”
The idea that nursing practice is characteristically a caring activity prompted
some commentators to try to develop an ethics of care, which is distinctive to
nursing. The idea that care is central to nursing is an uncontroversial one; it is
obvious that a key role of the nurse is to provide nursing care to patients. However,
the further claim that it is possible to identify an ethics of care, or indeed a philosophy
of care, has proved very seductive to many nursing scholars. This intuitively plausible
connection between an ethics of care and nursing is further fueled by at least two
main factors. First, early versions of care-based ethics (Gilligan 1982) included a
gendered element (see care ethics). Thus, it was claimed that a “care-perspective”
on moral problems is more frequently present in women than in men. Such a view
sits well with the stereotypical perception of nursing as a largely female profession
and medicine as predominantly male.
A further factor which fueled the interest in an ethics of care was the hope that
care could be employed to articulate a distinction which many thought to be present
between nursing ethics on the one hand, and medical ethics on the other. The idea
is that “caring” defines nursing but “curing” defines medicine. Hence, whereas, for
example, a principle-based ethics of the kind developed by Beauchamp and Childress
(2009; see principlism) may be well-suited to address moral problems in medicine,
the idea was that an ethics of care would be that which best fits nursing.
The proposal that caring defines nursing and curing defines medicine has come
under severe criticism. Critics point out that some areas of medicine – for example,
palliative care and preventative medicine – do not obviously have the goal of cure
anyway. Also, the implication that doctors are so focused on curing that they
dispense with caring is rejected by many physicians. Moreover, it can be pointed out
that the roles of some nurses, for example those working in very technical areas of
nursing such as ICU, may approximate more closely a medical than a nursing role.
Although the idea that care is unique to nursing seems now to have gone away, the
idea that an ethics of care is of central importance to nursing still has many
proponents (Gastmans 2006). There are a number of reasons for this, positive and
negative. The positive reasons include the following three. First, an ethics of care
focuses on the importance of personal relationships between people. Arguably, this
aspect of moral problems receives greater emphasis in an ethic of care than in other
theories. Since care seems to be an inherently relational term (to care is to care about
someone, or something), and since the nurse–patient relationship is such a central
4
part of nursing, an ethical theory which focuses on relationships is likely to be

appealing in the context of nursing ethics. Second, again arguably, the emotional
registers of caring relationships are emphasized in an ethics of care, more so than in
other theories. This too chimes with what many nurses believe to be important
about the nursing role. In that role, the nurse experiences moral problems at an
emotional and not merely intellectual level (see emotion). This again is an appealing
feature of an ethics of care to many nurses. A third element of an ethic of care which
helps account for its appeal to many nurses is its emphasis on particularity – the idea
that moral problems are unique due to the nature of the people involved in them, the
nature of their relationship, the factors which are specific to that context (see
particularism; feminist ethics).
The negative reasons which have led many nurses to be sympathetic to an ethics
of care include a distrust of overly analytical approaches to ethics. Fairly or unfairly,
it is perceived that moral theories, such as utilitarianism and deontology, and also
the “four principles” approach rely too much on cool, detached deliberation as
opposed to other factors deemed relevant such as emotion and intuition.
In spite of continued support for an ethics of care within nursing scholarship, the
approach has attracted serious criticism. Critics, both within nursing and without,
have complained about the lack of clarity in the core concept of an ethics of care,
namely care itself. Critics point out that the term “care” can be used, perfectly prop-
erly, in a way which implies little emotional attachment. One might agree to care for
one’s neighbor’s cat while she is away, or water her plants. One might do this but have
no emotional attachment to the cat or to the plants. Also, more radically, one can
query the importance of care per se as a moral quality of actions. To quote Allmark,
“what we care about is morally important, the fact that we care per se is not” (1995:
23). Still further, since in an ethics of care one’s relationships with others seem to be
privileged, a problem arises in accounting for one’s moral responsibilities to moral
strangers – or in the nursing context, future patients. The ethics of care seems to imply
that one has stronger responsibilities to one’s current patients than to future ones.
In spite of these apparently serious concerns, the idea that an ethics of care is
central to nursing has not gone away. One explanation of this is the fact that there
are at least two other versions besides that developed by Gilligan (Tronto 1993;
Gastmans 2006). These other versions are not necessarily vulnerable to the same
kinds of problems which beset Gilligan’s version. Hence, criticisms of an ethics of
care when applied to nursing have not been taken to be compelling. This is partly
because of difficulties in specifying just which version is being championed, and
also because the view that care is an important virtue in a nurse is very influential.
Virtue Ethics
The suggestion that care is a virtue has generated interest in virtue ethics within the
nursing context. The idea here is that the aim of nurse education is to produce the
“good nurse” (see virtue ethics). And the idea of the good nurse connects up with
that of the good person, which then links up with an ethics of virtue. This
5
development in nursing ethics was fueled by MacIntyre’s work which explains his
conception of a practice (1985). It seemed plausible to many to regard nursing as a
practice in the sense outlined by him. Thus, again in distinction from medicine –
different practice – it would be possible to develop a distinct nursing ethics. The
suggestion is that the values (or “internal goods,” in MacIntyre’s sense) which char-
acterize nursing differ from the values which characterize medicine, and therefore it
is possible to define nursing as an activity distinct from medicine, and hence develop
a virtue-based nursing ethics.
It should be said that this is an interesting idea, if in need of further development,
but there are a couple of problems worth signaling. First, suppose one thinks of
some of the main goals of nursing – promotion of well-being, relief of suffering,
enhancing autonomy. It is not clear that these differ substantially from medical
goals. Hence, there is little scope for articulating the distinction between nursing
and medicine in terms of the goods that the two professions aim to bring about. In
terms of means, it is certain the “care” will feature somewhere within these, and
therefore to be caring, or to care well, will count as an internal good, a core value in
other words. Once this happens, then the difficulties rehearsed earlier surrounding
that concept will need to be resolved.
Further, as in our preceding discussion of the supposed care/cure distinction, it is
far from clear that a concept of care is available which is sufficiently precise to
include nursing attitudes and activities and to exclude medical ones. In addition, of
course, there are familiar criticisms of MacIntyre’s idea – such as its apparent
conservatism, the problems of the transience of virtues (recall the discussion on
obedience at the start of this essay), a possible lapse into relativism, and so on.
Aspects of the moral psychology of virtue ethics have been of interest to those
working within this domain in the nursing context. Such aspects include, for example,
the concepts of moral perception, sensitivity, and imagination (see perception,
moral). One can best illustrate the importance of such concepts with an example.
Sandra is a nurse walking down her ward doing a “final check” on the patients
before finishing her shift. Having not noticed anything amiss, she goes in to the
ward office satisfied that all is well, and that she can hand over promptly to the nurse
leading the next shift. A nursing colleague, Freda, on the same ward, is heading to
the same office a second or two later. Freda notices one patient, Mrs. Jones, who is
sitting up in bed at a slightly awkward-looking angle. Freda goes to ask Mrs. Jones if
she is comfortable. She says she is not, and so Freda adjusts her pillows to make her
comfortable again. Freda then continues walking to the ward office.
Suppose that Mrs. Jones had been in the same, slightly awkward-looking, position
when Sandra walked past, but Sandra did not notice. Freda’s acts manifest sensitivity
to a moral dimension of the ward area that Sandra’s acts lack. This is what is meant
by the kind of sensitivity being mentioned here. It is an ability to perceive moral
aspects of one’s environment. In this example, the relevant moral aspect perceived is
the slight discomfort of Mrs. Jones. A well-developed capacity of moral perception
makes it much more likely that one will see relevant moral dimensions of situations
in nursing practice. If one lacks this sensitivity, or one’s sensitivity is insufficiently
6
developed, one is more likely to fail to attend properly to situations of the kind under
discussion here, in which a patient is in need.
In all likelihood, both nurses in the preceding example possessed moral aware-
ness, and are capable of moral perception. However, the moral perception of Freda
is more acute – at least if we are to assess moral perception in terms of how Freda
responds to Mrs. Jones’ discomfort. This example helps to highlight the significance
of phenomena such as moral perception and sensitivity in a discipline such as
nursing. Most of us would prefer to be cared for by a nurse such as Freda.
The relevance of moral imagination is again easy to illustrate. One can try to
imagine how the patient would have felt if nobody had noticed her discomfort and
done something to make her more comfortable. Hence, the idea is that by cultivating
these capacities – moral perception, sensitivity, and imagination – patient care can
be improved.
Moral Realism
An interesting related development has been a turn toward moral realism in some
scholarship within nursing ethics. This tries to move beyond the kind of moral
psychology just outlined to try to explain just what is involved in perception such
as that performed by Freda the nurse in the preceding example. For some
commentators, Freda’s response is a kind of “reflex” – rather similar to the way one
might rush to help a frail person who has fallen over and hurt herself. When one
reflects on the “moral phenomenology” of what goes on in one’s mind when one
experiences this kind of event, it does not seem as though one first sees the situation
and then decides whether or not to respond. It is as though one simply perceives the
situation in moral terms from the outset and instinctively reacts to help. Nortvedt,
perhaps the main exponent of moral realism in the context of nursing, writes, “emo-
tions … refer to moral realities” (1998: 389). Further, “To see a wound, or to see a
patient’s position in bed is at the same time to see what hurts a person …” (1998:
390). And, according to Nortvedt, this recognition also connects up with a moral
responsibility to respond to the moral reality one encounters. This moral realism is
based on an ontology derived from the work of Levinas according to which “being-
for precedes being-with” (Nortvedt 1998: 391). Thus, it is a rather complex package
of ideas to get to grips with and at present is more of an ongoing, interesting research
project as opposed to a fully worked out ethical theory (see realism, moral;
levinas, emmanuel).
Empirical Ethics, Principlism

Before closing, it is important to draw attention to two significant elements of
current work in nursing ethics. The first is the frequency of empirically based papers.
According to Borry et al. (2006), Nursing Ethics contains the highest “percentage of
empirical research articles” from among nine peer-reviewed applied ethics journals
surveyed. There has, of course, been much discussion about the value of so-called
7
“empirical ethics” (see naturalistic fallacy; fact–value distinction). Critics

complain that empirical claims can never, in principle, support normative conclu-
sions. Nonetheless, a rigorous defense has been presented by many commentators,
notably Holm (1997). We can illustrate this by consideration of, for example, empir-
ical research concerning the attitudes of nurses and physicians toward euthanasia. A
skeptic might think such research is irrelevant: either euthanasia is morally justified
or not. And this question can be answered “from the armchair,” so to speak. How-
ever, questions regarding who would be involved in the process soon arise as do the
attitudes of those involved in the process. So too, of course, do questions regarding
professional codes of ethics, and laws. Hence, it is plain that these empirical issues
are relevant to a well-thought-out response to the moral justification of euthanasia –
if that justification is intended to lead to actions or inactions which actually bring
about the deaths of patients.
Finally, before closing, it is worth returning to Beauchamp and Childress’s
“four principles” approach (2009). As indicated earlier, this has not been popular
within nursing scholarship. Nonetheless, there have been some defenders of a
modified version of Beauchamp and Childress’s approach in the context of nurs-
ing (Edwards 2009). The modification stems from an acceptance of the force of
points from virtue ethics regarding phenomena such as moral perception, care,
and imagination. Some hold the view that these kinds of phenomena constitute a
“backdrop” upon which the kinds of obligations referred to by the four principles
can be overlain.
See also: bioethics; care ethics; codes of ethics; conscience and

professionals; emotion; fact–value distinction; feminist ethics; levinas,
emmanuel; moral agency; naturalistic fallacy; perception, moral;
principlism; professional ethics; realism, moral; virtue ethics
REFERENCES
Allmark, P. 1995. “Can There Be an Ethics of Care?” Journal of Medical Ethics, vol. 21, pp. 19–24.
American Nurses Association (ANA) 1926. “A Suggested Code,” American Journal of Nursing,
vol. 26, no. 8, pp. 599–601.
American Nurses Association (ANA) 1950. The Code for Professional Nurses. Kansas: ANA.
Beauchamp, T. L., and J. F. Childress 2009. Principles of Biomedical Ethics, 6th ed. Oxford:
Borry, P., P. Schotsmans, and K. Dierickx 2006. “Empirical Research in Bioethical Journals.
A Quantitative Analysis,” Journal of Medical Ethics, vol. 32, pp. 240–5.
Dock, L. L. 1900. Short Papers on Nursing Subjects. New York: M. Louise Longeway.
Edwards, S. D. 2009. Nursing Ethics, A Principle-Based Approach, 2nd ed. Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Fowler, M. and V. Tschudin 2006. “Ethics in Nursing: An Historical Perspective,” in
A. J. Davis, V. Tschudin, and L. de Raeve (eds.), Essentials of Teaching and Learning in
Nursing Ethics. London: Churchill Livingstone, pp. 13–26.
Fry, S. T. 1989. “Toward a Theory of Nursing Ethics,” Advances in Nursing Science, vol. 11,
no. 4, pp. 9–22.
8
Gastmans, C. 2006. “The Care Perspective in Healthcare Ethics,” in A. J. Davis, V. Tschudin,

and L. de Raeve (eds.), Essentials of Teaching and Learning in Nursing Ethics. London:
Churchill Livingstone, pp. 135–48.
Gilligan, C. 1982. In a Different Voice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
HCC (author identified by initials only) May 1889. “Ethics in Nursing: Talks of a
Superintendent with her Graduating Class,” Trained Nurse and Hospital Review, vol. 2,
no. 5, pp. 179–83.
Holm, S. 1997. Ethical Problems in Clinical Practice, the Ethical Reasoning of Healthcare
Professionals. Manchester: University of Manchester Press.
International Council of Nurses (ICN) 1973. “Code for Nurses, Ethical Concepts Applied to
Nursing,” Geneva: ICN.
MacIntyre, A. 1985. After Virtue, A Study in Moral Theory. London: Duckworth.
Nortvedt, P. 1998. “Sensitive Judgement: An Inquiry into the Foundations of Nursing Ethics,”
Nursing Ethics, vol. 5, no. 5, pp. 385–92.
Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) 2008. Standards of Conduct, Performance and Ethics
for Nurses and Midwives. London: NMC.
Tronto, J. 1993. Moral Boundaries, a Political Argument for an Ethic of Care. New York: Routledge.
FURTHER READINGS
Armstrong, A. E. 2007. Nursing Ethics, a Virtue-Based Approach. Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Benner, P., and J. Wrubel 1989. The Primacy of Caring, Stress and Coping in Health and Illness.
Menlo Park, CA: Addison Wesley.
Bishop, A. H., and J. R. Scudder 1991. Nursing, the Practice of Caring. New York: NLN Press.
Davis, A. J., and M. A. Aroskar 1983. Ethical Dilemmas and Nursing Practice, 2nd ed. Norwalk,
CT: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
Davis, A. J., V. Tschudin, and L. de Raeve (eds.) 2006. Essentials of Teaching and Learning
Nursing Ethics, Perspectives and Methods. London: Churchill Livingstone.
Dooley, D., and J. McCarthy 2005. Nursing Ethics, Irish Cases and Concerns. Dublin: Gill and
Macmillan.
Edwards, S. D. 2001. Philosophy of Nursing, an Introduction. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Edwards, S. D. 2009. Nursing Ethics, a Principle-Based Approach. Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Heidegger, M. 1962. Being and Time, trans. J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson. Oxford: Blackwell.
Johnstone, M. -J. 2009. Bioethics, a Nursing Perspective, 5th ed. Sydney, PA: Harcourt Saunders.
Leininger, M. M. 1984. Care, the Essence of Nursing and Health. New York: Slack.
McCarthy, J. 2006. “A Pluralist View of Nursing Ethics,” Nursing Philosophy, vol. 7, no. 3,
pp. 157–64.
Noddings, N. 1984. Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education. Los Angeles:
University of California Press.
Nortvedt, P. 2001. “Needs, Closeness and Responsibilities: An Inquiry into Some Rival
Considerations in Nursing Care,” Nursing Philosophy, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 112–21.
Robb, I. H. 1903. Nursing Ethics: For Hospital and Private Use. Cleveland: J. B. Savage.
Storch, J. L., P. Rodney, and R. Starzomski 2004. Toward a Moral Horizon, Nursing Ethics for
Leadership and Practice. Toronto: Pearson.
Thompson, I. E., K. M. Melia, and K. M. Boyd 2000. Nursing Ethics. London: Churchill
Livingstone.
1
Species, the Value of

Holmes Rolston III
When animals, birds, and plants vanish from the landscape, this raises public con-
cern. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, reporting a multinational consensus
of hundreds of experts, concluded: “Over the past few hundred years, humans have
increased species extinction rates by as much as 1,000 times background rates that
were typical over Earth’s history” (2005a: 3). The US Congress, deploring the lack of
“adequate concern [for] and conservation [of]” species, passed the Endangered
Species Act (1973: §2(a)(1) ). A quite effective international convention from the
same year is CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of
Wild Fauna and Flora; CITES 1973). Loss of species seems intuitively bad, but why?
What values are attached to species?
Values of Species to Humans

Persons are helped or hurt by the condition of their environment, which includes a
wealth of wild species. Humans often value species by finding instrumental uses –
medical, agricultural, industrial (Chivian and Bernstein 2008). To give only a few
examples: vincristine and vinblastine, extracted from a Madagascar periwinkle
(Catharantus roseus), are used to treat Hodgkin’s disease and leukemia. A variety of
wild tomato (Lycopersicon chmielewskii), found in Peru, has been bred into and
enhanced the tomato for the US industry, making a firmer tomato for machine
handling, resulting in multimillion dollar profits.
An obscure Yellowstone thermophilic microbe, Thermophus aquaticus, was discovered
to contain a heat-stable enzyme, which can be used to drive the polymerase chain
reaction (PCR), used in a gene-copying technique. The rights to the process sold in
1991 for $300 million, and the process is now earning $100 million a year. Norman
Myers (2009) urges “conserving our global stock.” “To keep every cog and wheel is
the first precaution of intelligent tinkering,” cautioned Aldo Leopold (1970: 190).
Save all the parts. Who knows what might be useful?
Wild species may be indirectly important for the roles they play in ecosystems.
They are “rivets” in the airplane, the Earthship in which we humans are flying
(Ehrlich and Ehrlich 1981). The loss of a few species may have no evident results
now, but the loss of many species imperils the resilience and stability of the
ecosystems on which humans depend. Critics have responded that it is difficult to
argue that every species is a rivet; rare ones are unlikely to be. The metaphor is
faulty; Earth is not a well-engineered machine that needs all its parts. Ecosystems
are more pluralist and loosely structured than that, even if there is sometimes truth
to the “rivets” argument.
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee023
2
A further argument is that species, now especially the rare ones, are often clues to
natural history. No sensible person would destroy the Rosetta Stone (named after
the obelisk found at Rosetta in Egypt in 1799, which enabled deciphering forgotten
languages of the ancient past). No self-respecting humans will destroy the mouse
lemur, endangered in Madagascar and thought to be the nearest modern animal to
the primates from which the human line evolved. Destroying species is like tearing
pages out of an unread book, written in a language humans hardly know how to
read, about the place where we live. But what if species are not resources, rivets, or
Rosetta Stones?
A frequent argument is that, in a more enlightened view, human well-being
depends on relationships not only with other humans, but with life on Earth.
David Schmidtz explains: “It would be a failure of self-interest to care only about
ourselves. We must care about something beyond ourselves. Otherwise we won’t
have enough to care about, and will as a result be unhealthy” (2008: 3). If humans
live on a wonderland Earth, they will be impoverished so long as they remain
unappreciative of their rich surroundings – even if they do find some uses for
these other species.
White persons in the US South became better persons when they abolished
slavery, and stopped thinking of blacks only in terms of ultility. Male whites are
richer as a result of the liberation of women in their societies. A person who reforms
his or her evaluation of wild species benefits because such a person is now living in
a richer and more harmonious relationship with nature. This appeals to those
advocating a virtue ethics: generous persons save the whales and butterflies and are
the better off because of their increased virtues.
Noblesse Oblige
At a basic level, a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature is quite
possible without wolves on the landscape. But still more fundamentally, Bryan
Norton argues, considering wolf policy (in Norway, similarly in Montana),
legislation is needed to force the sheepherders to accept the wolves; and, accompa-
nying that, they need to be persuaded to see that the wolves are good for them: “I
would argue that in this case the local people … should be pushed to change some-
what in the direction of wolf protection.” Otherwise, those sheepherders will “have
sacrificed their birthright of wildness for a few sheep.” People should want wolves
on the landscape lest future generations “feel profoundly the loss of wilderness
experiences.” “Too often, local communities have acted on the basis of short-term
interests, only to learn that they have irretrievably deprived their children of
something of great value” (Norton 1999: 397–8, 308). Keep the wolves, and other
endangered species, so that we and our children can tingle in awe. This may be a
human benefit, but it also seems to be recognizing some value in the awesome
wolves.
More pragmatically, there are debates about ownership of values associated with
biodiversity. Historically, wild plant species, seeds, and germplasm have been
3
considered in the public domain, or part of “the common heritage of mankind.”

But, increasingly, Third World nations have been claiming that species within their
boundaries are their national property. The Convention on Biological Diversity
begins: “States have sovereign rights over their own biological resources” and
continues, “Recognizing the sovereign rights of States over the natural resources,
the authority to determine access to genetic resources rests with the national
governments and is subject to national legislation” (United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development 1992: Preamble; Article 15). These nations are,
at the same time, resisting patents and other intellectual property rights based
on the development of genetic resources found on their lands, and held by
developed nations.
Some natural resources, such as ores and trees, can be national resources, but it is
not clear that nations can or should own species, which is more like owning the
structure of gold than owning a deposit of gold. Did the Peruvian government, or the
people of Peru, or the local indigenous people, own the tomato species found wild in
their forests from which geneticists bred a useful gene into agricultural tomatoes?
The Convention’s language of “access to genetic resources” may bypass questions of
ownership, creating both problems and opportunities for the conservation of genetic
biodiversity.
Species as Good in Themselves

By a more radical account – one I have developed (Rolston 1988) – many claim that
species are good in their own right, whether or not they are good for anything. The
United Nations World Charter for Nature states, “Every form of life is unique,
warranting respect regardless of its worth to man” (United Nations General Assembly
1982). The Convention on Biological Diversity affirms “the intrinsic value of
biological diversity” (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development
1992: Preamble). Both are signed by most nations on Earth. An appraisal finding
values in species as goods of their kind faces challenges, both biological and
philosophical, which, from another perspective, offer opportunities for enlarging
traditional frameworks of value (see intrinsic value).
A consideration of species offers a biologically based counterexample to the focus
on individuals characteristic in Western ethics. In an evolutionary ecosystem, it is
not mere individuality that counts. The life that the individual has is something
passing through the individual as much as something it intrinsically possesses, and
a comprehensive respect for life finds it appropriate to attach duty dynamically to
the specific forms of life. The individual represents, or re-presents anew, a species in
each subsequent generation. It is a token of a type, and the type is more important
than the token. Though species are not moral agents, a biological identity – a kind
of value – is here defended. The dignity resides in the dynamic form; the individual
inherits this, exemplifies it, and passes it on. Having a biological identity reasserted
genetically over time is as true of the species as of the individual. Respecting that
identity generates duties to species.
4
The appropriate survival unit is the appropriate location of persistent valuing,

where the defense of life goes on in regeneration, as individual members of a species
are given over to survival of their kind. Plants and animals not only defend their own
lives; they defend their kinds. Such kinds are the dynamism of life. A shutdown of
the life stream on Earth would be the most destructive event possible. In threatening
Earth’s biodiversity, the wrong that humans are doing is stopping the historical
vitality of life.
Critics may respond that species can seem as made up as discovered, since
systematists regularly revise species designations and routinely put after a species the
name of the “author” who, they say, “erected” the taxon. No one proposes duties to
genera, families, orders, phyla; biologists concede that these do not exist in nature.
But on a more realist account, a biological species is a living historical form (Latin:
species), propagated in individual organisms, that flows dynamically over generations.
A species is a coherent, ongoing, dynamic lineage expressed in organisms, encoded
in gene flow. In this sense, species are objectively there – found, not made by
taxonomists. Species are real historical entities, interbreeding populations. By
contrast, families, orders, and genera are not levels where biological reproduction
takes place. This claim – that there are specific forms of life historically maintained
over time – seems about as certain as anything else we believe about the empirical
world, even though at times scientists revise the theories and taxa with which they
map these forms. So far from being arbitrary, species are the real survival units.
The species is a bigger event than the individual, although species are always
exemplified in individuals. Biological conservation goes on at this level too; and,
really, this level is more appropriate for moral concern, a more comprehensive
survival unit than the individual organism. For example, if the predators are
removed, and the carrying capacity of a landscape is exceeded, wildlife managers
may have to benefit a species by culling its member individuals.
Critics may continue that, even if species are biologically real, they are not valuable in
a philosophically relevant sense, because they have no interests. Nicholas Rescher says,
Moral obligation is thus always interest-oriented. But only individuals can be said to
have interests; one only has moral obligations to particular individuals or particular
groups thereof. Accordingly, the duty to save a species is not a matter of moral duty
toward it, because moral duties are only oriented to individuals. A species as such is the
wrong sort of target for a moral obligation. (1980: 83)
But concern for species may transcend the coordinates of classical ethical systems.
True, a species has no self defending its life. There is no analog to the nervous
hookups or metabolisms that characterize individual organisms, and no sentient
interests. But perhaps this singular somatic identity, the good of its own, which is
respected in individual organisms, especially those with felt experiences, is not the
only process that is valuable (see animals, moral status of). Biology is multileveled,
with processes at molecular, cellular, metabolic, organismic, species, ecosystems, and
even global levels.
5
In the birth-death-birth-death system a series of replacements is required.

Reproduction is typically assumed to be a need of individuals, but since any
particular individual can flourish somatically without reproducing at all, indeed
may be put through duress and risk or spend much energy reproducing, by
another logic we can interpret reproduction as the species staying in place by its
replacements. In this sense a female jaguar does not bear cubs to be healthy
herself. Rather, her cubs are Panthera onca recreating itself by continuous
performance.
A female animal does not have mammary glands nor a male testicles in order to
preserve its own life; these organs are defending the line of life bigger than the
somatic individual. The locus of the value that is defended over generations is as
much in the form of life, since the individuals are genetically impelled to sacrifice
themselves in the interests of reproducing their kind. The species line too is
value-able, able to conserve a biological identity. Indeed it is more real, more
value-able than the individual, necessary though individuals are for the continuance
of this lineage (Rolston 1988). The species line is the vital living system, the whole,
of which individual organisms are the essential parts. The species defends a particu-
lar form of life, pursuing a pathway through the world, resisting death (extinction),
by regeneration maintaining a normative identity over time. The value resides in the
dynamic form; the individual inherits this, exemplifies it, and passes it on. If so, what
prevents value existing at that level?
Species Lines in Ecosystems

A species is what it is, where it is. Particular species may not be essential in the
sense that the ecosystem can survive the loss of individual species. But habitats are
essential to species, and an endangered species often means an endangered habi-
tat. The species and the community are complementary goods in synthesis, paral-
lel to, but a level above, the way the species and individual organisms have
distinguishable but entwined goods. It is not preservation of species that protects
the relevant values, but the preservation of species in the system. It is not merely
what they are, but where they are that one must value correctly (Ehrlich and
Ehrlich 1981).
This limits the otherwise important role that zoos and botanical gardens can
play in the conservation of species. They can provide research, a refuge for species,
breeding programs, aid on public education, and so forth, but they cannot simulate
the ongoing dynamism of gene flow over time under the selection pressures in a
wild biome. They only lock up a collection of individuals; they amputate the species
from its habitat. The species can only be preserved in situ; the species ought to be
preserved in situ. That moves from scientific facts to ethical duties, but what ought
to be has to be based on what can be.
Neither individual nor species stands alone; both are embedded in an ecosystem.
Plants, which are autotrophs, have a certain independence that animals and other
heterotrophs do not have. Plants need only water, sunshine, soil, nutrients, local
6
conditions of growth; animals, often mobile and higher up the trophic pyramid, may
range more widely but in this alternate form of independence depend on the primary
production of plants. Every natural form of life came to be what it is, where it is,
shaped as an adaptive fit, even when species acquire a fitness that enables them to
track into differing environments. A problem with exotic species, introduced by
humans, is often that they are not good fits in their alien ecosystems. But the whole
population or species survives when selected by natural forces in the environment
for a niche it can occupy.
In addition to placing species in ecosystems in natural history, in environmental
policy, the legislation to protect endangered species has often been used to protect as
well the ecosystems of which they are part (such as the old growth forests of the
Pacific Northwest, containing the spotted owl) (see wilderness, value of). An
ecosystems approach is increasingly regarded as more efficient than a single-species
approach.
It might seem that for humans to terminate species now and again is quite natural.
Species go extinct all the time. But there are important theoretical and practical
differences between natural and anthropogenic (human-generated) extinctions. In
natural extinction, a species dies when it has become unfit in habitat, and other
species, competing more successfully, typically appear in its place, a normal turnover.
By contrast, artificial extinction shuts down speciation. One opens doors, the other
closes them. Humans generate and regenerate nothing; they dead-end these lines.
Relevant differences make the two as morally distinct as death by natural causes is
from murder. Extinction shuts down the generative processes, a kind of superkilling.
This kills forms (species) beyond individuals, kills collectively, not just distributively.
To kill a particular animal is to stop a life of a few years or decades, while other lives
of such kind continue unabated; to superkill a particular species is to shut down
a story of many millennia, and leave no future possibilities.
Win–Win Conservation
Conservationists may advocate a “win–win ecology” so that “the Earth’s species
can survive in the midst of human enterprise” (Rosenzweig 2003). The values of
species must complement human values. When persons are in harmony with
nature, everyone wins, equally people, rhinos, and tigers. These conservatives also
may be skeptics. The best you can do is enlighten self-interest. That is all that is
politically, economically, sociologically, biologically feasible, or even imaginable.
But then again, we defend our interests against others only to learn that many of
our interests are not a zero sum game, as we often learn in the human–human
parliament of interests. Many community goods are goods in common (see civic
virtue). We can learn that again in the human–nature community of interests.
The best strategy, on this view, is to argue that persons living abundant lives need
to experience the wonderland natural world. Biodiversity was formerly too much
devalued, as if it were nothing but consumable resources. Biodiversity in place
7
benefits people. People and species can win together. “In the long run, what is
good for our species will also be good for other species, taken as species” (Norton
et al. 1995: 115).
David Schmitz puts this appealingly: “If we do not tend to what is good for
nature, we will not be tending to what is good for people either … We need to be
human-centered to be properly nature-centered, for if we do not tend to what is
good for people, we will not be tending to what is good for nature either.” In
Africa, he continues, “threatened species will have to contribute to the local
economy if they are to have any hope of survival” (2008: 235–6, 231). He follows
Brian Child: “wildlife will survive in Africa only where it can compete financially
for space” (1993: 60). Likewise and more bluntly, Norman Myers: “In emergent
Africa, you either use wildlife or lose it. If it pays its own way, some of it will
survive” (1981: 36).
Such accounts start with appeal. They advocate realistic compromise. They also
can become blatantly pragmatic. They result in saving endangered species only if
they are worth more alive than dead. Many would argue that even if, lamentably,
such evaluations of species are inescapable in Africa and other developing nations,
they ought not to be taken as morally commendable in developed nations. Only the
charismatic megafauna bring in tourist dollars; most endangered species cannot pay
their own way, and will be lost. Surely it is morally superior to respect more
inclusively the values present in, and at jeopardy in, endangered fauna and flora,
large and small. Perhaps it is not moral at all to respect species only so far as they
have cash value.
But even in developed countries there are trade-offs. The win–win account, if
sometimes true, can be naïve about conflicting priorities. The Delhi Sands
flower-loving fly was standing in the way of building a hospital in California, and
also blocking an industrial development with 20,000 jobs (Booth 1997). A California
state senator exclaimed, “I’m for people, not for flies.” In such a context, one might
try to find some usefulness for the flies – as rivet, resource, or Rosetta Stone. This is
likely to fail. As promising an argument as any is to urge respect for a unique species
with clever form of life defending a good of its own. The fly (and other interesting
species) inhabits only a few hundred acres of ancient inland dunes, reduced from
once 40 square miles. It cannot move, but the hospital and other developments could
be built elsewhere.
Sometimes the win–win argument does seem to work. The California gnatcatcher
(Polioptila californica), a threatened species, inhabits some undeveloped but
expensive real estate in southern California. Developers reluctantly agreed to a
checkerboard pattern of development, reserving lands for the small bird and other
species of concern. They found, somewhat to their surprise, that the parcels they did
develop had considerably increased value, as homeowners greatly valued homes
near the conservation areas punctuating the sprawl of subdivisions (Mann and
Plummer 1995). Gnatcatchers got their habitat and people got homes they valued
more with the open space.
8
Biodiversity on Earth
Concern for “endangered species” has broadened to become concern for
“biodiversity.” This recognizes values present at all levels: genes, organisms, species,
ecosystems, regional biomes, landscapes, oceans (Wilson 1992). Such a perspective
is found in the Convention on Biological Diversity, signed by 192 nations. The
Ecological Society of America urges: “Achieving a sustainable biosphere is the single
most important task facing humankind today” (Risser et al. 1991: 627). The
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment is blunt: “At the heart of this assessment is a
stark warning. Human activity is putting such strain on the natural functions of
Earth that the ability of the planet’s ecosystems to sustain future generations can no
longer be taken for granted” (2005b: 5).
Persisting through vicissitudes for two and a half billion years, speciation is
about as long-continuing as anything on Earth can be, generating the fundamen-
tal life-values on the planet. What humans are doing, or allowing to happen
through carelessness, is shutting down the life stream, the most destructive event
possible. On the scale of evolutionary time, humans appear late and suddenly.
Even more lately and suddenly they increase the extinction rate dramatically.
What is offensive in such conduct is not merely senseless loss of resources, but the
maelstrom of killing and insensitivity to forms of life. What is required is not pru-
dence but principled responsibility to the biospheric Earth. Only the human spe-
cies contains moral agents, but conscience ought not to be used to exempt every
other form of life from consideration, with the resulting paradox that the sole
moral species acts only in its collective self-interest toward all the rest (see envi-
ronmental ethics).
See also: animals, moral status of; civic virtue; environmental ethics;
intrinsic value; wilderness, value of
REFERENCES
Booth, William 1997. “Developers Wish Rare Fly Would Buzz Off,” Washington Post, April 4,
p. A01.
Child, Brian 1993. “The Elephant as a Natural Resource,” Wildlife Conservation, vol. 96, no. 2,
pp. 60–1.
Chivian, Eric, and Aaron Bernstein (eds.) 2008. Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends
on Biodiversity. New York: Oxford University Press.
CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora),
prepared and adopted by the Plenipotentiary Conference to Conclude an International
Convention on Trade in Certain Species of Wildlife, Washington, DC, February
12–March 2, 1973, 27 U.S.T, 1088, T.I.A.S 8249.
Ehrlich, Paul, and Anne Ehrlich 1981. Extinction. New York: Random House.
Leopold, Aldo 1970. “The Round River,” in A Sand County Almanac. New York: Oxford
9
Mann, Charles C., and Mark L. Plummer 1995. “California vs. Gnatcatcher,” Audubon,
vol. 97, no. 1, pp. 38–48, 100–4.
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005a. Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Biodiversity
Synthesis. Washington, DC: World Resources Institute.
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005b. Living Beyond Our Means: Natural Assets and
Human Well-Being: Statement from the Board. Washington, DC: World Resources
Institute.
Myers, Norman 1979. “Conserving Our Global Stock,” Environment, vol. 21, no. 9,
pp. 25–33.
Myers, Norman 1981. “A Farewell to Africa,” International Wildlife, vol. 11, no. 4, pp. 36–47.
Norton, Bryan G. 1999. “Convergence Corroborated: A Comment on Arne Naess on Wolf
Policies,” in Nina Witoszek and Andrew Brennan (eds.), Philosophical Dialogues: Arne Naess
and the Progress of Ecophilosophy. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 394–401.
Norton, Bryan G., Michael Hutchins, Elizabeth F. Stevens, and Terry L. Maple 1995. Ethics on
the Ark: Zoos, Animal Welfare, and Wildlife Conservation. Washington, DC: Smithsonian
Institution Press.
Rescher, Nicholas 1980. “Why Save Endangered Species,” in Unpopular Essays on Technological
Progress. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, pp. 79–92.
Risser, Paul G., Jane Lubchenco, and Samuel A. Levin 1991. “Biological Research Priorities –
A Sustainable Biosphere,” BioScience, vol. 41, pp. 625–7.
Rolston, Holmes, III 1988. “Life in Jeopardy: Duties to Endangered Species,” in Environmental
Ethics. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, Ch. 4.
Rosenzweig, Michael L. 2003. Win–Win Ecology: How the Earth’s Species Can Survive in the
Midst of Human Enterprise. New York: Oxford University Press.
Schmidtz, David 2008. Person, Polis, Planet: Essays in Applied Philosophy. New York: Oxford
University Press.
United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, Convention on Biological
Diversity 1992. At http://www.cbd.int/convention/text/, accessed March 3, 2012.
United Nations General Assembly World Charter for Nature. New York: UN General
Assembly Resolution No. 37/7 of 28 October 1982.
US Congress 1973. Endangered Species Act of 1973. 87 Stat. 884. Public Law 93–205.
Wilson, Edward O. 1992. The Diversity of Life. Boston: Harvard University Press.
FURTHER READINGS
Bradley, Ben 2001. “The Value of Endangered Species,” Journal of Value Inquiry, vol. 35,
pp. 43–58.
Cafaro, Philip J., and Richard B. Primack 2001. “Ethical Issues in Biodiversity Protection,” in
Simon Asher Levin (ed.), Encyclopedia of Biodiversity, vol. 2. San Diego: Academic
Press, pp. 593–607.
Chivian, Eric, and Aaron Bernstein (eds.), 2008. Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends
on Biodiversity. New York: Oxford University Press.
Czech, Brian, and Paul R. Krausman 2001. The Endangered Species Act: History, Conservation
Biology, and Public Policy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.
Norton, Bryan G. 1987. Why Preserve Natural Variety? Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Rolston, Holmes, III 1990. “Property Rights and Endangered Species,” University of Colorado
Law Review, vol. 61, pp. 283–306.
10
Rolston, Holmes, III 1996. “Feeding People versus Saving Nature,” in William Aiken and
Hugh LaFollette (eds.), World Hunger and Morality, 2nd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Prentice-Hall, pp. 248–67.
Sagoff, Mark 1980. “On the Preservation of Species,” Columbia Journal of Environmental Law,
vol. 7, pp. 33–67.
Taylor, Martin F. J., Kieran F. Suckling, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski 2005. “The Effectiveness of the
Endangered Species Act: A Quantitative Analysis,” BioScience, vol. 55, pp. 360–7.
1
Williams, Bernard
A. W. Moore
Life and Work

Bernard Williams (1929–2003) was one of the greatest moral philosophers of the
twentieth century. He was born near London and educated in Oxford during the
early heyday of ordinary language philosophy. He subsequently held research and
teaching posts in Oxford, London, Cambridge, and Berkeley.
Williams’ education instilled in him a mistrust of philosophical system-building
which he never surrendered and which goes some way towards explaining a signal
feature of his work: his total impatience with all attempts to simplify life’s complexity.
It also instilled in him a respect for the analytic tradition in philosophy, within which
his own work can be said to lie. He was never a vigorous apologist for this tradition.
However, he always maintained the standards of clarity and rigor which it prizes, and
his work serves as a model of all that is best in the tradition. It is brilliant, deep,
and imaginative. It is also extraordinarily tight. There cannot be many critics of his
work who have not thought of some objection to what he says, only to find, on
looking for a relevant quotation to turn into a target, that Williams carefully presents
his views in a way that precisely anticipates the objection. Where his work is perhaps
less typical of the analytic tradition is in its breadth, in its erudition, and above all in
its profound humanity.
Williams wrote extensively in moral philosophy, producing a series of classic
articles and three outstanding books. The three books are: Morality (1972), which he
wrote as an introduction to the subject but which contains some fascinating early
glimpses into the subtleties of his own original thought; Ethics and the Limits of
Philosophy (1985), a much more advanced work which is in many ways the locus
classicus for his ideas in ethics; and Shame and Necessity (1993), considered by some
to be his greatest work, in which he pursues a recurrent interest in ancient Greek
ethical thought.
When he first began to produce work in moral philosophy, in the early 1960s, the
subject had for some time been embroiled in arid, ahistorical, second-order debates
about the status of moral discourse, for instance about whether an act of moral
condemnation, such as telling someone “It was reprehensible of you to do that,”
involved making any genuine assertion. Williams did not by any means believe that
all second-order debates in moral philosophy – not even all second-order debates
about the status of moral discourse – had to be of this unedifying kind. He himself
made important contributions to just such debates (1972: Ch. 5; 1985: Ch. 7).
However, he did so with a sensitivity to their wider context, and indeed to their
limitations, which he thought had been lacking in other recent contributions.
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee024
2
He was keen to re-establish contact with the real concerns that animate our ethical
experience.
He described himself as a pessimist (1995a: 222, n. 19). He thought that the truth
was ultimately unconsoling; and he thought that one of the greatest challenges
confronting all of us, not just philosophers, was to find ways of facing the truth with-
out being broken by it. The title of one of his books, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy
(1985), indicates his skepticism about the extent to which philosophy can help us to
meet this challenge. Philosophy has its limits. He did not, however, deny that it can
offer us any help at all. It can help us insofar as it can help us to make sense of things.
And the titles of two of his anthologies, Making Sense of Humanity (1995b) and
Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline (2006a), capture well how he thought it can
help us, in turn, to do this. Philosophy, for Williams, is a fundamentally humanistic
discipline: it can help us to make sense of things by helping us to make sense, in
particular, of humanity. Throughout his career, Williams was insistent that, although
it can do no more, it should do no less.
Williams’ Metaethics: Nonobjectivism

One of the principal aims of Williams’ work in moral philosophy is to provide a
critique of ethical experience. This he does with great sensitivity and force. His work
shows admirably how much moral philosophy can achieve. It is somewhat ironical,
then, that one of his best-known contentions, adumbrated towards the end of the
previous section, concerns how little moral philosophy can achieve. Moral
philosophy cannot deliver the very thing that might have been expected of it: a theory
to guide ethical deliberation. What it can do is to assist the self-understanding of
those whose ethical deliberation already has guidance from elsewhere. However, as
soon as it attempts to offer guidance of its own, in the shape of a theory, the question
arises of where it gets its authority from to do this, sheer reason being, in Williams’
view, too abstract for such practical purposes.
This conclusion is disappointing for those who had hoped that, confronted
with someone who was unmoved by ethical considerations (see amoralist), we
could remedy the situation by dint of such a theory; in other words, that we could
use such a theory to persuade this person of the force that ethical considerations
have. However, Williams is adamant that this was always an ill-conceived hope
(1972: Ch. 1; 1985: Ch. 2). Someone who lacks a sympathetic concern for the wel-
fare of other people (say) does not need exposure to a theory. What he or she
needs is something to expand his or her emotions. Most people acquire this by
being suitably brought up. Others, provided they are not completely psychopathic,
may be able to acquire it by following the momentum of a step that they must
already have taken, the step to a sympathetic concern for the welfare of at least one
other person. However, Williams does not see this as a defeat for rationality. It is
rather a question of what kinds of forces are at work. Someone who has been suit-
ably brought up will be incapable of doing certain things and incapable of not
3
doing others (1995c). However, any reason the person has for doing anything
must ultimately be subject to such constraints rather than set them.
More generally, Williams thinks that it is impossible for anyone to have a reason
for doing anything that is not grounded in some suitably given value, desire, project,
commitment, or the like – in some motivation, for short (1981c; see reasons,
internal and external). Herein is further concern about the idea of an ethical
theory. Theories aim at a tidiness, a systematicity, and an economy of ideas that are
quite inappropriate where motivations are concerned (except, perhaps, in public life,
where certain agencies are not properly accountable unless there is a suitable explic-
itness about how they are run). In particular, theories aim to eliminate conflict,
whereas it is quite possible for motivations to conflict and (hence) for someone to
have ineliminable reasons for doing each of two incompatible things (1973c).
What then of the problem of interpersonal conflict? And what of the associated
problem of ethical disagreement? Williams’ view seems to threaten hopes for
objectivity. It seems to entail that ethical deliberation, inasmuch as it is at the behest
of an individual’s antecedently given motivations, is not ultimately answerable to any-
thing, or at any rate not to anything transpersonal; and that sufficiently diverse moti-
vations might generate ethical disagreements that are irresoluble. Is this a real threat?
And if it is, are the consequences for ethics disturbing (see subjectivism, ethical)?
Much of Williams’ work in moral philosophy is devoted to addressing these very
questions – but in an effort to clarify and refine them as much as to answer them
(1972: Ch. 2). Blank pronouncements about objectivity conflate all sorts of issues,
some logical, some epistemological, some metaphysical, and Williams is at great
pains to disentangle these. Thus, reconsider the idea that ethical deliberation is not
ultimately answerable to anything transpersonal. Here, we must distinguish the
question whether ethical deliberation is about a reality that exists independently of
the deliberator, from the question whether it is about a reality that exists independently
of everyone. There is also the question whether it is about an independent reality at
all (see realism, moral), a question that must itself be distinguished from the
question whether it is constrained to go in a certain direction. Kant, for example,
believed that it had the second of these features but not the first.
Still, does not Williams’ view entail that it has neither? Does it not entail that
there is a basic distinction between fact and value – between what is true irrespective
of what anyone thinks about it and what is a matter of people’s differing
supplementary evaluations – so that ethical deliberation, inasmuch as it is at the
behest of the latter, is not ultimately answerable to anything transpersonal in any
sense (see fact–value distinction)?
There can be no doubt that Williams’ view entails something like that (1972:
48–51). However, it would be a gross oversimplification to put it in those terms.
For Williams, an ethical judgment can be straightforwardly true or false. Thus,
consider what Williams and others call “thick” ethical concepts (see thick and
thin concepts). A thick ethical concept is a concept that has both an evaluative
aspect and a factual aspect. An example is the concept of infidelity. To apply a
4
thick ethical concept in a given situation is, in part, to evaluate the situation,
which characteristically means either condemning or commending certain
courses of action. However, it is also to make a judgment which is subject to cor-
rection if the situation turns out not to be a certain way. Thus, suppose that Anna
accuses Zoë of infidelity. And suppose that Zoë contests the accusation. Then she
may be able to settle the matter in her own favor by showing that she has not gone
back on any relevant agreement. (It is in this respect that thick ethical concepts
differ from more general prescriptive concepts – “thin” ethical concepts – such as
that of wrong-doing. Although an accusation of wrong-doing may also have to be
withdrawn on grounds of factual error, this will be for reasons that are extraneous
to the concept itself.) For Williams, a judgment involving a thick ethical concept
can be indissolubly both ethical and answerable to how things are, true or false as
the case may be (1985: 140–5).
The crucial issue, Williams thinks, is how such a judgment is to be assessed at
a suitable level of reflection. It is here that the most important distinction arises.
This is a distinction, not between fact and value, but between science and ethics.
In the case of a true scientific judgment, Williams argues, there is some hope that
people will come to accept it because it is true, where this is an explanatory
“because” that can be exercised at the relevant level of reflection. In the case of a
true ethical judgment, in other words a true judgment involving a thick ethical
concept, there is no such hope. In the latter case, if people do come to accept the
judgment, or even if they come to know that it is true, which Williams is quite
happy to concede they may, still the explanation for that fact, at this level of reflec-
tion, will have to be in quite other terms, drawing on history, sociology, and/or
anthropology. Indeed, the explanation may not even be able to incorporate the
judgment itself. This is because continued exercise of the judgment, again at this
level of reflection, may no longer even be possible (1985: Ch. 8). It is in this
connection that Williams famously claims that “reflection can destroy knowl-
edge” (1985: 148).
Some examples ought to help to clarify these ideas. Consider a judgment to the
effect that some substance is acidic (the scientific case). And consider a judgment
to the effect that some work of art is blasphemous (the ethical case – here, the
relevant thick ethical concept is of course that of blasphemy). Now suppose that
there are some people who know the former to be true, and suppose that there are
some people who know the latter to be true. In the former case, this can be
explained, at the relevant level of reflection, by appeal to the fact that the people
in question are suitably sensitive to truths about acidity. In the latter case, no
equivalent explanation is available. To see why not, consider the evaluative aspect
of the concept of blasphemy. This admits of alternatives. The fact that these peo-
ple use the concept of blasphemy helps to constitute the social world in which
they live. This is a world in which certain things are to be prized and others are to
be abhorred. However, there are other social worlds in which they might have
lived. People do not need to live in a social world that sustains the concept of
blasphemy. Hence, any explanation, at this level of reflection, for how those
5
concerned know that this work of art is blasphemous must include an account of
their using the concept of blasphemy in the first place; an account of their living
in that social world. And this explanation cannot itself invoke the concept of blas-
phemy. For it must be from a vantage point of reflection outside the social world
in question.
This suggests a kind of relativism, between societies, if not between individuals
(see relativism, moral). The threat of irresoluble ethical disagreement has not
been exorcized, though it has, perhaps, been relocated. Williams acknowledges
this. What follows, though? Again, Williams urges caution. “Vulgar” relativism,
according to which what follows is itself something ethical – that every society
should be tolerant towards the values of every other – is incoherent (1972: 34–5;
1985: 159). It is incoherent because the ethical conclusion here is supposed to be at
the same time metaethical, that is to say it is supposed to be a conclusion not just
within ethics but about ethics. However, these conflict: as a conclusion about
ethics, it is not itself supposed to have the relativistic attachment to a particular
society that a conclusion within ethics must have. In any case, no metaethical view
can stop us finding the values of another society abhorrent and, where those values
impinge on us, trying to combat them (2006b). On the other hand, Williams’ view
must leave us dissatisfied with the blank thought, “We are right, and everyone else
is wrong.” So what follows, according to Williams, is what he calls “relativism of
distance”: it is only if a society is sufficiently “close” to ours, in a metaphorical
sense, which Williams explains, that talk of “right” and “wrong” with respect to
their ethical outlook need apply (1981d; 1985: 156–67). This conclusion may not
look very substantial. However, again there is the contrast with science. A scientific
outlook, however “distant” the society to which it belongs, must be either right
or wrong.
Such, then, is Williams’ nonobjectivism about ethics. However, does he think his
conclusions are disturbing? To an extent he does. For, insofar as ethical judgments
seem to enjoy the objectivity of scientific judgments, his conclusions show that
ethics is not all it seems (1985: 199–200). To come to terms with this, we need
confidence, that is, confidence in our use of thick ethical concepts and in our
associated ethical judgments. How, if at all, we achieve this will itself depend on the
kind of society in which we live. Moreover, as Williams makes clear, some ways of
achieving it must be resisted. Confidence is a good, but it is not a supreme good
(1985: 169–71, 199–201; 1995a: 205–10).
Williams’ Normative Ethics: How We Should Live in

the Modern World
There remains the question of what sort of society we actually want to live in. Here,
Williams is an implacable opponent of utilitarianism (1972: Ch. 10; 1973a; see util-
itarianism). In some of his most brilliant and most subtle writing, he exposes the
basic flaws in utilitarian thinking. He argues that we must not only acknowledge
values other than happiness, which is the sole value that utilitarians acknowledge, we
6
must understand happiness itself in a more realistic and textured way than utilitari-
ans do. We are in any case encouraged by utilitarians to think in nonutilitarian terms.
This is due to a feature of utilitarianism that it shares with other forms of
consequentialism (see consequentialism). There are empirical reasons to think
that people are more likely to maximize some desideratum, such as happiness, if, at
the unreflective level, they try to do something other than maximize that desidera-
tum. Consequentialism therefore promotes disharmony between those of our views
that are a product of reflection and those that are not. (In its less objectionable form,
the contrast is between different views that we have at different times: in the “cool
hour” of reflection and in the heat of the moment. In its more objectionable form,
the contrast is between views that different groups among us have: the reflective elite
and the rest. The latter, in its utilitarian version, is what Williams calls “Government
House utilitarianism” (1985: 108).) In light of these various considerations, Williams
is inclined to give utilitarianism the shortest possible shrift.
In fact, Williams sees utilitarianism as just one manifestation of a particular style
of ethical thought, pervasive in the modern world and, he believes, deeply pernicious.
He sometimes reserves the word “morality” for this style to thought (1985: 6; see
morality, definition of). Some of its other manifestations, notably Kantianism
(see kantian practical ethics), are in other ways diametrically opposed to utili-
tarianism. However, what they have in common are, very roughly:
● a conception of the purely voluntary, applicable to individual acts;

● a conception of ethics as fundamentally concerned with distinctions among purely
voluntary acts, between those which ought to be performed, those which ought not
to be performed, and those, if any, which fall into neither of these categories;
● the belief that the category into which an act falls is a matter of inescapable moral
obligations, eclipsing all other considerations;
● a commitment to such attendant notions as those of guilt, blame, and responsibility.
Williams rejects almost everything in this way of thinking (1985: Ch. 10). For
instance, he vehemently resents the pretensions to supremacy in the idea of a moral
obligation. For Williams, there are many different kinds of motivation: moral moti-
vation is just one, and it must take its place in our lives alongside all the others.
Above all, however, Williams wants to challenge the idea that moral notions
are through and through pure. Guilt, blame, responsibility, and the rest are sup-
posed to be uncontaminated by anything that does not relate back to the purely
voluntary: there is supposed to be no such thing as “moral luck” (see moral luck).
This purity, Williams thinks, is an illusion, except at a level which those who think
in this way would themselves regard as hopelessly superficial. It is not that Williams
believes there is such a thing as moral luck, thought of in this way. His point is
rather that we do better not to think in this way (1981b; 1995d).
We would do better, in fact, to turn to various ideas from antiquity (see ancient
ethics). Among the most important of these are the ancient Greek ideas of selfhood,
freedom, and shame. Williams argues that we have not, contrary to popular belief,
7
advanced from these to more refined conceptions. On the contrary, to the extent
that we have not retained these ideas, it is often because we have adopted something
much less helpful. Particularly instructive, in this respect, is the comparison of the
ancient Greek idea of shame with the modern idea of guilt (1993).
Williams does not, of course, think that we can recreate the ancient Greek world.
The modern world is irreversibly unlike anything that has gone before. However,
he does think that by comparing and contrasting ancient Greek thought with our
own, we can come to understand the ancient Greeks better, we can come to under-
stand ourselves better, and we can come to see that something of what we need they
have to offer.
In particular, we can learn from them about the possibility of (secular) meaning for
an individual human life. Williams believes passionately in this possibility, both in
the sense that he believes the possibility to be a real one (still) and in the sense that he
is committed to its importance. There are few places in his writing where he explicitly
expresses these beliefs. However, they inform almost all of it. This is just one of the
reasons why studying Williams can, despite his own skepticism about the power of
philosophy, teach one a good deal about the most fundamental questions of life.
See also: amoralist; ancient ethics; consequentialism; fact–value

distinction; kantian practical ethics; moral luck; morality, definition
of; realism, moral; reasons, internal and external; relativism, moral;
subjectivism, ethical; thick and thin concepts; utilitarianism
REFERENCES
Williams, Bernard 1972. Morality: An Introduction to Ethics. New York: Harper & Row.
Second edition, with a new introduction, 1993. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Williams, Bernard 1973a. “A Critique of Utilitarianism,” in J. J. C. Smart and Bernard
Williams (eds.), Utilitarianism: For and Against. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, pp. 75–150.
Williams, Bernard 1973b. Problems of the Self: Philosophical Papers 1956–1972. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Williams, Bernard 1973c. “Ethical Consistency,” in Williams 1973b, Ch. 11.
Williams, Bernard 1981a. Moral Luck: Philosophical Papers 1973–1980. Cambridge:
Williams, Bernard 1981b. “Moral Luck,” in Williams 1981a, Ch. 2.
Williams, Bernard 1981c. “Internal and External Reasons,” in Williams 1981a, Ch. 8.
Williams, Bernard 1981d. “The Truth in Relativism,” in Williams 1981a, Ch. 11.
Williams, Bernard 1985. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. London: Fontana. Reissued
2006. London: Routledge.
Williams, Bernard 1993. Shame and Necessity. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of
California Press.
Williams, Bernard 1995a. “Replies,” in J. E. J. Altham and Ross Harrison (eds.), World, Mind,
and Ethics: Essays on the Ethical Philosophy of Bernard Williams. Cambridge: Cambridge
8
Williams, Bernard 1995b. Making Sense of Humanity and Other Philosophical Papers
1982–1993. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Williams, Bernard 1995c. “Moral Incapacity,” in Williams 1995b, Ch. 4.
Williams, Bernard 1995d. “Moral Luck: A Postscript,” in Williams 1995b, Ch. 21.
Williams, Bernard 2006a. Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline, ed. A.W. Moore. Princeton:
Williams, Bernard 2006b. “Subjectivism and Toleration,” in Williams 2006a, Ch. 8.
FURTHER READINGS
Altham, J. E. J., and Ross Harrison (eds.) 1995. World, Mind, and Ethics: Essays on the Ethical
Philosophy of Bernard Williams. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Blackburn, Simon, and Bernard Williams 1986. “Making Ends Meet: A Discussion of Ethics
and the Limits of Philosophy,” Philosophical Books, vol. 27, pp. 193–203.
Callcut, Daniel (ed.) 2009. Reading Bernard Williams. London: Routledge.
Harcourt, Edward (ed.) 2000. Morality, Reflection, and Ideology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jenkins, Mark P. 2006. Bernard Williams. Chesham: Acumen.
Journal of Philosophy, vol. 100, no. 6, 2003 (a special issue on the work of Bernard Williams).
McDowell, John 1986. “Critical Notice of Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy,” Mind, vol. 95,
pp. 377–86.
Thomas, Alan (ed.) 2007. Bernard Williams. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Williams, Bernard 1996. “Truth in Ethics,” in Brad Hooker (ed.), Truth in Ethics. Oxford:
Blackwell, pp. 19–34.
Williams, Bernard 2002. Truth and Truthfulness: An Essay in Genealogy. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Williams, Bernard 2006. In the Beginning Was the Deed: Realism and Moralism in Political
Argument, ed. Geoffrey Hawthorne. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
1
Badiou, Alain
Christopher Norris
French philosopher Alain Badiou (b. 1937) is an anti-ethical thinker on just about
every currently available understanding of ethics. He arrives at this negative view of
existing conceptions not only on philosophic grounds but as a matter of their falling
drastically short in terms of the human potential for change – for the radical
betterment of presently existing sociopolitical realities – that must (he asserts) have
a prominent motivating role in any ethics that merits the name (Badiou 2001, 2007a,
2007b).
In which case the question arises: What can Badiou offer by way of replacement
for those various presumptively failed candidates? Any answer will need to take
stock of the four main topics that occupy the focus of his interest. These are
mathematics (in particular set-theoretical conceptions of the multiple and the
infinite), the subject (especially as theorized by Freudian–Lacanian psychoanalysis),
art (in its more advanced or formally adventurous modes), and politics (where he
has kept faith with the legacy of May 1968 and continues to denounce its
“Thermidorian” betrayal by the nouveaux philosophes and other such media-savvy
types) (Badiou 2005a, 2005b, 2007a). More precisely: philosophy finds its fourfold
enabling “conditions” in science, love, art, and politics, the first two of which can be
seen as more encompassing analogues of, respectively, mathematics and the
psychoanalytic discourse on love (not just “sex,” he insists). At the same time –
crucially – it must avoid becoming “sutured” to any one of those conditions whose
exclusive pursuit is then apt to leave philosophy exposed to the worst kinds of
temptation, as witness Heidegger’s Nazism or (albeit less disastrously) the techno-
cratic scientism joined to an outlook of extreme anti-cognitivism with regard to
ethical values espoused by the logical positivists (see heidegger, martin;
emotivism; non-cognitivism). In each case Badiou’s chief point is that acts,
decisions, or commitments cannot be subject to ethical evaluation from some
transcendental standpoint above and beyond the complexities of real-world situated
choice, nor again – the most favored current alternative – with reference to some
given range of existing communal norms (see communitarianism; universaliz-
ability). Rather, they should always be conceived in terms of an engagement with or
intervention in a highly specific, historically located episode of scientific discovery,
artistic creation, political activity, or (Badiou’s phrase) amorous encounter which
alone provides the relevant context whereby to assess the “truth-procedure” in
question (Badiou 2003a, 2004).
What is at stake here is the issue of continued fidelity to an “event” whose effect
has been to challenge, disrupt, destabilize, or radically call into doubt some hitherto
accepted scientific paradigm, artistic practice, political order, or life history. Fidelity
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee025
2
may often be manifest in very different ways within a single life, as with the two
highly gifted French mathematicians Jean Cavaillès and Albert Lautman who were
both Resistance members shot by the occupying German forces (Badiou 2004).
While their courage and moral heroism are beyond doubt they should most aptly be
seen, in Badiou’s estimate, as thinkers whose deployment of rigorous, axiomatic-
deductive procedures in their mathematical work was also displayed to striking
effect in their perfectly consistent carrying through of ethicopolitical precept into
practice (see commitment; integrity; truth in ethics). That his two chief
exemplars should be mathematicians is yet more appropriate given the centrality of
set-theoretical concepts and procedures to Badiou’s project as a whole. His claim is
that mathematics alone has the conceptual resources to provide us with a discourse
capable of thinking through the various paradoxes (chiefly that of the one and the
many) that have vexed philosophers from Plato down, and that have now reached
the point of adequate – i.e., thought-provoking rather than thought-disabling –
formulation only as a consequence of Cantor’s epochal revolution in mathematics
(Badiou 2003a, 2005a).
This was made possible by a working grasp of the infinite (and the infinitely
multiple orders of infinity) that had once struck philosophers and mathematicians
as a breeding ground of paradox which had to be avoided at all costs. Otherwise,
among the more mystically inclined, it pointed to regions of speculative, often
theological thought beyond such prosaic rational limits. Badiou conceives every
major intellectual, creative, and ethical advance as having been brought about
through just the kind of discovery that is most strikingly exemplified by Cantor’s
way of “turning paradox into concept,” or treating what had hitherto appeared an
obstacle to progress as a source of ever more strongly productive since conceptually
tensile or paradox-driven insights. In political terms this involves a challenge to the
dominant “count-as-one,” that is, the ideologically imposed conception of who
qualifies for membership of this or that nation, electorate, ethnic group, citizen-
body, or other such collective whose identity is maintained against “alien” encroach-
ment by defining and policing those same membership conditions (see civil
rights).
His main example is that of the French sans-papiers, or migrant (chiefly North
African) workers who lack any official documentation and therefore exist in a veritable
limbo, unrecognized by the state and deprived of even the most basic citizenly rights
(see immigration; refugees). Their predicament is best understood through the dis-
tinction between belonging and inclusion which, together with that between member
and part, plays a crucial role in set-theoretical thinking. What this brings out with a
high degree of formal-conceptual rigor is the always precarious since forcibly imposed
character of the count-as-one and the ever-present threat of its disruption by an
errant, uncounted, or anomalous multiple that finds no legitimate place within a given
sociopolitical order (Badiou 2007a, 2007b). It is through the pressures brought to bear
by that which officially counts for nothing – through the “void” that ineluctably haunts
any such order on account of its excluding certain multiples – that the most decisive
political as well as mathematical transformations come about.
3
Hence the need for a “subtractive” rather than a positive ontology, one that would
register the symptomatic stress points or “evental sites” where some newly emergent
conflict or anomaly might yet turn out – for the issue is never decided in advance of
its ultimate working through – to have marked the inception of a “truth-procedure”
with epochal or world-transformative results. This may take the form of a logical
dilemma such as those that both vexed and fascinated the ancient Greek thinkers
and continued to play a tantalizing role through the centuries of baffled reflection
on the infinite when, for most philosophers and mathematicians, it seemed to pose
a massive threat to the coherence of their whole enterprise. Or again, it may arise
from within the very system which it then appears destined to ruin, as famously
occurred when Bertrand Russell discovered the paradoxes of self-predication (“the
set of all sets that are not members of themselves,” etc.) and thereby jeopardized his
own and Frege’s project of placing mathematics on a purely logical basis. However,
one can see the same process working itself out at those crucial junctures when new
sociopolitical forces emerge or when some existing situation is transformed by the
exposure of a hitherto suppressed injustice, conflict of interest, or case of exclusion
from the tally of those who count according to prevalent ideas of group member-
ship, citizenly right, communal belonging, etc. (see rights).
At such moments only a “subtractive” social ontology can tell us what truly
occurred since it alone makes adequate sense of the way that certain oppressed or
disenfranchised minorities may come to exert a force of political leverage denied to
community members whose privileged (or normal) status prevents them from so
doing. It is at just these “evental sites” that the requisite conditions exist for a decisive
occurrence, a breakthrough discovery or radical challenge to dominant social
structures. On the other hand there is no guarantee that the chance will be taken or
the moment seized in such a resolute, committed, and clear-sighted way as to enable
its effective carrying through. Hence Badiou’s close attention to “failed” revolutions
or episodes, like the 1871 Paris Commune, that have gone down among many on the
left as calamitous setbacks or melancholy witness to the folly of premature revolt. For
Badiou, conversely, they figure as touchstone events insofar as their very falling short
or the distance between their aims and their outcome is a test of fidelity for those who
inherit both the problems and the promise of their so far unredeemed legacy.
To phrase it like this is to risk leaving a false impression, since the language of
fidelity – of keeping faith with those historical agents who suffered such defeats –
might seem within reach of that liberal-humanitarian rhetoric to which Badiou is so
strongly averse. At best, he argues, this language merely serves as a means of
concealing the otherwise scandalous gap between what is commonly touted (for
home consumption or for export) as “parliamentary democracy” and the actually
existing version of it along with all its manifold exclusions, distortions, structural
inequalities, maltreatment of target minorities, etc. (see liberalism). At worst it
does duty as a smokescreen for the kinds of marauding interventionist foreign policy
that seek to pass off their usual motives of economic and military-strategic
self-interest under cover of a human rights doctrine with strong but specious
universalist appeal (Badiou 2007a; see humanitarian intervention). All the
4
same, fidelity is a core value in Badiou’s thinking even if it is often defined

more by standards of logical consistency – even by those of axiomatic-deductive
reasoning – than through any overt appeal to ethical grounds.
Nor should we conclude from his attack on the fake universalism invoked by
politicians who abuse the rhetoric of human rights that Badiou must belong to the
company of those who adopt a radically particularist or anti-universalist stance
(see incommensurability [and incomparability]; particularism). These are
thinkers – nowadays a large and diverse company – for whom “difference” (whether
ethnic, cultural, linguistic, or gender-related) is a notion often raised, ironically
enough, to the status of an absolute or a priori precept that is held to trump any
appeal to the superannuated “Enlightenment” values of shared humanitarian pur-
pose and cross-cultural solidarity (see relativism, moral; value pluralism).
Indeed Badiou is among the most vigorous defenders of a true universalism – as
opposed to the mendacious rhetoric currently peddled in that name – which would
allow human beings to transcend rather than annul, suppress, or forcibly subdue the
various differences that stand in its way. Hence the remarkable diversity of thinkers
and activists whom he is able to recruit to the purpose of explaining this highly
paradoxical relationship between fidelity and universalism. This is why Badiou – an
avowed atheist – can take St. Paul as an exemplar of fidelity to the event of Christ’s
life and resurrection but also as an early instance of universalism insofar as he
insisted (albeit to the tolerant amusement of his Greek interlocutors) that in Christ
there could be neither Jew nor Greek but only the single overriding question of
acceptance or nonacceptance concerning that event (Badiou 2003b).
Thus he has little patience with difference-thinking of the kind promoted by a
great many present-day thinkers on the cultural left (see multiculturalism). It is
in order to make this point – to emphasize, conversely, the universality of any truly
emancipatory politics – that Badiou stakes his claim for mathematics as the discipline
best equipped to provide that project with an adequate conceptual and social-
ontological grounding. It is also why he comes out so firmly against every version of
the turn toward notions of language or discourse (together with their various
surrogate terms such as “paradigm,” “framework,” “conceptual scheme,” or cultural
“life-form”) as the furthest that philosophy can possibly go in its quest for truth
(Badiou 1999). This can be seen to have followed straight on from Kant’s self-avowed
“Copernican revolution” which declared ontological issues strictly off-bounds by
giving epistemology pride of place and defining its proper remit in representational
terms, i.e., with reference to the scope and limits of human cognitive powers.
Hence Badiou’s emphasis on the political as well as the logical force of a
truth-procedure that starts from the three main precepts of set theory: the irreduc-
ible multiplicity of being, the power-set axiom (excess of subsets over sets, of inclu-
sion over belonging, or of parts over elements), and the void as that which is included
in every set and which constitutes the ever-present possibility that any given order
might always be subject to disruption by anomalous events beyond its utmost power
to comprehend. This applies most strikingly to cases where the multiples concerned
are of the transfinite order that Cantor opened up through his then drastically
5
counterintuitive discovery that there existed different “sizes” or cardinalities of the

infinite. From which there follows a fourth principle, namely the count-as-one as an
imposed or purely stipulative limit on the range of multiples that qualify for mem-
bership under some given ontological or sociopolitical dispensation. It is here that
we might attain a more adequate conceptual grasp of the kindred process by which
certain historical events occurred in response to some presumptive anomaly – some
absence, nonoccurrence, symptomatic lack, unresolved tension, or failure – that left
open the space of possibility for a nonetheless contingent or unpredictable future
development. If there is indeed an ethical core to the work of this philosopher who
has set his face so firmly against most varieties of present-day ethical thought it is
surely to be found in just that remarkable combination of high formal rigor with
strength of political commitment.
See also: civil rights; commitment; communitarianism; emotivism;

heidegger, martin; humanitarian intervention; immigration;
incommensurability (and incomparability); integrity; liberalism;
multiculturalism; non-cognitivism; particularism; refugees; relativism,
moral; rights; truth in ethics; universalizability; value pluralism
REFERENCES
Badiou, Alain 1999. Manifesto for Philosophy, trans. Norman Madarasz. Albany: State
Badiou, Alain 2001. Ethics: An Essay on the Understanding of Evil, trans. Peter Hallward.
London: Verso.
Badiou, Alain 2003a. Infinite Thought: Truth and the Return to Philosophy, trans. Oliver
Feltham and Justin Clemens. London: Continuum.
Badiou, Alain 2003b. Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism, trans. Ray Brassier.
Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Badiou, Alain 2004. Theoretical Writings, trans. Ray Brassier. London: Continuum.
Badiou, Alain 2005a. Being and Event, trans. Oliver Feltham. London: Continuum.
Badiou, Alain 2005b. Metapolitics, trans. Jason Barker. London: Verso.
Badiou, Alain 2007a. The Century, trans. Alberto Toscano. Cambridge: Polity.
Badiou, Alain 2007b. Polemics, trans. Steven Corcoran. London: Verso.
FURTHER READINGS
Balibar, Etienne 2005. “The History of Truth: Alain Badiou in French Philosophy,” in
Hallward 2005, pp. 21–38.
Barker, Jason 2002. Alain Badiou: A Critical Introduction. London: Pluto Press.
Bosteels, Bruno 2005. “Can Change Be Thought? A Dialogue with Alain Badiou,” in Riera
(ed.) 2005, pp. 237–61.
Critchley, Simon 2005. “On the Ethics of Alain Badiou.” In Riera 2005, pp. 215–35.
Dews, Peter 2002. “Uncategorical Imperatives: Adorno, Badiou and the Ethical Turn,” Radical
Philosophy, vol. 111, pp. 33–7.
6
Feltham, Oliver 2008. Alain Badiou: Live Theory. London: Continuum.

Hallward, Peter 2003. Badiou: A Subject to Truth. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Hallward, Peter (ed.) 2005. Think Again: Alain Badiou and the Future of Philosophy. London:
Continuum.
Laclau, Ernesto 2005. “An Ethics of Militant Engagement,” in Hallward 2005, pp. 120–37.
Norris, Christopher 2009. Alain Badiou’s Being and Event: A Reader’s Guide. London:
Continuum.
Riera, Gabriel (ed.) 2005. Alain Badiou: Philosophy and Its Conditions. New York: State
1
Incest
Jan W. Steutel
Incest, if restrictively defined as heterosexual intercourse between consanguineous

members of the same nuclear family (father–daughter, mother–son, brother–sister),
is prohibited in almost all societies. Anthropologists seek to explain this nearly uni-
versal prohibition (or taboo, as they prefer to call it), while ethicists focus on its
justification.
Among the many reasons that are given for (morally and legally) proscribing
incestuous sex, the most powerful or promising ones seem to be the following. First,
close inbreeding has deleterious biological effects on offspring as a group. Progeny
resulting from incestuous unions, if compared with non-incestuous offspring, is
much more likely to have inherited identical copies of mutant genes from each of its
parents, and therefore to show much higher rates of mortality and morbidity (Bittles
2004). Second, victims of incest often suffer from more or less severe psychological
problems – such as depression, generalized anxiety, eating disorders. Empirical
research shows that the harmful psychological effects of intra-familial child sexual
abuse are more pervasive and intense than those of extra-familial child sexual abuse
(Rind et al. 1998; see pedophilia). Third, incest is harmful to the family, as it tends
to subvert typical family values such as domestic intimacy, loyalty, a sense of belong-
ing, and unconditional care and support. Incest threatens these values because it is
incompatible with the non-sexual nature of family relationships and produces dys-
functional confusion about roles in the family as well as conflict and rivalry between
family members (Archard 1998: 101–2). Fourth, incestuous sex is nonconsensual.
At least one of the parties involved did not give her valid consent, either because she
did not consent at all or because she is not free or competent enough to make her
consent valid (Belliotti 1993: 246; see sexual consent).
However, these justifying reasons only show what is wrong with particular types
of incestuous sex. Even in conjunction, they do not cover all the cases of incest and
therefore do not succeed in justifying the incest prohibition. Take, for example, sex
between adult brothers and sisters, who have given their valid consent, do not live in
a family context, enjoy the sex, and use effective contraceptive methods. Such cases
fall within the range of the incest taboo but outside the range of the reasons pre-
sented. How, then, should these cases be morally evaluated? One response is to stick
to the view that all violations of the incest prohibition are impermissible and to
support this view by presenting additional reasons. Empirical research shows that
people often support the incest taboo by offering reasons that are typical of a so-
called “ethics of community” (Haidt and Hersh 2001); such is, for instance, the claim
that incest, whatever form it might take, is a serious threat to the integrity and proper
state of the social order. Another response, which may be more tenable, is to evaluate
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee026
2
incest on the basis of a so-called “ethics of autonomy” (see liberalism). From this
perspective, the mentioned cases of adult sibling incest, and indeed all cases of incest
that are consensual and non-harmful, are to be considered morally and therefore
also legally permissible. Consequently, the incest prohibition should be restricted to
nonconsensual and/or harmful incestuous sex only.
See also: liberalism; pedophilia; sexual consent
REFERENCES
Archard, David 1998. Sexual Consent. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Belliotti, Raymond A. 1993. Good Sex: Perspectives on Sexual Ethics. Lawrence: University
Press of Kansas.
Bittles, Alan H. 2004. “Genetic Aspects of Inbreeding and Incest,” in Arthur P. Wolf and
William H. Durham (eds.), Inbreeding, Incest, and the Incest Taboo: The State of Knowledge
at the Turn of the Century. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, pp. 38–60.
Haidt, Jonathan, and Matthew A. Hersh 2001. “Sexual Morality: The Culture and Emotions
of Conservatives and Liberals,” Journal of Applied Social Psychology, vol. 31, no. 1:
pp. 191–221.
Rind, Bruce, Philip Tromovitch, and Robert Bauserman 1998. “A Meta-Analytic Examination
of Assumed Properties of Child Sexual Abuse Using College Samples,” Psychological
Bulletin, vol. 124, no. 1, pp. 22–53.
FURTHER READINGS
Neu, Jerome 1976. “What Is Wrong with Incest?” Inquiry, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 27–39.
Roscoe, Paul B. 1996. “Incest,” in David Levinson and Melvin Ember (eds.), Encyclopedia of
Cultural Anthropology. New York: Henry Holt, pp. 631–4.
Steutel, Jan, and Ben Spiecker 2006. “Incest,” in Alan Soble (ed.), Sex from Plato to Paglia:
A Philosophical Encyclopedia, vol. 1. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, pp. 487–93.
1
Sentience, Moral Relevance of

Lisa Bortolotti, Matteo Mameli, and Alessandro Blasimme
Sentience is a capacity that only some organisms have. It is often assumed that this
capacity has moral significance and should have a prominent role in moral thinking.
The commonsense notion of sentience (as indicated by the etymology, from the
Latin sentiens which means “capable of feeling”) suggests that sentience is a capacity
to be in certain kinds of mental states. In the ethical literature, the term “sentience” is
often used to refer to the ability to feel pain and pleasure. More generally, sentience
can be said to be the capacity to have feelings or sensations, which include pain and
pleasure but also visual and auditory sensations, hunger, sadness, and so on.
Behavioristic accounts of sentience have also been proposed, but all such accounts
seem unsatisfactory. One could say, for example, that sentience is simply the capacity
to respond to states of one’s own external and internal environment. But this
definition is unhelpful, since it applies to all sorts of systems, including thermostats
and bacteria.
There are various philosophical debates about sentience and sensations. One
concerns the relation between sentience and consciousness. In many contexts,
the two terms are used interchangeably. But some authors draw a distinction,
because they believe that consciousness requires something more than “mere”
sentience does. It has been argued, for example, that consciousness requires the pos-
session of certain concepts or the ability to refer to specific aspects of one’s own
mental life, and that these are not needed for sentience (Papineau 2004). In this
context, the use of the term “sentience,” rather than “consciousness,” signals that no
reference to the additional requirements mentioned above is intended.
Sentience may be considered necessary for personhood (see personhood,
criteria of), but it is not sufficient for it. Personhood is usually conceived of as
requiring the capacity for thought, some form of rationality (see rationality),
consciousness (as distinct from sentience) and self-consciousness, and other reflec-
tive skills that not all sentient beings possess.
In the ethical literature the focus has been on the capacity to feel pain and pleasure
rather than on the more general capacity to have sensations (see pleasure). The
(controversial) assumption is perhaps that sensations other than pain and pleasure
are morally relevant only if they are (at least minimally) pleasant or unpleasant.
Some important questions about sentience – in the narrow sense – are these: What
does it take to be able to feel pain and pleasure (see suffering)? Which living
organisms can have such states of pain and pleasure, and at what stages in their life
(see fetuses)? Is it possible for artificial systems (such as computers) to have such
states too (see computer ethics)? In order to understand the ethical relevance of
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee027
2
these questions, we need to understand why and in what sense sentience is thought
to have moral significance.
It was (and in many human societies still is) common to grant moral status or
moral rights only to humans, or – in many cases – only to specific sections of the
human population: for example, all the males within a certain age range and with a
certain pedigree (see moral status). But it can be argued that being human is not –
at least per se – a morally significant property, and that minimal moral status (or
basic moral rights) should be granted on the basis of the mental features of the
organism, independently of whether the organism in question belongs to the human
species. One interesting proposal is that moral status and basic moral rights should
be granted to all sentient beings.
While many versions of this proposal exist, the utilitarian version is probably the
best known (see utilitarianism). Often described as those beings able to feel pleasure
and pain, sentient beings have been regarded by many utilitarians as worthy of direct
moral consideration (see bentham, jeremy). These theorists argue that the interests
of sentient beings – such as the interest in avoiding pain – need to be taken into account
when deliberating how to act, and that they need to be taken into account in their own
right and not in virtue of something else (e.g., not in virtue of a person’s preference that
sentient beings do not feel pain). Peter Singer (1992: 131) writes: “sentience suffices to
place a being within the sphere of equal consideration of interests.”
Given this framework, sentience becomes central in discussions about human
activities that might cause pain or distress to living beings, human or nonhuman,
and about the relative moral status of such beings. For example, Singer argues that
we cannot consistently deny basic moral rights to nonhuman animals and yet
grant these rights to marginal humans: as both groups meet the requirements for
sentience – both are capable of feeling pain – they both deserve direct moral consid-
eration. Privileging humans (even those whose mental abilities are comparable to
those of very simple nonhuman animals) just because they are humans is a form of
unjust discrimination that Singer calls “speciesism,” in order to signal its similarity
to other forms of unjust discrimination (e.g., racism).
Of course not all nonhuman animals are sentient (capable of feeling pain and
pleasure) and not all marginal humans are sentient either. One important issue for
those who think that “sentience suffices to place a being within the sphere of equal
consideration of interests” is whether sentience is also necessary to place a being
within such a sphere. Rocks and bacteria are not sentient and it seems appropriate to
exclude them from the sphere of equal considerations of interests, but is it right
to exclude those humans who have permanently lost their sentience?
Discussions about sentience are important in beginning-of-life situations, such as
practices involving human embryos or fetuses, which include early and late abortion,
and the use of embryos for a variety of purposes, such as harvesting human embryonic
stem cells (see abortion; embryo research; stem cell research). These activities
are often criticized (or defended) by claiming that embryos and fetuses can feel pain
(or that they cannot), which shows that the presence (or absence) of sentience is seen
by many as being of utmost importance for moral decisions of this sort.
3
Sentience also plays an important role in debates about the proper treatment of
nonhuman animals (LaFollette 1979). The human activities criticized for inflicting
pain to animals include the use of animals for food production, entertainment, and
scientific research (see animal rights). In the latter case, the advancement of knowl-
edge and medicine can be seen as a prima facie moral reason for using animals. The
possible trade-offs between human and nonhuman interests though give rise to a
variety of moral positions. Although a minority of ethicists consider the use of ani-
mals in research to be always wrong, there exists an ethical framework – the “three
Rs” approach (Russell and Burch 1959) – which is often used to inform decisions in
this context. The three Rs stand for replacement, reduction, and refinement.
According to this framework, one should put in place only research protocols that try
to: (1) replace animals with other tools whenever possible; (2) reduce as much as pos-
sible the number of animals used in research; (3) refine the experiments so that the
distress experienced by the animals is as low as possible (see animal experimentation).
The animals in question are assumed to be sentient. The attribution of pain and
pleasure to organisms that are unable to produce verbal reports about their mental life –
be they human (e.g., fetuses, individuals in persistent vegetative state, prelinguistic
children, etc.) or nonhuman – is often driven by unreliable folk-psychological biases
(Mameli and Bortolotti 2006). It is possible to adopt procedures that avoid some of
these biases (Bateson 1991), even though many conceptual issues remain unsolved.
Apart from the problem of determining who can feel pain and who cannot, there
is another challenge to the moral significance of sentience: why should the ability to
feel pain be seen as sufficient (and perhaps also necessary) for attributions of moral
status and moral rights? Singer assumes that sentience necessarily involves the
existence of certain interests that would be morally wrong to disregard. On this view,
any organism capable of feeling pain – no matter what other mental abilities it has –
necessarily has an interest in avoiding pain, an interest to which beings like us
(capable of sophisticated moral reasoning) should be responsive. This assumption,
despite being intuitively appealing, cannot be taken for granted. Perhaps it is possible
for an organism to be able to feel pain without having preferences about its states
(see preference). The capacity to have intentional states such as beliefs, desires, and
preferences is not entailed by the capacity to have feelings or sensations. The two
sets of capacities are distinct. It could be argued that interests exist only when
preferences (or other intentional states) are in place. If so, sentience by itself would
not “suffice to place a being in the sphere of equal consideration of interests.”
There are accounts of moral status that deny any special significance to sentience.
Theorists in the contractualist tradition generally maintain that direct moral
consideration is due only to persons (see contractualism). It is due to persons
because of their rationality, and not because of their sentience, as it is rationality that
allows individuals to be part of a moral community, to understand and subscribe to
agreed-upon norms, and to abide by these norms (Rawls 1971; see rawls, john).
Many human beings – such as embryos, fetuses, infants, and marginal humans – are
not persons. Thus, one problem for contractualists is this: from the moral viewpoint
how should we think about those humans who are not persons? One option consists
4
in biting the bullet and saying that non-persons – even when they are sentient
humans – are due moral consideration only in an indirect way, derivative from the
interests of persons. After all, persons often care about (at least some) non-persons in
very profound ways. It is not clear, though, whether contractualists can dismiss the
powerful intuition that motivates utilitarianism: the fact that an organism can feel
pain seems morally significant independently of whether the organism is a person,
and independently of whether any person cares about what the organism feels.
Going in a direction opposite to the one taken by contractualists, some environ-
mental ethicists (e.g., Johnson 1991) argue that all forms of life – whether they are
sentient or not – are worthy of direct moral consideration, and thus the interests of
non-sentient beings should also be respected (see deep ecology). But it is hard to
see in what sense living organisms without any mental capacities (e.g., fungi or
bacteria) could have interests in a morally significant sense.
Some philosophers argue that moral consideration is due to human embryos and
marginal humans despite the fact that they are not persons, and not because they are
sentient, but because they are human. According to Steinbock (1992), human beings
are invested of sentimental value and symbolic significance because they represent,
even when they do not instantiate, a property that is typical of humans: that is, the
capacity to have an interest in the well-being of themselves and of others. That is
why, on this view, cadavers – which are obviously not sentient – are owed respect. It
is not clear, though, to what extent symbolic value could ground direct (as opposed
to indirect) moral consideration and what respectful treatment entails (see respect).
Tom Regan, who has written extensively on animal rights, argues that all those
individuals that are, in his own terminology, “subjects of a life” are worthy of direct
moral consideration (Regan 2004). Given that subjects of a life are supposed to be
agents with intentional states and with a sense of self, being sentient is not sufficient
for being the subject of a life. Being sentient matters from the moral viewpoint, but
only because being the subject of a life does. Regan argues that all mammals are
subjects of a life, but current empirical evidence suggests that only a very small
number of species – according to some, only humans – possess a sense of self.
See also: abortion; animal experimentation; animal rights; bentham,

jeremy; computer ethics; contractualism; deep ecology; embryo
research; fetuses; moral status; personhood, criteria of; pleasure;
preference; rationality; rawls, john; respect; stem cell research;
suffering; utilitarianism
REFERENCES
Bateson, Patrick 1991. “Assessment of Pain in Animals,” Animal Behaviour, vol. 42, pp. 827–39.
Johnson, Lawrence 1991. A Morally Deep World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
LaFollette, Hugh 1979. “Animal Rights and Human Wrongs,” in N. Dower (ed.), Ethics and
the Environment. Farnham, UK: Gower Press, pp. 79–90.
Mameli, Matteo, and Lisa Bortolotti 2006. “Animal Rights, Animal Minds, and Human
Mindreading,” Journal of Medical Ethics, vol. 32, pp. 84–9.
5
Papineau, David 2004. Thinking about Consciousness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rawls, John 1971. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Regan, Tom 2004. The Case for Animal Rights. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Russell, William M. S., and Rex L. Burch (1959). The Principles of Humane Experimental
Technique. London: Methuen.
Singer, Peter 1992. Practical Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Steinbock, Bonnie 1992. Life before Birth: The Moral and Legal Status of Embryos and Fetuses.
FURTHER READINGS
Bortolotti, Lisa, and John Harris 2005. “Stem Cell Research, Personhood and Sentience,”
Reproductive Biomedicine Online, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 68–75.
Carruthers, Peter 1992. The Animals Issue. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
DeGrazia, David 1996. Taking Animals Seriously: Moral Life and Moral Status. Cambridge:
Dennett, Daniel C. 1991. Consciousness Explained. New York: Little, Brown.
Drengson, A. lan, and Yuichi Inohue (eds.) 1995. The Deep Ecology Movement: An Introductory
Anthology, §3. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books.
LaFollette, Hugh (ed.) 2002. Ethics in Practice: An Anthology, Pt. 1. Oxford: Blackwell.
Lauritzen, Paul (ed.) 2001. Cloning and the Future of Human Embryo Research, Pt. 1. Oxford:
Nagel, Thomas 1974. “What is it Like to Be a Bat?” The Philosophical Review, vol. 83, no. 4,
pp. 435–50.
Pluhar, Evelyn 1995. Beyond Prejudice: The Moral Significance of Human and Non-human
Animals. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
1
Strict Liability
Stuart P. Green
The term strict liability refers to a legal rule or regime in which liability is imposed
in the absence of proof that the defendant was at fault in causing the alleged harm or
injury. Strict liability is imposed in order to prevent or limit conduct that is harmful
or dangerous even when performed by one who is using due care. It is common in
both tort law and criminal law (see criminal law; torts), though its use is more
controversial in the latter because criminal law in general is more concerned with
the blameworthiness of the defendant’s conduct.
Strict Liability in Criminal Law

In order to understand the significance of strict liability in the criminal law, we
need first to define two basic terms. The first is actus reus, which refers to the
wrongful or harmful (see harm) act that comprises the physical component of a
given offense, and which the state (which is always the plaintiff in criminal
cases) must prove at trial. For example, the actus reus of the offense of manufac-
turing or selling adulterated food or drugs is the act of manufacturing or selling
adulterated food or drugs. The second term is mens rea, which refers to the state
of mind with which the defendant must perform the actus reus. A statute that
made it a crime to manufacture or sell adulterated drugs intentionally, know-
ingly, recklessly, or negligently would involve a mens rea of intent, knowledge,
recklessness, or negligence, respectively. Traditionally, criminal statutes have
required that the defendant perform an actus reus with a particular mens rea.
Strict liability departs from this traditional model. It occurs in offenses that
contain at least one actus reus element for which there is no corresponding mens
rea element.
Many criminal offenses require proof of more than one actus reus element. For
example, under US federal law, the offense of selling adulterated drugs also
requires that the drugs be transported across state lines. If the offense were to
require no mens rea with respect to any of the actus reus elements – that is, if the
state could prove its case without showing that the defendant sold or transported
adulterated drugs intentionally, knowingly, or negligently – then we would say
that the offense involved “pure” strict liability. The term “impure” strict liability
refers to offenses for which no mens rea is required with respect to at least one
element but is required with respect to at least one other element. For example, if
the state had to prove that the defendant transported the drugs intentionally but
did not have to prove that he manufactured them intentionally (or knowingly,
recklessly, or negligently), then we would say that the offense entailed impure
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee028
2
strict liability. Other examples of impure strict liability can be found in felony
murder and statutory rape statutes. In felony murder, the offender is held liable
for a (typically, unintentional) death that results from the commission of a (typi-
cally, intentional) felony. Statutory rape is properly viewed as a strict liability
offense because, although the defendant must be shown to have engaged inten-
tionally in sexual intercourse with an underage person, the offense does not
require that the defendant know that the victim was under age.
Because the requirement of mens rea is considered to be the norm in Anglo-
American criminal law, strict liability has traditionally been disfavored. This contin-
ues to be true with respect to offenses involving serious harms, significant stigma,
and severe penalties. For example, one would not expect to see a homicide statute
that did not require a showing of intent, knowledge, recklessness, or negligence.
Starting in the middle of the nineteenth century, however, Anglo-American legisla-
tures began to create statutory crimes – often referred to as “public welfare” offenses –
that involved less serious harms, less severe punishments, and no requirement of
mens rea. Such statutes often involved regulatory matters such as impure food and
drugs, harm to the environment, and traffic violations.
Although the rationale is rarely made explicit, such schemes are presumably
based on the instrumentalist notion that the prospect of imposing strict criminal
liability on those who participate in certain dangerous activities, such as manu-
facturing and selling food and drugs, engaging in sex with potentially underage
partners, and committing certain felonies, will serve two functions: first, it will
deter some actors from engaging in such activities entirely; and, second, it will
encourage those who do choose to engage in such conduct to do so with greater
caution (see deterrence). Such strict liability schemes also recognize that
proving mens rea at trial is among the most difficult tasks that prosecutors
typically face, and that relieving them of this obligation will tend to make such
prosecutions more efficient.
Strict Liability in Tort

The most common kind of tort action requires a showing that the defendant acted
negligently (see negligence). Another category of tort actions requires the plaintiff
to show that the defendant acted intentionally (see intention). Strict liability repre-
sents yet a third form of tort. In tort law, the term strict liability refers to the doctrine
that holds a defendant liable for damages even in the absence of a showing that his
conduct was intentional or negligent or that he was otherwise at fault. In such cases,
the plaintiff must show nothing more than that the defendant caused the injury.
Such liability will lie even if the defendant can show that he exercised all due care to
prevent the injury or loss from occurring.
There are at least three familiar contexts in which strict tort liability occurs. First,
damage or injury caused by wild animals, livestock that trespass, and domestic
animals that are known to have a vicious disposition can lead to strict tort liability
for their keepers or owners. The second context consists of certain “abnormally
3
dangerous” or “ultrahazardous” activities, such as storing explosives or flammable

liquids, blasting, accumulating sewage, emitting toxic fumes, or keeping dangerous
animals. This kind of strict liability is usually traced to the 1868 English case of
Rylands v. Fletcher, in which a mine owner sued the owners of a mill who had a res-
ervoir constructed on their land, from which water poured into the workings of the
plaintiff ’s mine. The House of Lords held that the plaintiff was not required to show
that the defendants were at fault, stating that where a defendant engages in such
abnormally dangerous conduct, “he is responsible, however careful he may have
been, and whatever precautions he may have taken to prevent the damage.”
The rule in Rylands was subsequently incorporated into American law, most
notably in the First and Second Restatements of Torts. Under this approach, strict
liability will be imposed if the harm results from an activity that, though lawful, is
unusual, extraordinary, exceptional, or inappropriate in light of the place and man-
ner in which it is conducted. Such activities, moreover, can be appropriate or normal
in one setting but not another. For example, storing a large quantity of explosives
will create an unusual and unacceptable risk in the middle of the city but not in a
remote rural area. If an explosion occurs in the rural area, strict liability will be
imposed only if the explosives were stored in an unusual or abnormal way.
A third, parallel context in which strict tort liability is imposed involves defective
and dangerous products. In the 1963 case of Greenman v. Yuba Power Products, the
California Supreme Court became the first American court to adopt strict tort
liability for defective products. Under this doctrine, an injured party must prove that
the item was defective, that the defect proximately caused the injury, and that the
defect rendered the product unreasonably dangerous. A plaintiff may recover
damages even if the seller has exercised all possible care in the preparation and sale
of the product. The rule was subsequently incorporated into Section 402A of
the Restatement (Second) of Torts, promulgated in 1965 and widely adopted by the
states. Under current doctrine, reflected in the 1998 Restatement (Third) of Torts:
Products Liability, products liability cases are divided roughly into three categories:
manufacturing defects, design defects, and failures to warn. While there is a consen-
sus that strict liability applies to the first category of defects, there is controversy
over whether it should be applied to the second and third categories.
Rationale for, and Debate over, Strict Liability

Given the differing purposes served by criminal law and tort law, it is not surprising
that strict liability is viewed differently in each context. Both criminal law and tort
law are to some extent intended to deter antisocial conduct, but the overriding func-
tion of tort law is compensatory, while the central function of criminal law is punitive
(see compensatory justice; retribution).
The use of strict liability in tort is relatively uncontroversial. The debate there is
not so much about whether strict liability should ever be used, but about the precise
circumstances in which it should be used. As Judge Richard Posner has explained,
there are some kinds of activities that are so dangerous that the injuries they cause
4
cannot be avoided simply by being careful. By making the actor strictly liable, Posner
says, “we give him an incentive, missing in the negligence regime, to experiment
with methods of preventing accidents that involve not greater exertions of care,
assumed to be futile, but instead relocating, changing, or reducing (perhaps to the
vanishing point) the activity giving rise to the accident” (Indiana Harbor Railroad v.
American Cyanamid Co. 1990: 1177).
George Fletcher suggests a somewhat different rationale for strict liability in tort,
which focuses on the nonreciprocal nature of the risks to which a defendant’s conduct
exposes the plaintiff. If a plaintiff is driving down the road, the risk created by a pass-
ing motorist is roughly equal to the risk the plaintiff poses to the other driver. Because
the risks are “reciprocal,” negligence law suffices to mediate liability for any accidents.
But if the plaintiff passes, say, a blasting site that is part of a defendant’s highway con-
struction project, and if the force of the blast shatters his windshield, the risk is not
reciprocal, because the plaintiff has not posed a comparable risk to the defendant. In
such cases, Fletcher says, a regime of strict liability is appropriate (1972: 547–9).
Even if strict liability is justified in the case of torts, however, it is questionable
whether it should be used as a basis for imposing liability for crimes. The idea of
fault is at the very core of the criminal law. The mens rea requirement is meant to
ensure that only those who are morally to blame are subject to state punishment (see
blame; responsibility). One is normally thought to be morally to blame only for
those events or consequences which one intended or which one knowingly, reck-
lessly, or negligently risked. By relieving the state of the requirement of proving mens
rea, we thus open the door to the possibility that offenders who are not to blame
might be subject to criminal punishment.
The criminal sanction is the most stigmatizing that society can impose on its
citizens and, in the view of many scholars, should be imposed only in response to the
most wrongful forms of conduct. Some European systems of criminal law distin-
guish between “true” crimes and regulatory or administrative violations. In such
systems, strict criminal liability may seem acceptable with respect to the latter.
Anglo-American criminal law recognizes no such clear distinction. In the United
States and Britain, there is thus a danger that strict liability imposed in the context
of less serious offenses will undermine the significance of the criminal sanction as
applied to more serious offenses as well.
See also: blame; compensatory justice; criminal law; desert; deterrence;

harm; intention; negligence; responsibility; retribution; torts
REFERENCES
American Law Institute, Restatement (Second) of Torts (1965).
American Law Institute, Restatement (Third) of Torts: Products Liability (1998).
Fletcher, George 1972. “Fairness and Utility in Tort Theory,” Harvard Law Review, vol. 85,
pp. 537–73.
5
Greenman v. Yuba Power Products, 377 P.2d 897 (Cal. 1963).

Indiana Harbor Railroad v. American Cyanamid Co., 916 F.2d 1174 (7th Cir. 1990).
Rylands v. Fletcher [1868] UKHL 1, LR 3 HL 330.
FURTHER READINGS
Coleman, Jules 1992. Risks and Wrongs. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Epstein, Richard A. 1980. A Theory of Strict Liability: Toward a Reformulation of Tort Law.
San Francisco: Cato Institute.
Husak, Douglas N. 1995. “Varieties of Strict Liability,” Canadian Journal of Law and
Jurisprudence, vol. 8, pp. 189–225.
Keating, Gregory C. 2001. “A Social Contract Conception of the Tort Law of Accidents,” in
Gerald J. Postema (ed.), Philosophy and the Law of Torts. Cambridge: Cambridge
Owen, David G. (ed.) 1995. Philosophical Foundations of Tort Law. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Simester, A. P. (ed.) 2005. Appraising Strict Liability. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Simons, Kenneth W. 1997. “When is Strict Criminal Liability Just?,” Journal of Criminal Law
and Criminology, vol. 87, pp. 1075–137.
1
White-Collar Crime
Stuart P. Green
The term “white-collar crime” is one with strong resonances in both academic and
popular discourse. It was first used by American sociologists in the mid-twentieth
century to refer to criminal activity engaged in by high-status offenders. More recently,
it has been used within the legal community to refer to a supposedly distinctive group
of criminal offenses (see criminal law). But even within these general camps, there is
tremendous variation in how the term has been used. It is fair to say that white-collar
crime is now a general umbrella term invoked not only by social scientists and lawyers
but also by politicians, the media, and the general public, and that it is used as much
for polemical and marketing purposes as for scholarly and analytical ones.
Definitional Issues
There are three major points of contention concerning the definition of “white-collar
crime.” The first is whether the term should refer only to activities that are actually
criminal or also to other forms of noncriminal “deviance.” Early on, social scientists
tended to use the term broadly to refer to antisocial conduct performed by upper-
income white-collar professionals and corporations regardless of whether it was
treated as criminal by the law. Such usage had a decidedly reformist or polemical
bent: by calling certain antisocial but still non-criminalized activity white-collar
“crime,” the speaker implied that the law should be changed so as to treat such
conduct as criminal. More modern usage has tended to avoid this approach, in part
because reformers have been largely successful in having previously non-criminalized
conduct newly subject to criminal sanctions.
The second issue is whether the term should refer to conduct engaged in by a
particular kind of actor or whether it should refer only to a particular kind of act.
The concept of white-collar crime traditionally favored by social scientists, including
Edwin Sutherland (1940), the sociologist who coined the term, emphasized that
crime is not a phenomenon limited solely to the lower classes or caused exclusively
by poverty, but is also committed by persons of wealth, “respectability,” and social
status. As a result, social scientists interested in white-collar crime have tended to
focus on offenders’ social status and criminal career path. Lawyers, by contrast, have
mostly rejected this status-based approach to defining white-collar crime, opting
instead for an approach that focuses on a certain group of offenses, involving certain
characteristic forms of conduct (Edelhertz 1970).
A third issue, assuming that one follows the “act” rather than “actor” approach, con-
cerns the characteristics that should determine which offenses qualify as white-collar
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee029
2
crimes. Law enforcement agencies such as the US Department of Justice and the FBI,
as well as some social scientists, have tended to emphasize factors such as the lack of
violence, the goal of obtaining financial gain or business advantage, and the use of decep-
tion, guile, breach of trust, or concealment (Shapiro 1990). Some legal academics have
dispensed with any detailed identification of underlying characteristics and have simply
stipulated that certain offenses, such as fraud, false statements, perjury, obstruction of
justice, bribery, and extortion, should be regarded as white-collar crimes (Brickey 2006).
The Moral Character of White-Collar Crime

Another way to think about white-collar crime is in terms of its underlying moral
character, as defined by its distinctive harms, wrongs, mental elements, and pat-
terns of victimization. Conventional street crimes typically reflect a number of fac-
tors: they involve identifiable physical injury to the victim, such as death, serious
injury, or physical violation; are committed through sudden violent force; and
occur in an identifiable physical location in a brief, relatively discrete period of
time. White-collar crimes, by contrast, tend to be committed through nonviolent
means; cause harm that is incorporeal, such as financial loss or harm to the integ-
rity of an institution; and occur at a nonspecific physical location over what can be
a difficult-to-define period of time. Some examples of such offenses are bribery,
insider trading, and tax evasion (see bribery and extortion).
White-collar crime also differs from conventional street crime in terms of its
patterns of victimization. Street crimes tend to involve clearly identifiable victims –
namely, the individual killed, raped, or beaten. White-collar crimes, by contrast,
tend to involve harms that are inchoate, indirect, and aggregative. It can be difficult
to determine, for example, exactly which citizens are victimized by environmental
violations and government corruption; which employees are wronged by labor law
violations and accounting fraud; and which consumers are harmed by price fixing
and fraudulent marketing practices.
Another way to distinguish white-collar and street crime is in terms of wrongs
committed. The wrongs involved in street crime, such as violating another’s right
to life or to sexual autonomy, are straightforward and characteristically criminal. By
contrast, the wrongs involved in white-collar crime – including deception, cheating,
disloyalty, promise breaking, exploitation, and coercion – are wrongs that one also
encounters in all kinds of everyday noncriminal contexts (see cheating; coercion;
exploitation; loyalty; lying and deceit). Indeed, much white-collar crime
involves the sort of aggressive business and organizational behavior that, in other con-
texts, society tends to value and reward (see business ethics; corporate culture).
White-collar crime can be difficult to distinguish from merely aggressive business
or organizational behavior. One explanation for this is the special significance played
by mens rea, or mental element, that defines much white-collar crime. For example,
if X gives money to a politician “corruptly” or with an “intent to influence,” then her
act will be regarded as a bribe (see corruption). Without such an intent, it may well
3
constitute a perfectly legal campaign contribution. Similarly, fraud can be difficult to

distinguish from mere “puffing,” insider trading from “savvy investing,” tax evasion
from “tax avoidance,” obstruction of justice from “zealous advocacy,” perjury from
“wiliness on the witness stand,” extortion from “hard bargaining,” and so forth (Green
2006). And, even when certain laws have been unambiguously violated, it is unclear
whether such violation will be treated as a crime or merely as a civil violation, since,
under statutes involving matters such as the trading of securities, the environment,
taxes, banking, and the manufacture and sale of food and drugs, precisely the same
conduct can give rise to criminal or civil penalties, with the discretion to pursue one
or the other wholly in the hands of the prosecutor. Such ambivalence about
white-collar crime on the part of both citizens and government is evident from the
fact that such crimes, despite their arguable tendency to cause more harm overall to
society than more traditional offenses, are often perceived as being less serious,
prosecuted less aggressively, and punished less severely than street crimes.
White-Collar Crime Today

The treatment of white-collar crime continues on two mostly separate, but parallel,
tracks. Social scientists continue to probe the causes and effects of white-collar
criminality. Some have sought to explain the puzzling psychology of individuals
who, having already achieved considerable economic and social success through
legal means, nevertheless engage in criminal activities. Others have explored the
organizational dynamics that cause otherwise law-abiding people and institutions to
go wrong. Another group of social scientists is interested in how the widespread
dissemination of certain social values creates conditions that seem to encourage
white-collar criminality. Others have explored the various kinds of harm that are
caused by white-collar crime, both economic and non-economic. And yet another
group has made a study of how a whole range of white-collar crimes – in business,
government, and the professions – can be prevented.
The legal community has followed a different track. Since the 1970s, white-collar
crime has developed into a standard subject in the law school curriculum, especially
in the United States. There are now scores of law school courses devoted to the
subject, and a significant number of casebooks, treatises, and other materials from
which the instructors of such courses can choose. There are also countless
“continuing legal education” programs, sponsored by hundreds of bar associations,
devoted to the subject. Almost all of this curriculum deals with general principles of
corporate criminality and a few specific offenses such as fraud, perjury, obstruction
of justice, and conspiracy. But beyond this, there is little consensus. While some
courses emphasize the substantive criminal law aspects of white-collar crime, others
tend to focus on the procedural issues associated with its prosecution. And the
specific offenses that are covered, and therefore regarded as white-collar crimes, also
vary significantly.
White-collar crime has also become a distinct area of law practice. Hundreds of
law firms and thousands of private lawyers throughout the United States and Great
4
Britain now hold themselves out as specialists in white-collar criminal law. Some of
these lawyers emphasize their experience in litigating cases involving individuals
and corporations in criminal cases. Others highlight their skill in establishing
and administering corporate compliance programs and conducting internal investi-
gations. Almost all claim expertise in dealing with the complex procedural and
evidentiary contexts in which many white-collar crime prosecutions occur.
Numerous enforcement agencies also now have specialized offices equipped to deal
with the peculiar complexities of preventing, detecting, investigating, prosecuting,
and punishing white-collar crime.
The term “white-collar crime” is now increasingly being used outside the United
States and Britain as well, having been translated into French (crime en col blanc),
German (Weißes-Kragen-Kriminalität), Italian (criminalità dei colletti bianchi), Spanish
(delito de cuello blanco), and various other languages. To a significant degree, such
increasing globalization of white-collar crime is an inevitable byproduct of an increas-
ingly globalized economy.
If one were starting from scratch, “white-collar crime” is hardly the term one would
choose to describe the concept that has been dealt with here. The term is vague, impre-
cise, and ideologically charged. Yet the alternatives that have been offered, such as “cor-
porate crime,” “economic crime,” “governmental crime,” and “occupational crime,” are
each problematic in their own way. Despite its fundamental awkwardness, the term
“white-collar crime” is now so deeply embedded within our legal, moral, and social sci-
ence vocabularies that it could hardly be abandoned. The term persists and proliferates
not so much in spite of its lack of definitional precision, but because of it (Green 2006).
See also: bribery and extortion; business ethics; cheating; coercion;

corporate culture; corruption; criminal law; exploitation; harm;
loyalty; lying and deceit
REFERENCES
Brickey, Kathleen 2006. Corporate and White Collar Crime: Cases and Materials, 4th ed.
New York: Wolters Kluwer.
Edelhertz, Herbert 1970. The Nature, Impact and Prosecution of White-Collar Crime.
Washington, DC: National Institute of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice.
Green, Stuart P. 2006. Lying, Cheating, and Stealing: A Moral Theory of White-Collar Crime.
Shapiro, Susan 1990. “Collaring the Crime, Not the Criminal,” American Sociological Review,
vol. 55, pp. 346–65.
Sutherland, Edwin H. 1940. “White-Collar Criminality,” American Sociological Review, vol. 5,
pp. 1–12.
FURTHER READINGS
Friedrichs, David O. 2004. Trusted Criminals: White Collar Crime in Contemporary Society,
2nd ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning.
5
Pontell, Henry N., and Gilbert Geis (eds.) 2007. International Handbook of White-Collar and
Corporate Crime. New York: Springer.
Shover, Neal, and John Paul Wright (eds.) 2000. Crimes of Privilege: Readings in White-Collar
Crime. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Simon, David 2007. Elite Deviance, 9th ed. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Weisburd, David, and Elin Waring 2001. White-Collar Crime and Criminal Careers.
1
Incommensurability (and Incomparability)

Ruth Chang
When two items are incommensurable, they “lack a common measure.” There are,
however, many ways in which two items can be said to lack a common measure and,
correspondingly, philosophers have used the term “incommensurable” to cover a
jumble of loosely related ideas.
These ideas divide into two clusters. The first cluster, relatively underdeveloped,
matters mostly in epistemology and the philosophy of science. Thomas Kuhn (1977),
Paul Feyerabend (1978), and their followers suggest that different theories of the
natural world often presuppose “incommensurable” conceptual schemes and
thereby represent “scientific paradigms” that can only be properly understood or
justified within their own presupposed conceptual framework. For example, while
both Aristotle and modern-day physicists offer theories explaining the behavior of
objects like rocks, trees, and pitchers of wine, Aristotelian physics explains why a
rock rolls down a hill in terms of the telos or purpose of its matter, and contemporary
Newtonian mechanics explains the rock’s behavior in terms of gravitational force
(see aristotle). Given that each theory has its own “incommensurable” conceptual
presuppositions, neither theory can be understood or evaluated by the other. Exactly
what it is for two conceptual schemes to be “incommensurable” remains somewhat
obscure, but the basic idea seems to be that they “lack a common measure” in the
sense of not having a sufficient overlap in concepts. Incommensurability among
conceptual schemes, in turn, is thought to support a form of relativism about the
given domain (see relativism, moral), though this is controversial.
The second cluster of ideas matters mostly in value theory, normative theory, and
the philosophy of practical reason (see normativity; reasons; rationality;
practical reasoning). These are the ideas that will be the focus of this essay.
There are six central – and distinct – ideas in this second cluster. Given that
the term “incommensurability” is multiply ambiguous, this essay not only
describes the six main ways in which the term has been used, but also recom-
mends a particular way in which it is most sensibly used. Five of these uses con-
cern a relation among abstract values and are discussed under the heading “the
incommensurability of values.” The fifth use, it is proposed, is the proper use of
the term. “Incommensurability,” then, most appropriately applies to abstract
values, and the incommensurability between bearers of value should be under-
stood derivatively, in terms of the incommensurability between the values they
bear. The sixth use, arguably the most significant, covers an idea that is better
known as “incomparability” and most naturally applies not to abstract values but
to bearers of them. Although some philosophers treat “incommensurability” as
synonymous with “incomparability,” “incomparability” already has a firmly
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee030
2
established use, which is not synonymous with “incommensurability,” and it is

generally unwise to duplicate multisyllabic terms of art. On the recommended
terminology, “incommensurability” is one thing and “incomparability” another.
History
“Incommensurability” was first used by the Pythagoreans, to describe the relation
between the lengths of a side of a unit square and its diagonal. (We don’t know the
ancient Greek word first used to denote the idea, but it was likely either alogos or
arrhētos, both of which are often translated as “inexpressible” or, in mathematics,
“irrational.”) The Pythagoreans noted that the length of a side of a unit square could
be measured by the integer 1, while the length of its diagonal could not be repre-
sented by the ratio of integers but was instead given by the square root of 2. The
thought that these two lengths could not be measured by a single scale of integers
was of scandalous significance for the Pythagoreans because, as one commentator
put it, “[the discovery] destroyed with one stroke the belief that everything could be
expressed in integers, on which the whole Pythagorean philosophy up to then had
been based” (Fritz 1970: 407). Its discovery was credited to the mathematician
Hippasus of Metapontum, who, as legend has it, was drowned by the gods – or, some
say, by his fellow Pythagoreans – for making public his finding. Of course, today we
know that, while rational and irrational numbers cannot both be measured by inte-
gers, they can be put in a single scale of real numbers. Thus the supposed first
instance of incommensurability was not itself a true instance of items that lacked
any common scale of measurement.
After the Pythagoreans, Aristotle referred to values as “incommensurable” if they
lacked a common unit by which they could be measured (he used the adjective
asummetros, by then the established term for “irrational” or “incommensurable”
magnitudes in Euclidean mathematics). He suggested that some values were “so
different” that they might not be measurable by a single unit of value, such as that
given by money (Nicomachean Ethics [NE] 1133b15–25). As we will suggest, it is this
Aristotelian idea of the lack of a unit of measure of values, with roots in the
Pythagorean discovery in mathematics, that is properly referred to as “the incom-
mensurability of values.”
The Incommensurability of Values

There are five main ideas that philosophers have discussed under the label “the
incommensurability of values.”
Incompatibility
One of the first contemporary uses of “incommensurability” was mooted by Isaiah
Berlin, who applied the term to abstract values that were incompatible, that is, could
not be, together, fully realized in the world (1969: 49–50, 53–4). Berlin suggested
that fundamental values such as happiness and knowledge, or justice and mercy,
3
were “incommensurable” in the sense that the achievement of one value could be
had only at the cost of the loss of another. Knowing that one’s spouse has been
unfaithful can come at a great cost to one’s happiness, and justice might require that
a criminal be punished when mercy counsels forgiveness. This incompatibility
among values showed, Berlin thought, that political ideologies that are focused
around a single fundamental value were bound to sacrifice realization of other
fundamental values if their single aim was to be achieved. Modern-day liberal
political theory can be seen to derive some of its motivation from this conviction
that not all fundamental values can be fully realized together; the correct political
theory, then, has as its aim some balance or function of all fundamental values.
Pluralism
Sometimes two abstract values are said to be “incommensurable” if they can’t be
“reduced” to any single value (see value pluralism). One value reduces to another
if there is nothing more to having the one than having the other. For example, the
beauty in a painting reduces to pleasure if there is nothing more to the painting’s
being beautiful than its providing pleasure to those who view it. If beauty and
pleasure are incommensurable in this sense, they do not reduce to any single value;
there is no “supervalue” of which both beauty and pleasure are aspects or instances.
Both Bentham’s hedonistic utilitarianism, which holds that all values are quantities
of the supervalue pleasure, and Mill’s eudaimonistic utilitarianism, which holds that
all values are qualities or quantities of the supervalue happiness, deny that any values
are incommensurable in this sense (see bentham, jeremy; mill, john stuart;
eudaimonism; utilitarianism; well-being).
Some philosophers have argued that, if all values reduce to a single supervalue – if
value monism is correct – then conflicts between values are only apparent, since a
choice between two values is ultimately a choice between amounts or instances of the
single supervalue (see highest good). Other philosophers have argued that even a
single value, such as pleasure, can have irreducibly distinct aspects, and so there can
be genuine conflict between, say, the sharp rush of pleasure in hearing some welcome
news and the long, languorous pleasure of spending an afternoon on the beach
(Stocker 1990). If this is right, then value monism – complete “commensurability” of
value – is compatible with akrasia (“weakness of will”) and with rational regret over
a forgone lesser good (Stocker 1990: 230; Hurka 1996; see weakness of will). Most
philosophers find value monism implausible, and in any case the debate between
monism and pluralism plausibly turns on the prior issue of how values are to be indi-
viduated – a matter on which philosophers have made little progress.
Trumping/discontinuity/threshold lexical superiority

Some philosophers have claimed that two abstract values are “incommensurable” if
any instance of the one value is always as good as, or better than, any instance of the
other. This phenomenon is also sometimes called “trumping” (Dworkin 1977: xi; see
rights). The abstract value of having the use of one’s limbs, for example, might be
4
in this sense incommensurable with the value of eating chocolate: no instance of

eating chocolate, however great, could ever equal or outrank any instance of the
value of having the use of one’s limbs, even if it’s just the use of one’s pinky finger
(Tribe 1972).
Sometimes “incommensurability” is used for a variation on trumping, which is
also called “discontinuity” or “threshold lexical superiority.” Two values are dis-
continuous if there is some threshold amount of one value that trumps any
amount of the other value (Griffin 1986: 85). The value of having the use of one’s
limbs would be discontinuous with the value of eating chocolate if there is some
threshold of the value of the use of one’s limbs – perhaps the use of one’s large toe –
above which no amount of chocolate-eating could outrank it, but below which
some very large amount of chocolate-eating would outrank it. Some philosophers
suggest that there is only discontinuity, but no trumping, among values (Griffin
1986: 85).
Trumping and discontinuity offer a way to characterize deontological ethical
theories. The most extreme forms of deontology maintain that duties trump
utility – one’s duties not to lie, cheat, or steal always outweigh the utility of doing
so, however great the latter may be. Moderate forms of deontology recognize
discontinuities between duties and utility; duties trump utility up to a lower
threshold; but if the utility is sufficiently great – if, for example, it consists in
preventing global nuclear holocaust – then utility can outweigh doing one’s duty
(see deontology).
Nonsubstitutability/noncompensability
When one value is sacrificed, sometimes its loss can be made up by gain in another
value. But when loss in one value cannot be compensated by gain in another, the
values aren’t substitutes for one another and are said to be “incommensurable”
(e.g. Nagel 1979; Anderson 1997; Wiggins 1997; Stocker 1997; Lukes 1997;
Sunstein 1997; Taylor 1982; D’Agostino 2003: 6, 42ff.).
Suppose you are offered a thrilling job in a city far away from your friends. If the
value of challenging and exciting work is not substitutable with the value of intimate
relationships with your friends, then, whichever option you choose, there will be a
loss in value. In this way the nonsubstitutability of values can explain the possibility
of genuine conflict, dilemmas, and tragic choices. Weakness of will also becomes
explicable – one is attracted to the pleasant ease of watching television, which,
although a lesser value, is not compensated by the greater value of a vigorous work-
out at the gym. Similarly, regret over a forgone lesser good becomes rational if the
value one forgoes, although lower, cannot be substituted by the greater value
(Wiggins 1987b: 258ff.; Williams 1973: 175).
Values are thought to be nonsubstitutable because some values have special
“status” (Anderson 1993) or are “sacred” (Lukes 1997). The value of human life, for
instance, is thought to have a special status, so that its loss cannot be compensated
by economic gains. Moreover, the idea that some values cannot be substituted for
5
others underlies John Rawls’ famous doctrine of the “separateness of persons.” Rawls
suggested that one person’s hardship cannot be compensated by another person’s
benefit, and that failure to recognize this lies at the heart of what is wrong with
consequentialism (see rawls, john; consequentialism).
Incommensurability
Perhaps the most frequently recurring idea that falls under the label “the incom-
mensurability of values” is that values lack a common unit of measurement (Wiggins
1987a, 1987b, 1997; Stocker 1990: 175ff. and 1997; Chang 1997; Finnis 1980: 113ff.,
1997; Stocker 1990, 1997; Sunstein 1997; D’Agostino 2003: 6, 35; cf. Richardson
1994: 104). Two values, such as pleasure and fairness, are incommensurable if there
is no cardinal scale of value according to which both can be measured. This, it is
urged, is the notion to which the term “incommensurability” properly refers.
A cardinal scale of value, such as that given by a thermometer for temperature or
by a yardstick for length, allows the evaluative difference between items to be
expressed in terms of a single common unit. The lack of a cardinal scale by which
two values can be measured entails that there is no unit by which both values can be
measured. Cardinal scales come in two main varieties. If the scale marks a meaning-
ful zero of what it is measuring, then it gives the ratio differences between items on
the scale and is called a ratio scale. If it doesn’t mark a meaningful zero, then it gives
only the interval differences between items on the scale and is called an interval
scale. Fahrenheit and Celsius scales mark the interval difference between two
temperatures but do not give a meaningful measure of the ratio of temperatures;
thus the temperature of boiling water is 180°F greater than the temperature of ice,
but 20°F is not twice as hot as 10°F. A yardstick, by contrast, measures lengths by a
unit that also provides a meaningful measure of the ratio between lengths; a two-
foot stick is both one foot longer than and twice as a long as a one-foot stick.
If there is no cardinal scale by which two values such as pleasure and fairness can
be measured, there are no interval or ratio differences between these values. We
cannot say that fairness is 20 units more valuable than pleasure, or that the particular
fairness of progressive taxation is three times more valuable than the particular
pleasure of eating blueberry pie à la mode.
The claim that values are incommensurable in this sense comes in weak and
strong forms. Weak incommensurability claims that there is no single unit by which
all values can be measured. That is, there is no single cardinal scale by which every
value can be measured. Strong incommensurability goes further; not only is there
no single unit by which all values can be measured, but, between any two particular
values, there is no single unit by which they can be measured. (See Wiggins 1987b:
259; cf. Richardson 1994: 104–5.)
If there is no single unit by which all values can be measured, then it is a mistake
to think that all goods can be valued by some common unit, such as dollars.
Aristotle, who denied that money was a currency for all value, was perhaps the first
proponent of weak incommensurability (NE 1104b50–5a1). Weak incommensurability
6
entails that cost–benefit analysis, long a mainstay of economic theory and govern-

mental policy, cannot be an accurate method for evaluating goods or their relative
merits. Thus a government deciding whether to regulate risk in the workplace by
imposing health and safety standards cannot measure the value of the human lives
saved against the monetary costs of new safety equipment. Nor can the value of a
woman’s right to control the use of her body be measured by the market value of
spending nine months as a surrogate mother (see Sunstein 1997; Anderson 1993:
190–216; Radin 1987; see cost–benefit analysis; life, value of). In general,
decisions about how to apportion costs and benefits, if they are to be based on accu-
rate measures of the value of what is lost and what is gained, cannot be a matter of
maximizing a single unit of value, since not all costs and benefits can be so meas-
ured. Somewhat surprisingly, Aristotle, a proponent of weak incommensurability,
hinted that, although values are “incommensurable,” using a stipulated unit of
currency – such as dollars or fistfuls of salt – might serve to measure the value of
goods in a way sufficient for “practical purposes” (NE 1133b15–25).
Weak incommensurability holds, philosophers suggest, because some values,
such as human life and rights, have a special “status” or are “sacred,” and thus they
cannot be put on the same scale as “commodity” values like pleasure and economic
efficiency (Anderson 1993: Chs. 7–9; Radin 1987; Lukes 1997). Indeed, if all values
were ultimately commodity values measurable by a market price, then many of our
most cherished and fundamental attitudes would require radical revision. For
example, if the value of one’s child can be measured by the same unit that measures
the value of a beach vacation, then our attitudes toward the loss of value of each
should be a matter of degree. Insofar as our practical attitudes are driven by the value
of their objects, our attitudes toward our children should differ from our attitudes
toward beach vacations only in quantity, not in quality. In this way, if all values could
be measured by a single unit of value, our emotional lives would require “flattening”
(Nussbaum 1990: 116–20; Anderson 1993). Kant was one of the first philosophers to
insist upon a distinction between values with “dignity” and values with “price,” only
the latter of which admit of cardinal measure (see kant, immanuel). If Kant is right,
then the proper valuation of goods requires a recognition that status goods cannot
be measured by the same unit as commodity goods.
Weak incommensurability also entails that any theory that supposes that all values
can be arrayed on a single cardinal scale of value, such as “utility,” must be rejected.
Traditional forms of both Benthamite and Millian utilitarianism are thought to
involve this assumption; according to Bentham, we should maximize units of pleas-
ure in terms of which all other values could be measured, and according to Mill, we
should maximize units of happiness – given by informed preference – in terms of
which all other values could be measured. Some philosophers have tried to yoke the
denial of weak incommensurability to consequentialist theories in general (Finnis
1980: 113; Wiggins 1997; Stocker 1997). If there is no common unit by which values
can be measured, then there is no rate of substitution between them and no general
maximizing principle that can guide action. But, insofar as what constitutes the
“best consequences” can vary from choice situation to choice situation, bringing
7
about the best consequences across choice situations need not presuppose a single
unit by which all values can be measured.
While weak incommensurability makes a claim only about a single unit measuring
all values, strong incommensurability makes the further claim that between any two
values – or between any two instances of value – there is no single unit of measure.
Accordingly, strong incommensurability has further significance for decision-
making in particular choice situations. If, for example, the instances of two abstract
values in a particular choice situation cannot be measured by a common unit, then
it follows that they cannot be substituted for one another without remainder, and
thus, no matter which alternative one chooses, some value will be lost. This is so
even if, all things considered, one alternative is better than the other. By implying
nonsubstitutability in each choice situation, strong incommensurability can help to
explain the possibility of akrasia (Wiggins 1987b: 239; Stocker 1990: 230ff.), dilem-
mas, and tragic choices (Nussbaum 1990; Harris 2006; see dilemmas, moral), and
rational regret and emotions in the face of value conflict (Stocker 1990, 1997).
In response to the specter of strong incommensurability, some philosophers have
suggested that agents have deliberative strategies at their disposal that either preclude
strong incommensurability or ensure that they can reach an all-things-considered
best choice in the face of it. These strategies include making the values at stake more
specific (Richardson 1994), bringing to bear practical experience with the values
(Millgram 1997), and viewing the values through the lens of the “shape” of one’s life
(Taylor 1997) – all strategies for arraying the values at stake in a way amenable to
rational choice.
Incomparability
Now it is easy to think that, if the instances of two values in a particular choice situa-
tion cannot be measured cardinally, then they cannot be compared. This slide from
the lack of a cardinal measure of two values or their instances to their incomparability
helps to explain how the term “incommensurability” has sometimes come to signify
incomparability.
The lack of a cardinal scale of measure, however, does not entail incomparability.
Two values or instances of value can lack a common unit of measure; nevertheless,
one might be better than the other in one of two ways. First, the values might be
ordinally compared; though there is no unit that measures the difference between
them, they can be ordinally ranked as first, second, third, and so on, as in a list of
priority or importance. Second, one item might be better than the other, but the
values of the items might be measurable only by an “imprecise,” not a precise, unit.
Thus, while we cannot say that one item is 20 units better than the other or twice as
good, we can give an “imprecise” unit – perhaps a rough range of precise cardinal
values – by which it is better. Derek Parfit has suggested that goods bearing similar
values, such as two poets, can be cardinally compared more precisely than goods
bearing different values, such as a poet and a historian. The cardinal measure of the
values of a poet and a historian, then, will be more imprecise than the cardinal
8
measure of the value of two poets (Parfit 1986: 431; 2011). In any case, items meas-
ured by an imprecise unit may nevertheless be comparable.
But what is it for two items, be they values or bearers of value, to be incomparable?
We can start with the idea of comparability. It has two central features. First, two
items are comparable if there is some positive value relation according to which they
can be ranked. Intuitively, a value relation is positive if it describes a way the world
is rather than a way the world is not. “X is better than Y” ranks X above Y, while “X
is not better than Y” doesn’t give a ranking of X and Y – X may be worse than Y, or
X and Y may be equally valuable, and so on. Traditionally it has been assumed that
three positive value relations exhaust the conceptual space of comparability between
items – “better than,” “worse than,” and “equally good.” But some philosophers have
thought that there is a fourth basic value relation that can hold between items:
“parity,” which becomes possible once we reject the assumption that evaluative
comparisons are modeled on the relations among real numbers, which can only be
greater, lesser, or equal to one another (Chang 2002).
Second, comparability always proceeds with respect to an evaluative “covering
consideration.” X cannot be better than Y, full stop, but it can be better than Y only
with respect to, say, well-being, or beauty, or morality, or making one’s mother
happy. Just as it makes no sense to say that one stick is greater than another, full stop,
it makes no sense to say that one item is better than another, full stop. Thus one stick
can be greater than another with respect to length but not to mass, and one item can
be better than another with respect to beauty but not to morality. Comparability is a
three-place relation: X is comparable with Y with respect to V, where V is a covering
consideration (Chang 1997). When X is better than Y, all things considered, there is
some set of values that are the things considered.
Incomparability is the negative of comparability. As such, incomparability is also
a three-place relation: two items cannot be incomparable, full stop, but they can be
incomparable only with respect to a covering consideration. If two items are incom-
parable with respect to V, there is no positive value relation that holds between them
with respect to V. Just as it makes no sense to say that two items are comparable, full
stop, it makes no sense to say that two items are incomparable, full stop. Two paint-
ings may be incomparable with respect to beauty but comparable with respect to
market value; two careers may be incomparable with respect to well-being but com-
parable with respect to economic security; and two lives may be incomparable with
respect to happiness but comparable with respect to accomplishment. And so on.
Similarly, if values are incomparable, they must be incomparable with respect to
some evaluative consideration. Two values cannot be incomparable, full stop, but
must be comparable with respect to some evaluative covering consideration.
That incomparability – whether between values or between bearers of value –
must proceed with respect to a covering consideration is sometimes ignored. There
are two explanations for this. First, it is easy to conflate incomparability with what
some philosophers have called “noncomparability.” Two items are noncomparable
when the formal conditions required for there to be a claim of comparability or
incomparability are not met. One of these conditions is that there be a covering
9
consideration that “covers” at least one of the items being compared – a considera-
tion with respect to which the comparison either succeeds, in which case we have
comparability, or fails, in which case we have incomparability. So, for example, the
number “four” is noncomparable – not incomparable – with dreams with respect to
tastiness: neither the number “four” nor dreams have a taste, and thus comparing
them with respect to tastiness can neither succeed nor fail. The failure of a covering
consideration to “cover” items can easily morph into a failure of items to be covered
by any consideration (Chang 1997).
Second, some philosophers think that, if there is a covering consideration with
respect to which a comparison proceeds, it need only be given by a bare covering
concept, such as value or goodness, and not by a substantive value that is common
to the items being compared (Griffin 1997: 35–8; Wiggins 1987b; Richardson 1994;
Raz 1986). According to these philosophers, values stand in normative relations to
one another in the abstract, as it were, and not relatively to any substantive consid-
eration. So, for example, the value of human life is greater than the value of deli-
cious dessert with respect to “value,” and accomplishment is more important than
pleasure with respect to “prudential value,” where both “value” and “prudential
value” are not themselves values, but mere names for particular groupings of con-
siderations. It is as if the heavens contain various books with abstract values listed
in order of importance. The biggest book, entitled “Value,” contains a ranked list of
all the abstract values there are; another, slimmer volume, called “Prudence,” con-
tains a ranked list of all the values that make a life go well; still another, called
“Aesthetics,” contains an ordering of values having to do with beauty. And in the
fine print of each book is a rank order of particular instances of these values. If
values and their instances are ranked in the abstract in this way, there need be no
covering value in terms of which one value or its instance is better than another; it
just is better, full stop.
There is good reason, however, to think that values do not rank themselves in the
abstract but are rather ranked by substantive covering values. Take, for instance, the
prudential values of accomplishment and pleasure. It might look as if accomplish-
ment is more important than pleasure, full stop; but whether this is so depends on
one’s substantive conception of what makes a life go well. If one’s conception of the
good life is sybaritic, then pleasure may seem generally more important in the
abstract than accomplishment. Or consider the value of human life and gustatory
pleasure. Surely human life is simply better than the pleasure of a good meal! But
even this thought relies on certain substantive conceptions of value. In the most
concrete cases we can imagine where one has to choose between human life and
gustatory pleasure, the former outranks the latter. But not in all cases. An emer-
gency-room doctor can efficiently spend 20 hours a day saving lives instead of only
16. If she spends only 16 hours at work and chooses to spend precious hours during
which she could be saving lives having fine meals instead, she has not measured the
values at stake incorrectly. This is because what matters in the concrete choice situ-
ations that make up a lived life are different substantive values, which, together, rec-
ommend the pursuit of a balance of values. Sometimes what matters in a concrete
10
choice situation will make the value of getting a good meal more important than the
value of human life.
If this is right, then values and their instances don’t rank themselves but are
ranked by substantive values that matter in the choice between them. The appear-
ance of an abstract ranking of values, then, can be explained by the fact that, in
most cases and for most substantive values, one value will matter more than another.
Thus the covering consideration with respect to which both comparability and
incomparability proceed is a substantive value (Chang 2004).
Why is incomparability important? Some philosophers have argued that incom-
parability is important because it is constitutive of certain values. So, for example, it
is constitutive of the value of friendship that friendships cannot be compared with
money (Anderson 1993, 1997; Raz 1986: 345–57). But others have argued that such
putative cases of “constitutive incomparability” are better understood as cases of
discontinuity or “threshold lexical superiority” – it is at best constitutive of friend-
ship that one would not trade a friendship for money up to a certain threshold, but
if one could buy friendship for money, one would trade money for friendship. Since
incomparability is a symmetrical relation and the relation between friendship and
money seems asymmetrical, cases of constitutive incomparability are in fact cases of
what might be called “emphatic comparability” (Chang 2001).
The main significance of incomparability is that it threatens the possibility of
rational choice. If two alternatives for choice are incomparable with respect to the
values that matter in the choice between them, then, it is widely believed, there can
be no rationally justified choice between them. Suppose you must choose between
becoming a lawyer and becoming a doctor. Suppose, too, that what matters in the
choice you’ll make is having a sense of accomplishment, good relationships with
one’s children, financial security, and so on. If the careers are incomparable with
respect to these values, then it seems that there can be no reason for your choosing
the one career that justifies choosing it over the other career. As some have put it, you
can only engage in unreasoned “existential plumping” for one alternative over the
other (see sartre, jean-paul). Some philosophers have noted that incomparability
can be the source of “value pumps” (Chang 1997: 11; Broome 2000: 33–4), while
others have suggested that incomparability gives rise to dilemmas and tragic choices
(Sinnott-Armstrong 1988; Harris 2006).
Some philosophers have thought that incomparability is so widespread that it
infects everything – from our most mundane choices, such as how to wear one’s hair
or what to have for breakfast, to our most profound ones, such as which career to
pursue, with whom to make a home, and what kind of life to lead. Other philoso-
phers, and most economists and decision theorists, think that there is no incompa-
rability at all or that, if there is, it is of relatively limited scope and philosophical
significance.
Those who think that incomparability is relatively rare tend to suggest that
putative cases of incomparability are in fact cases of a rather different phenome-
non. They have offered four grounds for this view. First is the idea that cases of
incomparability are really cases in which one of the items is better than, or as
11
good as, the other (Regan 1997). Thus items are always comparable through one
of the three traditional relations “better than,” “worse than,” and “equally good,”
but it is sometimes hard to know which. Second is the idea that cases of incompa-
rability are really cases of imprecise cardinal comparisons (Parfit 1986: 431ff.).
This idea turns on supposing that comparability is a matter of precise cardinal
comparison. Third is the idea that items are related by a fourth positive value
relation beyond the usual trichotomy of “better than,” “worse than,” and “equally
good.” Perhaps, when items are neither better than each other nor equally good
with respect to some V, they are not incomparable with respect to V but rather on
a par (Chang 2002). Fourth is the idea that items thought to be incomparable are
really indeterminately comparable, that is, it is neither true nor false that they
stand in a positive value relation. Sometimes this idea is (misleadingly) called
“rough comparability” (Griffin 1986: 80–1, 96) or “vagueness” in comparison
(Broome 1997). A general view of value that might explain the last three phenom-
ena is that values are not determinate quantities but are metaphysically indetermi-
nate or “lumpy” (Chang 2002: 143–5; Hsieh 2005).
Arguably, incomparability (and not incommensurability) is the philosophically
more significant phenomenon, but research continues to be active in both areas. In
this way what began as a technical term of art, “incommensurability,” employed to
cover a range of loosely related ideas, has led to two distinct research programs: one
concerning what is properly called “incommensurability,” or the lack of a cardinal
unit by which values can be measured; and the other concerning “incomparability,”
or the failure of items to be ranked relatively to a covering value.
See also: aristotle; bentham, jeremy; consequentialism; cost–benefit

analysis; deontology; dilemmas, moral; eudaimonism; highest good;
hume, david; kant, immanuel; life, value of; mill, john stuart;
normativity; practical reasoning; rationality; rawls, john; reasons;
relativism, moral; rights; sartre, jean-paul; utilitarianism; value
pluralism; weakness of will; well-being
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
I am grateful to Alan Code for information concerning the ancient Greek terms mentioned
in this essay.
REFERENCES
Anderson, Elizabeth 1993. Value in Ethics and Economics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Anderson, Elizabeth 1997. “Practical Reason and Incommensurable Goods,” in Ruth Chang
(ed.), Incommensurability, Incomparability, and Practical Reason. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, pp. 90–109.
Aristotle 1999. Nicomachean Ethics [NE], 2nd ed., trans. Terence Irwin. Indianapolis: Hackett.
12
Berlin, Isaiah 1969. Four Essays on Liberty. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Broome, John 1997. “Is Incommensurability Vagueness?” in Ruth Chang (ed.),
Incommensurability, Incomparability, and Practical Reason. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
Broome, John 2000. “Incommensurable Values,” in Roger Crisp and Brad Hooker (eds.),
Well-Being and Morality: Essays in Honour of James Griffin. Oxford: Clarendon Press,
pp. 21–38.
Chang, Ruth 1997. “Introduction,” in Ruth Chang (ed.), Incommensurability, Incomparability,
and Practical Reason. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 1–34.
Chang, Ruth 2001. “Against Constitutive Incommensurability, or, Buying and Selling Friends,”
Philosophical Issues, vol. 11, pp. 33–60.
Chang, Ruth 2002. “The Possibility of Parity,” Ethics, vol. 112, pp. 659–88.
Chang, Ruth 2004. “All Things Considered,” Philosophical Perspectives, vol. 18, 1–22.
D’Agostino, Fred 2003. Incommensurability and Commensuration: The Common Denominator.
Aldershot: Ashgate.
Dworkin, Ronald 1977. Taking Rights Seriously. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Feyerabend, Paul 1978. Science in a Free Society. London: New Left Books.
Finnis, John 1980. Natural Law and Natural Rights. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Finnis, John 1997. “Commensuration and Public Reason,” in Ruth Chang (ed.),
Fritz, Kurt von 1970. “The Discovery of Incommensurability by Hippasus of Metapontum,”
in David Furley and R. E. Allen (eds.), Studies in Presocratic Philosophy. London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul, pp. 382–412.
Griffin, James 1986. Well-Being: Its Meaning, Measurement and Importance. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
Griffin, James 1997. “Incommensurability: What’s the Problem?” in Ruth Chang (ed.),
Harris, George 2006. Reason’s Grief. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hsieh, Nien-he 2005. “Is Incomparability a Problem for Anyone?” Economics and Philosophy,
vol. 23, pp. 65–80.
Hurka, Thomas 1996. “Monism, Pluralism, and Rational Regret,” Ethics, vol. 106, pp. 555–75.
Kuhn, Thomas 1977. The Essential Tension. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lukes, Stephen 1997. “Comparing the Incomparable: Trade-offs and Sacrifices,” in Ruth
Chang (ed.), Incommensurability, Incomparability, and Practical Reason. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 184–95.
Millgram, Elijah 1997. “Incommensurability and Practical Reasoning,” in Ruth Chang (ed.),
Nagel, Thomas 1979. “The Fragmentation of Value,” in Thomas Nagel, Mortal Questions.
Nussbaum, Martha 1990. “Plato on Commensurability and Desire,” in Martha Nussbaum,
Love’s Knowledge. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 106–24.
Parfit, Derek 1986. Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Parfit, Derek 2011. On What Matters. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
13
Radin, Margaret 1987. “Market Inalienability,” Harvard Law Review, vol. 100, pp. 1849–937.
Raz, Joseph 1986. The Morality of Freedom. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Regan, Donald 1997. “Value, Comparability, and Choice,” in Ruth Chang (ed.),
Richardson, Henry 1994. Practical Reasoning about Final Ends. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter 1988. Moral Dilemmas. Oxford: Blackwell.
Stocker, Michael 1990. Plural and Conflicting Values. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Stocker, Michael 1997. “Abstract and Concrete Value: Plurality, Conflict, and Maximization,”
in Ruth Chang (ed.), Incommensurability, Incomparability, and Practical Reason.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 196–214.
Sunstein, C. 1997. “Incommensurability and Kinds of Valuation: Some Applications in Law,”
in Ruth Chang (ed.), Incommensurability, Incomparability, and Practical Reason.
Taylor, Charles 1982. “The Diversity of Goods,” in A. Sen and B. Williams (eds.), Utilitarianism
and Beyond. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 129–44.
Taylor, Charles 1997. “Leading a Life,” in Ruth Chang (ed.), Incommensurability,
Incomparability, and Practical Reason. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
pp. 170–83.
Tribe, Laurence 1972. “Policy Science: Analysis or Ideology?” Philosophy and Public Affairs,
vol. 66, no. 1, pp. 66–110.
Wiggins, David 1987a. “Deliberation and Practical Reason,” in David Wiggins, Needs, Values,
Truth. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 215–38. (Aristotelian Society Series, vol. 6.)
Wiggins, David 1987b. “Weakness of Will, Commensurability, and the Objects of Deliberation
and Desire,” in David Wiggins, Needs, Values, Truth. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 239–67.
(Aristotelian Society Series, vol. 6.)
Wiggins, David 1997. “Incommensurability: Four Proposals,” in Ruth Chang (ed.),
Williams, Bernard 1973. “Ethical Consistency,” in Bernard Williams, Problems of the Self.
FURTHER READINGS
Chang, Ruth (ed.) 1997. Incommensurability, Incomparability, and Practical Reason.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Chang, Ruth 2001a. Making Comparisons Count. New York: Routledge. (Studies in Ethics
series.)
Chang, Ruth 2001b. “Value Pluralism,” in N. J. Smelser and P. B. Baltes (eds.; philosophy editor
Philip Pettit), International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, vol. 24.
Oxford: Pergamon, pp. 16139–45.
De Sousa, Ronald 1974. “The Good and the True,” Mind, vol. 83, pp. 534–51.
Dworkin, Ronald 1984. “Rights as Trumps,” in Jeremy Waldron (ed.), Theories of Rights.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 153–67.
Gewirth, Alan 1984. “Are There Any Absolute Rights?” in Jeremy Waldron (ed.), Theories of
Rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 81–109.
14
Griffin, James 1991. “Mixing Values,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, suppl. vol. 65,
pp. 101–18.
Griffin, James 1997. “Incommensurability: What’s the Problem?” in Ruth Chang (ed.),
Heidlebaugh, Nola J. 2001. Judgment, Rhetoric, and the Problem of Incommensurability:
Recalling Practical Wisdom. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press.
Kuhn, Thomas 1996. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 3rd ed. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Levi, Isaac 1986. Hard Choices: Decision Making under Unresolved Conflict. Cambridge:
Levi, Isaac 2004. “The Second Worst in Practical Conflict,” in Peter Baumann and Monika
Betzler (eds.), Practical Conflicts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nussbaum, Martha 2001. The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and
Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pildes, Richard, and Elizabeth Anderson 1990. “Slinging Arrows at Democracy: Social
Choice Theory, Value Pluralism, and Democratic Politics,” Columbia University Law
Reivew, vol. 90, pp. 2121–214.
Raz, Joseph 1991. “Mixing Values,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, suppl. vol. 65,
pp. 83–100.
Raz, Joseph 1997. “Incommensurability and Agency,” in Ruth Chang (ed.), Incommensurability,
Incomparability, and Practical Reason. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
pp. 110–28.
Sartre, Jean-Paul 1957. Existentialism and Human Emotions. New York: Citadel.
Sen, Amartya 1987. On Ethics and Economics. Oxford: Blackwell.
Williams, Bernard 1981. “Conflicts of Values,” in Bernard Williams, Moral Luck: Philosophical
Papers 1973–1980. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 71–82.
1
Corporate Social Responsibility

Kevin Gibson
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a broad term that suggests that business has
duties beyond profitability. These might include philanthropy, socially progressive
hiring and promotion schemes, community involvement, regard for the environ-
ment, and concern for future generations through sustainable practice. It is often
contrasted to the notion that the sole aim for a private company is to maximize
economic efficiency that will provide the greatest returns to shareholders. The term
is also used to denote self-regulation by business. CSR activities may be motivated
by business leading the market by taking initiatives, or in response to stakeholder
interests (see affirmative action; business ethics; environmental ethics).
The parent concept of responsibility is somewhat ambiguous in common usage.
For example, it could refer to issues of accountability where someone is responsible
for causing an accident; alternatively, it may refer to a status in society, such as a
responsible customer who pays her bills on time; and sometimes it suggests that the
individual has gone over and above regular civic duties by working for the common
good of the community. These difficulties carry over into discussions about the
duties of a company, and the term is often used without clear universal understand-
ing (see collective responsibility; responsibility). Thus CSR is sometimes
used to describe that a business is accountable for its actions; alternatively, it may
say that a firm is responsible in the sense of obeying the law and ethical norms. On
the other hand, it may mean that a firm has gone over and above our expectations
of morally decent behavior. In ethical terms, the meaning of CSR ranges from a
negative duty to do no harm (nonmalfeasance), to an obligation to comply with
universal ethical standards and human rights, to a positive duty to actively enhance
overall welfare (see common good; human rights and religion). Some authors
have attempted to clarify the concept by referring to corporate responsibility,
social accounting, or corporate beneficence instead. Nevertheless, CSR remains the
dominant term.
The basic questions about CSR involve the relationship of business to society.
Historically, we can see that business practice has not had free rein but has been
subject to legal and moral strictures. In the Code of Hammurabi from ancient
Babylon (about 1760 bce), for example, there are rules about the quality of buildings
and other business transactions. There are passages in the Hebrew Torah outlining
commercial practice, including the ban on usury, that is, charging excessive interest.
The emergence of the modern corporation has involved a similar dynamic and
interdependent relationship with society. In the early days of international trade,
very few merchants could underwrite a sea venture by themselves, and so they
formed corporations to fund an expedition. If the voyage was profitable, then they
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee031
2
derived a share of the gains, but the corporation rather than the individual was liable
for losses. The articles of incorporation by a state promote entrepreneurship by
giving a corporation special powers and in return corporate activity is regulated and
taxed; thus both parties have an interest in fostering good relations with each other.
For instance, corporations were instrumental in opening up colonies for the
European nations, notably the East India Company (1600) and the Hudson’s Bay
Company (1670), which effectively ruled India and Canada, respectively, and the
rise of the corporation coincides with the growth of the slave trade. The enormous
potential power of corporations has been an enduring cause for moral concern and
calls for greater oversight from, among others, Adam Smith, Max Weber, and Karl
Marx (see smith, adam; weber, max; marx, karl).
Societal expectations of a firm will likely reflect changing economic conditions
and prevailing ethical norms. Thus corporate activities were not immune from
scrutiny during the rise of the civil rights movement, growing ecological sensitivity,
and development of feminism in the late twentieth century. For instance, there
was popular sentiment to penalize companies who appeared to make excessive prof-
its with “windfall” taxes and it seems that some CSR initiatives may have been
attempts to keep companies ahead of government regulation. Discussions about
CSR, then, are inevitably conducted against the background of a constantly evolving
relationship of business with government.
In many respects, English and American law have treated the corporation as an
individual who can make contracts, sue, or be charged for breaking the law. This
begs questions about the moral and ontological status of a corporation (see
corporate governance; personhood, criteria of). One approach suggests that
corporations are just conglomerations of individuals, and hence attribution of cor-
porate acts turns out to be shorthand for a longer explanation about the way business
policy reflects choices made by particular people, especially those with power and
influence within the organization. Alternatively, it could be that the firm is a moral
agent, and that its actions cannot be reducible to the will of its constituents. By this
analysis, the culture of a firm or its mission may encourage employees to behave at
odds with their own best judgment. Thus, for better or worse, the firm can be thought
of as an independent moral agent with its own interests and obligations, and hence
have responsibility as a corporate entity. In a narrow sense, then, CSR at a minimum
will mean that a corporation has moral responsibility in the same way as individuals
do, but that will only imply accountability, not beneficent action.
Sometimes CSR is taken to refer to any act that goes beyond the legal minimum.
Thus a firm may not be legally required to give its employees notice of an impending
plant closure, or pollute any less than regulations allow, but if they do so they may be
considered to be acting responsibly.
One view, often simplified, is drawn from Milton Friedman, who in a famous
1970 article declared that the only social responsibility of business is to make a
profit. The idea is that business is a profit-making vehicle that simply acts as a
conduit for consumer demands. Advocates suggest that the operation of business by
itself is wealth enhancing for society as a whole through production of goods and
3
services of high quality and low prices, as well as providing employment and con-
tributing taxes, which is all that ought to be expected from firms. Under this view a
corporation is technically neither moral nor immoral, but rather an amoral agent
(see amoralist). It has the simple mission of enriching owners – shareholders – and
this should guide managerial decisions, with the caveat that they stay within the law
and prevailing ethical customs. Hence, for example, wage caps, affirmative action, or
charitable giving are inappropriate unless mandated by law. A business may engage
in such activities if there is some bottom-line justification: sponsoring an event rais-
ing funds for cancer awareness is acceptable if it generates goodwill for the firm and
leads to greater profitability.
There has been a long tradition of local, family-owned businesses being involved in
paternalistic community activities. The more recent rise of a broader sense of CSR
may be traced to consumer concerns about the environment and ethical business
practices. Thus if the public is willing to pay more for recycled or eco-friendly prod-
ucts, then businesses will respond to the demand in its search for maximal profits.
This effect is seen in the dramatic success of cause-related marketing. Starting in the
early 1980s, some companies announced that they would give a proportion of their
receipts to specific worthy charities. Thus a brand of beer may be promoted on the
basis that for every bottle purchased, a few cents will be donated to preservation of
elephants in the wild. Research indicates that over half of all consumers will pay more
for a product if it endorses a cause they believe in, and two thirds would switch to that
brand if the donation were the only competitive difference. The fact that it would be
more efficient to donate directly to a charity suggests that the promotion acts as some-
thing of a salve to the conscience of consumers who feel guilty about buying luxury
goods. Cause-related giving has been criticized as a marketing ploy, but its advocates
note that it generates benefits that would otherwise be lost, and thus a practice that
appears to be undeniably rooted in corporate self-interest improves social welfare.
Some analyses contend that if the developing world adopts the consumption
patterns of Europe and America, then worldwide natural resources will be depleted
rapidly. Therefore we have the options of reducing consumption or seeking alternate
sources. However, in business terms the issue is not only about finding additional
resources, but ensuring that there are workers and consumers with adequate income
to fuel future economic activity, and hence there is an economic imperative to adjust
corporate attitudes so they embrace more than immediate profit. Even an amoral
firm might act in ways that are socially responsible in a strategic attempt to bolster
its competitive advantage: it will be better off taking a wide perspective and long-
term view in order to remain viable given shifting circumstances such as emerging
markets, changing demographics, and limited natural resources. For example, if a
company makes a technologically sophisticated good – say, a cellular telephone – it
needs to expand its markets and hence has an interest in promoting development so
there will be a continued demand. Additionally, it may realize that natural resources
are limited, and engage in research aimed at maintaining supplies for the foreseeable
future. Another aspect of strategic planning is a move to more sustainable practices
that look to renewable resources and reduction of waste. While these may coincide
4
with socially desirable goals, these actions are justifiable to investors on the grounds
that they are necessary for a firm to survive in the long term.
The evidence correlating CSR and market competitiveness is mixed and often
anecdotal, confounded by the ambiguity of the term itself. One study after protests
at the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle compared similar Fortune 500
companies, and found that following the protests companies targeted as lacking
social responsibility lost an average of 3 percent of their capitalization, about $400
million (Schnietz and Epstein 2004). While studies like this are not definitive, they
seem to indicate that companies are wise to cultivate a reputation for CSR.
Nonetheless, it would be wrong to suggest that all CSR activities are solely motivated
by a desire to increase profitability. There are alternate views of the firm that govern
CSR actions, including notions of obligation, social contract theories, and stake-
holder analysis (see contractualism; stakeholder theory).
CSR is sometimes used to describe payback to the host community in various
forms of philanthropy. At the turn of the twentieth century, Andrew Carnegie wrote
The Gospel of Wealth, which promoted returning profits to communities for beneficial
ends, and other magnates including Henry Ford and J. D. Rockefeller donated
hundreds of millions of dollars to charitable and educational causes in the USA. These
actions arguably may have been attempts to forestall business regulation and foster
better public relations. Yet there is a continuing tradition of corporate philanthropy,
and there are several cases in US law that uphold the right of a company to make
donations without regard for any return. For example, in 1991 in response to investor
objections, a court upheld the right of the Occidental Oil Company to make a $50
million donation to a museum without any evidence of potential benefit to the corpo-
ration (Kahn v. Sullivan 1991). Admittedly, some donations aim to present a positive
company image and foster goodwill. Others take advantage of tax systems that give
allowances for noncash donations. Nevertheless companies still use their discretion to
make a contribution to charitable causes, accounting for some 5 percent of donations
annually. Many firms also encourage employee volunteerism and civic involvement.
A term commonly associated with social contract theories is “corporate
citizenship” (see citizenship). Here the concept of personhood is expanded to
suggest that the firm has the privileges and responsibilities of other citizens, and
should contribute to the community as far as it is able. The obligations of the firm
are limited though to the community or state involved in the hypothetical contract,
since there would be no duty to benefit the world at large or even the environment.
This approach reflects the interdependent relationship of business and society, and
recognizes the need for companies to maintain good relationships, especially in
times when they may be in charge of functions that were usually run by the govern-
ment, such as mass transit, security, education, or healthcare. A related view of CSR
is that businesses have obligations because of the power they are granted by society.
Some businesses now have as much wealth as small countries, and as demonstrated
in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005, firms such as
WalMart and Home Depot were able to mobilize resources and provide aid more
efficiently than the federal government. These issues have been clouded by the
5
massive injections of capital by government to shore up businesses during economic

downturns, with the result that politicians may now override traditionally internal
company decisions about issues such as remuneration or marketing priorities.
The emergence of CSR can be linked to an increasing acceptance of stakeholder
theory, especially as articulated by R. Edward Freeman (1994). Stakeholder theory
suggests that the purpose of business is not just to increase the wealth of a specific
group – investors – but to improve the welfare of all those who have an interest, or
stake, in the firm. These groups include those who can be helped or harmed by a cor-
poration, or who, in turn, might help or harm it. They include consumers, suppliers,
employees, and communities. Stakeholder theory generally goes beyond enlightened
self-interest and promotes active beneficence to all groups affected by business
operations, and profit, while not ignored, is taken to be one factor among others. The
motivation for a stakeholder approach is often found in a corporate mission statement,
which often includes a statement of values and a commitment by the company to act
in a purposeful way, described by Freeman as a “normative core.” Thus, for example, a
company may announce that it will provide products and services that improve the
lives of its consumers, and allow employees, shareholders, and communities to
prosper (Proctor and Gamble 2009). In looking at sustainability, for example, there
may be a genuine effort to maintain a world with the same carrying capacity that we
now enjoy as an ethical commitment. The firm may promote activities that represent
its best practices and believe that profits are a secondary consideration.
The majority of the world’s largest companies have sites on the World Wide Web
with links to a statement on CSR. Typically they convey a message that they take
social responsibility seriously and publicly affirm their commitment to ethical
practices. These could be taken as rhetoric, but firms often expend resources with-
out strict accounting or a need for justification based on return on their investment.
The significant proportion of companies that engage in these initiatives without
precise performance measures suggests that the move to CSR is more than empty
rhetoric or disguised advertising.
Another dimension of CSR initiatives may be to promote human rights under the
umbrella term of social accountability, especially in cases where the globalization of
business leads to a firm finding there are significant differences in home and host
country standards and no international principles governing their action (see
globalization; world trade organization). For example, in South Africa during
the time of apartheid some companies chose to avoid doing business in order to not
be complicit in discrimination, while others worked within the system to bring about
changes, perhaps by integrating washrooms in their facility or paying blacks and
whites equally. At the time a set of principles emerged for companies dealing with
oppressive regimes, and these have since been updated as the Global Sullivan
Principles. CSR has been adopted as a broad term generally describing a commitment
to human rights and justice, and many firms have sought an international standard
certification of social accountability, SA 8000, which is awarded after an external
review of practices including collective bargaining rights, limitations on child labor
and work hours, maintaining health and safety standards, and non-discrimination.
6
The United Nations launched its Global Compact in 2000 as an initiative to promote
principles of human rights, labor standards, environmental awareness, and anti-cor-
ruption. Signatories to the Compact make a public commitment to uphold sustaina-
bility and corporate citizenship. CSR used in this way has positive connotations. At
the same time, there are ethical concerns about the nature and extent of corporate
involvement in domestic political affairs, and the possibility of intervention without
cultural sensitivity. One attempt to address these concerns has been a financial indus-
try initiative known as the Equator Principles, where members pledge to refrain from
underwriting projects that violate their social and environmental standards.
CSR has also been associated with attempts to revise accounting methods so they
integrate the total impact of business. Traditionally, business success has been gauged
in terms of profitability from a venture. Thus drilling for oil in a remote area might
provide a strong return on investment but disrupt the local community and cause pol-
lution. Many costs, such as environmental degradation, harm to wildlife, or the loss
of a traditional way of life, are hard to quantify and have not been passed on to the
consumers. The absence of these costs gives an inaccurately low price and incentive to
consumers and puts the burden on third parties or future generations. Many firms are
now adopting so-called Triple Bottom Line accounting that considers the overall costs
and benefits of economic development. Understood in this way, a responsible company
is one that goes beyond standard profit and loss statements to develop environmental
and social audits that are weighed against the drive for economic efficiency.
See also: affirmative action; amoralist; business ethics; citizenship;

collective responsibility; common good; contractualism; corporate
governance; environmental ethics; global business ethics;
globalization; human rights and religion; marx, karl; personhood,
criteria of; responsibility; rights; smith, adam; stakeholder theory;
weber, max; world trade organization
REFERENCES
Carnegie, A. 1962. The Gospel of Wealth and Other Timely Essays, ed. Edward Kirkland.
Equator Principles. At http://www.equator-principles.com/.
Freeman, R. E. 1994. “A Stakeholder Theory of the Modern Corporation,” in T. Beauchamp
and N. Bowie (eds.), Ethical Theory and Business. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Friedman, M. 1970. “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits,” New York
Times Magazine, September 13.
Kahn v. Sullivan, 594 A.2d, 48, 61 (Del. 1991).
Proctor and Gamble. “Purpose, Values and Principles.” At http://www.pg.com/company/
who_we_are/ppv.shtml.
Schnietz, K. E., and M. Epstein 2004. “Does Corporate Social Responsibility Pay Off?”
Graziadio Business Report, vol. 7, no. 2.
United Nations. “The Global Compact.” At http://www.unglobalcompact.org/AboutTheGC/.
7
FURTHER READINGS
Crane, A., A. McWilliams, D. Matten, J. Moon, and D. Siegel 2008. The Oxford Handbook of
Corporate Social Responsibility. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Elkington, J. 1999. Cannibals with Forks: Triple Bottom Line of 21st Century Business. Mankato,
MN: Capstone Press.
Freeman, R. E., J. Harrison, and A. Wicks 2007. Managing for Stakeholders: Survival,
Reputation, and Success. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Garriga, E., and D. Mele 2004. “Corporate Social Responsibility: Mapping the Territory,”
Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 53, pp. 51–71.
Giving USA. “Partnerships.” At http://www.nps.gov/partnerships/fundraising_individuals_
statistics.htm.
Goodpaster, K. 2006. Conscience and Corporate Culture. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Prahalad, C., and M. Porter (eds.) 2003. Harvard Business Review on Corporate Responsibility.
Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
Snider, J., R. P. Hill, and D. Martin 2003. “Corporate Social Responsibility in the 21st Century:
A View from the World’s Most Successful Firms,” Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 48,
pp. 175–87.
1
Perry, Ralph Barton

Thomas Carson
Ralph Barton Perry (1876–1957) received his BA from Princeton in 1896 and his
PhD from Harvard in 1899, where he studied with William James. He taught at
Harvard from 1902 until 1946 and was Edger Pierce Professor of Philosophy from
1930 until 1946. Perry wrote on a very wide range of topics. Early in his career, he
co-authored an influential book on the so-called “New Realism,” a major movement
in early twentieth century American philosophy. (The central focus of New Realism
was the rejection of metaphysical idealism.) Later, he wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning
book, The Thought and Character of William James (1935) (see james, william).
Perry was a public intellectual who took part in the political debates of his time and
place and wrote articles for The Atlantic and New Republic. Of his writings, General
Theory of Value and Realms of Value have had the most enduring influence on moral
philosophy. His theory of value (see good and better) and his view that value is
any object of interest have been particularly influential.
In General Theory of Value, Perry asks “Is a thing valuable because it is valued?
… Or, is a thing valued because it is valuable?” (1926: 4). He defends the former
view and says that any “object of interest” is valuable (1926: 115). According to
Perry:
x is valuable = interest is taken in x. Value is thus a specific relation into which things
possessing any ontological status whatsoever, whether real or imaginary, may enter
with interested subjects. (1926: 116)
Things that are desired, liked or disliked, favored or disfavored, or loved or hated
count as objects of interest (Perry 1926: 115; 1954: 6; see desire; preference).
Perry rejects theories according to which things are valuable independently of
the interests people take in them. He also rejects the view that value is determined
by restricted or qualified interests. In particular, he rejects Henry Sidgwick’s
(see sidgwick, henry) view (1907: 112) that my good is “what I should practically
desire if my desires were in harmony with reason, assuming my own existence alone
to be considered.” The value of things is determined by our actual desires/interests,
not our rational/ideal/informed desires, as in most contemporary versions of the
desire satisfaction theory of value/welfare (see well-being).
To the extent that certain things are the objects of both favorable and unfavorable
interests, some things are both good and bad. Perry says that this is not contradictory
since it is not contradictory to say that something is both liked and disliked.
W. D. Ross (see ross, w. d.) offers a very detailed criticism of Perry’s theory of
value. Ross endorses G. E. Moore’s (see moore, g. e.) view that if something is
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee032
2
intrinsically good then it would be good if that thing existed in complete isolation
from everything else. He argues that Perry’s theory has the absurd consequence that
nothing is intrinsically good, because, if something exists in complete isolation from
everything else, it cannot be an object of interest (of something/someone else), and
thus, according to Perry, its existing in isolation cannot be good (Ross 1930: 77).
Ross also objects to Perry’s view that it is possible for something to be both good and
bad (Ross 1930: 100).
Since we often have to make decisions about cases involving conflicting interests, we
need a basis on which to judge the comparative value of competing goods. When is one
thing better or more choiceworthy than another? Perry identifies three standards
according to which we can assess and sometimes rank the magnitude of interests (and
thus rank the comparative value of satisfying them). (1) The felt intensity of one interest
can be greater than the felt intensity of another interest. (2) The strength of the prefer-
ence for satisfying one interest can be greater than the strength of the preference for
satisfying another interest. (3) The “inclusiveness” of interests: situation X involves a
more inclusive satisfaction of interests than situation Y, provided that X involves the
satisfaction of every interest satisfied in Y and other additional interests as well (this
can be a matter of satisfying a greater number of the interests of a single person or of
satisfying the interests of more people).
If interest X ranks higher than another interest Y in all these respects (if the
interest in X is more intense, more strongly preferred, and involves a more inclusive
satisfaction of interests), then the interest in X is greater than the interest in Y, and
more value attaches to its satisfaction. In addition, if X ranks higher than Y in one of
these three respects and as high as Y in the other respects, then X is greater than Y.
So, for example, if X and Y are equally preferred and equally inclusive and the felt
interest in X is more intense than the felt interest in Y, then the interest in X is greater
than the interest in Y.
According to Perry, this permits only a very limited ordinal ranking of some
interests as greater or lesser than others. He holds that these three standards are
incommensurable, and that if interest X ranks higher than interest Y according to
one standard and lower according to another standard, then it does not make
sense to say that one of the interests is greater than the other. Perry also says that
cardinal measures of interests (and the values attaching to them) are impossible.
So, for example, it never makes sense to say that one interest is two times or four
times greater than another interest.
Perry says that, with rare exceptions, when interests conflict, it is impossible to
compare their magnitude or judge that “one of their objects is better or worse than
the other” (1926: 654).
This indeterminacy holds both for comparisons of the value of the conflicting
interests of a particular individual and the conflicting interests of different people.
Given this, Perry’s theory in General Theory of Value cannot generate a conventional
theory of welfare/value. His view implies that, in cases in which people choose
between satisfying conflicting interests, statements to the effect that some action
does or does not promote one’s welfare rarely have determinate truth value. Since
3
almost all important decisions a person makes in her life involve conflicting interests,
Perry’s theory implies that judgments about what is best for a person in such cases
are very indeterminate. Further, Perry’s theory does not allow for cardinal measures
of value and interpersonal comparisons of value of the sort that utilitarianism
presupposes. In order to weigh and compare the overall goodness and badness of
alternative courses of action and alternative policies, each of which has many
different good and bad consequences, utilitarianism requires that we be able to
make cardinal measures of the goodness and badness of particular consequences (or
costs and benefits) and “sum” them (see utilitarianism).
Perry asks us to imagine a universe in which happiness for almost all people
comes at the expense of misery for one person. Can we say that the goodness of such
a universe outweighs its badness? According to Perry, the claims of the one miserable
person and the happy millions are incommensurable; the good of the millions is
neither greater than nor less than the good of the one person (1926: 671).
Perry holds that, when interests conflict, it is rarely possible to say which interest
is greater. Nonetheless, he says that it is clearly better that interests not conflict, so
that all interests can be satisfied. He recommends that we alter our interests in order
to reduce conflicts among them and also remove conflicts between our interests and
those of other people. We should cultivate benevolent loving interests in satisfying
the interests of other people.
In Realms of Value, Perry offers a much more comprehensive moral theory. He
retains his view that value is any object of interest, but also formulates a theory of
right and wrong. He analyzes the concept of morality and claims that “morality takes
conflict of interest as its point of departure and harmony of interests as its ideal goal”
(1954: 87). “Morality is man’s endeavor to harmonize conflicting interests to prevent
conflict and remove it when it occurs, and to advance from the negative harmony of
non-conflict to the positive harmony of cooperation” (1954: 90).
Conflicting interests must be integrated and made to be consistent through
reflective agreement between people with initially conflicting interests who have a
benevolent interest in furthering the interests of others. When this sort of reflective
agreement is reached, it constitutes the “right” solution to the problem of conflicting
interests (1954: 98–100). Perry’s theory is a precursor of contractualism, a metaethical
method for selecting moral principles, developed later by Rawls, Gauthier, and
Scanlon (see contractualism; rawls, john). Perry himself does not endorse a thor-
ough-going contractualism; he defends his consequentialist theory of right and wrong
by appealing to the meaning of “right” and “wrong.” He holds that acts are right when
they are maximally conducive to harmonious happiness (1954: 106–7). Roughly, peo-
ple are harmoniously happy if they have benevolent interests that are in harmony with
the interests of others and they succeed in satisfying their interests to a high degree.
In Realms of Value, Perry defends his central claims about the purpose of morality
and the standard of right and wrong by appeal to the meanings of moral concepts.
However, his conceptual claims are dubious. Surely, the concepts of morality and
right and wrong (as employed in ordinary language and by philosophers) allow for
a much wider range of first-order disagreement than Perry supposes. These concepts
4
do not imply that the proponents of first-order moral views that endorse conflict
and inegalitarianism are incoherent. Perry to the contrary, it is not self-contradictory
to hold that it is morally right for a society to have inegalitarian social institutions
and institutions that foster competition and conflict between people.
Perry’s notion of harmonious happiness is too vague and undeveloped for the
purposes of his moral theory. He does not do enough to explain how harmonious
happiness can be aggregated and measured to make sense of the idea of maximizing
or failing to maximize it. (He gives few, if any, concrete illustrations of how to apply
his theory to cases). In order to apply his theory to difficult real-world cases in which
different people have many conflicting interests, Perry needs to propose ways of
aggregating or comparing the value of conflicting interests so that cardinal measures
of value are possible. In General Theory of Value, he says that this cannot be done; he
does not address this issue in Realms of Value.
It is unclear how Perry’s theory applies in cases in which we increase the
satisfaction of people’s interests without increasing the harmony of those interests.
Imagine a technological innovation that greatly increases people’s wealth and leisure
and thus conduces to a much greater satisfaction of people’s interests, but which also
very slightly decreases the harmony of people’s interests. This innovation results in
more happiness and less harmony. (Is this a change for the better on Perry’s view?)
We can also imagine cases in which doing something that increases the harmony of
people’s interests also diminishes their material circumstances, so that the overall
satisfaction of people’s interests is diminished. This is a case in which harmony is
increased, but happiness is decreased.
There are many different ways of harmonizing people’s interests. Some of these
are morally objectionable. Through indoctrination and techniques of the sort
employed in Huxley’s (1932) Brave New World (genetically and pharmacologically
engineering people to be happy and contented with their allotted positions in the
world), the interests of people in a caste society or a slave society might be
harmonized. This harmonization of interests would not come about through
reflective agreement. But, given that Perry seems to treat reflective agreement as a
means to foster harmony of interests, it is unclear that he can object to bringing
about harmonious happiness in this way.
See also: contractualism; desire; good and better; james, william;

moore, g. e.; preference; rawls, john; ross, w. d.; sidgwick, henry;
utilitarianism; well-being
REFERENCES
Huxley, Aldous 1932. Brave New World. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran & Co.
Perry, Ralph Barton 1926. General Theory of Value. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Perry, Ralph Barton 1935. The Thought and Character of William James. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
5
Perry, Ralph Barton 1954. Realms of Value. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Ross, W. D. 1930. The Right and the Good. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
FURTHER READINGS
Holt, E. B., W. T. Marvin, W. P. Montague, Ralph Barton Perry, W. B. Pitkin, and E. G. Spaulding
1912. The New Realism: Cooperative Studies in Philosophy. New York: Macmillan.
Perry, Ralph Barton 1912. Present Philosophical Tendencies: A Critical Survey of Naturalism,
Idealism, Pragmatism, and Realism, Together with a Synopsis of the Philosophy of William
James. New York: Longmans, Green.
Perry, Ralph Barton 1944. Puritanism and Democracy. New York: Vanguard Press.
1
Sustainability
Robin Attfield
The concept of sustainability, like the related concept of sustainable development, has
come to be used in multiple ways. This results from the endorsement of sustainable
development, in face of global environmental problems and problems of poverty and
underdevelopment, by the World Commission on Environment and Development
(WCED) in the “Brundtland Report” (WCED 1987) and its subsequent adoption by
more than 180 countries at the Rio Summit in 1992. Governments, corporations, their
advisors and think-tanks then had strong incentives to reinterpret or redefine this
policy to which all were by now committed; hence the multiple and divergent uses of
“sustainability.” Yet addressing the original problems remains more crucial than ever.
The Concept and Its History

“Sustainable” was used in environmentalist literature of the 1970s and 1980s of
systems, processes, and societies that were capable of being maintained indefinitely,
and thus observed limits to one or another kind of growth. This approach appeared
to contradict advocacy of development away from poverty, until the World
Commission on Environment and Development in 1987 proposed combining
these two approaches in policies of sustainable development, and these policies were
endorsed by most of the world’s governments at Rio in 1992.
The implicit definition of development was that of the UN Declaration on the
Right to Development (1986): a comprehensive economic, social, political, and
cultural process, which aims at the constant improvement of the well-being of the
entire population and of all its inhabitants on the basis of their active, free, and
meaningful participation in development and in the fair distribution of the benefits
resulting therefrom. While aims can fail of attainment, and thus not all development
is praiseworthy, development thus understood offered a vital response to the
prevailing global poverty, disease, and malnutrition (see global poverty; world
hunger).
WCED now added their definition of “sustainable development” as “development
that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their own needs” (1987: 43), and this at once became the central
definition. However, this definition leaves sustainable development underdefined.
Thus sustainability appears merely to concern refraining from impeding future
generations meeting their needs rather than introducing and establishing benign
practices which current people could maintain and transmit to their successors, as
the authors almost certainly intended. Nor is any recognition of limits included,
even though such recognition is shown in the next sentence. Nor is there any
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee033
2
recognition of environmental aspects of sustainability, although the report goes on

to discuss “socially and environmentally sustainable development” (1987: 75). Nor is
any concern expressed for nonhuman interests, despite the presence of such concern
(see below, “Some Key Clarifications”). These deficiencies, though made good in
later passages, opened the way to multiple interpretations, many of them self-
interested.
Sustainable development was subsequently defined anew in a United Nations
Environment Programme report (Caring for the Earth; 1991) as “improving the
quality of life while living within the carrying capacity of supporting ecosystems,”
and this has become the second widely recognized core definition. This definition
recognizes environmental limits and is explicit in relating development to quality of
life, but omits mention of meeting needs, as well as of nonhuman interests, and is
also open to objection in apparently envisaging perpetual improvement. Some of
these problems arise because of the earlier definition of development (see above),
but problems remain even when what is held to be sustainable is not development
but society. These problems help explain the divergences between weak and strong
interpretations of sustainability and between conservative and radical interpretations
of sustainable development.
Some Key Clarifications

Before these debates can be tackled, the frequently made charge should be considered
that both sustainable development and the Brundtland Report are anthropocentric,
treating none but human beings as having moral standing, and none but human
interests as morally significant (see anthropocentrism). While this charge rings
true of the Rio Declaration (Granberg-Michaelson 1992), it ignores a whole string of
passages of the Brundtland Report, which in at least this regard was significantly
diluted at Rio. Thus the report affirms that “the conservation of nature … is part of
our moral obligation to other living beings and future generations” (1987: 57), recog-
nizes “moral” and “ethical” reasons for conserving wild beings (1987: 13), and repeat-
edly writes of species extinction in a vocabulary suggestive of recognition of the
intrinsic value of species or their members (1987: 147, 148, 155; see biocentrism;
wilderness, value of). Even if not all its authors wholeheartedly endorsed these
stances, and some held (or later adopted) anthropocentric views (Ramphal 1992),
their shared, official view was non-anthropocentric, and their adherence to environ-
mental (as well as social) sustainability has to be construed accordingly, as must their
conception of sustainable development itself.
Yet another misinterpretation should now be considered. While not all
development need be considered desirable by those who use the expression, it is
often considered that “sustainability” is a normative term, and thus that whatever is
sustainable is necessarily both equitable and right (or something that the user of this
term favors or prescribes). The report’s recognition of the intrinsic value of wild
beings could imaginably strengthen this impression, through excluding one
otherwise cogent basis for moral criticism. But just as policies can be both courageous,
3
well-motivated, and misguided, so practices could be both sustainable and wrong.

The capacity of a system or practice to be maintained indefinitely need not make it
equitable, despite the tendency for inequitable practices to be found unsustainable
in the long run (Attfield and Wilkins 1994). For example, practices of tuna-fishing
that unintentionally kill a number of dolphins may well be sustainable, but remain
open to moral objection (although there is hope that the widespread voicing of
the moral objections will of itself make them unsustainable). The sustainability of
a practice suggests that there is a moral case in its favor, but not that that case is
overwhelming.
Some Key Debates

The undemandingness of the two classical definitions of sustainable development
may help explain the ability of most of the world’s governments to endorse it at Rio
as a general solution at once for problems of environmental degradation and of
poverty. In the aftermath, the same signatories have bestowed this name upon a
wide range of policies, not all of them either developmental or sustainable. Yet the
partial political success of a concept should not be held against it; the concept of
peace, to take a parallel case, should not be abandoned just because it is so frequently
reinterpreted or misused.
Jacobs (1999: 24) rightly rejects the view that the concept can be made to mean
whatever one likes, a view sometimes cited in support of discarding the concept
altogether, but goes too far in suggesting that it is an essentially contested concept, a
normative concept with no more than a vague primary meaning “coalesced around
the Brundtland and Caring for the Earth definitions” (1999: 25–6). Thus there is
every reason to take its core meaning to denote varieties of development (as defined
above) that are environmentally and socially sustainable, and to construe sustaina-
ble societies and practices in an analogous manner.
Jacobs is on stronger ground, however, in holding that the primary concept
facilitates debates about alternative conceptions of sustainable development (for
there are often rival conceptions of shared concepts, as with the concepts of species,
of socialism, and of society), and proceeds to introduce four “faultlines of contestation”
and corresponding sets of alternative interpretations (1999: 25–45). The first con-
cerns the degree of environmental protection required. While all parties agree that
economic development and environmental protection must be integrated, the
“weak” version of sustainable development involves a trade-off between growth and
such protection, whereas the strong or radical interpretation accepts environmental
limits, sometimes based on the carrying capacity of ecosystems and sometimes on a
precautionary approach (see precautionary principle) in face of dangers of
hazardous or irreversible change. When intrinsic value is recognized in the natural
environment, it could supply a ground for environmental limits, although adherents
of sustainable development are not essentially committed to such recognition, some
being anthropocentrist, like the signatories of the Rio Declaration. Yet supporters of
a resilient version of the precautionary approach would have reason to prefer the
4
strong or radical interpretation. The radical version would also seem more consistent
than the weak one (since growth is not as such a goal of sustainable development),
but it is not a mandatory interpretation, since sustainable development is not
essentially committed to radical interpretations of preservation.
The second faultline concerns social and international equity, which, as Jacobs
attests, is central to Southern (Third World) perspectives, where raising living
standards for the poor is a pressing concern, and where the distribution of global
resources in such a way as to facilitate this is understandably demanded. But these
perspectives tend to be ignored in government and business circles in the North,
where sustainable development tends to be regarded as an environmental issue only
(often re-expressed as “sustainability”). Here the Southern version seems much
more consistent with the Brundtland Report and the Rio Declaration. This version
confronts such problems as how sustainability can be prioritized where widespread
poverty urgently needs to be alleviated (see tragedy of the commons), but it
contrives to reconcile these goals, not least out of concern that the environmental
needs of the poor be addressed. The issue of equity supplies a strong reason to resist
the tendency to replace talk of “sustainable development” with talk of “sustaina-
bility”; the fact that these phrases are often used interchangeably disguises the more
important fact that they do not mean the same.
The third faultline concerns participation, where governments and businesses
favor a top-down interpretation, restricting the range of parties consulted and
limiting the scope of consultation to implementation rather than objectives and
policies. Contrastingly, the more radical perspective favors bottom-up participation
of a much more inclusive and unrestricted kind. Participation is implicit in the Rio
Declaration, and also in the Brundtland definition of sustainable development,
insofar as this presupposes definitions of development such as that of the Declaration
on the Right to Development (cited above) that made participation by the entire
population of the essence. Hence the bottom-up interpretation has an interpretative
edge.
Jacobs’ fourth faultline concerns the scope of the subject area of sustainable
development. While government and business circles tend to restrict sustainable
development to environmental protection, other circles often apply it to issues of
health, education, and social welfare as well. This ampler application of the concept
can be traced back to the centrality of “quality of life” in the Caring for the Earth
definition, and can be justified on the basis that sustainable development applies not
only to the environment but to social and economic practices and structures in
general. While this broadening of the scope of sustainable development makes it
open to the criticism that it becomes a less specialized and thus distinctive concept,
it is difficult to maintain that its proper scope is any narrower than the range of
aspects of development capable of being or becoming sustainable.
Jacobs adds that radical responses to the four faultline issues (the strong,
egalitarian, bottom-up, and broad interpretations of sustainable development) tend
to be held by the same people, holders of “the sustainable development worldview.”
Correspondingly, the weak, non-egalitarian, top-down, and narrow interpretations
5
are also prone to coincide in the form of the positions of Western governments and
business interests. Given the near-unanimous official support for sustainable
development, this allows of “the articulation and dissemination of a radical
world-view under the shelter of government and business approval,” and at the same
time one motivated by environmental concern and concern for intragenerational
and intergenerational justice (Jacobs 1999: 45; see environmental ethics;
intergenerational ethics).
Economists’ Theories: Weak and Strong Sustainability

Since sustainability involves transmitting undiminished resources to future gen-
erations, economists have attempted to elucidate which kinds of capital are to be
conserved. Thus weak sustainability involves conserving capital whether natural
or artificial, with no limits to the substitution of the latter for the former, while
strong sustainability treats these kinds of capital as complementary and rejects
substitution where, for example, natural capital is scarce (as when minerals are in
danger of exhaustion or species of extinction). To these approaches, Wilfred Beck-
erman objects that weak sustainability is redundant, since cost–benefit analysis
yields the same results, while strong sustainability is immoral, since it can forbid
investment to reduce poverty to save (say) a species of beetle (1994; see species,
the value of).
While this critique writes off weak sustainability prematurely – for it can make a
difference where “existence values” (the value people place on the mere fact of
something’s existence) are included (Pearce et al. 1991) – environmental economists
like Herman Daly prefer to defend the strong variety, which need not resist all
species extinctions and tolerates some substitution within limits, while preserving
natural beauty for our successors (Daly 1995; Jacobs 1995). But existence values
depend, unreliably, on what people would pay to preserve something, or accept as
compensation for losing it; while strong sustainability theory would be more resilient
if it could supply a more tangible criterion for permissible substitution.
Besides, construing nature as capital makes its value dependent on human
enterprise (Holland 2001), and on human “transformation and use” (Jamieson
1998). While tracts of nature (like the ozone layer) could still be protected through
recognition as “critical natural capital” (Dobson 1996), such economizing of nature
too readily conveys that its only value is economic (whether use-value, option-value,
or existence-value), or else some comparable kind of value for humanity (like
aesthetic or historic or symbolic value), and discourages decision-makers from
paying attention to the intrinsic value of natural creatures and their flourishing (see
intrinsic value). Thus while environmental economics can be crucial in disclosing
the indirect costs of misguided projects, sustainability cannot be translated entirely
into economic terms, nor arguably (as Bryan Norton [2005] seeks to do by reappro-
priating it to stand for his favored kind of environmentalism) into anthropocentric,
pragmatic terms either (see value realism). Indeed both these approaches stray too
far from the historic core of the sustainability concept.
6
Sustainability and Growth

Although pre-Brundtland sustainability theorists usually believed in halting both
economic growth and population growth for the sake of conserving habitats and
ecosystems, the Brundtland Report, despite reluctance to identify economic growth
and development, recognized the need for selective growth if Third World needs
were to be met. This stance led to a re-evaluation of the widespread earlier view
of environmentalists that economic growth is the underlying cause of ecological
problems in general; many such problems, it came to be realized, are due rather to
poverty, and both poverty and these problems would only be exacerbated if all
growth were to be terminated.
This recognition, however, is consistent with criticism of an economic system
driven almost exclusively by the pursuit of profit and growth, and with efforts to
move away from it. Current advocates of sustainability, instead of condemning all
growth, are sometimes prepared to welcome, in place of relentless growth, what they
call “green” growth (Cato 2009: 40): growth, that is, that averts unemployment,
minimizes energy inputs, transport and pollution, respects life-forms, and generates
meaningful work. While some advocate a steady-state economy, with a constant stock
of capital, others would not reject kinds of growth (such as investment in education
and in adaptation to climate change) which themselves promote sustainability.
Population
Sustainability theorists have long advocated a halt to population growth (Pirages
1977). Short of draconian policies, however, population cannot cease to grow globally
until the advantages of small families become generally recognized. The Brundtland
Report depicted three scenarios for the stabilization of human population, recom-
mending aiming for the lower and earlier one, even though it could take place only
after an increase of several billion people and several decades (WCED 1987). Achiev-
ing even the lowest scenario would require not just population policies but integrated
policies of education, healthcare, and land security (Crocker 1996). Such policies rest
on the growing phenomenon of a demographic transition, the phenomenon in which
fertility rates have diminished as poverty and insecurity recede (see population).
While an increased population will make the attainment of social and environmental
sustainability even harder, the stabilization of populations (already achieved in some
developed countries) will make it seriously possible. Thus sustainability theorists
who hanker after a constant population can take refuge in working towards this
prospect, rather than seeking an impractical stabilization in the present.
Climate Change and Sustainability

Another requirement for global sustainability is an effective international agreement
to mitigate humanly generated climate change (see climate change), and confine
the ongoing increase in levels of carbon dioxide and equivalent gases in the
7
atmosphere to no more than two degrees above preindustrial levels. Failure to

achieve this is liable to generate coastal flooding as sea levels rise, increasing
frequency of severe climatic events, the poleward migration of species, the
displacement of millions more environmental refugees (see refugees), and even the
possible disruption of the system of ocean currents such as the Gulf Stream. In
addition to mitigation, massive investment will be needed in adaptation to the
irreversible impacts of climate change resulting from emissions of past and present.
Governments will also need to agree systems of funding for both mitigation and
adaptation, taking into account both the responsibility of polluters, the development
needs of those still afflicted by poverty, and the entitlements of everyone to the
services of the atmosphere (Attfield 2003).
Conclusion
So crucial are these goals, and so dire the prospects if unsustainable practices continue
to predominate, that they are likely to preoccupy the world’s governments for decades
to come. Systems of sustainable energy generation, agriculture, transport, production,
and consumption will need to be introduced. Their introduction will also need to be
reconciled within democracies with democratic decision-making. And these
practices will need to coexist with a system of global collaboration in matters of
adaptation, mitigation, and development, and thus of global decision-making.
None of this makes “sustainability” (let alone “sustainable development”)
synonymous with equity or with moral rightness, let alone with all virtue. It remains
a descriptive characteristic of systems and practices, which can be good or bad in
other regards (Attfield and Wilkins 1994). The same applies to sustainable lifestyles,
in which individuals attempt to live sustainably, making less problematic the
transition to the adoption of sustainable practices by society (Jamieson 2007). This
makes the role of philosophers all the more significant in neither relativizing nor
disparaging this crucial concept, nor seeking to appropriate it for sectional purposes,
but conveying its continuing applicability to a rapidly changing world. Without
change of meaning, it is likely to be needed for a good while yet.
See also: anthropocentrism; biocentrism; consequentialism;

environmental ethics; global poverty; intergenerational ethics;
intrinsic value; population; precautionary principle; refugees; species,
the value of; tragedy of the commons; value realism; wilderness, value
of; world hunger
REFERENCES
Attfield, Robin 2003. Environmental Ethics: An Overview for the Twenty-First Century.
Cambridge: Polity.
Attfield, Robin, and Barry Wilkins 1994. “Sustainability,” Environmental Values, vol. 3, no. 2,
pp. 155–8.
8
Beckerman, Wilfred 1994. “Sustainable Development: Is It a Useful Concept?” Environmental

Values, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 191–204.
Cato, Molly Scott 2009. Green Economics: An Introduction to Theory, Policy and Practice.
London: Earthscan.
Crocker, David A. 1996. “Hunger, Capability and Development,” in William Aiken and Hugh
LaFollette (eds.), World Hunger and Morality. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall,
pp. 211–30.
Daly, Herman 1995. “On Wilfred Beckerman’s Critique of Sustainable Development,”
Environmental Values, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 49–55.
Dobson, Andrew 1996. “Environmental Sustainabilities: An Analysis and a Typology,”
Environmental Politics, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 401–28.
Granberg-Michaelson, Wesley 1992. Redeeming the Creation: The Rio Earth Summit:
Challenges for the Churches. Geneva: WCC Publications, Appendix 5: “Rio Declaration
on Environment and Development” (United Nations Conference on Environment and
Development).
Holland, Alan 2001. “Sustainability,” in Dale Jamieson (ed.), A Companion to Environmental
Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 390–401.
Jacobs, Michael 1995. “Sustainable Development, Capital Substitution and Economic
Humility: A Reply to Wilfred Beckerman,” Environmental Values, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 57–68.
Jacobs, Michael 1999. “Sustainable Development: A Contested Concept,” in Andrew Dobson
(ed.), Fairness and Futurity: Essays on Environmental Sustainability and Social Justice.
Jamieson, Dale 1998. “Sustainability and Beyond,” Ecological Economics, vol. 24, nos. 2–3,
pp. 183–92.
Jamieson, Dale 2007. “When Utilitarians Should Be Virtue Theorists,” Utilitas, vol. 19, no. 2,
pp. 160–83.
Norton, Bryan G. 2005. Sustainability: A Philosophy of Adaptive Ecosystem Management.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Pirages, Dennis Clark (ed.) 1977. The Sustainable Society: Implications for Limited Growth.
New York: Praeger.
Ramphal, S. 1992. Our Country, The Planet: Forging a Partnership for Survival. Washington,
DC: Island Press.
United Nations 1986. Declaration on the Right to Development. New York: United Nations.
United Nations Environment Programme/World-Wide Fund for Nature/World Conservation
Union 1991. Caring for the Earth. London: Earthscan.
World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) 1987. Our Common Future
[also known as the “Brundtland Report”]. New York: Oxford University Press.
FURTHER READINGS
Attfield, Robin 1999. The Ethics of the Global Environment. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
Press, and West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press.
Attfield, Robin (ed.) 2008. The Ethics of the Environment. Farnham, UK: Ashgate.
Attfield, Robin 2012. Ethics: An Overview. London and New York: Continuum.
Baer, Paul, Tom Athanasiou, Sivan Kartha, and Eric Kemp-Benedict 2008. The Greenhouse
Development Rights Framework: The Right to Development in a Climate Constrained
9
World, rev. 2nd ed. Berlin: Heinrich Böll Foundation, Christian Aid, EcoEquity, and the
Stockholm Environment Institute. At www.ecoequity.org/docs/TheGDRsFramework.
pdf, accessed March 2, 2012.
Brown, Donald 2002. American Heat: Ethical Problems with the United States’ Response to
Global Warming. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Brown, Donald A., Nancy Tuana, Marilyn Averill, et al. 2006. White Paper on the Ethical
Dimensions of Climate Change. Philadelphia: Rock Ethics Institute.
Conisbee, Molly, and Andrew Simms 2003. Environmental Refugees: The Case for Recognition.
London: New Economics Foundation.
Ekins, Paul 1993. “Making Development Sustainable,” in Wolfgang Sachs (ed.), Global
Ecology. London: Zed Books, pp. 91–103.
Ekins, Paul 2000. “Environmental Policy-Making: What Have Economic Analysis and the
Idea of Sustainability Got to Offer?” in Michael Redclift (ed.), Sustainability: Life
Chances and Livelihoods. London: Routledge.
Kothari, Rajni 1994. “Environment, Technology and Ethics,” in Lori Gruen and Dale Jamieson
(eds.), Reflecting on Nature: Readings in Environmental Philosophy. New York: Oxford
Lappé, Frances Moore, and Rachel Shurman 1994. “Taking Population Seriously,” in Lori
Gruen and Dale Jamieson (eds.), Reflecting on Nature: Readings in Environmental
Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 328–32.
Meyer, Aubrey 2005 Contraction and Convergence: The Global Solution to Climate Change.
Schumacher Briefing No. 5. Totnes, UK: Green Books.
Rosen, Marc A. 2009. “Sustainability: A Crucial Quest for Humanity,” Sustainability, vol. 1,
no. 1, pp. 1–4. At http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/1/1, accessed March 2, 2012.
Vanderheiden, Steve 2008. “Two Concepts of Sustainability,” Political Studies, vol. 56, no. 2,
pp. 435–55.
1
Humor, Ethics of
David Benatar
In spite of – or perhaps because of – the fact that humor can be so enjoyable, it has
the capacity to cause significant offense (see offense). Indeed one disagreement
about humor ethics is whether typical moral breaches in this area are as serious as
would be suggested by the outrage they often cause. Some take the view that humor
is a trivial matter and that, even when it is errant, it is relatively harmless. Others
take (purported) breaches of humor ethics much more seriously.
A number of philosophers writing about the ethics of humor have restricted their
attention to racist (including anti-semitic and other ethnic) and sexist humor.
Clearly, however, there are ethical issues in many other forms of humor – inter alia
morbid humor (for instance jokes about the Holocaust, famine, space-shuttle
disasters, and dead babies), scatological and blasphemous humor, jokes about a
particular person’s attributes (such as big ears, hair loss, or mental or physical
disability), and practical jokes. Therefore any account of racist and sexist humor
should be subsumed under a more general account of humor ethics. Although the
category “humor” includes not only jokes but also quips, satire, cartoons, and so
forth, discussions of humor ethics often focus on jokes as a convenient exemplar of
the broader category.
There are at least two grounds on which humor can be found to be morally
defective. The first comes into play when humor is thought to arise from some moral
defect in the person purveying or appreciating the humor. The second ground
manifests when the humor itself is thought to have some moral flaw or some
wrongful and deleterious effects.
On one understanding, these two grounds are not mutually exclusive. Either a
joke could be defective for both reasons independently, or a joke’s having one flaw
could cause it to be defective in the other way too. Understood differently, however,
the two grounds can be viewed as competing views about the most basic level at
which humor should be evaluated (Philips, 1984). Here the “agent-centered” account
claims that, fundamentally, humor must be evaluated by reference to the agent
telling or enjoying a joke. Humor is defective because the agent is, and not the other
way around. According to the “act-centered” account, by contrast, the most basic
level of evaluation is the humor itself. On this view, agents are defective because
their humor is, and not vice versa. (These competing accounts roughly parallel
aretaic and deontic views of morality more generally – that is, views that base
morality on virtue or on duty respectively; see virtue ethics.)
A number of writers (e.g., de Sousa, 1987) have argued that much humor,
including humor turning on racial and gender stereotypes, cannot be appreciated
without actually endorsing the stereotypes or emotional attitudes on which the
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee034
2
humor turns. On this view, one cannot endorse them hypothetically. Enjoying such
humor is thus always morally problematic, because of the flaw from which it is said
to stem. The evidence proffered for this is largely of an introspective kind, and others
(Benatar, 1999) have argued that employing the same methodology can lead to a
different conclusion. While it might be impossible to appreciate a joke merely by
stipulating the stereotype on which it turns, it does not follow that actually endors-
ing the stereotype is necessary for appreciating the humor. It is sufficient that one
recognizes the stereotype. Lawrence Lengbeyer (2005) has argued that, even if
endorsing the stereotype were necessary, it would not follow that enjoying a joke
that turns on gender stereotypes indicates that one is sexist. The divided nature of
human cognition enables us to operate temporarily with views that, all things con-
sidered, do not accurately characterize us.
For these sorts of reasons many have argued that we cannot morally evaluate
types of jokes, but rather only tokens (or instances) of jokes. One telling of a
joke may be tainted because it stems from prejudice, while another telling of the
same joke may be without moral taint. Nor is it only the attitudes and beliefs of the
humorist or the person enjoying the humor that count. Other contextual aspects
of the humor are relevant. While the capacity of humor to harm or offend is a rel-
evant consideration, it cannot be decisive (see harm). Humor has many benefits.
It can, among other things, bring innocent pleasure, help people cope with life’s
difficulties, puncture pretentiousness, and be wielded against those who abuse
power. Insofar as these are goods, humor must have some moral value, which has
to be weighed against any harm it does. This weighing need not occur in a straight-
forward utilitarian way. It can involve judgments about the appropriateness of
offense. For example, we can discount the offense of those who are unable to see
that a joke, at least in a given context, is lampooning rather than endorsing a
stereotype. In weighing up the benefits and harms of humor, we should also con-
sider the extent to which these are deserved (see desert) and the extent to which
the butt of the joke is either powerful or weak. Thus a wicked tyrant who is
offended by jokes about him does not have a strong claim against their being told.
By contrast, powerless innocent people have much stronger moral claims not to be
ridiculed (Harvey, 1995).
There is some disagreement about what relevance the ethical status of a joke has
on whether it is funny or not (Gaut, 1998). Here a distinction is drawn between
whether a joke is funny and whether it amuses people. According to this distinction,
it is possible for somebody to be amused by something that is not actually funny.
The moralists are those who think that a joke’s being immoral has an effect on
whether it is funny or not. Some moralists maintain that an immoral joke is not
funny at all, while others only maintain that the humor is reduced. In opposition to
these views stand the anti-moralists, who deny that something can be less funny
because it is unethical. Indeed, some claim that it is sometimes the case that the
unethical features of a joke might actually make it funnier.
See also: desert; harm; offense; virtue ethics

3
REFERENCES
Benatar, David 1999. “Prejudice in Jest: When Racial and Gender Humor Harms,” Public
Affairs Quarterly, vol. 13, pp. 191–203.
de Sousa, Ronald 1987. “When Is It Wrong to Laugh?” in John Morreall (ed.), The Philosophy
of Laughter and Humor. Albany: State University of New York Press, pp. 226–49.
Gaut, Berys 1998. “Just Joking: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Humor,” Philosophy and
Literature, vol. 22, pp. 51–68.
Harvey, J. 1995. “Humor as Social Act: Ethical Issues,” The Journal of Value Inquiry, vol. 29,
pp. 19–30.
Lengbeyer, Lawrence 2005. “Humor, Context, and Divided Cognition,” Social Theory and
Practice, vol. 31, pp. 309–36.
Philips, Michael 1984. “Racist Acts and Racist Humor,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy,
vol. 14, pp. 75–96.
FURTHER READINGS
Aristotle 1985. Nicomachean Ethics, trans. T. Irwin. Indianapolis: Hackett. (Esp. Book IV,
Chapter 8.)
Benatar, David 2006. “A Storm in a Turban,” Think, vol. 13, pp. 17–22.
Boskin, Joseph 1987. “The Complicity of Humor: The Life and Death of Sambo,” in John
Morreall (ed.), The Philosophy of Laughter and Humor. Albany: State University of
New York Press, pp. 250–63.
Roberts, Robert C. 1988. “Humor and the Virtues,” Inquiry, vol. 31, pp. 127–49.
1
Corporal Punishment
David Benatar
Although philosophers have written a great deal about whether punishment can
ever be justified (see punishment), that discussion is rightly bracketed when asking
whether particular forms of punishment can be justified. This is not because the
latter question is theoretically independent of the former question. Obviously, if
punishment cannot be justified then neither can corporal punishment. Similarly,
if punishment can sometimes be justified, it would help to know how it is justified
if we are then to determine whether corporal punishment is acceptable. However, as
a practical matter, if we were to await the resolution of the more foundational ques-
tion before asking whether specific forms of punishment can be justified, we would
never consider the acceptability of specific forms of punishment.
Thus, we might presume, for the sake of argument, that punishment is justifiable,
leaving open how it is justified. We can then attempt to determine whether specific
forms of punishment are acceptable. This sometimes requires (either explicit or
implicit) reference to competing justificatory theories of punishment, but progress
on the question concerning specific forms of punishment will preclude assuming
one particular justificatory theory of punishment in general.
While capital punishment has received much philosophical attention, philoso-
phers, unlike psychologists and others, have said relatively little about the ethics
of corporal punishment. The phrase “corporal punishment” is vague. As it is
ordinarily used, it excludes capital punishment (even though the latter is, in some
sense, inflicted on the body). This exclusion nonetheless leaves a great range of
punishments, from mutilating torture (see torture) to the mildest slap or smack.
There is no discussion about most punishments in this range, probably because
there is agreement among philosophers and other academics that most physical
punishment is unacceptable. This is an unusual view. For most of human history
severe physical punishment and even torture were deemed permissible, as they
still are in some societies. Those who reject severe corporal punishment do so
because they take it to be cruel and thus to exceed the limits on what we may do
to punish people. However, they disagree about milder physical punishment.
Some maintain that even the punitive infliction of mild pain without injury is
always unacceptable (Hyman 1990; Straus 1994), while others disagree (Benatar
1998; Scarre 2003).
Corporal punishment has been inflicted in a number of contexts. These include
judicial and penal contexts (including military law), schools (where teachers
punish their pupils), and homes (where parents physically chastise their chil-
dren). In some jurisdictions, physical punishment is still permitted and practiced
in all these contexts, while in other jurisdictions it is outlawed in all. Most juris-
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee035
2
dictions, however, fall within the intermediate space. In such jurisdictions, cor-
poral punishment is always legally prohibited in the judicial and penal contexts
before it is prohibited in schools and homes. Among the possible explanations for
this is that corporal punishment inflicted by the state has generally tended to be
more severe than in schools and homes and is thus harder to justify. The tendency
to greater severity in the judicial context might be explained in the following way:
the less severe corporal punishments that may well be effective on children in
homes and schools are less likely to have adequate punitive effect on many of the
criminals on whom it would be inflicted by the state. It is not clear how compel-
ling this argument is. Some have suggested that moderate physical punishment
could nonetheless have a deterrent effect and thus could play a role in the judicial
context (Scarre 2003).
Corporal punishment is also always prohibited in schools before it is prohibited
in homes, arguably because of the presumptive priority given to parental authority
over their children (see parents’ rights and responsibilities). Parents have
greater moral entitlement, relative to teachers, to decide whether or not their
children should be physically punished. Although teachers could inflict or withhold
physical punishment on parental instruction, there are obvious problems with
having different punishment regimes for different children in a single school.
To say that corporal punishment is harder to justify in judicial and school contexts
than in homes is to show neither that it is acceptable in homes nor that it is
unacceptable in the other contexts. To demonstrate either of those one would need
to move beyond discerning the relative justificatory burden to determining whether
those burdens are met. Methodologically, the best approach to such questions may
be to determine, first, whether it is ever morally acceptable. This is partly because a
negative answer to that question would obviate the need to determine in which
circumstances it would be acceptable. It is also partly because understanding why a
negative answer fails, if it fails, can shed some light on the secondary questions.
Those who claim that corporal punishment is never acceptable argue that even
mild and infrequent physical punishment causes a variety of harms and brings no
benefits – or at least none that cannot be obtained in other ways.
Although corporal punishment can cause physical injuries, these are not a feature
of the milder forms of corporal punishment that characteristically cause pain
without physical injury. Many have alleged, however, that even mild and infrequent
corporal punishment can inflict psychological harm (Straus 1994). Among the
purported such harms are depression, inhibition, rigidity, lowered self-esteem, and
heightened anxiety, as well as sexual deviances such as masochism.
While there is evidence that corporal punishment can increase the likelihood of
some psychological harms, this evidence has a number of limitations (Benatar
1998). It is drawn from retrospective studies, based on self-reports, and is thus liable
to recall and other biases. Moreover, the data are about those physically punished
(by parents) during adolescence, which is more controversial than corporal
punishment of younger children. Finally, while the findings are marked for frequent
3
physical punishment they are equivocal in the case of infrequent corporal

punishment.
Prospective studies on younger children, which would be methodologically
preferable, would be morally problematic for those who think that corporal
punishment is unethical. However, such research remains possible for those who do
not share the assessment that corporal punishment is always wrong.
Another objection against even mild and infrequent physical punishment is that
it is degrading. There are various ways of interpreting this claim. If all that is meant
is that corporal punishment lowers the standing of or shames the person punished
then the claim, even if true, is insufficient to show that corporal punishment is
wrong. Arguably all punishment either does or should lower the standing of the
person punished. Thus, for the objection to succeed, corporal punishment must be
shown to be unacceptably degrading. Clearly, corporal punishment can be inflicted
in extremely degrading ways, as it is when it is inflicted publicly, and especially
where the person punished is stripped naked for the penalty. It is much harder to
demonstrate that a mild spanking of a child by his or her parent in the privacy of the
home constitutes unacceptable degradation.
Another concern some people have about corporal punishment is that it teaches
the wrong lesson – namely that violence is an appropriate way to respond to prob-
lems (see violence). This objection can be interpreted in at least two ways. First, it
may be understood as claiming that corporal punishment expresses the message
that violence is acceptable. Second, it may be understood as arguing that irrespective
of whether it expresses such a message, those who are corporally punished tend to
become more violent.
Understood in the first way, the objection may prove too much. It would follow
from the argument that other punishments, such as grounding a child, express an
analogous message that restricting people’s liberty is an appropriate way to respond
to problems. If we shift to the second interpretation, the objection is much more
plausible, but only if we apply it to physical punishment that is severe or frequent.
There is considerable doubt whether the evidence shows that mild and infrequent
punishment of children inclines them more toward violence.
Many of those who defend corporal punishment do not think merely that it is, or
should be, permissible. They think that it is sometimes actually desirable or prefer-
able. For instance, there are many who believe that if one “spares the rod” one “spoils
the child.” The idea is that without corporal punishment, children will not learn to
be good. Many of those espousing this view are of the opinion that corporal punish-
ment may need to be inflicted quite regularly in order to attain the desired goal.
These people overestimate the value of corporal punishment. While there is some
evidence that corporal punishment has a modest benefit in certain circumstances
(Larzelere et al. 1996), the evidence does not support the stronger claim that chil-
dren will grow up undisciplined if the discipline is not physical. The effectiveness of
corporal punishment cannot be assessed independently of different child-rearing
styles (Larzelere 1986; Baumrind 1996), which have varying degrees of success.
4
Less disputable than the claim that corporal punishment is (sometimes) necessary
is the more modest claim that it has some advantages over other forms of punish-
ment. It is quick and easy to administer. It does not, for example, require parents or
teachers to monitor grounding or detention. In the judicial context, it is less costly
(to the taxpayer) than punishments such as imprisonment. It is an acute and unequi-
vocally unpleasant punishment that demands the attention of the wrong-doer. If the
concern is that it is over too quickly, then delaying its infliction can extend the pun-
ishment’s duration by extending the period of its anticipation. (This, however, would
only work for those children who are old enough to connect a later punishment with
an earlier infraction.) In the school and home contexts it is among the most severe
punishments and thus may, if reserved for the most serious or repeated wrong-
doing, have the value of clearly expressing heightened condemnation.
Although these may be advantages, they have to be balanced, although not
necessarily in a utilitarian way (see utilitarianism), against the possible harms. It
is not difficult to imagine circumstances in which the advantages are overridden. It
is much harder to imagine that the advantages are always overridden.
If we conclude that corporal punishment is sometimes morally acceptable, further
questions arise about when it is and when it is not acceptable. The arguments
considered so far provide us with some guidance in answering these questions. Even
if the arguments fail to show that corporal punishment is always wrong, they will be
sufficient to demonstrate that some corporal punishment is impermissible. There
are some instances of corporal punishment that are so damaging in the specified
ways that whatever benefits they may have are insufficient to justify the infliction of
the punishment. For example, extremely degrading forms of corporal punishment
may violate a right to dignity.
Talk about whether or not corporal punishment is “acceptable” masks a distinc-
tion between at least two normative questions: (a) whether corporal punishment is
morally permissible; and (b) whether it ought to be legal. Although these questions
are interrelated, in the sense that arguments or evidence relevant to the one can also
have bearing on the other, the two questions are distinct. A positive answer to the
one does not entail a positive answer to the other. Thus, some might argue, for
example, that although corporal punishment is sometimes morally permissible in
schools, it would be better not to legalize it in that context because of concerns that
more than a few teachers might inflict it for their own sexual gratification. (It is less
likely that parents would hit their children for this reason and thus a particular
argument against legalizing corporal punishment in one context need not also apply
to another.) Alternatively, somebody could think that corporal punishment is wrong
without thinking that it should be illegal. This could be because although one thinks
that corporal punishment is wrong one also recognizes that reasonable people could
disagree about this and thus that there is insufficient reason to override parents’
liberty interests in raising their children as they (reasonably) see fit.
If corporal punishment is permitted and practiced, it should meet certain condi-
tions. The arguments considered so far suggest that it should be limited, both in fre-
quency and severity. Obviously it should be inflicted only for wrong-doing that merits
5
it (although there will be disagreement about what wrong-doing merits such a punish-
ment) (see desert). This condition entails a due process requirement, but what this
involves will vary from context to context. In the judicial context it will require a crim-
inal hearing. In schools it will require at least a more informal inquiry. The same may
be true in homes, except in the case of the youngest children who would not be able to
draw the connection between the wrong-doing and the punishment that was delayed
by an inquiry. When parents smack very young children it is typically done immedi-
ately in response to something the parent witnesses. A further condition, applicable in
all contexts, is non-discrimination. Corporal punishment has been inflicted dispropor-
tionately on males, for example. In some jurisdictions it has been legally permitted or
mandated only for males. This is incompatible with commitments to gender equality
(see sexual equality). Finally, where corporal punishment is legal, appropriate safe-
guards should be established, at least within some contexts, in order to protect against
the various kinds of excess and abuse into which, if left unchecked, it can often slip.
See also: desert; parents’ rights and responsibilities; punishment; sexual

equality; torture; utilitarianism; violence
REFERENCES
Baumrind, Diana 1996. “The Discipline Controversy Revisited,” Family Relations, vol. 45,
pp. 405–14.
Benatar, David 1998. “Corporal Punishment,” Social Theory and Practice, vol. 24, pp. 237–60.
Hyman, Irwin A. 1990. Reading, Writing and the Hickory Stick. Lexington, MA: Lexington
Books.
Larzelere, Robert 1986. “Moderate Spanking: Model or Deterrent of Children’s Aggression in
the Family?” Journal of Family Violence, vol. 1, pp. 27–36.
Larzelere, Robert, William N. Schneider, David B. Larson, and Patricia L. Pike 1996. “The
Effects of Discipline Responses in Delaying Toddler Misbehavior Recurrences,” Child
and Family Behavior Therapy, vol. 18, pp. 35–7.
Scarre, Geoffrey 2003. “Corporal Punishment,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, vol. 6,
pp. 295–316.
Straus, Murray 1994. Beating the Devil Out of Them: Corporal Punishment in American
Families. New York: Lexington Books.
FURTHER READINGS
Benatar, David 1996. “The Child, the Rod and the Law,” Acta Juridica, pp. 197–214.
Hyman, Irwin, and James H. Wise (eds.) 1979. Corporal Punishment in American Education.
Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Pete, Steve, and Max Du Plessis 2000. “A Rose by any Other Name: ‘Biblical Correction’
in South African Schools,” South African Journal of Human Rights, vol.16,
pp. 97–120.
Straus, Murray A., Robert E. Larzelere, and John K. Rosemond 1994. “Corporal Punishment
by Parents,” in Mary Anne Mason and Eileen Gambrill (eds.), Debating Children’s Lives.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 195–222.
1
Plea Bargaining
Richard L. Lippke
Plea bargaining is the name given to the negotiated settlement of criminal charges
(see criminal law). In countries such as the United States, it is the dominant
procedure for resolving such charges, with upwards of 90 percent of cases adjudicated
in this fashion (see criminal justice ethics). In plea bargaining, criminal
defendants agree to waive their legal right to a trial for leniency from prosecutors or
the courts. This leniency takes various forms, but usually consists in sentence or
charge reductions which lessen the overall amount of punishment (see punishment)
assigned to defendants who plead guilty. Defendants are also rewarded with charge
or sentence discounts for cooperating with the authorities in testifying or otherwise
providing evidence against their criminal cohorts.
It is important to distinguish the rewards that those accused of crimes receive for
pleading guilty from the additional sanctions they might suffer should they refuse to
do so and be found guilty after trials. The former, which can be termed “waiver
rewards,” are reductions in the punishment that the authorities can legally assign
individuals for their crimes. The latter, which are known as “trial penalties,” are
additional increments of punishment recommended by prosecutors and dispensed
by the courts to defendants who elect trial adjudication and are convicted. Trial
penalties are not simply foregone waiver rewards; they are augmented sanctions
imposed on trial losers specifically to punish them for having elected trial
adjudication. We have few reliable means for determining the frequency or size of
trial penalties, but many observers believe that they are routinely imposed and
substantial. It is important to separate the arguments employed to justify waiver
rewards from those offered in support of trial penalties. Both are problematic, but
the latter are especially so.
How might waiver rewards be justified? It is not apparent why those willing to
admit their crimes should be punished less for them, or why those willing to admit
some of their crimes should not be punished at all for the other crimes. Let us set to
one side, for the time being, the complications that arise if existing sentencing
schemes are disproportionately harsh to begin with or if prosecutors routinely
over-charge individuals to put pressure on them to plead guilty rather than elect trial
adjudication. Waiver rewards have been justified on the grounds that individuals
who show remorse for their crimes should receive some mitigation in their
punishment. However, there are both theoretical and practical problems with this
defense (see Alschuler 1981: 661–9). Theoretically, it is not obvious why post-offense
remorse alters the seriousness of the crimes that individuals have committed and
therefore the punishment they should receive. Crime seriousness is usually held to
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee036
2
be a function of the harm done (or in some cases, threatened or attempted) and the
culpability with which agents acted (see von Hirsch and Ashworth 2005: 4). How
offenders feel about their crimes after the fact would seem to have little bearing on
either. Practically, it is exceedingly difficult for the courts to distinguish truly
remorseful offenders from merely calculating ones; nor is there reason to believe
that the courts are particularly diligent in their efforts to do so.
A more promising defense of waiver rewards cites the cost savings to prosecutors,
the courts, and the public of their reducing the number of criminal trials that must
be conducted. It is not apparent why such costs savings justify departures from the
deserved punishment outcomes which, on retributive theories of legal punishment
(see retribution), are the institution’s primary justification. Many retributivists
reject trading off the just punishment of some offenders for gains in the punishment
of others, insisting instead that all offenders ought to be assigned their deserved
punishment as best this can be determined. Still, there are consequentialist versions
of retributivism that would permit comparisons among the overall deserved
punishment outcomes of competing charge adjudication systems (see consequen-
tialism). By employing waiver rewards, prosecutors and judges will induce more
defendants to plead guilty. This saves state officials from having to conduct expensive
and time-consuming trials and thus extends the resources they have to process
cases. Losses in deserved punishment in plea bargained cases might be outweighed
by gains in the sheer number of offenders assigned some deserved punishment for
their crimes.
Any defense of waiver rewards based on their role in expanding deserved
punishment has to surmount various obstacles. Charge discounts can produce
sizeable losses in deserved punishment that might not be made up for by the
expanded pool of punished offenders, especially if those offenders, in turn, receive
waiver rewards. Also, waiver rewards tend to produce significant comparative
injustices, especially when like offenders receive very different sentences. Legal
scholars have documented the myriad factors that affect plea bargained outcomes,
most of which seem extraneous from the standpoint of deserved punishment
(Bibas 2004). The influence of such factors could be kept in check if prosecutors and
judges had less discretion in determining the size of waiver rewards. Hence, some
scholars advocate fixed sentence discounts for guilty pleas or caps on them coupled
with outright bans on charge bargaining (Schulhofer 1992; Gazal-Ayal 2006). There
is also the persistent worry that large waiver reward offers induce some innocent
defendants to plead guilty, thereby producing absolute injustices. In response,
defenders of plea bargaining note that the innocent may be assigned more undeserved
punishment if they go to trial and lose. Indeed, since many of the innocents charged
with crimes will have past criminal records, their prospects, should they go to trial
and attempt to testify on their own behalf, appear bleak (Bowers 2008: 1130).
There is spirited debate about whether plea bargained outcomes should be
defended because they are the products of free agreements among the parties or
rejected because prosecutors have the means to coerce guilty pleas (Scott and Stuntz
1992: 1918–21; Kipnis 1976: 96–101; Wertheimer 1979). The distinction between
3
waiver rewards and trial penalties helps to clarify this debate. It is the unquestioned
role of prosecutors to bring charges against individuals whom they suspect of crimes.
It is less clear whether it is appropriate for them to offer charged defendants waiver
rewards for their guilty pleas. However, it is difficult to see how their doing so is
coercive, since what they offer is some reduction in the punishment that offenders
might otherwise be assigned. The situation of most charged defendants is, it seems,
improved by such offers. In this crucial respect, trial penalties are different. Such
penalties threaten defendants with a surcharge simply for electing trial adjudication
of the charges against them. Not only do such threats unjustifiably impinge on the
legal right to trial, they threaten defendants with harsher sanctions for reasons
unrelated to the character of their criminal acts. It is a crime to commit armed
robbery, and individuals who do so should be punished proportionally for it.
However, it is not an additional crime to elect trial adjudication of armed robbery
charges, though that is how trial penalties permit prosecutors (or in some cases,
judges) to treat it. There might be arguments available to justify trial penalties, in
spite of their apparently vindictive character, but it is harder to see what they could
be. The fact that trials are costly to conduct, for instance, might justify state officials
in seeking reimbursement of those costs from individuals who are convicted. Yet,
efforts to gain reimbursement would seem defensible only if it could be shown that
defendants knew that their trials were pointless to begin with because, in fact, they
were guilty as charged. Not only would this be hard to prove, it would be true of only
a subset of the defendants who elected trial adjudication.
Independently of threatened trial penalties, deliberate over-charging by
prosecutors, a practice which is aided and abetted by the proliferation of overlapping
and redundant criminal prohibitions, arguably operates to coerce guilty pleas (Stuntz
2001: 519–20). No one can reasonably complain if prosecutors charge those
suspected of crimes for each of the distinct criminal acts for which they have
compelling evidence. Yet, matters are different if prosecutors heap up excessive
charges – ones that artfully characterize the same criminal conduct in slightly
different ways – as part of a strategy to threaten defendants with fearsome cumulative
sentences and thus convince them of the futility of insisting on their days in court.
Even if deliberate over-charging is not coercive, its relation to absolute and
comparatively just outcomes is tenuous, at best. We might hope that negotiated
charge or sentence reductions will bring offenders’ total sentences back in line with
what they deserve, given an honest assessment of their conduct. However, again,
whether or to what extent this is so will depend on numerous factors. Notice also
that over-charging, combined with threats of trial penalties, puts nearly irresistible
pressure on the innocent to seek some compromise in the form of negotiated pleas.
Trial outcomes for such defendants might be worse, but at least they would not have
the false sheen of legitimacy furnished by their having been “agreed” to.
In the absence of trial penalties and over-charging, prosecutors might nonetheless
have the means to extract guilty pleas from reluctant defendants if the prevailing
sentence scheme employs sanctions that are indefensibly harsh. Defendants
facing disproportionately long sentences will be desperate to negotiate. In such
4
circumstances, it is not prosecutors (or judges) who devise morally suspect tactics to
gain pleas. Other state officials have done the dirty work for them, at least on the
assumption that the state’s warrant to punish requires it to impose no more than
proportionate sanctions on offenders.
Plea bargaining can also be analyzed with a view to the aim of reducing crime. If
we assume the existence of an optimally crime reductive sentencing scheme, then
the charge and sentence discounts that are the currency of plea bargaining appear
counterproductive. Such discounts would seem to diminish punishment’s deterrence
(see deterrence) and incapacitation effects. Yet, some argue that plea bargaining is
an efficient mechanism for setting the “price” for criminal offenses, one that enables
prosecutors to process a much higher volume of cases and thereby strengthen the
deterrent signals sent by punishment (Easterbrook 1983: 308). Given the uncertain
relationship that exists between sentence length and deterrence, we might reasonably
prefer a system in which many more offenders are punished a little to one in which
many fewer are punished a lot. Moreover, we should be wary of assuming that an
optimally crime reductive sentencing scheme is in place. Many criminal justice
systems chronically over-punish, at least if the benefits of state-imposed punish-
ment are weighed against its costs and burdens. Within such suboptimal sentencing
schemes, the reduced sanctions that plea bargaining tends to yield might be laudable.
Nevertheless, the defense of plea bargaining based on its enhancing the crime
reduction potential of the criminal justice system is far from conclusive. We do not
have to choose between current, robust forms of plea bargaining and providing
every charged defendant with a trial. As we have seen, waiver rewards come in
different sizes and shapes, and prosecutors (or judges) might have greater or lesser
discretion in offering them, especially when they take the form of charge reductions.
Also, waiver rewards could be allowed, though threats of trial penalties and
over-charging could be discouraged or outright prohibited. In light of the diverse
ways in which plea negotiations might be framed, we may not know which form of
charge adjudication is most defensible if our concern is to keep crime in check at
minimal cost. We probably lack the empirical data for making informed comparative
judgments about such schemes and their crime reduction tendencies. We might also
question whether plea bargaining’s vaunted ability to efficiently produce more
punishment is a virtue. There are persuasive arguments that many existing criminal
justice systems overcriminalize conduct (see overcriminalization), employ
disproportionate and often destructive sanctions, are marked by severe inequities in
arrests and convictions, and exist within larger social systems whose toleration of
social deprivation has a worrisome tendency to generate criminal offending (Stuntz
2001; Husak 2007). Plea bargaining may enable us to mass-produce punishment in
such dysfunctional systems; but whether punishment in them effectively controls
harmful conduct is a proposition we might hesitate to endorse.
See also: consequentialism; criminal justice ethics; criminal law;

deterrence; overcriminalization; punishment; retribution
5
REFERENCES
Alschuler, Albert W. 1981. “The Changing Plea Bargaining Debate,” California Law Review,
vol. 69, pp. 652–730.
Bibas, Stephanos 2004. “Plea Bargaining Outside the Shadow of Trial,” Harvard Law Review,
vol. 117, pp. 2463–547.
Bowers, Josh 2008. “Punishing the Innocent,” University of Pennsylvania Law Review,
vol. 156, pp. 1117–79.
Easterbrook, Frank H. 1983. “Criminal Procedure as a Market System,” Journal of Legal
Studies, vol. 12, pp. 289–332.
Gazal-Ayal, Oren 2006. “Partial Ban on Plea Bargaining,” Cardozo Law Review, vol. 27,
pp. 2295–349.
Husak, Douglas 2008. Overcriminalization: The Limits of the Criminal Law. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Kipnis, Kenneth 1976. “Criminal Justice and the Negotiated Plea,” Ethics, vol. 86, pp. 93–106.
Schulhofer, Stephen J. 1992. “Plea Bargaining as Disaster,” Yale Law Journal, vol. 101,
pp. 1979–2009.
Scott, Robert E., and William J. Stuntz 1992. “Plea Bargaining as Contract,” Yale Law Journal,
vol. 101, pp. 1909–68.
Stuntz, William J. 2001. “The Pathological Politics of Criminal Law,” Michigan Law Review,
vol. 100, pp. 505–600.
Von Hirsch, Andrew, and Andrew Ashworth 2005. Proportionate Sentencing: Exploring the
Principles. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wertheimer, Alan 1979. “The Prosecutor and the Gunman,” Ethics, vol. 89, pp. 269–79.
FURTHER READINGS
Alschuler, Albert W. 1983. “Implementing the Criminal Defendant’s Right to Trial:
Alternatives to the Plea Bargaining System,” University of Chicago Law Review, vol. 50,
pp. 931–1050.
Church, Jr., Thomas W. 1979. “In Defense of ‘Bargain Justice’, ” Law and Society Review,
vol. 13, pp. 509–25.
Heuman, Milton 1977. Plea Bargaining: The Experiences of Prosecutors, Judges, and Defense
Attorneys. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lippke, Richard L. 2008. “To Waive or Not to Waive: The Right to Trial and Plea Bargaining,”
Criminal Law and Philosophy, vol. 2, pp. 181–99.
1
Ecofeminism
Greta Gaard
Ecofeminist ethics are rooted in feminist activisms against nuclear power, militarism,
and species oppression, as well as institutionalized racism, sexism, classism, and
heterosexism. Philosophically, ecofeminist ethics emerge from earlier work in
feminist ethics – particularly the ethics of care – as well as feminist spiritualities,
and feminist and ecofeminist philosophies (see feminist ethics; care ethics).
Ecofeminism is variously seen as a branch of feminist theory, a subset of environ-
mental ethics (see environmental ethics), and a manifestation of environmental
politics. Ecofeminist ethics are manifested through movements for gender, species,
and environmental justice, water and food democracy, and local economic
self-sufficiency.
Origins
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, ecofeminist activists and scholars developed
ecofeminist theory, philosophy, activism, and ethics through a series of debates that
refined the principles and practices of ecofeminism.
Beginning in the 1980s, ecofeminist activists articulated an ecofeminist ethic
through their resistance to oppression that was perceived not as singular but rather
as multiple and intersectional (see oppression). Following the Women and Life on
Earth Conference held in Amherst, Massachusetts in 1980, the Women’s Pentagon
Actions of 1980 and 1981, and the Women’s Peace Camp at Greenham Common in
England involved thousands of women and succeeded in bringing together ecology
and antimilitarism in a feminist framework (Sturgeon 1997). Co-authored primarily
by Ynestra King and Grace Paley, the Women’s Pentagon Action “Unity Statement”
articulated ecofeminism’s intersectional ethics through its critique of militarism.
From an ecofeminist perspective, the military itself is an unethical institution due to
its explicit connections to nuclear power and nuclear weapons; its production of
toxic waste and resultant environmental degradation; its creation of local and global
economic violence; its reliance on poverty, racism, and heterosexism in the
recruitment and treatment of its troops; its sexual and domestic violence against
women; and its control of populations, healthcare education, and conventional sci-
ence in ways that benefit the elite at the expense of the majority. The WomanEarth
Feminist Peace Institute that emerged from these actions sought for four years
(1985–9) to develop a movement of feminist ecological activism that addressed the
functioning of racism (Sturgeon 1997). Founded in 1982 by Marti Kheel and Tina
Frisco, Feminists for Animal Rights (see animal rights) developed the gender–
species connection that later augmented ecofeminism. These several focuses of
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee037
2
ecofeminism – militarism, nuclear power, racism, sexism, speciesism, and a global

economics based on destruction of life rather than on sustainability – formed the
base of ecofeminist theory, ethics, and activisms.
By the mid-1980s, debates between ecofeminists and deep ecologists developed,
as scholar-activists within these two radical environmental perspectives explored
their shared ethics as well as their differences. Ecofeminists charged deep ecologists
with developing an apolitical and thus less ethical environmentalism by celebrating
wild nature to the exclusion of culture and urban environments, even to the point of
misanthropy, misogyny, and homophobia. From an ecofeminist perspective, deep
ecology focused on spirituality and wilderness at the expense of social justice.
Ecofeminists also critiqued deep ecologists’ concept of the “transpersonal self,” a
form of ecological identity that seemed to absorb nature into elite male selfhood
(capable of “thinking like a mountain”) rather than affirming human interdepend-
ence with nature as a separate other (Plumwood 1993). Through these debates,
ecofeminism distinguished its ethical standpoint as one affirming the interdepend-
ence of culture and nature, emphasizing the necessity of focusing a feminist
environmental ethic on marginalized communities, particularly women, people of
color, and those in the Third World.
By the 1990s, the locus of debate had shifted, as ecofeminist activists and scholars
struggled within ecofeminism to achieve clarity in four areas: the alleged divide
between spirituality and politics, the alleged essentialism of the woman–nature con-
nection, the presumed sophistication of theory-building as opposed to the
atheoretical naïveté of activism, and the question of species as an axis of analysis.
Despite the widely diverse yet activist commitments of spiritual ecofeminists such as
Charlene Spretnak, Starhawk, Rosemary Radford Ruether, Carol Adams, and
Elizabeth Dodson Gray, ecofeminists with a leftist orientation criticized spiritual
ecofeminists for lacking a political – and particularly economic – analysis of oppres-
sion. This critique was soon joined with a rejection of the essentialism behind some
articulations of the woman–nature connection. While philosophers and activists
had provided experiential data confirming the associated devaluation of women and
nature in patriarchal cultures, some theorists chose to embrace the woman–nature
connection, claiming that women are indeed “closer to nature” and thus better
positioned as environmentalists. As early as 1981, Ynestra King – a self-described
“social ecofeminist,” in acknowledgment of her intellectual debt to both social
ecology and feminism – described the various perspectives on the woman–nature
connection, and suggested a third way, one that neither severed women’s connection
with nature as rationalist liberal and socialist feminists were likely to do, nor
embraced it as biologically essential and unique to women, as cultural feminists
tended to do. King’s third way affirms women’s connection with nature as a strategic
but not biologically based standpoint, and leaves open the potential of men’s equally
vital connections with nature.
Ecofeminist debates continued between activist-theoretical ecofeminists and
ecological feminist philosophers. Throughout the 1980s, ecofeminist writings were
collected in a variety of popular anthologies that addressed the broad range of issues
3
articulated in the Unity Statement. By the mid-1980s, however, the debate between
ecofeminists and deep ecologists was published largely in the scholarly journal
Environmental Ethics. Among the most significant concepts to emerge through this
debate were ecofeminism’s analysis of the logic of domination (Warren 1990), and its
associated articulation of the Master identity (Plumwood 1993). With the introduc-
tion of these philosophical concepts, ecofeminist analysis shifted from the objects of
oppression to the structure of oppression, noting the ways that the diverse forms of
hierarchy and domination – whether sexism, speciesism, racism, classism,
heterosexism, nationalism, or anthropocentrism – functioned in similar ways to
divide oppressed groups and legitimate oppression.
Ecofeminists describe oppressive conceptual frameworks as characterized by
three significant features. First are value dualisms, oppositional pairs that give
higher status to that which has historically been identified with “male,” “reason,”
“mind,” and “culture” as defined in opposition to that which has historically been
identified with “female,” “emotion,” “body,” and “nature.” Second is value-hierarchi-
cal thinking, which places higher value on those beings, qualities, or states with
higher status. Third is the logic of domination, a structure of argumentation that
justifies subordination. The oppressive conceptual framework that characterizes
Western societies sanctions the domination of all devalued others associated with
women, nature, and nonhumans (Warren 1990). The Master Model (Plumwood
1993) describes five functions of domination that create the identity of the Master,
revealing that domination is not simply a social, economic, and political structure
but also one that creates a psychological identity. That identity relies on the separa-
tion of valued Self from devalued Other through a series of operations that involve
(1) backgrounding, or denying the dependency of Self on Other; (2) hypersepara-
tion, a form of radical exclusion that differentiates Self from Other by emphasizing
the special characteristics of the Self and treating shared qualities as inessential;
(3) incorporation, whereby the Other is defined as “a lack, a negativity” (Plumwood
1993: 52) and perceived exclusively in relation to the Self; (4) instrumentalism, per-
ceiving the Other as an object without intrinsic value or ends of its own; and
(5) stereotyping, whereby the Other appears homogenous, undifferentiated, and
thus of little importance.
These conceptual developments allowed ecofeminists to describe the social
domination of human over human as well as the human domination of nature in
more inclusive and structurally similar terms. Ecofeminist ethics of social justice
and ecological democracy developed from these foundational concepts.
Ecofeminist Ethics
Describing ecofeminist philosophy and activisms, Karen Warren (1990) developed
eight boundary conditions for a feminist ethic, and showed how these conditions
were met and enacted through ecofeminist theory and practice. At their foundation,
feminist ethics involve “a twofold commitment to critique male bias in ethics wherever
it occurs, and to develop ethics which are not male-biased” (Warren 1990: 138).
4
From an ecofeminist perspective, male bias is manifest in ethical systems that give
primary value to reason as a source of information and intelligence, and to systems
that develop universal rules, such as Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative. Such
systems inherently promote domination by valuing reason over emotion, and the
universal over the particular; cultural associations between men and reason, or
women and emotion, indicate that traditional Western ethics tends to value men’s
ways of knowing (reason, logic, individualism) over women’s ways of knowing (emo-
tion, experience, care and connection). A feminist and ecofeminist ethic would start
with women’s experiences and ways of knowing, articulating feminist commitments
to equality, diversity, inclusivity, and care.
Warren’s first boundary condition is that nothing can be a part of a feminist ethic
that promotes domination; ecofeminism rejects not just social domination, but the
domination of nature as well. Attention to context, seeing ethical practice as
emerging from different historical, economic, and ecological circumstances, is a
second feature of feminist and ecofeminist ethics. Both give central significance to
the diversity of women’s voices, and thus feminist and ecofeminist ethics are
structurally pluralistic rather than unitary or reductionistic. Both feminism and
ecofeminism reconceive ethical theory as theory-in-process, not a theory that is
absolute and unchanging, like the universal rules of traditional ethics. Fifth, an
ecofeminist ethic can be evaluated in terms of its inclusiveness: it requires that
diverse voices of women, and those who experience the harmful domination of
nature as tied to their own social domination, are taken as the starting point and
measure of an ethic’s legitimacy. Feminist and ecofeminist ethics make no attempt to
provide an “objective” point of view, as do traditional ethics; instead, feminist ethics
emphasizes standpoint epistemology, recognizing all knowledge as situated and
biased. An ethics that centralizes the voices of oppressed persons will provide a “bet-
ter bias” because it is more inclusive. Although “the positionings of the subjugated
are not exempt from critical reexamination, decoding, deconstruction, and inter-
pretation,” as Donna Haraway (1991) recommends, they are nonetheless preferred
standpoints because “they are savvy to modes of denial through repression, forget-
ting, and disappearing acts – ways of being nowhere while claiming to see
comprehensively” (Haraway 1991: 191).
Feminist ethics provide a central place for values typically unnoticed in tradi-
tional ethics: values of care, love, friendship, trust. These values do not replace the
traditional consideration of rights, rules, or utility in ethics, but rather augment
these values as strategies in ethical decision-making that must always be contextual-
ized. An ecofeminist ethic expands the ethics of care and connection to other species
and the natural world. Finally, by rejecting the abstract individualism of traditional
ethics in favor of a self-in-relationship that includes awareness of gender, race, and
history, feminist ethics reconceives what it means to be human: specifically, ecofem-
inist ethics suggests that our humanity is defined not just by our human relation-
ships, but our relationships with animals and nature. “By making visible the
interconnections among the dominations of women and nature, ecofeminism shows
that both are feminist issues and that explicit acknowledgment of both is vital to any
5
responsible environmental ethic,” Warren argues. “Feminism must embrace ecolog-

ical feminism … [and] a responsible environmental ethic also must embrace femi-
nism” (Warren 1990: 143–4).
Ethics as Narrative
Approaching ethics as a narrative about right relationships among humans, animals,
and nature, ecofeminists have critiqued the romantic and heroic narratives underly-
ing masculinized environmental ethics, suggesting new relationships of gender
equality and empowerment. Chaia Heller (in Gaard 1993) has explored Euro-
American representations of “Mother Nature” as a damsel in distress, requiring
romantic protection from ecologically minded knights. This rhetoric of protection
and restraint depicts nature as helpless and humans, particularly human
overpopulation, as the problem. Such gendered narratives of feminized ecological
crisis and knightly rescue obscure the real causes of environmental degradation –
First World overconsumption, multinational corporations, colonialism, economic
globalization – and effectively blame the victims of environmental degradation:
women and Third World populations. Real solutions to ecological crises will come
in the form not of knightly romance but rather tangible actions of connection that
repair imbalances of economy, ecology, and social justice.
Ecofeminist Marti Kheel concurs: traditional ethics is “conceived as a tool for
making dramatic decisions at the point at which a crisis has occurred” (in Gaard
1993: 256). Omitting explanations for the underlying causes of crisis effectively
obscures the full story of environmental problems, a phenomenon Kheel terms as
a “truncated narrative.” Using standpoint epistemology and narrative theory alike,
Kheel describes how these stories of environmental crisis require a hero, much
like Heller’s knight in shining armor. Instead of this masculinized “heroic ethics”
of crisis and rescue, Kheel suggests an alternative can be found in restoring the
missing information, the facts of social inequality, male dominance, overcon-
sumption and pollution by social elites. Ecofeminist ethical narratives involve
hearing the larger story by attending to the quality of human–nature and human–
human relations and interactions, detecting and correcting imbalances as they
occur, and thus avoiding social and ecological crises, heroic ethics, and the heroes
they feature.
Ecofeminist Interspecies Ethics

Kheel’s discussion of heroic ethics places species relations at the center of
ecofeminism. Instead of believing that “being eaten is the logical ending to the story
of a farm animal’s life” (Gaard 1993: 257), ecofeminist ethics suggest a more complete
narrative. “The story of meat eating must include not only the brutal treatment of
animals on factory farms and in slaughterhouses, not only the devastating impact of
meat eating on the ecology of the earth, on world hunger, and on human health,”
writes Kheel. It must also weave these and other relevant details into a narrative
6
whole that allows us to act and eat ethically. Kheel’s work on animal ethics participates
in shaping an ecofeminist ethics of food as well as interspecies justice.
Other ecofeminists whose work has focused on the ethics of human–animal rela-
tions include Carol Adams, Josephine Donovan, Deane Curtin, Greta Gaard, Lori
Gruen, pattrice jones, Brian Luke, and Deborah Slicer. Carol Adams’ The Sexual
Politics of Meat (1990) explores the associations among gender, race, and species in
cultural ideologies of meat-eating. Adams uses the phrase “absent referent” to describe
the living animal whose family relationships, birth, confinement, and slaughter are
erased in the term “meat.” This erasure maintains distance for the meat-eater, reinforc-
ing the alienation that makes hierarchy and domination possible. Women’s lives and
bodies are similarly erased through associations between women and animals that
treat both as objects worthy of subordination: “rape racks” enable the insemination of
female animals against their will; references to women as “chicks,” “bunnies,” or “pussy”
objectifies and subordinates women as sexualized bodies available for male control.
The majority of industrialized animal agriculture relies on controlling the lives and
commodifying the reproductive capacity of the female: hens are caged for their eggs;
cows are repeatedly impregnated and their calves are stolen from them hours after
birth so that the milk meant for newborns can be used by humans; sows are confined
in farrowing crates so tight they are unable to move or nuzzle their young. In making
the connections between wild and domesticated animals as subjects worthy of moral
and feminist concern, ecofeminists draw on and develop feminism’s ethic of care.
Empathy, care, and connection figure strongly in ecofeminist discussions of
animal defense and vegetarianism (Donovan and Adams 2007; see empathy;
vegetarianism and veganism). Ecofeminists have tended to reject traditional
arguments for animal defense based on their over-reliance on reason and utilitarian-
ism, suggesting instead that people may also be motivated to choose vegetarian and
vegan lifestyles through a sense of empathy and care for animal others. Many point
to children’s tendency to care about animals and to name the violence done to
animals as an example of the original connection that Western cultures must sever
in order to perpetuate animal oppression. Lori Gruen argues that vegetarianism is
not an external constraint on behavior but rather an “empathic engagement with
different others” that is itself a “form of moral attention” that comes from within
(Donovan and Adams 2007: 339). Deane Curtin’s concept of “contextual moral
vegetarianism” rejects charges against ecofeminism as mandating a universal,
rule-based ethic by pointing out that our dietary choices have cultural, ecological,
economic, and relational contexts. Acknowledging that every act of eating requires
the death of some life form, Curtin maintains that vegetarianism moves us in a
moral direction. “If there is any context … in which moral vegetarianism is completely
compelling as an expression of an ethic of care,” writes Curtin, “it is for economically
well-off persons in technologically advanced countries” (Donovan and Adams 2007:
98). Industrialized animal agriculture, world hunger, environmental concerns, and
gender politics all suggest that first-world feminists and environmentalists may be
most compelled to choose the path of moral vegetarianism.
7
Economic Globalization, Colonialism, Biotechnology

Animal bodies and women’s bodies alike have been primary subjects for ecofeminist
inquiry. The politics of sexuality and reproductive freedom, along with charges of
overpopulation, are conceptual and experiential issues affecting women’s bodies
most directly. Both Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva (1993; Shiva and Moser 1995)
have explored questions of genetic engineering, reproductive technologies, colo-
nialism, and population from an ecofeminist perspective. Their work highlights the
ways that reproductive technologies are used to enforce economic hierarchies,
dividing elite first-world women from disadvantaged women through the availability,
affordability, safety, and reliability of reproductive control. While “two-thirds-world”
women and women of color are depicted as “breeders” whose rampant sexuality
poses a threat to the environment and must be controlled, pharmaceutical and
biotechnology companies court elite women with fertility-enhancing procedures
and reproductive choice. Women’s right to bodily self-determination, the foundation
of feminism, becomes an ecological issue as well in a context of economic globalization
that continues social, political, economic, and gendered forms of colonization that
appropriate women’s bodies and the body of nature alike. Biotechnology asserts the
scientist’s right to manipulate human, plant, and animal genetics for the benefit of
“humanity,” but it is primarily the elite and male sectors of humanity who benefit
from these manipulations of subordinated others, women and nature.
The actions of women around the world articulate an understanding that the
well-being of women and of nature are interdependent. The associated devaluation
of women and nature is more than cultural ideology or stereotype; it is economic
profit in a system of global accounting that describes the reproductive and subsist-
ence work of women in the home – birthing, caregiving, cooking, cleaning, water-
gathering, waste-removing – and the work of nature (sustainability) as “externalities”
that count for nothing. For the survival of women and nature, a new ecological and
feminist ethic is needed to guide our social, economic, and political relations.
Ecofeminist Citizenship
Envisioning a sustainable and just society involves redefining human identity and
democratic citizenship, along with establishing structures for ecological and
economic democracy. Ecofeminists such as Catriona Sandilands (1999) and Val
Plumwood (1993) have described a radical reformulation of democracy as ecological,
economic, and political. For Sandilands, ecology requires democracy, just as
democracy must include ecology: “Struggles for nature must be, ultimately, radically
democratic because there is no other way of struggling ‘as nature’; instead, we
produce nature through the process of articulation itself ” (Sandilands 1999: 92).
The chain of equivalences formed by social actors who recognize the structural
similarities among various oppressions enacts a radically democratic movement for
a just society, and in the process calls for a redefinition of human identity as
interdependent – ecologically, economically, and politically. This tri-fold notion of
8
citizenship shifts the context of “belonging” from the hierarchical nation-state to the
ecological community, which includes human and nonhuman animals, plants,
nature, and the promise of future generations. Implicit in the concept of ecological
citizenship is the recognition of diversity – biodiversity, species diversity, human
diversity – as crucial to a healthy and functioning ecosystem. It is ecofeminist ethics
in action (see species, the value of).
see also: animal rights; animals, moral status of; care ethics; empathy;
environmental ethics; feminist ethics; oppression; species, the value of;
vegetarianism and veganism
REFERENCES
Adams, Carol J. 1990. The Sexual Politics of Meat. New York: Continuum.
Donovan, Josephine, and Carol J. Adams (eds.) 2007. The Feminist Care Tradition in Animal
Ethics. New York: Columbia University Press.
Gaard, Greta (ed.) 1993. Ecofeminism: Women, Animals, Nature. Philadelphia: Temple
University Press.
Haraway, Donna 1991. “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the
Privilege of Partial Perspective,” in Simians, Cyborgs and Women. New York: Routledge,
pp. 183–201.
Mies, Maria, and Vandana Shiva 1993. Ecofeminism. London: Zed Books.
Plumwood, Val 1993. Feminism and the Mastery of Nature. New York: Routledge.
Sandilands, Catriona 1999. The Good-Natured Feminist: Ecofeminism and the Quest for
Democracy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Shiva, Vandana, and Ingunn Moser (eds.) 1995. Biopolitics: A Feminist and Ecological Reader
on Biotechnology. London: Zed Books.
Sturgeon, Noel 1997. Ecofeminist Natures: Race, Gender, Feminist Theory, and Political Action.
Warren, Karen 1990. “The Power and the Promise of Ecological Feminism,” Environmental
Ethics, vol. 12, pp. 125–46.
FURTHER READINGS
Adams, Carol J. (ed.) 1993. Ecofeminism and the Sacred. New York: Continuum.
Adams, Carol J., and Josephine Donovan (eds.) 1995. Animals and Women: Feminist
Theoretical Explorations. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Gaard, Greta 1998. Ecological Politics: Ecofeminists and the Greens. Philadelphia: Temple
University Press.
jones, pattrice 2007. Aftershock: Confronting Trauma in a Violent World. New York: Lantern
Books.
Mellor, Mary 1997. Feminism and Ecology. New York: New York University Press.
Mortimer-Sandilands, Catriona, and Bruce Erickson (eds.) 2010. Queer Ecologies: Sex,
Nature, Politics, Desire. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Plumwood, Val 2002. Environmental Culture: The Ecological Crisis of Reason. New York:
Routledge.
9
Salleh, Ariel (ed.) 2009. Eco-Sufficiency and Global Justice: Women Write Political Ecology.
London: Pluto Press.
Seager, Joni (2003). “Rachel Carson Died of Breast Cancer: The Coming of Age of Feminist
Environmentalism,” Signs, vol. 28, pp. 945–72.
Silliman, Jael, and Ynestra King (eds.) 1999. Dangerous Intersections: Feminist Perspectives on
Population, Environment and Development. Cambridge, MA: South End Press.
Slicer, Deborah 1995. “Is There A Deep Ecology-Ecofeminism Debate?” Environmental
Ethics, vol. 17, pp. 151–69.
Warren, Karen (ed.) 1994. Ecological Feminism. New York: Routledge.
Warren, Karen 1997. Ecofeminism: Women, Culture, Nature. Bloomington: Indiana University
Press.
1
Condorcet’s Jury Theorem

Paul Weirich
A society often needs answers to questions, for example questions about a defendant’s
guilt. Should a society rely on an individual or a group’s judgment? Condorcet’s
jury theorem states that if a group is polled about some proposition, then, given
certain assumptions, the majority’s opinion is more responsive to the truth than is
an individual’s opinion. If a proposition is true, a majority will more likely than an
individual judge that it is true. The theorem argues for using a jury rather than a
judge to decide whether a defendant is guilty (see punishment), and in general
argues for using groups rather than individuals to settle social issues, for example
questions about provision of public goods (see public goods).
The jury theorem is named after its discoverer, Marie-Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat
(1743–94), whose title was the Marquis de Condorcet. He used mathematical analysis
to study social institutions. Besides establishing his jury theorem, he showed that
majoritarian voting may produce cyclical decisions. This is called Condorcet’s paradox.
He advocated voting systems that guarantee selection of a proposal that beats all rivals
in pairwise majoritarian competition. Such a proposal is called a Condorcet winner.
Condorcet’s main work, in which he presented his jury theorem, is Essai sur l’application
de l’analyse à la probabilité des décisions rendues à la pluralité des voix (Essay on the
Application of Analysis to the Probability of Decisions Reached by a Majority of Votes).
Making assumptions explicit, the jury theorem states that if the members of a group
with multiple members register their opinions about some matter, and their probabilities
of being correct are greater than one-half but less than one, equal, and probabilistically
independent, then the majority is more likely than is any member to advance a correct
opinion. The theorem follows from a result in probability theory called the weak law of
large numbers. This law states that a large number of independent trials of an experi-
ment that yields success with probability p very likely have an average number of suc-
cesses close to p, and the likelihood of closeness tends to one as the number of trials
increases. For example, suppose that you toss a fair coin a large number of times. The
probability that the average number of heads is close to one-half is high and tends to
one as the number of tosses increases. Similarly, if each person has a probability p of
judging correctly whether a specific proposition is true, and a large number of people
independently express their opinions about its truth, then the average number of cor-
rect opinions is likely to be close to p, and the likelihood of closeness tends to one as the
number of people polled increases. Given that p is greater than one-half, the average
number of correct opinions is likely to be greater than one-half, and so correct opinions
are likely to be in the majority. A group using majoritarian methods is therefore more
likely than is a member of the group to judge correctly about the proposition’s truth.
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee038
2
The theorem’s assumptions are crucial. For a majority to have a greater probability
than any individual of judging correctly, each individual must be a competent judge.
Otherwise combining individual judgments lowers the probability of a majority
of correct opinions. The individuals’ probabilities of correctness must be equal, too.
Combining an expert’s judgment with the judgments of a few barely competent
individuals makes the majority’s reliability less than the expert’s. Furthermore, if
individuals’ judgments are exactly correlated, for instance if they form a voting
block, then the probability that the majority judges correctly is the same as, not
greater than, the probability that an individual judges correctly.
The theorem’s assumptions are idealizations that often are not met in jury trials.
Some jurors, because of bias, are unlikely to judge correctly, and some jurors are
more likely than others to judge correctly. Also, because the jurors typically rest their
judgments on the same body of evidence, their votes are correlated, as Dietrich and
List (2004) observe. Nonetheless, the theorem shows that combining individual
judgments using majoritarian methods may increase the probability of reaching a
correct judgment. It inspires design of social institutions to utilize the epistemic
advantage groups have over individuals.
Extensions of the theorem, as in Hawthorne (2001), treat cases in which votes
are correlated, cases in which voters have unequal competency to judge, and also
methods of combining individual judgments besides simple majoritarian methods.
Related research in epistemology, for example work by Aumann (1976), considers
how individuals should use the evidence that other individuals’ judgments provide.
The probability that, given the truth of a proposition, the majority judges that the
proposition is true may differ from the probability that the proposition is true, given
that the majority judges that it is true. That is, letting T abbreviate that the propo-
sition is true, M abbreviate that the majority judges that the proposition is true, and
P( | ) stand for the probability of one proposition given another, P(M | T) may differ
from P(T | M). Similarly, letting V abbreviate that an individual voter judges that the
proposition is true, P(V | T) may differ from P(T | V). The jury theorem states that
the probability that the majority judges correctly is greater than the probability that
an individual voter judges correctly, that is, P(M | T) > P(V | T).
Given the theorem’s assumptions, P(T | M), the probability that a proposition
is true given that a majority of voters judges that it is true depends, surprisingly,
on the margin of votes rather than the margin’s proportion to the total number of
votes. If the majority has ten more votes than the minority, then the probability that
the majority is correct is the same no matter whether the margin is ten votes out of
a hundred votes or ten votes out of a thousand votes, as List (2004) shows. Two
opposing votes have counterbalanced evidential forces, so votes in the margin settle
voting’s net evidential strength, and their force is independent of the number of
pairs of opposing votes.
The jury theorem has implications for social justice because of its implications
for rational use of individual judgments (see justice; rationality). Just social
institutions take advantage of improvements in the reliability of their decisions
that come from aggregating individual judgments. Institutions using aggregation
3
mechanisms must be carefully designed, however, because these mechanisms

confront limits, as Arrow’s Theorem demonstrates (see arrow’s theorem).
See also: arrow’s theorem; justice; public goods; punishment; rationality
REFERENCES
Aumann, Robert 1976. “Agreeing to Disagree,” Annals of Statistics, vol. 4, pp. 1236–9.
Condorcet, Marquis de 1785. Essai sur l’application de l’analyse à la probabilité des décisions
rendues à la pluralité des voix. Paris: L’Imprimerie Royale. At http://gallica.bnf.fr/
ark:/12148/bpt6k417181.
Dietrich, Franz, and Christian List 2004. “A Model of Jury Decisions Where All Jurors Have
the Same Evidence,” Synthese, vol. 142, pp. 175–202.
Hawthorne, James 2001. “Voting in Search of the Public Good: The Probabilistic Logic of
Majority Judgments.” At http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/H/James.A.Hawthorne-1/Hawthorne–
Jury-Theorems.pdf.
List, Christian 2004. “On the Significance of the Absolute Margin,” British Journal for the
Philosophy of Science, vol. 55, pp. 521–44.
FURTHER READINGS
Berend, Daniel, and Jacob Paroush 1998. “When Is Condorcet’s Jury Theorem Valid?” Social
Choice and Welfare, vol. 15, pp. 481–8.
Boland, Philip J. 1989. “Majority Systems and the Condorcet Jury Theorem,” The Statistician,
vol. 38, pp. 181–9.
Estlund, David 1994. “Opinion Leaders, Independence, and Condorcet’s Jury Theorem,”
Theory and Decision, vol. 36, pp. 131–62.
Fey, Mark 2003. “A Note on the Condorcet Jury Theorem with Supermajority Voting Rules,”
Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 20, pp. 27–32.
Ladha, Krishna 1992. “The Condorcet Jury Theorem, Free Speech and Correlated Votes,”
American Journal of Political Science, vol. 36, pp. 617–34.
1
Disease Mongering
Rachel Cooper
Disease mongers seek to increase the perceived incidence of diseases so that they
can sell drugs or other medical services. Disease mongers can either (1) split current
disease categories into multiple categories, or (2) medicalize conditions previously
considered normal.
Splitting Conditions
In The Antidepressant Era (1997), David Healy shows how the category of depres-
sion has been split as a result of disease mongering. The process is as follows: Sup-
pose a new antidepressant is manufactured and that it has no advantages over
existing drugs when it comes to treating depression in general. Marketing a drug in
such circumstances may still be possible if the drug can be argued to have advan-
tages in the treatment of some particular type of depression – depression mixed
with anxiety, or depression with panic attacks, say. A company that wishes to market
a drug at a niche diagnosis can increase the size of their market by increasing the
perceived prevalence of the niche disorder. They can achieve this by the targeted
funding of medical research and patient groups. Such efforts can bring the niche
disorder to prominence and result in a new disease category being recognized.
Healy argues that such practices have led to disorders such as panic disorder, obses-
sive compulsive disorder, and social anxiety disorder coming to be seen as distinct
from depression.
Is splitting disorders a bad thing? Drug companies often argue that it is not. The
research that they fund helps focus attention on important differences between
disordered populations that previously went unnoticed, they say. In such a picture,
disorder-splitting enables patients to receive more accurate diagnoses and better-
targeted treatments. Sometimes this may be so. However, there is no reason to think
that the natural boundaries between disorders will correspond to those possible
boundaries that would be most financially beneficial. Furthermore, there is good
reason to distrust some drug-company-funded “research” (Angell 2004). As such, it
is likely that, in at least some cases, the financially motivated splitting of diagnostic
categories will result in classifications that are not scientifically optimal.
Pathologizing the Previously Normal

The second type of disease mongering involves the pathologization of behaviors or
states that were once regarded as normal. Arguably, such practices have transformed
shyness into social anxiety disorder (Lane 2007), misery into depression (Horwitz
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee039
2
and Wakefield 2007), fatness into obesity (Salant and Santry 2006), and normal
middle-age impotence into erectile dysfunction (Lexchin 2006). Interested parties
encourage medicalization via the targeted funding of medical research and patient
groups.
Medicalization has mixed effects. Disease mongers claim that they help relieve
human suffering, as sufferers can receive the medical treatments that they need once
a disorder is recognized. But medicalization also changes the ways in which we
relate to each other and think of ourselves. As Peter Conrad (1975, 2006) points out
in his study of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), medicalization
tends to place a problem under medical expert control: If we suffer from a disorder,
then we are expected to take medical advice on how best to deal with it. It can also
act to individualize and depoliticize problems that potentially could be seen in social
or political terms. Thus, once difficult-to-control children come to be seen as
suffering from ADHD, the source of the problem is located in the individual child,
rather than, say, the restlessness being a result of boring teaching. At the same time
as medicalization locates the problem in the “disordered” individual, it also tends to
direct moral blame away from them – a disruptive child with ADHD is to be pitied
rather than punished.
Those who argue that some condition has been inappropriately medicalized have
two basic strategies available to them, depending on their account of the nature of
disorder. Some theorists believe that there are objective, natural boundaries to what
can rightly be considered as a disorder. For example, according to Jerome Wakefield
(Wakefield 1992), a person can suffer from a disorder only if his or her suffering is
caused by some physiological or psychological subsystem of the person failing to
fulfill its evolutionary function. In such a picture, any attempt to medicalize some
condition where there is no such dysfunction can be condemned as a case where
medicine oversteps its bounds. In The Loss of Sadness (2007), Allan Horwitz and
Jerome Wakefield use this strategy to argue against the pathologization of grief and
other forms of normal sadness.
Those who hold that there are no natural boundaries to what might be called a
disorder can also argue against medicalization in certain cases, but they are forced
to argue differently. Such theorists must argue on moral or political grounds that
we would do better not to consider the condition a disorder. Carl Elliott’s (2003)
Better than Well, for example, argues against some medicalization via considering
the nature of the good life for human beings. For example, on balance, we may
consider that we want to be the type of beings who can experience grief, and
decide on these grounds that grief should be considered normal rather than
pathological.
To end, it is worth noting that many of the problems associated with medicalization
occur because of the particular legal frameworks within which drugs are developed
and made available. The FDA generally approves drugs only for the treatment of spe-
cific disorders, and many drugs are only available on prescription. This means that
any individual who would like to use a drug must accept a medical diagnosis in order
to get it. Going to the doctor, being diagnosed, and receiving a drug for a particular
3
disorder increase the chances that individuals will come to think of themselves as
disordered. As Healy (1997: 257–61) points out, in a slightly different regulatory
system, drugs might be sold as general “tonics,” users would not need to consider
themselves disordered, and much medicalization could be avoided.
See also: advertising, ethics of; biotechnology
REFERENCES
Angell, M. 2004. The Truth About The Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to
Do about It. New York: Random House.
Conrad, P. 1975. “The Discovery of Hyperkinesis: Notes on the Medicalization of Deviant
Behavior,” Social Problems, vol. 23, pp. 12–21.
Conrad, P. 2006. Identifying Hyperactive Children: The Medicalization of Deviant Behaviour,
expanded ed. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Elliott, C. 2003. Better Than Well. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Healy, D. 1997. The Anti-Depressant Era. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Horwitz, A., and J. Wakefield. 2007. The Loss of Sadness: How Psychiatry Transformed Normal
Sorrow into Depressive Disorder. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lane, C. 2007. Shyness: How Normal Behaviour Became a Sickness. New Haven: Yale
University Press.
Lexchin, J. 2006. “Bigger and Better: How Pfizer Redefined Erectile Dysfunction,” PLoS Med,
vol. 3, pp. 429–32.
Salant, T., and H. Santry 2006. “Internet Marketing of Bariatric Surgery: Contemporary Trends
in the Medicalization of Obesity,” Social Science and Medicine, vol. 62, pp. 2445–57.
Wakefield, J. 1992. “The Concept of Mental Disorder: On the Boundary Between Biological
Facts and Social Values,” American Psychologist, vol. 47, pp. 373–88.
FURTHER READINGS
Conrad, P. 2007. The Medicalization of Society. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
PLOS Medicine. April 2006. Special Issue on Disease Mongering.
1
Terrorism
Igor Primoratz
The central philosophical question about terrorism is: can terrorism ever be morally
justified? Discussion of the moral status of terrorism presupposes that it is reasonably
clear what the term means: normative argument calls for convergence on definition.
Most philosophers define terrorism as a type of violence. Many definitions
highlight the experience of terror or fear as the proximate aim of that violence.
Neither violence nor terror is inflicted for its own sake, but rather for the sake of a
further aim such as coercion, or some specific political objective. Concerning the
morality of terrorism, philosophers differ both on how that is to be determined and
what the determination is. While consequentialists judge terrorism, like everything
else, by its consequences (see consequentialism), nonconsequentialists argue that
it should be judged solely or largely by what it is. Positions range from justification
of terrorism when its consequences on balance are good, or when some deontological
moral requirements are satisfied, to its absolute, or almost absolute, rejection.
The subject obviously has great practical importance. It is also of great theoretical
interest. It brings up the issue of the morality of (political) violence in a highly
dramatic way; for terrorism is, by any standard, a particularly troublesome type of
violence (see violence). It poses the problem of collective responsibility, since
terrorists often portray the victims as bearing such responsibility (see collective
responsibility) for the wrongs they allege and seek to eliminate. It also highlights a
fundamental ethical problem: should most basic moral prohibitions, such as that of
killing or maiming people, and in particular innocent people, be adopted as absolute,
or can they be overridden by extremely weighty considerations of consequences?
Discussions of terrorism tend to display the connections and tensions between
the conceptual and moral levels of argument. The direction of debate about the
morality of terrorism will obviously depend on how “terrorism” is defined; yet
attempts at defining it are often informed by the participants’ (initial) views on the
morality of the practice.
Definitions
Ordinary use of the term “terrorism” has undergone considerable change. Both its
evaluative connotations and its descriptive meaning have shifted. Yet whatever else
“terrorism” may have meant, its ordinary use has typically indicated violence and
intimidation (the causing of great fear or terror, terrorizing). Philosophers’ attempts
at defining it tend to reflect this. Terrorism is usually defined as a type of violence.
This violence is not seen as blind or sadistic, but as aiming at intimidation.
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee040
2
Intimidation, on its part, is a means of achieving some further political, social, or

religious goal or, more broadly, coercion.
The first book-length philosophical study of terrorism in English (Bauhn 1989:
28) defines (political) terrorism in the following way:
The performance of violent acts, directed against one or more persons, intended by the
performing agent to intimidate one or more persons and thereby to bring about one or
more of the agent’s political goals.
Another example of a mainstream definition is provided by C. A. J. Coady (2001:

1697):
The tactic of intentionally targeting non-combatants [or noncombatant property,

when significantly related to life and security] with lethal or severe violence … meant
to produce political results via the creation of fear.
Yet another example is the definition proposed by Igor Primoratz (2007: 40):
The deliberate use of violence, or threat of its use, against innocent people – against
their life and limb, or against their property – with the aim of intimidating some other
people into a course of action they otherwise would not take.
These definitions put aside both the question of who the agent is and the question of
what the agent’s ultimate objectives are, and focus on what is done and what the
proximate aim of doing it is. Terrorism is a way of acting, a tactic, that can be adopted
by different agents and can serve various ultimate objectives (most, but perhaps not
all, political). Contrary to the assumption of government spokespersons and much
of the media and public opinion, it can be employed not only by insurgents but by
states as well. It can promote national liberation or oppression, revolutionary or
conservative causes. Contrary to the assumption in the cliché “one person’s terrorist
is another’s freedom fighter,” one can be a terrorist and a freedom fighter. In this way,
the relativism that plagues most public discourse about terrorism is largely (but
perhaps not entirely) overcome.
While concurring that violence and intimidation constitute the core of terrorism,
the definitions cited differ on several questions. Does only actual violence count, or
do threats of violence also qualify? Must terrorist violence be directed against life
and limb, or does destruction of property also count? Is terrorism always in the
service of some political goal, or can there be nonpolitical terrorism? The differences
on these matters are not of great consequence. There is, however, one major
difference. Coady and Primoratz define terrorism as violence against noncombatants
or innocent people, respectively. In Bauhn’s definition, those targeted by terrorist
violence are simply “persons.” Definitions of the former type can be termed “narrow,”
and those of the latter sort “wide.”
3
A wide definition applies across the entire history of the term, from the Jacobin
“reign of terror” in 1793–4, when the term first entered Western political parlance,
to the most recent terrorist atrocities. Accordingly, historians tend to work with a
wide definition of the practice. Such a definition is also in line with the way the word
is used in ordinary language today; that may recommend it to those engaged in
social science research. A narrow definition restricts terrorist violence to that
directed at noncombatants or innocent persons. Thus it departs from much current
ordinary use, which tends to apply the term to attacks of insurgents on military
forces or assassinations of highly placed political officials. A narrow definition also
prevents us from applying the term to most of nineteenth-century “propaganda
by the deed” engaged in by anarchists, and to political violence perpetrated by
nineteenth-century Russian revolutionaries, since both were targeting high-ranking
political officials. Yet in both cases both the perpetrators themselves and the public
portrayed these actions as terrorism.
Nevertheless, philosophers may well prefer a narrow definition. They see
terrorism as an ethical issue, and need a definition that is particularly helpful in
moral discourse. From a moral point of view, surely there is a difference between
planting a bomb in a government building and killing a number of highly placed
officials of (what one considers) an unjust and oppressive government, and
planting a bomb in a coffee shop or on a city bus and killing a random collection
of common citizens. Both acts raise serious moral issues, but these issues are not
identical. Conflating them under the heading of “terrorism,” in line with a wide
definition of the term, is more likely to hamper than facilitate attempts at their
moral evaluation.
A narrow definition focuses on the traits of terrorism that cause most of us to
view the practice with deep moral repugnance: (1) violence (2) against
noncombatants (or, alternatively, against innocent people) for the sake of (3) intim-
idation (and, on some definitions, (4) coercion). In emphasizing the innocence of
the direct victims of terrorism, it relates the problem of terrorism to the ethics of
war (see war), as one of the fundamental principles of such ethics is that of civilian
(noncombatant) immunity (see civilian immunity). Such definition does not
blur, but rather highlights, the distinction between terrorism, on the one hand, and
acts of war proper and political assassination, on the other: the latter do not target
noncombatants or common citizens.
Coady terms the direct victims of terrorism “noncombatants,” while Primoratz
describes them as “innocent people.” But both terms are used in a technical sense, to
refer to those who have not lost their immunity against extreme violence by being
directly involved in or highly responsible for (what terrorists consider) insufferable
injustice or oppression. In interstate or civil war, that applies to most civilians; in
cases of insurgency, it applies to common citizens.
Some philosophers argue that by understanding “terrorism” as violence against
noncombatants or innocent persons, we make the practice morally wrong by
definition, thus preempting all discussion of its morality. We need a morally neutral
definition, and that means a wide one (see Corlett 1996: 164–6). Now, violence against
4
the innocent is wrong in itself if anything is. If that is what terrorism is, then terrorism
is indeed wrong intrinsically. But to say this amounts to saying that terrorism is prima
facie wrong, to stating a general presumption against terrorism, not a sweeping moral
condemnation in each and every actual or possible instance, whatever the circum-
stances and whatever the consequences of desisting from it. A narrow definition,
then, does not rule out that under certain circumstances terrorism might not be
wrong, all things considered. It does not preempt ethical investigation of the subject:
particular acts and campaigns of terrorism will still be judged on their merits.
Justifications
In approaching this question, we need to decide whether to assume a wide or a
narrow definition of terrorism. A narrow definition should be more helpful in
philosophical investigation, which focuses on the moral standing of the practice.
Moreover, philosophers who adopt a wide definition nevertheless typically
distinguish between two varieties of terrorism so defined: between violence directed
at those who are responsible for, or seriously complicit in, the unjust or oppressive
policies and practices that are being contested, and violence that is not focused on
such persons, but may hit at anyone in a certain population. These philosophers go
on to concede that the latter, indiscriminate type of terrorism is much more difficult,
or even impossible, to justify from a moral point of view, while arguing that the
former, “selective” type of terrorism (which does not qualify as terrorism on a
narrow definition) may well be justified on certain conditions (see Corlett 1996).
The present discussion will therefore focus on terrorism in the narrow sense of
violence against innocent civilians or common citizens, intended to intimidate and
thereby to achieve some further (political) objective or, more broadly, to coerce.
One might try to justify some acts or campaigns of this kind by arguing that the
victims may be civilians or common citizens, but are not innocent of the wrongs the
terrorists are fighting against. This argument, if successful, proves too much. In
showing that an instance of violence was justified because those targeted were not
really innocent, we will have shown that the act or campaign at issue was actually not
a case of terrorism in the relevant, narrow sense of the term. This may be thought
mere semantics. Yet the second objection is more damaging. A terrorist act is
characteristically the killing or injuring of a random collection of people who happen
to be in a certain place at a certain time. Arguments to the effect that those people
are not innocent of the wrongs the terrorist fights against will therefore have a very
wide reach. Accordingly, they will be based on some extremely crude conception of
collective responsibility, ascribing such responsibility to entire social classes or
ethnic groups, or to all citizens and residents of a country. Some will be saddled with
such responsibility by virtue of their political (or apolitical) behavior; others by
virtue of their (presumed) views and attitudes; still others because they are thought
to benefit from the injustice or oppression at issue (see Henry 1977). Even if, for the
sake of argument, we grant the terrorists’ harsh moral condemnation of the policies
and practices they oppose, not every type and degree of involvement with them can
5
justify extreme violence. Giving political support to the government’s policies, or

benefiting from them, may be morally objectionable, but surely not enough for
becoming liable to be killed or maimed.
Burleigh Taylor Wilkins adopts a wide definition of terrorism, but the justification
he offers is expressly applied to terrorism in the narrow sense of violence against
common citizens. He argues that such violence may be justified if undertaken in
collective self-defense when other means are of no avail and the violence is directed
against members of the community which is “collectively guilty” of the injustice at
issue. Their “political responsibility” is analogous to corporate responsibility, which
under certain circumstances involves strict liability (see strict liability). Just as
employers can be held liable for the consequences of actions of their employees
although they had no part in those actions, common citizens can be held liable for
the consequences of policies of their government although they had no part in
framing or implementing them, “because members of a group typically stand to
benefit from belonging to it: it is in their interest to belong, or else they would not”
(Wilkins 1992: 138–9).
However, the argument that common citizens typically benefit from membership
of their polity and may be made to pay a price for that because this membership is
voluntary is not sound. More often than not, membership in a polity is not a matter
of voluntary choice. Moreover, the analogy between strict liability of corporations
and “political responsibility” of common citizens is flawed. Relations between
employers and employees are regulated by law, according to which the former
undertake vicarious and strict liability with regard to a specified range of actions of
the latter. In relation to employees’ actions, such liability does not extend to
large-scale rights violations; in relation to employers’ liability, it does not involve
giving up one’s life. This is quite unlike the kind of unspecified, yet potentially fatal
“political responsibility” Wilkins ascribes to all citizens of a polity (Miller 2009: 63).
Alternatively, one could concede the innocence of the victims, and argue that
attacks on them are nevertheless justified, either by their good consequences on
balance, or by some deontological considerations (see deontology).
Those who evaluate terrorism from a consequentialist point of view differ in their
assessment of its morality. Their judgment depends on their view of the good to be
promoted by terrorism, and on their assessment of the usefulness of terrorism as a
means of promoting it.
A classic consequentialist defense of terrorism is offered by Leon Trotsky (1961).
As a Marxist, Trotsky was committed to the view of the human good as the
untrammeled flourishing of human nature, which is essentially social and therefore
possible only in a truly human society free of class division and conflict (see marx,
karl). Such society could only be achieved by revolutionary action, which cannot
dispense with violence. The type and degree of violence is not a question of moral
principle, but of expediency. The more ferociously the forces of the old order fight to
preserve it, the more ferocious the revolutionary response has to be; at some point,
it has to resort to terrorism. Indeed, terrorism, revolution, and war are all of a piece:
they are different forms of violence for the sake of intimidation and subjection.
6
Whoever rejects terrorism must reject all revolution and war as well. As for the
charge that by resorting to terrorism, the Bolsheviks were employing the same
methods as the forces of the old order and thus were no better, Trotsky’s reply was
that of a consequentialist and a revolutionary. The end justifies the means; the same
means can be right or wrong, depending on the end they serve. “Red Terror” is right,
“White Terror” is wrong.
In order to agree, one would have to accept both Trotsky’s claim that terrorism is
a necessary means of bringing about “a truly human society,” and the claim about the
paramount value of that society, as portrayed in Marxism. One may well resist the
latter claim. In terrorist campaigns driven by radical world outlooks the paramount
end said to justify the killing and maiming of innocent people as a means to it is
defined in ideological terms by terrorists themselves, rather than grounded in settled
preferences or interests of actual people.
The aim to be promoted by terrorism can also be understood in terms of what
actual people would prefer, consider to be in their overall interest, or acknowledge
as basic values. Ted Honderich starts with a list of what anyone would recognize as
“great human goods”: a decent length of life, quality of life, freedom and power,
relationships with individuals and belonging to groups, respect and self-respect, and
the goods of culture. Human lives are good when humans’ desires for these goods
are satisfied, and bad when they are deprived of some or all of them. Now the lives
of millions of human beings are bad: much too short, of poor quality, lacking
freedom and power, bereft of respect and self-respect, etc. This is a fact of central
moral importance, reflected in “the principle of humanity”: “we must actually take
rational steps to the end of getting and keeping people out of bad lives” (Honderich
2006: 60). An act is right when it can be rationally expected to serve this end better
than, or at least as well as, any other act possible in the circumstances, and wrong
when it cannot. Terrorism, and violence in general, should be assessed in the same
way. Being what they are, both are wrong much of the time, but neither can be
rejected completely. When either harms some people, but helps more people out of
bad lives, it will be morally justified. Honderich operates with a wide definition of
terrorism; but his discussion of several terrorist campaigns shows that his
consequentialist justification is meant for terrorism in the narrow sense too.
The problem here is not with the nature of the end, but rather with the view that
the end justifies the means, and that a sufficiently good end justifies virtually any
means, however atrocious. The view that we may always snuff out or wreck the lives
of some innocent people, when that is the only way to help more people out of bad
lives, may well be thought much too permissive. For it offends against such
fundamental moral beliefs many of us hold as the separateness of persons, respect
for persons, and paramount importance of the distinction between innocence and
guilt or complicity (see Primoratz 1997).
Within a nonconsequentialist approach in ethics, terrorism is considered wrong
in itself, because of what it is, rather than only because (and insofar as) its conse-
quences are bad on balance. But nonconsequentialist discussions of terrorism also
present a range of positions.
7
A nonconsequentialist might try to justify terrorism in one of two ways. One

might invoke some deontological considerations, such as justice or rights, in favor of
resorting to terrorism under certain circumstances. Alternatively, one might argue
that the obvious, and very weighty, considerations of rights (of the victims of
terrorism) and justice (which demands respect for those rights) may sometimes be
overridden by extremely weighty considerations of consequences – an extremely
high price that would be paid for not resorting to terrorism.
The most important statement of the first line of argument is offered by Virginia Held
(2008). She operates with a broad concept of terrorism, but her justification is meant to
apply to terrorism that targets common citizens. When the rights of a person or group
are not respected, what may we do in order to ensure that they are? In cases of conflict
of rights, in particular, we have no way of avoiding comparisons of rights in terms of
stringency and making choices between them. Terrorism obviously violates some
human rights of its victims. But in some circumstances a limited use of terrorism may
be the only way of bringing about a society where human rights of all will be respected.
Even under such circumstances terrorism will be justified only if an additional
condition is met. Consider a society in which the human rights of a part of the
population are respected, while the same rights of another part of the population are
being violated. If the only way of ensuring that human rights of all are respected
were a limited use of terrorism, and if that terrorism were directed against members
of the first group, which up to now has been privileged as far as respect of human
rights is concerned, then such terrorism would be morally justified. This is a
justification in terms of distributive justice, applied to the problem of violations of
human rights. It is more just to equalize the violations of human rights in a stage of
transition to a society where the rights of all are respected, than to allow that the
group which has already suffered large-scale violations of human rights should
suffer even more such violations (assuming that in both cases we have violations of
the same, or equally stringent, human rights). Human rights of many are going to be
violated anyway. Held argues that it is more just, and therefore morally preferable,
that their violations should be distributed more evenly.
In Held’s account, it is justice that requires that unavoidable violations of human
rights be more equitably distributed (see justice; rights). However, it could also be
argued that, first, as far as justice and rights are concerned, terrorism is never
justified. Second, considerations of justice and rights carry much greater weight
than considerations of good and bad consequences and normally override the latter
in cases of conflict. But, third, in highly exceptional circumstances, considerations
concerning consequences may be so extremely weighty, the price of not resorting to
terrorism may be so prohibitive, as to override considerations of justice and rights.
Michael Walzer (2006: Ch. 16) offers an argument along these lines in his
discussion of terror bombing of German cities in World War II. In early 1942 Britain
was facing a “supreme emergency”: an imminent threat of something unthinkable
from a moral point of view – namely, defeat by Germany and the prospect of Nazi
rule over most of Europe for decades to come. In such an emergency one may breach
a basic and weighty moral principle such as civilian immunity and resort to terrorism,
8
if that is the only hope of fending off the threat. Walzer then expands the notion of
supreme emergency to apply to a single political community facing the threat of
extermination or enslavement, and eventually to a single political community whose
“survival and freedom” are at stake.
Thus Walzer actually has two rather different conceptions of what counts as
“supreme emergency.” The threat is imminent in both, but its nature differs: it is one
thing to suffer the fate the Nazis had in store for much of Europe, and another to
have one’s political community dismantled. Extermination of a people or its expul-
sion from its land may be thought a moral catastrophe; its loss of political independ-
ence is, at most, a political catastrophe. The threat of a political catastrophe does not
provide a convincing moral justification of large-scale killing and maiming of enemy
civilians.
In view of Walzer’s ambiguity, one might try for a more restrictive conception of
a prospect facing a people that is so unthinkable, morally speaking, that staving it off
might justify terrorism. Social or economic oppression, colonial rule, or foreign
occupation, however morally indefensible, is not enough. Nor is every imminent
threat to “the survival and freedom of a political community.” But if an entire people
is threatened with extermination or with being “ethnically cleansed” from its
land, then it is facing a true moral disaster. Because of their enormity and finality,
extermination and “ethnic cleansing” constitute a category apart. If the only way to
prevent such a moral disaster, or to stop it in its tracks, is to resort to terrorism, then,
and only then, may such a desperate measure be properly considered. This amounts
to saying that terrorism is almost absolutely wrong (Primoratz 2007: 48–51).
Finally, one might claim that terrorism is absolutely wrong (see moral
absolutes). This is sometimes supported by a slippery slope argument (see slip-
pery slope arguments). Construing the prohibition of terrorism as anything less
than absolute and allowing for exceptions, however few and far between initially, is
likely to generate ever more widespread misuse of the argument for making an
exception. If that happens, the consequences would obviously be very bad. Therefore
“we surely do better to condemn the resort to terrorism outright with no leeway for
exemptions, be they for states, revolutionaries or religious and ideological zealots”
(Coady 2004: 789).
Absolute moral rejection of terrorism can also be based on a natural law ethics
(see natural law) that takes the prohibition of intentional killing of an innocent
person to be absolute. In response to arguments of supreme emergency or moral
disaster, its adherents affirm “a willingness to undergo tyrannous domination rather
than be ready to carry out vast massacres,” indeed “a willingness to accept anything,
even martyrdom, rather than do wrong” (Finnis 1991: 22). There may not be much
room for argument beyond this point.
See also: civilian immunity; collective responsibility; consequentialism;

deontology; just war theory, history of; justice; marx, karl; moral
absolutes; natural law; rights; slippery slope arguments; strict
liability; violence; war
9
REFERENCES
Bauhn, Per 1989. Ethical Aspects of Political Terrorism: The Sacrificing of the Innocent. Lund:
Lund University Press.
Coady, C. A. J. 2001. “Terrorism,” in Lawrence C. Becker and Charlotte B. Becker (eds.),
Encyclopedia of Ethics, 2nd ed., vol. 3. New York and London: Routledge, pp. 1696–9.
Coady, C. A. J. 2004. “Terrorism, Morality, and Supreme Emergency,” Ethics, vol. 114, pp. 772–89.
Corlett, J. Angelo 1996. “Can Terrorism be Morally Justified?” Public Affairs Quarterly,
vol. 10, pp. 163–84.
Finnis, John 1991. Moral Absolutes: Tradition, Revision, and Truth. Washington, DC: The
Catholic University of America Press.
Held, Virginia 2008. How Terrorism Is Wrong: Morality and Political Violence. New York:
Henry, Emile 1977. “A Terrorist’s Defence,” in George Woodcock (ed.), The Anarchist Reader.
Hassocks, UK: Harvester Press, pp. 189–96.
Honderich, Ted 2006. Humanity, Terror, Terrorist War. London and New York: Continuum.
Miller, Seumas 2009. Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism: Ethics and Liberal Democracy.
Oxford: Blackwell.
Primoratz, Igor 1997. “The Morality of Terrorism,” Journal of Applied Philosophy, vol. 14,
pp. 221–33.
Primoratz, Igor 2007. “A Philosopher Looks at Contemporary Terrorism,” Cardozo Law
Review, vol. 29, pp. 33–51.
Trotsky, Leon 1961. Terrorism and Communism: A Reply to Karl Kautsky. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press.
Walzer, Michael 2006. Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations,
4th ed. New York: Basic Books.
Wilkins, Burleigh Taylor 1992. Terrorism and Collective Responsibility. London and New
York: Routledge.
FURTHER READINGS
Coady, C. A. J. 2004. “Terrorism and Innocence,” Journal of Ethics, vol. 8, pp. 37–58.
Frey, R. G., and Christopher W. Morris (eds.) 1991. Violence, Terrorism, and Justice.
Gilbert, Paul 1994. Terrorism, Security and Nationality. London and New York: Routledge.
Khatchadourian, Haig 1998. The Morality of Terrorism. New York: Peter Lang.
Laqueur, Walter 1987. The Terrorist Reader: A Historical Anthology. New York: New American
Library.
Law, Stephen (ed.) 2008. Israel, Palestine and Terror. London and New York: Continuum.
Meggle, Georg (ed.) 2005. Ethics of Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism. Frankfurt: Ontos
Verlag.
Nathanson, Stephen 2010. Terrorism and the Ethics of War. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Primoratz, Igor (ed.) 2004. Terrorism: The Philosophical Issues. Basingstoke and New York:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Primoratz, Igor (ed.) 2010. Terror from the Sky: The Bombing of German Cities in World
War II. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books.
Primoratz, Igor 2012. Terrorism: A Philosophical Investigation. Cambridge: Polity.
10
Rapoport, David C., and Yonah Alexander (eds.) 1989. The Morality of Terrorism: Religious
and Secular Justifications, 2nd ed. New York: Columbia University Press.
Sterba, James (ed.) 2003. Terrorism and International Justice. New York: Oxford University
Press.
1
Criminal Justice Ethics

Jeffrey Reiman
Criminal justice ethics is a subdiscipline of ethics that explores the nature,
justification, and practice of criminal justice. It investigates the role of the criminal
law within society (see criminal law), the moral limits on what behaviors can be
appropriately criminalized, the proper governmental response to criminal activities,
and the unique ethical issues facing agents of the criminal justice system: legislators,
police, prosecutors, judges, prison wardens and guards, parole and probation
officers. These issues are tied together by the fact that they all involve the use of
coercion, and thus raise profound questions about individual liberty and social
authority (see authority).
Understanding the Context

Since the work of criminal justice is carried out by the actors in three institutions –
police, courts, and corrections – it is natural to think that criminal justice ethics is
exclusively focused on the actions of actors in these institutions. But the situation
is considerably more complicated because the ethics of what these actors do is
inseparable from the justice of the laws they enforce. An unjust law – say, a law that
protects slave-owners in their possession of human property – cannot be enforced
ethically no matter how fair and decent the agent who tries to enforce it is.
And this is not the whole story. Laws that themselves seem obviously just – say,
laws against theft or violence – may protect an unjust system. For example, though
few doubt the legitimacy of laws against theft, such laws protect what people
currently own. Thus they have the effect of protecting the existing distribution of
wealth, which may be unjust. If it is unjust, then the criminal justice system is
protecting something morally similar to crime itself, as Saint Augustine recognized
when he asked rhetorically: “Without justice, then, what are kingdoms but great
robberies?” If a law that is just in itself protects an unjust system, then whoever
enforces that law uses force to promote injustice. That, too, cannot be done ethically,
no matter how fairly or decently one tries.
Accordingly, two contextual issues must be addressed as part of any exploration
of criminal justice ethics: the very possibility of carrying out the tasks of criminal
justice ethically depends on, first, the justice of the laws being enforced and, second,
the justice of the society being protected by those laws (see justice). Discussion of
social justice would take us too far beyond the limits of the current topic; however,
discussion of the justice of law and its enforcement is unavoidable. Crucial here are
questions about justice in the making and enforcing of law, and of the appropriate
content of the law.
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee042
2
Regarding justice in the making and enforcing of law, it is widely agreed that law
should be made by legislators elected by the citizenry, and that it should be enforced
consistently so that all are treated equally before the law. This does not mean that all
are treated alike. It means that the categories in the law are applied to all who fulfill
them, and not applied to those who do not. No extra-legal facts are used to deter-
mine to whom the law is applied. For example, the law is not applied to white thieves
one way and nonwhite thieves another. These requirements are summed up as
procedural justice, because they relate to the source and application of laws rather
than their content. Laws can be procedurally just, though their content is unjust, and
vice versa. Laws protecting slavery in pre-Civil War America were passed by legisla-
tures that were democratically elected (by the standards of the era); and such laws
could be applied equally to all: all and only slaves would be treated as slaves, all and
only slave-owners as slave-owners, etc. Thus, such laws could be procedurally just,
though their content is unjust. Nonetheless, procedural justice is very important,
and has been the goal of many political struggles, e.g., against racial bias in law
enforcement. It also plays a role in any justification of citizens’ obligation to obey the
law, since a law enforced on some but not others has less claim on citizens’ obedience
than one enforced equally upon all.
What Should Be Criminalized

The criminal law is a blunt instrument, intrusive and dangerous to use, and thus it
should be used only where truly necessary. Therefore, not everything that is
immoral should be criminal. Stated positively, only those actions that are incon-
testably harmful and incompatible with peaceful social existence should be crimi-
nalized. This is a principle that is central to modern liberal doctrines, but that can
be found in the writings of philosophers as diverse as St. Thomas Aquinas and
Thomas Hobbes.
The classical liberal version of this notion is John Stuart Mill’s harm-to-others
principle, namely, that “the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised
over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to
others” (Mill 1869). As stated, the principle needs elaboration and modification. We
need to know what is to count as harm (is pain is enough? must genuine interests be
thwarted, or rights violated?). We need to know how closely an action must be to a
given harm to justify outlawing it (whether an action need only be potentially
harmful, such as owning a gun, or shooting a gun; or intentionally harmful, such as
shooting at someone). Further, the principle may be unrealistic in an era in which
people deal with dangerous technologies (automotive, electronic) that they may not
understand. Thus, in the modern world, we may need some laws that protect people
against actions that are harmful to themselves.
What seems essential to an ethical criminal justice system in modern states is that
acts must be clearly harmful in some way in order to justify outlawing them. This is
so for two interrelated reasons. First, modern states derive their lawmaking authority
from their people, all their people, and, thus, their laws must be acceptable in principle
3
to all. For this, all people must see the laws as serving their interests. Second, modern
states tend to be pluralistic, populated by people with different religious and moral
views. This second fact suggests that laws will only be seen by all to serve their inter-
ests, if they protect against harms that all fear, harms that do not depend on contro-
versial moral or religious notions. Otherwise, the laws will seem only to enforce some
people’s moral or religious views on others who do not share those views – which is
incompatible with the notion that the authority of the law derives from all the people.
These considerations account for the morally questionable nature of laws against
commercial sex, the wrong of which seems tied to specific religious doctrines not
shared by all; or against use of recreational drugs like marijuana, which is less harm-
ful than numerous legal substances such as tobacco and alcohol.
Authority, Discretion, and the Rule of Law

That the authority of criminal justice officials in modern states is shaped by law and
derived from the people has striking implications when we move from these general
reflections to analysis of the particular roles played by criminal justice officials.
All such officials appear to have some room for discretion in how they perform their
tasks. However, though police, prosecutors, judges, prison guards, and parole boards
all have some possibility of exercising discretion, none is allowed simply to decide to
bring about what seems to him or her the best moral outcome all things considered.
As we saw in discussing procedural justice, the rule of law has its own moral
requirements, among which are that law be enforced in a consistent and, thus,
predictable way. This enables citizens to know in advance what they may and may
not do; but it also constrains what the government may do, for better and for worse.
For such reasons, the actors in the criminal justice system must act according to the
law rather than do whatever they think is morally best. This notwithstanding, even
within the law there appears to be room for discretion, starting with the possibility
of police discretion in enforcing the law.
Police discretion
By discretion in enforcing the law is not meant that applying the law requires
judgment. That is unavoidable. The police inevitably must judge that the law covers
the case before them, and that no more important case requires their immediate
attention. Discretion enters after such judgments, at the point that an officer, facing
no more urgent business and believing that he confronts a violation of some crimi-
nal law, decides whether or not to enforce that law. No one who has been stopped for
driving over the speed limit and given a warning rather than a traffic ticket is likely
to be completely opposed to such discretion. Moreover, there are undoubtedly
numerous situations – for example, verbal disputes that might turn violent, or minor
violence that might escalate into major – where police do more good by trying to
calm the participants than by using their powers to arrest and charge them for
disturbing the peace (Davis 1971; Kleinig 1996).
4
Nonetheless, such discretion raises numerous moral questions. Feminists have

long complained about police who exercise their discretion not to arrest men who
have used violence in domestic disputes; and civil rights advocates have protested
against police exercise of discretion in traffic stops, to which African Americans
have been so disproportionately subjected that they are said to have been stopped
for the offense of “driving while black” (Harris 1999).
More generally, discretion may introduce an element of unpredictability or
arbitrariness into the law, and thus work against the requirements of procedural
justice. Moreover, since the authority of the police in modern states is the people’s
authority, if the people have decreed by their normal legislative processes that those
who violate this or that criminal law should be penalized, then discretionary enforce-
ment of criminal law appears to usurp the people’s authority and treat it as police
officers’ own. Some have maintained that the people enact their laws implicitly
granting police discretion in enforcing them. It is perhaps true that, when legislators
enact a law against gambling for money, they do not mean to make criminals out of
people having a friendly game of poker for pennies; any more than by passing a law
against using motorized vehicles in the park, they mean to outlaw the use of motor-
ized wheelchairs (examples from Kleinig 2008). But it does not follow from this that
the lawmakers have authorized police discretion in enforcing such laws. Though
that discretion may achieve better outcomes than strictly enforcing the laws as
written, is it genuinely good or only a necessary evil, an unauthorized remedy for
poor lawmaking?
Ethnic profiling
Stopping African Americans for “driving while black” points to another question-
able exercise of police discretion, the use of “ethnic profiling,” that is, the use of race
or ethnicity (or gender or age) as an indicator of likely criminal activity when
deciding whether or not to stop and question someone. Supposing, for example, that
young black men are statistically more likely than others to be engaged in criminal
behavior, or young Middle Eastern men are statistically more likely to be engaged in
terrorism. Is choosing to stop and question such individuals, rather than, say, elderly
white women, unfair discrimination or smart use of limited police resources
(Reiman 2011)? The problem is complicated by the fact that profiling is often accom-
panied by disrespectful treatment and the imposition of unnecessary inconvenience
on the individuals stopped.
Police deception
Another aspect of policing that calls for ethical reflection is the use of deception to
observe criminal activity or to gather evidence against criminals. Such deception
ranges from the use of unmarked police cars to catch unwary speeders; to eaves-
dropping on phone conversations; to the use of undercover police officers to pose as
prostitutes to catch would-be customers, or to pose as potential victims to snare
muggers, or to infiltrate gangs; to lying to suspects about the extent of evidence
5
accumulated against them in order to get them to confess; all the way to lying under
oath in court to cover up illegal police tactics or to help convict a guilty individual
likely otherwise to escape conviction due to a legal technicality. Except for lying
under oath in court, which is clearly impermissible, courts have generally been
tolerant of police deception as long as the police practices do not amount to “entrap-
ment,” that is, to encouraging people who would otherwise not have committed a
crime to commit one (Jacobson v. United States, 1992).
Prosecutorial and judicial discretion

Problems of the ethical exercise of discretion reappear when we pass from the police
to the courts. Prosecutors have discretion to decide whether to indict, and, if so, what
to charge. And judges have some discretion in sentencing defendants found guilty.
As with police discretion, here too there are potential benefits of discretion in adapt-
ing the law to the specific situations of offenders, but there are also moral dangers.
Judges’ exercise of their discretion in sentencing has resulted in apparently arbitrary
differences in sentences for similar crimes, and in harsher sentences for poor and
nonwhite offenders than for well-off and white offenders. Criticism of such discre-
tion led to the establishment of advisory sentencing guidelines which, taken together
with laws requiring mandatory minimum sentences (more on this below), have dra-
matically reduced the range of judges’ discretion and, with it, their ability to tailor
sentences to the specific characteristics of offenders. Sentencing guidelines have not,
however, eliminated discretion from the courts. They appear, rather, to have shifted
it from judges to prosecutors, since prosecutors’ decisions about what to charge will
largely determine the sentence if the charged person is convicted. Here too, though
there are often beneficial results from such discretion, studies continue to show that
poor and nonwhite people get harsher sentences than well-off and white people for
similar acts of lawbreaking (Reiman and Leighton 2010). Moreover, the situation is
arguably even worse than before, because, whereas judges exercised discretion in
open court, prosecutors’ discretion occurs behind closed doors. This is all the
more worrisome in the US due to the fact that in most American jurisdictions, pros-
ecutors are elected officials who may be tempted to build reputations for being tough
on crimes that people fear more because of prejudice than rational assessment of
actual dangers.
Plea bargaining
Perhaps the most ethically troubling practice at this stage of the criminal justice
process is plea bargaining (see plea bargaining). Contrary to the Perry Mason
image, the vast majority – 90 percent on some estimates – of American criminal
cases are not resolved by trial, but by an agreement between the accused and the
prosecutor, in which the accused agrees to plead guilty in return for the prosecutor
reducing the charge and/or promising to ask for a lenient penalty within the range of
penalties allowed (Skolnick 1966). For example, the crime of burglary includes the
6
lesser crimes of criminal trespass, breaking and entering, and possession of burglars’
tools. If the prosecutor agrees to charge the accused with possession of burglars’ tools
instead of burglary in return for a guilty plea, then, assuming the accused is guilty of
burglary and the state can prove it, this is a benefit for the accused, and for the state
since it will not have to expend all the resources needed for a trial.
The problem arises, however, because of the prosecutor’s discretion in determin-
ing what to charge. To pressure the accused to plead guilty, the prosecutor may
threaten to charge him with burglary and possession of burglars’ tools and breaking
and entering, and to ask the court to punish the crimes separately and cumulatively
with the maximum allowable penalty for each crime, if the accused insists on going
to trial. The accused may face the choice of pleading guilty and getting a sentence of
a few months (maybe equivalent to time already served awaiting trial, so that he
could walk free that very day!), or insisting on a trial and risking a sentence of years
in prison. Facing such a threat, even an innocent person may feel pressured to plead
guilty. Courts have ruled that such pressure is not legally coercion as long as there is
evidence that the accused committed the crimes charged, and the penalty threat-
ened is within the range legally stipulated (see, for example, Bordenkircher v. Hayes,
1978). Nonetheless, in commonsense terms, this process may coerce a confession of
guilt that, to be valid, must be voluntary. When to this is added that most of the
people caught up in the criminal justice system are from the lower socioeconomic
classes and thus unable to hire high-powered attorneys to defend them – and they
confront prosecutors who have at their disposal the enormous investigatory
resources and coercive powers of the state – there are grounds to suspect widespread
unfairness in the plea-bargaining process (Kipnis 1976).
Justifying Punishment
The sentencing of convicted criminals carries us from the courts to corrections, and
raises all the traditional ethical questions about the justification of punishment, as
well as some ethical questions that are unique to recent criminal justice policies (see
punishment).
Justifying punishment in theory

The problem of justifying punishment arises primarily because punishment appears
to be an intentional harm done to a person in custody who, thus, no longer poses a
threat. Some philosophers have sought to neutralize this problem by thinking of
punishment as doing good to an offender, as a painful treatment might be used to
cure a person of a disease. Punishment might be a means of moral education by
which a criminal could be brought to see the evil of his ways, experience remorse,
and become a law-abiding citizen (Hampton 1995). The chief theoretical problem
with this approach is that criminals normally do see the evil of their ways – awareness
that one is intentionally doing wrong (called in the law mens rea) is a standard
requirement for legal guilt. Moreover, many criminals feel remorse immediately
7
after committing their crimes and, on the moral education view, punishment of
them would be pointless – which many people find counterintuitive, since they
think that even remorseful criminals deserve punishment.
Furthermore, when punishment is held to be good for a criminal, criminals are
commonly not fully afforded rights to defend themselves against being punished,
since defending oneself against what is good is irrational. Legal treatment of the
insane and of juvenile delinquents (see juvenile justice), both designed on the
model of doing good rather than harm, have been criticized for depriving accused
individuals of rights and, ironically, for being harsher than systems that are openly
punitive (Kittrie 1973). These objections to the punishment-as-doing-good approach
are not objections to efforts to rehabilitate convicts so that they can return to society
as law-abiding citizens, as long as this is not taken as the point or justification of
punishing them.
Once it is admitted that punishment is intentional harm, there are two broad ways
of defending it: as deterrence and as retribution (Hobbes 1651; Kant 1797; von
Hirsch 1993; von Hirsch and Ashworth 2005; Bedau 1986; Flew 1954; Hart 1968;
Morris 1968; Pojman and Reiman 1998; see deterrence; retribution). The deter-
rence theorist, often a utilitarian in ethics, holds that, though punishment is harm,
its effect is to discourage would-be criminals from committing crimes and thus, over
time, to reduce total harm in society below what it would be without punishment.
There are numerous problems with this approach. One is that it appears to violate
the widely endorsed notion that individuals should not be used as mere means to the
welfare of others, since it appears to use the criminal to protect people other than
him or her from the acts of other criminals. However, this objection assumes that
each particular act of punishment is a deterrent to future crime. Arguably, no
particular act of punishment deters future crimes, they are deterred by the expecta-
tion of similar punishment in the future – and, thus, it is the punishment system that
deters. Then, it can be said that, since criminals do not want to be victims of crime,
the deterrence effect of the punishment system benefits them and thus they are not
used merely for the welfare of others.
Another problem with deterrence theory is that the amount of punishment it calls
for depends wholly on the empirical fact of what will deter a given crime. If light
punishments were enough to dissuade murderers, while only grave penalties
could dissuade double-parkers, deterrence theory would require us to punish
double-parkers more harshly than murderers. Thus deterrence does not require that
punishments be proportionate in gravity to crimes. A final problem with deterrence
theory is that criminological research has not produced compelling evidence that
crime rates are systematically affected by severity of punishment (Lippke 2007;
Nagin 1998).
The retributivist accepts that punishment is intentional harm, but contends that
doing such harm is good because offenders deserve it. Retributivism is not the same
as the so-called lex talionis, an eye for an eye, etc. Retributivism is the theory that
punishment is justified because it is deserved by wrong-doers for their wrong-doing;
lex talionis is a theory of what wrong-doers deserve, namely, harm equivalent to the
8
harm that they have intentionally caused or tried to cause. Accordingly, retributiv-
ism need not be based on lex talionis; it can hold that punishment should be propor-
tionate to the harm caused rather than equal to it. This is called “proportionate
retributivism.” On this view, graver crimes should be punished with harsher
penalties, less grave crimes with milder penalties, and so on, with no attempt to
equate the harm of punishment with that of the crime.
Based either on lex talionis or proportionality, retributivism fits people’s intuitions
that punishment is deserved by wrong-doers, and that it should be worse the worse
the crime for which it is meted out. A problem with retributivism is that it seems
impossible to provide a plausible systematic measure of deserved punishment.
Though lex talionis matches many people’s intuitions about capital punishment for
murderers (see capital punishment), it breaks down when applied to many crimes.
Though people tend to think that burglars and kidnappers deserve some consider-
able punishment, perhaps years in prison, it is hard to believe that the harm done by
a burglary or brief noninjurious kidnapping is anywhere near the harm of spending
several years in prison.
Moreover, crimes not only harm their victims by injuring them physically or finan-
cially. Crimes are also insults that cause harm by subjecting victims to emotionally
painful acts of disrespect. As hard as it is to match physical or financial harm to
deserved time in prison, it is harder still to do so for emotional pain. Moreover,
retributivists believe that punishment must also be calibrated to the offender’s degree
of culpability (offenders deserve more punishment for harm imposed after cool
reckoning than for the same harm imposed in a moment of passion, etc.). Finding a
formula for deserved punishment for a given amount of physical, financial, and
emotional harm, adjusted to the degree of culpability, appears just about impossible.
Another form of retributivism holds that punishment is meant to deprive
criminals of the unfair advantage they took by violating the law while benefiting
from the law-abidingness of their fellows (Morris 1968). The chief theoretical
problem with this is that it is arguably more a justification of restitution than of
retributive punishment. Restitution returns criminal and victim to their level of
well-being prior to the crime; retributive punishment reduces the criminal to a level
of well-being below the level he was at prior to the crime, since that is what he did
to his victim. Even after restitution, the lawbreaker still deserves punishment.
In addition, the unfair-advantage approach also does not require punishments pro-
portionate to the gravity of crimes since, for example, advantages gained from some
thefts can be greater than advantages gained from some murders.
Justifying punishment in practice

Even where punishments may be justified in principle, ethical questions arise about
their justification in practice. For example, there is ample evidence of racial preju-
dice in the imposition of the death penalty in America. It is far more likely that
blacks who kill whites will be sentenced to death than whites or blacks who kill
blacks (Baldus et al. 1983; Paternoster 1983, 1984; Gross and Mauro 1984; Radelet
9
and Pierce 1985). Arguably, as long as capital punishment is handed out this way, the
state fails to honor its obligation to respect and protect all its citizens equally, and
thereby loses the right to impose the death penalty at all.
The favored form of punishment in modern states is imprisonment. Imprisonment
means putting a person in a cage, subjecting him or her to long periods of boring
inactivity, and normally to heightened risks of violence and sexual predation. It
arguably treats humans as animals, and is thus inherently degrading to human
beings. Those who accept imprisonment may worry about how much deprivation –
beyond what is absolutely necessary to the safe operation of prisons – may rightly be
imposed on inmates (Lippke 2007). Some argue that prisoners should retain all their
rights beyond those of freedom of movement and association, including the right to
vote or even to run for political office. Others contend that prisoners should have
the right to conjugal visits and, in general, to the means to keep alive relationships
with people on the outside that will facilitate reintegration after release. Indeed, the
generally sad straits in which prison leaves the approximately 700,000 inmates who
are released every year, in the US alone, arguably amounts to continuing to punish
convicts after they have served their sentences and paid their debt to society.
Some troubling moral problems are raised by recent criminal justice practices in
numerous English-speaking countries, though most dramatically in the United
States. Beginning in the 1970s, American courts greatly increased the incidence and
length of prison sentences handed out, with the result that the percentage of prison-
ers in the population increased sevenfold during the final three decades of the
twentieth century. Substantial increases in imprisonment, albeit of lesser magni-
tude, occurred as well in the United Kingdom and Australia. During the same
period, significantly smaller increases in imprisonment and, in some cases, decreases
occurred in continental European countries. Observers have noted the coincidence
of this development with the decline of low-skilled well-paid industrial work in all
of these advanced nations, suggesting that imprisonment has served as a way of
dealing with “surplus population.” The difference between the Anglophone and the
continental European countries may be due to the difference between the economic
liberalism of the English-speaking countries and the social-democratic or, at least,
government-coordinated market economies of continental Europe. This may also
account for the fact that the lesser harshness of penal policy in the continental
European countries has not generally applied to their immigrants who, like African
Americans and other poor people in the US, faced dramatically higher rates of
imprisonment during this period (Lacey 2008).
In the United States, much of the growth in imprisonment was the result of
mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders – whose presence in
prisons increased elevenfold over the same period. Another cause was the enact-
ment of so-called “three-strikes-and-you’re-out laws” providing long or even life
sentences for offenders convicted of a third crime, even a minor one. Yet another
cause was a dramatic increase in revocations of parole for technical violations, rather
than for new crimes. All of these measures appear disproportionate to offenders’
desert. Mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses result in nonviolent
10
offenders often getting harsher sentences than many violent criminals do, three-
strikes-and-you’re-out laws effectively punish offenders for past crimes that have
already been punished, and revocation of parole on technical grounds puts people in
prison for acts that are not ordinarily crimes. Thus, none of these policies seems
justifiable on retributivist theory. And the small gains in crime reduction that crim-
inologists attribute to increased imprisonment suggest that these policies cause
more harm than deterrence theory can justify (Spelman 2000; Zimring 2007).
In addition, some criminologists have begun to study the “collateral damage”
caused by increased imprisonment. Massive imprisonment of young black men has
contributed to the increase in the number of unmarried mothers, deprived young-
sters of potential role models, and weakened the informal social mechanisms that
might control crime in the first place. Since ex-convicts have trouble finding decent
paying jobs, a large portion of young men are unable to contribute to their commu-
nities and families (Mauer and Chesney-Lind 2002).
The justice of punishment in an unjust society

Since much crime in both Anglophone and continental European countries is
committed by people who are deprived as a result of social injustices, such as lack
of job opportunities due to racial prejudice, we must confront the problem of
whether punishment should be affected by social injustice. Deterrence theorists
can argue that society should impose the least harm needed to deter crime, and
thus it must eliminate injustices that cause crime before it starts to punish criminals
whose acts are due to injustice. Retributivists can argue that victims of social injus-
tices have reduced obligations to obey the law and thus the evil of their crimes is
less than it would be if committed by socially privileged citizens; or that social
injustices make it harder for their victims to comply with the law and thus
should function like other factors that reduce criminal responsibility, e.g., extreme
provocation or even mental handicap (Lawson 1990; Murphy 1973; Reiman 2007;
Heffernan and Kleinig 2000).
All of these claims are highly controversial, but consideration of them is unavoid-
able for criminal justice ethics. These concerns return us to the point made earlier
about the need to set the ethical evaluation of criminal justice in the context of the
justice of the society that system protects. Criminal justice officials normally treat
justice as a one-way street and ask only if the criminals have failed in their obliga-
tions to society. But, justice is a two-way street in which criminals’ obligations to
society are in some degree dependent on society’s fulfilling its obligations to them.
It is, however, hard to imagine an actual criminal justice system that acknowledged
the injustices in the society it protects, and built into its procedures a process for
reducing penalties in light of those injustices.
See also: adversarial system of justice; authority; capital punishment;

criminal law; deterrence; duty and obligation; harm principle;
homicide; international criminal justice; justice; juvenile justice;
11
killing; legal ethics; mill, john stuart; plea bargaining; police ethics;
prostitution; punishment; responsibility; retribution; violence; white-
collar crime
REFERENCES
Baldus, D., C. Pulaski, and G. Woodworth 1983. “Comparative Review of Death Sentences:
An Empirical Study of the Georgia Experience,” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology,
vol. 74, pp. 661–753.
Bedau, Hugo A. 1986. “Capital Punishment,” in Tom Regan (ed.), Matters of Life and Death:
New Introductory Essays in Moral Philosophy. New York: Random House.
Bordenkircher v. Hayes 1978. 434 US 357.
Davis, Kenneth Culp 1971. Discretionary Justice: A Preliminary Inquiry. Urbana: University of
Illinois Press.
Flew, Anthony 1954. “The Justification of Punishment,” Philosophy, vol. 29, pp. 293–5.
Gross, S., and R. Mauro 1984. “Patterns of Death: An Analysis of Racial Disparities in Capital
Sentencing and Homicide Victimization,” Stanford Law Review, vol. 37, pp. 27–153.
Hampton, Jean 1995. “The Moral Education Theory of Punishment,” in A. J. Simmons et al.
(eds.), Punishment: A Philosophy and Public Affairs Reader. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Harris, David A. 1999. “The Stories, the Statistics, and the Law: Why ‘Driving while Black’
Matters,” Minnesota Law Review, vol. 84, pp. 265–325.
Hart, H. L. A. 1968. Punishment and Responsibility. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Heffernan, William, and John Kleinig (eds.) 2000. From Social Justice to Criminal Justice:
Poverty and the Administration of Criminal Law. New York: Oxford University Press.
Hobbes, Thomas 1651. Leviathan.
Jacobson v. United States 1992. 112 S. Ct. 1535.
Kant, Immanuel 1797. The Metaphysics of Morals: Doctrine of Right.
Kipnis, Kenneth 1976. “Criminal Justice and the Negotiated Plea,” Ethics, vol. 86, no. 2, pp. 93–106.
Kittrie, Nicholas 1973. The Right to Be Different: Deviance and Enforced Therapy. Baltimore:
Penguin.
Kleinig, John (ed.) 1996. Handled with Discretion: Ethical Issues in Police Decision Making.
Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
Kleinig, John 2008. Ethics and Criminal Justice: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Lacey, Nicola 2008. The Prisoners’ Dilemma: Political Economy and Punishment in
Contemporary Democracies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lawson, Bill 1990. “Crime, Minorities, and the Social Contract,” Criminal Justice Ethics,
vol. 9, pp. 16–24.
Lippke, Richard L. 2007. Rethinking Imprisonment. New York: Oxford University Press.
Mauer, Mark, and Meda Chesney-Lind (eds.) 2002. The Collateral Consequences of Mass
Imprisonment. New York: New Press.
Mill, John Stuart 1869. On Liberty.
Morris, Herbert 1968. “Persons and Punishment,” The Monist, vol. 52, pp. 475–501.
Murphy, Jeffrie 1973. “Marxism and Retribution,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 2,
pp. 217–43.
12
Nagin, Daniel S. 1998. “Criminal Deterrence Research at the Outset of the Twenty-First
Century,” Crime and Justice: A Review of Research, vol. 23, pp. 1–42.
Paternoster, R. 1983. “Race of Victim and Location of Crime: The Decision to Seek the
Death Penalty in South Carolina,” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, vol. 74,
pp. 754–85.
Paternoster, R. 1984. “Prosecutorial Discretion in Requesting the Death Penalty: A Case of
Victim-Based Racial Discrimination,” Law and Society Review, vol. 18, pp. 437–78.
Pojman, Louis P., and Jeffrey Reiman 1998. The Death Penalty: For and Against. Lanham:
Rowman & Littlefield.
Radelet, Michael L., and Glenn L. Pierce 1985. “Race and Prosecutorial Discretion in
Homicide Cases,” Law and Society Review, vol. 19, pp. 587–621.
Reiman, Jeffrey 2007. “The Moral Ambivalence of Crime in an Unjust Society,” Criminal
Justice Ethics, vol. 26, pp. 3–15.
Reiman, Jeffrey 2011. “Is Racial Profiling Just? Making Criminal Justice Policy in the Original
Position,” Journal of Ethics, vol. 15, pp. 3–19.
Reiman, Jeffrey, and Paul Leighton 2010. The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison:
Ideology, Class, and Criminal Justice, 9th ed. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Skolnick, Jerome 1966. Justice Without Trial: Law Enforcement in Democratic Society.
New York: Wiley.
Spelman, William 2000. “The Limited Importance of Prison Expansion,” in A. Blumstein and
J. Wallman (eds.), The Crime Drop in America. New York: Cambridge University Press.
von Hirsch, Andrew 1993. Censure and Sanctions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
von Hirsch, Andrew, and Andrew Ashworth 2005. Proportionate Sentencing: Exploring the
Principles. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Zimring, Franklin 2007. The Great American Crime Decline. New York: Oxford University Press.
1
Agent-Relative vs. Agent-Neutral

Douglas W. Portmore
The agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction has been drawn with respect to many

things, including values, normative theories, and reasons for action (see reasons;
reasons for action, morality and). It is widely recognized as being one of the
most important distinctions in practical philosophy, especially in distinguishing
between theories that can and theories that cannot accommodate certain basic
elements of commonsense morality.
Central to commonsense morality are various agent-relative (or agent-centered)
elements, such as associative duties, agent-centered options, and agent-centered
restrictions (see associative duties; agent-centered options; agent-centered
restrictions). Agent-neutral theories are unable to accommodate such agent-
relative elements and, as a result, conflict with our commonsense moral intuitions.
To understand why, we must first understand what distinguishes agent-relative
theories from agent-neutral theories. Very roughly, the distinction can be character-
ized in terms of each theory’s substantive aims. Although each moral theory gives us
the same formal aim (i.e., that of acting morally), different moral theories give us
different substantive aims. Roughly, a moral theory is agent-neutral if and only if it
gives each agent the exact same set of substantive aims; otherwise, it’s agent-relative.
Consequentialism, then, is an agent-neutral theory (see consequentialism).
It holds that an act is permissible if and only if it maximizes the impersonal good.
It gives each of us the same substantive aim: that of maximizing the impersonal
good. Universalizable egoism, by contrast, is an agent-relative theory (see egoism).
It holds that an act is permissible if and only if it maximizes the agent’s good. It gives
each of us different substantive aims. For instance, it gives me the aim of maximizing
my good, but you the aim of maximizing your good.
As already noted, agent-neutral theories are unable to accommodate the agent-
relative elements of commonsense morality. To see why, consider agent-centered
restrictions. Agent-centered restrictions prohibit agents from performing certain
act-types (such as murder) even in some circumstances in which performing that
act-type is the only way to minimize comparable commissions of that act-type. The
only way to accommodate an agent-centered restriction against, say, murder is to give
different agents different substantive aims: e.g., me the aim of ensuring that I do not
commit murder and you the aim of ensuring that you do not commit murder. But an
agent-neutral theory such as consequentialism must give each of us the same
substantive aim: e.g., the aim of maximizing the impersonal good. Since, on any
agent-neutral account of the good, two murders will, other things being equal, be
worse than one murder, the consequentialist must allow, contrary to an agent-centered
restriction, that it is permissible to commit one murder to prevent two others.
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee043
2
Although no agent-neutral theory can accommodate agent-centered restrictions,

it doesn’t follow that no teleological theory can. It is a mistake to equate the agent-
relative/agent-neutral distinction with the deontological/teleological distinction (see
deontology). Consider, for instance, agent-relative teleology (ART). It holds that
each agent should act so as to bring about the outcome that is best-relative-to-her
(Portmore 2005; Schroeder 2007). This is an agent-relative theory. It gives me the aim
of bringing about the outcome that’s best-relative-to-me and you the aim of bringing
about the outcome that’s best-relative-to-you. The ARTist can, then, accommodate
agent-centered restrictions. For instance, the ARTist can hold that, other things being
equal, the state of affairs in which I commit one murder is worse-relative-to-me than
the states of affairs in which I allow two others to commit comparable instances of
murder and thus that I ought not to commit murder even to prevent two others from
committing comparable murders. Thus, the important distinction to make in delin-
eating those theories that can and those theories that cannot account for various
agent-relative elements (such as agent-centered restrictions) is the agent-relative/
agent-neutral distinction, not the teleological/deontological distinction.
So far, I’ve given only a rough-and-ready account of the agent-relative/agent-
neutral distinction and only with respect to how it applies to normative theories. I’ll
now consider how to formulate the distinction as it applies both to reasons and to
values, and I’ll also try to give a more precise formulation of the distinction as it
applies to normative theories.
Reasons for Action

Thomas Nagel offers the following suggestion for how to draw the distinction
between agent-relative and agent-neutral reasons: “If a reason can be given a general
form which does not include an essential reference to the person who has it, it is an
agent-neutral reason. … If on the other hand the general form of a reason does
include an essential reference to the person who has it then it is an agent-relative
reason” (1986: 152–3).
By the “general form of a reason,” Nagel has in mind some universally quantified
principle such as:
(x) (the fact that p constitutes a reason for x to ϕ).
This abbreviates: “For all agents, x, the fact that p constitutes a reason for x to ϕ,”
where “p” refers to some statement of fact and “ϕ” refers to some action.
Nagel’s idea, then, is that if p contains an essential reference to x, it’s an agent-relative
reason. Otherwise, it’s an agent-neutral reason. Thus, the fact that my friend is in
need of some good cheer is an agent-relative reason for me to throw her a surprise
party, for, when we put this reason into the above general form, “p” would stand for
“x’s friend is in need of some good cheer,” which contains an essential reference to
the agent, x. By contrast, the fact that Jane is in need of some good cheer is an agent-
neutral reason for me to throw her a surprise party, for, when we put this reason into
3
the above general form, “p” would stand for “Jane is in need of some good cheer,”
which contains no reference to the agent, x.
There is, however, a problem with drawing the distinction in this way. To see this,
note that the fact that Jane is in need of some good cheer couldn’t possibly be a full
and accurate description of my reason for throwing her a surprise party – assuming
that I even have such a reason. After all, the fact that Jane is in need of some good
cheer wouldn’t be a reason for me to throw her a surprise party unless my throwing
her a surprise party would bring her some good cheer. What if, for instance, Jane
hates surprise parties? Or what if she would hate my throwing her a surprise party,
because, say, she would interpret my doing so as a sign that I intend to stalk her? If
either is the case, then the fact that Jane is in need of some good cheer is no reason
for me to throw her a surprise party. Thus, it seems that, in those instances in which
my throwing Jane a surprise party is something that would bring her some good
cheer, the reason that I have to throw her a surprise party, if fully and accurately
described, is that my throwing her a surprise party would bring her some good
cheer. But if that’s right, then this is an agent-relative reason, for, when we put this
reason into the above general form, we find that “p” stands for “x’s throwing Jane a
surprise party would ensure that Jane experiences some good cheer,” which does
contain an essential reference to the agent, x. Yet, this was supposed to be a paradigm
instance of an agent-neutral reason. It seems, then, that this way of drawing the
distinction gets the wrong result once we fully and accurately describe the reason.
What’s worse, it seems that all reasons, when fully and accurately described, will
turn out to be agent-relative on this account, for the simple fact that any reason for
an agent to perform an act must appeal to some fact about the agent’s performing
that act – e.g., that the agent’s performing that act would ensure that Jane experi-
ences some good cheer.
This worry is only compounded by the realization that every fact that constitutes
a reason for x to ϕ must make some reference to x if only to make reference to the
fact that x can ϕ. For instance, the fact that my throwing Jane a surprise party would
bring her some good cheer is a reason for me to throw her a surprise party only if
throwing her a surprise party is something that I can do. Michael Ridge makes the
point thusly:
Every statement of a reason will be a statement about an action which is a possible

action for the agent for whom it is a reason. I cannot have reason to perform an action
that only someone else could perform, after all. Since this sort of back-reference to the
agent is entirely trivial, we must explicitly add to our definition that it is not sufficient
to make a reason agent-relative. Otherwise, all reasons will implausibly come out as
agent-relative for this trivial reason. (2008: 20)
Interestingly, some philosophers embrace this implausible result, arguing that all
reasons are, on purely formal grounds, agent-relative reasons. Rønnow-Rasmussen,
for instance, argues: “Since all reasons apparently are reasons for someone and a
reason is only a reason for someone, if it somehow involves or refers to this
4
someone, it follows that all reasons are by their very form reasons that refer to the
person who has the reason to ϕ” (2009: 231). But, like Ridge, I think that we should
draw the agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction in a way that ensures that not all
reasons come out agent-relative, thereby preserving the philosophical importance
that the distinction is widely recognized as having. One way to do this – and this is
only a suggestion – is as follows.
Drawing inspiration from Rønnow-Rasmussen (2009) and McNaughton and
Rawling (1991), we can let “xϕcEp” stand for “x’s ϕ-ing in circumstances c would
ensure that p” and formulate the distinction as follows:
(x)(ϕ)(c)(p) (if the fact that xϕcEp constitutes a reason for x to ϕ in c, then this fact
constitutes an agent-relative reason for x to ϕ in c if and only if p contains an essential
reference to x, and any reason for x to ϕ in c that doesn’t constitute an agent-relative
reason for x to ϕ in c constitutes an agent-neutral reason for x to ϕ in c).
The statement p contains an essential reference to x if and only if there is no non-x-

referring statement q such that, for all x, the world in which x ensures that q is iden-
tical to the world in which x ensures that p. And note that I’m assuming that there is
some determinate fact as to what the world would be like were x to ϕ in c. This
assumption is sometimes called counterfactual determinism (Bykvist 2003: 30). If
counterfactual determinism is false, then I’ll need to let “xϕcEp” stand instead for
“x’s ϕ-ing in c would make it probable that p.”
To see how this works, let’s look at the following facts, each of which, we’ll suppose,
constitutes a reason for x to ϕ in c:
AR1 xϕcE (x abides by the Categorical Imperative)

AN1 xϕcE (Smith abides by the Categorical Imperative)
AR2 xϕcE (Jones feeds x’s child)
AN2 xϕcE (Jones feeds Jones’s child)
AR3 xϕcE (x’s promise-breakings are minimized)
AN3 xϕcE (promise-breakings are minimized)
Whereas each of AR1, AR2, and AR3 constitutes an agent-relative reason for x to ϕ in
c, each of AN1, AN2, and AN3 constitutes an agent-neutral reason for x to ϕ in c, for
whereas each of AR1, AR2, and AR3 contains an essential reference to x in the
parentheses, none of AN1, AN2, and AN3 does. Here and elsewhere, I’ve substituted
the contents within the parentheses for p.
Note, however, that each of the following two facts constitutes an agent-neutral
reason for x to ϕ in c despite the fact that the second one contains a reference to x in
the parentheses:
AN4 xϕcE (utility is maximized)

AN5 xϕcE (x maximizes utility)
5
Each constitutes an agent-neutral reason for x to ϕ in c, because neither includes an

essential reference to x in the parenthesis. The reference to x inside the parenthesis of
AN5 is superfluous, because, for all x, the world in which x ensures that utility is
maximized is identical to the one in which x ensures that x maximizes utility.
The foregoing account of the distinction between agent-relative and agent-neutral
reasons captures everything that we could want from such an account. First, it allows
us to account for what Rønnow-Rasmussen calls the personalizability feature of
reasons for action: that is, the feature according to which any fact constituting a
reason (agent-relative or agent-neutral) for x to ϕ in c must in some way refer to the
agent for whom it is a reason so as to account for why that fact constitutes a reason
for x in particular (Rønnow-Rasmussen 2009: 230). Since, on the above account,
reasons all take the form xϕcEp, they all do refer to the agent (viz., x) for which it is
a reason.
Second, this account remains neutral with regard to most, if not all, substantive
issues about reasons for action. Although, on this account, all reasons for action are
facts about what agents can ensure, this does not commit advocates of the account
to a teleological conception of reasons, where reasons for action are all a function of
what it would be good for agents to bring about. On this account, the fact that x’s
ϕ-ing in c would ensure that x abides by the Categorical Imperative (see categori-
cal imperative) can constitute a reason to x to ϕ in c even if x’s abiding by the
Categorical Imperative would produce bad consequences. And this account allows
that any sort of consideration, be it past-regarding or forward-looking, can count as
a reason. For instance, the fact that x’s ϕ-ing in c would ensure that x has fulfilled her
past promise to ϕ can count as reason for x to ϕ in c.
What’s more, this account is compatible with particularism about reasons for action
(see particularism). One could accept this account and hold, as particularists do,
that a consideration that counts as a reason in one context doesn’t count as a reason in
some other context. For instance, it could be that the fact that x’s ϕ-ing would ensure
that Jones takes pleasure in some state of affairs is a reason for x to ϕ in those circum-
stances in which Jones would be taking pleasure in someone else’s pleasure, but not in
those circumstances in which Jones would be taking pleasure in someone else’s pain.
Third, the account correctly identifies paradigmatic instances of reasons of both
kinds. For instance, AR1, AR2, and AR3 are all paradigm instances of agent-relative
reasons, and this account correctly identifies them as such. And AN1, AN2, AN3, and
AN4 are all paradigm instances of agent-neutral reasons, and this account correctly
identifies them as such.
Fourth and last, this account of the distinction preserves the philosophical impor-
tance that it is widely regarded as having. It does so by ensuring that not all reasons
are agent-relative reasons, and it does so irrespective of what substantive views we
accept about reasons for action (Rønnow-Rasmussen 2009).
6
Normative Theories
As noted above, we can distinguish not only between agent-relative and agent-neutral
reasons for action, but also between agent-relative and agent-neutral normative theo-
ries. As many philosophers draw the distinction, a normative theory is agent-neutral if
and only if it gives every agent the exact same set of substantive aims. Otherwise, it’s
agent-relative (see, for instance, Parfit 1984: 27; Dreier 1993: 22). But this talk of aims is
at best metaphorical. Take one class of normative theories: moral theories. Moral theo-
ries provide criteria for determining whether an act has a certain deontic status (e.g.,
permissible, impermissible, obligatory, or supererogatory), but they don’t explicitly state
which aims agents ought to have (see supererogation). And it’s not clear how we are
to move from talk about an act’s having a certain deontic status to there being a certain
aim that its agent ought to have. Suppose, for instance, that a moral theory holds that
Smith’s giving at least 10 percent of his income to charity is obligatory and that Smith’s
giving more than 10 percent is supererogatory. Does such a moral theory give Smith the
aim of giving 10 percent, giving more than 10 percent, or something else? It’s not clear.
Perhaps, though, we can understand talk of aims in terms of talk of reasons for
action. And, perhaps, we can just stipulate that the following relationship holds
between deontic status and reasons for action:
If, on a normative theory T, x’s ϕ-ing in c is either obligatory or supererogatory in

virtue of the fact that xϕcEp, then, on T, the fact that xϕcEp constitutes a reason
for x to ϕ in c.
Once we make this stipulation, we can distinguish agent-relative theories from

agent-neutral theories as follows:
A normative theory T is an agent-relative theory if and only if, on T, there exist

some possible agent x, some possible act ϕ, some possible circumstances c, and
some possible statement p such that the fact that xϕcEp constitutes an
agent-relative reason for x to ϕ in c. Otherwise, it’s agent-neutral.
To illustrate, consider act utilitarianism (see utilitarianism). It holds that, for all
x, x’s ϕ-ing in c is obligatory if and only if ϕ-ing in c is the only way for x to ensure
that utility is maximized. And, on act utilitarianism, acts are never supererogatory.
So, on act utilitarianism, agents have reason to ensure only that utility is maximized,
and since this is an agent-neutral reason, act utilitarianism is an agent-neutral
theory. Universalizable egoism, by contrast, is an agent-relative theory. It holds that,
for all x, x’s ϕ-ing in c is obligatory if and only if ϕ-ing in c is the only way for x to
ensure that x’s utility is maximized. Since, on egoism, each agent has an agent-relative
reason to ensure that her utility is maximized, egoism is an agent-relative theory.
To illustrate how supererogation can come into play, consider what I’ll call
super-act-utilitarianism. Like act utilitarianism, super-act-utilitarianism holds that,
for all x, x’s ϕ-ing in c is obligatory if and only if ϕ-ing in c is the only way for x to
7
ensure that utility is maximized. Unlike act utilitarianism, though, super-

act-utilitarianism holds additionally that, for all x, x’s ϕ-ing in c is supererogatory if
and only if x’s ϕ-ing in c would ensure that x performs a permissible act that pro-
duces less utility for x than some other permissible alternative would. Suppose, for
instance, that I must choose whether or not to push a certain button. Let’s assume
that, if I push the button, I’ll receive only 10 units of utility, whereas others will in
aggregate receive 90 units of utility. And let’s assume that, if I refrain from pushing
the button, I’ll receive 90 units of utility, whereas others will in aggregate receive
only 10 units of utility. Either way, utility will be maximized. Thus, I’m permitted to
do either. Nevertheless, on super-act-utilitarianism, my pushing the button is super-
erogatory, for in doing so I ensure that I perform a permissible act that produces less
utility for me than some other permissible alternative would. Since, on super-act-
utilitarianism, each agent has an agent-relative reason to perform those permissible
acts that produce less utility for herself, this is an agent-relative theory.
Values
The agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction can also be drawn with respect to
values. Those who postulate agent-relative values tend to subscribe to the view that
there is some bi-conditional relationship between A’s being better than B and its
being fitting to prefer A to B. Those who accept what’s known as the buck-passing
or fitting-attitude account of value (see buck-passing accounts; value, fitting-
attitude account of) certainly think that there is such a bi-conditional relation-
ship, but their Moorean rivals (see moore, g. e.) often endorse such a bi-conditional
relationship as well. Although the buck-passer and the Moorean must disagree
about which side of the bi-conditional has explanatory priority, they can agree on
the bi-conditional itself.
In any case, if we accept that there is such a bi-conditional relationship, we can
distinguish between agent-relative and agent-neutral values as follows:
For any states of affairs p and q, it is better-relative-to-x that p is the case than that
q is the case if and only if it would be fitting for x to prefer p to q. And for any
states of affairs p and q, it is better (agent-neutrally speaking) that p is the case
than that q is the case if and only if it would be fitting for an impartial spectator
to prefer p to q. (Suikkanen 2009: 6)
Note that an impartial spectator must be both impartial (see impartiality) and a
mere spectator. To ensure that she is impartial, we must assume that the impartial
spectator has no personal relations with anyone involved. And to ensure that she is
a mere spectator, we must assume that she is not involved either in bringing it about
that p or in bringing about that q.
To illustrate the distinction between agent-relative and agent-neutral values,
suppose that I can actualize only one of two possible worlds: either the one in which
I save my own daughter (call this w1) or the one in which I ensure that some stranger,
8
named Smith, saves his slightly more cheerful daughter (call this w2). Let’s assume
that a world with more pleasure is, other things being equal, better than a world with
less pleasure. And let me just stipulate that w2 contains slightly more pleasure than
w1, for Smith’s slightly more cheerful daughter would experience slightly more pleas-
ure than my daughter would. Assume, though, that everything else is equal. Clearly,
given these stipulations, w2 is better than w1 (agent-neutrally speaking), for it seems
fitting for an impartial spectator to prefer w2 to w1. Arguably, though, w1 is better-
relative-to-me than w2. Given the special relationship that I have with my daughter,
it seems fitting for me to prefer w1 to w2. Indeed, if I didn’t care more about the pres-
ervation of my daughter’s life than I did about such small increases in the aggregate
pleasure, we would think that there is something wrong with me. Fathers ought to
care more about the preservation of their children’s lives than they do about such
small increases in the impersonal good.
So whereas one possible world is better than another if and only if it would be fit-
ting for an impartial spectator to prefer the one to the other, one possible world is
better-relative-to-x than another if and only if it would be fitting for x to prefer the
one to the other. And what it is fitting for an impartial spectator to prefer can differ
from what it is fitting for x to prefer, because x’s agential involvement in actualizing
one of the two worlds and/or x’s personal relationships with those who would be
better off in one of the two worlds can affect which it is fitting for x to prefer.
It should be noted, though, that the existence of agent-relative values is quite
controversial. Mark Schroeder (2007), for instance, has argued that the better-
relative-to-x relation is just a theoretical posit and that there is no theory-neutral
way to draw the distinction between agent-relative and agent-neutral values.
Furthermore, he has argued that there is no way to explain what the better-relative-
to-x relation means using ordinary-language terms such as “better,” “better for,” or
“better from a particular point of view” (see good and better; goodness,
varieties of). Whether the above account succeeds where previous attempts have
failed is something that I leave for the reader to judge.
See also: agent-centered options; agent-centered restrictions;

associative duties; buck-passing accounts; categorical imperative;
consequentialism; deontology; egoism; good and better; goodness,
varieties of; impartiality; moore, g. e.; particularism; reasons; reasons
for action, morality and; supererogation; utilitarianism; value,
fitting-attitude account of
REFERENCES
Bykvist, Krister 2003. “Normative Supervenience and Consequentialism,” Utilitas, vol. 15,
pp. 27–49.
Dreier, James 1993. “Structures of Normative Theories,” The Monist, vol. 76, pp. 22–40.
McNaughton, David, and Piers Rawling 1991. “Agent-Relativity and the Doing–Happening
Distinction,” Philosophical Studies, vol. 63, pp. 167–85.
9
Nagel, Thomas 1986. The View from Nowhere. New York: Oxford University Press.
Portmore, Douglas 2005. “Combining Teleological Ethics with Evaluator Relativism:
A Promising Result,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 86, pp. 95–113.
Ridge, Michael 2008. “Reasons for Action: Agent-Neutral vs. Agent-Relative,” in Edward N.
Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall Edition). At http://plato.
stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/reasons-agent/.
Rønnow-Rasmussen, Toni 2009. “Normative Reasons and the Agent-Neutral/Relative
Dichotomy,” Philosophia, vol. 37, pp. 227–43.
Schroeder, Mark 2007. “Teleology, Agent-Relative Value, and the ‘Good,’” Ethics, vol. 117,
pp. 265–95.
Suikkanen, Jussi 2009. “Consequentialism, Constraints and the Good-Relative-to: A Reply to
Mark Schroeder,” Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, pp. 1–8. At www.jesp.org.
FURTHER READINGS
Broome, John 1995. “Skorupski on Agent-Neutrality,” Utilitas, vol. 7, pp. 315–17.
Korsgaard, Christine 1993. “The Reasons We Can Share: An Attack on the Distinction
between Agent-Relative and Agent-Neutral Values,” Social Philosophy and Policy,
vol. 10, pp. 24–51.
Louise, Jennie 2004. “Relativity of Value and the Consequentialist Umbrella,” Philosophical
Mack, Eric 1989. “Against Agent-Neutral Value,” Reason Papers, vol. 14, pp. 76–85.
Mack, Eric 1998. “Deontic Restrictions are Not Agent-Relative Restrictions.” Social Philosophy
and Policy, vol. 15, pp. 61–83.
McNaughton, David, and Piers Rawling 1995a. “Value and Agent-Relative Reasons,” Utilitas,
vol. 7, pp. 31–47.
McNaughton, David, and Piers Rawling 1995b. “Agent-Relativity and Terminological
Inexactitudes,” Utilitas, vol. 7, pp. 319–25.
McNaughton, David, and Piers Rawling 2002. “Conditional and Conditioned Reasons,”
Utilitas, vol. 14, pp. 240–8.
Portmore, Douglas 2001. “McNaughton and Rawling on the Agent-Relative/Agent-Neutral
Distinction,” Utilitas, vol. 13, pp. 350–6.
Portmore, Douglas 2009. “Consequentializing,” Philosophy Compass, vol. 4, pp. 329–47.
Schroeder, Mark 2008. “Value Theory,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. At http://plato.
stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/value-theory/.
Sen, Amartya 1983. “Evaluator Relativity and Consequential Evaluation,” Philosophy and
Skorupski, John 1995. “Agent-Neutrality, Consequentialism, Utilitarianism … : A Terminological
Note,” Utilitas, vol. 7, pp. 49–54.
Smith, Michael 2003. “Neutral and Relative Value after Moore,” Ethics, vol. 113, pp. 576–98.
1
Ethics of Belief
Miriam McCormick
The broad question asked under the heading “Ethics of Belief ” is: What ought one
believe? An ethics of belief attempts to uncover the norms that guide belief formation
and maintenance. The dominant view among contemporary philosophers is that
evidential norms do; I should always follow my evidence and only believe when
the evidence is sufficient to support my belief. This view is called “evidentialism,”
although, as we shall see, this term gets applied to a number of views that can be
distinguished from one another. Evidentialists often cite David Hume (1999: 110)
as their historic exemplar who said “a wise man … proportions his beliefs to the
evidence” and thus argued against the reasonableness of believing in miracles
(see hume, david; wisdom). Those who argue that there can be good practical
reasons for believing, independent of one’s evidence, can turn for inspiration to
Blaise Pascal (1966: 124), who argued that the best reason to form a belief in God
was a practical one, namely the possibility of avoiding eternal suffering (see reasons;
reasons for action, morality and; faith).
For much of the twentieth century, most philosophers seem to have thought that
there is no project concerning norms for belief distinct from that of what constitutes
a belief ’s justification. To answer the question what ought one believe, one must turn
to the question of what provides belief with justification (a necessary ingredient for
knowledge) and believe accordingly. Given this view, there was very little written
directly about norms for belief during that time, and when the “ethics of belief ” was
discussed it would usually refer historically to the nineteenth-century debate
between W. K. Clifford and William James (see james, william). Clifford’s paper is
called “The Ethics of Belief,” and in it he insists that “it is wrong always, everywhere,
and for anyone, to believe anything on insufficient evidence” and that we have a duty
to withhold beliefs for which we do not have evidence (Clifford 1987: 23). James, in
“The Will to Believe,” responds directly to Clifford’s strong evidentialist stance. He
agrees that, in many contexts, evidential considerations will settle the matter of what
to believe, but when questions cannot be decided by the evidence, he (1956: 23–8)
says our “passional nature” takes over and the question of what we ought to believe
remains open. In such contexts, what we believe, James argues, depends partly on
what will help us make sense of ourselves and our world, what will provide us with
meaning or even give us peace and solace. Thus, for James, at least some of the
norms governing belief are practical.
In the past decade, this debate has been revived, and the question of whether it is
ever permissible to believe on insufficient evidence has once again become a live
question. Though it is never simple to account for what brings a question back into
philosophical fashion, one likely reason for this revival is that there was a perceived
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee044
2
need to answer “reformed epistemologists” who defend religious belief by saying

that beliefs are sometimes justified even if one has no evidence or them. For exam-
ple, Jonathan Adler (2002: 3) explicitly states that his motivation for his defense of a
very strong version of evidentialism came after engaging with these anti-evidentialist
arguments. Adler argues that the concept of belief guarantees the truth of eviden-
tialism; he defends the evidentialist thesis conceptually. So according to Adler, the
guiding question of the ethics of belief is misleading. There is no question about
what I ought to believe beyond what I must believe; to say I believe something
though I lack evidence for it, Adler says, is incoherent. Briefly, his argument is as
follows: If I believe something, then I must be willing to assert what I believe. But to
assert something is to claim that it is true. So to say I believe p is just another way of
stating p. This can be seen by the incoherence of the following assertion, “It is rain-
ing, but I do not believe it is raining.” Adler would add that the following is equally
incoherent: “It is raining but I lack sufficient evidence that it is raining,” which (if
assertion expresses belief) would also show that the following assertion is incoher-
ent “I believe it is raining, but I lack sufficient evidence that it is raining.” Adler
(2002: 32) concludes: “We cannot recognize ourselves as believing p while believing
that our reasons or evidence are not adequate to its truth and conversely.” And the
“cannot” is conceptual, not psychological.
One problem that has been noted with Adler’s account is that it seems to deny that,
in certain cases, belief can arise for nonevidentiary reasons such as wishful thinking.
A recent account, one defended by Nishi Shah (2006), also provides a conceptual
defense of evidentialism, arguing against what he calls “pragmatism,” namely the
view that there are some nonevidential reasons for believing. Yet he concedes that
when beliefs are formed in a nondeliberative context they can be induced by
nonevidentiary processes such as wishful thinking. Shah argues that it is built into
the concept of belief that truth is the standard of correctness for belief. Thus, when
one applies the concept in one’s reasoning, truth-relevant considerations must be
applied, but in nondeliberative contexts, where the concept is not exercised, one’s
cognitive activity need not be regulated by truth-relevant dispositions. Shah would
admit that, from a third-person perspective, we can attribute a nonevidentially
based belief to someone, but he argues that I cannot think of myself as having a belief
without thinking of it as grounded in evidence. This is because, when attending to,
applying, exercising the concept, the standard of correctness must be invoked. So
I can think that my friend has good practical reasons to bring about the belief that
her husband is faithful despite the mounting evidence that he is not. But when
she is thinking about whether to believe that her husband is faithful, and thus
exercising the concept of belief, questions of the belief ’s desirability are irrelevant
(see self-deception).
One of the philosophers most closely associated with the evidentialist thesis is
Richard Feldman. Feldman would (mostly) insist, however, that he is not interested in
the view of what we ought to believe. Rather, evidentialism is a theory of justification;
our beliefs are justified and rational if they follow the evidence, but there may well be
a difference, he says, from what I should believe epistemically and what I should
3
believe either practically or morally (Feldman 2000). He argues that the “ought”
regarding belief is an epistemic ought which is distinct from the oughts of morality or
of prudence. If these “oughts” conflict, there is no way, he says, to adjudicate between
them, no meaningful question about what I ought to believe, all things considered:
“We’ve diasambiguated ‘ought’ and we can’t put the various senses back together
again” (2000: 694). Feldman wonders what value would be associated with this “just
plain ought.” Interestingly, Feldman does not seem to deny that it is possible to believe
for pragmatic or moral reasons, but he thinks that, in doing so, one will be led away
from rationality (see rationality).
One of the reasons for thinking that it is not even possible to believe (even irra-
tionally) against the evidence has to do with our lack of control over beliefs. Many
have pointed out that we cannot simply decide to believe the way we can decide to
perform many actions. The following is a standard conceptual argument, first
formulated by Bernard Williams (1973: 136–8) against believing at will: Given that
the aim of belief is truth, any states that I can achieve at will would not recognizably
be beliefs. For if what I believe were up to me, seemingly, I could form a belief
regardless of whether I thought it true – but if I knew this, then I would know that
there is no reason to think that this “belief ” accurately represents reality. But to have
a belief entails viewing the belief as representing reality. Believing at will is thus
incoherent because it entails viewing a belief as (1) necessarily representing reality,
and (2) not necessarily representing reality. Thus, believing at will is not only a con-
tingent impossibility; the very concept of belief renders the idea incoherent (see
williams, bernard). Further, it seems that because the action-guiding aspect of
belief would be severely undermined if we could believe at will, we should not even
want this kind of control. Here, then, is another reason for thinking that the whole
idea of an “ethics” of belief is misguided. An ethics provides guidance for how one
ought to behave, and it is usually assumed that ought implies can (see ought implies
can). If what one believes is beyond one’s control, what sense can be made of saying
one ought to believe one way or another? The issue of doxastic (which means “per-
taining to belief ”) control is thus very closely connected to any discussion of an
ethics of belief. Although many theorists admit that we have a kind of indirect dox-
astic control, in that beliefs are derived from other states over which we do have
control, they do not think our attributions of responsibility are tied in any way to
this kind of control.
Feldman (2000) argues that our lack of doxastic control does not entail a lack of
doxastic responsibility (see responsibility). He argues that when we say one ought
(or ought not) to believe a certain way, the “ought” results from playing the role of
believer (see ought). There is a right way to play this role, and we can be blamed
if we do not do it well, regardless of whether we could have done otherwise. Just as
incompetent teachers, incapable parents, and untrained cyclists may be unable to do
what they ought to do, he thinks that forming beliefs is something people do, and
that anyone engaged in this activity ought to do it right. It does not matter that, in
some cases, we are unable to do so.
4
Feldman’s description of our judging performance seems to ignore that the force
of the “ought” will differ depending on who the actor is. Compare a cyclist who just
took off her training wheels to one who is training for the Tour de France. Our
expectations differ for what they ought to do, for how close they ought to measure
up to performing the movements of the ideal cyclist. Part of what each ought to do
is to perform the role as best she can, that is exert the effort needed to perform the
role to the best of her ability. It seems then that some of the judgments we make about
being a good parent, teacher, cyclist, or believer do presuppose that we have some
kind of control, namely control over improving. If a parent is truly incapable of
taking care of her kids, say because of extreme mental retardation, it seems wrong to
say that she ought to do so. If one lacks all control over even approximating the
ideal, or coming closer to it, the obligation ceases (see duty and obligation). It
seems that whether we blame people, and to the extent we do, depends on their
having some control over getting better at the role they play, but Feldman thinks that
our attributions of responsibility for belief do not require that we have any control
in this realm.
Matthew Chrisman (2008) has argued instead that the kinds of “oughts” which
are applied to beliefs should be seen as akin to rules of criticism as distinct from
rules of action. Rules of criticism apply to states of things, of how things ought to be
rather than to what one ought to do. Chrisman thinks doxastic oughts tell us, in
general, truths about beliefs and believing. Rules of criticism are usually applied to
states of things, and not to states of agents, but Chrisman points out that “none of
this implies that believers cannot be agents. We just have to appreciate that they
do not exercise agency in believing what they believe” (2008: 364). Chrisman comes
to this conclusion, largely, because we do not exercise the same kind of voluntary
control over beliefs as we do over actions. Like Feldman, he is concerned with
providing an account of the doxastic “ought” which does not require doxastic control
or even any kind of doxastic agency.
Others, however, think there is a sense in which we can be doxastic agents even
though we lack the kind of control we have over actions. Pamela Hieronymi
(2008), for example, argues that the common assumption that we are only respon-
sible for what is voluntary comes from thinking too narrowly about the way in
which we are responsible for actions. She argues that believing is not voluntary
because it is not an action (see action). The question of whether to do P is settled
by reasons that count in favor of doing P. The question of whether to believe P is
settled by answering the question of whether P, not by focusing on considerations
that count in favor of the second-order question of whether to believe P. Yet,
Hieronymi argues, we are responsible for such states because they reveal one’s
“moral personality” or “the quality of one’s will,” and it is states of this kind through
which we express our agency (2008: 361). But she, like the others, thinks we can
only believe for truth-related reasons, agreeing that the question whether to believe
that p always collapses into the question of whether p is true. This phenomenon,
that one question collapses into another, has come to be called “transparency”
(Shah 2006: 481).
5
The two positions that are the least represented in the literature are (1) doxastic
voluntarism, namely the view that deciding to believe is possible, and (2) pragmatism,
namely the view that it can be permissible (and possible) to believe for nonevidential
reasons. These positions can be pulled apart, but we can see how advocating the two
together makes sense. We have seen that one way to defend evidentialism is to point
out that the evidentialist thesis explains why we are unable to choose what to believe.
We cannot choose what is true, and if beliefs in some sense aim at or are governed by or
are conceptually tied to truth, then this shows why we cannot choose to believe. One
way to counter evidentialism is to deny that the phenomenon it purports to explain is
genuine. Maybe some sense can be made of the possibility of deciding to believe. One
can ask – against the evidentialist – is it the case that no belief can possibly result from
a decision; is it really conceptually impossible to decide to believe? Voluntarists will
deny this and claim that there are times when belief is voluntary. This can occur, they
say, when the evidence is not conclusive. To say “I believe p, though not-p is equally
supported by the evidence” is not paradoxical; it is not even clear that such an attitude
is irresponsible. It seems, in such a case, that what I believe is “up to me” (Carl Ginet
2001: 64).
Another way of questioning evidentialism is to take a cue from James and argue
that the concept of belief is not as closely tied to truth and reason as many assume.
Perhaps, ultimately, the norms that govern belief are practical: A pragmatist can
explain transparency by focusing on the interest we all have in our beliefs being true.
In asking myself whether to believe p, I focus on the question of whether p is true
because I have an interest in having a true opinion about p. A problem with this
account is that, while it can explain why truth is relevant to doxastic deliberation,
it cannot account for the fact that truth is hegemonic with respect to doxastic
deliberation (Shah 2006: 490). The only way this could be explained is if everyone
always had overriding interest in having true beliefs. This may seem implausible
because we can certainly imagine cases where it would be more in one’s interest to
have comforting false beliefs than to have discomforting true ones. One can find an
answer to this worry in the writings of Hilary Kornblith. Kornblith (1993) argues
that, for epistemic norms to have the force they do, they must be grounded in
some universal desire. He recognizes, however, that no desire or goal one posits
(truth, knowledge, rationality) will be sufficiently universal, and we would thus have
different norms depending on our desires.
Kornblith’s view is that we all – that is, anyone who has any goals at all – have a
reason to favor a cognitive system which is effective is generating truths. So we
should care about beliefs being justified or reasonable because these are the norms
that, in general, will help to make us achieve our goals. Therefore, anyone with any
goals must care about their beliefs being true. The reasons I care about truth are
ultimately pragmatic reasons.
The worry about viewing truth’s value as instrumental is that it seems that if a
particular truth does not serve this practical goal then it is permissible to believe
what is false though comforting (see instrumental value; intrinsic value).
Should the importance of truth be so precarious? Clifford’s dictum to never believe
6
on insufficient evidence had an ultimate moral grounding; humanity will suffer if

we do not constantly question our beliefs to make sure they are solidly grounded.
The challenge to the anti-evidentialist is to explain what distinguishes pernicious
nonevidentially based beliefs from ones that are not. One way to do this might be to
think of true belief as a common good comparable to the value of clean water
(Grimm 2009). A particular body of water may be of no value to me, and so if I
pollute it I will not suffer, but we still think it is wrong because the water has value
and should be respected, regardless of whether it is useful to me; clean water plays
such an indispensable role in our well-being, we have an obligation – to others – not
to pollute it in this way, but rather to treat clean water with due respect. Similarly,
not every true belief is of value to me; it may even be that one can be harmful.
However, in general, having true beliefs and knowledge is helpful for an individual
and useful for society, and so engaging in practices which lead away from truth and
knowledge will detract from the common good. It will thus only be permissible to
hold nonevidentially based beliefs if doing so does not violate any epistemic duty
(see common good; virtue). It has been suggested by James (1956) and Ginet
(2001), among others, that the evidentialist dictum calling for suspending
judgment when faced with equally balanced evidence is one that can be violated
without detracting from the common good.
see also: action; common good; duty and obligation; hume, david;
instrumental value; intrinsic value; james, william; ought; ought
implies can; rationality; reasons; reasons for action, morality and;
responsibility; self-deception; virtue; williams, bernard; wisdom
REFERENCES
Adler, Jonathan 2002. Beliefs’ Own Ethics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Chrisman, Matthew 2008. “Ought to Believe,” Journal of Philosophy, vol. 105, no. 7, pp. 346–70.
Clifford, William K. 1987. “The Ethics of Belief,” in Gerald D. McCarthy (ed.), The Ethics of
Belief Debate. Atlanta: Scholars Press.
Feldman, Richard 2000. “Ethics of Belief,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, vol. 60,
no. 3, pp. 667–95.
Ginet, Carl 2001. “Deciding to Believe,” in Matthias Steup (ed.), Knowledge, Truth and Duty:
Essays on Epistemic Justification, Responsibility and Virtue. New York: Oxford University
Press.
Grimm, Stephen 2009. “Epistemic Normativity,” in A. Millar, A. Haddock, and D. Pritchard
(eds.), Epistemic Value. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hieronymi, Pamela 2008. “Responsibility for Believing,” Synthese, vol. 161, no. 3, pp. 357–73.
Hume, David 1999. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Tom L. Beauchamp.
James, William 1956. The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy. New York:
Dover.
Kornblith, Hilary 1993. “Epistemic Normativity,” Synthese, vol. 94, pp. 357–76.
Pascal, Blaise 1966. Pensees, trans. A. J. Krailsheimer. New York: Penguin.
7
Shah, Nishi 2006. “A New Argument for Evidentialism,” Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 56,
no. 225, pp. 481–98.
Williams, Bernard 1973. “Deciding to Believe,” Problems of Self. Cambridge: Cambridge
FURTHER READINGS
Adler, Jonathan 2002. “Akratic Believing?” Philosophical Studies, vol. 110, pp. 1–27.
Cohen, L. Jonathan 1992. An Essay on Belief and Acceptance. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Heil, John1992. “Believing Reasonably,” Noûs, vol. 26, pp. 47–62.
Hironymi, Pamela 2006. “Controlling Attitudes,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 87,
pp. 45–74.
Levy, Neil 2007. “Doxastic Responsibility,” Synthese, vol. 155, pp. 127–55.
Mele, Alfred 1995. Autonomous Agents. New York: Oxford University Press.
Mills, Eugene 1998. “The Unity of Justification,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research,
vol. 58, no. 1, pp. 27–50.
Moran, Richard 1988. Authority and Estrangement. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Owens, David 2000. Reason without Freedom: The Problem of Epistemic Normativity. London:
Routledge.
Shah, Nishi 2003. “How Truth Governs Belief,” Philosophical Review, vol. 112, no. 4, pp. 447–82.
Steup, M. 2008. “Doxastic Freedom,” Synthese, vol. 361, pp. 375–92.
Velleman, David 2000. The Possibility of Practical Reason. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Velleman, David, and Nishi Shah 2005. “Doxastic Deliberation,” Philosophical Review, vol. 114,
pp. 497–534.
Watson, Gary 2003. “The Work of the Will,” in Sarah Stroud and Christine Tappolet (eds),
Weakness of Will and Practical Irrationality. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 172–200.
Wedgewood, Ralph 2002. “The Aim of Belief,” Philosophical Perspectives, vol. 16, pp. 267–97.
1
Civilian Immunity
Igor Primoratz
The idea that warfare ought to be subject to restraint is probably as old as war itself.
The restraints morality and law place on war fall under two heads: those concerning
resort to war (jus ad bellum) and those concerning the ways war is fought (jus in
bello). One of the rules comprising jus in bello – on most accounts, its centerpiece –
is that of discrimination (or, in legal parlance, distinction). It enjoins us to discrimi-
nate between legitimate and illegitimate targets in war and to restrict our attacks to
the former. That means, roughly, that our acts of war may be directed only at enemy
soldiers or combatants and military facilities, and that we must not attack civilians
or noncombatants. Civilians (noncombatants) enjoy immunity against deliberately
inflicted harm to life, limb, or property.
The terms “civilians” and “noncombatants” overlap, but not completely; thus
military chaplains, or medical personnel in the armed forces, might be thought
noncombatants, but not civilians. But any wording will raise questions of application.
Are soldiers on leave, or civilians working in arms production, to be granted
immunity? What of the prime minister or minister of defense of a country at war?
A deeper disagreement concerns the basis of this immunity. While consequentialist
ethics of war treats civilian immunity as a rule justified by the good consequences
of its adoption, just war theory enjoins it as a matter of justice and rights (see
consequentialism; just war theory, history of). There are also those who, for
one reason or another, reject the very idea of civilian immunity.
Rejecting Civilian Immunity

Civilian immunity may be rejected for very different reasons: because one seeks
to affirm the immunity of every human being against lethal violence, or against
lethal violence in war, as many pacifists do, or because one considers civilians, too,
implicated in war deeply enough to be targets of such violence, as those who defend
insurgent or state terrorism do.
G. E. M. Anscombe argued that, by denying any moral difference between killing
soldiers and killing civilians in war, pacifists become – not in intent, but in effect –
complicit in skepticism regarding moral constraints on the ways of waging war: “In
this way pacifism has corrupted enormous numbers of people who will not act
according to its tenets. They become convinced that a number of things are wicked
which are not; hence, seeing no way of avoiding ‘wickedness,’ they set no limits to it”
(1981: 57). Anscombe’s remark may not be very plausible, if taken as an empirical
claim about how people, and soldiers in particular, become inured to the killing of
civilians in war. But it does point out a problem: pacifism seems oblivious to a real
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee045
2
moral difference between killing a soldier on the battlefield and killing a civilian in
her home. The pacifist can bite the bullet and say that all killing, or all killing in war,
is indeed equally – that is, absolutely – wrong. But a more discerning response might
be to try to find within the pacifist theory a way of distinguishing between the
wrongness of killing soldiers and that of killing civilians, thus providing some room
for the idea of civilian immunity.
However, pacifism is a broad church, and all this pertains only to the type of paci-
fism that rejects all violence, or all state violence, or all war, as such, under any cir-
cumstances. This kind of pacifism, often termed absolute, is contrasted with
contingent pacifism, which does not reject war as such, but rather distinguishes
between morally justified and morally unjustified war. It then argues that circumstances
under which war is justified may have obtained in the past, but no longer do in our
time. The indiscriminate character of modern military technology in general, and of
weapons of mass destruction in particular, as well as the tendency of contemporary
warfare to degenerate into “total war” that resists any moral or legal regulation, make
it virtually impossible to wage war while keeping clear of civilian life, limb, and prop-
erty. Accordingly, just war is a thing of the past. This line of argument does not deny
the validity of civilian immunity but rather acknowledges it, and takes it as the point
of departure in arguing against making war today (Holmes 1989; see pacifism).
While adherents of absolute pacifism assume civilian immunity and seek to
extend it to soldiers too, defenders of terrorism offer a mirror image of this argu-
ment: they start from the view of soldiers as legitimate targets in war or insurgency,
and attempt to show that civilians are implicated in the wrongs terrorists fight
against to a degree that makes them, too, legitimate targets of lethal violence. In
order to reach this conclusion, they deploy conceptions of collective responsibility
(see collective responsibility) that ascribe such responsibility to entire social
classes or ethnic, religious, or cultural groups, or to all citizens and residents of a
country. Some are alleged to share such responsibility on account of their political
(or apolitical) behavior, others on account of their (presumed) views and attitudes,
and still others because they are perceived as benefiting from the wrongs at issue.
A good example is provided by Osama Bin Laden:
The American people should remember that they pay taxes to their government and
that they voted for their president. Their government makes weapons and provides
them to Israel, which they use to kill Palestinian Muslims. Given that the American
Congress is a committee that represents the people, the fact that it agrees with the
actions of the American government proves that America in its entirety is responsible
for the atrocities that it is committing against Muslims. (Bin Laden 2005: 140–2)
Given such a crude understanding of collective responsibility, the conclusion

reached is, unsurprisingly, utterly implausible. Even if, for the sake of argument, one
were to grant Bin Laden’s assessment of US foreign policy, not any kind and degree
of involvement with it, however indirect and limited, is enough to make one liable to
be killed or maimed (see terrorism).
3
This line of thought is not the preserve of apologists of insurgent terrorism; it is

found in defenses of state terrorism, too. Thus Barry Buzan introduces the idea of a
civilian population that “deserves its government” and thereby becomes liable to
lethal violence, just as its armed forces and political leaders are. We need to target
civilians, too, because war is a conflict “not just between groups of fighters, but
between groups of fighters and their networks of support”; it aims not only at defeat-
ing enemy armed forces, but also at bringing about political reconstruction of their
country. Civilians come to deserve its government by voting for it, or by having the
option of voting, even if they make no use of it. Accordingly, civilians living in
democracies are legitimate targets. So are civilians under authoritarian regimes,
where these command mass support or acquiescence. To be sure, that can be coerced,
but “such coercion is usually visible, allowing distinctions to be drawn between
passive acceptance and terrorized obedience.” Only civilians living under “blatant
tyrannies” such as Uganda under Amin or Burma under the generals are clearly off
the hook. In general, “the question whether people get the government they deserve
can often be answered quite simply on the basis of day-to-day observations about
the relationship between the demos and the government” (Buzan 2002). The notions
of desert and responsibility at work here are just as simplistic as those of Bin Laden,
and the conclusion reached just as implausible.
Consequentialism
The consequentialist approach to civilian immunity, as to everything else, is simple:
we should go by consequences, and by consequences only. Civilian immunity ought
to be respected, for respecting it has, on balance, good consequences. By ruling out
the targeting of a large group of human beings, it helps reduce greatly the overall
killing, mayhem, and destruction in war.
This approach comes in two main versions: civilian immunity is understood
either as a rule that has been adopted and ought to be honored because that is for the
best, or as a rule that ought to be followed because that will be for the best.
On the first version, civilian immunity is a “convention-dependent moral
obligation”: it binds because a convention to that effect is in place. The convention is
justified by its expected good consequences. Generally, “convention-dependent
obligations, what one’s opponent does, what ‘everyone is doing,’ etc., are facts of
great moral importance. Such facts help to determine within what convention, if
any, one is operating, and thus they help one discover what his moral duties are”
(Mavrodes 1975: 128). This account is exposed to the objection that it makes civilian
immunity much too weak, for it makes it hostage to the decisions taken by political
and military leaders. Enemy leaders may or may not choose to respect the immunity
of our civilians. If they choose not to, we are not bound to respect the immunity of
their civilians. Being a convention, civilian immunity binds only if, or as long as, it
is accepted by both belligerent parties. To be sure, if no such convention is in place,
but we can help bring about its acceptance by unilaterally acting as if it were, thus
encouraging the enemy to do the same, we ought to do that. But if we have no good
4
reason to expect that, or if we have tried that approach and it has failed, our military
have a free hand to target enemy civilians when they think they need to do so.
Thus our moral choice is determined by the choice of enemy political and military
leaders. So is the fate of enemy civilians; the fact that they are civilians, in itself,
cannot help them.
The other version of the consequentialist rationale for civilian immunity, Richard
B. Brandt’s “contractual rule utilitarianism,” does not rely on this immunity being
adopted as a convention by belligerent parties. It presents this immunity as a moral
rule that ought to be acted on because that will be for the best. Our decisions in
particular cases of moral choice ought to be made by applying the relevant moral
rule. Moral rules we should have are those that would be contracted for by rational
and impartial persons, and such persons would contract for rules that maximize
expected long-term utility for all concerned. Rules of war, including that of civilian
immunity, are such rules: their observance makes for overall reduction of killing and
destruction wrought by war. In “serious wars, in which the stakes are great,” this rule
prohibits targeting civilians, except “when there is good evidence that [targeting
them] will significantly enhance the prospects of victory” (Brandt 1972: 156–7).
This rationale for civilian immunity, too, can be challenged as too weak. If all moral
force of civilian immunity derives from its utility, then it will have no such force in
cases where it has no utility. This is a basic flaw of consequentialism. It claims that
moral rules have no intrinsic moral significance, and explains their binding force
solely in terms of the good consequences of acting on them. Therefore it cannot
provide a good consequentialist reason to keep to a moral rule in cases where keeping
to it will not have the good consequences it usually has, and where better consequences
will be attained by departing from it. This means that we should respect civilian
immunity when, and only when, doing so will have the good consequences adduced
as its ground: when it will indeed reduce the overall killing and destruction. But
whenever we have good reasons to believe that, by targeting civilians, we shall make
a significant contribution to our war effort, thus shortening the war and reducing
the overall killing and mayhem, that is what we may, and indeed ought, to do. Thus
civilian immunity is made hostage to the vagaries of war, instead of providing civil-
ians with strong protection against them. Restricting the application of the rule to
“serious” wars, in which “the stakes are great,” will not alleviate the problem; for as
far as nations at war are concerned, every war is a very serious matter and the stakes
are always great.
Just War Theory

Adherents of a nonconsequentialist approach in ethics find consequentialist
rationales for moral rules inadequate. Such rules should rather be understood as
having intrinsic moral significance, so that their binding force is not conditional on
compliance being the option with best consequences (see rules, standards, and
principles). The dominant nonconsequentialist position in the ethics of war is just
war theory. The theory explains civilian immunity in terms of justice and rights,
5
rather than its good and bad consequences, and considers the targeting of civilians
as wrong in itself, rather than only instrumentally.
This does not mean that the civilian status itself grounds immunity against lethal
violence in war, but rather that this status is a very good indication of innocence:
civilians ought not to be attacked because they are innocent. They need not be
innocent in the usual, moral sense of not being implicated in the war in any way
and to any degree. In a modern war, and in particular in a modern war popular with
the population, only children, the insane, the aged and infirm, and those actively
opposing the war would be innocent in this sense. The term is rather meant in the
etymological sense of innocentes, “not harming.” All human beings have a right not
to be killed or maimed to start with, and may be attacked only if, by some act or
omission, they have waived or forfeited this right, and have come to deserve, or be
liable to, such treatment. One of the ways of forfeiting this right is by joining the
military and fighting in war. Unlike soldiers, civilians do not do this; therefore,
although they may not be morally utterly innocent in relation to war, they are not
“currently engaged in the business of war” (Walzer 2006: 43). Unlike soldiers,
civilians cannot be located within “the chain of command or responsibility” at work
in war (Murphy 1973: 532). Therefore soldiers at war are a legitimate target of deadly
violence, and civilians are not. Targeting civilians is a violation of a basic right and
an extremely grave injustice.
This view is often challenged by putative counterexamples and borderline cases.
Is a soldier a legitimate target at any time and in any circumstances, say while sleeping,
or when on leave, on the way to visit family in the rear? Is a military chaplain or
medic a soldier and a legitimate target? On the other hand, some civilians clearly
play an indispensable role in war. A cabinet comprised of government ministers
directs the prosecution of war; there are factory workers who produce arms and
ammunition, and scientists who carry out research needed for developing military
technology. Are they nevertheless protected, by virtue of being civilians?
Most of such questions can be answered provided the formula “currently
engaged in the business of war” is understood properly. “Currently” does not mean
right this minute, and “engaged in the business of war” does not mean only using
some kind of arms in an attempt to kill, or issuing commands to someone who is
doing that. The “business of war” is a complex, collective, and prolonged activity.
A soldier sleeping now will wake up later and resume his part in this business;
therefore he is fair game even when asleep. The same applies to the case of a soldier
on leave.
Political leaders of a country at war wear no uniform and do no fighting, but they
decide that others shall fight, and when, where, and how they shall do that. Therefore
they, too, are legitimate targets. Workers in an arms or ammunition factory wear no
uniform and do no fighting, but without their products war could not be fought.
Accordingly, arms and ammunition factories and those working there are legitimate
targets too. The same holds of scientists engaged in military-related research. There
are, then, certain groups of civilians that are not entitled to civilian immunity. But
the vast majority of civilians in virtually any war are (Ford 1944: 282–6).
6
War cannot be fought without soldiers being fed either; yet workers in a food
factory may not be attacked, even if all their produce goes to the army. For workers
producing arms or ammunition provide the means of fighting, and cater to soldiers
as soldiers. Workers producing food help feed soldiers as human beings, not as
soldiers; they cater to a need humans have at all times, not only in war (Nagel
1972: 140). The same is true of military chaplains and medics, however. They are in
uniform and usually it is well-nigh impossible to distinguish them from enemy
soldiers proper; but whenever that is possible, they should not be harmed.
This may not settle all borderline cases. But just war theory offers some moral
guidance with regard to moot cases too. In criminal law we start with the presumption
of innocence the prosecution must overturn. Similarly, when facing a dubious case
in war, we should start with the presumption of immunity, and attack only if we
have succeeded in overturning it and showing that our target is part of the chain of
command or responsibility in the war being waged against us.
The protection of civilians in the laws and customs of war, codified in particular in
the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949) and its two Additional Protocols (1977), is
largely in line with that mandated by just war theory, but its scope is wider, since the
term “civilian” is taken in a wider sense: it includes all those who are not combatants,
that is, take no direct part in armed hostilities. Civilians must not be attacked or threat-
ened with attack. All attacks not directed at specific military targets, or using a method
or means of combat that cannot be so directed, are deemed indiscriminate and are
prohibited. Harm to civilians incidental to attacks on legitimate military targets must
not be disproportionate to the direct military advantage sought (see Kretzmer 2007).
Even if the legal prohibition of targeting civilians in war allows for no exceptions,
the question remains whether just war theory must construe civilian immunity as a
moral rule to be upheld in any circumstances whatsoever (see moral absolutes).
Contrary to what consequentialism claims, targeting civilians is not wrong because,
and only insofar as, its consequences are bad, but rather in itself. It is wrong in itself,
and to a very high degree at that, because it violates basic rights of civilians and
constitutes a grave injustice. But must justice be done even if the heavens fall? Some
adherents of just war theory maintain that it must:
As innocents, the justification of punitive killing does not apply to [civilians]. As

non-combatants, the justification of preventative killing does not apply to them. They
have not agreed to occupy the role of instrument; they have not consented to be treated
as means to a military or political end; they have done, and are doing, nothing that
warrants attacks on them. It is then one of the most fundamental principles of justice
which requires that civilians be immune from targeting in war. Civilians may not be
targeted whatever the consequences. (McKeogh 2002: 165)
However, this is not the sole possible view of civilian immunity within just war
theory. It can also be argued that, although targeting civilians in war is wrong in
itself and to a very high degree, nevertheless it is not absolutely wrong. Considerations
of justice and rights normally have greater weight than those of good and bad
7
consequences. But in exceptional circumstances considerations to do with conse-

quences may be so momentous, the cost of failing to violate rights and commit injus-
tice may be so high, that justice and rights may have to give way. Obviously, the
prospect of defeat in battle, or even in war, is not enough. Sheer military necessity
cannot override civilian immunity; if it could, this immunity would amount to very
little, and so would the rights and principles of justice that ground it (see mili-
tary necessity). What could override civilian immunity must be (a) an imminent
threat (b) of something intolerable, morally speaking, (c) which can be staved off
only by deliberate attacks on civilians.
Michael Walzer’s “supreme emergency” view is an influential version of this
position. With regard to the nature of the threat, at the outset Walzer speaks of threats
of the sort victory of Nazi Germany in World War II and its rule over most of Europe
would have presented: an era of “barbaric violence,” in which entire peoples are
exterminated or enslaved. He goes on to restrict the threat of extermination or enslave-
ment to a single people, and eventually writes simply of a threat to “the survival and
freedom of a political community” (2004, 2006: Ch. 16). The last characterization is
ambiguous: it might refer to extermination or enslavement of a nation, or to its loss of
political independence. The condition of efficiency of deliberate killing of civilians as
a means of fending off the threat raises the epistemic question: what degree of confi-
dence must we have that this means, and this means only, will remove the threat? In
these matters there can be no certainty, nor can they be resolved by some calculation
of probabilities, for there is no method of quantifying them. What leaders of a country
in a supreme emergency must do instead is study the situation closely, take the best
advice available, and then “wager” the “determinate crime” of deliberate killing of
civilians against the “immeasurable evil” that will otherwise befall their country
(Walzer 2006: 259–60).
This view may be thought unsatisfactory, because not stringent enough, on two
counts: Walzer’s characterization of the danger is too vague and its scope too broad,
and the epistemic standard is too low. A range of wrongs with extermination of
entire peoples at one end and a people’s loss of political independence at the other
is much too wide and varied. Loss of political independence of a nation may not
be morally deplorable, let alone morally intolerable, for a state may lack moral
legitimacy. But even if a state is morally legitimate, surely its loss of independence
does not amount to a moral disaster so extreme that deliberate killing and maiming
of civilians is not too high a price to be paid for its prevention. Even enslavement of
a people, literally understood – a moral atrocity by any standard – might be thought
not quite in the same category as extermination, for it lacks the irreversibility of
extermination. There is, however, a position that is structurally similar to Walzer’s
“supreme emergency” view, but more restrictive with regard to the nature of the
danger and laying down a higher epistemic standard (Primoratz 2011). If a people is
faced with the prospect of extermination, or of being “ethnically cleansed” from its
land, then it is faced with a moral disaster so extreme, that even deliberate attacks on
enemy civilians may properly be considered as a way of preventing it. Owing to their
enormity and irreversibility, extermination and ethnic cleansing of an entire people
8
make up a separate category of moral atrocity, beyond such evils as enslavement,

economic oppression, or foreign rule.
Moreover, it may not be convincing to argue, as Walzer does, that in a crisis of the
sort under discussion, if we cannot really know what will work, we must wager on
whatever might. This conclusion seems to be driven by the sense of enormity of the
crisis. But deliberate killing and maiming of innocent civilians is also a moral enormity.
When that, too, is given its due, as it surely must be, the conclusion seems to be that,
even in such a crisis, if deliberate onslaught on civilians is to be allowed, the grounds for
thinking that it will work, and that nothing else will, must be very strong indeed. If we
have no such grounds, we must refrain. Even in a desperate plight, we should not wager
with the lives of people who are enemy civilians, but innocent civilians nonetheless.
The above discussion of civilian immunity might be thought bound up with a
version of just war theory that accords a high degree of independence to the two
prongs of the theory, jus ad bellum and jus in bello, and holds civilian immunity to
be equally binding on all soldiers, whether their cause is just or not (see moral
equality of combatants). When they kill only enemy soldiers, they commit no
murder. When they kill enemy civilians, they commit murder. But civilian immunity
can also be endorsed by those who consider jus ad bellum and jus in bello to be much
more closely related, and argue that soldiers fighting for an unjust cause should not
be fighting at all, so that when they kill enemy soldiers whose cause is just, that is
unjustified killing, i.e., murder. For although every murder is an extremely morally
grave matter, not every such matter – not every murder – is morally grave in the
same degree. To murder a person who is not fighting us, who is defenseless, and who
cannot relate her death in some meaningful way to her own choices and actions, is
morally worse than to murder a soldier who is fighting us with a just cause.
Both in the ethics of war and in international law, civilian immunity is taken to
refer to immunity against harm inflicted with intent. But in war civilians are also
harmed without intent, but with foresight, as a side effect of acts of war directed
at legitimate, military targets. For a discussion of this topic, see collateral
damage.
See also: collateral damage; collective responsibility;

consequentialism; just war theory, history of; military necessity;
moral absolutes; moral equality of combatants; pacifism; rules,
standards, and principles; terrorism; war
REFERENCES
Anscombe, G. E. M. 1981. “War and Murder,” in Ethics, Religion and Politics. Oxford:
Bin Laden, Osama 2005. Messages to the World, ed. Bruce Lawrence, trans. James Howarth.
New York: Verso.
Brandt, Richard B. 1972. “Utilitarianism and the Rules of War,” Philosophy and Public Affairs,
vol. 1, pp. 145–65.
9
Buzan, Barry 2002. “Who May We Bomb?” in Ken Booth and Tim Dunne (eds.), Worlds in
Collision: Terror and the Future of Global Order. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 85–94.
Ford, John C., SJ 1944. “The Morality of Obliteration Bombing,” Theological Studies, vol. 5,
pp. 261–309.
Holmes, Robert L. 1989. On War and Morality. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Kretzmer, David 2007. “Civilian Immunity in War: Legal Aspects,” in Igor Primoratz (ed.),
Civilian Immunity in War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 84–112.
McKeogh, Colm 2002. Innocent Civilians: The Morality of Killing in War. New York: Palgrave.
Mavrodes, George I. 1975. “Conventions and the Morality of War,” Philosophy and Public
Murphy, Jeffrie G. 1973. “The Killing of the Innocent,” The Monist, vol. 57, pp. 527–50.
Nagel, Thomas 1972. “War and Massacre,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 1, pp. 123–44.
Primoratz, Igor 2011. “Civilian Immunity, Supreme Emergency, and Moral Disaster,” Journal
of Ethics, vol. 15, pp. 371–86.
Walzer, Michael 2004. “Emergency Ethics,” in Arguing about War. New Haven: Yale University
Press, pp. 33–50.
FURTHER READINGS
Anscombe, G. E. M. 1981. “Mr. Truman’s Degree,” in Ethics, Religion and Politics. Oxford:
Dobos, Ned 2007. “Democratic Authorization and Civilian Immunity,” Philosophical Forum,
vol. 38, pp. 81–8.
Draper, Kai 1998. “Self-Defense, Collective Obligation, and Noncombatant Liability,” Social
Theory and Practice, vol. 24, pp. 51–81.
Fabre, Cecile 2009. “Guns, Food, and Liability to Attack in War,” Ethics, vol. 120, pp. 36–63.
Green, Michael 1992. “War, Innocence, and Theories of Sovereignty,” Social Theory and
Johnson, James Turner 2000. “Maintaining the Protection of Non-Combatants,” Journal of
Peace Research, vol. 37, pp. 421–48.
Jollimore, Troy 2007. “Terrorism, War, and the Killing of the Innocent,” Ethical Theory and
Moral Practice, vol. 10, pp. 353–72.
Nathanson, Stephen 2010. “Patriotism, War, and the Limits of Permissible Partiality,” Journal
of Ethics, vol. 13, pp. 401–22.
Norman, Richard 1995. Ethics, Killing and War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Palmer-Fernandez, Gabriel 2000. “Innocence in War,” International Journal of Applied
Primoratz, Igor (ed.) 2007. Civilian Immunity in War. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Primoratz, Igor 2010. “Can the Bombing Be Morally Justified?” in Igor Primoratz (ed.),
Terror from the Sky: The Bombing of German Cities in World War II. New York: Berghahn.
Skerker, Michael 2004. “Just War Criteria and the New Face of War: Human Shields,
Manufactured Martyrs, and Little Boys with Stones,” Journal of Military Ethics, vol. 3,
pp. 27–39.
Woodruff, Paul 1982. “Justification or Excuse: Saving Soldiers at the Expense of Civilians,”
Canadian Journal of Philosophy, suppl. vol. 8, pp. 159–76.
1
Global Distributive Justice

Kok-Chor Tan
On one common interpretation, the ideal of global distributive justice refers to

something very specific: that, as a matter of global justice, distributive inequalities
globally (between states or among persons across states) ought to be of concern. For
convenience, I will sometimes refer to this ideal as global egalitarianism (see justice;
equality). The problem of global distributive justice is thus a conceptually distinct
one from the problem of global poverty (see global poverty; world hunger).
The duty to counter poverty is a duty with a threshold – it is a duty that ceases when
the minimum subsistence level that defines poverty is crossed. A distributive duty,
on the other hand, given its objective of regulating inequalities, is continuous and
remains in play so long as inequalities are present among the relevant parties.
A distributive principle, of course, does not necessarily demand that there be no
inequalities in outcome at all – indeed this kind of strict egalitarian principle is rather
implausible. More defensible principles of distributive equality do not seek absolute
equality of outcome, but aim to regulate or limit the kinds and degrees of inequalities
that are admissible. They are, nonetheless, egalitarian, even though they take the
paradoxical form of “permitting” inequalities because they hold that an equal distri-
bution is the default and that the burden of proof falls on any departure from this
benchmark of equality. Thus John Rawls’ difference principle (1971, 2001) – which,
roughly, states that inequalities between parties are acceptable only under a social
arrangement that is most beneficial for the worst off – is a quintessential example of
an egalitarian distributive principle (see rawls, john; difference principle).
To illustrate further the difference between a global egalitarian principle and a
threshold principle of poverty alleviation, consider Rawls’ (1999) own duty of
assistance in his theory of international justice. Rawls’ duty of assistance, to be sure,
is not merely a humanitarian principle; it extends beyond ensuring that persons in
the world are able to meet their basic needs, to include the goal of providing socie-
ties with the means to sustain decent functioning institutions of their own. But,
unlike a distributive principle, as Rawls explicitly notes, the duty of assistance does
not regulate inequalities as such between countries (1999: 106–13). Another
example of a threshold principle is found in Amartya Sen’s and Martha Nussbaum’s
capability approach (see capabilities), wherein the ideal is to ensure that indi-
viduals are able to meet a requisite level of capacity in order to attain certain defined
human functionings (Sen 1992; Nussbaum 2000). Thomas Pogge’s (2002) influen-
tial collection of essays is also primarily concerned with poverty rather than with
distributive justice in the sense understood here (Rawls 1999: 118).
Taking global distributive justice to be a conceptually distinct problem from that
of global poverty does not mean that the two issues are separate and independent of
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee047
2
each other in practice. It might be that global poverty cannot be properly eliminated
while significant global inequalities between persons or societies remain a fact, in
which case the commitment to eradicate poverty results in an instrumental
commitment to limit inequalities. But it is also imaginable that significant inequalities
can persist between countries without anyone or any society being impoverished.
Or, put another way, even when all the persons in the world are lifted above the
poverty line, it is still possible, and likely in practice, that inequalities remain. The
problem of global distributive justice is: do these non-poverty-inducing inequalities
generate a concern of justice? To be sure, the problem of global poverty is more
immediate and urgent than that of distributive equality as such. Still, the idea of
global distributive justice raises important questions, with a philosophical and prac-
tical significance of their own. This essay aims to highlight some of the debates
surrounding this idea.
A survey of the contemporary philosophical debate on global distributive jus-
tice can present the progress of the discourse with the help of a dialectical story. In
the beginning, global egalitarians sought to extend to the global arena powerful
arguments for egalitarian justice, which had been conceived for the domestic state.
Arguing that there are no significant moral differences between the state and
global domains, they held that, on grounds of consistency, if there is a case for
egalitarian distributive justice within the state, there is also a case for egalitarian-
ism globally. Call this the extension phase of the global egalitarian project. But this
argument for extension quickly ran into opposition. Against it, some communitar-
ian and nationalist theorists held that global egalitarianism is at odds with national
self-determination. The demands of global egalitarianism can come into conflict
with, and undermine, nationalistic concerns and commitments – special concern
for compatriots, the demands of patriotism, and so on. Call this the nationalist
challenge against global egalitarianism; and the task of the global egalitarians in
this phase of the debate was to respond to the nationalist claim about the limits of
global egalitarianism. Finally, some commentators have argued that the challenge
against global egalitarianism is not an argument only about the limits of the com-
peting demands of justice, but about the actual reach or scope of egalitarian jus-
tice. The critics held that it is the special circumstances of the state that generate
the demands of egalitarian distributive justice, circumstances that don’t obtain at
the global level. This last stage, call it the challenge of the special circumstance of
egalitarian justice, is where the debate is at presently. In what follows I will briefly
consider arguments for and against global egalitarianism in terms of these three
phases of the debate.
The Extension Phase

As mentioned, the first phase of the contemporary global egalitarian project involves
extending the argument for distributive justice to the global plane. The attempt made
by some prominent commentators to apply John Rawls’ theory of justice globally pro-
vides an excellent illustration of this phase. Rawls’ A Theory of Justice (1971) proposes
3
a method for constructing a conception of justice for the context of the state. To that
end, to get started, Rawls reasonably made some simplifying assumptions: that the
state is imagined to be a closed system of social cooperation; and that it is self-suffi-
cient. In reaction to Rawls’ project, global egalitarians like Charles Beitz (1999) and,
later, Thomas Pogge (1989) argued that, if we were to lift Rawls’ methodological
assumptions – as we should, if we were to change the subject from that of confined
domestic justice to that of global justice – then we would effectively arrive at a “glo-
balized” version of Rawls’ theory of justice. That is, Rawls’ two principles of justice,
including his distributive principle, would simply take on global scope. The argument
is that, once we reject the assumption of the state as a self-sufficient and closed system
of social cooperation but recognize states to be in fact interacting, and even engaging
in forms of social cooperation with other states, the Rawlsian method of reasoning
must necessarily take on a global scope. Thus Rawls’ well-known original position,
the initial situation in which representatives of persons decide on the first principles
of justice, ought also to be globalized, and consequently factors such as persons’
national membership are also to be seen as arbitrary from the moral point of view (see
cosmopolitanism). Once nationality is considered to be an arbitrary factor and dis-
counted in a global original position, representatives of persons behind the veil of
ignorance would opt for some global distributive commitments analogous to the
commitments Rawls says that persons within a single state would agree on. These
arguments have been adopted and developed more recently by cosmopolitans such as
Simon Caney (2005) and Darrel Moellendorf (2001).
There was a noticeable consensus at the early stage of the debate that this extension
of Rawlsian arguments to the global arena was legitimate and required. Philosophers
largely sympathetic to Rawls’ basic project, such as Scanlon (1975) and Barry (1974),
took the globalists’ side in this early part of the global-justice debate.
Responding to the Nationalist Challenge

In reaction to the extension project, a number of critics raise the challenge that
global egalitarianism is implausible in light of the various special nationalist and
patriotic commitments persons have. As a member of a nation state, one has special
concerns about and commitments to fellow members that one need not have toward
strangers; and global egalitarianism risks running roughshod over these national or
patriotic commitments, the objection goes. The challenge of patriotism in fact
replicates an issue familiar in moral philosophy: how can morality, conceived of as
impartial and universalistic, accommodate and philosophically account for the
range of partial and personal pursuits that are valuable for an ordinary individual
life (see impartiality; personal relationships; loyalty)? This challenge is
especially poignant for utilitarianism, given that the latter takes the ultimate moral
end to be that of maximizing utility for the greatest number (see utilitarianism).
But, given the idea of universalizability, which is central to the Kantian moral
doctrine, Kantians too have to explain how morality can allow space for partial and
personal pursuits (see kantian practical ethics; kant, immanuel). At any rate,
4
in its global version, the challenge is that the general demands of global egalitarianism
imply a form of impartiality in tension with the special partial duties that persons
ordinarily have toward those close and dear to them.
Thus philosophers like Samuel Scheffler (2001), who finds certain aspects of
global justice appealing, urge a more modest or moderate understanding of
cosmopolitanism in order to accommodate these partial commitments. But the
more extreme form of the challenge comes from nationalist theorists like David
Miller and Margaret Moore, who go further to hold that national justice has priority
over global or cosmopolitan justice (Miller 1995, 2000; Moore 2001).
These nationalist theorists argue that, when there is conflict between different
domains or spheres of justice, it is not so straightforward to say that one domain
should be supreme (see nationalism and patriotism). Thus, when the demands
of global justice compete with the demands of national justice, one cannot assume
that the default is to grant primacy to global demands. To the contrary, there are
good special reasons, reasons having to do with the ideal of the nation state, for
giving preference to national demands (Miller 2000).
Now it is important to note the form of the challenge here. The patriotic challenge
does not directly deny that there are valid global distributive principles. That is, it
does not take issue with the extension project of the first stage. It puts forward what
we may call a limitation argument (Jones 1999) – in the sense that, while there could
be good reasons for global distributive principles, there are also good (if not more
important) reasons for other kinds of principles, which are in competition with the
global principles. The challenge aims to show that, at the very least, global distributive
commitments have to be limited by patriotic commitments, if not altogether
overridden.
Understanding the form of the challenge is important because it shows what
would count as an appropriate response. Faced with this particular limitation
argument, the global egalitarian need not provide another independent argument
for global egalitarianism – that such commitments are valid is not challenged
here. The challenge denies the priority of global justice over national justice;
and what the global egalitarian has to do in light of this challenge is to
show that, where there is a conflict between global and patriotic commitments
of justice, global commitments have priority.
In reply, global egalitarians have argued that, to the extent that national
commitments cannot be justly discharged unless obligations of global justice have
been met, acceptable nationalism presupposes the priority of global justice. For
example, within domestic society, special cooperative groups that have their own,
local distributive principles will not know what their respective fair shares are (that
is, the shares to be distributed among their members) without reference to what
domestic distributive justice as a whole requires of these groups. In short, it seems
that, by default, the claims of justice regulating relations in the dominant sphere
have priority over the claims of justice within any subsphere. Otherwise members of
the subsphere would not know whether they are acting justly or not (unless they
5
assume away the existence and the justice demands of members in the dominant
sphere). The priority of justice in the dominant set simply stems from the basic idea
that individual members of a subsphere cannot distribute among themselves
resources or goods that are not rightly theirs; and they can’t know what is rightly
theirs unless they first acknowledge and discharge their obligations to other groups
within the dominant set.
Some commentators argue that the analogy invoked above between individual
pursuits versus domestic justice on the one side, and domestic justice versus global
justice on the other is flawed. They say that, while “justice features only on one side
of the balance” in the domestic case, “it features on both sides” in the second case
(Miller 2000: 167). Thus, while it is plausible that justice takes precedence over
personal pursuits, it is less clear, when two sets of claims of justice compete (as in the
case of domestic versus global justice), which one should dominate. In reply, the
global egalitarians point out that, even in the domestic context, there exist competing
claims of justice between the justice of the state (domestic justice) and the justice of
private associations and groups (local justice). Yet we accept that domestic justice
takes priority in the sense that private associations cannot regulate their internal
justice in distribution at the expense of the requirements of domestic justice that
bind them. So, too, it is not implausible that the demands of global justice take
precedence over the demands of domestic justice, even if both are claims of justice
(Tan 2004).
The Circumstances of Egalitarian Justice

Global egalitarians, however, now face a distinct criticism. The challenge in the third
and current stage of the discourse on global justice holds that distributive justice
applies only in the special context of the nation state and does not extend to the
global domain. In effect, it says that the extension attempt in the first stage was a
serious and fundamental misstep – it wrongly applies to an inappropriate context
the reasoning made for justice in a special context. Arguments for distributive justice
take hold only when certain conditions obtain; and, while these conditions do obtain
in the context of the nation state, they are absent in the global context. The problem,
unlike in the second stage, is not merely one of priority, but one of establishing the
validity of global justice in the first place.
This challenge demands that egalitarians revisit the reasons why distributive
equality matters at all, and to examine whether these reasons are unique to the state
or whether, in some form, they obtain globally as well. What are some of the reasons
why equality matters, and do these reasons limit the scope of equality to the nation
state? I will recount some of the more prominent among the recent arguments that
defend the limited (national) scope of equality, and I will outline possible responses
to these arguments on the global egalitarian’s behalf. These are the arguments from
coercion, from shared governance, and from social cooperation (see coercion;
reciprocity; political obligation).
6
Coercion
Some commentators have stressed that an important difference between the state
and the global arenas, which makes it such that distributive justice commitments are
issued in the one but not the other, is that the state is a legally ongoing coercive
order. It is this fact of lawful coercion that generates egalitarian commitments among
members of a nation state; and, because there isn’t a lawful global coercive authority,
there is no similar reason for caring about global equality (Blake 2002; Miller 1998).
One prominent argument, that of Michael Blake’s, draws on the idea of autonomy:
since lawful coercion is in the first instance autonomy restricting, it must be justifiable
to those being coerced if the lawful coercion is to be legitimate. On this account, such
an arrangement would be justifiable if no arbitrary inequalities were admitted. That
is, such a coercive order is acceptable, in spite of its restrictions on autonomy, if it is
tempered by some institutional distributive egalitarian commitments.
Blake’s argument has received much attention recently, and I will point out two
possible lines of response – hopefully without doing too much injustice to Blake’s
own complex arguments and to the discussion they have elicited. One line is to
challenge the belief that coercion is the sine qua non of egalitarian justice. It might
be the case that, where there is lawful coercion, some distributive commitments
need to be acknowledged in order to make that arrangement legitimate in the eyes
of all subjects. But it does not follow that coercion is a necessary condition for
distributive justice – it is open to the argument that there are other reasons for caring
among distributive inequalities besides that of needing to legitimize coercion.
The second response addresses the empirical claim of the coercion argument: that
there isn’t a global coercive order. Many observers point out that this premise is ques-
tionable. There is, they will say, an ongoing coercive global legal order that is both pro-
found and pervasive, and hence autonomy restricting. Just to take one example, the fact
of border regulation and immigration restrictions. These are lawful institutional
arrangements, enacted domestically, no doubt, but sanctioned by the international legal
order, and they have a profound impact on persons’ autonomy (see immigration).
Thus, if the need to legitimate domestic lawful coercion is what generates the
egalitarian commitment in the domestic setting, then global law coercion should
similarly generate global egalitarian commitments.
One might say that there is something distinct about those who are coerced qua
members of a state and those who are coerced qua nonmembers. But a reason for
this distinction has to be given; it cannot be just assumed that membership has some
a priori special moral standing.
Shared governance
Thomas Nagel’s already influential paper “The Problem of Global Justice” (2005)
introduces a second element, in addition to coercion, to draw out the distinction
between coercion among members and coercion against outsiders. If successful,
Nagel’s account will not be vulnerable to the objection offered above, that there is
ongoing coercion of persons at the global level.
7
The additional element Nagel introduces is the notion of shared authorship in the
laws of one’s society, or the implication of one’s will in the system that one is a
participating subject of. Unlike the coerced outsiders wanting to get inside, insiders
aren’t just under coercion; they are coerced under a system of which they also see
themselves as joint authors – a system whose establishment and maintenance engages
their will (that is, their acceptance of this arrangement). It is only among joint authors
of a coercive arrangement, Nagel argues, that justifications for the legitimacy of that
coercive arrangement can be demanded. One necessary condition for gaining
legitimacy is that no arbitrary inequalities be admissible. Thus the case for distributive
justice is triggered. But, since there is no global coercive order that all persons are
seen to be the joint authors of, there is no basis for global distributive demands.
Objections to global inequalities do not gain any foothold, as Nagel puts it.
Nagel’s is a challenging thesis, and it will continue to be discussed. Let me here
offer some observations. I think that both core premises of the argument, the
normative and empirical, can be questioned. The empirical premise that there isn’t a
global order that implicates the will of globally situated individuals seems
questionable. The fact that we do challenge some decisions of global institutions on
the grounds that they have ignored the points of view of the persons affected suggests
that, ideally, we conceive of these institutions as subjects of joint authorship and as
expressions of the will of persons affected (e.g., Cohen and Sabel 2006; see interna-
tional relations; globalization; trips; world trade organization). So,
even if we accept that distributive demands can be made, not by the persons affected
by a common social arrangement, but only by those who have a special status as
joint authors of the system, it does not follow immediately that distributive justice
has a limited scope.
But the normative premise itself can be questioned. As some commentators have
pointed out (Julius 2006; Abizadeh 2007; Caney 2008; Tan 2006), the normative
premise seems a little perverse. It suggests that my coercion of you requires no
justification when you have no say at all about what I can do to you, whereas, if you
are regarded as someone having some say, I will need to justify the coercion. This
removes protection from those who are the most vulnerable to our actions and
policies: people, outsiders in particular, who have no say in policies that impact them
are most in need of protection, and most entitled to demand that we justify the
things we do, where they impact them. Joint authors are, by comparison, less
vulnerable by virtue of their role as collaborators in the design and sustenance of the
system. So the normative premise does seem implausible – it protects members but
removes protection from nonmembers, who are often the most vulnerable ones.
Social cooperation
Recently some philosophers have turned to the related notions of reciprocity and
social cooperation to distinguish the state from the global domain. Distributive justice
is a commitment of reciprocity, and reciprocity commitments derive from the fact of
social cooperation. Part of what it means to be participants in a scheme of
8
social cooperation is to endorse the ideal of reciprocity – that is, the terms of social
engagement should be terms that all participants can reasonably accept. And part of
being in a reciprocal relationship is to impose on others arrangements that they could
reasonably accept. It is this reciprocal commitment that leads us to the difference prin-
ciple, which specifies the conditions under which social inequalities could not be rea-
sonably rejected (Rawls 2001). Now, because there aren’t global schemes of social
cooperation, these commentators argue, there is no global reciprocity of the relevant
sort that could generate distributive commitments (Freeman 2006; see social con-
tract).
As with the above, the argument has both a normative and an empirical premise:
that distributive justice arises only in the context of institutions of social cooperation;
and that there aren’t institutions of social cooperation to be found globally. To
respond to this argument, then, one has to refute either (or both) of these premises.
To refute the empirical premise, the globalist has to show that there are in fact global
institutions based on social cooperation. The premise denies what several globalists
have argued for a while now: that there is a basic global structure that reflects the
ideal of social cooperation (Beitz 1999; Buchanan 2000).
The normative premise takes it that justice kicks in when there is social
cooperation; but it leaves open the question whether justice itself could demand the
establishment of institutions of social cooperation where none existed. So the
globalist may attempt to refute this premise by presenting an argument that, whereas
distributive justice demands social cooperation in the sense that social cooperation
is part of what is meant by the ideal of distributive justice, distributive justice
commitments don’t presuppose an existing social cooperation. That is, demands of
justice could be made among persons prior to any cooperative arrangements existing
among themselves.
For example, one could argue that, in a state of affairs where there is sufficient
interdependence and interaction among agents, these agents have a duty of justice
to ensure that their interaction and independence are on fair terms. That is, why not
hold that these agents have the duty to ensure that they in fact cooperate with each
other when interaction among them is unavoidable? And why not say that, where
social cooperation requires certain institutional arrangements, these agents have
the duty of justice to create such institutions? Rawls’ own remarks, that there is a
natural duty to establish just institutions where they don’t exist, support this idea,
that justice need not rely on existing institutions as a condition of its applicability
(Rawls 1971). Rather, justice can in fact demand that institutions of appropriate
kinds be put into place.
In other words, the response to the argument from social cooperation is to reject
the idea that social cooperation provides the necessary (rather than just the suffi-
cient) basis for any commitment to distributive equality. If it can be established that
distributive egalitarian concerns are generated when there is adequate and sus-
tained interaction between parties even in the absence of social cooperation among
them, then, even if the global arena does not resemble a socially cooperative
arrangement, this does not imply that global justice has no place there. The fact of
9
sustained global interaction, a fact imposed by globalization, could be sufficient for

generating global distributive commitments.
The challenge against global egalitarianism in the third stage is perhaps the most
profound; for it involves the fundamental question of the conditions or circum-
stances of distributive justice. The debate here is ongoing, and the arguments on
both sides demand greater attention and deeper analysis. What I have done is, at
best, to indicate some possible lines of response on the global egalitarian’s behalf.
Concluding Remarks
The defense of global distributive justice will require continuing engagement with
the philosophical question as to why distributive equality matters. In addition to
making attempts to give dominant accounts of why equality matters (as discussed
just above – reciprocity, coercion, shared governance, etc.), global egalitarians have
the potential of moving the debate on equality forward by introducing or reviving
alternative arguments for distributive equality. For instance, global egalitarians can
try to restore the ideal of luck egalitarian – roughly, the ideal that persons should not
be disadvantaged by circumstances not of their own choosing; and egalitarianism
can defend global egalitarianism on the grounds of mitigating luck (see moral
luck). There is potential here for new developments concerning equality. Global
egalitarians, with their special sensitivity to distinct problems that arise at the global
level, should be motivated to develop and offer new theories of equality, which
state-centered theorists may not be able to offer, given their limited set of problems.
See also: capabilities; coercion; cosmopolitanism; difference principle;

equality; global poverty; globalization; immigration; impartiality;
international relations; justice; kant, immanuel; kantian practical
ethics; loyalty; moral luck; nationalism and patriotism; personal
relationships; political obligation; rawls, john; reciprocity; social
contract; trips; utilitarianism; world hunger; world trade organization
REFERENCES
Abizadeh, Arash 2007. “Cooperation, Pervasive Impact, and Coercion: On the Scope (not
Site) of Distributive Justice,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 35, pp. 318–58.
Barry, Barry 1974. A Liberal Theory of Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Beitz, Charles 1983. “Cosmopolitan Ideal and National Sentiment,” The Journal of Philosophy,
vol. 80, no. 10, pp. 591–600.
Beitz, Charles 1999 [1979]. Political Theory and International Relations, 2nd ed. Princeton:
Blake, Michael 2002. “Distributive Justice, State Coercion, and Autonomy,” Philosophy and
Buchanan, Allen 2000. “Rawls’ Law of Peoples,” Ethics, vol. 110, pp. 697–721.
Caney, Simon 2005. Justice Beyond Borders. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
10
Caney, Simon 2008. “Global Distributive Justice and the State,” Political Studies, vol. 57,
pp. 487–518.
Cohen, Joshua, and Charles Sabel 2006. “Extra republicam nulla iustitia?” Philosophy and
Freeman, Samuel 2006. “Distributive Justice and the Law of Peoples,” in Rex Martin and David
Reidy (eds.), Rawls’ Law of Peoples: A Realistic Utopia? Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 243–60.
Jones, Charles 1999. Global Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Julius, A. J. 2006. “Nagel’s Atlas,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 34, pp. 176–92.
Miller, David 2000. Citizenship and National Identity. Cambridge: Polity.
Miller, Richard 1998. “Cosmopolitan Respect and Patriotic Concern,” Philosophy and Public
Affairs, vol. 27, no. 3, pp. 202–24.
Moellendorf, Darrel 2001. Cosmopolitan Justice. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Moore, Margaret 2001. The Ethics of Nationalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nagel, Thomas 2005. “The Problem of Global Justice,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 33,
pp. 113–47.
Nussbaum, Martha 2000. Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach.
Pogge, Thomas 1989. Realizing Rawls. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Pogge, Thomas 2002. World Poverty and Human Rights. Cambridge: Polity.
Rawls, John 2001. Justice as Fairness, ed. Erin Kelly. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Scanlon, Thomas M. 1975. “Rawls’ Theory of Justice,” in N. Daniels (ed.), Reading Rawls.
New York: Basic Books, pp. 169–205.
Sen, Amartya 1992. Inequality Reexamined. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Tan, Kok-Chor 2004. Justice Without Borders. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tan, Kok-Chor 2006. “The Boundary of Justice, and The Justice of Boundaries,” Canadian
Journal of Law and Jurisprudence, vol. 19, pp. 319–44.
FURTHER READINGS
Brown, Alex 2008. “Are There Any Global Egalitarian Rights?” Human Rights Review, vol. 9,
no. 4, pp. 435–64.
Buchanan, Allen 2004. Justice, Legitimacy and Self-Determination. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Cohen, Gerald A. 2000. If You’re an Egalitarian, How Come You’re So Rich? Cambridge, MA:
Dworkin, Ronald 1977. Taking Rights Seriously. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Fabre, Cécile 2006. “Global Distributive Justice: An Egalitarian Perspective,” Canadian
Journal of Philosophy, suppl. vol. 31, pp. 139–64.
Held, David (ed.) 1991. Political Theory Today. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Kant, Immanuel 1991 [1795]. “Toward Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch,” in Kant’s
Political Writings, ed. and trans. Hans Reiss, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, pp. 93–130.
11
Kant, Immanuel 1993 [1797]. The Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Mary Gregor. Cambridge:
Martin, Rex, and David Reidy (eds.) 2006. A Realistic Utopia? Essays on Rawls’ Law of Peoples.
Oxford: Blackwell.
Moellendorf, Darrel 2006. “Equal Respect and Global Egalitarianism,” Social Theory and
Nussbaum, Martha 2000. Frontiers of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
O’Neill, Onora 2000. Bounds of Justice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Scheffler, Samuel 2001. Boundaries and Allegiances. New York: Oxford University Press.
Sen, Amartya 2009. The Idea of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
1
Psychopharmacology
S. Matthew Liao
Individuals have long been able to take caffeine, amphetamines, barbiturates, and
other psychopharmaceuticals to alter their moods and emotions. In recent years, a
number of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) such as Prozac have also
been prescribed to individuals – with or without severe depression – to help them
feel “better” (Kramer 1993). Advances in neurotechnologies and genetic engineer-
ing may lead to the development of “neuroceuticals” – neuromodulators that target
multiple subreceptors in specific brain neural circuits – and “geneceuticals” that
modify the genetic basis of our emotional capacities (see biotechnology). With
these advances, we may be able to produce effects similar to those of current
pharmaceuticals with greater efficiency and fewer side effects. As the possibilities
and demand for mood enhancements increase, it is important to consider why
mood enhancements might be desirable and to explore some key ethical issues they
raise (see bioethics; neuroethics).
There are many reasons why we might seek to induce feelings we lack (Liao
2006a). Emotions can be a source of insight into what we value. If someone with
whom you thought you had a close relationship passed away but you do not feel any
grief, this can provide some insight into the nature of your relationship with this
person. In addition, there are occasions when emotions that seem appropriate are
not forthcoming for a variety of psychological or physiological reasons. We may
want to be happy for a friend who is getting married, but we may be too stressed to
enjoy the friend’s wedding celebration. In such a circumstance, we may feel better by
being able to experience emotions that should come naturally.
Moreover, we can sometimes owe the people to whom we stand in close personal
relationships certain emotional responses. For example, given that children need
love in order to develop into adequately functioning individuals, children arguably
have a right to be loved, which implies that others have a duty to provide them with
love (Liao 2006b; see children’s rights; love; parents’ rights and responsi-
bilities). Yet, instead of feeling spontaneous love for their newborn, it is common
for mothers – perhaps owing to postpartum depression – to feel instead estrange-
ment and resentment. If pills that could induce the feelings associated with parental
love were available, this might enable one to provide the kind of love that children
need and also at least partially to fulfill one’s duty to love a child.
Furthermore, many societal problems (e.g., air pollution) are the result of
collective action problems, whereby individuals do not cooperate for the common
good (see collective responsibility). Mood enhancements could help. There is
evidence that altruism and empathy have biological underpinnings (see altruism
and biology). Test subjects given oxytocin were more willing to share money with
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee048
2
strangers and to behave in a more trustworthy way (Zak et al. 2007). A noradrena-
line reuptake inhibitor increased social engagement and cooperation, and reduced
self-focus during a mixed-motive game (Tse and Bond 2002). And oxytocin appears
to improve the capacity to read other people’s emotional state, which is important
for empathy (Domes et al. 2007). These findings suggest that administering these
chemicals could enable us to be more willing to act together to solve important
collective action problems.
As with the development of any new technology, there will be issues concerning
the safety of developing mood enhancements. In addition, there will also be
“technical” issues. In particular, pharmacologically induced emotions should behave
like real emotions. One can normally “turn off ” spontaneous affect if the circum-
stances evoking it no longer obtain (e.g., if a friend whom one thought was dead was
alive, one would typically stop grieving). Also, one typically can have several
spontaneous emotions concurrently. Moreover, the intensity of the emotion
produced by the drug should vary with its object. A pill that produced grief as deep
at the death of a total stranger as the death of a parent would not be adequately
discriminating. Assuming that mood enhancements can be safely developed and the
“technical” issues can be addressed, the distinct ethical issues that mood enhance-
ments raise can be divided into two broad types: harm to self and harm to others
(see harm; harm principle).
Would Using Mood Enhancements Harm Users?

Authenticity
One concern about self-harm relates to authenticity; in particular, to the ques-
tion of whether pharmacologically induced emotions would really be “one’s own”
(Wasserman and Liao 2008; President’s Council on Bioethics 2003; see
authenticity). The notion of ownership here is akin to Harry Frankfurt’s
(1988) notion of identification. According to Frankfurt, for one to be morally
responsible for an action, the desire behind it must be one with which one identi-
fies. For Frankfurt, this means that desire must be endorsed by a higher-order
desire: we must desire to act upon that desire. Frankfurt goes so far as to hold that
we are not fully responsible for actions that are not “wholehearted,” that is,
actions that arise from desires opposed by other desires of the same order, or by
any higher-order desire.
It is true that an emotion unanchored in our beliefs and attitudes would be
anomalous. If someone accidentally took a pill that made him feel happy when he
thought about his life, but did not believe that he should feel happy, the pill would
not have induced the emotions associated with happiness. However, a “wholeheart-
edness” requirement seems too strong. It would deny ownership of emotion
whenever we were ambivalent or conflicted. Also, we often feel recalcitrant emotions,
which seem to conflict with our other attitudes and beliefs, for example, jealousy at
a friend’s success. In these cases, we typically regard those responses as fully our
3
own. In any case, it is worth bearing in mind that attempts to induce emotions
pharmacologically will often be induced by consonant beliefs. It is because we
believe an emotion to be warranted that we seek to induce it.
Related to this is the concern that mood enhancements can alienate one from
one’s “genuine” self (see alienation). For example, a person with a morose
temperament might develop a cheery one as a result of taking a euphoria-inducing
drug to get through a crisis. As this seems to be a real risk, it is important to
inform people of it (see consent; informed consent). However, someone might
take mood enhancements voluntarily, fully aware of its personality-changing
effects. In such a case, it seems that he should not be prevented from fashioning
himself into a different person and instead be encouraged to preserve his old
personality.
Self-knowledge
Another concern is that pharmacologically induced emotions might undermine
valuable opportunities to acquire self-knowledge. Our present emotions often give
us important insight into ourselves because they reflect our present beliefs. Induc-
ing emotions pharmacologically may obscure beliefs that we are reluctant to
acknowledge. Perhaps we did not value the deceased as much as we think we did.
However, in other circumstances, our emotional capacities may be incapacitated
beyond our power to restore by self-examination. Very few people would argue against
the use of SSRIs by an individual with severe depression. Also, individuals can know
the root causes of their problems without being able to resolve them on their own.
Whether it is appropriate to enhance one’s mood might depend on the manner in
which the mood is experienced. While the ability to experience acute pain can be
beneficial since it can alert us to problems with the body, there is less to be gained
from being able to tolerate chronic pain.
Moreover, even if inducing emotions with a pill denies self-knowledge, why
should we discourage someone with mild incapacities from trying to treat these
incapacities pharmacologically when we do not discourage people from taking
medicine for mild colds and mild depression, even when it may be better in the long
run for them to acquire natural resistance or work out their problems? In fact, there
is evidence that mentally healthy individuals hold a variety of positive illusions
about themselves and that their mental health is tied to their holding such illusions;
whereas mentally unhealthy people perceive themselves more accurately (Taylor
and Brown 1988; see self-deception). If this research is plausible, we may be forced
to choose between happiness and accurately perceiving reality.
Narcissism
Emotions could become self-absorbing when the focus shifts from their object to
their subjective experience (Pugmire 2005). The experience of mourning would
become debased if the conversation at a funeral was exclusively about the survivors’
feelings rather than the deceased’s life.
4
However, it does not seem narcissistic for a parent to take notice of her lack of
emotional sensitivity to her children’s tribulations and triumphs. Of course, if she
took a pill to increase her emotional sensitivity without attempting to increase her
involvement in her children’s lives, her effort might well seem cosmetic. However, if
the drug deepens her emotional and social involvement in her children’s lives,
it would appear to be an acceptable means to achieving a stronger relationship
with them.
Instrumentalization
A further worry about mood enhancements is that it may involve treating ourselves
as mere means rather than as ends (Freedman 1998; see kant, immanuel). Accord-
ing to this line of thought, we are ends because we are rational agents capable of
moral deliberation. We treat ourselves as ends when we try to modify our emotions
by engaging with our beliefs, but we treat ourselves as mere means when we fail to
engage with our beliefs. Using pills to induce emotions means that we fail to engage
with our beliefs. Therefore, in doing so, we treat ourselves as mere means.
This objection certainly has some force. If I took a pill without even thinking
about whether it was the right course of action for me, then I may indeed be
instrumentalizing myself by failing to engage with my beliefs and values. However,
if I took the pill after careful self-examination, I arguably have treated myself
as an end.
Duty
Even if we have a duty to have certain emotions, we are excused from fulfilling it if
our best efforts are unavailing (see ought implies can). However, the availability of
a pill may limit our excuses by making our efforts more likely to succeed. This hardly
means that someone who is initially deficient in a required emotional response must
immediately take a pill. When natural emotions are not forthcoming, there are
various other non-pharmacological means of evoking them (Liao 2006a). Those
other means may be at least as effective as a pill, and involve fewer of the moral risks
discussed so far.
Would Using Mood Enhancements Harm Others?

One way by which mood enhancements can harm others is by inducing emo-
tional and mood states that increase the possibility that the user will harm others.
These states could be induced either as intended effects or as unintended side-
effects. As an example of the former, intentionally subduing our experience of
guilt may result in an increase in immoral behavior, which is likely to be harmful
to others. As an example of the latter, someone who believes that he is too shy
may render himself over-aggressive rather than merely assertive when using
mood enhancements.
5
Here, it is useful to distinguish drugs that are known to induce potentially harmful
mood states from drugs whose effects are harmless to others when used responsibly
but harmful when used recklessly. In case of the latter, we might adopt policies sim-
ilar to those that govern alcohol use, namely, restrict their use by those deemed
incompetent and punish irresponsible use by the resulting antisocial behavior rather
than by restricting the drug’s use in general.
Another way in which mood enhancements might harm others is through their
surreptitious use by unscrupulous governments. Suppose that a drug renders users
more easy-going. Used on a population-wide scale, it could have the unpalatable
effect of making people more accepting of an unjust political regime. Given such a
possibility, citizens of liberal and democratic nations should expect to be informed
and consulted regarding such possibilities.
When novel technologies first appear on the market, they are often only available
to the few who can afford them, thereby exacerbating existing inequalities (President’s
Council on Bioethics 2003; see egalitarianism). To minimize such inequalities,
one could tax those who enhance and use the proceeds to subsidize enhancement
for the disadvantaged. This presupposes an infrastructure that recognizes the
benefits of using drugs for enhancement, but typically drugs are only subsidized for
therapeutic use. Rethinking the way in which we as a society subsidize drugs might
be necessary to ensuring that enhancement benefits everyone.
See also: alienation; altruism and biology; authenticity; bioethics;

biotechnology; children’s rights; collective responsibility; consent;
egalitarianism; harm; harm principle; informed consent; kant, immanuel;
love; neuroethics; ought implies can; parents’ rights and
responsibilities; self-deception
REFERENCES
Domes, Gregor, Markus Heinrichs, Andre Michel, Christoph Berger, and Sabine C. Herpertz
2007. “Oxytocin Improves ‘Mind-Reading’ in Humans,” Biological Psychiatry, vol. 61,
pp. 731–33.
Frankfurt, Harry 1988. The Importance of What We Care About: Philosophical Essays.
Freedman, Carol 1998. “Aspirin for the Mind? Some Ethical Worries about
Psychopharmacology,” in Erik Parens (ed.), Enhancing Human Traits: Ethical and Social
Implications. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, pp. 135–50.
Kramer, Peter D. 1993. Listening to Prozac, 2nd ed. London: Penguin.
Liao, S. Matthew 2006a. “The Idea of a Duty to Love,” Journal of Value Inquiry, vol. 40,
pp. 1–22.
Liao, S. Matthew 2006b. “The Right of Children to Be Loved,” Journal of Political Philosophy,
vol. 14, pp. 420–40.
President’s Council on Bioethics 2003. Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of
Happiness. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
6
Pugmire, David 2005. Sound Sentiments: Integrity in the Emotions. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Taylor, Shelley E., and Jonathan D. Brown 1988. “Illusion and Well-Being: A Social-
Psychological Perspective on Mental Health,” Psychological Bulletin, vol. 103,
pp. 193–210.
Tse, Wai S., and Alyson J. Bond 2002. “Difference in Serotonergic and Noradrenergic
Regulation of Human Social Behaviours,” Psychopharmacology, vol. 159, pp. 216–21.
Wasserman, David, and S. Matthew Liao 2008. “Issues in the Pharmacological Induction of
Emotions,” Journal of Applied Philosophy, vol. 25, pp. 178–92.
Zak, Paul J., Angela A. Stanton, and Sheila Ahmadi. 2007. “Oxytocin Increases Generosity in
Humans,” PLoS ONE, vol. 2, pp. 1–5.
FURTHER READINGS
Barondes, Samuel 2003. Better Than Prozac: The Future of Psychiatric Drugs. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Braun, Stephen 2000. The Science of Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Mood. New York:
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Elliott, Carl 1999. A Philosophical Disease: Bioethics, Culture and Identity. New York and
London: Routledge.
Levy, Neil 2007. Neuroethics: Challenges for the 21st Century. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Manninen, Bertha A. 2006. “Medicating the Mind: A Kantian Analysis of Overprescribing
Psychoactive Drugs,” Journal of Medical Ethics, vol. 32, pp. 100–5.
Parens, Erik 2005. “Authenticity and Ambivalence: Toward Understanding the Enhancement
Debate,” Hastings Center Report, vol. 35, pp. 34–41.
1
Academic Freedom
Bob Brecher
Academic freedom is, more often than not, invoked merely as a slogan, generally by
academics and almost always in self-defense. But vague though it is, the notion
encompasses some important considerations about the nature of academic work.
It is of course very closely related to freedom of speech (see speech, freedom of):
indeed, those who invoke the idea all too rarely distinguish it from that central liberal
value (see liberalism). This leads many to suppose that academic freedom is just
freedom of speech for academics and others to argue that such a supposition is itself
a threat to academic freedom (Morgan 2009). Certainly, it is used as more or less an
equivalent, but the idea has application to much wider matters, and to institutions as
well as individuals: to what is taught; how, by whom, and to whom it is taught; the
freedom to decide what and how to research; freedom to publish; tenure, that is to
say academics’ relations with the university employing them; and universities’, as
opposed to individual academics’, relations with the state and with other bodies and
institutions. It has thus come to have particular resonance where these issues are part
of a larger political dispute, such as America’s “culture wars,” boycotts (see boycotts)
of Israel, or academic racism (see racism) – and, more recently, in the context of the
so-called war on terror. In this and other ways, the concept is a contested one.
A useful way of thinking about academic freedom in the contemporary world is
to regard it as a shorthand statement of professional principles governing the
universities: see, for example, American Association of University Professors (2009
[1940]) and codes of ethics (see codes of ethics). Whether or not that is best translated
into a formal documentary statement of principle, as recently advocated by Karran
(2007), however, is another matter. A little of its wider history may be gleaned from
Russell (1993: 1–11, 15–8), but there is no detailed history of the idea: writers
concentrate on particular countries, generally the United States (Hofstadter and
Metzger 1955); regions (Taha-Thomure 2003); or specific cases or institutions.
The most detailed conceptual analysis is McGuinness (2002).
Freedom of Speech
Academic freedom, understood as academics’ (and their students’?) freedom to
say what they think about the object of their investigations, recognizes freedom of
speech as a fundamental academic value, an anchor for the very possibility of
academic research. What distinguishes it from, say, research conducted by com-
mercial companies is its disinterest. To conduct academic research (such as “blue
sky” science) is to go wherever the question leads and not to be diverted, or
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee049
2
silenced, by commercial, pragmatic, or other concerns and interests. (See the

following discussion on the freedom to publish.)
Historically, academic freedom in this sense has its origins in the liberal European
Enlightenment (see liberalism) and, where extant, in parallels in other cultures. At
first, the notion designated the freedom of members of universities from the
exigencies of Church and/or state interests, and more recently from the interests of
other bodies and institutions, such as business corporations. Members of universities
have historically been recognized as having the freedom to say what they think –
about, for example, God, the physical universe, or the foundations of public policy –
since their business is, uniquely, the pursuit of truth. It is in that that they differ
from theologians (hence the interesting history of the evolution of theology as a
university discipline from “defense of the Church” to “the study of religious beliefs”),
politicians, civil servants (even where, as in Germany, they are nonetheless catego-
rized as civil servants), or company employees. Indeed, that is why academics’
relation to the university in which they work has traditionally been described in
terms of membership, and not of employee and employer (see the following section
titled Tenure).
The classical articulation of the philosophical foundations and defense of this
aspect of academic freedom are to be found in John Stuart Mill (see mill, john
stuart; see On Liberty 1989 [1859]). More specifically, it is Mill’s distinction
between speech and action which is critical: what is said at an angry gathering
outside someone’s house is not the same as what is said in a seminar. The view is
famously summed up in Oliver Wendell Holmes’ comment in 1919 (in Schenck v.
United States) about falsely shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater. It is one thing to
discuss falsely shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater (in the course of a seminar,
about how it differs from truly shouting it, for instance); it is quite another to actually
do so. The purpose of the former is to get at the truth of the matter; of the latter, to
cause panic. Academics’ proper concern is solely with the truth of a matter, and not
what others might do with it; their discussions, accordingly, take place in purely
academic settings. That is why they may be accorded a freedom of speech that oth-
ers, whose purposes are not to do solely with the truth of matters, cannot be permit-
ted. For, as Mill argues, the pursuit of truth inevitably demands the airing of
falsehoods and a readiness to consider what appears false – just in case it should turn
out to be true. This already points to a problem about academics’ freedom of speech
that appears intractable. Should it or should it not apply to statements that are clearly
false, as Mill insists it should? Furthermore, is academic freedom of speech limited
to what goes on in universities, or may academics invoke it on the public stage? Is it
limited to an academic’s particular expertise, or does it extend to anything an
academic might offer an opinion on? In these ways and more, the concept remains
contested. In particular, these issues call into difficult question the distinctions
between speech and action; between comment and incitement to action, upon
which the liberal view of freedom of speech rests; and the relation between academic
disinterest and neutrality.
3
And it is here that the other face of academic freedom as freedom of speech comes
into view. Pure freedom of speech, it is claimed, may be accorded to academics
because their role is to talk and to write, both of which differ crucially from action.
The difference between an academic defense of racism and a defense of racism on
the street corner is precisely this: that academics’ purpose is to get to the truth, while
the street-corner orator’s is rabble-rousing (see the passage in On Liberty 1989
[1859] about the mob at the corn-dealer’s door). Academics, one might say, are not
activists. Indeed, academics are “merely” academics, and the issues they talk about
remain “merely academic.” That, a political realist might say, is why they are
permitted to exercise their freedom of speech; because it makes no real difference.
Furthermore, that limitation is one that is clearly recognized by the general public:
in the United Kingdom, in particular, to describe a comment, argument, discussion,
or issue as “academic” is already to dismiss it as “merely academic.” This in turn
invites consideration of the idea of knowledge “for its own sake.” Certainly, it is to be
distinguished from seeking knowledge for a specific instrumental end; but is the
contrast with that pursuit really the search for knowledge for its own sake? In at least
one view, arguably Plato’s (see plato), of the relation between knowledge and action,
the point of all attempts to gain knowledge is the action that knowledge makes
possible, however indirectly.
Finally, one might ask two general, and again contested, questions. Does freedom
of speech extend to students, managers, administrators, and other university
members or employees; and if so, then to what extent? What is the relation between
the freedom of an academic to express, for example, racist views and students’
freedom uninhibitedly to express their ideas in a class taught by such an academic;
and is there a substantive difference between such an academic’s expressing their
racist views in classes and expressing them only in their publications?
Whose Freedom of Speech?

Academic freedom also encompasses the freedom of both individual academics
and groups of academics to decide what to teach and how to teach it; so the ques-
tion inevitably arises as to how these freedoms relate both to each other and to
the university’s freedom as a body to do the same. How some of the tensions
involved are resolved depends on a university’s understanding of academics’
relation to it: are they employees, members, or somewhere in between? (See the
section below, “Tenure.”)
In some universities, the admission of people to become students is also a matter
for (groups of) academics; in others, these decisions are administrative. The
questions remains – indeed, it is rarely asked – whether or not academic freedom
should encompass academics’ freedom to choose whom to teach.
In terms of academics’ freedom to research what and how they see fit, there is a
similar tension between individual academics’ research interests and objectives;
departmental, school, or faculty priorities; and the university’s policies. These too
remain unresolved – and are becoming an increasingly urgent issue as governments
4
come to regard knowledge in instrumentally economic terms and universities follow

suit. A central concern here is the freedom to publish. When a commercial company
or government department blocks the publication of research it has commissioned
because the research findings are inconvenient or unpalatable, has the freedom of the
academic(s) carrying out the research been unreasonably curtailed? Is the freedom
to publish integral to academic freedom, or is the latter at least in part given up when
the contract is signed? Ought academics committed to academic freedom not accept
gagging clauses in research contracts on pain of betraying their raision d’être?
Tenure
Traditionally, tenure – a guaranteed job until retirement – served as recognition and
protection of these freedoms, at least in the Anglophone world. It was a guarantee
issued by the university that its academic members may teach as they see fit and
research wherever the pursuit of knowledge might lead. In the United Kingdom,
tenure was abolished at the end of the twentieth century; in the United States, it
may – or may not – be granted after an extended “trial period.” The idea of academic
freedom in this context implies a relationship between academic and university
which is quite different from that between employee and employer: a university and
the academics working in it are understood, at least in theory, as coextensive,
something recognized both in the statutes of ancient UK universities such as
Cambridge and Oxford and in the continental European tradition of academics
appointing one of their own to serve as Principal.
Here again, “academic freedom” raises the question of the extent to which it
represents a class privilege cast in liberal terms; an independently valuable freedom;
or both.
University, State, and Others

Academic freedom is also invoked by universities wishing to resist a wide range of
governmental or corporate pressures: to increase, or decrease, take-up of higher
education; directly to serve state or corporate interests, priorities, or policies, by
demanding that this or that subject be taught, that such-and-such attitudes
be encouraged or discouraged, and so on. Thus, on the one hand, universities are
recognized as intellectually autonomous (see autonomy); on the other, they are
(private institutions apart) financially dependent on the state; and so it remains
unclear what the parameters are of their academic freedom vis-à-vis the state and
corporations in a world where “the natural bargain between Government and
learned [medieval] men: ‘you defend me with the pen, and I will defend you with the
sword’ ” (Russell 1993: 16) no longer obtains.
“Academic freedom,” then, remains contested. Furthermore, and as with liberal
conceptions of freedom more generally, it is unclear both how academic freedom is
related to academic responsibility (see responsibility), and what its necessary
5
logical, let alone empirical, limits might be. In any event, it is clearly a strategic or
heuristic concept, and as such inevitably open to abuse no less than serving to
protect what needs protecting. Perhaps that is why Stanley Fish says: “What then is
left of academic freedom as a rallying cry? Not much” (Fish 2008).
See also: autonomy; boycotts; codes of ethics; liberalism; mill, john

stuart; plato; racism; responsibility; speech, freedom of
REFERENCES
American Association of University Professors 2009. 1940 Statement of Principles on
Academic Freedom and Tenure. At http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/policydocs/
contents/1940statement.htm.
Fish, Stanley 2008. “Academic Freedom Is Not a Divine Right,” Chronicle of Higher Education,
vol. 55, no. 2, p. B10. At http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i02/02b01001.htm.
Hofstadter, Richard, and Walter P. Metzger 1955. The Development of Academic Freedom in
the United States. New York: Columbia University Press.
Karran, Terence 2007. “Academic Freedom in Europe: A Preliminary Comparative Analysis,”
Higher Education Policy, vol. 20, pp. 289–313.
McGuinness, Kevin 2002. The Concept of Academic Freedom. Lampeter: Edwin Mellen.
Mill, John Stuart 1989 [1859]. On Liberty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Morgan, Andrew 2009. “Clever Conceit Won’t Protect Free Speech,” Times Higher Education,
vol. 21(May), p. 30.
Russell, Conrad 1993. Academic Freedom. London and New York: Routledge.
Taha-Thomure, Hanada 2003. Academic Freedom in Arab Universities: Understanding,
Practices and Discrepancies. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
FURTHER READINGS
Aby, Stephen H., and James C. Kuhn IV 2000. Academic Freedom: A Guide to the Literature.
London: Greenwood Press.
Dewey, John 1902. “Academic Freedom,” Educational Review, vol. 23, pp. 1–14.
Karran, Terence 2009. “Academic Freedom: A Research Bibliography.” At http://eprints.
Lincoln.ac.uk/1763/pdf.
1
Animal Cognition
Kristin Andrews and Ljiljana Radenovic
Debates in applied ethics about the proper treatment of animals (see animal rights;
animals, moral status of) often refer to empirical data about animal cognition,
emotion (see emotion), and behavior. In addition, there is increasing interest in the
question of whether any nonhuman animal could be something like a moral agent
(see moral agency). These two questions are related but do not entirely overlap. If
animals are moral agents we presumably need to grant them moral standing (see
moral status). If animals are not moral agents, there may be independent reasons
for considering their interests. Empirical findings are relevant to both questions.
This essay is designed to guide ethicists to the relevant data and claims of scientists
and philosophers about capacities related to animal ethics.
Moral Standing
In ethics, the usual question about animals has to do with whether nonhuman
species are justified objects of sympathy and moral concern. In applied ethics, there
are related questions about vegetarianism (see vegetarianism and veganism), med-
ical testing (see animal experimentation), testing of consumer products, hunting
(see hunting), catch-and-release fishing, zoos, husbandry, living conditions,
ecotourism, entertainment, and so forth. Some of these arguments rest on claims
about the worth of the species (see species, the value of) or focus on the instru-
mental value (see instrumental value) of treating animals well. Other arguments
are based on the cognitive capacities of individual animals, such as the capacity of an
animal to experience pain and suffering (see sentience, moral relevance of), or
to think about the future. Questions about the proper treatment of research and zoo
animals might also be addressed by considering the quality of social relationships
among such animals. Other cognitive capacities, such as rationality and language
facility, are also sometimes thought necessary for moral agency and personhood (see
personhood, criteria of).
Moral Agency
Some philosophers have presumed that humans are the only creatures capable of
moral sentiments and behavior, and that empirical data on animal behavior is irrele-
vant for ethics. Kant (see kant, immanuel) and contemporary Kantians argue that
animals lack autonomy (see autonomy) and therefore cannot be moral agents. It can
also be argued that animals are not moral agents because they don’t have moral
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee050
2
emotions or moral senses. Thomas Huxley made a similar point about the uniqueness
of human morality in Evolution and Ethics (1864). On Huxley’s account, morality is
an exclusively human invention designed to control our natural tendency toward
selfishness.
On the other hand, some argue that, given evolutionary theory, we should expect
a cognitive and emotional continuity between humans and other animals such that
other species also have something we can appropriately call morality (see altru-
ism and biology). On the continuity view, the psychological capacities required
for morality are not either/or capacities, so we should expect to find such capaci-
ties or their precursors in many species. Some continuity theorists argue that since
there is continuity between human and nonhuman minds, there also has to be
continuity between those that have no moral agency and those that are full-blown
moral agents. For example, Frans de Waal (2006) argues that there are two neces-
sary conditions for morality, namely empathy (see empathy) and reciprocity, and
we see ancestral or primitive varieties of such capacities in many species. In dol-
phins, elephants, and apes, de Waal argues, we see more sophisticated versions of
such capacities in terms of targeted helping, consolation, cooperation, and a sense
of fairness.
Other continuity theorists argue that some animals have their own morality,
rather than the precursors of human morality. For example, Bekoff and Pierce take
morality to be “a suite of other-regarding behaviors that cultivate and regulate com-
plex interactions within social groups,” and they think that different species have
morality to a different degree, based on the complexity of their behavior, social
organization, and cognitive flexibility (Bekoff and Pierce 2009: 82). Morality is
species-relative on their view not because different behavioral capacities are involved,
but because different species (and different groups within species) have different
norms. They claim that regardless of the species, to have any degree of morality one
must have empathy, altruism, cooperation, and perhaps a sense of fairness.
Empirical Data
Psychological capacities related to moral standing and moral agency include a variety
of abilities, including non-cognitive processes such as the ability to feel pain, advanced
cognitive processes such as decision-making, and moral emotions such as forgive-
ness (see forgiveness) and sympathy. While some non-cognitive capacities such as
capacity to feel pain may be sufficient for moral standing, complex psychological
capacities seem to be required for moral agency. There is empirical evidence regarding
the existence of all these capacities among many different species.
Pain and Suffering

The utilitarians (see utilitarianism) have long held that the ability to suffer and
feel pain is sufficient for moral standing, and the following century’s Darwinian
revolution convinced many that animals do feel pain. Evolutionary theory is used to
3
defend continuity of the mental, which is used in argument that animals are con-
scious and feel pain as do humans. Behavioral evidence, such as observations that
animals favor limbs that are not broken and nurse tissue damage, provides evidence
for mental continuity as well. In a contemporary philosophical discussion of the
potential for research on nonhuman pain behavior, both behavioral and neurologi-
cal studies are examined for their relevance to the claim that animals experience
pain (Allen et al. 2005). Behavioral studies show that rats seek to avoid injury, even
if it requires moving to a less comfortable environment (LaBuda and Fuchs 2000a),
and there are data that animals reduce this injury avoidance behavior when given
morphine (LaBuda and Fuchs 2000b). Neurological evidence is also drawn on to
defend the claim that animals feel pain. Nociceptors, specialized neurons that sense
noxious stimuli, are found in a wide variety of animal species, from apes to sea slugs.
However, there remain questions whether nociception is necessarily associated with
the experience of pain. While much of the focus of this research has been on mam-
malian pain, some researchers have found behavioral and neurological evidence for
pain in other taxa, including fish (Nordgreen et al. 2009). Still, critics argue that fish
lack the physiology necessary for pain experience.
In addition, there is some evidence that animals experience psychological pain as
stress. Glucocorticoids such as cortisol are correlated with stress in humans, and
some have suggested that high levels of stress hormones in other species indicate the
existence of stress. Stressors such as dominance and status ranking have been stud-
ied in a number of different species (Sapolsky 2005). For example, among baboons,
glucocorticoid levels remain elevated in females for about a month after the death of
a close relative, and high levels of stress hormones are found in nursing mothers
when a potentially infanticidal immigrant male arrives. High levels of stress hor-
mones are also found in females when the female ranking system is undergoing
instability, and in males when the male ranking system is unstable (Cheney and
Seyfarth 2007).
Friendship
The special bond between individuals known as friendship (see friendship) has a
number of associations with morality. It serves as a marker of an individual living a
good life, but at the same time the existence of this special relationship offers a chal-
lenge for moral theories that do not permit special duties. The anthropologist Joan
Silk defines friendship in primates as
relationships among nonkin that are characterized by frequent participation in affiliative

interactions (often, but not necessarily, including grooming); involvement in coali-
tionary aggression, particularly in defense of the partner; high rates of association;
mutual responsibility for maintaining proximity; high degrees of reciprocity in
directional, nonaggressive activities such as grooming and food sharing; continuity
across time and context; high degrees of tolerance (co-feeding), loyalty, and compati-
bility; and low degrees of stress when together. (2002: 434)
4
Friendship in nonhuman animals is a matter of some debate. In many species there

are special relationships between nonkin individuals. Jane Goodall (1986) first told
us about such male alliances in chimpanzees aimed at toppling the alpha, but we also
see male alliances in dolphins as a mating strategy (Connor et al. 1999). Other nonkin
relationships between males and females have been described as friendships when
they do not involve sexual activity. Male and female baboons, for example, form
friendships that can last a year, and friends forage together, sit together, and groom
one another at high rates. Males also help raise their female friends’ offspring, and
protect the young against the possibility of infanticide (Cheney and Seyfarth 2007).
Rationality
Questions about an individual’s moral standing and moral agency may be related
to questions about that individual’s rationality. However, views about the cognitive
capacities required for rationality vary. In the animal cognition literature, much of
the research on rationality has focused on nonhuman apes, who have been shown
to have competence in capacities as varied as analogical reasoning (Oden 2001),
transitive reasoning (Boysen et al. 1993), numerocity (Shumaker 2001), the use of
numerals (Biro and Matsuzawa 2001), categorical perception (Thompson and
Oden 2000), tool use (Goodall 1986), artificial symbolic communication (Premack
1990), human language comprehension (Savage-Rumbaugh et al. 1993), and causal
reasoning (Bräuer et al. 2006). Many of these capacities are found in other species
and taxa as well. For example, while tool use has been found in all species of great
ape, it is also demonstrated in avian species such as rooks (Bird and Emery 2009)
and bottlenose dolphins (Krutzen et al. 2005). In addition, artificial communica-
tion systems have been developed for use with African Grey parrots (Pepperberg
1999), bottlenose dolphins (Herman et al. 1984), and sea lions (Schusterman and
Krieger 1984).
Personhood
While personhood may be related to rationality, some elements of personhood
may be investigated independently. For example, an understanding of self is a
plausible requirement for personhood. Gordon Gallup (1970) has argued that a
chimpanzee’s ability to recognize himself in a mirror indicates an understanding of
self, and subsequent research suggests that a number of species recognize their
reflection, including gorillas (Shumaker and Swartz 2002), orangutans, bottlenose
dolphins (Reiss and Marino 2001), Asian elephants (Plotnik et al. 2006), and
pigs (Broom et al. 2009). However, there is some question whether mirror self-
recognition does indicate that the recognizer has a sense of self, and conversely
failure to pass such tasks may not be sufficient to show that the individual lacks a
sense of self, given concerns about ecological validity (e.g., the species may not be
visually oriented).
5
Theory of Mind
A theory of mind is the capacity to attribute beliefs and desires to others. The ability
to understand others’ motivations and reasons for action is implicated in some non-
consequentialist ethical theories, and there remains a question whether any animals
have this ability. Behavioral research with chimpanzees has shown some evidence
for understanding others’ perceptual states, but no experiment has been able to
directly assess the chimpanzee’s understanding of others’ beliefs (Call and Toma-
sello 2008). Some have argued that the kinds of experiments performed should not
be expected to answer the question, and thus there is no evidence that chimpanzees
lack a theory of mind either. Andrews (2005), for example, argues that the predic-
tive tasks that have been used to test for theory of mind are flawed because we
should not expect belief attribution to be used in predicting behavior; at least in
humans, belief attribution is more closely associated with the practice of explaining
behavior. While the earliest examination of theory of mind was in chimpanzees,
more recent research examines other species, and looks for the ability to attribute
mental states other than belief, including perceptual and informational states. For
example, researchers have claimed that the ability to attribute some mental states
can be found in various species including dolphins (Tschudin 2006), scrub jays
(Emery et al. 2004), rhesus monkeys (Flombaum and Santos 2005), and dogs
(Horowitz 2009).
Helping and Cooperation

Helping and cooperation are seen in many species. Generalized reciprocity – the
helping of an unknown individual after having been helped oneself – has been
observed in rats when they help an unfamiliar rat obtain food (Rutte and Taborsky
2007), and in chimpanzees (Warneken et al. 2007). While there are studies that sug-
gest that chimpanzees are unwilling to help other chimpanzees gain food even when
it requires very little effort (Silk et al. 2005), there is a growing body of evidence that
chimpanzees do help in some contexts (Yamamoto et al. 2009). De Waal (2006)
argues that there is evidence of targeted helping in the great apes, elephants, and
dolphins. Some monkeys also display helping behavior (Markowitz 1982). Bekoff
and Pierce (2009) argue that cooperation is seen in a wide variety of animals, includ-
ing rooks, hyenas, and wolves. And there is evidence that some animals help animals
of different species. For example, Bernd Heinrich (1999) found that ravens lead
wolves to elk carcasses that the ravens cannot process and eat on their own; the
ravens eat after the wolves tear the carcasses.
Moral Emotions
Some researchers interpret animal behavior as expressing a variety of different
moral emotions. Forgiveness, for example, is arguably seen in chimpanzee societies;
after a fight chimpanzees often reconcile by kissing and embracing. Whether
6
chimpanzees have something like a sense of fairness is a matter of current debate.

There are reports that many species (especially apes and elephants) seem to engage
in delayed acts of retaliation. This suggests that they are able to feel retributive emo-
tions (de Waal 2006). There are also studies suggesting that chimpanzees engage in
what de Waal and Luttrell (1988) call a “revenge system” by responding to negative
acts with other negative acts, and acts which de Waal describes as punishment (see
punishment).
There have been several reports of mourning dead group members across species,
suggesting the possibility of grief or similar emotions. Chimpanzees are known to
respond to the death of a respected group member. On one account, a group of
chimpanzees fell into silence while watching human caregivers bury their matriarch
(Berlin 2009). Elephants are known to return to the bodies of their group members
in what appears to be an act of mourning (Poole 1998).
Furthermore, there is empirical evidence that many species experience empathy –
the capacity to feel what others are feeling. There are at least two basic types of
empathy: empathy as an emotional reaction to the distress or joy of other members
of the group, and empathy as the cognitive capacity to understand how other mem-
bers of the group feel. Empathy as emotional reaction to other members of the group
may exist in many social animals. For example, the ability to respond to alarm calls
suggests an emotional link between individuals in social species since the emotion
that causes the alarm cry affects the behavior of others in the group; this variety of
emotional contagion is well documented in a number of taxa, including ground
squirrels (e.g., Sherman 1977) and monkeys (e.g., Cheney and Seyfarth 1985).
Empirical reports also suggest that individuals of many species are distressed by
the distress of a conspecific and will act to terminate the other’s distress even if it
results in harm to self. A variety of nonhuman animals, from albino rats (Rice 1964)
to chimpanzees (Parr 2001), are said to exhibit such behavior.
In addition, empathy as emotional reaction can be seen in facial mimicry, whereby
the expression of one individual causes the same reaction on behalf of an observer.
Yawns seem to be just as contagious among monkeys and apes as among humans. In
orangutans, the open-mouth face said to be homologous to human laughter was also
found to be contagious (Ross et al. 2008).
Furthermore, in addition to the reactive empathy widespread in the animal king-
dom, it has been argued that some mammals show signs of something like cognitive
empathy. Cognitive empathy seems to require sophisticated cognitive capacities
such as perspective taking or theory of mind. Some species that may have such
abilities include the great apes, elephants, dolphins, wolves, hyenas, and rats. De
Waal (2006) argues that the tendency of chimpanzees and bonobos to console indi-
viduals in the face of some difficulty such as losing a fight suggests cognitive empa-
thy. Bekoff and Pierce (2009) argue that social carnivores such as wolves and hyenas,
who live in complex social societies with sophisticated social norms governing food
sharing, care of offspring, and division of labor, indicate the presence of cognitive
empathy.
7
Conclusion
There are certainly other mental capacities relevant to animal morality, moral stand-
ing, and moral agency. For more information on such abilities we direct you to
Andrews (2008) and Shettleworth (2009).
See also: altruism and biology; animal experimentation; animal

rights; animals, moral status of; autonomy; emotion; empathy;
forgiveness; friendship; hunting; instrumental value; kant, immanuel;
moral agency; moral status; personhood, criteria of; punishment;
sentience, moral relevance of; species, the value of; utilitarianism;
vegetarianism and veganism
REFERENCES
Allen, C., P. N. Fuchs, A. Shriver, and H. D. Wilson 2005. “Deciphering Animal Pain,” in
M. Aydede (ed.), Pain: New Essays on Its Nature and the Methodology of Its Study.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Andrews, K. 2005. “Chimpanzee Theory of Mind: Looking in All the Wrong Places?” Mind
and Language, vol. 20, no. 5, pp. 521–36.
Andrews, K. 2008. “Animal Cognition,” in Edward N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy (Winter 2008 Edition). At http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2008/
entries/cognition-animal/.
Bekoff, M., and J. Pierce 2009. Wild Justice: The Moral Lives of Animals. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.
Berlin, J. 2009. “The Story Behind Our Photo of Grieving Chimps,” National Geographic. At
http://blogs.ngm.com/blog_central/2009/10/the-story-behind-our-photo-of-grieving-
chimps.html.
Bird, C. D., and N. J. Emery 2009. “Insightful Problem Solving and Creative Tool Modification
by Captive Nontool-Using Rooks,” Proceeding of the National Academy of the Sciences,
vol. 106, no. 25, pp. 10370–5.
Biro, D., and T. Matsuzawa 2001. “Use of Numerical Symbols by the Chimpanzee (Pan tro-
glodytes): Cardinals, Ordinals, and the Introduction of Zero,” Animal Cognition, vol. 4,
nos. 3–4, pp. 193–9.
Boysen, S. T., G. G. Berntson, T. A. Shreyer, and K. S. Quigley 1993. “Processing of Ordinality
and Transitivity by Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes),” Journal of Comparative Psychology,
vol. 107, no. 2, pp. 208–15.
Bräuer, J., J. Kaminski, J. Riedel, J. Call, and M. Tomasello 2006. “Making Inference about the
Location of Hidden Foods: Social Dog, Causal Ape,” Journal of Comparative Psychology,
vol. 120, no. 1, pp. 38–47.
Broom, D. M., H. Sena, and K. L. Moyniham 2009. “Pigs Learn What a Mirror Image Represents
and Use It to Obtain Information,” Animal Behaviour, vol. 78, no. 5, pp. 1037–41.
Call, J., and Tomasello, M. 2008. “Does the Chimpanzee Have a Theory of Mind? 30 Years
Later,” Trends in Cognitive Science, vol. 12, no. 5, pp. 187–92.
Cheney, D. L., and R. M. Seyfarth 1985. “Vervet Monkey Alarm Calls: Manipulation Through
Shared Information?” Behaviour, vol. 94, pp. 150–66.
8
Cheney, D. L., and R. M. Seyfarth 2007. Baboon Metaphysics: The Evolution of a Social Mind.
Conner, R. C., M. R. Heithaus, and L. M. Barre 1999. “Super-Alliance of Bottlenose Dolphins,”
Nature, vol. 371, pp. 571–2.
de Waal, F. B. M. 2006. “Morally Evolved: Primate Social Instincts, Human Morality, and the
Rise and Fall of “Veneer Theory,” in J. Ober and S. Macedo (eds.), Primates and
Philosophers: How Morality Evolved. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
de Waal, F. B. M., and L.M. Luttrell 1988. “Mechanisms of Social Reciprocity in Three Primate
Species: Symmetrical Relationship Characteristics or Cognition?” Ethology and
Sociobiology, vol. 9, pp. 101–18.
Emery, N. J., J. M. Dally, and N. S. Clayton 2004. “Western Scrub-Jays (Aphelocoma califor-
nica) Use Cognitive Strategies to Protect Their Caches from Thieving Conspecifics,”
Animal Cognition, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 37–43.
Flombaum, J. I., and L. R. Santos 2005. “Rhesus Monkeys Attribute Perceptions to Others,”
Current Biology, vol. 15, no. 5, pp. 447–52.
Gallup, G. G. 1970. “Chimpanzees: Self-Recognition,” Science, vol. 167, pp. 341–3.
Goodall, J. 1986. The Chimpanzees of Gombe: Patterns of Behavior. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Heinrich, B. 1999. Mind of the Raven: Investigations and Adventures with Wolf-Birds. New
York: Henry Holt.
Herman, L. M., D. G. Richards, and J. P. Wolz 1984. “Comprehension of Sentence by
Bottlenosed Dolphins,” Cognition, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 129–219.
Horowitz, A. 2009. “Attention to Attention in Domestic Dog (Canis familiaris) Dyadic Play,”
Animal Cognition, vol. 12, pp. 107–18.
Krutzen, M., J. Mann, M. R. Heithaus, R. C. Conner, L. Bejder, and W. B. Sherwin 2005.
“Cultural Transmission of Tool Use in Bottlenose Dolphins,” Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences, vol. 102, no. 25, pp. 8939–43.
LaBuda, C. J., and P. N. Fuchs 2000a. “A Behavioral Test Paradigm to Measure the Aversive
Quality of Inflammatory and Neuropathic Pain in Rats,” Experimental Neurology, vol.
163, pp. 490–4.
LaBuda, C. J., and P. N. Fuchs 2000b. “Morphine and Gabapentin Decrease Mechanical
Hyperalgesia and Escape/Avoidance Behavior in a Rat Model of Neuropathic Pain,”
Neuroscience Letters, vol. 290, pp. 137–40.
Markowitz, H. 1982. Behavioral Enrichment in the Zoo. New York: Van Reinhold.
Nordgreen, J., J. P. Garner, A. M. Janczak, B. Ranheim, W. M. Muir, and T. E. Horsberg 2009.
“Thermonocieption in Fish: Effects of Two Different Doses of Morphine on Thermal
Threshold and Post-Test Behaviour in Goldfish (Carassius auratus),” Applied Animal
Behaviour Science, vol. 119, nos. 1–2, pp. 101–7.
Oden, D. L. 2001. “Can an Ape Reason Analogically? Comprehension and Production of
Analogical Problems by Sarah, a Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes),” in D. Gentner and
K. J. Holyoak (eds.), The Analogical Mind: Perspectives from Cognitive Science.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 471–97.
Parr, L. A. 2001. “Cognitive and Physiological Markers of Emotional Awareness in
Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes),” Physiology and Behavior, vol. 4, pp. 223–9.
Pepperberg, I. M. 1999. The Alex Studies: Cognitive and Communicative Abilities of Grey
Parrots. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
9
Plotnik, J. M., F. de Waal, and D. Reiss 2006. “Self-Recognition in an Asian Elephant,”

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 103, pp. 17053–7.
Poole, J. 1998. “An Exploration of a Commonality Between Ourselves and Elephants,” Etica
Animali, vol. 9, no. 98, pp. 85–110.
Premack, D. 1990. “Words: What Are They, and Do Animals Have Them?” Cognition, vol. 37,
no. 3, pp. 197–212.
Reiss, D., and L. Marino 2001. “Mirror Self-Recognition in the Bottlenose Dolphin: A Case
of Cognitive Convergence,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 98,
pp. 5937–42.
Rice, G. E. J. 1964. “Aiding Behavior vs. Fear in the Albino Rat,” Psychological Record, vol. 14,
pp. 165–70.
Ross, M. D., S. Menzler, and E. Zimmermann 2008. “Rapid Facial Mimicry in Orangutan
Play,” Biology Letters, vol. 4, pp. 27–30.
Rutte, C., and M. Taborsky 2007. “Generalized Reciprocity in Rats,” PLoS Biology, vol. 5,
no. 7, p. e196.
Sapolsky, R. M. 2005. “The Influence of Social Hierarchy on Primate Health,” Science,
vol. 308, no. 5722, pp. 648–52.
Savage-Rumbaugh, E. S., J. Murphy, R. A. Sevcik, and K. E. Brakke 1993. Language
Comprehension in Ape and Child, vol. 233. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Schusterman, R. J., and K. Krieger 1984. “California Sea Lions Are Capable of Semantic
Comprehension,” Psychological Record, vol. 34, pp. 3–23.
Sherman, P. W. 1977. “Nepotism and the Evolution of Alarm Calls,” Science, vol. 197, pp.
1246–53.
Shettleworth, S. J. 2009. Cognition, Communication, and Behavior, 2nd ed. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Shumaker, R. 2001. “Spontaneous Use of Magnitude Discrimination and Ordination by the
Orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus),” Journal of Comparative Psychology, vol. 115, no. 4, pp. 1–7.
Shumaker, R. W., and K. B. Swartz 2002. “When Traditional Methodologies Fail: Cognitive
Studies of Great Apes,” in M. Bekoff, C. Allen, and G. M. Burdhardt (eds.), The Cognitive
Animal: Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives on Animal Cognition. Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press, pp. 335–45.
Silk, J. B. 2002. “Using the ‘F’-Word in Primatology,” Behaviour, vol. 139, nos. 2–3, pp. 421–46.
Silk, J. B., S. F. Brosnan, J. Vonk, et al. 2005. “Chimpanzees Are Indifferent to the Welfare of
Unrelated Group Members,” Nature, vol. 437, no. 7063, pp. 1357–9.
Thompson, R. K. R., and D. L. Oden 2000. “Categorical Perception and Conceptual
Judgements by Nonhuman Primates: The Paleological Monkey and the Analogical
Ape,” Cognitive Science, vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 363–96.
Tschudin, A. J. P. C. 2006. “Belief Attribution Tasks with Dolphins: What Social Minds Can
Reveal About Animal Rationality,” in S. Hurley and M. Nudds (eds.), Rational Animals?
Warneken, F., B. Hare, A. P. Melis, D. Hanus, and M. Tomasello 2007. “Spontaneous Altruism
by Chimpanzees and Young Children,” Public Library of Science Biology, vol. 5, no. 7, pp.
1414–20.
Yamamoto, S., T. Humle, and M. Tanaka 2009. “Chimpanzees Help Each Other upon
Request,” PLoS One, vol. 4, no. 10, p. e7416.
1
Genetic Testing
Phillipa J. Malpas
Completion of the international Human Genome Project (HGP) in 2003 resulted in

significant advances in our understanding of how genes function and interact
together. One area of rapid growth has been the widespread development of genetic
tests. A genetic test can be broadly defined as the analysis of an individual’s genetic
material. A genetic test may be used to detect the presence or absence of abnormalities
that may cause a specific genetic disease or disorders. Increasingly, genetic tests are
also being used to predict responses to medication and to ascertain an individual’s
susceptibility to common, complex disorders. Due to the complexities surrounding
genetic information, between 3 and 5 percent of the annual HGP budget is set aside
to study the ethical, legal, and social issues that arise.
Genetic testing raises a number of ethical challenges, most notably around
issues of harm, confidentiality (see harm; confidentiality), privacy, justice,
discrimination (see justice; discrimination), and stigmatization. As genetic
information is both personal and familial in nature, the ways in which it is identified,
interpreted, utilized, and stored can have profound significance not only for
individuals but also for other family members and society in general.
Genetic tests may be carried out for a number of medical reasons. These include:
testing adults for late-onset disorders such as Huntington’s chorea; pre-implantation
genetic diagnosis (PGD) in conjunction with in vitro fertilization (IVF) to reduce
the risk of an embryo being implanted into the womb with a specific genetic or
chromosomal abnormality; pre-natal diagnosis to determine whether the fetus is at
risk of a genetic disorder; newborn testing at birth to detect particular disorders
such as phenylketonuria that indicate the need for treatment; and identification of
carrier status in families where there is a history of a recessive genetic disorder (e.g.,
Tay Sachs disease and cystic fibrosis). Since disorders of this kind are only expressed
in offspring when both parents carry the faulty gene, this test may be offered to
adults or adolescents who are considering having children, allowing them to make
informed reproductive choices.
PGD raises a number of ethical concerns. Despite the fact that this test is
undertaken prior to pregnancy (thus negating concerns about abortion), testing
entails the creation of multiple embryos, many of which will be discarded after
testing. For those who oppose the destruction of early human life, PGD and IVF are
morally impermissible. Further ethical challenges focus on individuals or couples
who deliberately select certain genetic characteristics for their offspring. For
instance, a deaf parent may celebrate deafness and the deaf culture and choose to
implant an embryo that will become a deaf person. Likewise, people of small stature
may select embryos that will become persons who are short in stature like them. The
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee051
2
ethical dimension centers around the impact that PGD has for the well-being of
those individuals who are born deaf or very short.
There have also been well-documented cases of parents selecting embryos whose
tissue type is compatible with that of an already existing ill child. The child born as
a result of PGD may donate umbilical cord blood that contains bone marrow cells to
their sibling in order to cure the disorder and save his or her life. These children
have been referred to as “savior siblings.” It has been argued that such children may
be viewed as “spare parts,” violating Kant’s injunction that we never use others solely
as a means to an end. In reply, some commentators have challenged the view that
savior siblings are solely a means to an end, or that their selection violates respect for
human dignity. They claim that such children will be wanted and loved for who they
are, not solely for what they can provide.
Within the disability community and elsewhere, concern has been expressed that
PGD is really an insidious form of eugenics. Some claim that PGD will come to be
used to improve the genetic constitution of human beings by selecting against
certain genetic characteristics. Thus, they argue that disabled embryos and those
with particular diseases will be discarded. Pre-natal testing such as amniocentesis
may detect that a fetus has Down’s syndrome. There is well-documented evidence
that many women choose to terminate such pregnancies. Opponents of abortion
claim that many pre-natal tests are impermissible.
Currently, some countries allow couples to select an embryo on the basis of sex.
In the future, individuals and couples may be able to enhance their offspring by
selecting genes for nondisease traits such as intelligence, musical ability, and
strength, and against traits such as aggression and anxiety. Although PGD and pre-
natal testing cannot select for nondisease traits other than sex, one day it may be
possible to genetically enhance embryos. It has been argued that parents have a
moral obligation to select the embryo that will have the best possible life. This view
has been called into question. It has been claimed that we ought to be cautious here:
we need to consider who has access to this technology (e.g., will only the wealthy be
able to afford it?); the disproportionate burdens that are placed on women; and how
we determine what “best” means in the context of a life.
Nonmedical genetic testing may also be carried out to determine the paternity of
a child; to provide genealogical information; to identify victims of war or a natural
disaster; or in criminal investigations where DNA profiling or fingerprinting may be
used by forensic scientists to identify individuals through their genetic profile.
A number of companies now offer “direct-to-consumer” genetic testing kits
through websites. Tests may offer individuals information about their risk of
developing a specific genetic condition, whether or not they are a carrier for a
recessive disorder, information about nutrition and lifestyle, ancestry, and paternity
information. Consumers who purchase a testing kit provide a sample of genetic
material (e.g., saliva) which is sent to the company for analysis. In the United States
and United Kingdom, “over-the-counter” paternity tests are available from
pharmacies. Paternity testing requires parental consent for the child’s genetic
material to be analyzed; but concerns have been expressed over the potential harms
3
to children (see children’s rights) whose paternity may be called into question.
Families may break up over the test results, a child may be rejected by the social
father, or violence may ensue where infidelity is assumed. The way in which test
results are communicated to families is crucial.
Genetic testing of children for medical reasons is perhaps least controversial when
the child has an identifiable disease, or where they are at-risk for an inherited condi-
tion that may be treated or ameliorated early (e.g., a child at-risk for familial adeno-
matous polyposis). However, some have argued that testing an at-risk child who is
pre-symptomatic for a condition that may not onset until adulthood and for which
nothing can be done to benefit the child now raises ethical concerns. For example, it
has been claimed that children who are tested may suffer from “survivor guilt” if
they are unaffected but their siblings are not; parental expectations may be lowered
where children are affected; or, conversely, some affected children may be overpro-
tected and overindulged by family. It has also been argued that affected children may
face stigmatization and discrimination in their education. On the other hand, it has
also been claimed that testing an at-risk, pre-symptomatic child may give the child
and family important information which can assist in careful planning for the child’s
future. At issue are concerns around how we balance the respect for parental author-
ity in raising children, and acting in the child’s best interests.
Health and life insurance companies require detailed family histories to assist in
the underwriting process to assess an individual’s risk. A genetic test can provide an
accurate picture of an individual’s disease risk. Some commentators worry that a
requirement to undergo a genetic test or to make previous test results available will
result in invidious discrimination. For instance, an individual who was found to
carry the genetic mutation for Huntington’s chorea may be denied insurance cover
or be offered coverage at greatly inflated premiums. As an individual does not
choose his or her genes, it could be claimed that discrimination on the basis of one’s
genetic makeup is unfair.
Conversely, others claim that genetic information is no more predictive or private
than other kinds of information required by insurance companies (e.g., sex, age,
occupation, and one’s postal code). It has also been argued that were insurance
companies prohibited from requiring genetic tests, individuals who knew they were
at high risk may take out extremely large covers in the likely event they would need
to make a claim in the future. Individuals who were considered a low risk may not
bother to take out insurance covers, leaving only high-risk individuals in the pool of
potential clients. This, some contend, could result in the collapse of the insurance
industry. The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) came about in
direct response to these kinds of concerns and was devised to prevent genetic test
results being used by insurance companies and employers to discriminate against
individuals. It took effect in the United States in 2009.
Genetic testing of employees in the workplace may include testing to detect
genetic abnormalities in workplaces that expose employees to toxins and pollutants.
Employees may also be tested for their susceptibility to known workplace toxins and
pollutants. Both forms of testing raise ethical concerns, specifically in relation to
4
workers’ continued employment after a genetic test has been performed. Further
considerations include whether such testing is mandatory or voluntary, who has
access to the test results (e.g., are they given to both employee and employer?), and
how the risks are communicated to individuals.
While the ethical challenges discussed here are significant, it must also be kept in
mind that a person’s fate is not solely determined by his or her genes (commonly
referred to as “genetic determinism”). There are a number of uncertainties regarding
the degree to which genes – in conjunction with environmental and behavioral
factors – are responsible for particular genetic disorders. Caution must be exercised
when interpreting the information gained from genetic tests.
See also: children’s rights; confidentiality; discrimination;

harm; justice
FURTHER READINGS
Clayton, E. W. 2003. “Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications of Genomic Medicine,” New
England Journal of Medicine, vol. 349, no. 6, p. 562.
Committee on Bioethics 2001. “Ethical Issues with Genetic Testing in Pediatrics,” Pediatrics,
vol. 107, no. 6, pp. 1451–5.
Holm, S., and R. Ashcroft 2007. “Should Genetic Information Be Disclosed to Insurers?”
British Medical Journal, vol. 334, no. 7605, p. 1196(2).
Malpas, P. J. 2006. “Predictive Genetic Testing in Children and Respect for Autonomy,” in
M. Freeman (ed.), Children’s Health and Children’s Rights. London: Martinus Nijhoff
Publishers, pp. 297–309.
Nordgren, A., and E. Juengst 2009. “Can Genomics Tell Me Who I Am? Essentialistic Rhetoric
in Direct-to-Consumer DNA Testing,” New Genetics and Society, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 157–72.
Steinbock, B. 2003. “Using Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis to Save a Sibling: The Story of
Molly and Adam Nash,” in B. Steinbock, J. Arras, and A. London (eds.), Ethical Issues in
Modern Medicine. New York: McGraw-Hill, pp. 544–5.
US Department of Energy Office of Science, O. o. B. a. E. R. 2008. Ethical, Legal and Social
Issues. At http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/elsi.shtml,
retrieved August 26, 2009.
Wertz, D., J. Fletcher, and K. Berg, 2003. “Review of Ethical Issues in Medical Genetics,”
Human Genetics Programme. Switzerland: World Health Organisation, p. 103.
1
Emotivism
Matthew Chrisman
As a metaethical theory (see metaethics) about the meaning of ethical words,

emotivism is typically seen as a form of non-cognitivism (see non-cognitivism)
because it holds that ethical words and statements have a distinctive kind of emotive
meaning, which distinguishes them from other words and statements, whose
meaning is purely cognitive or descriptive. The theory had its heyday in the 1940s
and 1950s, but traces back at least to Ogden and Richards (1923) and Russell (1961),
if not further (for discussion, see Satris 1987). It receives its fullest treatment in Ayer
(1946; see ayer, a. j.) and, initially independently, Stevenson (1937, 1944; see
stevenson, c. l.). Few philosophers today would call themselves emotivists, yet one
can find more contemporary descendants in prescriptivism (see prescriptivism),
expressivism, and quasi-realism (see quasi-realism).
Ayer and Stevenson had different theoretical motivations for endorsing emotivism,
and their respective versions of the theory are importantly different. For Ayer, the
question of the meaning of ethical terms was important because it represented a
potentially fatal objection to the version of verificationism he defends in his seminal
1936 book, Language, Truth and Logic. According to this, any synthetic statement,
i.e., statement where the predicate is not contained in the concepts expressed by the
subject, means what it does in virtue of what would count as verifying the statement
empirically. This is what he calls its “significance” (Ayer 1946: 35). This view helps
Ayer to dismiss many puzzles of traditional metaphysics as mere “pseudo-problems.”
These are puzzles about things like the existence of an external world, the fundamental
nature of substance, or the possibility of free will. Ayer argued that these puzzles
involve synthetic statements that are not empirically verifiable; and because of this,
his verificationism allowed him to hold that these statements lack (perhaps covertly
or nonobviously) significance. That is, they are in a sense meaningless, and so debate
about their truth is pointless pseudo-debate.
The potentially fatal objection to this position is that ethical statements also seem
to be synthetic claims that are not empirically verifiable. Yet ethical claims don’t
seem to be meaningless, ethical puzzles don’t seem to be mere pseudo-problems,
and debate about ethical matters seems anything but pointless pseudo-debate.
Ayer’s emotivist answer to this objection has two stages. At the first stage, he
distinguishes between two uses of what are commonly thought to be ethical words,
such as “right,” “wrong,” etc. He suggests that, on one use of these words, they are
used to make statements about what is acceptable or unacceptable to the moral sense
of a particular community. As such, they are descriptive, and the claims they are used
to make are sociological and so, in principle, empirically verifiable. On another use
of these words, however, he holds that these words are used as “normative ethical
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee052
2
symbols,” and here the objection has some bite, since the statements they are used to
make do not seem to be empirically verifiable but they nonetheless seem to be syn-
thetic and meaningful. At the second stage of Ayer’s response, he argues that while
it’s quite right that his theory implies that normative ethical symbols have no factual
significance, that doesn’t preclude their having emotive meaning. According to Ayer,
the emotive meaning of words is a matter of “the different feelings they are ordinarily
taken to express, and also the different responses which they are calculated to
provoke” (1946: 108).
If Ayer is right, this means that the impression we have that synthetic ethical
statements are meaningful can be explained in a way that is consistent with
verificationism. Either these statements are descriptive claims about the moral sense
of a particular community, in which case they have factual significance even on his
version of verificationism, or they are normative ethical statements, in which case
they have no factual significance but instead emotive meaning. That is, they are used
and understood to express and provoke certain emotions, feelings, or sentiments,
rather than to describe anything in the world.
Ayer articulates several striking corollaries to his view about the meaning of ethical
words and statements. First (and most famously), Ayer claims that because norma-
tive ethical statements are the expressions of feeling, “they do not come under the
category of truth and falsehood” (1946: 108). In contemporary jargon, they are not
truth-apt. Second, his emotivist view is different from the subjectivist view that ethi-
cal words are used to make factual statements about their authors’ state of mind (see
subjectivism, ethical). However, third, it seems to face a similar objection to sub-
jectivism; it makes moral disagreement look senseless. In response, Ayer argued that
moral disagreement is senseless, unless it proceeds on the assumption of shared val-
ues, in which case it’s really a factual disagreement either about what the assumed
values dictate or about the nonethical facts of a particular case. Fourth (and perhaps
most implausibly), Ayer concludes that ethical philosophy consists in nothing more
than noting that ethical words have no factual meaning, and the further task of
describing the different feelings they are used to express is a matter for psychology.
In contrast to Ayer, Stevenson was not motivated by a need to deflect an objection
to verificationism but rather by commitment to a pragmatist or use-theoretic meth-
odology in the philosophy of language. That is, he viewed language as first and
foremost a set of instruments or tools that we use for various purposes. To explain
the meaning of a word or statement, on this approach, is to explain how it is properly
used or what purpose it can be properly used to pursue. In light of this, Stevenson
suggests three broad desiderata on an account of the meaning of the word “good” at
least in its moral sense. First, it must make disagreements about whether something
is good intelligible. Second, it must explain why “good” has what he calls “magnet-
ism” (1937: 16), which is the idea that if one recognizes that something is good one
has ipso facto acquired a stronger tendency to act in its favor (see internalism,
motivational). Third, it must not treat goodness as verifiable solely by the scientific
method (here, he appeals to Moore’s open question argument; see moore, g. e.;
open question argument).
3
A kind of theory which would go some way toward meeting the second desidera-
tum is what Stevenson called “interest theories” which hold that statements about
what is good are descriptions of the interests of a particular group or person (see
relativism, moral). He claims that there is some element of description of interests
in many ethical statements, but he thinks their core use is not to “indicate facts, but
to create influence” (1937: 18). It is because of the interest theories’ failure to recog-
nize this that they cannot meet Stevenson’s first and third desiderata.
Stevenson’s emotivist strategy for doing better begins, in essence, with a socio-
logical observation. He notes that a typical ethical statement, such as “Charity is
good,” “has a quasi-imperative force which, operating through suggestion, and
intensified by your tone of voice, readily permits you to begin to influence, to modify,
[one’s] interests” (1937: 19). The idea is that, although one probably wouldn’t use
this statement unless one favored charity or was speaking with a group which
favored charity, one doesn’t fully grasp its meaning unless one appreciates that its
primary use is to influence and modify interests, not merely (or perhaps even at all)
to describe them.
To capture this distinction, Stevenson distinguishes descriptive uses of language
from what he calls “dynamic” uses of language. The descriptive use of language is to
record, clarify, and communicate beliefs. The dynamic use of language is to vent
feelings, create moods, and incite people to action. He recognizes that most uses of
language will involve some of both. For example, the statement “I want you to close
the door” is plausibly thought to describe the speaker’s desire but also to get the
audience to do something. So, the distinction is a theoretical idealization. However,
in Stevenson’s view, a proper pragmatist theory of meaning will need to be sensitive
to both aspects, and in some cases the dynamic aspect will dominate to the extent
that one will not count as understanding the meaning of a claim without appreciating
its dynamic penumbra to some extent.
Stevenson doesn’t define “linguistic meaning” in such a way that the meaning of a
sentence varies with dynamic use, since that would imply that, in each new situation
where different dynamic purposes prevail, the sentence changes its meaning. As he
recognizes, the notion of “linguistic meaning” is only useful if it is relatively stable
across different situations of the use of a sentence. Because of this, Stevenson defines
the notion of “emotive meaning” as something like the stable core of the dynamic
meaning of a word. He writes, somewhat vaguely: “The emotive meaning of a word
is a tendency of a word, arising through the history of its usage, to produce (result
from) affective responses in people. It is the immediate aura of feeling which hovers
about a word” (1937: 23). For example, the terms “Old Maid” and “Elderly Unmarried
Woman” refer to the same kind of person, but, in Stevenson’s view, they differ in
meaning and this is because they differ in their emotive meaning, i.e., their tendency,
arising through the history of usage, to produce (and result from) affective responses
in people.
Stevenson uses this notion of emotive meaning to articulate his emotivist theory
of the meaning of ethical terms such as “good.” To this end, he suggests, as a first
approximation, that “X is good” means roughly the same as “We like X” when this
4
latter sentence is used not to record, clarify, and communicate beliefs but to vent
feelings, create moods, and incite people to action. He gives the example of a mother
who says to her children “We all like to be neat” as part of a campaign to get them to
pick up after themselves. It may be quite clear that the children don’t really like to be
neat, but the emotive statement is nonetheless apt. Indeed it seems to be just as apt
as the statement “Being neat is good.”
Generalizing this idea leads to the view that while ethical statements may have
truth-conditions, their primary use is not to assert these conditions to be satisfied or
to express a belief that they are satisfied but rather to do something else that involves
expressing feelings in an attempt to incite action. Insofar as one follows a pragmatist
or use-theorist in accounting for the meaning of a statement by appeal to its correct
use, one will take this fact about ethical statements to indicate an important
difference with descriptive statements. This is the essence of Stevenson’s emotivism.
Admittedly, in light of later developments in metaethics it is initially unclear
whether Stevenson means to be asserting a hybrid view according to which ethical
statements have both descriptive and emotive meaning where the latter is more
important or a pure non-cognitivist view according to which ethical statements do
not assert anything but deploy a relativistic content to purely emotive effect. In later
work (1963: 210–14), Stevenson clarifies his position as the latter.
In any case, Stevenson argues that his emotivism does better than interest theo-
ries at his three broad desiderata on an account of the meaning of “good.” First, it
can make sense of the intelligibility of disagreement in judgments about what is
good. Stevenson conceives of this not as a dispute about who is interested in what,
or as a dispute about any factual matter, but rather as a dispute in interests them-
selves. Second, it can make sense of the “magnetism” of statements about what’s
good. For, if these statements are meant to vent feelings, create moods, and incite
people to action, then it should be unsurprising that they bear close connection to
motivation to action. Third, Stevenson’s emotivism does not treat statements about
what is good as verifiable by the empirical method alone. This is because they are
not seen as primarily expressing beliefs, which could be verified by the empirical
method alone, but rather some admixture of affective states such as feelings,
emotions, interests, etc.
Although their motivations for the view are different and the exact articulations
of the view differ in key respects, arguably Ayer’s and Stevenson’s versions of emotiv-
ism are similar enough to view them as versions of one theory. In any case, theirs are
the theories that philosophers typically refer to as “emotivism.” The fact that they
reached their versions of this theory independently and from different theoretical
backgrounds in the philosophy of language (verificationism and pragmatism) has
perhaps led to lasting sympathy in some quarters, even where these theoretical
backgrounds have been called into question.
However, the view is widely regarded as deeply flawed in at least two respects.
First, its rejection of the truth-aptness of ethical statements is a strong affront to
ordinary usage. It’s quite common to say things like “It’s true that torture is evil” or,
in response to an ethical statement one disagrees with, “No, that’s false.” This is
5
inconsistent with emotivism. And this inconsistency with aspects of ordinary ethical
discourse is only amplified by the fact that it’s quite common to use other expressions
which imply the truth-aptness of ethical statements. For example, we say things like
“I believe that democracy is good” and “She knows that what she did was wrong”;
and believing implies taking to be true, and knowing implies truth.
Emotivists may escape this problem by distinguishing between loose and strict
senses of “true,” “believes,” and “knows,” but it is doubtful that this is a fully
satisfactory rejoinder. Some expressivist heirs to emotivism (especially quasi-
realists) argue that this problem can be escaped by reexamining the assumptions
in the theory of truth that led emotivists to deny the truth-aptness of ethical
statements.
The second problem is more technical and influential in metaethics. This is the
objection reached independently by Geach (1965) and Searle (1962) (for precursors,
see Acton 1936; Ross 1939: Ch. 2.2), which is widely referred to as the “Frege–Geach
Problem” (see frege–geach objection). There is some debate about the exact
nature of the problem, but the core issue has to do with the prospects for extending
the emotivist theory of the meaning of ethical words as they appear in logically sim-
ple statements to a fuller account which accommodates their embedding in logically
complex statements.
For example, although the emotivist theory sketched above gives a relatively clear
account of the meaning of “Tormenting the cat is wrong,” it’s far from clear what it
would say about the meaning of the statement “If tormenting the cat is wrong, then
getting your little brother to torment the cat is also wrong.” It’s not implausible to think
that the bare ethical statement expresses a negative emotion or feeling about actions
of tormenting the cat, in at least some sense. However, it’s highly implausible that the
conditionalized statement expresses any particular emotion or feeling about actions of
tormenting the cat or actions of getting one’s little brother to torment the cat. But the
conditionalized statement seems to be an ethical statement, and so, according to emo-
tivism, its meaning should be a matter of its expressing an emotion or feeling of some
sort. Moreover, and more importantly, it’s a requirement of any plausible semantics
that the meaning of the antecedent of the conditional (“Tormenting the cat is wrong”)
have something systematically in common (what’s often called its “semantic content”)
with the meaning of this statement when used to make a bare ethical statement.
Although emotivism has been largely abandoned in contemporary metaethical
debate, it has inspired a number of similar positions (mentioned above). This is
probably because of the important advance emotivism makes over subjectivist theo-
ries. This comes down to the fact that, as Ayer writes:
even if the assertion that one has a certain feeling always involves the expression of that
feeling, the expression of a feeling assuredly does not always involve the assertion that
one has it. And this is the important point to grasp in considering the distinction
between our theory [emotivism] and the ordinary subjectivist theory. For whereas the
subjectivist holds that ethical statements actually assert the existence of certain feelings,
6
we hold that ethical statements are expressions … of feelings which do not necessarily
involve any assertions. (1946: 109–10)
see also: ayer, a. j.; frege–geach objection; internalism, motivational;

metaethics; moore, g. e.; non-cognitivism; open question argument;
prescriptivism; quasi-realism; relativism, moral; stevenson, c. l.;
subjectivism, ethical
REFERENCES
Acton, H. B. 1936. “The Expletive Theory of Morals,” Analysis, vol. 4, nos. 2–3, pp. 42–5.
Ayer, A. J. 1946 [1936]. Language, Truth and Logic. London: Gollancz.
Geach, P. T. 1965. “Assertion,” Philosophical Review, vol. 74, pp. 449–65.
Ogden, C. K., and I. A. Richards 1923. The Meaning of Meaning: A Study of the Influence of
Language upon Thought and of the Science of Symbolism. New York: Harcourt, Brace
& World.
Ross, W. D. 1939. The Foundations of Ethics. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Russell, Bertrand 1961 [1935]. Religion and Science. New York: Oxford University Press.
Satris, Stephen 1987. Ethical Emotivism. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff.
Searle, John 1962. “Meaning and Speech Acts,” Philosophical Review, vol. 71, pp. 423–32.
Stevenson, C. L. 1937. “Emotive Meaning of Ethical Terms,” Mind, vol. 46, pp. 14–31.
Stevenson, C. L. 1944. Ethics and Language. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Stevenson, C. L. 1963. Facts and Values. New Haven: Yale University Press.
FURTHER READINGS
Blackburn, Simon 1984. Spreading the Word. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Darwall, S., A. Gibbard, and P. Railton 1990. “Towards fin de siècle Ethics: Some Trends,” in
Moral Discourse and Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Finlay, Steve 2005. “Emotive Theory of Ethics,” in Donald M. Borchert (ed.), Encyclopedia of
Philosophy, 2nd ed. New York: Macmillan.
Gibbard, Alan 1990. Wise Choices, Apt Feelings. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Schroeder, Mark 2010. Noncognitivism in Ethics. London: Routledge.
Urmson, J. O. 1969. The Emotive Theory of Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
van Roojen, Mark 2009. “Moral Cognitivism vs. Non-Cognitivism,” Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy. At http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2009/entries/moral-cognitivism/.
1
War Crimes
Larry May
War crimes are a species of international crimes (see international criminal

justice) committed during armed conflict. The other major international crimes
are crimes against humanity (see crimes against humanity), genocide (see
genocide), and the crime of aggression (Statute of the International Criminal
Court: Art. 5). While the term “war crime” is sometimes popularly used to cover all
international crimes committed during war (see war), it is properly restricted in
international law to violations of the principle requiring that soldiers act humanely.
Soldiers are supposed to act with mercy (see mercy) and compassion, even as these
same soldiers are allowed to kill enemy soldiers. The apparent paradox of this remark
illustrates the conceptual problems of normatively grounding the idea of war crimes,
and of international prosecutions for such crimes.
Classifying War Crimes
One of the difficulties in defining war crimes is that there have been so many
candidates for war crimes over the centuries that they seem not to form a coherent
set. Indeed, it sometimes appears that what counts as a war crime is simply what one
side had developed as a new strategy of war and the other side had not yet developed.
So, catapults were condemned at one point historically, and the uses of poisoned
arrows, or even arrows with feathers, were also condemned as violating the rules of
war (Deter 2000: Ch. 5). Yet, the long list of actions that have historically been
considered as war crimes can be pared down to four large categories:
1 Assaults, including killing, of civilians.

2 Assaults, including killing, of confined soldiers (i.e., soldiers who have surrendered,
soldiers who have been captured, or soldiers held as prisoners of war).
3 Assaults, including killing, of nonconfined soldiers that are not directly neces-
sary for winning battles (including the use of poisons, and certain weapons that
produce more suffering than is militarily necessary).
4 Assaults against property or the environment (including attacks on cultural
artifacts and monuments, as well as other targets not directly necessary for
winning battles).
The first category of war crimes – assaults, including killing (see killing) of
civilians – seems to be the easiest to justify, but recent philosophical discussions
have rendered this category quite problematical. One way to see the difficulty is by
trying to distinguish a reluctant conscripted soldier from a warmongering munitions
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee053
2
manufacturer. Is the latter someone who should never be killed, and the former
someone who can always be killed? Another example of conceptual difficulty may
be seen in the way that guerrilla war is often waged by using old men or women as
suicide bombers. Are these people civilians or combatants? And what do we make
of the claim by Averroes (1167), and repeated sometimes today, that all able-bodied
adult males could be killed because they are likely to take up arms at any moment
for a jihad?
The second category of war crimes – assaults, including killing of confined
soldiers – has been seen as problematical for many hundreds of years. This is, at least
in part, because of three facts. First, confined soldiers can escape confinement and,
since they are typically housed deep behind fighting lines, they can wreak havoc in
ways they could not if they were at the front. Second, confined soldiers often know
militarily important information, which could significantly shorten the war, and
diminish casualties on both sides, but which it might take torture to cause these
confined soldiers to divulge. Third, confined soldiers require resources, both
material and personnel, in order to be maintained, and can significantly displace
funds needed at the front to fight opposing forces. Because of a worry about such
considerations, it has become common to ask whether a prohibition on assaulting,
or even killing, confined soldiers might not be justified in consequentialist terms,
especially when winning a just war is at stake (Brandt 1972).
Since the Middle Ages (see medieval ethics), questions have been raised about
the third category – assaults, including killing of nonconfined soldiers, not directly
necessary for victory in battle. The key question is whether assaults not directly
necessary for achieving a military objective can be justified, for instance, when
troops are assaulted as a means to demoralize or punish them for waging aggressive
war. Indeed, until quite recently, it was thought justified to wage war and even
assault civilians in order to punish a state for its aggressive acts of war. If one state
has clearly acted wrongly, such as by invading another state, should that other state
have to restrain its retaliatory assaults? Is it inhumane to engage in assaults not
directly necessary for winning battles, given that the defending state has a signifi-
cant interest in punishing the aggressor state that is not closely connected to winning
battles at all?
The fourth category of war crimes – assaults against property or the environment –
may not seem as important as the others since it does not concern attacks on persons.
But wars must end eventually, and significant hardship can be had on both sides of
a war if the towns and countryside have been ravaged by rampaging troops. And
morale, as well as culture itself, can be significantly damaged if important cultural
and artistic creations have been wantonly destroyed. Indeed, civilization itself can be
adversely affected by these crimes against property. But a conceptual difficulty arises
in attempts to compare these crimes to the other three categories of war crimes,
especially in those situations where it seems unavoidable that one choose either loss
of life or loss of property.
3
The Just War Tradition and War Crimes

The just war tradition (see just war theory, history of) goes back at least 2,000
years, and its best-known theorist is Hugo Grotius (1625). Grotius is the most
obvious bridge between contemporary war crimes law and the old just war tradition,
because he is one of the only noncontemporary theorists to be included in a small
group of experts in international law whose views are actually sources of international
law (Statute of the International Court of Justice: Art. 38). Yet, there are many other
theorists in the just war tradition who are regularly referred to by international legal
scholars and even by courts today.
The close relation between the just war tradition and the international law of war
crimes is accepted by many scholars, but not well explained. One explanation for
this close relation is simply that the major categories of both the just war and
international criminal law overlap. In the just war tradition, there are two important
questions: was the decision to wage war morally justified (jus ad bellum), and were
the tactics employed in war morally justified (jus in bello)? This just war division is
reflected in international criminal law’s distinction between the crime of aggression
and war crimes. The decision to wage an aggressive war is subject to prosecution as
a crime against peace. The use of inhumane tactics during war is subject to
prosecution as a war crime. Indeed, it is sometimes said in international law that
crimes of aggression are jus ad bellum violations, and that war crimes are jus in bello
violations (Fleck 1995: 1).
Traditionally, jus ad bellum considerations were thought to be independent of jus
in bello considerations (Walzer 1977; but also see McMahan 2009). Similarly, in
international law, there is generally no conceptual connection between crimes of
aggression and war crimes. It is normally assumed, in the just war tradition, and in
international law, that engaging in some wars can be justified. The difficulty is to
explain why killing, even massive killing that is characteristic of war, can be consid-
ered justified and yet the use of certain tactics, such as the use of fragmentation
bombs, or even tactics that fall short of killing, such as the destruction of cultural
artifacts, are not considered justified in war. The intentional taking of life in combat
is not condemned, but nonetheless restrictions are placed on how much suffering
can be caused during such combat.
The idea that, during war, certain acts of soldiers are morally and legally wrong,
given that they are permitted to kill intentionally, seems initially to strain
credulity. There has been a very healthy debate about such matters over the
centuries. The founder of the just war tradition, Augustine of Hippo (ca. 420) (see
augustine, saint), argued against the Early Church Fathers who were largely
pacifists. Early theorists in the just war tradition argued that wars, especially wars
to stop the slaughter of the innocent or wars to protect helpless states, could be
justified, but that there were moral rules concerning tactics that had to be adhered
to nonetheless.
4
The idea that needs normative support is that, even in war, there are moral or
legal rules that require not that intentional killing be stopped, but that killing and
its ancillary activities are conducted with moral restraint nonetheless. The just war
tradition was intimately connected to natural law theory (see natural law), with its
central idea that there were universally binding moral obligations that transcended
culture, historical epoch, and circumstance. While many versions of just war and
natural law have been proposed, Grotius was right that the most plausible approach
admits the least number of principles, or put differently, one that has a minimum of
moral principles that are proposed. There is a secular natural law tradition, extending
at least from the works of Grotius and Pufendorf (see pufendorf, samuel von),
that is important for providing theoretical support of the idea of prosecutions of war
crimes (Tuck 1999).
The rules of war constitute a system of norms for regulating the behavior of
states and their agents during war in the absence of a world state. And, the system
of norms is meant to apply to what is probably the most stressful of times – when
war has broken out and both sides to a dispute not only call the other “enemy” but
also can find no other way to resolve the dispute but to attempt physically to
coerce or even annihilate each other. In such times, to have any agreement about
what the rules of the game are must be seen as a good thing in the progress of
humanity.
Humanitarian Concerns
The area of law that is closest today to the jus in bello rules of war is sometimes
called “international humanitarian law.” It is for this reason that some theorists
have sought the roots of these principles in what has been called natural law the-
ory, albeit a secular and minimalist version (Janis 1993; May 2007). Natural law
theorists have traditionally not been as bothered by a porous border between law
and morality as have other theorists. Indeed, natural law theorists have champi-
oned the view that this is the correct way to understand that border. Codes of
honor (see codes of ethics) and chivalry of militaries have also been based on
moral or natural law principles, especially as they have connected their rules with
natural human feelings of compassion and mercy. Such codes were premised on
the idea that legal rules of conduct should reflect the moral virtues. In wartime,
the chief value that legal codes should be modeled on is the principle of humane
treatment as embodying what is the moral core of the principles of discrimina-
tion, necessity (see military necessity), or proportionality (see proportionality
[in war]).
Seneca (ca. 65) is one of the first philosophers to seriously consider the rules of
war. Writing at the end of the Roman Empire, Seneca wrote De Clementia, which
explicitly talks about the restraints of war in terms of humanity and mercy. Seneca
first proposes that we think of mercy as “leniency on the part of a superior towards
an inferior in imposing punishment.” After considering several other possible
definitions of mercy, Seneca finally settles on defining mercy as something that
5
“stops short of what could deservedly be imposed” (160). Seneca says of mercy
that it has as its opposite cruelty. And cruelty is best understood, says Seneca, as
going “beyond the limit of anything humane or justifiable” (161). Sternness is
compatible with mercy, but cruelty is not. Concerning prisoners of war, Seneca
says that they should be released “unharmed, sometime even commended, if
they had an honorable reason – loyalty, a treaty, their freedom – to drive them to
war” (164).
The situations of war, and the institutions created during war, such as
prisoner-of-war camps, change the normal moral situation. This is mainly because
the circumstances of war make all of us into different people than we would be
otherwise. Especially in the case of soldiers, these men and women become trained
killers, when in their previous lives such behavior would have been anathema. In
addition, there is the instilled hatred and anger that cloud our judgment about the
actions of others and what their due is for so acting. And there is the seeming need
to respond right away lest our own safety be jeopardized.
The principle of the equality of prisoners of war is the background assumption of
Geneva Convention III. Article 3 leaves little doubt when it declares that:
Persons taking no active part in the hostilities … shall in all circumstances be treated
humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, color, religion, faith, sex,
birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.
To this end, the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any
place whatsoever …
a) violence to life and person …
c) outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment …
And, Article 13 also is quite clear in saying that:
prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated. … Measures of reprisal against
prisoners of war are prohibited.
Thus, the Geneva Convention III subscribed to a rough equality of prisoners of war
by specifying that there is a minimum that all such prisoners can demand, regardless
of who they are or what they did on the battlefield. They are not to be subject to
reprisals, and while they can be disciplined for what they do while in custody, pun-
ishment (see punishment) for what they did while on the battlefield must wait until
after there has been a proper judicial proceeding.
Since prisoners of war are dependent on their captors, there is a kind of fiduciary
or stewardship relationship between prisoners of war and those who detain them. In
addition, the captors often see prisoners of war as deserving of vengeance for what
these prisoners did to the detaining soldiers’ comrades, making abuse even more
likely, and therefore needing even more restraint. And then there is also the
prudential argument that one should not abuse prisoners of war lest one’s own
soldiers who become prisoners of war will themselves be abused. And finally, there
6
is the consideration of humanity, that to be humane one must display mercy in

certain circumstances. There are thus several reasons for treating prisoners of war
with restraint, especially when we are considering the use of torture and other forms
of physical violence against those who cannot defend themselves.
The rules of war are often grounded in three principles: discrimination, necessity,
and proportionality. These principles mean that normally only soldiers, not civilians,
should be targeted for attack, and tactics should only be used that are necessary to
achieve a military objective, and the objective must provide more benefit than
the tactics cost. But these principles themselves are not often connected to each other
or morally grounded. Normatively, discrimination, necessity, and proportionality
must themselves be grounded in, and remain secondary to, the principle of humane
treatment. The best way to understand humane treatment is in terms of compassion
and mercy, not in terms of (retributive) justice. Grounding international humanitar-
ian law is about just this attempt to reconfigure the way people think, so that it is
possible that peace might be restored, and that in the meantime suffering is reduced.
It is in this way that we can understand why the rules of war are said to derive from
the “laws of humanity and the dictates of public conscience” (Hague Convention IV:
Preamble).
Justificatory Hurdles
War crimes are distinguished from other international crimes having to do with
tactics, such as crimes against humanity, in that war crimes are committed during
armed conflict, whether international or internal. Crimes against humanity could or
could not be committed during war, but are committed by members of one state
against a population, often the state’s own citizens, and, at least for persecution-type
crimes against humanity, normally involve some sort of discriminatory animus
(Prosecutor v. Erdemovic 1997). The increasing number of prosecutions for war
crimes during civil wars has made the distinction between war crimes and crimes
against humanity not as neat as it once was. Nonetheless, the paradigm examples
of a war crime, the torture of a prisoner of war or the killing of an innocent
noncombatant, have been recognized as international crimes for at least 500 years,
whereas the concepts of crimes against humanity and crimes against peace are of
more recent vintage. There are difficult, yet different, justificatory hurdles that are
posed for international prosecutions for these crimes.
International prosecutions for crimes against humanity face the first and most
important justificatory hurdle concerning sovereignty. Crimes against humanity
involve such practices as ethnic cleansing of a minority population by a majority
within that same state, or the systematic rape of members of one subgroup by the
representatives of a state. A sovereign state is presumed to have exclusive jurisdiction
over the criminal activities of its citizens. Thus, state sovereignty poses the most
serious hurdle to prosecutions for crimes against humanity.
International prosecutions for war crimes do not face the same initial hurdle as
crimes against humanity, or if they do it is not the most important conceptual hurdle.
7
In war crimes, borders have normally already been crossed, and since both offending
and defending states are sovereign states, there is no presumption that priority
should be given to the exclusive jurisdiction of one state over another. A third-party
adjudicator is often necessary in such cases. This is one reason why the consensus
about the justifiability of prosecutions for war crimes goes back quite far historically,
whereas the idea that there should be prosecutions for crimes against humanity is
relatively recent.
The first and most important justificatory hurdle for international prosecutions for
war crimes has to do with the nature of war itself. If one state has sent its troops across
another state’s borders to kill that other state’s soldiers, it is unclear why a justifiably
defending state has any duties at all in terms of the treatment of the soldiers of the
offending state. It is clear that war crimes are still a relevant concern when considering
the treatment of civilians who should not be directly targeted regardless of the circum-
stances (see civilian immunity). But where both sides seem to be justified in killing
the soldiers of the other side, why should prosecutions of soldiers, let alone interna-
tional prosecutions for so-called war crimes, ever be justified? This is the most impor-
tant conceptual question that defenders of prosecutions for war crimes must address.
In addition there are conceptual problems in establishing criminal guilt.
Prosecutions for war crimes, whether in international tribunals or domestic
courts, involve the establishment of the elements of mens rea and actus rea. There
are even more difficult conceptual problems with such prosecutions than is nor-
mal in criminal law. First, how are we to think of the criminal liability of soldiers,
given that they seem to lack any mens rea, since their main intention seems to be
to follow orders, or to act in a patriotic way to do what is in the interest of their
states? Second, how do we link the clearly harmful collective crimes (see collec-
tive responsibility), such as those that occur in prisoner-of-war camps, to the
acts of the individual soldiers given that the soldiers do not plan these larger
crimes and often have only rudimentary knowledge of how their own isolated acts
contribute to those larger harms? And third, even if the acts of soldiers can be
considered criminal, why think that they should be the subject of international
prosecutions?
Some, but by no means all, of these problems can be partially resolved by
prosecuting leaders rather than soldiers. But the military or political leaders who
give orders, or allow soldiers, to disregard the rules of war, do not themselves violate
the rules of war, such as against torturing prisoners of war. The actus reus element of
the elements of war crimes is hard to prove for leaders, just as the mens rea element
of war crimes is hard to prove for soldiers. For this reason, it has become common,
although by no means uncontroversial, to prosecute war crimes as a matter of joint
criminal enterprise liability, which certainly fits those war crimes conducted in con-
centration camps, but not easily in other situations.
See also: augustine, saint; civilian immunity; codes of ethics;

collective responsibility; crimes against humanity; genocide;
international criminal justice; just war theory, history of; killing;
8
medieval ethics; mercy; military necessity; natural law;

proportionality (in war); pufendorf, samuel von; punishment; war
REFERENCES
Augustine, Saint 1984. The City of God, trans. Henry Bettenson. New York: Penguin.
Averroes (Ibn Rushd) 1996. “Jihad” (from Al-Bidaya), para. 3, in Rudolph Peters (ed. and
trans.), Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam. Princeton: Markus Weiner, pp. 29–33.
Brandt, Richard 1972. “Utilitarianism and the Rules of War,” Philosophy and Public Affairs,
vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 145–64.
Deter, Ingrid 2000. The Law of War, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fleck, Dieter (ed.) 1995. The Handbook of Humanitarian Law in Armed Conflicts. Oxford:
Geneva Convention III. Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, August 12, 75 U.N.T.S.
135 (1949).
Grotius, Hugo 1925 [1625]. De Jure Belli Ac Pacis (On the Law of War and Peace), trans.
Francis W. Kelsey. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Hague Convention (IV). Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land. Preamble
(1907).
Janis, Mark 1993. An Introduction to International Law. New York: Aspen Law.
McMahan, Jeff 2009. Killing in War. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
May, Larry 2007. War Crimes and Just War. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Prosecutor v. Erdemovic, International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia, Judgment of the
Appeals Chamber (October 7, 1997).
Seneca 1995. “On Mercy,” Book II, in John M. Cooper and J. F. Procope (eds.), Seneca: Moral
and Political Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Statute of the International Court of Justice, T.S. No. 993, 59 Stat. 1055, Article 38 (June 26, 1945).
Statute of the International Criminal Court, Adopted by the UN Diplomatic Conference in
Rome, Article 5 (July 17, 1998).
Tuck, Richard 1999. The Rights of War and Peace. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Walzer, Michael 1977. Just and Unjust Wars. New York: Basic Books.
FURTHER READINGS
Arendt, Hannah 1963. Eichmann in Jerusalem. New York: Viking.
Askin, Kelly Dawn 1997. War Crimes Against Women. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff.
Cassese, Antonio 2003. International Criminal Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
French, Shannon 2003. The Code of the Warrior: Exploring Values Past and Present. Lanham,
Gentili, Alberico 1933 [1598]. De Jure Belli (On the Law of War), trans. John C. Rolfe. Oxford:
Gray, J. Glenn 1970. The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle. New York: Harper & Row.
Kutz, Christopher 2005. “The Difference Uniforms Make: Collective Violence in Criminal
Law and War,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 33, pp. 148–80.
Lackey, Douglas 1989. The Ethics of War and Peace. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
May, Larry 2008. Aggression and Crimes Against Peace. New York: Cambridge University Press.
9
May, Larry (ed.) 2008. War: Essays in Political Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
May, Larry, Eric Rovie, and Steve Viner (eds.) 2006. The Morality of War. Upper Saddle River,
NJ: Prentice Hall.
Osiel, Mark 1999. Obeying Orders: Atrocity, Military Discipline, and the Law of War.
New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
Ratner, Steven, and Jason Abrams 2009. Accountability for Human Rights Atrocities in
International Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rodin, David 2002. War and Self-Defense. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sherman, Nancy 2005. Stoic Warriors. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sterba, James P. (ed.) 2003. Terrorism and International Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Suarez, Francisco 1944. Disputation XIII, De Triplici Virtute Theologica: Charitate (“On
War”), in Selections from Three Works: Charity, trans. Gwladys L. Williams, Ammi
Brown, and John Waldron. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Vitoria, Francisco 1917 [1557]. De Indis et de Jure Belli Reflectiones (Reflections on Indians
and on the Laws of War), ed. Ernest Nys, trans. John Pawley Bate. Washington, DC:
Carnegie Institution.
1
Personhood, Criteria of
David Shoemaker
In modern philosophy, the concept of personhood is thoroughly moralized.

Specifically, the term “person” has been taken to refer to entities with either certain
moral capacities or a certain moral status. Consequently, investigation into the
nature of the concept has been motivated and informed by interest in a wide variety
of moral issues, including moral responsibility, the nature of moral obligation and
value, freedom of the will (see free will), abortion (see abortion), animal rights
(see animal rights), and advance directives (see advance directives). Given this
variety of motivations, it is unsurprising that a number of different criteria of
personhood have emerged. What follows is a selective survey and discussion of
them.
Persons and Moral Capacities

Locke
John Locke (1632–1704; see locke, john) was the first and most influential purveyor
of the method of conceptualizing personhood in terms of moral capacities. As he
put it explicitly, “person” is “a forensic term, appropriating actions and their merit;
and so belongs only to intelligent agents capable of a law, and happiness, and misery”
(Locke 1975 [1694]: 50–1). A person, in other words, is an entity – the only entity –
to whom actions may sensibly be attributed for purposes of moral responsibility
(what Locke called “accountability”; see responsibility). While non-person
animals may thus perform actions, and those actions may be theirs in some sense,
they are not theirs in the sense relevant to accountability, and so it is in
virtue of their lacking the capacity for accountability that they are not persons (this
is what Locke meant by “person” being a forensic term).
Given that personhood is to be defined in terms of the capacity for accountability,
then, what must be figured out first are the conditions of accountability. For Locke,
this was a matter of the present self being extended back to the past self in such a
way that the present self could appropriate unto itself those past actions “just upon
the same ground and for the same reason that it does the present” (1975 [1694]: 51).
The entity incorporating both selves is a person, and so to do the relevant
self-appropriation, a person must be “a thinking intelligent being, that has reason
and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing, in different
times and places; which it does only by that consciousness which is inseparable
from thinking, and … essential to it” (1975 [1694]: 39). In other words, the key
condition of personhood is a robust sort of self-consciousness: one must be able not
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee054
2
just to be conscious of one’s self and its actions, say, but also to be conscious of
that self and its actions as one’s own self and as one’s own actions. Indeed, it is this
sort of consciousness that makes that self and its actions one’s own for purposes of
accountability.
Worries about this criterion of personhood may come from two directions. From
one direction, one may wonder whether or not Locke’s forensic understanding of
“person” captures the whole of our understanding of the term. For instance, our
question of whether or not a human fetus is a person is not a question about its
capacity for accountability; rather, it is a question about its having a certain sort of
moral status (more on this in the following text).
Perhaps, though, Locke meant to capture just the forensic aspect of “person” (thus
allowing for more than one moralized sense). Nevertheless, one might then wonder
from the other direction whether or not Locke has captured the correct criterion even
here. After all, we would think a drunk shouting racist slurs at a police officer is
accountable for doing so regardless of whether or not he later has any consciousness of
it. (Locke suggests we would think this only because we are dubious that the sober man
really does lack consciousness of his drunken acts, but this reply seems implausible.)
Furthermore, a criminal’s memory trace of his crime might conceivably be trans-
planted into the brain of an innocent bystander, but clearly the bystander’s sudden
consciousness of that past action could not render him accountable for it thereby.
Despite these worries, the Lockean criterion of personhood has remained quite
popular, usually taken to be either the correct account or at least a crucial foundation
of the correct account. This latter is the approach adopted by our next two views.
Kant
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) defined “person” as “a subject whose actions can be
imputed to him” (1797: 6:223, emphasis in original), and so he too began with Locke’s
general view that personhood is connected with attributability and moral responsibil-
ity (see kant, immanuel). This definition is sufficient to distinguish persons from
things, to which nothing can be imputed. And also similarly to Locke, Kant thought the
relevant subjects were those with the capacity for consciousness of their identities
through time, but for Kant this required a psycho-physical being, an embodied mind
(Kneller 2006: 464). While this view of persons had some implications for his moral
philosophy – if I can own only things external to my person, and my person includes
my body, then I cannot own or dispose of (parts of) my body – Kant was actually more
interested in what he calls moral personhood, which is “nothing other than the free-
dom of a rational being under moral laws” (1797: 6:223).
The capacity for the freedom in question is autonomy (see autonomy), and it
grounds both our obligations to others and their obligations to us. To have moral
personhood is to be subject to the moral law; personhood in this sense is the source
of normativity (see normativity). Indeed, the moral law is the operating principle
of freedom: insofar as one is free, one is under its imperative, an imperative which is
nevertheless self-imposed. Autonomy, then, is “the property the will has of being a
3
law to itself ” (Kant 1785: 4:446). However, insofar as the moral law contains no
individual contingencies (e.g., no desire-based or sensory content), it is universal:
one must thus perform only those actions whose maxims could be willed as a
universal law of nature (see categorical imperative). Non-normative freedom,
in other words, gives rise to the moral law, which is itself the source of moral
normativity. My autonomy is the source of obligations to others.
My autonomy – my (moral) personhood – is also the source of obligations to me.
First, I owe myself respect in virtue of my autonomy, as commanded by the moral
law. However, again, insofar as there is nothing about my own capacity for autonomy
dependent on any contingencies of my individual desires or senses, I owe this respect
to all other persons as well, just as they owe it to me (Christman 2009). Consequently,
in virtue of their rational nature, persons are ends-in-themselves and so ought to be
treated as such, never as mere means. Things or objects may be used to further our
aims, but not persons. To treat persons as ends-in-themselves, then, is to treat them
with the respect befitting their status as persons.
For Locke, the criterion of personhood consisted precisely in the conditions for
moral responsibility imputation, namely, the capacity for self-consciousness. Kant
agreed that imputation was captured by this criterion of persons, but he thought
something more was needed to establish the obligations of morally responsible
entities in the first place, namely, autonomy (one could, after all, be self-conscious
without being autonomous). However, one still might wonder whether or not
enough has been built into the account of personhood. In particular, it might be
thought that a self-conscious rational being could still lack certain capacities we
think are necessary for possessing all of what we deem valuable about personhood.
After all, an alien could be both rational and self-conscious without our thinking of
it as a person (or perhaps a full-fledged person), for even though it might be able to
reflect on its own actions, make correct judgments about the moral law, and legislate
actions for itself in accordance with that law, it may not care about its actions, and
the type of creature it is, generally in a way that registers the importance of these
concerns to our lives as persons. Incorporating this value, then, may require an
additional component.
Frankfurt
In 1959, P. F. Strawson (1919–2006) proposed an analysis of “person” which actually
seemed value-neutral: “a type of entity such that both predicates ascribing states of
consciousness and predicates ascribing corporeal characteristics … are equally appli-
cable to an individual entity of that type” (1959: 101–2; see strawson, p. f.). As it
stands, though, this analysis is insufficient precisely because of its purported value-
neutrality: it captures neither the Lockean nor the Kantian moral aspects of person-
hood (see, e.g., Rovane 1993). For one thing, an entity to whom predicates ascribing
states of consciousness apply is not necessarily self-conscious in the way thought
necessary for the imputation of actions. For another thing, a conscious being would
not necessarily have to be a rational being, capable of the kind of self-legislation that
4
Kant thought essential to moral obligation. And furthermore, as Harry Frankfurt

(1929–) first pointed out, not only would this analysis implausibly include many
nonhuman animals under its rubric, but also it would fail “to capture those attrib-
utes which are the subject of our most humane concern with ourselves and the
source of what we regard as most important and most problematical in our lives”
(1988: 12). To capture these attributes, according to Frankfurt, we have to articulate
a criterion of personhood that includes not only self-consciousness and rationality,
but also reflective self-evaluation.
Frankfurt’s picture is meant to illuminate personhood by virtue of its relation to
volition, in particular to freedom of the will. This is a freedom that Kant’s persons
presumably have as well, but for Kant this sort of freedom requires a robust
contra-causal capacity that outstrips the capacities of merely natural creatures,
whereas Frankfurt’s concern is to establish genuine freedom of the will on a
thoroughly naturalist construal of agency, one that is also neutral with respect to
both determinism and indeterminism.
To do so, Frankfurt introduces a hierarchy of desires. At the first order, one has
various desires to do things, only one of which may be effective at any point in time.
Call that effective desire one’s will. Second-order desires, by contrast, are desires
about one’s first-order desires, desires either just to have a certain first-order desire
or to desire that some occurrent first-order desire constitute one’s will. To have the
latter is to have a second-order volition, and it is the having of such volitions that
Frankfurt takes to be essential to personhood (1988: 16). The relevant contrast here
is to wantons, creatures that have first-order desires – and that may even have sec-
ond-order desires – but lack second-order volitions: they simply do not care about
the structure of their wills. For those who do care, however, failure to form second-
order volitions threatens their personhood either by freezing their will (and paralyz-
ing their agency) or by causing them to be moved by a will they regard as alien to
themselves (or at least by a will that is determined independently of their volitions)
(Frankfurt 1988: 21).
Closely related to the capacity to form second-order volitions is, however, another
capacity thought necessary to personhood, namely, the ability to enjoy or lack freedom
of the will, which involves the ability to translate one’s second-order volitions into
actual willings, i.e., to make one’s desires about which will to have to be successful.
Enjoying or lacking freedom of the will can thus be a problem only for those entities
capable of forming second-order volitions in the first place (Frankfurt 1988: 19).
What matters here is the kind of moral entity established by this criterion of
personhood. In claiming that personhood consists simply in the exercise of the
capacity to form second-order volitions, Frankfurt either surpasses or bypasses the
moral features that the previous two criteria found essential. For one thing, while
moral responsibility may be (partially) accounted for on Frankfurt’s picture of
personhood, it is neither the motivation nor the focus of his view. It is, instead,
freedom of the will, which Frankfurt explicitly avers is not even one of the conditions
of moral responsibility: one may be morally responsible for an action even if one’s
will is not free with respect to it, which is the case for a willing addict, someone whose
5
will is actually dependent on her physiological addiction but who loves being an
addict and so forms a (redundant) second-order volition that her desire to take the
drugs constitute her will (1988: 24–5; see addiction). And while only persons are
morally responsible and their responsibility comes in virtue of their formation of
second-order volitions, Frankfurt goes beyond Locke’s thought that self-consciousness
is the key. Merely being conscious of one’s actions is insufficient to render them one’s
own, for Frankfurt; rather, what matters is one’s attitude towards those actions: an
action may properly be imputed to one only in virtue of one’s wanting to want it.
For another thing, it is not at all clear what relation, if any, there is on Frankfurt’s
account between personhood and moral obligation (or normativity generally). It
seems perfectly possible, after all, that a Frankfurtian non-person (albeit not
necessarily a wanton) could nevertheless subsume his actions under the moral law.
This could be the case, for instance, for someone who did not care about his first-order
desires (and so neither formed second-order volitions nor had Frankfurtian freedom
of the will), precisely because his judgments of value and the moral law were
themselves motivationally effective. And Frankfurt’s account generally makes no
mention of moral willings at all; if anything, they are treated no differently from any
other kind of willing as part of this purely explanatory story about free agency.
Summation
Obviously, then, these three criteria of personhood emphasize different features,
given the different value-based motivations of their progenitors. Indeed, in all three
cases, “person” is just the label for whatever entity has their favored morally relevant
capacities. For Locke, a person is simply what we call the entity capable of moral
responsibility, i.e., the entity capable of backwards-extending self-consciousness.
For Kant, a (moral) person is simply what we call the entity capable of moral obliga-
tion, i.e., the rational and autonomous entity capable of self-legislation. And for
Frankfurt, a person is simply what we call the entity that cares about the type of
entity it is, i.e., the desiring entity capable of self-evaluation and freedom of the will.
What we get from this approach, then, are three different criteria of personhood, all
of which are, to some extent, revisionary of common usage. This is fine, as long as
we are aware of what has gone on, but the more the “person” becomes divorced from
common usage, the less clear it is why we should care about it even as a mere label.
Persons and Moral Status

An alternative approach, then, is to try to articulate the features of the commonly
used concept of “person” in order to be able to resolve various issues in ethics,
particularly bioethics (see bioethics). The basic assumption is that “persons” refers
to creatures with a certain moral status (see moral status), entities with moral
rights whose interests ought to receive a certain level of moral consideration. The
controversy centers on how to fill in the concept in more detail, and thus how to
determine who is and who is not included under its rubric. This controversy has
6
played out most often in discussion of the moral issues related to abortion, animal
rights, and advance directives.
Abortion
The basic argument(s) for or against abortion on grounds of personhood goes
roughly as follows (there are two arguments here – one positive and one negative –
reflected on either side of the slash in each premise):
1 All/Only persons have a right to life.

2 A fetus is/is not a person.
_______________________________
3 Thus, a fetus has/has not a right to life.
Unless one is to beg the question in the second premise, though, one must provide a
criterion of personhood that accounts for what makes such entities have the rights in
question (see fetuses). Here, there are three contenders.
First, there is the theological view that being a person consists in having a soul (or
in being an embodied soul), so that it is the soul that provides the moral status (see
religious and global ethics). This criterion is typically deployed in order to
defend the view that fetuses are in fact persons in virtue of being ensouled (usually
thought to occur at the “moment” of conception). The difficulties with this view are
well known: given the allegedly nonphysical nature of souls, how could we ever
know that a creature is actually ensouled (and so, further, why should we think
ensoulment occurs – and a fetus gets personhood – at one particular point in
development as opposed to any other)?
Second, there is the purely biological view that personhood consists in having
a certain sort of (human-style) genetic code and/or (eventual) physiognomy. In
this view, the term “human being” is used more often than “person” to describe
this entity, but it is clear that “human being” is supposed to have precisely the
same moral implications as “person,” namely, it is supposed to refer to an entity
with a certain sort of moral status. The problem is that when it is deployed in the
abortion debate, it often involves an equivocation. Granting that the fetus is both
human and a living being, it is thought obvious that it must then be a human
being. However, a human being in this sense would also include a human cancer
cell (which is also both human and living), and so cannot yet be taken in the very
different sense of “person” according to which it has the relevant moral status
(English 1975: 242; Marquis 1989: 185). Furthermore, it is unclear why having
certain biological characteristics implies anything about an entity’s moral status.
We certainly reject any such relation between moral status and skin color, for
instance.
Third, there is the view that personhood involves a set of psychological
characteristics. The list typically includes traits such as rationality and the capac-
ities for communication, self-originating activity, self-awareness, pain, and so
7
forth (Warren 1973). These items do not constitute a criterion (a set of necessary
and sufficient conditions) of personhood, however; rather, they are associated
with typical persons such that, if an entity has all of them, then it is definitely a
person, but if it lacks a few, it could still be a person. Lacking all of them, how-
ever, is supposed to definitely render one a non-person. And, since a fetus (an
early fetus, anyway) lacks them all, it is alleged to be a non-person, and so with-
out moral status. However, even setting aside worries about the boundaries of
this category (are infants covered?) or the rationale for why this is the right list of
characteristics, one may wonder here as well why having certain psychological
characteristics implies anything about an entity’s moral status (Marquis 1989:
186–8). Indeed, while those who have all the characteristics surely have moral
rights, it remains unclear why they should be thought to have those rights in vir-
tue of their possessing any or all of the psychological characteristics themselves
(given that rights may be ascribed to entities that are missing any one of the
characteristics).
In light of these worries and others, some writers have urged that we abandon the
search for criteria of personhood here in favor of either treating it merely as a family
resemblance concept (English 1975) or focusing instead on a completely different
analysis of the rightness or wrongness of abortion altogether (Marquis 1989;
Thomson 1971).
The status of animals

The approach to the moral status of animals has been similar in many respects to the
approach to abortion just explored, albeit often without as much deployment of or
emphasis on the term “person” itself (although personhood is still lurking in the
background). Rather, the dispute is more often couched in the language of “humans”
and “nonhumans”: do nonhuman animals have the same or similar moral status as
humans? However, from here, the dispute typically proceeds in the same way:
humans/persons get their moral status in virtue of X, and nonhuman animals do/
do not share in X, so nonhuman animals do/do not share in the moral status of
humans/persons. If X is specified to be an immaterial soul, it is impossible to know
whether or not nonhuman animals share in X. If X is specified to be a set of (human)
biological characteristics animals do not share, then this is thought to involve an
objectionable kind of “speciesism,” an arbitrary bias in favor of the interests of one’s
own species solely because they are members of one’s own species (Singer 1976).
This again is a worry about the relevance of biological characteristics for moral sta-
tus. Finally, if X is specified to be a set of psychological characteristics (e.g., rational-
ity, self-awareness, etc.), then it is difficult to make sense of all humans even
possessing the original moral status, given the lack of such abilities among infants
and the cognitively challenged. In addition, one might again wonder why the pos-
session of certain psychological characteristics is relevant to establishing moral sta-
tus, as well as why one set of characteristics ostensibly establishes it better than any
other (Beauchamp 1999).
8
Advance directives
The hard case in this arena is one in which a clear-headed 60-year-old woman (60W)
signs an advance directive requesting no extraordinary life-saving measures if she
ever becomes demented, but when her 70-year-old self (70W) becomes demented,
she is content and expresses a preference to continue living (see, e.g., McMahan
2002: 497). Whose preferences are authoritative here, 60W’s or 70W’s?
To answer this question, many philosophers have appealed to the nature of both
personhood (see, e.g., Buchanan 1988; Kuhse 1999) and personal identity across
time (see, e.g., Dresser 1986, 1989; DeGrazia 1999). Regarding the former,
personhood is invariably thought to involve possession of certain psychological
capacities. What moral conclusion one gets about advance directives, though,
depends on which capacities one requires for personhood. If, for example, one
appeals to fairly robust capacities – self-consciousness, purposive activity, rationality,
and the ability to think of oneself as a creature with a past and a future – then the
demented 70W is likely a non-person, and one can justify assigning authoritative-
ness to 60W’s preferences by describing them as articulations of how she wishes to
be honored after she ceases to exist (Kuhse 1999). Alternatively, were one to include
less robust psychological capacities in one’s criterion of personhood – perhaps
merely consciousness and a minimal capacity to care about or value various things
(a possible adaptation of Jaworska 1999) – one might well have good reason to favor
70W’s preferences (for, after all, she has the most up-to-date preferences).
Nevertheless, appealing to one or the other degree of robustness may simply beg the
question against one’s opponent here.
Appeals to personal identity have been thought relevant as well. Are 60W and
70W identical to one another? If not, how could 60W’s preferences possibly be
authoritative for 70W, another individual? If so, 60W would be directing how her
own life should end (were she to become incompetent), so it would seem plausible
to view her preferences as authoritative, but this conclusion requires a theory of
identity yielding the conclusion that they are indeed identical. A psychological
criterion will not work because 70W lacks sufficiently sophisticated psychological
capacities to generate the requisite psychological continuity with 60W. What does
work is a biological criterion, one according to which a person at one time is identical
to an individual at another time just in case they are biologically continuous, part of
the same animal life (so this is less about personal identity than the identity of
individuals like us who could, at different times, be non-persons, e.g., fetuses or in
persistent vegetative states). In this view, 70W is clearly biologically continuous with
60W. A genuine question one might have about this approach, however, is why the
authoritativeness of preferences – which is entirely about the occurrence of, and the
relations between, psychological events – should be established in virtue of biological
continuity. Why think that having the same biological makeup gives 60W a kind of
psychological authority over 70W?
In addition, one might question the appeal to identity altogether by drawing on
Derek Parfit’s (1984) famous (albeit controversial) dictum that “identity is not what
9
matters” for various practical concerns. Suppose 60W undergoes fission, dividing
into two individuals who eventually become demented. In Parfit’s view, the most
plausible description of this scenario is that 60W does not survive – given the
uniqueness constraints in the identity relation, the two fission products would be
two new and different individuals – but notice that the question of the authoritative-
ness of her preferences over the demented products seems quite unaffected by this
result. Her directive seems just as authoritative (or not) over both as it would be over
only 70W (stipulated as identical to 60W), so whether or not identity obtains could
well be irrelevant to the issue.
Conclusion
It is unclear to what extent the criteria of personhood are helpful in ethics. This is
precisely because the term is already so thoroughly moralized (see, e.g., Macklin
1983). What we have seen is that “person” is either merely a label for those entities
whose various capacities we find antecedently morally significant (e.g., capacities for
moral responsibility, moral obligation, or free will), or it is a placeholder term for
whatever entities have a certain moral status. In the latter case, it is difficult to
determine which capacities of these entities provide such moral status without
begging the question. In any event, it may be more fruitful for ethicists to discuss
morally relevant capacities and status directly, without appeal to personhood at all:
“persons” may just get in the way.
See also: abortion; addiction; advance directives; animal rights;

autonomy; bioethics; categorical imperative; fetuses; free will; kant,
immanuel; locke, john; moral status; normativity; religious and global
ethics; responsibility; strawson, p. f.
REFERENCES
Beauchamp, Tom L. 1999. “The Failure of Theories of Personhood,” Kennedy Institute of
Ethics Journal, vol. 9, pp. 309–24.
Buchanan, Allen 1988. “Advance Directives and the Personal Identity Problem,” Philosophy
and Public Affairs, vol. 17, pp. 277–302.
Christman, John 2009. “Autonomy in Moral and Political Philosophy,” in Edward N. Zalta
(ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. At http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/
fall2009/entries/autonomy-moral/.
DeGrazia, David 1999. “Advance Directives, Dementia, and ‘the Someone Else Problem’,”
Bioethics, vol. 13, pp. 373–91.
Dresser, Rebecca 1986. “Life, Death, and Incompetent Patients: Conceptual Infirmities and
Hidden Values in the Law,” Arizona Law Review, vol. 28, pp. 379–81.
Dresser, Rebecca 1989. “Advance Directives, Self-Determination, and Personal Identity,” in
Chris Hacker, Ray Moseley, and Dorothy Vawter (eds.), Advance Directives in Medicine.
New York: Praeger.
10
English, Jane 1975. “Abortion and the Concept of a Person,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy,
vol. 5, pp. 233–43.
Frankfurt, Harry 1988. The Importance of What We Care About. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Jaworska, Agnieszka 1999. “Respecting the Margins of Agency: Alzheimer’s Patients and the
Capacity to Value,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 28, pp. 105–38.
Kant, Immanuel 1964 [1785]. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. H. J. Paton.
New York: Harper & Row.
Kant, Immanuel 1996 [1797]. The Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Mary Gregor. Cambridge:
Kneller, Jane 2006. “Kant on Sex and Marriage Right,” in Paul Guyer (ed.), The Cambridge
Companion to Kant and Modern Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
pp. 447–76.
Kuhse, Helga 1999. “Some Reflections on the Problem of Advance Directives, Personhood,
and Personal Identity,” Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, vol. 9, pp. 347–64.
Locke, John 1975 [1694]. “Of Identity and Diversity,” Essay Concerning Human Understanding,
2nd ed., in John Perry (ed.), Personal Identity. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Macklin, Ruth 1983. “Personhood in the Bioethics Literature,” The Milbank Memorial Fund
Quarterly, Health and Society, vol. 61 (Special Issue: The Problem of Personhood:
Biomedical, Social, Legal, and Policy Views), pp. 35–57.
Marquis, Don 1989. “Why Abortion Is Immoral,” Journal of Philosophy, vol. 86, pp. 183–202.
McMahan, Jeff 2002. The Ethics of Killing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rovane, Carol 1993. “Self-Reference: The Radicalization of Locke,” Journal of Philosophy,
vol. 90, pp. 73–97.
Singer, Peter 1976. “All Animals Are Equal,” in Tom Regan and Peter Singer (eds.), Animal
Rights and Human Obligations. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Strawson, P. F. 1959. Individuals: An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics. Garden City, NY:
Methuen & Co. Ltd.
Thomson, Judith Jarvis 1971. “A Defense of Abortion,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 1,
pp. 47–66.
Warren, Mary Anne 1973. “On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion,” The Monist, vol. 57,
pp. 43–61.
FURTHER READINGS
Benn, S. I. 1975–6. “Freedom, Autonomy, and the Concept of a Person,” Proceedings of the
Aristotelian Society, vol. 76, pp. 109–30.
Biro, J. I. 1981. “Persons as Corporate Entities and Corporations as Persons,” Nature and
System, vol. 3, pp. 173–80.
Braude, Stephen 1996. “Multiple Personality and Moral Responsibility,” Philosophy, Psychiatry,
and Psychology, vol. 3, pp. 37–54.
Dennett, Daniel 1975. “Conditions of Personhood,” in Amelie Oksenberg Rorty (ed.), The
Identities of Persons. Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 175–96.
Doran, Kevin 1989. What is a Person: The Implications for Ethics. Lewiston, NY: Edwin
Mellen.
11
Guyer, Paul (ed.) 2006. The Cambridge Companion to Kant and Modern Philosophy.
Haksar, Vinit 1991. Indivisible Selves and Moral Practice. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
Press.
Perry, John (ed.) 1975. Personal Identity. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Radden, Jennifer 1996. Divided Minds and Successive Selves: Ethical Issues in Disorders of
Identity and Personality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Regan, Tom 2004. The Case for Animal Rights, 2nd ed. Berkeley: University of California
Press.
Rorty, Amelie Oksenberg 1975. The Identities of Persons. Berkeley: University of California
Press.
Shoemaker, David 2009. Personal Identity and Ethics: A Brief Introduction. Peterborough,
Ontario: Broadview Press.
Warren, Mary Anne 1997. Moral Status. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Weiss, Roslyn 1978. “The Perils of Personhood,” Ethics, vol. 89, pp. 66–75.
1
Nihilism
Richard Joyce
“Nihilism” (from the Latin word nihil, meaning “nothing”) is not a well-defined
term. One can be a nihilist about just about anything: a philosopher who does not
believe in the existence of knowledge, for example, might be called an “epistemo-
logical nihilist”; an atheist might be called a “religious nihilist.” In the vicinity of
ethics, one should take care to distinguish moral nihilism from political nihilism
and existential nihilism. These last two will be briefly discussed in the following text,
only with the aim of clarifying our topic: moral nihilism.
Even restricting attention to “moral nihilism,” matters remain indeterminate. Its
most prominent usage in the field of metaethics treats it as a synonym for “error
theory,” and therefore an entry that said only “Nihilism (see error theory)” would
not be badly misleading. This would identify moral nihilism as the metaethical view
that moral discourse consists of assertions that systematically fail to secure the truth
(see Mackie 1977; Joyce 2001).
A broader definition of “nihilism” would be “the view that there are no moral
facts.” This is broader because it covers not only the error theory but also non-
cognitivism (see non-cognitivism). Both these theories deny that there are moral
facts – the difference being that the error theorist thinks that, in making moral judg-
ments, we try to state facts (but fail to do so, because there are no facts of the type in
question), whereas the non-cognitivist thinks that in making moral judgments we
do not even try to state facts (because, e.g., these judgments are really veiled
commands or expressions of desire). (In characterizing non-cognitivism in this way,
I am sidelining various linguistic permissions that may be earned via the quasi-realist
program [see quasi-realism].) While it is not uncommon to see “nihilism” defined
in this broader way, few contemporary non-cognitivists think of themselves as
“nihilists,” so it is reasonable to suspect that the extra breadth of the definition is
often unintentional.
Both these characterizations see moral nihilism as a purely metaethical thesis.
The term is also widely associated with various first-order moral views that make
recommendations about how we ought to act. Suppose one is an error theorist,
holding all moral language to be deeply flawed (like the attitude that the atheist takes
toward religion). One then faces a practical decision concerning what to do with the
flawed moral language, for eliminating the vocabulary (in the way that the atheist
usually eliminates positive religious utterances) is not a forced choice. One might
instead become a fictionalist – maintaining moral language with the status of a kind
of useful fiction (see error theory). There is, then, the possibility of using “moral
nihilist” as a synonym for “moral eliminativist”: as holding that we should stop using
positive moral language. (Moral eliminativists include Hinckfuss 1987 and Garner
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee055
2
2010.) Such a theorist would be nihilistic twice over: endorsing a metaethical

nihilism (in virtue of being an error theorist) accompanied by a kind of practical
nihilism (in virtue of being an eliminativist).
“Moral nihilism” is also often associated – though somewhat vaguely – with
thoughts about how we should act in the more everyday sphere: as advocating a
policy of “anything goes,” and as holding that, with the removal of the moral frame-
work, restrictions on our behavior are lifted. It is true that if the error theorist is
correct then there are no moral restrictions on our behavior, but what effect this
would have on our overall practical lives (if we all believed it) is far from obvious.
The idea that there would be nothing to stand in the way of our immediately
becoming antisocial wantons requires the implausible premise that morality is the
only thing that keeps us kind, altruistic, cooperative, and so forth (and the only thing
that could keep us thus). In this respect, the term “nihilist” is rather similar to the
term “anarchist.” To be an anarchist is simply to believe that there should be no
government, which is, of course, consistent with wanting to live in a peaceful
cooperative community united by interpersonal duties and collective decision-
making. Nevertheless, the image that tends to spring to mind upon hearing the word
“anarchist” involves shaven heads and Molotov cocktails. In much the same way,
moral nihilists may be loving friends, keen cooperators, and steadfast citizens – and
yet the images that tend to spring to mind upon hearing the word “nihilist” involve
radical countercultural political affiliations or a kind of morbid anomie. These
images have more to do with political nihilism and existential nihilism than with
moral nihilism.
Political nihilism was a radical movement in Russia in the 1860s, characterized by
the privileging of individual freedom over all traditional authoritative structures
such as state, church, and family. The novelist Ivan Turgenev introduced this use of
“nihilism” when he wrote “A nihilist is a person who does not bow down to any
authority” (Turgenev 1861). The Russian Nihilist movement was not based on any
carefully worked out intellectual manifesto, and so it is difficult to say what attitude
they might have taken to moral nihilism. It is clear that the moral nihilist need not
be a political nihilist: the error theorist need not be motivated to overthrow extant
political institutions, even if she denies that they have any moral legitimacy. It also
seems clear that one can be a political nihilist without being a moral nihilist. The
Russian Nihilists aimed to violently overthrow the normative status quo, but also
hoped to replace it with a new moral order – one in which freedom is the supreme
value – and thus were hardly error theorists. The same could be said of various so-
called nihilists from the history of philosophy, such as Niccolò Machiavelli and
Plato’s Thrasymachus: rather than error theorists, they were radical revisionists
about the content of morality. It may clarify matters to think of the “nihil” in “political
nihilism” as having less to do with believing in nothing and more to do with actively
promoting the “annihilation” of time-honored institutions.
The popular image of the nihilist as suffering from something like “morbid
anomie” probably derives from existential nihilism rather than moral nihilism. This
nihilism is associated with the idea that “life has no meaning or purpose” – a
3
realization that may sometimes lead to a loss of motivation and even depression and
despair. Existential nihilism crystallized as an intellectual movement in France in
the postwar period, associated especially with the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre and
Albert Camus (see sartre, jean-paul; camus, albert; existentialism). For
Camus, the absurdity of the human predicament emerges from the tension between
our realization that we live in a purposeless and indifferent universe and our ceaseless
propensity to continue as if our lives and decisions were meaningful. Camus accepted
nihilism as a fact, but far from advocating that we embrace despair and emptiness in
response, he devoted most of his intellectual energies to exploring how there could
be a satisfying human response to the absurd situation. Sartre is best interpreted as
having a rather similar attitude toward nihilism (though offering a rather different
solution).
That existential nihilism has any necessary link to moral nihilism is dubious.
Certainly, one can be an error theorist while affirming that life has purpose (just not
moral purpose); the error theorist can even affirm that life has value (just not moral
value). Conversely, one can be a moral realist while denying that life has purpose,
since the existence of good and bad does not obviously confer “meaning” upon our
lives. For example, accepting that humans have evolved through a process of natural
selection is often accompanied by the acknowledgment that our lives are “without
purpose,” and yet taking the error theoretic position is usually considered to be
entirely optional for the Darwinian.
Before leaving existential nihilism, something should be said about the relation-
ship between nihilism and Dostoyevsky’s famous dictum (as voiced by the character
Ivan Karamazov) that “if God is dead, then everything is permissible.” Advocates of
nihilism seem drawn to this claim; opponents seem to fear its repercussions. In
L’Homme révolté [The Rebel] (1951), Camus writes: “If one believes in nothing, if
nothing makes sense, if we can assert no value whatsoever, everything is permissible
and nothing is important.” And Sartre declared that “everything is permissible if God
does not exist, and as a result man is forlorn, because neither within him nor without
does he find anything to cling to” (1973 [1945]). In fact, these “… then-everything-is-
permissible” claims tend to be confused. Certainly, the error theorist has no business
claiming that “everything is permissible.” If moral nihilism is true, then nothing is
morally obligatory, nothing is morally prohibited, and nothing is morally permissible
either. Thus, one who claims that moral nihilism implies that everything is permis-
sible must intend to denote some kind of permissibility other than moral – let us just
call it X-permissibility. However, then an argument will be needed to show that the
failure of moral discourse implies that everything is X-permissible, and those who
wield the slogan have never, to my knowledge, developed any such argument. The
same can be said of Dostoyevsky’s original version. If “permission” means theistically
permitted, then if God does not exist then nothing is permitted (as Jacques Lacan
once observed [1991: 139]). It’s possible that if God is dead then everything is
X-permitted, but, again, an argument would be needed to make the connection. It is
reasonable to suspect that most people voicing Dostoyevsky’s dictum intend to
express the thought that God provides the only viable underpinning for human
4
morality, in which case if God is dead we face moral nihilism. It is possible that this
is true, though it is far from widely accepted; most atheists oppose the moral error
theory as adamantly as they oppose religion. In any case, even if it were true that
atheism leads to moral nihilism, we have seen that it would not follow that every-
thing is morally permissible, and no argument has been supplied to show that it
would follow that everything is permitted in some other sense.
Various eighteenth- and nineteenth-century continental philosophers (e.g.,
Schopenhauer, Feuerbach, Fichte, Kierkegaard) are associated in one way or another
with nihilism, though their nihilistic streaks tend to be each so sui generis as to defy
easy categorization. Even Nietzsche, who is often treated as a kind of grandfather of
European nihilism, is extremely different to classify (see nietzsche, friedrich). In
certain moods, he seems to be clearly advocating an error theory (moral nihilism).
In Twilight of the Idols, he writes:
There are absolutely no moral facts. What moral and religious judgments have in
common is the belief in things that are not real. Morality is just an interpretation of
certain phenomena or (more accurately) a misinterpretation. (1889: VIII.1/2005: 182)
On other occasions, Nietzsche reads more like an intellectual campaigner for

political nihilism: aiming to destroy a traditional moral order and replace it with a
more muscular and unapologetic alternative moral framework. (For respective
interpretative viewpoints, see Pigden 2010 and Schacht 1995.)
In conclusion, the slipperiness of Nietzsche’s nihilism is indicative of the indeter-
minacy of the term “nihilism” in the broader context. The most well-defined usage
of “moral nihilism” would treat it as a synonym of “the moral error theory.” However,
even here, one is tempted to think that it would be safer simply to drop the term
“nihilism” since it is, as we have seen, pregnant with vague associations – associations
that should be kept in abeyance until this imagery can be made more precise and its
connection to the moral error theory shown to be justified.
See also: camus, albert; error theory; existentialism; nietzsche, friedrich; non-
cognitivism; quasi-realism; sartre, jean-paul
REFERENCES
Camus, Albert 1951. L’Homme révolté [The Rebel]. Paris: Gallimard.
Garner, Richard 2010. “Abolishing Morality,” in R. Joyce and S. Kirchin (eds.), A World
Without Values: Essays on John Mackie’s Moral Error Theory. Dordrecht: Springer.
Hinckfuss, Ian 1987. “The Moral Society: Its Structure and Effects.” Discussion Papers in
Environmental Philosophy, vol. 16. Philosophy Program (RSSS), Australian National
University.
Lacan, Jacques 1991. Le Séminaire. Livre XVII. L’envers de la psychanalyse, 1969–1970,
ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil.
5

Nietzsche, Friedrich 2005 [1889]. “Twilight of the Idols,” in Aaron Ridley and Judith Norman
(eds.), The Anti-Christ, Ecce Homo, Twilight of the Idols: And Other Writings, trans.
Judith Norman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pigden, Charles 2010. “Nihilism, Nietzsche, and the Doppelganger Problem,” in R. Joyce and
S. Kirchin (eds.), A World Without Values: Essays on John Mackie’s Moral Error Theory.
Dordrecht: Springer.
Sartre, Jean-Paul 1973 [1945]. Existentialism and Humanism. London: Eyre Methuen.
Schacht, Richard 1995. Making Sense of Nietzsche. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Turgenev, Ivan Sergeevič 2008 [1861]. Fathers and Sons, trans. Richard Freeborn. Oxford:
FURTHER READINGS
Dreier, Jamie 2005. “Moral Relativism and Moral Nihilism,” in D. Copp (ed.), Handbook of
Ethical Theory. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 240–64.
Garner, Richard 1994. Beyond Morality. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Gillespie, Michael Allen 1996. Nihilism before Nietzsche. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Joyce, Richard, and Simon Kirchin (eds.) 2010. A World Without Values: Essays on John
Mackie’s Moral Error Theory. Dordrecht: Springer.
Miller, Alexander 2003. An Introduction to Contemporary Metaethics. Oxford: Polity.
Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter 2006. Moral Skepticisms. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
1
Bergson, Henri
Keith Ansell-Pearson
Henri Bergson’s (1859–1941) most sustained contribution to ethics is to be found in

his final main book, The Two Sources of Morality and Religion (TSMR), which was
published in 1932. Prior to the appearance of this work his commentators could only
speculate on the “ethical implications” of his philosophy, linking his critique of
scientific and psychological determinism and championing of unforeseeable novelty
in the world – as espoused in his three previous main books, Time and Free Will
(1889), Matter and Memory (1896), and Creative Evolution (1907) – with the
concerns of ethics, especially questions of freedom (for one such attempt, see the
study by Sait 1914). As one commentator notes, for several years Bergson had
expressed doubts whether he would publish a book on ethics or morals simply
because he doubted whether he could attain conclusions as demonstrable as those of
his other texts. Philosophy proceeds by a definite method and can legitimately claim
as much objectivity as the positive sciences, though of a different kind (Lacey 1989:
197). Bergson was, therefore, in search of an approach to ethics that would satisfy
the ambition he had set for philosophy: that of achieving precision (Bergson 1965:
11). In what follows I will outline the contribution to ethics Bergson makes in the
opening chapter of the TSMR and focus on illuminating the two sources morality
has in his account. At the end of the opening chapter of the book Bergson states that
all morality is in essence “biological,” though he does say we need to give the word
“biology” the wide meaning it should have. Bergson is often construed, along with
Nietzsche, as an irrationalist and a philosopher of life (see nietzsche, friedrich).
However, what Bergson criticizes is the idea of self-sufficient reason and so he is
better seen as being anti-intellectualist rather than advocating irrationalism
(William James [1909] said it was Bergson who liberated him from intellectualism;
see james, william). This has two main aspects: first, a rejection of the view that
we can be moved by ideas or intelligence alone; and, second, criticism of Kant’s
conception of an ethics of duty (see kant, immanuel).
Obligation
One of the main aims of Bergson’s opening first chapter is to indicate in what
obligation consists and, in the process, significantly narrow down our conception of
what morality is (see duty and obligation). Morality is a discipline demanded by
nature and the task is to reintegrate the human back into nature as a whole
(see naturalism, ethical). Bergson wants to expose the weakness of a strictly
intellectualist system of morality, which covers, he thinks, the majority of the
philosophical theories of duty. There are two forces acting upon us and to which we
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee056
2
respond: impulsion and attraction. Without this attention to forces, moral philoso-
phy has great problems in explaining how a moral motive could take over our being
and impel it to action (Bergson 1977: 66–7).
Bergson acknowledges that the rational alone is self-consistent and cannot be
devalued (1977: 81). In civilized society morality is essentially rational. Reason
carries a danger, however: it gives us a diagram of action and can render our deci-
sions and deliberations automatic. As part of a vital life Bergson thinks we need the
joy and exuberance of moral inventions and transformations. In an essay of 1911
entitled “Life and Consciousness” Bergson had already argued that the destination
of nature lies in joy (pleasure is too tied to preservation). Joy is a sign that life has
been successful and conquered: “All great joy has a triumphant note.” Moreover,
wherever there is joy there is creation and this creation is the highest life the human
can attain. It is attained by the artist, the philosopher, the saint, but also for Bergson
by every human being that engages in what he calls “the creation of self by self.” For
Bergson it is the moral human being who is a creator in the highest degree simply
because his or her action, which is intense, is also capable of intensifying the action
and lives of other human beings: “The men of moral grandeur, particularly those
whose inventive and simple heroism has opened new paths to virtue, are revealers of
metaphysical truth” (2007: 24). Already here we see Bergson anticipating a key
aspect of his approach to ethics in the TSMR.
For us today, moral life means rational life (Bergson 1977: 85). Bergson affirms
this development but insists that although the rational character of moral conduct
has become established, it does not follow that morality has its origin or foundation
in pure reason. The important question is to discover why we are obliged in cases
where following our inclination does not suffice to ensure our duty is done. What he
is criticizing is the idea of a self-sufficient reason. What is obligatory in obligation
does not come from intelligence and cannot; intelligence supplies the element of
hesitation in obligation, but obligation is a necessity of life. In part the problem lies
with intelligence: its pride will not admit its original subordination to biological
necessities. The illusion is that intelligence is unrelated to either nature or life, with
no correspondence to vital needs. Intelligence wants man to be superior to his actual
origins, higher than nature; yet intelligence, in the form of science, shows man to be
part of nature.
In its origins morality is the pressure of prohibition that we are habituated to, in
the same way that necessity works in nature. Although analogous, these are not the
same. As Bergson notes, an organism subject to laws it must obey is one thing, a
society composed of “free wills” is another (we have inflexibility in one case, flexibil-
ity in the other) (see free will). There is a habit of obligation. From an initial
standpoint, then, social life can be defined as a system of more or less deeply rooted
habits that correspond to the needs of a community; these are habits of command
and obedience in the form of an impersonal social imperative. As with all habits we
feel a sense of obligation. Social obligation is a special kind of pressure and habit:
“Society, present within each of its members, has claims which, whether great or
small, each express the sum-total of its vitality” (Bergson 1977: 11).
3
The law which enunciates facts is one thing, the law which commands is another;
it is possible to evade the latter, so we have obligation and not necessity. The
commands of society have all the appearance of laws of nature, so that a breach of
the social order strikes us as anti-natural, with the lawbreaker compared to a freak
of nature (the misfit, the parasite, etc.). Morality is a “screen” (of order, discipline),
and the possible immorality that lies behind the exterior with which humanity
presents itself to the world is not seen under normal circumstances. As Bergson
notes, we don’t become misanthropes by observing others but on account of a feeling
of discontent with ourselves; only then do we come to pity or despise humankind:
“The human nature from which we then turn away is the human nature we have
discovered in the depths of our own being” (1977: 11). Obligation first binds us to
ourselves, or rather to the superficial or surface self, the social self: “To cultivate this
social ego is the essence of our obligation to society” (1977: 15). The verdict of con-
science is that given by the social self (see conscience). Our debt or obligation to
society is to cultivate our social ego: unless some part of society was “within” us it
could have no hold on us. I cannot cut myself off from society simply because the
“soul” of society inheres in the language I speak, and my memory and imagination
live on what society has implanted in me. It can take a violent break to reveal clearly
the extent of the nexus of the individual to society, e.g., the remorse of the criminal.
The criminal loses his identity, he does not know who he is anymore, such is the
nature of his transgression, and this is generated by his own conscience. His desire is
not so much to evade punishment as to wipe out the past, to deny the knowledge of
what he has done, as though the crime had not really taken place. The criminal thus
feels more isolated than does someone waking up to find themselves stranded on a
desert island.
Can we say that duty implies an overcoming of self: “obedience to duty means
resistance to self ” (Bergson 1977: 20)? Can we not readily see this in cases of the
natural disobedience of the child and the necessity of its education and by acts of
rebellion in one’s normal ties that bind? Bergson has a problem with this way of
thinking about ethics: “When, in order to define obligation, its essence and its origin,
we lay down that obedience is primarily a struggle with self, a state of tension or
contraction, we make a psychological error which has vitiated many theories of
ethics” (Bergson 1977: 20). This is because we are encouraging confusion over the
sense of obligation – “a tranquil state akin to inclination” – with the violent effort we
exert on ourselves now and again to break down possible obstacles to obligation.
Kant’s ethics rest on an absolute distinction between the nature of inclination and
duty, between heteronomy and autonomy. Contra this, Bergson maintains:
“Obligation is in no sense a unique fact, incommensurate with others, looming
above them like a mysterious apparition” (1977: 20). We have any number of
particular obligations and each one calls for a separate explanation. It is a matter
of habit to obey them all. Suppose that we deviate from one of them, there would
then be resistance, and if we resist this resistance a state of tension or contraction is
likely to result: “It is this rigidity which we objectify when we attribute so stern an
aspect to duty” (1977: 21).
4
It is the ease with which philosophical theories of ethics can be built up which
should make us suspicious: “if the most varied aims can thus be transmuted by
philosophers into moral aims, we may surmise, seeing that they have not yet found
the philosophers’ stone, that they had started by putting gold in the bottom of their
crucible.” Bergson argues that where philosophers have gone wrong is in positing
the grounds of morality in abstraction from the social context where they have their
“source”: “They have considered the pursuit of these ends … in a society where there
are peremptory pressures, together with aspirations to match them and also to
extend them. … Each of these systems then already exists in the social atmosphere
when the philosopher arrives on the scene” (1977: 90–1). Bergson’s stress, then, is on
the social origins of obligation. The conclusion reached is that obligation is a kind of
“virtual instinct,” similar to that which lies behind the habit of speech. Obligation
needs to lose its specific character so we recognize it as “among the most general
phenomena of life” (1977: 29). Obligation is the form assumed by necessity in the
realm of human life. This means for Bergson that there is no “is–ought” problem in
ethics: obligation is a social fact of human existence and his pioneering sociobiologi-
cal approach seeks to show this (see is–ought gap).
The Open Morality

We need to mark a difference in kind between two moralities: the former consists in
impersonal rules and formulae; the latter incarnates itself in a privileged personality
who becomes an example such as found in exceptional human beings (Christian
saints, sages of Greece, prophets of Israel, the Arahants of Buddhism; see religious
saints; buddhist ethics). The first morality works as a pressure or propulsive
force, the second has the effect of an appeal. Here new life and a new morality are
proclaimed: loyalty, sacrifice of self, the spirit of renunciation, and charity.
For Bergson it is not simply a question of replacing egoism with altruism: it is
not simply a question of self now saying to itself, “I am working for the benefit of
humankind,” as the idea is too vast and the effect too diffuse. So what is taking
place and being asked of the self? Can we say that operative in the open soul is the
love of all humanity? This does not go far enough since it can be extended to ani-
mals, plants, all nature. But it could even do without them since its form is not
dependent on any specific content: “‘Charity’ would persist in him who possesses
‘charity,’ though there be no other living creature on earth” (Bergson 1977: 38; see
charity). It is a “psychic attitude” which, strictly speaking, does not have an
object (Bergson 1977: 39). It is not acquired by nature but requires an effort. It
transmits itself through feeling; think of the attraction or appeal of love, of its pas-
sion, in its early stages and which resembles an obligation (we must because we
must): perhaps a tragedy waits ahead, a whole life wrecked, wasted, and ruined.
This does not stop our responding to its call or appeal. We are entranced, as in
cases of musical emotion which introduces us into new feelings, “as passers-by are
forced into a street dance.” The pioneers in morality proceed in a similar fashion:
“Life holds for them unsuspected tones of feeling like those of some new symphony,
5
and they draw us after them into this music that we may express it in action”
(Bergson 1977: 40).
Does Bergson show himself to be an irrationalist here? His argument is, in fact,
against intellectualism since it is through an excess of intellectualism that feeling is
made to hinge on an object and that all emotion is held to be the reaction of our
sensory faculties to an intellectual representation. Take the example of music: Are
the emotions expressed linked to any specific objects of joy, of sorrow, of compassion,
or of love? The difference Bergson is getting at is a radical one and it is between an
emotion that can be represented (images, objects) and the creative emotion which is
beyond representation; it is a real invention. Bergson is not blind to the illusions of
love and to the psychological deceptions that may be at work, but he insists that the
effect of creative emotion is not reducible to this. There are emotional states that are
distinct from sensation, that is, they cannot be reduced to being a psychical
transposition of a physical stimulus. There are two kinds: (a) where the emotion is a
consequence of an idea or mental picture; (b) where the emotion is not produced by
a representation but is productive of ideas. It informs the creations not only of art
but of science and civilization itself. It is a unique kind of emotion, one that precedes
the image; it virtually contains it, and is its cause (Bergson 1977: 47). His position is
not equivalent, Bergson insists, to a moral philosophy of sentiment, simply because
we are dealing with an emotion that is capable of crystallizing into representations,
even into an ethical doctrine.
In the first morality we attain pleasure (centered on the well-being of individual
and society), but not joy. By contrast, in the open morality we experience progress
which is experienced in the enthusiasm of a forward movement. There is no need,
Bergson insists, to resort to a metaphysical theory to account for this: it is not an
issue of picturing a goal we are trying to achieve or envisaging some perfection we
wish to approximate. It is an opening out of the soul, a breaking with nature, a
moving of the boundaries of itself and the (closed) city. Whereas the first morality
has its source in nature, the other kind has no place in nature’s design. Nature may
have foreseen a certain expansion of social life through intelligence, but only of a
limited kind. But it has gone so far as to endanger the original structure. While
nature has made it possible for human beings to beget themselves endlessly, and
according to the rule followed by all other living creatures (“she took the most
minute precautions to ensure the preservation of the species by the multiplication of
individuals”), what nature did not foresee is that the intelligence it bestowed on us
would find a way of divorcing the sexual act from its consequences, and “that man
might refrain from reaping without forgoing the pleasure of sowing.” It is, Bergson
adds, “in quite another sense that man outwits nature when he extends social
solidarity into the brotherhood of man” (1977: 56–7).
However, an absolute break with nature is never possible or even conceivable: “It
might be said, by slightly distorting Spinoza, that it is to get back to natura naturans
that we break away from natura naturata” (Bergson 1977: 58; see spinoza, baruch).
If man is part of nature, a form of life, then it is not so far fetched to claim that man’s
moral inventions amount to an expressive nature.
6
Conclusion
For Bergson the two forces he has been tracing are fundamental data and not
exclusively moral; rather, they are the sources of the twin tendencies of life. There
are two ways of teaching in an effort to get hold of the will: by training and by the
mystic way. The former inculcates impersonal habits, the latter takes place through
the imitation of a personality, even a spiritual union. Mystics for Bergson are not
simply humans of vision, raptures, and ecstasies, but figures of action. Is there not,
Bergson asks, a mystic dormant within each one of us, responding to a call (1977: 97;
see mysticism and ethics)?
Social life can be taken as a fact we begin with but it needs an explanation in terms
of life. A challenge is presented with this emphasis on two sources of morality:
society is not self-sufficient and is not therefore the supreme authority. If we pursue
matters of morality purely in intellectualist terms we reach a transcendental dead
end; if we place the emphasis on life, we can explain both the closed and the open:
“Let us then give to the word biology the very wide meaning it should have, and will
perhaps have one day, and let us say in conclusion that all morality, be it pressure or
aspiration, is in essence biological” (Bergson 1977: 101).
Like unadorned obligation, pure aspiration is an ideal limit. A mystic society
which would embrace all humanity, animated by a common will, working toward
the continually renewed creation of a more complete humanity, is no more possible
of realization than the existence in the past of human societies functioning
automatically on the model of animal ones. Nevertheless, it is the mystic souls who
will continue to draw civilized societies in their wake. They provide us with a
“memory of humanity.” The sublime figures of the past and present exert on us a
“virtual attraction.” Civilized humanity remains, Bergson thinks, under the grip of
two moralities: a system of order dictated by impersonal social requirements and a
series of appeals made to the conscience of each individual by personalities who
represent the best that there is in humanity.
See also: buddhist ethics; charity; conscience; duty and obligation;

free will; is–ought gap; james, william; kant, immanuel; mysticism and
ethics; naturalism, ethical; nietzsche, friedrich; religious saints;
spinoza, baruch
REFERENCES
Bergson, Henri 1965 [1934]. The Creative Mind, trans. M. L. Andison. Totowa, NJ: Littlefield,
Adams.
Bergson, Henri 1977 [1932]. The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, trans. R. Ashley Audra
and C. Brereton. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
Bergson, Henri 2007 [1911]. “Life and Consciousness,” in Mind-Energy, trans. H. Wildon
Carr, ed. Keith Ansell-Pearson and Michael Kolkman. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
7
James, William 1909. “Bergson and His Critique of Intellectualism,” in A Pluralistic Universe.
New York: Longmans, Green, pp. 223–75.
Lacey, A. R. 1989. Bergson. London: Routledge.
Sait, Una Bernard 1914. The Ethical Implications of Bergson’s Philosophy. New York: Science
Press.
FURTHER READINGS
Deleuze, Gilles 1991. Bergsonism, trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Habberjam. New
York: Zone Books.
Emmet, Dorothy 1972. “‘Open’ and ‘Closed’ Morality,” in Function, Purpose, and Powers, 2nd
ed. London: Macmillan, pp. 137–68.
Kolakowski, Leszek 1985. Bergson. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lawlor, Leonard 2003. The Challenge of Bergsonism. London: Continuum.
Moore, F. C. T. 1996. Bergson: Thinking Backwards. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mullarkey, John 1999. Bergson and Philosophy. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Worms, Frederic 2004. “Is Life the Double Source of Ethics? Bergson’s Ethical Philosophy
between Immanence and Transcendence,” Journal of the British Society for
Phenomenology, vol. 35, no. 1, pp. 82–9.
1
Care Ethics
Marilyn Friedman
Care ethics centers on the morality of caring in interpersonal relationships. It

emerged prominently toward the end of the twentieth century as a challenge to the
most dominant theories of normative ethics at the time. The foundation from which
care ethics emerged was research in feminist ethics (see feminist ethics) and
gender issues have continued to be intertwined with work in care ethics. Care
ethics also coincided fruitfully with certain other critical trends that were emerging
simultaneously in the mainstream of normative ethics, for example an emphasis on
the moral importance of personal relationships and character, and challenges to
various formal features of the then-dominant moral theories.
The single early work that did the most to propel care ethics into the forefront
of moral theory was Carol Gilligan’s In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and
Women’s Development (1982). Gilligan had done psychological research on the
moral perspectives of women and she used the findings of that research to challenge
especially the empirical theory of developmental moral psychology that prevailed at
the time in the discipline of psychology. This empirical theory appeared to have
been based on the moral perspectives of men only. Gilligan’s approach also had
extensive philosophical significance and this was quickly taken up and developed by
feminist moral philosophers.
Gilligan’s influential formulation and the other early treatments of care ethics
(Noddings 1984; Kittay and Meyers 1987; Held 1995) challenged various aspects of the
dominant moral theories at the time, utilitarian consequentialism and Kantian ethics
(see utilitarianism; kantian practical ethics). Those ethical systems are
based on moral principles that are universal, abstract, impartial, and rational (see
universalizability; impartiality; rationalism in ethics). Gilligan and the early
theorists of care ethics claimed that the dominant moral theories were substantively
concerned with justice and rights and rested on a highly individuated conception of
persons and an ideal of individual autonomy (see autonomy; justice; rights).
The moral judgments of a care ethical perspective, by contrast, were characterized
as particularistic, contextual, partial, and grounded in emotion (see particularism;
contextualism in ethics; emotion). That is, they centered around: particular
persons in particular situations; contextual detail; partiality in the sense of favoritism
toward close others; and emotion, especially that of responsiveness to the needs of
others. Instead of being substantively concerned with justice and rights, care ethical
judgments were described as grounded in relationships among particular persons and
the moral responses that arise in the context of such relationships. Persons were to be
understood relationally, that is, in terms of their attachments to particular others,
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee057
2
rather than as separate individuals. A moral orientation of care also focuses on the
maintenance of interpersonal relationships and autonomy is not an important value.
Another important early statement of care ethics was developed by Nel Noddings
(1984). Noddings associates care ethics closely with women’s moral perspectives.
Like Gilligan, she suggests that care is the typical moral concern of women whereas
justice and rights are typical of the male moral outlook. Caring is unselfish concern
for others. It manifests attentiveness and responsiveness to another. Acts of caring
involve emotional sensitivity to particular others in particular situations and do not
involve attention to universal or impartial moral principles. Noddings (1984) argued
that the caring that can occur in the context of close personal relationships cannot
arise in distant relationships; the wider moral world is one in which justice and
rights are relevant values but not care. Care and justice in Noddings’ early work
occupy different moral domains. (More recently, Noddings [2002] has extended
care ethics to matters of social policy.)
The idea that care ethics expresses a female moral orientation while mainstream
moral theories express a male moral orientation (Gilligan 1982; Noddings 1984;
Kittay and Meyers 1987) was not an implausible suggestion. The history of ethical
theory consists almost exclusively of writings by educated men over many centuries
involving the near-total absence of women from formal education and academic
work. Also, caring has a clear place in mothering practices and the traditional female
role. However, recent empirical research has shown that women’s moral perspectives
are not confined to care ethics. Women as a group tend to mix the concerns and
methods of care ethics with those of approaches centered on justice and rights. As
well, some men have contributed to the development of care ethics (e.g., Slote
2001, 2007; Engster 2007). At any rate, the claim that females and males have
characteristically different approaches to moral thinking is an empirical claim
that should be separated from the philosophical claim that care ethics represents a
distinctive and important approach to moral understanding (Friedman 1993).
Is care ethics a distinctive and important philosophical approach to moral
understanding? Care ethics is distinctive and important in several ways. First,
care ethics directs extensive moral attention to close personal relationships and
caretaking. Care ethics is thus distinct from the ethical perspectives of utilitarian
consequentialism and Kantian ethics in virtue of its predominant emphasis on one
particular sort of substantive moral concern, the caring that everyone needs in order
to survive and, probably also, to thrive. At the earliest stages of life, human beings
must receive the minimal caring needed for survival. Care is also needed at later
stages of life to ensure continued survival and a decent life. Care is thus of the
(chronologically) first importance in human morality. Traditional ethics has
neglected this realm of moral substance. Care ethics also makes the unique
suggestion that the motivations, attitudes, and responses generated in and by caring
can account for a great deal, if not the whole, of morality in general.
Second, care ethics emphasizes the nature of moral judgment “on the ground,” so
to speak, and deemphasizes moral theory. In contrast to other moral perspectives,
care ethics is concerned with what a moral agent should consider when deciding
3
how to treat others. It is less concerned with a theoretical reconstruction of such

thinking. Care ethics focuses on the standpoint of the moral agent immersed in
practice and the various aspects of moral attention, motivation, and responsiveness
that are available to her. Defenders of care ethics generally argue that moral agents
need not attend to universal, impartial moral principles when deciding how to act.
In thus exploring what is involved in the perspective of the moral agent immersed in
actual moral practice, defenders of care ethics are typically less concerned than other
moral philosophers to develop a theoretical reconstruction of their moral outlook.
They are decidedly not concerned to produce a reconstruction that features a single
overarching moral principle as its defining summit and justificatory rationale.
Third, care ethics contributes to a resurgent emphasis on the role of emotion in
moral understanding. This trend appears in mainstream ethics and is not confined
to care ethics. However, care ethics is distinctive in focusing not just on any emotion,
but specifically on the emotions of responsiveness to others. Depending on the
account in question, empathy or sympathy may play a key role.
Fourth, care ethics places great importance on interpersonal relationships.
Persons are construed as relational beings whose interactions are crucial for survival
and moral value. Persons are not regarded as socially separate individuals; they are
regarded instead as persons-in-relationships. Identities, emotions, motivations, and
behavior are reconceptualized to bring out their relational nature and qualities.
Furthermore, maintaining interpersonal relationships has high moral importance.
About the same time that defenders of care ethics were beginning to develop their
account, the dominant theories of utilitarian consequentialism and Kantian ethics were
being challenged from other directions emanating from within the mainstream of moral
theory itself. One other challenge consisted of reviving the alternative moral perspective
of virtue ethics, the moral approach of Aristotle and other ancient philosophers (see
virtue ethics). Some theorists of care ethics claimed that there are commonalities
between the methods and concerns of care ethics and those of virtue ethics (e.g.,
Noddings 1984). For example, both care ethics and virtue ethics emphasize the
importance of emotion as a basis for moral motivation and a guide to moral practice.
Also, both perspectives value partiality, or favoritism, in interpersonal relationships.
Michael Slote (2001) is one who has defended an association between virtue ethics
and care ethics. Slote links care ethics to a version of virtue ethics that treats the
characterization of motives and character traits as morally fundamental, that is, as the
basis for determining whether actions are right or wrong. Slote’s approach to care
ethics systematically integrates two sorts of caring: caring for close others and a
generalized humanitarian caring for distant others. The appropriate sort of integration,
in Slote’s view, is a balance between the two sorts of caring. For Slote, “balance” in this
context means that close others as a group are favored over distant others as a group,
but each group is given an appropriate kind of concern and distant others are not
neglected. A morally good person has a character that exemplifies this balance.
The association of care ethics and virtue ethics, however, is controversial among
defenders of care ethics. Some care ethics defenders suggest that the relationship
between the two approaches is weak. Virginia Held (2006), for example, argues that
4
virtue ethics is concerned with personal flourishing in a way that is not true of care
ethics. She regards care ethics as focused instead on interpersonal relationships. Held
also finds that care ethics, much more than virtue ethics, places great importance on the
relational and dependent nature of persons, the nonvoluntary nature of many crucial
caring relationships, and the power inequalities of most interpersonal relationships.
Although care ethics arose out of work in feminist ethics, some feminists criticized
the early formulations of care ethics on a number of grounds (e.g., Card 1996).
Feminist philosophers argued that the care ethical perspective represented the moral
outlook of women in the traditional feminine role of full-time mother and domestic
caretaker. Care ethics might constitute a feminine ethic, as Noddings (1984) called
it then, but the early critics doubted that it was a feminist ethic. They maintained
that it was the outlook of someone whose identity is defined in terms of the close
others for whom she has caretaking responsibility, whose moral outlook is limited to
those close relationships, and who has historically been vulnerable to domination,
domestic violence, and oppression in the context of those relationships (see oppres-
sion). The absence of concern with matters of justice and rights, which was empha-
sized by early defenders of care ethics, reflected not so much a different moral
perspective as a limited moral perspective. It was a moral perspective that lacked
conceptual resources for understanding violation, domination, and exploitation
within caring practices.
Defenders of care ethics worked to develop their moral perspective so as to
meet this challenge. Care ethics is now articulated to encompass the widest issues
of justice and rights, including issues with a global reach. A forerunner of this
development appeared in Sara Ruddick’s (1989) analysis of mothering thought and
practice. Her analysis articulates in great detail the caring attitudes and practices of
mothering persons in particular. Ruddick interprets the characteristic moral
demands of mothering as grounded in norms of protection, nurturance, and
development. Most notably, Ruddick shows how the typical moral perspective of
mothering can be extended to cover matters of wide-scale social conflict and to
become the basis of a peace politics. On Ruddick’s account, the norms of good
mothering provide the foundation for a nonviolent approach to handling social
problems, including those as far-reaching as conflicts between nations.
Perhaps the first self-conscious statement of care ethics in general that showed
how it could encompass matters of large-scale political ethics was presented by Joan
Tronto (1993). One of the distinctive features of Tronto’s treatment is to remind its
audience that much of carework is itself a part of the larger market economy.
Carework is crucial to all of social life, yet it is politically devalued and the basis of
much exploitation. In the United States, paid carework is typically done by women
and/or members of racial minorities or immigrant groups. Tronto brought out the
injustices involved in the economic and social exploitation of careworkers. Carework
differs from other sorts of devalued and exploited forms of labor in that it is required
for meeting human needs that are, in a way, universal. Carework also has a distinctive
political role to play in promoting democratic citizenship by fostering such qualities
as responsiveness and responsibility. Thus, Tronto called both for recognizing that
5
carework is crucial to the survival of any society and for political measures that
bring an end to the subordination and unjust treatment of careworkers.
The larger political reach of care ethics has been further elaborated in more recent
writings. Fiona Robinson (1999) observes that the contemporary global situation is
one in which increasing interrelationships make all the more apparent the context
of profound differences, inequality, and power imbalances. She argues that only a
critical care ethics can direct moral responsiveness in the right direction. Only such
an ethic can direct the attention of members of affluent societies to the lives and
communities of people in poor countries. A critical care ethics can illuminate how
relationships cause marginalization, exclusion, oppression, and suffering. Robinson
particularly enjoins her readers to strive to understand how institutional structures
divide people and prevent the development of caring relations.
Nel Noddings (2002) also has extended her account of care ethics to encompass
such social issues as homelessness, deviance, and education. Virginia Held’s (2006)
account of care ethics, as well, has a global reach. For Held, care ethics begins with
the universal experience of caring and the compelling moral sense that we should
attend to the needs of those for whom we take responsibility. Held argues that
the needs of the particular other make claims on our moral understanding that are
more compelling than any moral rules, whether universal or impartial. Moral
understanding is grounded on moral emotions such as empathy and responsiveness
to others. Persons are conceptualized as relational and interdependent. Care is
especially a practice, that of caregiving. A caring person is not primarily someone
with a virtuous disposition but rather someone engaged in caring relationships. In
Held’s view, caring relationships are valuable because they are necessary to human
survival. Yet care is also valuable when it goes beyond what is necessary for survival.
For Held, the moral concerns of both care and justice can fit together as one moral
theory, with each set of concepts covering different domains of moral experience.
Held thinks care is probably the more fundamental of the two values because
care, unlike justice, is essential for human survival. Without care there would be
no justice. This priority of care suggests that social systems should be organized
to support caring practices as a public concern. The relevant practices include
childcare, education, healthcare, and protection of the environment.
Held observes that because care labor is performed largely by women, care is a
gender issue. Care ethics is the theoretical perspective that takes seriously the tradi-
tional moral experience of women. Held notes, however, that women’s traditional
moral experiences as caregivers are based on an unjust imposition of caring work on
women under inegalitarian and oppressive social structures. Held thus does not
simply presume that actual caring practices are morally satisfactory. Her account
points to the need for principles or criteria that would help to differentiate morally
acceptable from morally unacceptable sorts of caring. These principles or criteria
must form part of the foundation of care ethics if care ethics is to be feminist, that is,
aimed at the well-being of women and the end of oppression for all.
In expanding the political reach of care ethics, Held includes economic issues. In
her view, markets undermine caring relations by putting a price and an exchange
6
value on goods and relationships. Care labor is undeservedly devalued by this

treatment. Held calls for some method other than markets to illuminate the value of
caring labor. She calls also for society to ensure that everyone’s needs for care are
met, something that markets do not achieve.
Held extends care ethics to the realm of international relations in a manner
reminiscent of Ruddick’s extension of mothering thought and practice. For Held, care
ethics eschews a “masculinist” approach to war and aggression. That approach, in her
view, involves excessive military build-up, economic dominance, and the neglect of
environmental concerns. The “masculinist” approach also downplays mutually
cooperative relations and tends to disregard the perspectives of those on whom its
policies are imposed. As a matter of ethical orientation, care ethics favors policies that
rely more heavily on diplomacy and negotiation than on “masculinist” approaches.
Daniel Engster (2007) adds to care ethics an account of the obligation to care for
others. In Engster’s view, the obligation of capable human beings to care for others is
based on the claim each of us makes on others for the care we ourselves need in
order to survive, function in society, and avoid suffering. For Engster, the general
obligation to care for the needy varies with the social and geographical distance
between the needy and those capable of providing care: one may favor close others
over distant others.
Engster, like Tronto, Held, and others, also contributes to the political and economic
elaboration of care ethics. Individuals cannot meet all basic needs, so organized col-
lective action is often required to do this. Engster estimates that liberal democracies
might be somewhat better at meeting needs than other forms of government, but the
difference is not great. Liberal democratic theory emphasizes autonomy and freedom,
but autonomous and free people who have resources of their own often try to block
governmental welfare policies. As well, the practices of market capitalism, such as
individualism and the profit motive, diminish the extent to which market practices
serve caring ends. A caring economy, in Engster’s view, is not specifically liberal,
Marxist, capitalist, or socialist, but one that aims specifically to ensure that everyone
has sufficient resources to care for themselves and their dependents.
Care ethics opened onto another new and important avenue of thought in Eva
Kittay’s (1999) work. Kittay links care ethics to disability studies (see disabilities,
people with). She explores the dependency that is found in caring relationships and
argues that theories of justice should be altered to take account of human depend-
ency and disability. Existing political theories, such as liberalism, need to modify
their conceptions of social goods and social cooperation if they are to account for
what is required for the adequate care of dependents. Kittay construes the capacity to
care as a distinct moral power and she emphasizes the needs and vulnerable social
positions of those who do the labor of caring in relationships of dependency. She
proposes that the social position of dependency care worker be used as a paradigm
standpoint for assessing whether social distributions are fair and just. In general,
Kittay calls for a “public ethic of care” which recognizes that care for dependents is a
shared social responsibility and which supports social practices that provide not only
care for dependents but also adequate support for those who do care work.
7
More recently, Michael Slote (2007) has articulated a special role for the emotion
of empathy (see empathy) in care ethics. Slote regards care ethics as a form of moral
sentimentalism. For Slote, inducing empathy in the process of moral education is
crucial to people’s moral development. As Slote defines it, empathy involves feeling
what another person feels. Empathy is central to our caring what happens to others
in particular situations and to our responding to others. Slote claims that all
commonsensical moral distinctions can be understood in terms of empathy. He
argues that the notion of empathy is also the key to understanding why we are
obligated to respect others (in addition to caring about them), a moral notion not
often emphasized in care ethics.
Slote, too, contributes to the political expansion of care ethics. On his view,
care ethics does provide a complete morality but it differs in important ways from
traditional approaches to justice. Slote argues that care ethics generates views about
justice that depart from, and compete with, traditional justice concerns, at least on
certain issues. For one thing, care ethics generates a conception of autonomy that
differs from the standard liberal conception. The standard liberal conception of
autonomy involves critical scrutiny of one’s attachments, including personal
relationships, and this, even when they do not appear to be problematic. Slote’s care
ethics would reject such scrutiny because it disrupts love and caring attachment to
others. Special scrutiny of relationships is required only when there is some evident
problem in the relationships. Care ethics, for Slote, also rejects a standard liberal
conception of free expression that permits hate speech. Care ethics rejects hate
speech, in his view, because hate speech disrupts the relational connections among
persons that care ethics values and promotes.
In addition to the feminist objections mentioned earlier, various other objections
have been raised to care ethics. First, critics have challenged the care ethical rejection
of universal and impartial moral principles. Care ethics defenders had claimed:
(1) that such principles do not account adequately for the partiality of care that we
all provide for close others in the context of interpersonal relationships; and (2) that
such principles do not express what a moral agent considers (or should consider)
when deciding what to do in a particular context.
Defenders of impartialist moral theories have responded to both these
arguments. First, they argue that their approaches do justify partial favoritism
toward loved ones, and do this precisely because they justify it universally. On
utilitarian or Kantian ethical grounds, moral agents do not have to be impartial
between close others and distant or unknown others in the context of moral
practice. However, such partiality for particular others is justified only if it can be
shown to be required impartially and universally for anyone who stands in the
same particular relationships. (I should care preferentially for my children, you for
yours, and so on.) As well, some social roles do require certain forms of impartiality;
for example, judges should not show favoritism to either the plaintiff or the
defendant at trial.
Second, defenders of universal, impartial moral principles can claim that their
principles are part of a theoretical reconstruction of moral understanding, and not
8
something that moral agents have to have in mind at the time of deciding how to
act. What moral agents decide to do is morally acceptable only if it does not violate
universal, impartial moral principles. Impartiality is thus the requirement for rules
that express what is morally required or permitted of moral agents in general. Moral
agents “on the ground,” however, do not need to reflect on the relevant universal
impartial moral principles at the time of acting. Reflecting on such principles is not
the attitude that a moral agent must take up in daily moral practice, although Kantian
ethics will require a moral agent to pay some attention to such principles at some
time or other in order that she do the right thing for the right reason. Defenders of
care ethics may wish to respond to these concerns.
At least since Tronto’s work (Tronto 1993; see above), defenders of care ethics
have paid attention to the situations of careworkers in affluent Western societies.
These workers are usually women who are poor members of minority groups or
immigrants from poor countries. Because of poverty, minority identity, or immigrant
status, careworkers are especially vulnerable to low pay, sexual harassment, and
other forms of socioeconomic injustice and exploitation. These effects are worsened
for migrant careworkers who often have to leave their own dependents behind in
order to care for dependents in affluent Western families. The problems of carework
stand out as distinctive because caring is necessary for human survival. As the
commodification of carework takes on increasingly global proportions, so does the
need to understand its transnational moral impact.
See also: autonomy; contextualism in ethics; disabilities, people with;

emotion; empathy; feminist ethics; impartiality; justice; kantian practical
ethics; oppression; particularism; rationalism in ethics; rights;
universalizability; utilitarianism; virtue ethics
REFERENCES
Card, Claudia 1996. The Unnatural Lottery: Character and Moral Luck. Philadelphia: Temple
University Press.
Engster, Daniel 2007. The Heart of Justice: Care Ethics and Political Theory. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Friedman, Marilyn 1993. What Are Friends For? Feminist Perspectives on Personal Relationships
and Moral Theory. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Gilligan, Carol 1982. In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development.
Held, Virginia (ed.) 1995. Justice and Care: Essential Readings in Feminist Ethics. Boulder, CO:
Westview Press.
Held, Virginia 2006. The Ethics of Care: Personal, Political, and Global. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Kittay, Eva 1999. Love’s Labor: Essays on Women, Equality, and Dependency. New York:
Routledge.
Kittay, Eva, and Diana Meyers (eds.) 1987. Women and Moral Theory. Savage, MD: Rowman &
Littlefield.
9
Noddings, Nel 1984. Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education. Berkeley:
Noddings, Nel 2002. Starting at Home: Caring and Social Policy. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
Robinson, Fiona 1999. Globalizing Care: Ethics, Feminist Theory, and International Relations.
Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Ruddick, Sara 1989. Maternal Thinking: Toward a Politics of Peace. New York: Ballantine
Books.
Slote, Michael 2001. Morals from Motives. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Slote, Michael 2007. The Ethics of Care and Empathy. London: Routledge.
Tronto, Joan 1993. Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care. New York:
Routledge.
FURTHER READINGS
Baier, Annette 1995. Moral Prejudices: Essays on Ethics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Blum, Lawrence 1980. Friendship, Altruism, and Morality. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Blustein, Jeffrey 1991. Care and Commitment: Taking the Personal Point of View. New York:
Clement, Grace 1996. Care, Autonomy, and Justice: Feminism and the Ethics of Care. Boulder, CO:
Westview Press.
Goodin, Robert E. 1986. Protecting the Vulnerable: A Re-Analysis of Our Social Responsibilities.
Hekman, Susan 1995. Moral Voices, Moral Selves: Carol Gilligan and Feminist Moral Theory.
Cambridge: Polity.
Kittay, Eva Feder, and Ellen K. Feder (eds.) 2002. The Subject of Care: Feminist Perspectives on
Dependency. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Larrabee, Mary Jeanne 1992. An Ethic of Care: Feminist and Interdisciplinary Perspectives.
Miller, Sarah Clark (ed.) 2008. Global Feminist Ethics and Politics, Spindel Conference 2007,
suppl. vol. 46, Southern Journal of Philosophy.
Sevenhuijsen, Selma 1998. Citizenship and the Ethics of Care: Feminist Considerations on
Justice, Morality and Politics, trans. Liz Savage. London: Routledge.
1
Freud, Sigmund
Jerome Neu
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) was the father of psychoanalysis, which is both a tech-
nique for exploring the mind and a method of psychological therapy. While some of
his views remain controversial, many of his central concepts have become part of
our common self-understanding. Whether talking about obsessive-compulsive and
other neuroses, anal character traits, narcissism, transference and displaced feelings,
sublimated instincts, the ego and the id, slips of the tongue, and on indefinitely, we
use his language and his theories to describe and explain our lives. Whatever the
controversies, as W. H. Auden noted in his poem “In Memory of Sigmund Freud”:
“to us he is no more a person / now but a whole climate of opinion / under whom we
conduct our different lives” – and there remains much to be learned from him about
our moral experience in particular.
In the beginning, there is pleasure and pain. “Good” and “bad” (not to mention
“justice”) have no independent meaning (see goodness, varieties of; justice;
pleasure; value realism). Philosophers dispute the mature significance of such
concepts (some insisting that the criteria remain rooted in the subjective experience
of pleasure and pain, some insisting that the criteria must transcend the individual
and the subjective). Yet almost everyone comes to recognize that good things can
be painful (indeed, there are those who include difficulty of attainment among their
criteria of value) and bad things can be pleasant. How is such recognition achieved
and a conscience that enforces moral standards instituted (see conscience)?
Freud provides a developmental theory that offers an explanation of moral values
and their internalization.
While for the infant there is only immediate pleasure and pain, parents and other
supporting figures take a broader view. Children come to fear loss of love or punish-
ment when they do what significant adults disapprove of. But so far, this amounts
only to the fear of getting caught, which is not yet morality. As for justice, for Freud
the sense of justice is rooted in infantile envy, our unhappiness when others have
what we want (whether deserved or not). And the religion in which many find the
source of morality is itself rooted in infantile fears and desires (Group Psychology
and the Analysis of the Ego, 1921; The Future of an Illusion, 1927).
Crucial to Freud’s understanding of morality is the psychological mechanism of
identification. Freud’s instinct theory provides a developmental account of the
emergence of morality, both in the development of the individual and (more specu-
latively, especially in Totem and Taboo, 1912–13) in the development of the species.
His later structural theory (elaborated in The Ego and the Id, 1923) enshrines the
observing and judging moral conscience in the superego, part of his tripartite divi-
sion of the self. The superego provides an answer to the troubling question of the
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee058
2
difference between having moral scruples and merely fearing punishment. Early on,
the human infant experiences pleasure and pain. Those experiences provide primitive
criteria for the difference between “good” and “bad” (and philosophical analyses of
ethics as sophisticated as those of Spinoza and Hume in some ways return to those
infantile criteria), but it quickly emerges that the infant’s caregivers disapprove of
some things that the infant likes and approve and encourage some things that the
infant (sometimes emphatically) does not enjoy. So external standards for “good”
and “bad” seem to take into account something more than the infant’s pleasure and
pain, and these standards are mediated for the infant through his or her attachment
to the caregivers. That is, the infant desires the love and support of the caregivers
and fears their loss. So what matters to the caregivers comes to matter to the infant
as well. But so far, the fear of loss of love and of abandonment amounts to little more
than the fear of punishment that motivates some adult criminals, who would do
only what pleased themselves if they thought they could get away with it. (Some
adults never move in their moral development beyond such infantile fear.) But there
comes a point – according to psychoanalytic theory, during the Oedipal period
when the 4- to 5-year-old child comes to identify with feared parental authority via
internalization in order to ease conflict – when the child internalizes the standards
of its caregivers. This is the beginning of moral principle.
In Totem and Taboo, Freud employs the myth of the brothers who band toge-
ther and slay and eat (and so literally incorporate) the primal father, who had
previously monopolized access to the women of the primal horde. The incest taboo
emerges because their (ambivalent) love for the father comes to the fore after his
slaying (Neu 2000 [1976]; see incest). The sons then identify with his prohibitions
(incorporated in their superegos). What is prohibited is what father would not have
liked. The taboo emerges also because the liberated brothers might otherwise renew
among themselves the conflict over the women that led to their revolt against their
father in the first place – without the taboo they might all continue their strife for
their father’s role. The forces of aggression (which Freud later comes to regard as
themselves instinctual) need taming. In individual development, the superego
harnesses and turns inward the aggression against the frustrating but unassailable
external authority figure (on whom the infant is dependent).
In “Mourning and Melancholia” (1917), Freud notes various psychological mani-
festations of identification (including the demonstrative self-denigration and
self-blame that emerge in the depressions that follow certain sorts of losses) and
adumbrates the mechanism of internalization (modeled as physical incorporation in
Totem and Taboo and perhaps in infantile fantasy) that he develops in later writings
such as Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego and The Ego and the Id – writ-
ings that also shed light on the relation of identification to moral sympathy and to
failures of sympathy, as in the “narcissism of minor differences” (Freud 1930; see
sympathy). It is processes of identification that give substance, psychological reality,
to the ideals and prohibitions of morality enforced by the superego. In Freud’s tripar-
tite structural model of the mind, the superego is distinguished by the functions of
self-observation and self-criticism. It contains an ego-ideal, derived from early social
3
and familial influences, toward which the individual strives. As the agency of con-
science, it judges and punishes the self for failing to meet ideals or for transgressing
boundaries (the fundamental conditions for shame and guilt – that is, shame comes
from failure to rise to the standards of the ego-ideal, while guilt comes from trans-
gression of the prohibitions of the superego; see guilt; shame and honor).
According to psychoanalytic theory, it can operate unconsciously. Indeed, it is the
unconscious operation of the superego that accounts for certain neurotic symptoms.
Out of and along with Freud’s theoretical insights, he advanced a number of morally
practical and important arguments. Freud was a great liberator, teaching people to
question the conventional demands of morality and accept their own natures. His was
not an argument for lawless egoism but for reasoned recognition of the proper place
of instincts in our lives, the mutual accommodation required of the pleasure principle
and the reality principle. In its primary process functioning, the mind seeks immediate
pleasurable discharge of its instinctual drives. But since adequate discharge is
only achievable under specific conditions, secondary process functioning calls for
restraint and the delay of gratification until those conditions are realized in reality. The
alternative is fantasy gratification, neurosis, and self-deception. (Issues about psychic
energy and the principles governing its management are explored in Freud’s early
neurophysiological model of the mind as well as later writings – Freud 1950 [1887–
1902], 1900, 1911; see self-deception.) But there is also risk in excessive restraint.
Freud’s developmental theory of morality is rooted in a broader theory of
psychosexual development and the place of instincts in human life. In “ ‘Civilized’
Sexual Morality and Modern Nervous Illness” (1908), Freud argues that civilization
demands repression of sexual desire (whether perverse, premarital, or extramarital)
in the name of legitimate reproduction, imposing costs on individuals in the form of
frustration and neurosis (see sexual morality). That is to say, the denial and diver-
sion of natural sexual and other impulses by the demands of convention can lead to
neurosis of various sorts, and these disorders are to be regarded as among the costs
and “discontents” of civilization (Freud 1930). Some control of instincts (including
aggressive instincts) is of course necessary, but how much control is justifiably called
for needs examination and argument. And the nature of sexual desires themselves
needs to be properly understood.
The instincts Freud is concerned with lie on the border of the physical and the
mental and are internally complex; they are not to be equated with simple inherited
patterns of behavior (like the migratory habits of birds studied by ethologists). After
all, human sexual desires, far from being uniform, are as diverse as the human imag-
ination (just about anything that can be thought of, someone gets off on). Whatever
might be said of the sources of instinct, its aims and objects are thought-dependent,
rather than being set by chemistry or biology. The sexual instinct must be under-
stood as made up of components that vary along a number of dimensions (source,
aim, and object). Otherwise, as Freud argues in his Three Essays on the Theory of
Sexuality (1905; Neu 2000 [1987]), it would be difficult to understand how the
various perversions are recognized as “sexual” despite their distance from the
man-in-the-street’s conception of sexuality (heterosexual genital intercourse between
4
adults). Freud’s broadened concept of sexuality makes intelligible sexual preferences

emphasizing different sources (erotogenic zones or bodily centers of arousal), aims
(acts, such as intercourse and looking, designed to achieve pleasure and satisfaction),
and objects (whether of the same or different gender, or even other than whole living
persons). It also allows for the recognition of infantile sexuality. Phenomena that
might not on the surface appear sexual (e.g., childhood thumbsucking) share essen-
tial characteristics with obviously sexual activity (infantile sensual sucking involves
pleasurable stimulation of the same erotogenic zone, the mouth, stimulated in adult
sexual activities such as kissing), and can be understood as earlier stages in the devel-
opment of the same underlying instinct that expresses itself in such various forms in
adult sexuality. The standard developmental stages are oral, anal, phallic, and genital.
Understanding how human sexuality develops was central to Freud’s enterprise,
and had important implications for attitudes toward deviance and so-called
“perversion.” He insisted “perversion” is not to be used as a term of reproach (1905:
160), but instead perversions are to be seen simply as variations along the dimensions
of source, object, and aim of an underlying universal instinct, no single constellation
of which is to be singled out and privileged as “normal.” Indeed, much perversion
might be universal, not just developmentally but in unconscious fantasy and in fore-
play and under the pressure of suitable external conditions (as when self-identified
heterosexuals find pleasure in homosexual relations in single-sex institutions). Freud
in effect normalized much of sexual variety – which is not to say there may not be
good moral reasons for restricting (indeed, prohibiting and even punishing) certain
sexual activities (such as child abuse), but it does mean that understanding and criti-
cism cannot content themselves with unargued claims about what is “normal” or
“natural.” (And the distinction between activities and fantasies is itself significant; Neu
2002.) This has had an enormously liberating effect on the sexual morality of much of
the world. The sexual revolution of the 1960s and the political theory of writers such
as Herbert Marcuse (with his critique of “surplus-repression,” 1955) and Norman O.
Brown (with his call for a return to the “polymorphous perversion” of infancy, 1959)
were in many ways inspired by Freud’s insights. Freud’s instinct theory continues to
have important implications for both sexual morality and political theory.
Freud’s contributions to the understanding of our instinctual and psychological
nature have had further consequences. Consider the place of ambivalence in emotional
life and views about what the virtuous person “ought” to feel. For a long time, many
believed it was wrong to have or admit hostile feelings toward people we supposedly
love, that it somehow belies the love. One of Freud’s patients, the Rat Man, suffered
from a host of neurotic symptoms because of his repressed rage (Freud 1909). He could
not face his unconscious hatred for his deceased father (who had in certain ways inter-
fered with his love life) and his lady-love (who had rejected his proposals). But through
Freud’s efforts to make the unconscious conscious, the Rat Man overcame his obses-
sive-compulsive symptoms, and it is arguable that through Freud’s efforts society has
come to accept ambivalence as natural, so that we can face the mixed feelings we all
(arguably, inevitably) have toward our beloveds. (Indeed, we now tend to suspect any
love that professes to be too pure, too unmixed.) It can even be argued that the
5
recognition and acceptance of emotional ambivalence is a kind of moral progress, part

of a larger trend toward self-acceptance and rejection of psychologically impossible
ideals.
Some of what Freud has to teach us about the emotions and virtue does not
depend on commitment to psychoanalytic theory, though even then that theory
often deepens his insights. He famously ridicules Christ’s call to love our enemies as
not just difficult, but psychologically impossible – and perhaps even morally dubi-
ous (1930: 109–12, 142–3). After all, what has one’s enemy done to deserve one’s
love, and, assuming that love affects what one actually does, doesn’t it have costs in
terms of the favor or preferential treatment that one owes and will have to deny to
those who have loved one and treated one well? He suggests impartiality in love may
be a kind of injustice. Crucially, for Freud, the special psychological difficulty in
loving one’s enemies is connected with natural human aggression. Its objects, like
the objects of love, would seem fixed in human nature. You can’t overcome hatred
simply because society or religion tells you that you ought, you can’t make yourself
love someone because you think you should. If one accepts the place that Freud’s later
thought gives to an instinct of aggression, the problems with an injunction to love
one’s enemies are inevitable and perhaps insurmountable. Like recent “experimental
philosophers” (and, for that matter, Aristotle), Freud insists on psychological realism
in ethics (Neu 2009; see experimental ethics).
Even ideals of justice are subjected to Freud’s psychological scrutiny. Freud suspects
that it is infantile envy and defensive reaction-formation that lie at the root of calls for
justice (1921: 119–21; Forrester 1996). It is a point also made by Nietzsche (1969
[1887]: First Essay §14), who saw impotent hate, ressentiment, behind both retributiv-
ist justifications of punishment and the Christian injunction to love and forgive one’s
enemies. That is to say, there may be motives that we should mistrust lying behind
what present themselves as calls for loving fellow-feeling and for equality, as demands
for everyone to get respect and their just deserts. We may be self-deceived about what
moves us. It does not follow that the principles of justice cannot transcend the pas-
sionate sources of their appeal, or that spiteful ressentiment cannot be distinguished
from legitimate resentment (see Rawls 1971: 534–41). The dark forces envisioned by
suspicious genealogies do not by themselves refute aspirational ideals, though insofar
as proper motives are essential to true Aristotelian virtue or Kantian moral worth
psychological realities and constraints remain inextricable from ethical value.
Freud’s views developed and changed over time (a point often overlooked when
later views are conflated with earlier, abandoned views in the discussion of his theo-
ries), but there remain certain important continuities. For example, while in the
beginning he spoke about ego instincts versus sexual instincts and at the end of his
life he opposed the life and death instincts, his instinctual theory was from beginning
to end dualistic. Psychoanalysis is essentially a theory of inner conflict, and for con-
flict there must be at least two parties or forces at work. This has important implica-
tions for the hopes of social theories that wish to overcome the suffering of war and
aggression through the amelioration and reform of social structures and interper-
sonal relations. Internal conflicts and suffering might well persist. That is part of the
6
argument of Civilization and Its Discontents (1930). For any kind of social order, there
is a price to be paid – a price in terms of the suppression, control, or diversion of
instinctual forces, whether sexual or aggressive. The instinctual renunciation
demanded by morality and often achieved by repression Freud regarded as essential
to the order society needs to conduct its business. Civilization gets the energy for the
achievements of art and science by sublimation of the same instinctual drives. But the
costs of society and civilization to the individual in frustration, unhappiness, and
neurosis can be too high. Freud’s individual therapy was meant to lead to the libera-
tion of repressed energies (which would not by itself guarantee happiness); he hoped
it might also provide energy to transform the world and moderate its excess demands
for restraint. But just as his individual psychology was founded on the inevitability of
internal conflict, in his social thought he saw some limits (especially on aggression –
the death instinct turned outward) as necessary and he remained pessimistic about
the apparently endless struggle reason must wage (Freud 1930).
See also: conscience; experimental ethics; goodness, varieties of; guilt;

incest; justice; pleasure; self-deception; sexual morality; shame and
honor; sympathy; value realism
REFERENCES
Brown, Norman O. 1959. Life Against Death: The Psychoanalytical Meaning of History.
Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
Forrester, John 1996. “Psychoanalysis and the History of the Passions: The Strange Destiny of
Envy,” in John O’Neill (ed.), Freud and the Passions. University Park: Pennsylvania State
Freud, Sigmund 1900. The Interpretation of Dreams. Standard Edition of the Complete
Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, ed. James Strachey, vols. 4–5. London: Hogarth
(1953–74).
Freud, Sigmund 1905. Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. Standard Edition 7.
Freud, Sigmund 1908. “ ‘Civilized’ Sexual Morality and Modern Nervous Illness.” Standard
Edition 9.
Freud, Sigmund 1909. “Notes Upon a Case of Obsessional Neurosis.” Standard Edition 10.
Freud, Sigmund 1911. “Formulations on the Two Principles of Mental Functioning.” Standard
Edition 12.
Freud, Sigmund 1912–13. Totem and Taboo. Standard Edition 13.
Freud, Sigmund 1917. “Mourning and Melancholia.” Standard Edition 14.
Freud, Sigmund 1921. Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. Standard Edition 18.
Freud, Sigmund 1923. The Ego and the Id. Standard Edition 19.
Freud, Sigmund 1927. The Future of an Illusion. Standard Edition 21.
Freud, Sigmund 1930. Civilization and Its Discontents. Standard Edition 21.
Freud, Sigmund 1950 [1887–1902]. “A Project for a Scientific Psychology.” Standard Edition 1.
Marcuse, Herbert 1955. Eros and Civilization. Boston: Beacon.
Neu, Jerome 2000 [1976]. “What Is Wrong with Incest?” in Jerome Neu, A Tear Is an Intellectual
Thing: The Meanings of Emotion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 166–76.
7
Neu, Jerome 2000 [1987]. “Freud and Perversion,” in Jerome Neu, A Tear Is an Intellectual
Thing: The Meanings of Emotion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 144–65.
Neu, Jerome 2002. “An Ethics of Fantasy?” Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical
Psychology, vol. 22, pp. 133–57.
Neu, Jerome 2009. “An Ethics of Emotion?” in Peter Goldie (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of
Philosophy of Emotion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 501–17.
Nietzsche, Friedrich 1969 [1887]. On the Genealogy of Morals, trans. W. Kaufmann and
R. J. Hollingdale. New York: Vintage Books.
FURTHER READINGS
Deigh, John 1996. The Sources of Moral Agency: Essays in Moral Psychology and Freudian
Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lear, Jonathan 2005. Freud. London: Routledge.
Neu, Jerome (ed.) 1991. The Cambridge Companion to Freud. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Ricoeur, Paul 1970. Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation. New Haven: Yale
University Press.
Rieff, Philip 1979. Freud: The Mind of the Moralist, 3rd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Wollheim, Richard 1971. Sigmund Freud. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
1
Kierkegaard, Søren
Alastair Hannay
Ethics (or the “ethical”) is a pivotal notion in the writings of Søren Kierkegaard
(1813–55). A pseudonymous series published between 1843 and 1846 presents the
ethical not in the form of a theory of the good, right, duty, and so forth, but as an
“existence-stage,” or life-view, with the “aesthetic” and “religious” life-views on
either side. For this reason Kierkegaard’s writings do not lend themselves readily or
even profitably to categorizing in terms of moral theories current today. Their form
is that of a critique of the manners and professed ideals of the time, in particular of
the ways in which the former failed to measure up to the latter, and, centrally, of
what Kierkegaard considered was a systematic marginalizing of the individual. A
sense of his response can be gained in his claim that “[t]he individual’s own ethical
actuality is the only actuality” (2009: 274). Kierkegaard’s focus on “existence” and
the “single individual” set the stage for existentialism, for which his work provides
several central notions (see existentialism). But besides being the hinge on which
the transition turns from the aesthetic stage, so-called for its focus on pleasurable
moments and their cultivation, to the religious stage, the “ethical” is pivotal also in
forming the fulcrum for a development from a secular to a Christian ethics (or the
“ethico-religious”).
The pseudonymous writings break rules of genre. Kierkegaard, although well
versed in the history of philosophy and the largely Hegelian philosophies of his
time, presents his thoughts in a designedly un- and even anti-philosophical form.
The implication is that topics normally considered philosophical should be made
to appeal to something more or even other than a reader’s ability to follow an argu-
ment. A continuing theme in Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous production is that of
the “exception,” the individual who fails to conform to prevailing moral codes. As
is generally known, this topic was urged upon Kierkegaard by his own (at that
time) scandalous conduct in breaking off a year-long betrothal to his fiancée,
Regine Olsen, immediately following the successful defense of his doctoral thesis
(“On the Concept of Irony”). In an academic respect, however, what occupied
Kierkegaard from the first were attempts by contemporaries to introduce elements
of an orthodox Christianity into a Hegelian “System.” Kierkegaard’s aim was not,
however, to propose philosophical principles of his own, but rather to disabuse
philosophers (and others) of their presumed professional ability to establish eter-
nal truths about the right and the good. Such truths are properly the object of a
personal concern, the questions inviting them raised in and about the individual’s
own life. Hegelian philosophers had lost sight of this locus of interest, though in
doing so they were only in their own, but dangerously influential, way expressing
the malaise of an age in which people, as the pseudonymous Johannes Climacus
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee059
2
puts it, had “forgotten what inwardness means and what it is to exist” (Kierkegaard
2009: 203). The root meaning of “inwardness” (Inderlighed) is of any sustained
seriousness of crucial personal concern, but in Kierkegaard it acquires the reli-
gious sense of concern for an “eternal happiness.” Such concern differs in kind
from any “aesthetic” concerns that are due to the “accidents” of a finite life, such as
infatuation, however personally crucial these can be at the time. Kierkegaard here
takes from the hands of philosophers one of their most prestigious themes (also
referred to as an “eternal consciousness”) and places it before the individual in
“existence,” as a live issue to be grasped through what Climacus calls “subjective
thinking.”
Although the good citizens of the day paid lip service to religion, in practice their
life-view was in Kierkegaard’s eyes altogether secular and its forms of devotion the-
atrical. The popularity Hegel’s philosophy enjoyed among Copenhagen intellectuals
at the time was owing largely to the rational backing that it gave to moral ideals in
which the bourgeoisie already felt comfortably at home. Not only did it confirm
them in their respectability, at the same time it took care of their souls. But Assessor
Wilhelm, the author of the “Or” part of Either/Or, although outwardly a paragon of
the establishment, is a significantly ambiguous figure. On the surface a paradigm of
Hegelian ethics, in an age in which (as Climacus tells us) the “ethical” is increasingly
ignored (Kierkegaard 2009: 267), Assessor Wilhelm stands out as its forthright
defender, yet his defense of the ethical leads both him and his reader in a direction
that is the antithesis of Hegel’s.
For Hegel (see hegel, georg wilhelm friedrich) the true expression of the
ethical is the ordered political state; ethics is a matter of being bound whether seam-
lessly or forcibly by bonds of obligation based on law and trust. In Hegel’s Philosophy
of Right, a work to which Fear and Trembling makes several references, a fundamen-
tal thought is that human fulfillment is something that is visibly shared. Exceptions
to accepted standards of behavior are countenanced only where overriding duties
require some normal expectation to be set aside, as for instance a responsibility to
the state or nation. Considered simply as such, the individual is a nonentity because
considered in total separation from the “universal” (Das Allgemeine). Ethically, the
“universal” implies the familiar notion, embodied in the notion of universalizability
as a test to determine the morality of any recommendation to act in this or that way
(see universalizability), that ethical rules apply equally and to everyone. In
Hegel, however, the universal applies not to individual actions but to a collective
factor in the actual world that binds people through law and trust within existing
sociopolitical systems. Laws bind the individual to an impersonal corporate collec-
tivity, while trust is developed out of the emotional ties of family life.
Although the defense of the ethical in Either/Or is entrusted to a minor official
dedicated to enforcing the law, it is precisely on the merits of family life and marriage
that he bases his apologia. Biographically this points indirectly to Kierkegaard’s own
broken engagement, concerning which he was to remark, several years after Either/
Or’s publication, that he had been “unhappily placed outside the realm of the univer-
sally human” (Cappelørn 2012: Vol. 5, NB6 #62). But already in the closing pages of
3
the book itself there is an acknowledgment that attempts to realize the universal may
“stumble on difficulties” and even a mention of becoming “uncommon in a nobler
sense” (Kierkegaard 1992: 586, 589). This theme is immediately seized on in the
sequel, Fear and Trembling, with its “paradoxical” invitation to consider the possibil-
ity that the particular is “higher” than the universal. The chosen vehicle of this pro-
posal is the shocking biblical account of Abraham’s willingness to obey God’s
command that he sacrifice his son Isaac.
Quite un-Hegelian in Assessor Wilhelm’s defense of the ethical itself is its focus on
choice. Admonishing the addressee (responsible for the “Either” and named simply
“A”) of his two long epistles for systematically failing to get a grip on the world,
Wilhelm urges him to “choose” himself and be “revealed” (Kierkegaard 1992: 582).
The choice here is not that of one among a range of potentially available identities;
but rather, by looking back at the record of one’s dealings with people and relations
to the world, it is a decision to assume responsibility for these, that is to say, for what
has already been. Nor is revelation the disclosure of a self already established but
hitherto concealed; disclosing oneself in the light of the visibly universal is the only
way in which selfhood can be achieved at all. If, as we are led to assume, Wilhelm’s
own selfhood has been arrived at in the way he advises, then it cannot be the case
that he has been ushered into the ethical enduringly under the persuasive guidance
of a rational intuition as in Hegel.
Although the essays contributed by “A” express a life-view of a kind commonly
labeled “hedonism” (see hedonism), according to Wilhelm it is not based on a
hedonistic theory of the good, since at least in his eyes it fails to deploy the very
distinction between good and evil. That distinction first occurs with the choice of
self, also referred to as choosing “despair” (Kierkegaard 1992: 513). The latter implies
that what to the aesthete appear as passively endured states of depression and mel-
ancholia are more properly grasped as conditions for which he is himself accounta-
ble. Since the ethical life begins with the admission that good and evil exist, and
admitting the distinction is a condition of selfhood, it follows that selfhood in
Kierkegaard is itself an ethical notion.
And yet Fear and Trembling suggests that the “ethical” can and even should be
“suspended.” The premises forming the bare bones of the argument are, first, that in
relation to the Absolute the single individual as a particular is higher than the uni-
versal, and second, that since language translates everything into the universal, this
“paradoxical” relation to the Absolute cannot be the content of any direct communi-
cation. The question of incommunicability is open to several interpretations, but
one of these is directly traceable to Hegel. In the Logic the “universal” is not only the
category to which ideals of humanity must conform, it is the form of any activity of
thought whatever. Universality, insofar as language is the medium of thought, is all
that language can ever express. Since, on this view, even terms like “here” and “now”
are universal, so also, and crucially, is the pronoun “I.” Therefore, even if what I
mean is myself when I utter the word “I,” all that I can communicate or say with it is
“every I” (Wallace 1975: 32). Whatever explanation Kierkegaard himself would offer,
the situation described is one where Abraham (the exemplary “Knight of Faith”) is
4
denied the “relief of speech,” which “translates me into the universal,” a consolation
still available to Agamemnon (the paradigmatic “Tragic Hero”) (Kierkegaard 1985:
137), who tragically sacrifices personal ties but with ethical impunity through appeal
to wider responsibilities to the state. The aptly named pseudonymous author of Fear
and Trembling (Johannes de silentio) admits that he, too, is at a loss for the words that
would save Abraham’s good reputation. The idea conveyed to the reader is that the
purely particular relation that a single individual must have to the Absolute is some-
thing that no language can express. Readers of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-
Philosophicus will be reminded of its closing paragraph enjoining silence about that
which cannot be said (see wittgenstein, ludwig).
A question raised with increasing urgency in the varied genres (quasi-treatises,
thought-experiments, psychological excursions, and literary works) is that of
whether the universal is to be dispensed with in favor of some other form of moral
goal (for instance obeying God’s will [see divine command]), or preserved in the
form of the particular individual’s will. In Abraham the question of exceptionality is
given a sharper twist than the reader of Either/Or is led to expect: rather than failing
to realize the universal, Abraham appears to be excluding himself from it deliber-
ately. As Kierkegaard predicted, much discussion has centered on Fear and Trembling,
but an assumption common to many interpretations offered is that we are indeed led
to suppose that the “universally human” can and should be realized in some way
other than the above-board, socially transparent manner rationalized by Hegel and
represented and defended by Assessor Wilhelm.
The programmatic secularism of much philosophy since Kierkegaard’s time has
sought to play down the religious premise of his thinking. The approach to his writ-
ings has acquired a correspondingly piecemeal character with a tendency to focus
on particular works or pseudonyms in light of issues salient in our own time. One
example concerns the suggestion that “narrative” is the concept in which we should
both grasp and value a human life. Assessor Wilhelm’s ethics of self-disclosure may
not implausibly be presented in this light, but the notion of narrative will not extend
to the “Knight of Faith,” the course of whose life cannot be revealed to others in the
way that storytelling, the practice to which narrative belongs, presupposes. On the
other hand the very privacy of Kierkegaardian faith (see faith) finds favor in the
discourse ethics of Jürgen Habermas (see discourse ethics). A consistent protago-
nist of reason, who nevertheless senses the dawn of a “post-secular” age, Habermas
recognizes in Kierkegaardian faith a resource that can enrich participation in debates
on public issues. His continued insistence that these nevertheless be conducted in
purely secular terms (Habermas 2006: 17) is consistent with Kierkegaard’s belief that
politics are bound to distort religious experience. But the assumption that the uni-
versally human should be the topic of a public debate to which religious feeling is
merely peripheral would, for Kierkegaard, be a reversion to the Hegelian priorities.
A third example is Alasdair MacIntyre’s (1981) detection of a prima facie
incompatibility between Kierkegaard’s implied prejudice in favor of the ethicist’s
position and, in its very title, Either/Or’s presentation of the aesthetic and the
ethical life-views as radically opposed (and perhaps exhaustive) options. He sees
5
Kierkegaard, accordingly, as a transitional thinker spanning on the one hand an

Aristotelian tradition in which virtuous conduct is the goal of ethics, and on the
other, the confrontational nature of modern moral debate (as well as the radical
choices associated with existentialism). But in his preface Victor Eremita
(“Triumphant Recluse”), the pseudonymous editor of Either/Or, says nothing to
the effect that the two life-views he offers are equally valid. He simply urges the
reader to stick to the texts and not make spurious conjectures about “what
actually happened.” The point is surely to elicit from readers an unadulterated
admission as to where they stand with regard to the alternatives as offered; what-
ever happens afterwards must happen to them. Either/Or then appears as the first
in a series of opportunities offered to readers to see their lives in larger perspec-
tive. To prefer the cultivated hedonism of the aesthete discloses a failure on the
reader’s part to appreciate the personally constructive aspects of an ethical view
of the world – self-identity, an inner history and a consequent richer appreciation
of life’s aesthetic aspects. It can also indicate a willful refusal, more or less
conscious, to adopt the change of vision required to grasp these benefits. Similarly,
the ethicist may fail to appreciate the situation of the “single individual,” or will-
fully refuse to break the conceptual barrier (or the barrier of conceptualization
itself) that conceals the nature of singularity from the very individual whose
destiny it is to be singular.
Separating the ethical thinking in Kierkegaard’s works from their wider Christian
terms of reference becomes not only difficult but impossible in the later signed
works, among which Works of Love (1962) stands out. Here the focus is on a distinc-
tion between “natural love” and the Biblical “love of neighbor” (see agape; love).
The work, subtitled “Some Christian Deliberations in Discourse Form,” can be read
as an elaborate gloss on Kierkegaard’s radically anti-Hegelian conception of the
direction in which ethics relates to forms of love naturally limited by close associa-
tion as in the family. In Kierkegaard’s discursive deliberations, the universally human
goal of ethics is to be grasped in terms not of external political arrangements but of
a love in the Christian sense that introduces God, as the text has it, as the “middle
term.” Christian love is an active interest in the interests of another whatever change,
physical or psychological, the other may undergo. If the love varies or ceases because
the object of love undergoes change, then an element of preference and therefore
self-interest has entered. Love in this paradigmatic Christian sense speaks of the
unity of humankind in place of the formless aggregate of human attachments and
relationships on which what is normally called “love” thrives. Commentators have
discussed how far Kierkegaard’s Christian deliberations admit forms of preferential
love that are nevertheless morally acceptable. On this the text is ambiguous: it says
that the Christian paradigm leaves preferential forms of love untouched but also that
it has changed “all love” (Kierkegaard 1962: 143). We might say that while Assessor
Wilhelm’s conjugal love stands as an ethically admirable prop to social life and a
socially acceptable way of contributing to the continuation of the species, it falls
short as an expression of the universally human. The “change” brought about by the
new paradigm could be its revealing to us the varying though not necessarily always
6
morally reprehensible degrees to which our uncritical affirmations of love are self-
regarding. A distinction Kierkegaard makes between pity and compassion is rele-
vant. As also later with Nietzsche (see nietzsche, friedrich), and unlike Rousseau,
for whom pity is the basis of morality, Kierkegaard sees moral weakness in pity: a
form of indulgence in the one who has it and in the recipient a tie to the misery that
occasions it. Compassion, on the other hand, is a form of genuine love.
A remark in a section of Works of Love (“Compassion, an act of love, even if it can
give nothing, and can do nothing”) says that if all human suffering were remedied
without compassion, then the absence of compassion would be a worse evil than all
temporal need (Kierkegaard 1962: 292, 301, trans. altered). We are led to expect,
from this clearly anti-Consequentialist remark (see consequentialism), a bias in
Kierkegaard in favor of goodness of will over actual outcomes as the basis of moral-
ity (see deontology). The expectation is confirmed in remarks on the difficulty of
avoiding “double-mindedness,” or a moral agent’s inability to focus exclusively on a
moral goal. Toward the close of an “Upbuilding Discourse” (under the heading
“Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing”) Kierkegaard describes its aim as that of try-
ing to “track double-mindedness down its hidden paths, to discover its hiddenness”
(1993: 122, translation emended). Examples are claiming to act from duty but with
the reward in mind, or out of fear of punishment for not doing so. Attaching impor-
tance to its being through oneself that the good is being willed is also to be double-
minded. The thought here recalls Kant’s Categorical Imperative (see kantian
practical ethics) with its aim of isolating the properly moral aspect of a moral
intention. In Postscript, Climacus may even be echoing Kant when describing the
absolute relation to an absolute goal as one of “respect.” Kant distinguishes a respect
for the Moral Law from other forms of respect for law as being unqualified and
motivated exclusively by the thought of having to act as reason dictates. In
Kierkegaard reliance on our status as rational beings is replaced by the need to ori-
ent oneself absolutely to an absolute goal in faith. In Postscript’s lengthy account of
the requirements of religiousness A, and as part of a transformation in which the
individual becomes “defined inwardly in self-annihilation before God,” Climacus
speaks of “dying to immediacy [yet] remaining in the finite” (Kierkegaard 2009:
479, 361). Religiousness A, however, even if it succeeds in severing the self from its
worldly attachments (including those which the ethicist misreads as eternal), retains
an element of “immanence,” namely the assumption that dying to immediacy suf-
fices to secure a factual relationship to the absolute. Religiousness B incorporates
the realization that the eternal is accessible only (“absurdly”) through temporal
facts. At this final stage the individual is “singled out” in isolated passion and in a
position now to appreciate what the “eternal happiness” that Christianity offers in
the Incarnation amounts to (Kierkegaard 2009: 489).
Remarks in Postscript can suggest “virtue ethics” as a suitable designation for what
is expressed there (see virtue ethics). Climacus says that “[t]o exist is an art” and
the subjective thinker is “aesthetic enough for his life to have aesthetic content, ethi-
cal enough to regulate it, and dialectical enough to master it in thought” (Kierkegaard
2009: 294). This sounds like a controlled harmony of forces of the kind implied in
7
the classic notion of virtue. Also suggestive is Climacus’ remark that the subjective
thinker’s task is to “transform himself into an instrument that clearly and definitely
expresses the human in existence” (Kierkegaard 2009: 299). That no ulterior goal
(for instance fulfilling God’s purpose) is mentioned suggests that such expression
has intrinsic value. (The notion of an instrument in this context is that of an expres-
sive medium, not of a tool designed for some purpose.) However, if it is the practical
expression of a virtuous disposition that Virtue Ethics identifies as an intrinsic good,
there is a clear sense in which the “virtues” extolled by Kierkegaard are of a kind that
virtue ethics typically regards as preliminary to the free exercise of settled disposi-
tions. Although Assessor Wilhelm appears to exemplify a level of settled disposition,
the works that follow focus on problems that the Assessor appears neither to have
encountered nor fully to grasp. The salient Kierkegaardian “virtue” is the individu-
al’s ability to keep an absolute goal in view in spite of the all-too-human obstacles to
its doing so on its journey of “becoming.” One looks in vain in Kierkegaard for a
plateau where this “virtue” could appear in the form of a settled disposition.
Kierkegaard’s insistence on the particularity of the individual brings several easily
obscured aspects of the ethical relation into focus. One of these is the reality of the
other as a separate subject of experiences (Works of Love), a fact easily lost sight of in
traditional theories of ethics which, by marginalizing the individual’s own sense of
moral integrity, tend to denature the moral personality. In this latter context
Kierkegaard’s polemic on behalf of the individual may be linked to a focus on “per-
sonal projects” (see williams, bernard) in response to the tendency of traditional
moral theory to sacrifice personal integrity to the greater good of humanity at large.
Moral philosophers have examined the possibility of exceptions to the rule that
moral actions aim at the best over-all state of affairs (see agent-centered options).
However, although Kierkegaard’s polemic on behalf of the exception may anticipate
the need for such a move, his own thought goes beyond justifying exceptions to a
prevailing universalizing morality. Its thrust is to replace the latter with an individu-
ated morality in which the ideal of universality is reconstituted in the form of an
individual’s will. The “self-annihilation” required for this requires a step further,
while the self-assertion implicit in the notion of personal projects, if itself carried
further, would be more at home in a Nietzschean setting.
See also: agape; agent-centered options; consequentialism; deontology;

discourse ethics; divine command; existentialism; faith; hedonism; hegel,
georg wilhelm friedrich; kantian practical ethics; love; nietzsche,
friedrich; universalizability; utilitarianism; virtue ethics; williams,
bernard; wittgenstein, ludwig
REFERENCES
Cappelørn, Niels Jørgen, Alastair Hannay, David Kangas, Bruce H. Kirmmse, George
Pattison, Joel D. S. Rasmussen, Vanessa Rumble, and K. Brian Söderquist (eds.) 2007–.
Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks, vols. 1–11. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
8
Habermas, Jürgen 2006. “Religion in the Public Sphere,” European Journal of Philosophy,
vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 1–25.
Kierkegaard, Søren 1962. Works of Love, trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong.
New York: Harper & Row.
Kierkegaard, Søren 1985. Fear and Trembling, trans. Alastair Hannay. London: Penguin;
reprint with chronology 2003.
Kierkegaard, Søren 1992. Either/Or: A Fragment of Life (abridged), trans. Alastair Hannay.
London: Penguin Books.
Kierkegaard, Søren 1993. Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, ed. and trans. Howard
V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Kierkegaard, Søren 2009. Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. Alastair Hannay.
MacIntyre, Alasdair 1981. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. London: Duckworth;
2nd ed. 1984.
Wallace, William (trans.) 1975. Hegel’s Logic. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
FURTHER READINGS
Davenport, J. J., and A. Rudd (eds.) 2001. Kierkegaard after MacIntyre: Essays on Freedom,
Narrative and Virtue. Chicago: Open Court.
Evans, C. Stephen 2006. Kierkegaard’s Ethic of Love, Divine Commands and Moral Obligations.
Hannay, Alastair 1991. Kierkegaard, Arguments of the Philosophers, London and New York:
Routledge; rev. ed. 1993, reprint 1999.
Hannay, Alastair, and Gordon D. Marino (eds.) 1998. The Cambridge Companion to
Kierkegaard. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kierkegaard, Søren 1989. The Sickness unto Death, trans. Alastair Hannay. London: Penguin;
repr. with chronology 2004.
Kierkegaard, Søren 1996. Papers and Journals: A Selection, trans. Alastair Hannay. London:
Penguin.
Knox, T. M. (trans.) 1952. Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Matustik, Martin J., and Merold Westphal (eds.) 1995. Kierkegaard in Post/Modernity.
Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Mooney, Edward F. (ed.) 2008. Ethics, Love, and Faith in Kierkegaard: Philosophical
Engagements. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Perkins, Robert L. (ed.) 1995. International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 4, Either/Or, Pt. 2.
Macon, GA: Mercer University Press.
Rée, Jonathan, and Jane Chamberlain (eds.) 1998. Kierkegaard: A Critical Reader. Oxford:
Blackwell.
Scheffler, Samuel 1982. The Rejection of Consequentialism. New York: Oxford University
Press.
Scheffler, Samuel 1992. Human Morality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
1
Queerness, Argument from

Hallvard Lillehammer
The so-called “argument from queerness” is one of two arguments against the
existence of objective values put forward by J. L. Mackie in his Ethics: Inventing
Right and Wrong (1977), the other being his “argument from relativity” (see mackie,
j. l.; disagreement, moral). By the term “objective value,” Mackie primarily
means moral goodness, rightness and wrongness, and duties and obligations, but he
also takes his argument to affect certain nonmoral values (1977: 15). In a nutshell,
his argument goes as follows: If there were objective values, they would be things of
a very strange sort, utterly different from anything else in the universe. Yet, we have
no philosophically satisfying account of either the existence of such things or of
how we could come to know about them. Therefore, we should not believe in
objective values.
In fact, Mackie’s argument from queerness is composed of a number of distinct
sub-arguments, each of which is intended to cast doubt on the existence of objective
values by showing that there is no place for one or more of their allegedly essential
features in a scientific, or otherwise naturalistically respectable, worldview. Although
the charge of “queerness” is sometimes interpreted as a claim that the notion of
objective value is either metaphysically or conceptually incoherent, it is equally
possible to interpret it as a conservative plea for ontological parsimony, along the
lines of similar claims on behalf of naturalism elsewhere in philosophy. The basic
thought, then, is that we should not believe in objective values because no such
values would figure in our best, i.e., naturalistic, account of the world.
The point of the argument from queerness is not, as is sometimes suggested, that
we should deny the existence of objective values on the grounds of their strangeness
alone. Defenders of the argument, including Mackie, are themselves committed to a
naturalistic worldview that may force them to postulate the existence of entities that
are intuitively strange, including some of the esoteric phenomena (quarks, spin,
black holes, etc.) that are theorized about in modern physics. The point of the
argument is rather that the idea of objective value involves a kind of strangeness that
has no counterpart in the kind of naturalistic worldview that proponents of the
argument take as their ontological benchmark.
Nor is the argument meant to entail that we cannot speak truly about value. Thus,
agents can value things, and some things can be valuable in relation to others. For
example, actions can be valuable as means to ends; or be prescribed, permitted, or
prohibited in relation to contingent human practices and institutions. The “objective
values” targeted by the argument from queerness would be ones the grounding
of which would somehow transcend the contingencies of human purposes and
institutions. It is only values in this sense that Mackie claims are too “queer” to exist.
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee060
2
The argument from queerness has at least two distinguishable aspects, one meta-
physical and the other epistemological. In its metaphysical aspect, the argument
fixes on some allegedly essential features of objective values and concludes that such
features do not exist. In its epistemological aspect, the argument fixes on some
allegedly essential features of objective values and concludes that we would have no
way of knowing about them. On the further assumption that objective values would
be knowable, it follows that objective values do not exist.
In its metaphysical aspect, Mackie’s argument can be divided into at least three
separable strands. The first strand fixes on the combination of two apparently incom-
patible features of objective values. On the one hand, they are supposed to exist inde-
pendently of our attitudes. On the other hand, knowledge of objective values is
supposed to be intrinsically motivating, in the sense that correctly judging what is right
or good entails being motivated accordingly. Yet, nothing that exists independently of
our attitudes is intrinsically motivating. Hence, objective values do not exist.
One response to this argument has been to deny that objective values exist inde-
pendently of our attitudes. Drawing an analogy with secondary quality accounts of
color, some critics have pointed out that we can speak truly of things the features of
which depend on how the world appears to us as well as on how it is independently
of our responses to it (McDowell 1998). Thus, there need be nothing more to being
red, say, than to appear red in standard conditions. Likewise, there need be nothing
more to being objectively valuable than to appear valuable to ideal, or otherwise
competent, judges in favorable circumstances. Furthermore, to appear valuable is to
be valued in the required sense of judging something valuable and thereby being
motivated accordingly. Either way, the domain of mind independence should not be
identified with the domain of the objectively real (see response-dependent theories).
A second response to the argument is to apply an analogue of the Argument
from Illusion, familiar from epistemology and the philosophy of perception. Imagine
a well-informed agent who correctly believes it is right for her to F and who is
accordingly motivated. Now, consider a scenario in which it is not right for the agent
to F, yet everything appears to be exactly the same from her perspective as it would
in the case where it is right for her to F. Arguably, the agent will still believe it is right
for her to F and be accordingly motivated. Hence, whatever is intrinsically motivating
is a feature of the agent’s attitudes, not of the objective values themselves. And, there
is nothing incoherent about the idea of an intrinsically motivating attitude.
One problem with each of these replies is that intrinsically motivating attitudes
have traditionally been classified by philosophers as desires rather than beliefs
(Smith 1994). The apparently paradoxical implication of locating the intrinsically
motivating aspect of objective values in our attitudes rather than in the world is
therefore that our value judgments fail to express genuinely cognitive states with
objective truth conditions, instead being identifiable with non-cognitive, or affec-
tive, sentiments (see non-cognitivism). One response to this problem has been to
deny the Humean Theory of Motivation, according to which all beliefs are held to be
motivationally inert (McDowell 1998). Another influential response has been to
deny that the attitudes involved in value judgments are intrinsically motivating.
3
Thus, externalists about moral motivation appeal to examples such as that of the
amoralist and other ethically defective characters in order to argue that there is
no intrinsic connection between making an objective value judgment and being
motivated a certain way (see externalism, motivational; amoralist). A similar
response has been defended by some ethical rationalists, who hold that the connec-
tion between moral judgments and motivation is causal and therefore defeasible,
but is nevertheless necessary if an agent is to count as practically rational (see
rationalism in ethics).
A second strand of the metaphysical aspect of the argument from queerness fixes
on the idea that objective values would have to be objectively prescriptive, in the
sense that they are supposed to be intrinsically normative, or reason giving, inde-
pendently of our desires. Yet, there is no coherent source of intrinsic normativity
external to our desires. Therefore, values cannot be objectively prescriptive, and
hence objective values do not exist (see reasons, internal and external).
A number of influential responses to this strand of the argument employ a
“companions in guilt” strategy in order to demystify the idea of objective prescrip-
tivity (see companions in guilt strategy). Thus, it might be thought that the laws
of logical inference are objectively prescriptive. Yet, proponents of the argument
from queerness do not deny the objectivity of logic. It has also been argued that
epistemic norms are objectively prescriptive. Yet, proponents of the argument from
queerness do not normally deny the existence of objective reasons for belief. Third,
and according to one influential account of action explanation, the very idea of a
propositional attitude is objectively prescriptive, insofar as it presupposes that agents
are necessarily believers in the true and lovers of the good. In each case, the argument
from queerness is accused of undermining its own premises.
The prospects of this response depend on at least two further questions
(Lillehammer 2007). The first is whether the norms involved in logic, epistemology,
and action explanation are objectively prescriptive in the sense targeted by the
argument from queerness. This is arguably the sense in which Kant held that moral
values, in particular, present us with an objectively valid, or “categorical,” imperative
that ought to constrain our selection of ends regardless of our contingent desires,
on pain of irrationality (see categorical imperative). This contrasts with
“hypothetical” imperatives that, although they ought to constrain the rational
combination of means and ends regardless of contingent desire, are formally neutral
about the content of rational ends. The prospects of this response, therefore,
depend on whether the norms involved in logic, epistemology, and action
explanation are categorical or hypothetical imperatives in the required sense.
The second question relates to the range of values that is objectively prescriptive
in the required sense. Suppose the norms involved in logic, epistemology, and action
explanation give rise to some objectively valid categorical imperatives. It does not
follow that these imperatives include the kind of substantial norms of right and
good that we normally associate with the demands of morality. Thus, one skeptical
possibility is that the range of objectively valid categorical imperatives is restricted
to comparatively formal relations of consistency and coherence between desires and
4
beliefs. If so, they may not include the kind of substantial constraints on the content
of ends that have traditionally been associated with moral rightness and goodness.
Even so, however, it would still be the case that this strain of the argument from
queerness fails in its unrestricted form.
The third metaphysical strand of the argument from queerness relates to how
objective values would relate to the descriptive, or natural, facts on which they are
said to supervene (see supervenience, moral). On the one hand, objective values
would require a descriptive base to explain why some situations are evaluatively
different from others. On the other hand, there can be no logical entailment by the
descriptive base of the objective values, at the cost of making the values themselves
explanatorily or metaphysically redundant. Yet, the combination of dependence and
nonentailment apparently implies that the very same descriptive facts that make an
action impermissible in our actual world could either be morally neutral, or even
make that action obligatory, in some different possible world. And this, even if not,
strictly speaking, inconsistent, is at least “philosophically uninviting” (Blackburn
1993). Moreover, this kind of “queerness” is relevant across a wide range of theories
about the nature of objective value, as most theories about the nature of value are
committed to the supervenience thesis on which it depends.
One response to this argument is once more to seek companions in guilt. Thus, it
might be argued that the combination of dependence and nonentailment involved
in the supervenience of objective values on descriptive facts is no more problematic
than the same combination elsewhere in nature. Thus, it is widely acknowledged
that mental states are supervenient on physical states of the body, without this in any
way casting doubt on either the existence of mental states or on the explanatory
value of attributing them either to ourselves or others.
One problem with this response is the apparent weakness of the analogy between
the evaluative and the mental on which it depends. Thus, it is widely believed that the
relationship of dependence in the first case is much stronger than it is in the second.
If we accept a broadly naturalistic worldview, it arguably makes no sense to imagine
objective values being realized by anything else than descriptive natural facts in the
way in which it arguably does make sense to imagine mental states being realized by
something else than physical matter. If so, the two cases are not relevantly similar.
A second response to this argument is to reject the assumption of nonentailment
while denying that this makes objective values explanatorily redundant (see natu-
ralism, ethical; realism, moral). This response can take at least two forms. One
is to attempt a conceptual reduction of value judgments to descriptive judgments by
analyzing the content of evaluative claims in terms of a (potentially infinite) list of
descriptive claims that describe the world as it is in nonevaluative terms in all
the actual and possible situations in which the evaluative claims in question are true.
On this view, the reduction of objective values to descriptive facts is in principle
knowable a priori (Jackson 1998). Defenders of this response are committed to
explaining why, if thoughts about value are reducible to thoughts about descriptive
facts, it can reasonably seem as if it is always an open question whether we should
think that something is objectively valuable, even when all the relevant descriptive
5
facts are known (see open question argument). In its other form, the naturalist
response accepts the conceptual irreducibility of objective values to descriptive facts
in order to attempt a metaphysical reduction a posteriori (Brink 1989). Drawing an
analogy between theoretical reductions in value theory and theoretical reductions in
natural science, the claim is that evaluative properties, such as human good, are
identical to descriptive properties, such as bodily health, in the same way that the
property of being water is said to be identical to the chemical property of being H2O.
This response is not vulnerable to the open question argument in its traditional
form. It is, however, vulnerable to the concern that, by modeling the use of evalua-
tive terms on the theoretical terms of descriptive natural science, it fails to respect
the sense in which objective values are supposed to be intrinsically normative. As
with the a priori strategy to which it is the natural competitor, this response is
therefore sometimes likened to a naturalistically motivated strategy of conceptual
revision. Thus understood, each of the two reductive naturalist strategies are actually
consistent with the argument from queerness, insofar as that argument is intended
to undermine the idea of irreducibly nonnatural objective values.
In its epistemological aspect, the argument from queerness asks how objective
values could possibly be known. Objective values are supposed to be intrinsically
normative entities, irreducibly distinct from the natural entities of the causal nexus
postulated by the descriptive natural sciences. It might therefore seem that knowl-
edge of objective values would require us to have some special faculty of evaluative
intuition that connects us to this realm of nonnatural and causally inert entities (see
intuitionism, moral). Yet, we do not possess any such special faculty of evaluative
intuition. Hence, we would not be able to know about objective values, even if they
did exist. Yet, an unknowable objective value is as good as an objective value that
does not exist. Therefore, we should not believe that objective values exist.
One response to this argument is to deny that knowledge of objective values
entails the existence of a special faculty of evaluative intuition. Critics may once
more look for companions in guilt (Wiggins 2006). Thus, it might be argued that
truths of logic, for example, are as causally inert as truths about objective value. Yet,
this fact does not entail that we must choose between either postulating a special
faculty of logical intuition or denying the obvious truth that we have logical
knowledge. One alternative is to say that the only sense in which logical knowledge
depends on intuition is the unproblematic sense in which we are able to grasp,
without inferring it from any further statements, that some elementary logical state-
ment is true, and self-evident in that sense. As for logic, so for value. There need be
nothing more to the idea of an evaluative intuition than what follows from the idea
of an elementary evaluative truth. No one can seriously doubt that there are such
truths, however trivial or vacuous. It follows that there is nothing unacceptably
“queer” about the idea of an evaluative intuition merely as such.
A second response to the argument is derivable from the naturalist response
to the problem of supervenience. If objective values were either identical to, or
constituted by, descriptively natural features of the world, there would be no special
problem about how we are able to stand in the appropriate causal relations to them.
6
The relations in question would be the same causal relations in which we stand to
other descriptively natural features of the world. This naturalistic response to the
argument is consistent with the claim that we are able to grasp at least some elemen-
tary evaluative truths without having to infer them from other truths. Indeed, it is
possible that any plausible account of objective value will have to include at least a
conceptual core of intuitively knowable evaluative truths, if only to fix the meaning
of our most basic evaluative terms and the most platitudinous relations between
them (Smith 1994).
A third response to the argument from queerness in its epistemological aspect is
to invoke the distinction between objectivity and mind independence. If objective
values are suitably response dependent, there need be no more difficulty about how
we can know them than there is about how we can know that competent judges will
respond to the world in certain ways in favorable circumstances. Moreover, this
response is available to naturalists and nonnaturalists alike, depending on whether
or not the responses and circumstances in question are characterized in descrip-
tively naturalistic or irreducibly evaluative terms. Either way, the claim that the
existence of objective values would place impossible demands on our epistemic
capacities remains unproven.
Mackie’s formulation of the argument from queerness was targeted at a strong
form of ethical nonnaturalism. Such a strong form of ethical nonnaturalism is
unlikely to be accepted by many of Mackie’s contemporary critics. On the contrary,
many contemporary critics of the argument from queerness appear to share with
Mackie a broadly naturalistic worldview, the remaining point of controversy being
whether a commitment to such a worldview implies the further commitment to a
reductive form of ethical naturalism (Shafer-Landau 2003). If so, the argument from
queerness may not strike at the heart of what is really at issue in most contemporary
discussions about objectivity and value in ethics. Whether this is a result of genuine
progress in the project of discovering the true nature of objective value or the result
of philosophers having changed the subject is a matter of debate.
See also: amoralist; categorical imperative; companions in guilt

strategy; disagreement, moral; externalism, motivational; intuitionism,
moral; mackie, j. l.; naturalism, ethical; non-cognitivism; open question
argument; rationalism in ethics; realism, moral; reasons, internal and
external; response-dependent theories; supervenience, moral
REFERENCES
Blackburn, Simon 1993. Essays in Quasi-Realism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Brink, D. O. 1989. Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Lillehammer, Hallvard 2007. Companions in Guilt. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
7
McDowell, John 1998. Mind, Value and Reality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Mackie, J. L. 1977. Ethics. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Shafer-Landau, Russ 2003. Moral Realism: A Defense. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wiggins, David 2006. Ethics: Twelve Lectures on the Philosophy of Morality. Harmondsworth:
Penguin.
FURTHER READINGS
Bloomfield, Paul 2001. Moral Reality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cuneo, Terence 2007. The Normative Web. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dancy, Jonathan 1986. “Two Conceptions of Moral Realism,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian
Society, supp. vol. 60, pp. 167–87.
Davidson, Donald 2004. Problems of Rationality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Garner, Richard 1990. “On the Genuine Queerness of Moral Properties and Facts,”
Australasian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 68, pp. 137–46.
Horgan, T., and M. Timmons 1992. “Trouble on Twin Earth: Moral Queerness Revived,”
Synthese, vol. 92, pp. 221–60.
Korsgaard, Christine 1996. The Sources of Normativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Peacocke, Christopher 2004. “Moral Rationalism,” The Journal of Philosophy, vol. 101,
pp. 499–526.
Wright, Crispin 1992. Truth and Objectivity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
1
Hutcheson, Francis
Dale Dorsey
Francis Hutcheson (1694–1746) was an important sentimentalist moral philosopher

and a central figure in the Scottish Enlightenment. That he was such a major figure
is due mostly to his influence on other notable Scottish thinkers of the time: David
Hume (with whom he corresponded; see hume, david), Adam Smith (for whom he
served as teacher; see smith, adam), and Thomas Reid (for whom Hutcheson’s writ-
ings were a central inspiration; see reid, thomas). Though his family was Scottish,
Hutcheson was Nortzhern Irish by birth, and did not take up a position in Scotland
(at the University of Glasgow) until 1730, only after his most important works,
Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725) and his Essay on the
Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections, with Illustrations on the Moral
Sense (1728), had seen the light of day. A third major work, A System of Moral
Philosophy, was never completed during Hutcheson’s lifetime, and was published
posthumously in 1755.
Hutcheson is best known for his innovations in moral psychology (see moral
psychology), including his theory of the moral sense, his early contribution to the
development of utilitarianism (see utilitarianism), and his important critique of
moral rationalism (see rationalism in ethics).
Moral Psychology
Hutcheson’s first major work, Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and
Virtue, was intended to be a defense of moral sentimentalism (see sentimental-
ism), or the view that ethics is grounded in human sentiments. In particular,
Hutcheson was keen to defend the doctrines he found in the work of Lord Shaftesbury
(see shaftesbury, third earl of) against the so-called “self-interest theories” of
Bernard Mandeville (see mandeville, bernard) and Thomas Hobbes (see hobbes,
thomas). Against these thinkers, Hutcheson wished to divorce morality from
self-interest in two ways.
First, Hutcheson sought to show that we do not judge the virtue or moral value of
others simply on the basis of personal prudential benefit. In Inquiry, Hutcheson
offers three arguments for this claim. First, certain things that are instrumental or
useful to our own self-interest are never praised as virtuous, including inanimate
objects, or “a fruitful Field or commodious Habitation” (2004: 89). Second, he claims
that there are many individuals who are useful to ourselves or others but who are not
praised as virtuous. Two men, he writes, who are equally advantageous to our
self-interest, but who assist us from different motives are rarely esteemed equally
when it comes to virtue (2004: 90). Third, Hutcheson claims that we often esteem as
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee061
2
virtuous historical characters or characters from fiction who are of no prudential

benefit to us (2004: 91–2). So, he concludes, “We must then certainly have other
perceptions of moral actions, than those of advantage: and that power of receiving
these perceptions may be called a Moral Sense” (2004: 90).
Rather than being culled from perception of private advantage, Hutcheson claims
that our understanding or perceptions of virtue and vice result from this moral
sense. For Hutcheson, the moral sense is, literally, a sense, a perceptive faculty. For
him, a sense – including the five “external senses” – is just a “Determination of our
Minds to receive Ideas independently of our Will, and to have Perceptions of Pleasure
and Pain” (2002: 17). This sense operates out of our voluntary control: “These Moral
Perceptions arise in us as necessarily as any other Sensations; nor can we alter, or stop
them, while our previous Opinion or Apprehension of the Affection, Temper, or
Intention of the Agent continues the same; any more than we can make the Taste of
Wormwood sweet, or that of Honey bitter” (2002: 16–17). Besides the moral sense,
Hutcheson offered a number of additional senses. He labels the five traditional
senses (taste, touch, etc.) as the “external senses.” The “internal senses” are the source
of pleasures of the imagination and aesthetic pleasures. In addition, he offered a
form of sympathy, or a “public sense”: “our Determination to be pleased with the
Happiness of others, and to be uneasy at their Misery” (2002: 17). Hutcheson also
identifies a sense of “honour,” and – by the time of the System – a sense of “decency”
or “dignity,” which seems to identify certain objects or pursuits as suitable to human
nature (2005: 27–30). Each sense operates in distinct ways, and is triggered by dif-
ferent features of particular objects, actions, and states of affairs. Nevertheless,
according to Hutcheson, it is only by means of the moral sense that vice and virtue
are recognized or known.
In addition to denying that self-interest was a source of our ideas of moral good
or evil, Hutcheson sought to show that the motivation to virtuous action was not
itself founded on self-interest. Rather, we possess a form of “disinterested affection”
toward others, and it is this form of disinterested affection from which virtuous
action springs (2004: 112). For Hutcheson, this affection is required to explain
virtuous forms of benevolence: benevolence could never be accounted for strictly by
means of self-interest. First, self-interest seems to disqualify a certain action from
being benevolent. Second, we often behave in benevolent ways when it is manifest to
us that no such benefit will be forthcoming: “[S]uppose,” Hutcheson writes, “that the
Deity should declare to a good Man that he should be suddenly annihilated, but at
the Instant of his Exit it should be left to his Choice whether his Friend, his Children,
or his Country should be made happy or miserable for the Future, when he himself
could have no Sense of either Pleasure of Pain from their State” (2004: 224, n. 29).
According to Hutcheson, our desire for the future happiness of people that goes
beyond a concern for our own interests shows that we are motivated by a form of
disinterested benevolence, a per se concern for the happiness of others. Indeed, dis-
plays of disinterested benevolence trigger the moral sense: when we praise the
actions or character of another as virtuous, it is because this action or individual
displays the motive of disinterested benevolence.
3
Some of Hutcheson’s contemporaries criticized his moral sentimentalism on the

ground that placing the foundations of vice and virtue on a foundation of moral sense
rendered morality too susceptible to the contingency of human attitudes (Gill 2006:
241–2). John Balguy, for instance, writes: “In the first place, it seems an insuperable dif-
ficulty in our author’s scheme, that virtue appears in it to be of an arbitrary and positive
nature, as entirely depending upon instincts, that might originally have been otherwise,
or even contrary to what they now are, and may at any time be altered or inverted, if the
Creator pleases” (1728: 390; see balguy, john). But, for Hutcheson, far from being
arbitrary, the moral sentiments are universal, a basic feature of human nature:
But if we call “that State, those Dispositions and Actions, natural, to which we are
inclined by some part of our Constitution, antecedently to any Volition of our own; or
which flow from some Principles in our Nature, not brought upon us by our own Art,
or that of others;” then it may appear, from what has been said above, that “a State of
Good-will, Humanity, Compassion, mutual Aid, propagating and supporting Offspring,
Love of a Community or Country, Devotion, or Love and Gratitude to some governing
Mind, is our natural State.” (2002: 130)
Furthermore, Hutcheson writes, Balguy is incorrect to suggest that our moral senti-
ments may have been otherwise, or that divine providence might alter them as the
Creator sees fit. Not only are these moral sentiments natural, no benevolent deity
would have produced a set of moral sentiments that do not tend, as ours do, to the
happiness of humanity as a whole. Indeed, the structure of our sentiments is
evidence, for Hutcheson, of the existence of such a deity. Hutcheson asks: given
the structure of our moral sentiments, “[h]ow can any one look upon this World
as under the Direction of an evil Nature, or even question a perfectly good
PROVIDENCE?” (2002: 132).
Benevolence and Utility

Though Hutcheson was certainly not a utilitarian in the contemporary
understanding of the term, his theory of virtue or moral good bears some impor-
tant connections to utilitarianism. The key is his understanding of disinterested
benevolence, and its connection to the moral sense. For Hutcheson, there are three
forms of disinterested benevolence: first, a wide-ranging generalized benevolence;
second, a more narrow, partial benevolence (such as benevolence toward one’s fam-
ily or country); third, the benevolence that is implied in particular other sentiments
or emotions (including “love, pity, sympathy, congratulation”). But it is the first
form of benevolence (generalized benevolence) that is most praised by the moral
sense (2004: 231, n. 26).
Indeed, Hutcheson makes a number of claims about the nature of his moral the-
ory that appear to mark it as strictly utilitarian. First, he claims that “that Action is
best, which procures the greatest Happiness for the greatest Numbers; and that,
worst, which, in like manner, occasions Misery” (2004: 125). Second, he appears to
issue a pseudo-mathematical formula for determining the extent of any given
4
individual’s benevolence. According to Hutcheson, a person’s benevolence is calcu-

lated as the “moment of publick Good produc’d by them” divided by a person’s “abil-
itys” to do so (2004: 128). So, for instance, for a score of perfect benevolence, one
should produce as much good as one has the ability to. If the moral sense approves
generalized benevolence, then it would appear to approve most highly those actions
that produce the most good available to the agent at the time.
However, it should be noted that Hutcheson appears to temper the more overt
utilitarianism of his understanding of benevolence. For instance, he claims that I can
only be morally blamed for those bad consequences that I could have foreseen (2004:
131–2). It would appear, then, that a given individual’s ability to produce good is not
understood objectively, but subjectively: my ability to produce good just is the great-
est amount of good I could foresee producing (Albee 1902: 61). So I can maintain
perfect benevolence so long as I act in a way that I foresee promoting the greatest
amount of good, even if so acting fails actually to produce the good that my abilities
granted me. According to Hutcheson, a person acts in accordance with the greatest
virtue who “acts to the utmost of his Power for the publick Good” (2004: 130), where
a given individual’s “power” is limited by his or her imperfect foresight.
Virtue, Happiness, and Hutcheson’s Value Theory

Hutcheson did not believe that self-interest is the sole motive to virtue, nor did he
believe that self-interest is a ground for judgments of virtue. However, he made it his
business to argue that virtuous behavior itself is in the best interest of the virtuous.
Indeed, such an inquiry appears central to the project of moral philosophy, at least
as Hutcheson conceives it. He holds that: “The intention of moral philosophy is to
direct men to that course of action which tends most effectually to promote their
greatest happiness and perfection; as far as it can be done by observations and con-
clusions discoverable from the constitution of nature” (2005: 1). So it would appear
that virtue itself is of interest to moral philosophy only insofar as virtue itself serves
the interest, happiness, or perfection of the virtuous. According to Hutcheson, how-
ever, virtue passes this test.
Why should he believe this? Why should it be that virtue is of prudential benefit to
the virtuous? Indeed, this question becomes all the more pressing given that Hutcheson
himself is a hedonist. He believes, and says often, that the foundation of happiness or
natural good is pleasure and the absence of pain (2002: 133; 2004: 86; 2005: 100; see
hedonism). If so, it would seem odd to say that virtuous behavior is a benefit to the
virtuous, given that pleasure seems to be imperfectly correlated with virtue.
The link between self-interest and virtue is the moral sense. For Hutcheson, the
moral sense itself can be turned “inward,” directed to our own actions (which
Hutcheson refers to as a “reflex Act”). The relationship between happiness and virtue
is so strong, Hutcheson is left to declare, that “[t]he exercise of virtue for a short
period is of incomparably greater value than the most lasting sensual pleasures”
(2005: 118). Put another way, the moral pleasures “are the most delightful Ingredient
in the ordinary Pleasures of Life” (2004: 162).
5
This claim itself requires some interpretation. Why should the moral pleasures be
more prudentially valuable than the pleasures of, say, the “external senses”? To answer
this question, one must investigate the nature of Hutcheson’s hedonism, and the inter-
play between hedonism and the moral and evaluative senses. Interpreters have dif-
fered on the precise account of Hutcheson’s value theory (Dorsey 2010; Edwards 1979:
70–2; Riley 2008: 275–8; Strasser 1987; Scott 1900: 214–15). Some have held that he
subscribed to a form of qualitative hedonism, of the sort that is reflected in John
Stuart Mill’s higher pleasures doctrine (see mill, john stuart). In other words, some
have held that, for Hutcheson, the pleasures of the moral sense (the pleasures derived
as a result of reflex acts) are of higher quality, and are therefore more valuable, than
other pleasures, despite the fact that these higher pleasures may be of lesser intensity
and/or shorter duration than the lower. For instance, he appears to declare his
allegiance to a form of qualitative hedonism in System of Moral Philosophy, claiming:
As to pleasures of the same kind, ’tis manifest their values are in joint proportion of
their intenseness and duration. In comparing pleasures of different kinds, the value is
as the duration and dignity of the kind jointly. We have an immediate sense of a dignity,
a perfection, or beatifick quality in some kinds, which no intenseness of the lower
kinds can equal, were they also as lasting as we could wish. (2005: 117)
However, this reading of Hutcheson’s value theory is complicated by statements

made in his earlier works, including the following: “The Value of any Pleasure, and
the Quantity or Moment of any Pain, is in a compound Proportion of the Intenseness
and Duration” (2002: 87). This claim would appear to support a more Benthamic
reading of Hutcheson’s value theory, that is, that pleasures are to be judged on the
basis of their intensity and duration only. But this quantitative reading of Hutcheson’s
hedonism can still accommodate the prudential value of virtue. As Hutcheson is at
pains to suggest, the pleasures of the moral sense are of greater intensity and duration
than other pleasures, including the pleasures of the external senses with which the
pleasures of virtue are most often in competition. As he notes in Inquiry, these
“reflex Acts” are the source of substantial and long-lasting pleasure: “ ‘[The moral
sense] gives us more Pleasure and Pain than all our other Facultys’. And to prevent
Repetitions, let us observe, ‘That wherever any morally good Quality gives Pleasure
from Reflection, or from Honour, the contrary evil one will give proportionable
Pain, from Remorse and Shame’ ” (2004: 162).
However one reads Hutcheson’s value theory, it is clear that he intends to insist
that moral virtue is of the utmost prudential import. But one must distinguish this
claim from the claim that virtuous action is motivated by self-interest, or the
thought of pleasure. He insists that virtue is not so motivated, but is, rather, moti-
vated by disinterested benevolence. Furthermore, in his view, any “virtuous” action
motivated by self-interest would fail to support self-interest; given that the moral
sense does not praise actions done from self-interest, such an action would not
trigger the pleasures of the moral sense, and would not deliver the prudential
benefit of virtuous action.
6
Attack on Rationalism
Hutcheson’s theory of the moral sense sets him at odds not only with the views of
Hobbes and Mandeville, but also with the rationalism found most prominently in
Samuel Clarke (see clarke, samuel) and William Wollaston. In Illustrations on the
Moral Sense, Hutcheson offers a sustained critique of the latter authors. In this work,
he begins by making a general attack on rationalist doctrines, that is, that the char-
acter of virtue and vice are ascertained by the agreement with “truth or reason”
(2002: 137–55). According to Hutcheson, the use of the term “reason” here is vague.
We must distinguish between two senses of the term “reason”: exciting reasons and
justifying reasons. Exciting reasons are those features of us that lead us to pursue
particular actions, or that motivate us to act in certain ways; in modern parlance,
“explanatory” reasons. Justifying reasons are, obviously enough, reasons that justify
the pursuit of some particular action or another. With these distinctions in mind,
Hutcheson asks the further question: Could the faculty of reason, or the “conformity
of actions to truth or reason,” issue in either exciting or justifying reasons?
Hutcheson holds that without particular sentiments or affections, we can never be
motivated or “excited” to perform any action. No action, in other words, can be
explained without reference to some “Instincts and Affections.” When it comes to
justifying reasons, he argues that we could not make sense of justifying reasons
without a moral sense. The mere conformity to truth or reason alone could not iden-
tify a particular action as justified. For Hutcheson, all justification for actions must
revert to an ultimate end, but that this particular end is good or is justified cannot
itself be accounted for by principles of reason or conformity to truth. Rather, that
this end is justified is simply a matter of its conformity to the moral sense.
Nevertheless, Hutcheson does consider two particular attempts by rationalists to
provide accounts of the justification of ends, or the virtue or vice of actions that do
not require reference to a moral sense. First, he considers Samuel Clarke’s view that
the virtue and vice of actions are determined by the “eternal relations” of “fitness and
unfitness.” Predictably enough, Hutcheson argues that Clarke’s account of these
relations is vague, and the moral judgments that result from such judgments of
fitness and unfitness presuppose a moral sense (Hutcheson 2002: 155–60). After all,
everything that we praise morally is fit for certain things, unfit for other things. We
are ultimately led, according to Hutcheson, to claim that morally praiseworthy
actions are actions that are “fit” for the advancement of an ultimate end. But this
ultimate end cannot be discerned as ultimate by any further relations of fitness; this
ultimate end requires the existence of a moral sense.
Hutcheson also considers William Wollaston’s account of virtue in terms of the
“significancy of truth in actions” (Hutcheson 2002: 161–73). Hutcheson considers a
number of ways in which actions might “signify” truth or falsehood, none of which
provide a reasonable basis for an account of the nature of virtuous or vicious actions.
Ultimately, Hutcheson accuses Wollaston of smuggling in prior accounts of the
nature of virtue and vice without explaining these accounts in terms of the significa-
tion of truth or falsity in a given action. Again, it would appear that, according to
7
Hutcheson, no account of the virtue and vice of actions could be provided in these
terms, without presupposing prior notions of right or obligation, which themselves
require the existence of a moral sense.
Hutcheson’s attack on rationalism is important not only for its per se acuity, but
also for its influence on sentimentalists who followed him. The best illustration of
this is Hutcheson’s influence on Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature: Hume’s own
attack on rationalism (including his infamous “On the Influencing Motives of the
Will,” and his attack on Clarke and Wollaston in Part I of Book III of the Treatise)
bears much in common with, and is certainly inspired by, Hutcheson’s writing on
the topic.
Legacy
The moral philosophy of Francis Hutcheson has, to some extent, been eclipsed
by the thinkers he influenced, including those noted in the first paragraph of this
essay. But Hutcheson’s writing, especially his moral psychology and his account of
the relationship between happiness and virtue, is probing and original. Further-
more, with the rise of philosophically informed empirical work on the nature of the
moral sentiments (see sentiments, moral; Prinz 2007), we can, and should,
expect Hutcheson’s important work to receive greater philosophical, as well as
historical, attention.
See also: balguy, john; clarke, samuel; hedonism; hobbes, thomas; hume,
david; mandeville, bernard; mill, john stuart; moral psychology;
rationalism in ethics; reid, thomas; sentimentalism; sentiments, moral;
shaftesbury, third earl of; smith, adam; utilitarianism
REFERENCES
Albee, Ernest 1902. A History of English Utilitarianism. New York: Macmillan.
Balguy, John 1728. The Foundation of Moral Goodness, in D. D. Raphael 1969 British Moralists:
1650–1800. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dorsey, Dale 2010. “Hutcheson’s Deceptive Hedonism,” Journal of the History of Philosophy,
vol. 48, no. 4, pp. 445–67.
Edwards, Rem B. 1979. Pleasures and Pains: A Theory of Qualitative Hedonism. Ithaca:
Cornell University Press.
Hutcheson, Francis 2002 [1728]. An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections,
with Illustrations on the Moral Sense, ed. Aaron Garrett. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.
Hutcheson, Francis 2004 [1725]. An Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and
Virtue, ed. Wolfgang Leidhold. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.
Hutcheson, Francis 2005 [1755]. A System of Moral Philosophy, ed. Daniel Carey. London:
Continuum.
Gill, Michael 2006. The British Moralists on Human Nature and the Birth of Secular Ethics.
8
Prinz, Jesse 2007. The Emotional Construction of Morals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Riley, Jonathan 2008. “Millian Qualitative Superiorities and Utilitarianism, Part I,” Utilitas,
vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 257–78.
Scott, William Robert 1900. Francis Hutcheson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Strasser, Mark 1987. “Hutcheson on Higher and Lower Pleasures,” Journal of the History of
FURTHER READINGS
Blackstone, William T. 1965. Francis Hutcheson and Contemporary Ethical Theory. Athens,
GA: University of Georgia Press.
Clarke, Samuel 1705. A Discourse on Natural Religion, in D. D. Raphael 1969 British Moralists:
1650–1800. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hope, V. M. 1989. Virtue by Consensus: The Moral Philosophy of Hutcheson, Hume, and Adam
Smith. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hume, David 2007 [1739]. A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. D. Norton and M. Norton.
Irwin, Terence 2008. The Development of Ethics, vol. II. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
pp. 399–435.
Raphael, D. D. 1947. The Moral Sense. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Raphael, D. D. 1969. British Moralists: 1650–1800. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Schneewind, Jerome 1998. The Invention of Autonomy. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, pp. 330–42.
Strasser, Mark 1990. Francis Hutcheson’s Moral Theory: Its Form and Utility. Farmville, VA:
Longwood Academic Press.
Wollaston, William 1724. The Religion of Nature Delineated, in D. D. Raphael 1969 British
Moralists: 1650–1800. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
1
Informed Consent
Neil C. Manson
Informed consent is a central concept of contemporary medical ethics. Clinicians

and medical researchers are under an obligation to inform patients and research
subjects about the nature, purposes, risks, and side effects of proposed courses of
action (and, if relevant, a specification of the risks of not acting in the suggested
way). A vast body of literature has been produced, over the past 30 years or so, about
the nature, justification, scope, and limits of informed consent. Here we will focus
on what informed consent is, how it came to have a central place in medical ethics,
and then briefly introduce some of the main problems and issues with informed
consent.
What Is Informed Consent?

Informed consent is a species of consent, but “consent” means a number of different
things (see consent). For example, in political philosophy consent is central to
many accounts of political obligation (see political obligation). Here “consent”
is used to denote a subject’s – typically tacit, or hypothetical – agreement to be bound
by a set of rules or norms. But another everyday use of “consent” is as a rough syno-
nym of “permission.” Consent in this sense typically is directed at actions, rather
than at systems of rules. Consent of this kind is primarily a communicative act
(unlike the tacit or hypothetical consent of political philosophy). It is this kind of
consent – as a communicative act of permission – that will concern us here.
It is important to stress that consent is narrower in its scope than permission: an
action – for example, looking at the sky – can be permissible even though no one has
consented to it. The narrower scope arises because there is a conceptual connection
between consent and certain kinds of rights and correlative obligations. Consent
comes into play where “negative claim rights” are involved (see rights). Negative
claim rights are rights against other parties doing things that impinge upon the right
holder. Negative claim rights imply a correlative obligation upon other parties to
refrain from certain kinds of action. The key point for our purposes is that some
kinds of negative claim right can be waived or set aside by the agent, thus releasing
another party from a standing obligation to refrain from acting in certain ways. For
example, property rights can be waived to allow others to enter our land, or to make
use of our goods. An action that would otherwise be trespass upon a person’s prop-
erty, or theft, can be rendered permissible by the consent of the right holder.
Similarly, rights against being touched can be waived, transforming what would be
battery (unlawful touching) into something permissible (see sexual consent).
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee062
2
Consent plays a procedural role in waiving or setting aside rights and thus plays a
role in adjusting or revising other parties’ obligations.
In a broad sense all consent of this kind must be informed: consenting parties
must know something about what it is that they consent to. But informed consent
involves something more demanding, and more specific, than just the requirement
that consenting parties know what it is that they are consenting to. Informed con-
sent places specific communicative obligations on specific parties: obligations to
inform about the nature of proposed actions, their risks, costs, side effects and so on.
Now, simple consent has long been part of ethically sound medical practice, so why
should medical practice require additional obligations – obligations to inform –
when simple consent by itself does not do so? In order to understand why informed
consent, rather than just simple consent, is required in medical practice, it will help
if we engage in a brief and simplistic historical sketch.
Paternalism and Communicative Failings in Clinical Practice

Clinicians have long been under obligations of beneficence and non-maleficence (to
do good for their patients and to avoid doing them harm). These obligations were
taken to justify a distinctive kind of communicative practice, one where clinicians
refrained from communicating with patients (see paternalism). For example, sup-
pose a patient has consented to surgery on her liver and whilst the patient is uncon-
scious under anaesthetic the surgeon discovers a new and unanticipated problem
with her spleen. He then operates in – what he takes to be – the patient’s best inter-
ests without communicating with her or waiting for her consent or agreement. This
kind of communicative failing leads to a failure of simple consent. In this example
the patient does not consent to the unexpected intervention: she did not know that
the action would be performed.
A different kind of example is where a clinician tells a patient something about
the proposed medical actions but refrains from informing them about known risks
and side effects. Once again there are beneficent and nonmaleficent reasons for
doing this: informing patients of risks or side effects might distress the patient;
worse still, learning of such risks or side effects might lead patients to refuse to con-
sent to beneficial treatment. By failing to communicate information about side
effects, costs, and risks (whilst stressing the benefits) clinicians argued that they
were acting as beneficence required them to, by allowing them to ensure that
patients made – what the clinicians took to be – the right medical decisions, without
suffering undue distress.
We have, then, two kinds of communicative failure: a failure to inform about
actions; a failure to fully describe actions and their risks and consequences. In
each case the failure was deemed to be justified for paternalistic reasons and to
be in the patient’s best interests. This kind of paternalistic withholding of infor-
mation poses dangers to patients: a danger of being acted upon in ways that one
does not choose, or a danger of being subjected to (known but undisclosed) risks
against one’s will. Such actions may constitute a “tort” (see torts) and as such,
3
paternalistic withholding of information may pose a danger of litigation for the

clinician.
Three legal examples will help clarify matters (all “landmark” cases in the history
of informed consent) (see Faden and Beauchamp 1986). First, in Mohr v. Williams,
104 N.W. 12 (Minn. 1905) the patient (Mohr) consented to an operation on her left
ear. Whilst unconscious under anaesthetic the surgeon (Williams) discovered that
Mohr’s right ear was, in fact, in greater need of surgery than her left ear. Rather than
waiting for Mohr to regain consciousness and asking for her consent, Williams
operated on the right ear. Mohr successfully sued Williams for battery, arguing that
she had not consented to his invasive operation on that ear. Second, in Schloendorff
v. Society of New York Hospital, 211 N.Y. 125, 105 N.E. 92, 93 (N.Y. 1914), Schloendorff
had consented to an examination for a tumor. The surgeon found a malignant tumor
and removed it. Schloendorff sued for battery, arguing that she had consented to the
examination, but not consented to the removal of the tumor. Justice Cardozo
expressed the court’s opinion that “Every human being of adult years and sound
mind has a right to determine what shall be done with his own body; and a surgeon
who performs an operation without his patient’s consent, commits an assault, for
which he is liable in damages.”
Mohr and Schloendorff both involve failures of simple consent. They do not yet
involve the contemporary notion of informed consent. We can see how informed
consent, of this kind, came into play in clinical medical ethics by turning from legal
cases with the tort of battery to a third case, this time involving the tort of negli-
gence. In US law the term “informed consent” was introduced in a 1957 medical
negligence suit where part of the plaintiff ’s claim was that information about risks
was not properly communicated: Salgo v. Leland Stanford Jr. University Board of
Trustees, 154 Cal. App. 2d 560 (1957). Salgo suffered paralysis after an operation
(translumbar aortography). Unlike Mohr and Schloendorff, Salgo knew what kind
of action the surgeon was going to do: he had consented to the act that was in fact
performed. But Salgo lacked knowledge of some of the risks attendant on actions of
that kind. Salgo sued the surgeon who had not disclosed this risk.
All three cases above put pressure on the assumption that the practice of
withholding information is justified, but in Salgo we have a new development: the
court judgment notes that “the physician may not minimize the known dangers of a
procedure or operation in order to induce his patient’s consent.” The underlying
point here is that a patient’s own decision as to whether or not she consents or refuses
to a proposed course of action will depend upon how that action is described. It is
not justifiable for the clinician to decide what information about which risks will be
relevant to the patient. Where Mohr and Schloendorff involve a failure of simple con-
sent in that the patient is not informed at all about a proposed action (which is then
performed) Salgo involves a more subtle failure: a failure to inform the patient in the
right way, about the right things. In each type of case there is a failure of consent, but
for different reasons: a lack of consent due to complete ignorance about the action
that was performed; a deficient consent because the decision-making process under-
lying consent was hindered by a lack of relevant information. The judgment in Salgo
4
set a precedent to the effect that clinicians are obliged to communicate details about
dangers and risks to patients. Since the late 1950s such informed consent require-
ments have become a central part of medical ethics and codes of professional prac-
tice. Such requirements serve to protect patients’ rights in at least two different ways.
First, they serve to ensure that simple everyday consent is given to clinical interven-
tions by requiring clinicians to inform patients about proposed courses of actions
(thus avoiding the paternalistic failings in the Mohr and Schloendorff examples).
Second, they serve to ensure that patients are able to freely decide which risks to
undergo (as illustrated by Salgo). Informed consent requirements also protect clini-
cians from being sued for battery and (certain kinds of) negligence. Informed con-
sent thus serves to protect physicians and patients, albeit in different ways.
Informed Consent and Medical Research

In the examples we have viewed so far, clinicians exhibited communicative failings.
Such failings were justified by an appeal to obligations of beneficence. Medical
research, unlike clinical practice, is primarily performed for the researcher’s ends
and purposes rather than for the benefit of the patient or research subject (see
research ethics; human subjects, research use of). The twentieth century saw
numerous examples of medical research atrocities. In Nazi Germany and in the Jap-
anese occupation of China, grotesque, painful and fatal medical experiments were
performed upon human subjects without their consent (Lifton 1988; Harris 2002).
Such subjects – including children and infants – were physically forced to partake in
experiments where they were cut open alive without anaesthetic, poisoned, infected,
burnt, frozen, mutilated, or harmed in severe and grotesque ways. Where many of
the Japanese medical experimenters of Unit 731 were allowed to go free by the occu-
pying US forces after 1945 in exchange for their experimental data about biological
warfare, their German counterparts were not so fortunate. Some were captured and
tried at Nuremberg for war crimes. They argued in their defence – implausibly – that
there was no clear prohibition against such experimentation within medical research.
By way of response the medical advisers to the trial drafted a code of practice – the
Nuremberg Code. The code aims to outline what constitutes ethically sound medical
research. It specifies in its first principle that the voluntary consent of the subject
and an absence of force, fraud, deceit, and coercion are essential requirements for
permissible medical research. This formulation is not the doctrine of informed
consent that we find in Salgo, but merely the requirement that participation in med-
ical research be consensual (in the sense of simple consent). But the Nuremberg Code
goes on to stress that a research subject “should have sufficient knowledge and com-
prehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him [sic] to
make an understanding and enlightened decision” [principle 1]. This “enlightened
decision-making” is then cashed out in terms of making known to the subject a wide
range of information about “the nature, duration, and purpose of the experiment;
the method and means by which it is to be conducted; all inconveniences and haz-
ards reasonable to be expected; and the effects upon his health or person which may
5
possibly come from his participation in the experiment.” This is the doctrine of
informed consent in all but name.
The Nuremberg Code provided the basis for a broader declaration, in 1964, of the
ethical principles governing medical research involving human subjects in the World
Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki (see declaration of helsinki). Unlike
the Nuremberg Code the Declaration of Helsinki uses the (post-Salgo) term “informed
consent” but like Nuremberg specifies an obligation to inform research subjects
about risks. For example, Principle 9 of the Declaration requires researchers to
ensure that any research subject is “adequately informed of the aims, methods,
anticipated benefits and potential hazards of the study and the discomfort it may
entail.” The Declaration has been revised and expanded upon many times since
1964, but informed consent still remains a core principle.
In the Nazi and Japanese medical research atrocities subjects were subjected to
harmful actions without any consent at all. Other medical research abuses involved
communicative failings, where subjects voluntarily taking part in research were
deliberately denied relevant information about the research, especially information
about its purposes and risks. For example, the Tuskegee syphilis study in Alabama
(1932–72) sought to gather data about the long-term development of syphilis and its
symptoms in African-American men (Jones 1992). By the 1950s an effective antibi-
otic treatment for syphilis had become available. But research subjects on the study
were not informed of, nor offered, the option of treatment. This was to allow further
data to be gathered. When accounts of the deceptive study finally became public
knowledge in the early 1970s there was considerable outrage, which, in turn,
prompted the formation in the US of the National Commission for the Protection of
Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research. Its 1979 report – Ethical
Principles and Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects of Research (standardly
referred to as the Belmont Report) – framed the importance of informed consent by
making reference to a principle of “respect for persons”: “Respect for persons requires
that subjects, to the degree that they are capable, be given the opportunity to choose
what shall or shall not happen to them. This opportunity is provided when adequate
standards for informed consent are satisfied” (§C, Pt. 1) (also see principlism).
Informed consent requirements thus help to ensure two things: first, to ensure that
medical actions are not performed without (simple) consent and, second, to ensure
that decisions about whether or not to consent to treatment or research are “enlight-
ened”: that is, are based upon a description of the proposed actions, which includes
the relevant hazards and risks that the patient or research subject may be subjected to.
Respect for Autonomy and the Liberal Justification

of Informed Consent
Our brief and partial historical discussion highlights the origins of contemporary
informed consent requirements but does not tell us much about the ethical
justification of informed consent. What is the ethical justification for the distinctive
obligations to inform that are central to informed consent? Our focus here has been
6
on consent as a kind of communicative act that plays a procedural role in waiving or

setting aside rights. On this view consent is essentially bound up with important
rights and obligations, such that the rights and obligations in question can be waived
or adjusted by the consent of an individual. Consent is not, by itself, of fundamental
ethical importance, it is a device by which rights and obligations are adjusted: there
is then a further, and separate, question about how such rights and obligations are
grounded. Suppose we hold that (simple) consent is ethically important only because
other rights and obligations are. It is also clear that informed consent is more
demanding than simple consent and involves distinct and additional obligations on
certain parties to inform about risks, side effects, and so on. What, then, is the ethi-
cal justification of this additional obligation? Why is it wrong for a clinician not to
inform her patients about risks and side effects?
One line of argument would be a consequentialist one: that there are, in fact, better
consequences that follow from the implementation of informed consent requirements
than from their absence. This justification has not been particularly supported in the
large informed consent literature. The standard justification offered is a liberal one (see
liberalism). The core idea is that individuals have a right to lead their lives as they see
fit, provided they do not harm, or impinge upon the rights of, others (see harm prin-
ciple). In contemporary medical ethics and bioethics this liberal justification is often
cast in terms of respect for autonomy (see autonomy). Paternalism is a failure of this
kind of respect for autonomy insofar as a person who is capable of making her own
decisions is not allowed to do so because the clinician believes that were she properly
informed she might make the “wrong” decision (Beauchamp and Childress 2008).
Now, by itself this liberal line of argument does not directly imply an obligation to
inform. For example, liberal accounts of rightful market transactions insist that
actions should be voluntary, uncoerced, and free from deception. But these require-
ments do not place an obligation upon sellers to proactively disclose all information
that might be relevant to the transaction in question (e.g., about profit margins or the
availability of cheaper comparable goods elsewhere, etc.): in the free market the prin-
ciple of caveat emptor (let the buyer beware) rules. But medical practice is unlike the
sale of goods. First, medical practitioners have distinctive obligations to their patients
that sellers do not have to their customers (the standard obligations of beneficence
and nonmaleficence). Second, medical interventions may pose serious risks and dan-
gers to patients and research subjects and, as such, may bring with them a positive
duty to warn. Third, informed consent procedures that involve a proactive disclosure
of risks, which is then read, signed, and a record kept, serve to provide evidence that
might be drawn on in legal defence, should risks eventuate and litigation arise.
So, the obligation to inform patients is not strictly entailed by considerations of
respect for autonomy alone; it is respect for autonomy in a distinctive communicative,
social, and legal context where potentially dangerous actions are to be performed
that gives rise to, and justifies, current informed consent requirements.
This liberal justification of informed consent is called into question by those who
reject liberalism or who raise questions about its scope and force (see
communitarianism). Feminist critiques of the notion of autonomy stress the fact that
7
agents are social beings, whose decisions take place in rich social and normative con-
texts (MacKenzie and Stoljar 2000) (see feminist bioethics). Medical decision-making
should not be cast in terms of protecting the rights of isolated autonomous individuals.
The standard liberal justification has also received a more abstract Kantian criticism to
the effect that mere appeal to respect for individual decision-making is not rich enough
to secure a normative justification of informed consent (O’Neill 1985). Onora O’Neill
argues that Kantian ethics provides a more robust justification of informed consent
with its a priori prohibition of deception and coercion. The Kantian normative frame-
work explains why consent is important but without laying stress on, or requiring such
demanding standards of, individual decision-making.
Whatever the deeper normative ethical justification of informed consent it is
important to stress that informed consent serves to protect important rights and
helps to enforce important obligations. A rejection of the liberal justification of
informed consent in terms of respect for autonomy does not by itself imply a
rejection of informed consent as an important part of medical ethics.
The Scope and Limits of Informed Consent

Informed consent seems to be readily applicable to a wide range of familiar everyday
cases where sane adults have to make medical decisions. But beyond these standard
cases there is often a lack of clarity about the scope and limits of informed consent.
Below is a brief, and by no means exhaustive, list of some of the problems and
questions that arise with regard to informed consent.
1 Understanding and capacity. Informed consent procedures are meant to allow

agents to decide whether or not to permit certain actions and also to decide what
risks they are willing to undergo. But such decisions require specific cognitive
and communicative capacities. Young children may not have the capacity to
understand information about risks, nor the maturity to make important
decisions. Those suffering dementia may have had the capacity to consent, but
gradually lose it. There are thus questions here about what kinds of capacity are
relevant to consent. What level of intelligence and cognitive competence is
necessary and sufficient for consent? Along with these issues about what consti-
tutes “capacity” there are further issues: there are epistemological issues about
how such levels ought to be identified in practice; there are social and political
issues about how judgments of capacity may reflect prejudices or biases and
related questions about what ought to be done to ensure that assessment of
capacity is fair (Grisso and Appelbaum 1998).
2 Temporal issues. Issues of capacity become more complex when we introduce a
temporal dimension. In some cases an agent may lose, or have diminished,
capacity for a short period of time (when she is unconscious, or under the influ-
ence of drugs). In other cases agents may wish to make decisions – advance
directives – that come into play should their decision-making capacity be
diminished (by dementia, say) (see advance directives). This raises questions
8
about the temporal scope and limits of decisions: to what extent can consent be
given to future actions given that one’s preferences may change in the interim?
What if a person with mild dementia changes her mind about a prior decision
made when she had greater capacity (Olick 2004)?
3 Proxy consent. In some cases agents are unable to give consent themselves. This
raises a general question as to when it is appropriate to allow another to give
permission on their behalf. Does the idea of proxy consent make sense? It may
seem that it must do so, for we already require parents to make decisions on
behalf of their children. But here it may be wrong to think of the parent as giving
something that the child could have given herself: if the child is not yet in a posi-
tion to validly consent it is not clear that the parent acts as proxy. But in other
cases, involving adults, an agent may wish another agent (a partner, a friend) to
make decisions should she be unable to do so herself. Who may give proxy con-
sent? Can proxy consent for some party X only be made if the party X has herself
consented to the proxy having this power?
4 False beliefs and misunderstanding. In some cases patients or research subjects may
have the capacity to consent but may also have relevant false beliefs that call into
question the validity of their consent (or refusal). In medical research many research
subjects have a “therapeutic misconception”: that is, they assume that the research
is being offered to them by way of a programme of clinical treatment (Appelbaum
et al. 1987). Relatedly, many research subjects fail to understand the implications of
trials involving placebos. Given that such misconceptions are widely known, ques-
tions are raised about the role of informed consent in such contexts: can consent in
such contexts render the research permissible (Dawson 2009)?
5 Coercion, power, and directiveness. Informed consent, in its ideal form, involves
an autonomous agent making her own decision. But decisions are made in real
social contexts where the context may influence the decisions made. Medical
decision-making takes place in a context where clinicians and researchers may
be viewed as powerful and authoritative. A surgeon may make it plain that she
expects the patient to consent, and may use various forms of encouragement or
persuasion. Does such encouragement undermine the process of consent?
Alternatively, many patients want guidance and direction from clinicians: should
clinicians be obliged to refrain from giving such guidance, because such guid-
ance might undermine patients’ autonomy?
6 The rejection of autonomy. On the other hand there is evidence that in the clini-
cal context many patients do not want to have to make decisions themselves.
They are happy to allow others to make decisions on their behalf. Patients may
feel that the informed consent process is yet one more burden upon them, one
that is primarily in place to give clinicians legal protection. This raises the ques-
tion whether informed consent is mandatory and, paradoxically, whether
informed consent procedures impinge upon individual liberty.
7 Cultural variation. The importance of individual autonomy varies from culture to
culture. In some cultures it is traditional for parents, spouses, or family members
(elders) to be involved in medical decisions of adult family members (in some
9
cases this may be restricted to adult women). This raises questions about the
cultural specificity of informed consent and is of particular importance when
medical research projects by institutions in Western countries are put in place in
countries that have different views about the importance of individual consent
(see international research ethics). Should local attitudes and practices be
respected? Or does this undermine the ethical validity of the research?
8 Communication and disclosure. We saw above in Salgo the legal judgment that
clinicians are obliged to do more than just give a correct description of what they
intend to do: they are obliged to give specific kinds of description of those actions.
But what kind of description, what amount and kind of information, is relevant
here? By what standard should informed consent “disclosures” be judged? One
answer is that the medical profession provides the norms: a clinician or researcher
is obliged to provide information, or a level of information, that is normal prac-
tice for her profession (at that time). For example, in the same year as Salgo in the
US, there was the UK legal case of Bolam v. Friern Hospital Management
Committee 1 WLR 583 (1957). Bolam, like Salgo, sued for negligence and, like
Salgo, part of this claim was that he was not informed of risks. Bolam had con-
sented to undergo electroconvulsive therapy, but was given no relaxants and was
not told of the risks of injury from the treatment. Bolam, unlike Salgo, was not
successful and part of the reason is that the court decided that although Bolam
had not been informed of relevant risks (as with Salgo) such a failure to inform
was not negligent insofar as it was in line with the standards of professional prac-
tice at that time. An alternative is to argue that respect for individual autonomy
entails that each individual patient or research subject should be able to deter-
mine how much or how little information she wants. The clinician or researcher
ought to provide information tailored to the desires of particular patients. But in
a complex modern medical environment, with standardization and layered
bureaucracy, such individual standards may be unworkable. A third option (with
a precedent in medical law in Canterbury v. Spence, 464 F.2d 772 [D.C. Cir. 1972])
is that the standard of disclosure should be that which a reasonable patient or
research subject would want to know. This protects autonomy in many cases,
without being so burdensome upon medical institutions.
9 Unusual contexts. There are contexts where standard models of informed consent
seem to run into difficulties. For example, informed consent is required for
genetic testing. Whilst the consent is sought and gained from an individual test
subject, the information gained may be of relevance to other family members,
who, in turn, may or may not wish such information to be discovered. Some
have argued that in such cases the proper unit for decision-making is the family
(or some proper subset of the family) (Parker and Lucassen 2004).
The above list is not exhaustive, and the problems and issues are not exclusive. For
example, consider a case where a Chinese immigrant to the US is determined to be
likely to need dementia treatment and care at a future date: this may raise issues in
all of the areas (1–9 above).
10
Conclusion
Consent is a communicative act that serves to waive rights and adjust obligations.
Informed consent places additional requirements on the communicative context of con-
sent by placing additional obligations on those whose actions would otherwise breach
important rights. These additional obligations are communicative ones: to inform cer-
tain parties (typically the rights holder) about the nature of a proposed course of action,
together with a description of any risks or dangers that the action might pose to the
rights holder. Such obligations have become a central part of medical ethics for a num-
ber of interwoven reasons. The underlying (liberal) ethical justification for these obliga-
tions is that they are necessary in the context of clinical practice and medical research if
patients and research subjects are to be able to make their own decisions about whether
to consent to, and thus permit, certain kinds of action. Whilst respect for individual
autonomy does not by itself entail an obligation to inform (in contrast to an obligation
to avoid deception) the fact that medical actions pose risks to patients and that clini-
cians have an obligation to avoid harming patients (or research subjects) underpins
informed consent practices. These practices are further justified by prudential reasons:
such practices serve to protect clinicians and researchers from litigation.
See also: advance directives; autonomy; bioethics; communitarianism;

consent; declaration of helsinki; feminist bioethics; harm principle;
human subjects, research use of; international research ethics;
liberalism; paternalism; political obligation; principlism; research
ethics; rights; sexual consent; torts
REFERENCES
Appelbaum, Paul S., Loren H. Roth, Charles W. Lidz, P. Benson, and William Winslade 1987.
“False Hopes and Best Data: Consent to Research and the Therapeutic Misconception,”
Hastings Cent Report, vol. 17, pp. 20–4.
Beauchamp, Tom L., and James F. Childress 2008. Principles of Biomedical Ethics, 6th ed.
Dawson, Angus 2009. “The Normative Status of the Requirement to Gain an Informed
Consent in Clinical Trials: Comprehension, Obligations and Empirical Evidence,” in
O. Corrigan, K. Liddell, J. McMillan, M. Richards, and C. Weijer (eds.), The Limits of
Consent: A Socio-Legal Approach to Human Subject Research in Medicine. Oxford:
Faden, Ruth, and Tom Beauchamp 1986. A History and Theory of Informed Consent. New
Grisso, Thomas, and Paul S. Appelbaum 1998. MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for
Treatment. Sarasota, FL: Professional Resource Press.
Harris, Sheldon H. 2002. Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare 1932–45 and the
American Cover-Up, 2nd ed. London: Routledge.
Jones, James H. 1992. Bad Blood: The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, 2nd ed. New York:
Free Press.
11
Lifton, Robert Jay 1988. The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide.
New York: Basic Books.
MacKenzie, Catriona, and Natalie Stoljar (eds.) 2000. Relational Autonomy: Feminist
Perspectives on Autonomy, Agency, and the Social Self. New York: Oxford University Press.
Olick, Robert S. 2004. Taking Advance Directives Seriously: Prospective Autonomy and
Decisions Near the End of Life. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
O’Neill, Onora 1985. “Between Consenting Adults,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 14,
pp. 252–77.
Parker, Mike, and Anneke Lucassen 2004. “Genetic Information: A Joint Account?” British
Medical Journal, vol. 329, pp. 165–7.
FURTHER READINGS
Berg, Jessica W., Paul S. Appelbaum, Charles W. Lidz, and Lisa S. Parker 2001. Informed
Consent: Legal Theory and Clinical Practice. New York: Oxford University Press.
Beyleveld, Deryck, and Roger Brownsword 2007. Consent in the Law. Oxford: Hart.
Bok, Sissela 1980. “Lies to the Sick and Dying,” in Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private
Life. London: Quartet, pp. 220–41.
Brazier, Margaret, and Mary Lobjoit (eds.) 1991. Protecting the Vulnerable: Autonomy and
Consent in Health Care. London: Routledge.
Buchanan, Allen 1978. “Medical Paternalism,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 7, pp. 370–90.
Buchanan, Allen 2004. “Mental Capacity, Legal Competence and Consent to Treatment,”
Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, vol. 97, pp. 415–20.
Gert, Bernard, and Charles M. Culver 1979. “The Justification of Paternalism,” Ethics, vol. 89,
pp. 199–210.
Jones, Michael A. 1999. “Informed Consent and Other Fairy Stories,” Medical Law Review,
vol. 7, pp. 103–34.
Katz, Jay 2002. The Silent World of Doctor and Patient, 2nd ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press.
Maclean, Alasdair 2009. Autonomy, Informed Consent and Medical Law: A Relational
Challenge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Manson, Neil C., and Onora O’Neill 2007. Rethinking Informed Consent in Bioethics.
Miola, José 2009. Medical Ethics and Medical Law: A Symbiotic Relationship. Oxford: Hart.
O’Neill, Onora 2002. Autonomy and Trust in Bioethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
O’Neill, Onora 2003. “Some Limits of Informed Consent,” Journal of Medical Ethics, vol. 29,
pp. 4–7.
Schneider, Carl E. 1999. The Practice of Autonomy: Patients, Doctors and Medical Decisions.
Sugarman, Jeremy, Douglas C. McCrory, Donald Powell, Alex Krasny, Betsy Adams, Eric
Ball, and Cynthia Cassell 1999. “Empirical Research on Informed Consent. An
Annotated Bibliography,” Hastings Center Report, vol. 29, pp. 1–42.
1
Reasons
Joshua Gert
Introduction
The notion of a reason for action – a practical reason – is not a specifically moral
notion. We can sensibly talk about the reasons that favor and disfavor a choice of
career or, less momentously, a choice of vacation options, even when morality is
simply not an issue. Indeed, we can talk about the reasons that someone stranded on
a desert island might have – for building a shelter in a certain way, or for storing
food – even if we think that morality is exclusively concerned with behavior toward
other people. Although individual practical reasons need not, therefore, have any
particular moral significance, it is no surprise that the notion of a reason plays a
central role in much of ethical theory. There have been many attempts to ground
morality in such reasons. And it is quite common to encounter the thesis – whether
it is being affirmed or denied – that moral behavior is always favored by the balance
of reasons (see overridingness, moral). This thesis is consistent with the plausible
idea that there can be particular reasons that oppose moral action. Such reasons
would be present, for example, in any case in which morality requires a sacrifice of
some sort.
Although much current work on practical reasons retains a relatively close con-
nection with moral theory, reasons are also central to a certain kind of theory of free
will, according to which the will is free when it is disposed to respond appropriately
to reasons (see free will). The general idea behind such accounts is that freedom is
freedom from distorting influences – not from all influences. Since reasons are what
the will is meant to respond to, to be free is to be influenced solely by reasons, and
not, for example, by fear, or unreflective habit, or addiction. The notion of a practical
reason also plays an important role in value theory quite generally. A popular thesis
in that area is that for an object to be of value is simply for there to be practical
reasons that favor regarding it with some sort of favoring attitude (see buck-passing
accounts). In fact, some theorists hold that the notion of a reason is the basic
normative notion: that what it is for a claim to be normative is that it entails some
claim about reasons.
Of course, not everything that might be called “a reason for action” can play the
kinds of roles just discussed. We can distinguish two importantly different broad cate-
gories of reasons for action: explanatory and normative (see reasons, motivating
and normative). Imagine coming across someone behaving in a very odd way: try-
ing to fly, or scratching the skin off of his legs, or something of that sort. These kinds
of actions call out for explanation. On some occasions the explanatory demand can be
met by citing abnormal chemical or biological factors, and these can count as reasons
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee063
2
why the person behaves as he does. However, of course, we want to explain normal and
unproblematic human action as well. Within the broad class of explanatory reasons – a
class that will include chemical imbalances and neurological conditions – a special
subclass will consist of those that appeal to the standard or normal psychological
causes of action. One popular account of this subclass of reasons holds that they are
belief/desire pairs. For example, one might explain why someone is putting a coin in a
machine by citing the person’s desire for a soda, and his belief that the means for get-
ting one include putting the coin in the machine. We might call this subclass of explan-
atory reasons motivating reasons. Even these reasons, however, cannot play the right
kind of role in justifications of morality or in theories of free will or of value. That role
is played by what are called normative reasons for action.
In contrast with explanatory reasons of either of the preceding kinds, normative
reasons have the role of showing that certain actions are justified or rational (or are
not). Normative reasons are quite different from explanatory reasons. One important
difference is that they need play no role at all in explaining an action that is actually
performed, even when they are directly relevant to that action. Consider a stubborn
administrator who has many good reasons to change his mind regarding an ill-
informed and poorly thought-out decision made in haste. Even after having been
made aware of those reasons to change his mind, the administrator might well com-
pletely ignore them, and, out of pure bull-headedness or a fear of appearing weak, stick
to his former decision. Despite this, those reasons continue to be relevant to the ques-
tion of whether or not his action is justified or rational. It is normative reasons that will
be the focus of the rest of this essay, although one important issue is the relation of
normative reasons to motivating reasons, and to explanatory reasons of other sorts.
Normative reasons present philosophical challenges that explanatory reasons do
not. One general question is: what kinds of things are they? They might be facts,
propositions, beliefs, or something else. Another general question is: what does it
take for a fact (if that is the kind of thing a reason is) to be a reason? Given the
relation of reasons to what we ought to do, rather than to what we actually do do, all
the standard questions about our epistemic access to ought-facts arise: it does not
seem to be a matter for scientific investigation that we ought to perform this or that
action (see nonnaturalism, ethical). However, if that is right, how is it that we
know anything about our reasons?
Whatever normative reasons might be, a standard and plausible assumption is
that it is typically possible for people to act on them. However, equally clearly,
normative reasons are different from motivating reasons. Hence, one central
question regarding normative reasons is: what is their relation to motivating reasons,
or to explanatory reasons more generally? One group of theorists, discussed in the
following text, takes there to be a very tight relation, and builds this relation into the
essence of normative reasons by claiming that a consideration gets to count as a
normative reason simply by bearing the right kind of relation to the motivational
setup of the agent for whom it counts as a reason. Other theorists also want to defend
the claim that there is a very tight connection between normative and motivating
reasons, but they want to do so in a way that does not make the truth of substantive
3
claims such as “Wealthy people have reasons to use their wealth to lessen the
suffering of the very poor” hostage to the contingent motivations of wealthy people.
And still other theorists want to deny that the connection between normative and
motivating reasons is always particularly tight: they want to hold that there are
many occasions on which it is not irrational to ignore some of the reasons of which
we are aware.
General Frameworks for Theorizing about Reasons

A surprising number of philosophers seems content to take the concept of a
normative reason (hereafter simply “a reason”) as primitive, providing no real
explanation of their nature or of our knowledge about them. For example, Thomas
Scanlon (1998: 17) takes the notion of a reason as basic, and explicitly refuses to give
any account of what it is for a reason to count in favor of an action. Derek Parfit
(2011) takes the same view. And Jonathan Dancy (2004: 29) also explicitly leaves
unexplained the nature of the “favoring relation,” which reasons bear to actions, and
which is essentially definitive of their being reasons.
A more illuminating account of reasons is endorsed by John Broome (2004). His
account of reasons takes the notion of a practical “ought” as primitive, and also the
notion of an explanation of a fact. Given these two notions, Broome defines practical
reasons as considerations that explain facts about what an agent ought to do. For
example, if it is true that what explains why I ought to take a certain pill is that the pill
will take away my annoying headache, then the fact that the pill will do this counts as
a reason for taking it. Understood in this way, it turns out that there can only be rea-
sons for actions that we ought to perform. This is a problem, since it is common to
think of reasons as making contributions to the overall normative status of an action –
contributions that might be opposed by the contributions of other reasons relevant to
the very same action. When it is necessary to be explicit that reasons are being thought
of in this way, they are sometimes called pro tanto reasons – to distinguish them from
what might be called overall reasons. For the same purpose, they are also sometimes
called contributory reasons. In the absence of such clarification, though, reasons are
typically thought of in a pro tanto or contributory way.
Broome deals with the need to account for contributory reasons by pointing out
that, very often, the explanation for the fact that an agent ought to perform an action
takes the form of what he calls “a weighing explanation.” Such an explanation cites
considerations on both sides of the issue, and associates something like a weight
with each relevant consideration, yielding an overall verdict as the result of some-
thing like a balancing of these weights. Given such an explanation, we can pick out
the reasons that favor and disfavor the action, yielding the commonsensical notion
of a pro tanto reason. For example, if the pill in the headache example has some
unpleasant side effect, then this might count as a reason against taking it, even if, all
things considered, I ought to take it.
Broome contrasts his view with one in which reasons are understood as evidence
that an agent ought to perform a certain action. This view has been defended by
4
Stephen Kearns and Daniel Star (2009), largely on the grounds that it provides a
unified account both of reasons for action and reasons for belief – the latter of which
are quite plausibly regarded as bits of evidence that one ought to believe the proposi-
tion for which they are said to be reasons. One problematic sort of case for Kearns
and Star takes the form of testimony-based evidence that one ought to perform a
certain action. According to their view, the fact that a reliable source recommends
X-ing itself is a reason to X, rather than merely evidence for the existence of other
considerations that really are reasons for X-ing: the considerations that formed the
basis of the advisor’s recommendation.
All of the strategies so far discussed for explaining (or refusing to explain) the nature
of reasons are compatible with two very different theses. The first is the thesis that
there is one basic category of reason, and that all normative statuses are to be under-
stood in terms of this one basic category. For example, the rational status of an action
might be determined by a function that takes into account all the basic reasons of rel-
evance to the action, while moral status might be determined by considering the rea-
sons that a certain sort of idealized person might have for punishing or rewarding
someone who performs the action, and prudential status might be determined by con-
sidering only the subset of reasons that have to do with the agent’s own welfare. A
second thesis is that the strategies are really general recipes that one would apply within
different normative domains. That is, there might be moral reasons, prudential rea-
sons, reasons of relevance to practical rationality, and reasons relevant to any other
normative domain one countenances. Moral reasons would determine moral status,
prudential reasons would determine prudential status, and so on. If one takes this lat-
ter view, then there are problems one must solve that arise when there are conflicts
between the overall verdicts of different normative domains – especially conflicts
between prudence and morality, or between rationality and morality. If one takes the
former view, however, then there may be the even more troubling possibility that the
balance of practical reasons requires one to act in an immoral way.
It is important to note that the strategies so far offered – the quietist strategy of
Scanlon and Parfit, the explanatory strategy of Broome, the evidential view of Kearns
and Star – say very little so far as to what kind of thing a reason might be. Indeed, on
all of the views, as so far described, a reason might be some substantive fact, such as
the fact that the relevant action will save someone’s life, or the agent’s belief that this
is the case, or a relevant desire on the part of the agent, or perhaps the fact that the
agent has a relevant desire. One very popular account of reasons combines two of
these possibilities: reasons are facts, but the status of these facts as reasons depends
on a relation to the desires of the agent. These are Humean accounts.
Humean Accounts
Almost all Humean accounts involve some counterfactual claim: for example, such a
view might hold that A has a reason to perform action φ if and only if, under certain
counterfactual circumstances, A would have some desire to perform φ. Naturalistic
versions of this view specify the counterfactual circumstances in nonnormative terms:
5
typically something involving full information. However, most versions of the Humean
view do not have naturalistic or reductive ambitions. Bernard Williams (1981, 2001),
for example, holds that an agent has reason to perform some action only if there is
what he calls “a sound deliberative route” from that person’s existing set of desires,
commitments, patterns of emotional response, and so on (what he calls the person’s
“subjective motivational set,” or “S” for short), to that person’s being motivated to per-
form that action (see williams, bernard). However, there is no prospect of giving a
naturalistic or reductive account of what Williams means by “sound deliberative
route.”
One of the primary motivations for contemporary Humean views of reasons
seems to be the idea that if a person has a reason to perform some action, then it
must be the case that the person could be motivated, at least to some degree, to
perform it. Let us call this “the motivational thesis.” The motivational thesis, which
is meant to apply to pro tanto reasons, seems to be an extension of the idea that if a
person has decisive reason to perform a certain action, then it must be the case that
the person could be sufficiently motivated actually to perform it. This latter idea
seems to stand behind Bernard Williams’ defense of his neo-Humean view, and it
may be the result of a generalization of the ought-implies-can principle. This princi-
ple has its home in the moral domain, but some philosophers think it is applicable
wherever we have an overall ought claim. Whatever the source of the motivational
thesis, it is often claimed that if no amount of argument could persuade an agent to
care at all about φ-ing, this counts strongly against the idea that the agent in fact has
any reason to φ.
One distinctive feature of Humean views of reasons is the support they lend to the
idea that different agents who find themselves in precisely the same (external)
circumstances might nevertheless have very different reasons. This might happen
because one of the agents is by nature quite indifferent to the welfare of the peo-
ple who will be affected by the action, while the other agent is quite altruistic. This
feature of the view makes it obvious that the Humean will have difficulties support-
ing the idea that we always have reasons – let alone adequate or sufficient reasons –
to perform any morally required action (see reasons for action, morality and).
At least this will be true on the commonsense view according to which some of the
moral requirements that apply to a person are independent of her desires. The
Humean can avoid this difficulty by embracing a moral relativism according to
which moral requirements are themselves generated by an agent’s commitment to a
set of norms (see relativism, moral).
The fact that Humean accounts of reasons will, quite plausibly, yield different
reasons for different agents in the same circumstances should not be confused
with the fact – if it is a fact – that such accounts underwrite agent-relative reasons.
At least this is true on the technical understanding of the phrase “agent-relative
reason” that is found in the literature (see agent-relative vs. agent-neutral).
On that understanding, an agent-relative reason is a reason that has, as an inelim-
inable part of its content, some reference to the agent. For example, the fact that an
action will cause the agent some pain is an agent-relative reason, as is the fact that
6
the action will save the life of the agent’s child or husband. In contrast, the fact that
an action will cause someone (who might or might not be the agent) some pain, or
the fact that the action will save the life of someone (who might or might not have
a special relationship with the agent) both count as agent-neutral reasons. The
Humean view of reasons does not entail anything about the content of a specific
agent’s reasons. An agent may be concerned with people in general, and only care
about his own welfare inasmuch as he himself is a person. In that case, his welfare-
related reasons for action will be agent-neutral ones, even if the Humean view is
correct. Of course, some other agent may care about his child precisely because
she is his child, and the reasons he has to protect her from harm may be
agent-relative ones.
Kantian and Value-Based Accounts

Opposed to Humean accounts of reasons are accounts that ground reasons either in
facts about rationality, or in facts about the objective value of certain objects or
states-of-affairs. It is characteristic of Kantian accounts to start with claims about the
nature of human rationality and to argue on the basis of such claims that any rational
agent would take certain substantive considerations to be reasons. Kant, of course,
famously tried to argue in this way: for example, he tried to argue from the idea that,
as rational creatures, we act on maxims that we give to ourselves, to the conclusion
that it is irrational to tell a lie to get money. Christine Korsgaard (1996) similarly
tries to argue from the idea that we are reflective creatures who step back from our
impulses and cannot act on them unless we endorse them, to the conclusion that,
insofar as we are rational, we could all be brought to act on certain moral considera-
tions. What is distinctive about such Kantian accounts is that they endorse some
conception of what it is to be a rational creature, and deduce from that the conclu-
sion that such creatures will be motivated by certain substantive considerations. If,
plausibly, one understands reasons to be considerations that can or would motivate
rational creatures, the result is a view in which certain substantive considerations
will count as reasons. The most direct form of such an argument would be one that
simply characterized rationality in terms of a set of substantive concerns, and then
defined reasons as the objects of those concerns. For example, one might simply
assert that to be rational is, partly, to be concerned for one’s own substantive welfare,
and conclude that the prospects of increases or decreases in our welfare provide us
with reasons for and against the various options open to us. However, Kantians
typically have a more formal understanding of rationality, so that the argument from
rationality to specific substantive reasons is much more complex.
Also opposed to the Humean or desire-based account of reasons are accounts that
take it as basic that such things as pleasure and pain, freedom and knowledge, and
so on, have objective value (or disvalue), and that this objective value is what makes
it the case that there is always a reason to avoid pain, or to seek knowledge (see
value realism). If a defender of such an account explains the nature of value in
terms of rational desire, then this view is not really distinct from the views just
7
discussed. However, it is also possible to take evaluative claims to be basic, and to

define the notions of reasons, and of rationality, in terms of value.
Internalism and Externalism

Closely related to the debate between Humeans and their opponents is the
debate between internalists and externalists about reasons (see internalism,
motivational; externalism, motivational; reasons, internal and
external). “Internalism about reasons,” even understood solely as a thesis about
normative reasons, is an importantly ambiguous phrase. Any view deserving the
label will hold that there is some necessary connection between reasons and moti-
vation. However, the nature of the connection can be very different in different
formulations of the view. Some versions hold that the mere existence of a reason
for an agent to perform some action entails the existence of a relevant motivation,
at least under appropriate conditions. Others hold that if an agent makes a sincere
judgment (true or false) that she has a reason, this entails the existence of a rele-
vant motivation. “Externalism” is simply a name for the denial of a corresponding
internalist thesis, and therefore inherits the same ambiguity. In what follows,
internalism will always be understood as existence internalism, since judgment
internalism has more to do with the nature of normative thought than it has to do
with the nature of reasons themselves.
Internalism is directly underwritten by a Humean account of reasons, since such
an account simply defines reasons in terms of the motivations of an agent after
sound deliberation. However, Korsgaard (1986) has pointed out that a plausible
formulation of internalism will only claim that a rational agent must be, to some
degree, motivated by those reasons that apply to her and that she is aware of. The
role of rationality in this formulation of internalism makes room for non-Humean
accounts of reasons that nevertheless satisfy the internalist thesis. For example, even
someone who takes reasons to be grounded in objective facts about the values of
various consequences of action could endorse internalism – as Korsgaard presents
it – simply by understanding rationality as the disposition to be motivated by reasons
so understood. And someone – such as the Kantian described in the previous
section – who understands rationality to be conceptually prior to the notion of a
reason could argue that a rational agent will come to be motivated by certain sub-
stantive reasons quite independently of that agent’s subjective motivational set.
When one understands internalism in Korsgaard’s way, externalism becomes the
thesis that even rational agents might remain unmoved by at least some of the
reasons of which they are aware. This form of externalism is not widely held by
philosophers. Nevertheless, it is implicit in the widely held judgment that we are not
irrational in virtue of being unmoved, on particular occasions, by the possibility of
alleviating the suffering of those in the poorest nations, choosing instead to expend
resources or time for our own personal ends. It is also plausible to regard this form
of externalism as implicit in the judgment that sufficiently careful criminals are not
acting irrationally – but merely immorally.
8
Most internalist accounts of reasons centrally feature a conditional of the

following form:
There is a reason for agent A to φ ⊃ A would be motivated to some degree to φ if

A were idealized in certain ways.
One problem with such conditional accounts has been discussed by Robert Johnson
(1999). In many cases, when we consider an actual agent and her idealized counter-
factual counterpart, it will turn out that we judge the actual agent to have a reason
that we know will not correspond to any motivation in her idealized counterpart. To
take one obvious example, no fully rational agent will have any motivation to become
more rational, while any actual agent will have, at least on occasion, some reason to
become more rational. These sorts of counterexamples to internalist accounts are
instances of what has been called “the conditional fallacy.” In order to avoid this
problem, internalists such as Michael Smith (1994) and Peter Railton (1986) change
the internalist formula in a subtle way. Rather than claiming that an agent’s rea-
son to φ corresponds to a motivation, on the part of an idealized version of that
agent, to φ, they claim that an agent’s reason to φ corresponds to a desire, on the part
of the idealized version of that agent, that the unidealized agent φ. This move solves
one specific problem, but points up a general problem for internalist accounts.
The change that Smith and Railton make to the internalist formula preserves the
link between reasons and idealized conditions – thus preserving what we might call
the normativity of the reasons. However, it does this by severing the connection
between A’s reason to φ and a motivation, in A, to φ: the very connection that the
internalist was most concerned to preserve. In a slogan, we can say that there is a
tension between a normative requirement on reasons, and an explanatory require-
ment. Most internalists take the explanatory requirement very seriously, so this
problem is a serious one for them.
More Complex Views

It is quite clear that reasons can count both in favor of options, and against them.
However, this by itself does not suggest that there are two different kinds of reasons:
favoring and disfavoring, as it might be. A reason against an option, for example,
might simply be a reason in favor of refraining from that option. On a simple model
of reasons as units of rational force, there is no real distinction in kinds of reasons.
However, there are phenomena that suggest that this kind of simple view of reasons
is too simple. For example, some reasons seem to be of a sort that no rational agent
could ignore: if an action is going to cause the agent pain, or risk the agent’s life, this
seems to be the sort of thing that a rational agent must take into account, and only
act against if there is some opposing reason. On the other hand, such things as the
prospect of a beautiful view or the abstract knowledge that comes from philosophi-
cal inquiry certainly seem to provide reasons to some rational agents. For it is the
prospect of the beauty or the knowledge that justifies the costs involved in getting
9
them. However, not all rational agents need be moved at all by such reasons. In order
to capture these truths, a number of philosophers have proposed accounts of reasons
that include a distinction within the domain of reasons: either a distinction in kind,
or in function, or in constitutive essence.
Philippa Foot (1978) once endorsed a view according to which reasons stemmed
from two distinct sources: (1) the agent’s interests – which are quite objective and
include, for example, freedom from pain, and (2) the agent’s desires. This allowed
her to say, in contrast to Bernard Williams, that if someone is indifferent to his
future welfare, this does nothing to undermine the reason he has for paying attention
to it. However, her disjunctive view also allowed for the intuition that our reasons
often depend on our contingent desires. Foot later abandoned this view, but David
Copp (1995) continues to defend something very similar, on which it is the objective
needs and the subjective values of agents that determine the rationality of their
actions. Jonathan Dancy also has a disjunctive view of reasons, though it does not
appeal to the distinction between interest and desire. Rather, Dancy distinguishes
what he calls “peremptory” reasons from what he calls “enticing” reasons. Peremptory
reasons are those which generate an ought-claim, at least when they are unopposed
by other reasons, while enticing reasons function to make an action rationally attrac-
tive in some way, but without its being the case that we ought to act on them – even
when they are the only reasons of relevance. For Dancy, enticing reasons concern,
paradigmatically, what would be pleasant or fun. It is not entirely clear whether
Dancy’s enticing reasons are actually different in any way from weak peremptory
reasons, and whether his unwillingness to say that they generate oughts simply
stems from the weighty connotations of the word “ought.” He does, for example, say
that it would be silly to act against enticing reasons, if there were no reason to do so.
Joshua Gert (2007) distinguishes not between two grounds for reasons, as Foot
and Copp do, nor between two kinds of reasons, as Dancy does. Rather, his claim is
that any given reason has two kinds of strength, which he calls “requiring strength”
and “justifying strength.” The two strength values that characterize any given reason
can be specified by giving answers to the following two questions
(R) How much can this reason rationally require me to sacrifice?

(J) How much can this reason rationally justify me in sacrificing?
Gert claims that some reasons with a great deal of justifying strength do not have a
correspondingly high degree of requiring strength. Consider, for example, a reason
of the following sort: that one’s action will spare some third party a great deal of
pain. For such a reason, the answer to (R) is plausibly “Not very much,” but the
answer to (J) is plausibly “Quite a lot.” That is why it is not irrational to make great
sacrifices for others, but also not irrational to tend primarily to oneself, and let
others fare as they may. Unlike Dancy’s peremptory and enticing reasons, Gert’s
requiring and justifying roles are clearly logically distinct, and do not differ only in
degree. It is relatively uncontroversial that the distinction between requiring and
justifying exists in the moral domain, since considerations of self-defense can
10
morally justify a great deal without morally requiring very much (or indeed anything).
Gert’s thesis can be understood as the view that the same logical structure also
characterizes the domain of practical rationality.
Particularism
Behind the views of Copp, Dancy, Gert, and the early Foot lies a recognition of
the complexity of the normative, and a resistance to the idea that we can reduce
all reasons to one source or that all reasons behave in the same way. A different
kind of response to the recognition of this same complexity is the thesis that
there simply are no interesting general claims to be made about what sorts of
considerations provide reasons, or about their strengths. This view is called
“particularism” (see particularism). Particularists take the domain of the nor-
mative to be so complex and claims about reasons to be so context-dependent
that we cannot make such claims as “the prospect of avoiding pain always pro-
vides a pro tanto reason against performing an action.” The best we can do is
make particular claims of the form “in this circumstance, this consideration
provides a reason that favors this action with this strength.” Jonathan Dancy is
one of the most vocal and extreme advocates of particularism. His version of the
view includes the idea that there are a number of normatively relevant consid-
erations – not themselves reasons – that can affect the strength of a reason in a
given context, or cancel its normal relevance, or even change its valence, turning
it from a favoring to a disfavoring consideration. Dancy might claim, for exam-
ple, that if A releases B from his promise, then the fact that B promised to do
something – which would otherwise have counted as a reason to do it – thereby
has its status as a reason cancelled. Similarly, Dancy might hold that while the
fact that an act will cause someone else pain normally counts as a reason against
doing it, if the pain is part of a merited punishment, then the pain may provide
a reason in favor of performing it.
Whether one wishes to defend particularism or criticize it, it will be necessary
to distinguish basic reasons from derivative ones. This is because those who
deny particularism will hold only that basic reasons make an invariant contribu-
tion to overall rational status. Derivative reasons, in contrast, are considerations
that – given a context – entail or make likely that there is a basic reason, and they
count as reasons only because of this relation. For example, consider a case in
which one is contemplating going to a party at which one expects to see an old
friend. A derivative reason in such a situation might be that one’s old friend will
be there, since it counts as a reason only because it explains why it is that the
party is likely to cause one some pleasure. However, the fact that it will cause one
a certain amount of pleasure counts as a basic reason: one does not explain its
status as a reason by saying that it entails or makes likely some further consid-
eration that is a reason. The prospect of seeing one’s old friend, if it is wrongly
taken to be a basic reason (or if the basic/derivative distinction is overlooked
entirely), might seem to support the particularist. This is because the contribution
11
of this derivative reason to overall rational status is not systematic, and depends
on complex and contingent matters. For example, after a falling-out between
you and your old friend, her likely presence at a party may count against your
going. However, it remains plausible that the fact that an action will cause one a
certain amount of pleasure always favors an action to which it is relevant –
though of course some such actions will be opposed by sufficient reasons to
make it irrational to perform them.
The Strength of Reasons

Central to the particularist view is the idea that reasons have strength values, and
that these values vary from context to context in ways that cannot be captured by
any finite or surveyable principles. This implication makes it important for the
particularist to give some account of what the strength of a reason consists in. For
many nonparticularistic views, the answer is fairly straightforward. For example,
on simple Humean views according to which reasons correspond to counterfac-
tual desires, the strength of a reason is plausibly associated with the strength of the
corresponding desire. And the strength of these desires can plausibly be under-
stood in counterfactual terms, by reference to the overcoming of countervailing
motivations. And on a non-Humean view, such as Gert’s, one reason counts as
stronger than another in the justifying (or requiring) role, just in case it could
justify (or require) greater sacrifices. This serves to establish at least a rough rank-
ing of reasons along the justifying and requiring dimensions, and strength values
can be understood as indicating locations in this ranking. However, particularists
refuse to endorse the relevant counterfactuals, so they cannot establish the strength
of a reason in this way. As a result, it is very unclear what is meant by the claim, in
the mouth of a particularist, that a given reason – even on a particular occasion –
is very strong, or very weak. It is true that, in any given situation, certain reasons
will strike us as relatively strong or relatively weak. However, a particularist cannot
rest content with such bare seemings. Indeed, to the degree that we agree that
strength values imply counterfactuals, our intuitions about the strengths of rea-
sons in particular contexts constitutes a prima facie case against the particularist.
That is, some content must be given to these seemings. The most plausible content
of one reason seeming to be roughly twice as strong as another is that it could
overcome roughly twice the countervailing reasons. However, this sort of counter-
factual analysis is not available to the particularist. This problem is especially
pressing for a particularist who holds that what one ought to do is determined by
the strengths of the reasons relevant to one’s choices.
See also: agent-relative vs. agent-neutral; buck-passing accounts;

externalism, motivational; free will; internalism, motivational;
nonnaturalism, ethical; overridingness, moral; particularism; reasons for
action, morality and; reasons, internal and external; reasons, motivating
and normative; relativism, moral; value realism; williams, bernard
12
REFERENCES
Broome, John 2004. “Reasons,” in Jay Wallace et al. (eds.), Reason and Value: Themes from the
Moral Philosophy of Joseph Raz. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 28–55.
Copp, David 1995. Morality, Normativity, and Society. New York: Oxford University Press.
Dancy, Jonathan 2004. Ethics Without Principles. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Foot, Philippa 1978. “Reasons for Action and Desires,” in Virtues and Vices. Oxford: Blackwell,
pp. 148–57.
Gert, Joshua 2007. “Normative Strength and the Balance of Reasons,” Philosophical Review,
vol. 116, pp. 533–62.
Johnson, Robert 1999. “Internal Reasons and the Conditional Fallacy,” Philosophical
Kearns, Stephen, and Daniel Star 2009. “Reasons as Evidence,” in Russ Shafer-Landau (ed.),
Oxford Studies in Metaethics, vol. 4, pp. 215–42.
Korsgaard, Christine 1986. “Skepticism about Practical Reason,” Journal of Philosophy,
vol. 83, pp. 5–25.
Korsgaard, Christine 1996. The Sources of Normativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Parfit, Derek 2011. On What Matters, vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Railton, Peter 1986. “Moral Realism,” Philosophical Review, vol. 95, pp. 163–207.
Scanlon, Thomas 1998. What We Owe to Each Other. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Williams, Bernard 1981. “Internal and External Reasons,” in Moral Luck. Cambridge:
Williams, Bernard 2001. “Postscript: Some Further Notes on Internal and External Reasons,”
in Elijah Millgram (ed.), Varieties of Practical Reasoning. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
pp. 91–7.
FURTHER READINGS
Baier, Kurt 1958. The Moral Point of View. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Berker, Selim 2007. “Particular Reasons,” Ethics, vol. 118, pp. 109–39.
Chang, Ruth 1997. Incommensurability, Incomparability, and Practical Reason. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
Cohon, Rachel 2000. “The Roots of Reasons,” Philosophical Review, vol. 109, pp. 63–85.
Cullity, Garrett, and Berys Gaut (eds.) 1997. Ethics and Practical Reason. New York: Clarendon
Press.
Darwall, Stephen 1983. Impartial Reason. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Harman, Gilbert 1975. “Moral Relativism Defended,” Philosophical Review, vol. 84, pp. 3–22.
Parfit, Derek 1997. “Reasons and Motivation,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, suppl.
vol. 71, pp. 99–131.
Raz, Joseph 1999. Practical Reason and Norms. New York: Oxford University Press.
Schroeder, Mark 2007. “Weighting for a Plausible Humean Theory of Reasons,” Noûs, vol. 41,
pp. 110–32.
Skorupski, John 1999. “Irrealist Cognitivism,” Ratio, vol. 12, pp. 436–59.
Sobel, David 2001. “Subjective Accounts of Reasons for Action,” Ethics, vol. 111, pp. 461–92.
Velleman, J. David 1996. “The Possibility of Practical Reason,” Ethics, vol. 106, pp. 694–726.
1
Psychosurgery
John McMillan
What Is Psychosurgery?
Psychosurgery is usually understood to mean neurosurgery performed in order to
treat mental illness and alter behavior. (Oxford English Dictionary)
While this definition appears fairly straightforward, there are some vagaries about
the boundaries of psychosurgery. Operations such as lobotomy, leucotomy, and
corpus callosotomy (severing the corpus callosum) are all clear cases of psychosurgery
that involve damaging the brain. However, there are some neurosurgical interventions
that are used to treat mental illness, such as deep brain stimulation, that do not
involve the destruction of brain tissue (Perlmutter and Mink 2006: 233). Furthermore,
stem cell therapy offers the prospect that brain tissue could be repaired so as to treat
mental illness and alter behavior.
While the destruction of brain tissue does not seem essential to this concept, can
treating illness or modifying behavior by applying other physical techniques to the
brain be considered psychosurgery? It is tempting to include the treatment of
depression with electro-convulsive therapy, because it acts directly upon the brain.
However, some constraints must apply to the kind of interventions that count or else
every pharmacological or therapeutic intervention performed to treat mental illness
or modify behavior would be considered psychosurgery.
Procedural Preconditions and Contemporary Psychosurgery

Psychosurgery is fairly uncommon, for example, only seven operations were
performed in England and Wales in 1999 and two in 2000 (Mental Health Act
Commission 2001). When it is offered, it is usually subject to a number of procedural
preconditions. While jurisdictions vary, a United Nations resolution includes the
following conditions: it should never be performed on a patient who is being treated
involuntarily, it can only occur if the patient has given informed consent, it must
serve the health needs of the patient, and it has been reviewed by an external
body (1991).
Leucotomy and Lobotomy

For many, “psychosurgery” will always be associated with prefrontal leucotomy and
lobotomy, highly controversial surgical interventions that were widely practiced
during the twentieth century. By the time Egas Moniz was awarded the Nobel
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee064
2
prize for physiology and medicine in 1949, his technique for prefrontal leucotomy
was an established treatment for a range of conditions. From 1936 until 1978,
approximately 35,000 psychosurgical operations were performed in the United
States (Valenstein 1980: 29).
The notoriety of psychosurgery reached its zenith with the popularization of
transorbital frontal lobotomy by Walter Freeman and James Watts. This operation
involved electro-convulsive treatment for anesthesia and the insertion of a surgical
tool resembling an ice pick through the skull just above the eye and moving it
laterally through the prefrontal lobe (Mashour et al. 2005: 411). During the 1950s,
there was a rapid fall in this surgery’s popularity as its failures were documented and
psychotropic medications were discovered.
The harmfulness of early psychosurgery is hard to dispute, but considering why it
was wrong is useful for unpacking some of the key ethical considerations raised by
altering the brain via surgical means.
Neglected, Compromised, or Disregarded Autonomy

Because early psychosurgery was often performed in informal settings and at a
time when consent for surgery was not routine, many people, even those who
acquiesced in being lobotomized, knew very little about what was about to happen
to them. Making decisions of this gravity when the little that is known is not
disclosed can be described as the ethical problem of neglected autonomy. It is a
reasonable ethical precondition for contemporary psychosurgery that, except in
exceptional cases, all patients are fully informed prior to consent being given (see
autonomy; consent).
Psychosurgery was and is used as a treatment for serious mental illnesses. It does
not follow from the fact that a person has a mental illness that their autonomy is
compromised to the extent that they cannot make a sufficiently rational decision
(see psychiatric ethics). However, it is clear that mental illnesses such as severe
depression can compromise autonomy, and this is another significant ethical hurdle
for psychosurgery. However, the autonomy of some patients who might benefit from
psychosurgery is not always compromised. Some patients with severe and intractable
obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) are offered psychosurgery, and there is no
reason to suppose that their autonomy is likely to be compromised (Kim et al. 2003).
Autonomy is disregarded when psychosurgery is compelled or coerced (see
coercion). Most instances of compelled or coerced treatment are hard to justify.
Cases where treatment involves surgery on a person’s brain, without their consent,
require a particularly compelling reason. Coercion or compulsion can occur in
contexts where a person’s autonomy is compromised, and this kind of case can be
described as weak paternalism. If an agent is able to express an autonomous wish
about what they want to happen, then compelled or coerced surgery, or any other
intervention with significant potential harms, is hard paternalism and even more
difficult to justify. On the other hand, when there are good reasons for thinking
that an intervention can benefit an agent, when their autonomy is compromised,
3
there may be moral grounds for treating them. However, psychosurgery is such
a radical intervention that it is reasonable to question whether it is ever acceptable
to perform it when autonomy is neglected, compromised, or disregarded (see
paternalism).
Ignorance About Effects

One reason why lobotomy and leucotomy seem shocking today is that they were
performed when so little was known about the effect of these operations. Damaging
significant amounts of prefrontal lobe brain tissue in a haphazard and uncontrolled
way demonstrates ignorance about the importance of this region of the brain for
cognition and affect. As Gillett has observed, the uncontrolled way in which these
operations were performed, contributed to some of the difficulties in characterizing
its effects (2007: 813). While psychosurgery is relatively rare, new refined techniques,
targeted at specific conditions such as stereotactic bilateral anterior cingulotomy for
patients with refractory OCD, are performed with much more knowledge about
their likely effects (Kim et al. 2003).
Harms
A related ethical worry is that patients can be harmed profoundly by psychosurgery.
The radical changes in the personality of Phineas Gage, the nineteenth-century
railway worker whose brain was damaged when a steel rod passed through his
prefrontal cortex, should have made Moniz, Freeman, and Watts wary about the
harms that could be done to a person’s psyche (Mashour et al. 2005). As Gillett has
described, psychosurgery changes “what’s deep within a person” and can result in
profound harms that alter that person. These harms have been portrayed in books
such as One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Kesey 1962).
While drugs can be considered to change or even enhance the kind of person an
agent is, early psychosurgery was likely to destroy agency (see authenticity;
psychopharmacology). These effects were observed and described thus by
Freeman and Watts:
Patients after lobotomy always show some lack of personality depth. They are cheerful
and complacent and are indifferent to the opinions and feelings of others. Rather
objective about their faults, they seldom give voice to defense mechanisms. Their goals
are immediate – not remote. They are cheerful and complacent and are indifferent to
the opinions and feelings of others. They can recall just as well as ever, but it has
diminished interpretive value for them, and they are not more interested in their own
past emotional crises than if they had happened to someone else. They seem incapable
of feeling guilt now for past misdeeds. (Robinson, Freeman, and Watts, 1951, as cited
by Valenstein 1980: 38)
Given that they were likely to portray it in the best possible light, it is chilling that they
did not see the ways that agency is destroyed by prefrontal lobotomy. The postoperative
4
lack of personal depth and indifference to the views of others, the depersonalization of
memory and, perhaps most worryingly, the inability to feel guilt suggest that people
were not merely altered by this operation but so damaged that their status as an agent
is called into question. The ability to respond to the actions of others and oneself in
ways that embody agency is often taken to be essential for attributing agency (see
attitudes, reactive). While lobotomy is notorious for its dramatic effects on agency,
worries persist about the impact that more refined, modern psychosurgical techniques
have upon personality (Bergerot 2003).
While many people had radical lobotomies when their autonomy was neglected,
compromised, or disregarded, it is relevant to consider whether choosing to have
psychosurgery that damages or destroys agency can be a legitimate expression of an
agent’s autonomy. John Stuart Mill (1909) claimed that we should not consider an
agent’s own good sufficient warrant for overriding their choices (see harm
principle). However, Mill thinks that there are some exceptions, such as a decision
to sell oneself into slavery.
By selling himself for a slave, he abdicates his liberty; he foregoes any future use of it,
beyond that single act. He therefore defeats, in his own case, the very purpose which is
the justification of allowing him to dispose of himself. He is no longer free; but is
thenceforth in a position which has no longer the presumption in its favor, that would
be afforded by his voluntarily remaining in it. The principle of freedom cannot require
that he should be free not to be free. It is not freedom, to be allowed to alienate his
freedom. (1909: Ch. 5)
Mill’s point is that selling oneself into slavery is an act that involves using the right to
liberty to forsake liberty. Would choosing to have psychosurgery when it undermines
the ability to choose likewise be a contradictory use of freedom? Slavery imposes phys-
ical constraints upon freedom while psychosurgery that damages or destroys agency
undermines the preconditions of freedom. On the other hand, Mill’s reasons for think-
ing about freedom as important seem to be undermined just as much by agency
destroying psychosurgery as they do by selling oneself into slavery. If freedom is
important for individuality and experiments in living, then radical psychosurgery and
slavery are not legitimate ways of expressing autonomy, because they make it much
more difficult for agents to discover and realize their potential. Likewise, if freedom is
essential because it enables agents to form and realize a plan of life, both radical psy-
chosurgery and slavery frustrate this important end of freedom. While contemporary
psychosurgery does not damage agency to the same extent, if it does undermine
agency, it is arguable whether this is an appropriate use of liberty.
Behavioral Control
One of the most obvious and problematic features of psychosurgery was the way in
which it was used to control or modify behavior. Medical interventions that are
intended to treat illness aim at benefiting the patient who is treated. Medical
5
interventions that are intended to control behavior might aim at benefiting the
patient but can also be used to serve the interests of third parties, including the state.
The dual uses of psychiatry have been exploited to serve political ends by a number
of repressive regimes, including republics within the former Soviet Union (see
psychiatric ethics). Lobotomy and leucotomy became popular partly because
they were seen as a very cost-effective way to decrease the burgeoning number of
patients in psychiatric hospitals. It was estimated that lobotomy could save US
taxpayers a million dollars a day that would otherwise need to be spent on psychiatric
hospitals (Mashour et al. 2005: 411). Given the harmfulness of early psychosurgery,
and the fact that it was used partly to further the interests of third parties, we have
two powerful reasons for criticizing it morally. This also suggests that, when
contemporary psychosurgery is being contemplated, it is crucial that there be good
evidence for believing that it will improve the welfare of a patient and is not intended
to further political or other third-party interests. This principle might not apply to
other less invasive or potentially harmful treatments, such as psychotropic
medication, which might benefit a patient and protect third parties.
A Treatment of Last Resort

Psychosurgery is now a treatment of last resort. It is only in cases where a patient suf-
fers from OCD, depression, or some other chronic and intractable illness that psycho-
surgery is likely to be considered. The radical destruction of agency that was a feature
of early psychosurgery is not a feature of the relatively rare, much more refined con-
temporary techniques. Only in those cases where there is a lack of alternative therapy
and some evidence of effect, plus reduced worries about harm, is it likely to be used.
See also: attitudes, reactive; authenticity; autonomy; coercion;

consent; harm principle; paternalism; psychiatric ethics;
psychopharmacology
REFERENCES
Bergerot, S. 2003. “Psychosurgery for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder – Concerns Remain,”
Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, vol. 107, pp. 241–3.
Gillett, Grant 2007. “Psychosurgery,” in Richard Ashcroft, Angus Dawson, Heather Draper,
and John McMillan (eds.), The Principles of Health Care Ethics, 2nd ed. Chichester: John
Wiley & Sons, Ltd, pp. 811–17.
Kesey, Ken 1962. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. New York: Viking.
Kim, C., J. Chang, J. Koo, H. Suk, I. Park, and H. Lee 2003. “Anterior Cingulotomy for
Refractory Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder,” Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavic, vol. 107,
pp. 283–90.
Mashour, G., E. Walker, and R. Martuza 2005. “Psychosurgery: Past Present and Future,”
Brain Research Reviews, vol. 48, pp. 409–19.
The Mental Health Act Commission 2001. Ninth Biennial Report 1999–2001. The Stationery
Office.
6
Mill, John Stuart 1909 [1859]. On Liberty. New York: P. F. Collier & Sons.
Perlmutter, J., and J. Mink 2006. “Deep Brain Stimulation,” Annual Review of Neuroscience,
vol. 29, pp. 229–57.
United Nations 1991. The Protection of Persons with Mental Illness and the Improvement
of Mental Health Care (A/RES/46/119). At www.un.org/documents/ga/res/46/
a46r119.htm.
Valenstein, Elliot 1980. The Psychosurgery Debate: Scientific, Legal and Ethical Perspectives.
San Francisco: W. H. Freeman & Company.
FURTHER READINGS
Beehler, Rodger 1982. “Containing Violence,” Ethics, vol. 92, pp. 647–60.
Buchanan, Allen, and Dan Brock 1990. Deciding for Others: The Ethics of Surrogate Decision
Making. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Clayton, Ellen 1987. “From Rogers to Rivers. The Rights of the Mentally Ill to Refuse
Medication,” American Journal of Law and Medicine, vol. 13, pp. 8–52.
Frame, Janet 1961. Owls Do Cry. London: W. H. Allen.
Gostin, Larry 1980. “Surgery for the Mind,” Journal of Medical Ethics, vol. 6, pp. 215–6.
Held, Virginia (ed.) 1995. Justice and Care: Essential Readings in Feminist Ethics. Boulder,
CO: Westview Press.
Kleinig, John 1985. Ethical Issues in Psychosurgery. London: Allen & Unwin.
Pressman, Jack 1998. Last Resort: Psychosurgery and the Limits of Medicine. Cambridge:
Wilkins, Burleigh 1984. “Psychosurgery, the Brain and Violent Behaviour,” Journal of Value
Inquiry, vol. 18, pp. 319–31.
1
Euthyphro Dilemma
Christian Miller
The Euthyphro dilemma is named after a particular exchange between Socrates

and Euthyphro in Plato’s dialogue Euthyphro. In a famous passage, Socrates asks,
“Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved
by the gods?” (Plato 1981: 10a), and proceeds to advance arguments which clearly
favor the first of these two options (see plato). The primary interest in the Euthy-
phro dilemma over the years, however, has concerned the relationship between
God and morality in the monotheistic religious tradition, where God is taken to
be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, having created the universe ini-
tially and still actively involved in it today. But as we will see at the end of this
essay, there has also been a recent surge of interest in a version of the dilemma
which applies to so-called response-dependent accounts of normative properties
in metaethics.
According to the metaethical position known as “theological voluntarism,” God
is the basis for all or at least some crucial part of morality. Such a view can take a
number of forms (see Quinn 2001 for an overview). It can be stated as a semantic
claim about what we mean when we use moral language, or as a metaphysical
dependence claim whereby moral facts and properties are grounded in some way in
God. Similarly, different claims are made about what it is specifically about God that
is supposed to be doing the grounding, with God’s commands being the traditional
option advocated by divine command theorists (see divine command). However,
recent alternative proposals have focused on God’s intentions (Murphy 1998; Quinn
2001), God’s desires (Miller 2009), or God’s emotions (Zagzebski 2004) as the
metaphysical basis for moral facts.
The Euthyphro dilemma can be applied to all these different versions of
theological voluntarism. However, to simplify the discussion, we will focus on a
simple version of divine command theory, according to which all and only deonto-
logical moral obligations are metaphysically grounded in God’s actual commands.
So if God commands Jones to donate to charity at a certain time, then on this view
Jones is morally obligated to donate to charity at that time. Furthermore, what
makes this action obligatory is precisely the fact that God has commanded Jones to
do so. With this particular version of divine command theory in mind, we can
recast Socrates’ two alternative positions as follows:
(i) First Horn: Suppose God’s commands are what make human actions morally
obligatory, permissible, or wrong.
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee065
2
(ii) Second Horn: Suppose human actions are objectively morally obligatory,
permissible, or wrong independently of God’s commands, and when God
does issue morally relevant commands, he does so on the basis of previously
knowing that the actions have this moral status.
Let us start with the Second Horn. Some theists worry that such a claim would
compromise certain traditional properties of God, such as his omnipotence or his
sovereignty (for an overview, see Wainwright 2005). But the more immediate point
to make about the Second Horn is that it simply contradicts the fundamental idea of
divine command theory and, once suitably generalized, theological voluntarism as a
whole. Voluntarists about deontological properties insist that the dependence
relation between God and obligation runs in the opposite direction, since on their
view it is God who, so to speak, sets in place the obligatory status of actions. So
voluntarists seem forced to adopt the First Horn, and, according to advocates of the
Euthyphro dilemma, are thereby saddled with a new set of difficulties.
Exactly what those difficulties are has never been consistently stated in the
literature, but we can label the three leading candidates in discussions of the
Euthyphro dilemma as: the divine goodness objection, the anything goes objection,
and the arbitrariness objection.
The Divine Goodness Objection

According to the First Horn, all or a significant part of morality is based on God’s
commands. But then we cannot make sense of God’s own normative properties (Alston
1989: 255; Timmons 2002: 29). For instance, all theists claim that God is good, but
to say that God is good because God commands that he is good is clearly to get
things backwards. God is essentially good as part of his nature, and so is good prior
to making any commands in the first place.
A now standard reply to this objection is to restrict the scope of the voluntarist’s
grounding claim from all normative properties to just some central part of morality.
For instance, we saw above a version of divine command theory which only grounds
deontological properties in God’s commands. A separate account would then have
to be provided for axiological properties such as goodness and badness. Robert
Adams has worked out just such a restricted version of voluntarism in detail in his
Finite and Infinite Goods (1999; see also Alston 1989: 256–66, 268–73).
The Anything Goes Objection

Returning to our simple divine command theory, if God’s commands are what
make human actions morally obligatory, then a natural fear is that what seem to us
to be horrific actions could become morally obligatory if God were to command
them. Philip Quinn, one of the leading contemporary voluntarists, provides a nice
illustration of this worry:
3
(iii) “If God were [to command] that someone at some time bring about the
torture to death of an innocent child, then it would be morally obligatory
for that person at that time to bring about the torture to death of an
innocent child” (2001: 70; see also Quinn 1978: 58–61).
And yet, surely, it would not be morally obligatory to torture to death an innocent
child, and thus so much the worse for any voluntarist view which accepts the First
Horn and bases even part of morality on God’s commands (or, alternatively, on
properties of his will).
Here too, something of a consensus strategy has emerged among voluntarists in
responding to the anything goes objection (Wierenga 1983: 393–6; Alston 1989:
267; Sullivan 1993: 35; Quinn 2001: 70–1). Quinn, for instance, cites the com-
monly held theistic belief that God is essentially just, and therefore there is no
possible world in which God would issue such a command to torture to death an
innocent child (Quinn 2001: 70). Similarly, Adams ties his version of divine com-
mand theory to the commands of a loving God, and presumably there is no pos-
sible world in which a loving God would issue such a command (Adams 1999:
250). So it follows on either proposal that there is no world in which torturing to
death an innocent child is obligatory. At the same time, voluntarists can still main-
tain that (iii) is true because it has an impossible antecedent, and on the standard
way of thinking about counterfactual conditionals with impossible antecedents,
they turn out to be trivially true.
This response could give rise to the concern that there are features of torturing
an innocent child which serve both as God’s reasons for taking this practice to be
incompatible with his justice, and also as the basis for an objective moral standard
apart from God. Such a concern naturally takes us to the third objection commonly
associated with the First Horn.
The Arbitrariness Objection

Perhaps the most serious problem that is supposed to arise with the First Horn is
the arbitrariness objection, which itself can be formulated in terms of a dilemma.
Suppose, on the one hand, that the voluntarist maintains that God’s commands
(or intentions, desires, etc.) are made for no reason whatsoever. Then his commands,
and hence the morality which is supposed to be based on them, would be perfectly
arbitrary. And not only is it a serious cost for any metaethical view if it implies that
morality is perfectly arbitrary, but in this particular case such a consequence would
also conflict with God’s nature as a perfectly rational being who always acts for
good reasons.
Suppose, then, on the other hand the voluntarist maintains that God’s commands
(or intentions, desires, etc.) are formed for reasons. Then those reasons in turn must
appeal to an independent morality which exists apart from God. And if there is such
an independent morality apart from God, we are back to the Second Horn, and
4
theological voluntarism is once again abandoned (Timmons 2002: 29–30; Kawall

2005: 110).
Voluntarists tend to adopt the Second Horn of this dilemma and claim that God’s
commands are based on reasons and so are not arbitrary, but they also deny that the
reasons must appeal in any way to an independent morality. Rather, the reasons can
be nonmoral considerations ultimately based in God’s nature. For instance, suppose
God commands that we not torture innocent children. Then according to our simple
divine command theory, God’s command makes such actions wrong. The command
in turn could be based on various considerations, such as this one: torturing inno-
cent children is not loving and indeed is incompatible with love. This consideration
does not obviously entail anything involving an independent morality. Rather, it
becomes a relevant consideration in God’s mind and one that counts against the
practice of torturing innocent children, precisely because God’s nature itself is one
of perfect love. Thus, the reason-giving force of this consideration is grounded in
God’s nature, rather than in an independent morality apart from God. So according
to this response, God’s commands can be based on reasons while still serving as the
metaphysical basis for the relevant moral facts (for additional discussion, see Alston
1989: 267; Audi 2007: 123–7; Miller 2009).
The arbitrariness objection can be recast in a different way, however (Brody
1974; Quinn 1978: 49; Wierenga 1983: 401; Sullivan 1993; Miller 2009). Divine
command theories typically hold that actions acquire their moral status because
of God’s commands, or in virtue of his commanding, or that their obligatory sta-
tus consists in their being commanded by God. Similar claims apply to other
versions of voluntarism which base moral facts on features of God’s will, such as
his desires, intentions, emotions, or the like. But if we say that God’s commands
are not arbitrary and instead are based on reasons, then regardless of whether
those reasons in turn appeal to an independent morality or just stem from God’s
nature, the critic can argue that it is the reasons themselves which become the basis
for the relevant part of morality, rather than anything about God’s commands or
will. Furthermore, those reasons need have nothing to do with God at all – they
can include considerations such as the action’s being loving, painful, or forgiving.
So not only does theological voluntarism but God in general seems to have
dropped out of the moral picture in an effort to prevent the relevant part of moral-
ity from being arbitrary.
Here we can only sketch one brief response that might be made to this revised
version of the arbitrariness objection. Perhaps the voluntarist could argue that the
reasons in question alone are not sufficient for grounding the obligatory status of
an action, and that God’s commands play an essential additional role. This would
make sense if the reasons are only prima facie reasons, and can often conflict.
Indeed, the number of reasons pertaining to the different possible actions an
agent could perform in a given set of circumstances might be vast, and we need
not assume that God simply weighs together all of their valences and strengths as
part of a simple overall calculation. In fact, given recent work on different
conceptions of reasons for action – including pure justificatory reasons,
5
incommensurable reasons, exclusionary reasons, and equally strong opposing

reasons – we should assume just the opposite (see reasons; reasons for action,
morality and). So by forming a command (or an intention, desire, or so forth
depending on the version of voluntarism in question), God thereby comes to a
conclusion and resolves the conflict decisively in favor of one particular action.
Hence the obligatory status of the action would still consist in its being com-
manded by God, even though various reasons played an important part in the
motivational and causal process which led to the formation of the command (for
additional responses and related discussion, see Quinn 1978: 49–52; Audi 2007;
Miller 2009; and especially Sullivan 1993).
It is important to end by noting that Socrates’ two options, and the issues to
which they give rise, are not only of interest today in discussions of theological
voluntarism, but rather appear throughout contemporary metaethics. Here is one
brief illustration. According to many versions of constructivism, morality is
grounded in the responses of a certain set of agents (see constructivism, moral).
Russ Shafer-Landau has formulated a dilemma against such constructivists as
follows (2003: 41–3). If the constraints used in specifying the set of agents appeal
to moral standards, then the constructivist will be covertly employing moral
principles which exist independently of the construction process, which (similar
to the First Horn) contradicts the fundamental goal of constructivism to reject
such principles. If, on the other hand, the constraints do not include any moral
standards, then the moral principles which emerge from the responses of such
agents likely could be seriously out of line with our deepest moral commitments
(similar to the anything goes objection). Either way, then, the constructivist faces
a kind of Euthyphro dilemma.
Similar options can be outlined for other metaethical views such as Michael
Smith’s (1994: Ch. 5) account of normative reasons:
(iv) S has a normative reason to do x in C if and only if S’s fully rational

counterpart would desire S to do x in C.
Or consider David Lewis’s (1989) dispositional account of value:
(v) X is a value if and only if we would be disposed to value X under conditions

of the fullest imaginative acquaintance with X.
Numerous other examples of response-dependent accounts (see response-dependent

theories) could also be mentioned, but what all these views seem to have in common
is a commitment to something like the following version of the basic equation (Wright
1992; Johnston 1993):
(vi) X is [moral term] if and only if X tends to elicit [response] from

[respondents] in [circumstances].
6
where the class of respondents and circumstances is taken to be ideally suited to the
kind of moral phenomenon at issue.
In the words of Mark Johnston, such biconditionals can be given either a left-
to- right “detectivist” reading or a right-to-left “projectivist” reading (terms attributed
to Johnston by Wright 1992: 108). A detectivist reading, according to which the
relevant respondents come to have the responses they do because the thing in
question is morally good or right, gives rise to the First Horn of the Euthyphro
dilemma and so to a realist metaethic (see realism, moral). But it is the opposite
projectivist reading that is intended by advocates of most response-dependent views,
thereby leading to the concerns associated with the Second Horn (for additional
discussion, see Wright 1992; Johnston 1993).
The Euthyphro dilemma is unlikely to disappear from either secular or religious
metaethical discussions anytime soon.
see also: constructivism, moral; divine command; plato; realism, moral;

reasons; reasons for action, morality and; response-dependent
theories
REFERENCES
Adams, Robert 1999. Finite and Infinite Goods: A Framework for Ethics. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Alston, William 1989. “Some Suggestions for Divine Command Theorists,” in Michael Beaty
(ed.), Christian Theism and the Problems of Philosophy. Notre Dame: University of Notre
Dame Press. Reprinted in William Alston (ed.), Divine Nature and Human Language:
Essays in Philosophical Theology. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, pp. 253–73.
Audi, Robert 2007. “Divine Command Morality and the Autonomy of Ethics,” Faith and
Brody, Baruch 1974. “Morality and Religion Reconsidered,” Readings in the Philosophy of Religion:
An Analytic Approach. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, pp. 592–603. (Repr. in Paul Helm
(ed.), Divine Commands and Morality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 141–53.)
Johnston, Mark 1993. “Objectivity Refigured: Pragmatism without Verificationism,” in
J. Haldane and C. Wright (eds.), Reality, Representation, and Projection. Oxford: Oxford
Kawall, Jason 2005. “Moral Realism and Arbitrariness,” Southern Journal of Philosophy,
vol. 43, pp. 109–29.
Lewis, David 1989. “Dispositional Theories of Value,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society,
vol. 63, pp. 113–37.
Miller, Christian 2009. “Divine Desire Theory and Obligation,” in Y. Nagasawa and
E. Wielenberg (eds.), New Waves in Philosophy of Religion. New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, pp. 105–24.
Murphy, Mark 1998. “Divine Command, Divine Will, and Moral Obligation,” Faith and
Quinn, Philip 1978. Divine Commands and Moral Requirements. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Quinn, Philip 2001. “Divine Command Theory,” in Hugh LaFollette (ed.), Blackwell Guide
to Ethical Theory. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 53–73.
Plato 1981. Plato: Five Dialogues, trans. G. M. A. Grube. Indianapolis: Hackett.
7
Shafer-Landau, Russ 2003. Moral Realism: A Defence. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Sullivan, Stephen 1993. “Arbitrariness, Divine Commands, and Morality,” International
Journal for Philosophy of Religion, vol. 33, pp. 33–45.
Timmons, Mark 2002. Moral Theory: An Introduction. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield
Publishers.
Wainwright, William 2005. Religion and Morality. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Wierenga, Edward 1983. “A Defensible Divine Command Theory,” Noûs, vol. 17, pp. 387–407.
Zagzebski, Linda 2004. Divine Motivation Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
FURTHER READINGS
Adams, Robert 1987. The Virtue of Faith and Other Essays in Philosophical Theology.
Chandler, John 1985. “Divine Command Theories and the Appeal to Love,” American
Hanink, James, and Gary Mar 1987. “What Euthyphro Couldn’t Have Said,” Faith and
Joyce, Richard 2002. “Theistic Ethics and the Euthyphro Dilemma,” Journal of Religious
Ethics, vol. 30, pp. 49–75.
Kretzmann, Norman 1983. “Abraham, Isaac, and Euthyphro: God and the Basis of Morality,” in
D. V. Stump, J. A. Arieti, L. Gerson, and E. Stump (eds.), Hamartia, The Concept of Error
in the Western Tradition: Essays in Honor of John M. Crossett. New York: Edwin Mellen.
Macbeath, Murray 1982. “The Euthyphro Dilemma,” Mind, vol. 91, pp. 565–71.
Murphy, Mark 2008. “Theological Voluntarism,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
At http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/voluntarism-theological.
Rosen, Gideon 1994. “Objectivity and Modern Idealism: What is the Question?” in
M. Michael and J. O’Leary-Hawthorne (eds.), Philosophy in Mind. Dordrecht: Kluwer,
pp. 277–319.
Wright, Crispin 1999 [1988]. “Realism, Antirealism, Irrealism, Quasi-realism,” Midwest
Studies in Philosophy, vol. 12, pp. 25–49. (Repr. in J. Kim and E. Sosa (eds.), Metaphysics:
An Anthology. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 649–65.)
Young, Robert 1977. “Theism and Morality,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 7, pp. 341–51.
(Repr. in Paul Helm (ed.), Divine Commands and Morality. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, pp. 154–64.)
1
Crimes Against Humanity

Andrew Altman
Introduction
Under international law, the term “crimes against humanity” refers to certain
heinous wrongs perpetrated as part of a widespread or systematic attack on a civilian
population (see international criminal justice). The wrongs include murder,
enslavement, torture, rape, forcible transfer, persecution aimed at certain kinds of
groups, and “other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great
suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health” (Rome Statute
2002: Art. 7).
Genocide (see genocide) is commonly regarded as a paradigmatic crime against
humanity, notwithstanding the fact that international law treats genocide as a
distinct category of crime. It is also widely held that genocide is itself the most
egregious of all crimes, and that any state has the right to prosecute and punish
genocide and other crimes against humanity, regardless of the location of the crimes
or the nationality of the victims.
Five issues are central to ethical reflection on crimes against humanity, broadly
understood:
1 What is a crime against humanity?

2 Is genocide a crime against humanity?
3 Who has the right to punish crimes against humanity?
4 How, and in what form, should blame be apportioned among those responsible
for such crimes?
5 How should a society respond in the aftermath of crimes against humanity?
To set up these questions, it is useful to briefly recount the emergence under

international law of the categories of crimes against humanity and genocide.
International Law
The first legally authoritative document in which the term “crimes against human-
ity” appeared was the charter that established the International Military Tribunal
(IMT) at Nuremberg to place on trial leading figures from the Nazi regime. The
charter spelled out four categories of crime over which the tribunal had jurisdiction:
conspiracy, crimes against peace, war crimes (see war crimes), and crimes against
humanity. Crimes against humanity were defined as “murder, extermination,
enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee066
2
population … or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds … whether or

not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated” (International
Military Tribunal 1946).
Because attacks on civilians were already prohibited by the laws of war, there was
a large overlap between crimes against humanity and war crimes. The most signifi-
cant difference between the two categories concerned a state’s maltreatment of part
of its own civilian population; such maltreatment could count as a crime against
humanity but would not count as a war crime. Thus, Germany’s murder of most of
its own Jews was a crime against humanity but not a war crime.
None of the defendants before the IMT was indicted under a charge of genocide.
The term had only appeared in print for the first time in 1944, coined by Raphael
Lemkin, a Polish jurist and Jew, who had fled to the United States. Lemkin explained
that he created the term from the Greek genos for tribe or race and the Latin cide for
killing. Elaborating on its meaning, Lemkin (1945) wrote that genocide “refers to a
coordinated plan aimed at the destruction of the essential foundations of the life of
national groups so that these groups wither and die.”
Lemkin was the moving force behind the postwar international convention
outlawing genocide. The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime
of Genocide (1948) defined genocide as:
any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a
national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing …; (b) Causing serious
bodily or mental harm …; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life
calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing
measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring chil-
dren of the group to another group.
One difference between genocide and crimes against humanity is that the former
is limited to four types of victim groups: national, ethnic, racial, and religious; but
any civilian population can be the victim of a crime against humanity (other than
persecution). Another difference is that genocide requires the specific intent to
destroy “in whole or in part” a group of one of the four types, while crimes against
humanity do not require the intent to destroy the population they target. Accordingly,
under international law, genocide is distinct from any crime against humanity,
notwithstanding the fact that “genocide has typically been regarded as part of the
genus crimes against humanity” (Ratner et al. 2009: 27).
What Is a Crime Against Humanity?

The received view is that “crimes against humanity” is not simply a technical term
whose meaning is fixed by legal convention; rather, the term is thought to have a
nontechnical and literal meaning that explicitly conveys why certain crimes are
morally egregious in a way that makes them stand out from the ordinary: such
crimes are wrongful harms not only against the direct victims and their political
3
community; the crimes are also wrongful harms to humankind. This view fits
comfortably with Luban’s (2004: 86) observation that “the phrase ‘crimes against
humanity’ has acquired enormous resonance in the legal and moral imaginations of
the post-World War II world.” But is it true that certain crimes are literally against
humanity?
The French prosecutor at Nuremberg, de Menthon (1947: 407), was the first to
give an account of crimes against humanity. He argued that they were crimes against
“the human status” and as such destroyed the conditions for a meaningful life and
violated the dignity of each victim. However, his account did not distinguish
ordinary murder from crimes against humanity or explain how crimes of the latter
kind are literally “against humanity.”
Hannah Arendt (see arendt, hannah) developed several distinct accounts,
taking genocide as the paradigmatic crime against humanity. On one account, she
characterized genocide as “an attack upon human diversity as such, that is, upon a
characteristic of the ‘human status’ without which the very words ‘mankind’ or
‘humanity’ would be devoid of meaning” (1994b: 268–9). Her suggestion was that
the plurality of cultures was a distinctive and valuable mark of the human species
and that such plurality was a natural outcome in the absence of violence used to
prevent it. By deploying violence to destroy cultures, genocide targeted such plurality.
However, it is unclear that this account is adequate. Most genocides do not aim to
destroy human diversity: they have the more limited aim of the (partial or complete)
destruction of some particular human group.
Another account offered by Arendt (1994b: 272) involved an analogy: “Just as a
murderer is prosecuted because he has violated the law of the community, and not
because he has deprived the Smith family of its husband …, so these modern, state
employed mass murderers must be prosecuted because they violated the order of
mankind, and not because they killed millions of people.” The difference between a
crime against humanity and an ordinary murder is that “an altogether different
community is violated.” But Arendt leaves it unclear what kind of community
humanity constitutes or how it is violated by crimes against humanity.
May and Gaitra have recently pursued Arendt’s analogy. May (2006: 375–6)
argues that, “because of the shared interests in peace and basic human rights pro-
tection, on the part of all humans in all political communities, there is enough soli-
darity among humans to speak nonmetaphorically about the human or international
community. … Even though the community that is humanity is not a political com-
munity, it is a community that can be harmed.” In a similar vein, Gaitra (2005: 164)
contends that genocide is a “crime against the constituency of humankind as that is
represented in the community of nations.” Both May and Gaitra treat the harm
done by crimes against humanity as the international analogue of the harm that
ordinary crimes do to a domestic political community. The question is whether
such an analogy can work when there is no analogue at the international level to the
system of institutions that constitute a given domestic political community and
protect the constituents of that community. As Arendt (1994a: 291–7) herself
emphasized, humans do not have their vital interests protected by international
4
institutions; if humans are protected at all, it is through the institutions of the par-
ticular states to which they belong.
Crimes against humanity are often perpetrated by the very states to which the
victims belong. For Luban (2004: 117), this fact suggests that crimes against
humanity “are not just horrible crimes; they are horrible political crimes, crimes
of politics gone cancerous.” All humans have an especially strong interest in being
protected by their state, but they also need protection against their state, espe-
cially because the destructive power at its command poses a graver threat than
that of an ordinary criminal. Thus, for Luban, crimes against humanity constitute
a political reversal in which the state turns from a source of protection into a mor-
tal threat.
Common to the accounts of Luban, May, and Gaitra is the idea that it is in the
interests of all (or almost all) humans for there to be international institutions that
help protect persons belonging to states that are unable or unwilling to protect their
constituents’ vital interests. But even if true, their idea does not show that the crimes
perpetrated by the Nazis or Cambodian Khmer Rouge, for example, were wrongful
harms against all humankind. Rather, the idea shows that it would be prudent for
each individual to contribute in some way to the construction of the needed
international institutions.
A few thinkers have challenged the received view, arguing that it is not true that
crimes against humanity are literally “against humanity.” Thus, Vernon (2002: 232)
claims that, aside from its technical legal meaning, the term “crimes against humanity”
is a figure of speech. He argues that the figurative meaning points to the distinctive
kind of evil involved when a state attacks (part of) its own population. In virtue of
such an attack, the moral role of the state is turned on its head, and an institution
essential for reducing the vulnerabilities of life instead magnifies them: “crime against
humanity is … a moral inversion, or travesty, of the state” (2002: 233).
The arguments of Luban and Vernon are similar in emphasizing the perver-
sion of state power in crimes against humanity. However, while Luban tries to
make literal sense of the idea that crimes against humanity are crimes against
humankind, Vernon does not regard his argument as establishing the literal truth
of the idea. Yet, it is unclear why Vernon regards “crimes against humanity” as a
helpful figure of speech for representing the kind of moral wrong on which he
and Luban focus. The wrong in question is a wrong to the members of the groups
whose state turned against them, and not a wrong to humankind even in a figura-
tive way.
A more radical deflationary view holds that “crimes against humanity” makes
sense only when construed as a technical legal term. Altman (2006: 370–1) argues
that crimes against humanity and genocide, as legally defined, do not actually harm
humanity. He rejects the analogy between the international community and a state,
noting that there are no effective international institutions that protect individuals
in the way that a state’s institutions protect its constituents. Domestic crime harms
domestic institutions and thus harms the members of the state, all of whom have a
stake in those institutions. Altman reasons that the absence of effective international
5
institutions means that there is no international regime in which every human has
a stake. Crimes against humanity, as legally defined, cannot therefore harm human-
ity in a manner analogous to the harm that ordinary crime does to everyone in a
state. Altman concludes that “crimes against humanity” is a morally misleading
term.
Wellman (2009: 438) takes the next step by arguing that “talk of crimes against
humanity is not merely conceptually ill founded; in the long run it will undermine
our best efforts to institute an effective system of international criminal law” that
can hold accountable the perpetrators of mass atrocities. Wellman’s ideas are further
examined below.
Is Genocide a Crime Against Humanity?

Norman Geras (2005: 168) voices a widely held view among philosophers in claiming
that “any definition of the concept [of crimes against humanity] that did not accom-
modate genocide would not be worth our time.” And international lawyers agree,
typically regarding genocide “as part of the genus crimes against humanity” (Ratner
et al. 2009: 27). Yet, given the legal definitions, it is difficult to see why the lawyers
agree: genocide is legally quite distinct from any crime against humanity. To clear up
the confusion, it is helpful to distinguish the legal concepts of these crimes from
ethical concepts that are meant to be philosophical reconstructions of their legal
counterparts. As legally defined, genocide is not a crime against humanity, but
matters could be different with the philosophical reconstructions.
The legal concept of genocide is widely considered in need of philosophical
reconstruction, much more so than the legal concept of crimes against humanity.
The pressure to reconstruct the definition of genocide stems, in part, from the belief
that it is morally arbitrary to limit the kinds of groups protected by the ban on geno-
cide to just four: national, ethnic, racial, and religious. As Luban (2006: 316–17)
writes, “The four categories … resulted from the politics of ratification not from a
moral argument.” Thus, Chalk (1994: 50) objects to the exclusion of political and
other social groups, arguing that it “ignore[s] 15 to 20 million Soviet civilians liqui-
dated as ‘class enemies’ and ‘enemies of the people’ between 1920 and 1939.” And
Shaw (2007: 154) proposes a reconstruction, defining genocide as “a form of violent
social conflict, or war, between an armed power organization that aims to destroy
civilian social groups and those groups …”
However, such a reconstruction appears to erase any difference between genocide
and crimes against humanity. For that reason, the reconstruction would be rejected
by philosophers who think that the concept of genocide should capture some
distinctive and grievous kind of moral wrong, a kind not picked out by a generic
category of crimes against humanity (Lang 2005: 15–16; Lee 2010). In whatever way
this debate works out, any viable reconstructions of the concepts of genocide and
crimes against humanity would count both crimes as grievous wrongs in which the
basic human rights of the members of a (largely) defenseless population are violently,
intentionally, and massively violated.
6
Jurisdiction
States in which crimes against humanity occur are often unwilling or unable to
prosecute the crimes, for political or other practical reasons such as the absence of an
adequate legal system. If the perpetrators are not to enjoy impunity, then the cases
must be heard before international tribunals or the national tribunals of other states.
However, in the four decades after the Nuremberg trials, impunity reigned, in part,
because the Cold War blocked the establishment of any more international tribunals
to try cases of crimes against humanity, despite numerous examples of intentional
mass attacks against civilian populations. The fall of the Soviet Union led to changes
that allowed the UN Security Council in the 1990s to establish tribunals to hear cases
arising out of mass atrocities in Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Most legal commentators
regarded these tribunals as possessing the legal and moral rights to exercise jurisdic-
tion in the cases, on the ground that such tribunals are needed to uphold international
peace and security. However, some commentators have been critical of the tribunals
for Rwanda and Yugoslavia and of international criminal tribunals more generally.
The critics argue that such tribunals are unduly costly, produce relatively few convic-
tions, do little to help the societies torn apart by mass atrocities, and are of dubious
value in deterring future perpetrators and maintaining international peace and secu-
rity (Rubin 1997: 157). Additionally, it is argued that international tribunals weaken a
key principle for preserving international order: no state has a right to exercise juris-
diction over crimes perpetrated in another state unless there is a substantial link to
those crimes, specifically, the suspect or the victim is a national of the state seeking
jurisdiction, or the suspect is voluntarily present in the state (Rubin 1997: 177, 197).
In the future, it is likely that some important cases of crimes against humanity will
be heard, not by ad hoc tribunals such as those for Rwanda and Yugoslavia, but by the
International Criminal Court, a standing tribunal that began operation in 2003. The
ICC was founded by treaty and has jurisdiction over crimes against humanity (as well
as genocide and war crimes) perpetrated within the territory or by citizens of any state
party. The court can also exercise jurisdiction in cases of states that have not con-
sented to its jurisdiction, as long as the Security Council refers the case to the court.
One of the most troubling criticisms of the court is that it has exhibited a bias against
the leaders of weak (mostly African) states and that there is little chance of it prosecut-
ing the leaders of powerful Western states (Mandami 2008). However, Altman and
Wellman (2009: 91–4) argue that such selective prosecution is not necessarily worse
than impunity for all leaders and that it is reasonable to hope that the ICC will evolve
to the point where it is prepared to prosecute the leaders of powerful Western states.
Aside from international tribunals, states that have no substantial connection to
the crimes against humanity perpetrated in a given state might still play some role in
ending impunity by appealing to the principle of universal jurisdiction. According
to the most expansive version of the principle, any state has the right to prosecute,
try, and punish crimes against humanity (and other grave international crimes),
regardless of the location of the crimes, the nationalities of the suspects and victims,
or the presence of the suspects in the territory of the state seeking to prosecute.
7
During the 1990s Belgian law authorized its courts to exercise universal jurisdic-
tion, but under intense pressure from the United States and Israel, the law was
rescinded. Under a revised law, Belgian courts can exercise jurisdiction in cases arising
from a foreign atrocity only when the victims or perpetrators are Belgian nationals or
residents (Reydams 2003: 687). Current German law authorizes universal jurisdiction
for crimes against humanity, but the prosecutor has discretion to reject a case if nei-
ther the suspect nor victim is German and the suspect is not present in Germany
(Duffett 2002: sec. 153f.). Spain’s Constitutional Court has ruled that Spanish courts
have universal jurisdiction over grave international crimes, but the Spanish legislature
is likely to impose limits similar to the ones now found in Belgium (Skeen 2009).
Defending universal jurisdiction, former Canadian foreign minister Lloyd
Axelworthy (2004: 260) argues that “some crimes are so horrific, so offensive, that
they are perpetrated not only against their victims but against humanity” and that
these are subject to “universal jurisdiction.” This “harm to humanity” justification of
universal jurisdiction sheds some light on why international lawyers routinely
regard genocide as a crime against humanity, even though international law sepa-
rates the crimes. By so classifying genocide, that crime can ride piggyback on the
foregoing justification offered for universal jurisdiction over crimes against human-
ity. However, it is questionable whether universal jurisdiction for crimes against
humanity can be justified in this way: as noted above, such crimes usually fall far
short of harming humankind.
Critics of universal jurisdiction argue, in turn, that it is open to abuse by politically
motivated prosecutors or judges who are not accountable to the citizens of the state
that will be most affected by the prosecution, namely, the state in which the atrocities
occurred (Goldsmith and Krasner 2003). But Wellman (2009: 433–8) argues that any
state (or international tribunal) is morally permitted to try cases arising out of crimes
against humanity and other mass atrocities, as long as the trial is a fair one. There is
no need for there to be a threat to international peace or security, nor for the crimes
to literally harm humankind. The states in which mass atrocities occur are, ipso facto,
illegitimate states that lack any right against the external imposition of criminal pro-
ceedings. Wellman also argues that the category of crimes against humanity should
eventually be jettisoned, because it suggests the faulty idea that harm to humankind
is a condition for an outside state or an international tribunal to have legitimate
jurisdiction over the crimes. In his view, mass atrocities should certainly be interna-
tional crimes, but not because the atrocities harm humankind. The atrocities should
be international crimes because they are large-scale human rights violations and the
states in which they occur are typically unable or unwilling to prosecute them.
Blame and Reconciliation

Crimes against humanity are collective crimes in that they are made possible by the
organized action (and inaction) of large numbers of individuals, sometimes reach-
ing into the hundreds of thousands. Their collective character raises questions about
who is to be blamed and how. No less important are questions about how a society
8
is to recover from a period of mass atrocity and make the transition to a defensible
political order.
In the aftermath of World War II, Karl Jaspers (2006) endorsed the trials of Nazi
leaders and collaborators, rejecting the idea that the German nation as a whole was
guilty of the crimes of the regime. Hannah Arendt also came to see the trials as
justifiable insofar as they rested on the premise that guilt was personal, i.e., a function
of the specific behavior of the individual. But more recently it has been argued that,
because of the collective nature of crimes of mass atrocity, criminal trials have a
serious inherent shortcoming in addressing such crimes. Thus, Drumbl (2007: 197)
notes a “yawning gap between responsibility and guilt” and claims that a “much
larger number are responsible [for atrocities] than can (and deserve to be) captured
by criminal trials.” He suggests holding members of a group collectively responsible,
e.g., by imposing a monetary sanction on the group but permitting individuals to
avoid having to pay if they can show that they opposed, or did not participate in, the
group’s actions (2007: 204). But as Heller (2008) argues, such a scheme of collective
responsibility will often be infeasible due to the sheer number of group members and
will likely result in many injustices due to how the burden of proof is distributed.
Most thinkers agree that criminal trials for perpetrators of mass atrocities are a
crucial element of any justifiable process by which a society seeks to overcome a past
stained by such crimes. But there are disagreements over whether international or
local courts are better for holding trials. Thus, in the aftermath of the Rwanda geno-
cide, there was debate over the roles played by the International Criminal Tribunal
for Rwanda and the local gacaca courts (Drumbl 2007).
It is widely held that, despite the need for trials of perpetrators of mass atrocities,
post-conflict societies need much more than trials to adequately address the crimes.
Accordingly, many thinkers advocate truth commissions, amnesties (see amnesty),
and reparations, among other mechanisms, to assist in social reconciliation and help
ensure a defensible transition to a stable order. But trials can come into conflict with
these other mechanisms, and this fact has led to disagreements over whether
international courts are obligated to respect amnesties granted by post-atrocity
governments (Sadat 2006).
Conclusion
The atrocities first prosecuted as the category of crimes against humanity
were among the worst human-rights violations in history. Characterizing those
atrocities as crimes “against humanity” was a sensible way of highlighting how
egregious they were. In that sense, “crimes against humanity” was a fitting figure
of speech. Whether the term is more than such a figure, and whether the legal
category should be retained, redefined, or jettisoned, remain questions of
discussion and debate.
See also: amnesty; arendt, hannah; genocide; international criminal

justice; war crimes
9
REFERENCES
Altman, Andrew 2006. “The Persistent Fiction of Harm to Humanity,” Ethics and International
Altman, Andrew, and Christopher H. Wellman 2009. A Liberal Theory of International Law.
Arendt, Hannah 1994a [1951]. Origins of Totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt.
Arendt, Hannah 1994b [1963]. Eichmann in Jerusalem. New York: Penguin.
Axelworthy, Lloyd 2004. “Afterword: The Politics of Advancing International Justice,” in
Stephen Macedo (ed.), Universal Jurisdiction. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press.
Chalk, Frank 1994. “Redefining Genocide,” in George J. Andreopoulos (ed.), Genocide:
Conceptual and Historical Dimensions. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
de Menthon, François 1947. Trial of Major War Criminals, vol. 5. Nuremberg: International
Military Tribunal.
Drumbl, Mark 2007. Atrocity, Punishment, and International Law. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Duffett, Brian (trans.) 2002. Act to Introduce the Code of Crimes Against International Law. At
http://www.iuscomp.org/gla/statutes/VoeStGB.pdf.
Gaitra, Raimond 2005. “Refocusing Genocide: A Philosophical Responsibility,” in John K.
Roth (ed.), Genocide and Human Rights. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 153–66.
Geras, Norman 2005. “Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity,” in John K. Roth (ed.),
Genocide and Human Rights. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 167–80.
Goldsmith, Jack, and Stephen D. Krasner 2003. “The Limits of Idealism,” Daedalus, vol. 103,
pp. 47–63.
Heller, Kevin J. 2008. “Confronting War: Deconstructing International Criminal Law,”
Michigan Law Review, vol. 106, p. 975.
International Military Tribunal 1946. Trial of Major War Criminals, vol. 1. Nuremberg:
International Military Tribunal.
Jaspers, Karl 2006 [1962]. “Who Should Have Tried Eichmann?” Journal of International
Criminal Justice, vol. 4, pp. 853–8.
Lang, Berel 2005. “The Evil in Genocide,” in John K. Roth (ed.), Genocide and Human Rights.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 5–17.
Lee, Steven 2010. “The Moral Distinctiveness of Genocide,” Journal of Political Philosophy,
vol. 18, pp. 335–56.
Lemkin, Raphael 1945. “Genocide – A Modern Crime.” At http://www.preventgenocide.org/
lemkin/freeworld1945.htm.
Luban, David 2004. “A Theory of Crimes Against Humanity,” Yale Journal of International
Law, vol. 29, pp. 82–167.
Luban, David 2006. “Calling Genocide by Its Rightful Name: Lemkin’s Word, Darfur, and the
UN Report,” Chicago Journal of International Law, vol. 7, pp. 303–20.
Mandami, Mahmood 2008. “The New Humanitarian Order,” The Nation, September 29,
pp. 17–22.
May, Larry 2006. “Humanity, International Crime, and the Rights of Defendants,” Ethics and
International Affairs, vol. 20, pp. 373–82.
Ratner, Steven R., Jason S. Abrams, and James L. Bischoff 2009. Accountability for Human
Rights Atrocities in International Law, 3rd ed. New York: Oxford University Press.
10
Reydams, Luc 2003. “Belgium Reneges on Universality,” Journal of International Criminal

Justice, vol. 1, pp. 679–89.
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court 2002. At http://untreaty.un.org/cod/icc/
index.html.
Rubin, Alfred 1997. Ethics and Authority in International Law. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Sadat, Leila N. 2006. “Exile, Amnesty, and International Law,” Notre Dame Law Review,
vol. 81, pp. 935–1036.
Shaw, Martin 2007. What Is Genocide? Cambridge: Polity.
Skeen, Lisa 2009. “Universal Jurisdiction: Spain Steps Down.” At http://www.globalpolicy.
org/international-justice/universal-jurisdiction-6–31/48104.html.
United Nations 1948. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
UN General Assembly Res. 260 (III) A.
Vernon, Richard 2002. “What Is a Crime Against Humanity?” Journal of Political Philosophy,
vol. 10, pp. 231–49.
Wellman, Christopher Heath 2009. “Rights and State Punishment,” Journal of Philosophy,
vol. 106, pp. 419–39.
FURTHER READINGS
Bassiouni, M. Cherif 1999. Crimes Against Humanity in International Criminal Law, 2nd ed.
The Hague: Kluwer.
Bedau, Hugo A. 1974. “Genocide in Vietnam?” in Virginia Held, Sidney Morgenbesser, and
Thomas Nagel (eds.), Philosophy, Morality, and International Affairs. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Card, Claudia 2003. “Genocide and Social Death,” in John K. Roth (ed.), Genocide and
Human Rights. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 238–54.
Charny, Israel W. 1994. “Toward a Generic Definition of Genocide,” in George J. Andreopoulos
(ed.), Genocide: Conceptual and Historical Dimensions. Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press.
Fackenheim, Emil 1985. “The Holocaust and Philosophy,” Journal of Philosophy, vol. 82,
pp. 505–14.
Fine, Robert 2000. “Crimes Against Humanity: Hannah Arendt and the Nuremberg Debates,”
European Journal of Social Theory, vol. 3, pp. 293–311.
Jones, Adam 2008. Crimes Against Humanity: A Beginner’s Guide. Oxford: Oneworld.
Lackey, Douglas 1986. “Extraordinary Evil or Common Malevolence? Evaluating the Jewish
Holocaust,” Journal of Applied Philosophy, vol. 3, pp. 167–81.
Lang, Berel 1990. Act and Idea in the Nazi Genocide. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Marrus, Michael R. 1997. The Nuremberg War Crimes Trial, 1945–46. Boston: Bedford
Books.
May, Larry 2005. Crimes Against Humanity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rotberg, Robert I., and Dennis Thompson (eds.) 2000. Truth v. Justice: The Morality of Truth
Commissions. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Sartre, Jean-Paul 1968. On Genocide. Boston: Beacon.
Schwelb, Egon 1946. “Crimes Against Humanity,” British Yearbook of International Law,
vol. 23, pp. 178–226.
1
Psychopathy
Heidi L. Maibom
Psychopathy is a serious, life-long, largely untreatable disorder characterized by
abnormal emotions, impulsivity, irresponsibility, problems learning from experience,
and antisocial behavior. Psychopaths experience little guilt, remorse, or empathy
(Hare 2004; see guilt; empathy). They have also been thought to lack the ability to
love and to feel shame (Cleckley 1982). Psychopathy is of particular interest to moral
philosophers because the deficits that psychopaths suffer from are primarily moral:
they are manipulative, exploitative, pathological liars, utterly egocentric, etc. On a
conservative measure, one-third of the deficits characteristic of psychopathy is
moral, or morally relevant. And, whereas the prevalence of psychopathy is around
1 percent in the general population, roughly 20 percent of prison inmates are
psychopaths (Blair et al. 2005; Hare 1993). Psychopaths in the community, who have
never been convicted of any crime, nevertheless report engaging regularly in
immoral and illegal activities (Ishikawa et al. 2001). This strongly suggests that psy-
chopaths are immoral or amoral.
What is it about psychopaths that makes them immoral? Is there something
wrong with their reason, or is the problem their deficient emotions? (see rational-
ism in ethics; sentimentalism). It is tempting to think that an adequate answer to
this question is key to understanding the psychology of morality (see moral
psychology). Another question is whether, given their particular deficits,
psychopaths are responsible for their actions (see responsibility). These are the
two concerns that this essay addresses.
Psychopaths’ somewhat glaring absence of guilt, remorse, and empathy, in
combination with their immoral behavior, suggests that it is their deficient emotions
that are key to their immorality. This appears to support a view that dates back to the
British sentimentalists, namely that we are to look to sentiments, not reason, for the
roots of morality. Adam Smith and David Hume both saw a special role for sympa-
thy or empathy in morality (see hume, david; smith, adam; sympathy). Indeed,
Hume thought all other moral emotions arise from the propensity to feel with our
fellow man. If, therefore, this very basic emotion is disordered, or entirely absent, in
the psychopath, it is easy to see why he would be immoral. James Blair and Shaun
Nichols have both provided arguments along these lines (Blair 1995; Nichols 2002).
Humean sentimentalism is usually taken to entail motivational internalism (see
internalism, motivational). Moral judgment must be based on the emotions
because morality motivates, and only emotion (passions), not reason, motivates.
Someone with impaired moral emotions would therefore not only experience
difficulties with moral motivation, but also exhibit deficient moral judgment.
Psychopaths fit this picture. Psychopaths know what acts are morally impermissible,
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee067
2
have a decent idea of the reaction of victims, and can provide justifications for moral
norms. However, they make little, if any, distinction between conventional, but not
moral, transgressions on the one hand, and moral transgressions on the other (Blair
1995). Compared to controls, they make fewer references to others’ welfare in their
justifications, which lends further support to the idea that lack of empathy or sympathy
is at the core of psychopathic immorality. However, recent work on the distinction
between conventional and moral wrongs has thrown doubt on the centrality of harm
to ordinary moral judgment (Haidt and Joseph 2007; Kelly et al. 2007).
A different approach is to maintain that although psychopaths understand that
certain actions are morally wrong, they are nevertheless not motivated to refrain
from performing them (see externalism, motivational). Aspects of Nichols’
sentimental rules account point in this direction, although Nichols believes that lack
of affect eventually impacts moral judgment also. Most people argue that deficient
emotions affect both moral understanding (judgment) and motivation.
In addition to their affective abnormalities, psychopaths also experience
significant decision-making impairments. This facet of the disorder is often ignored
or glossed over in discussions about their immorality. That, however, is a mistake.
Although their deficits are circumscribed, psychopaths are impulsive, and have
difficulties acting in their best interests and planning ahead, certainly for the
medium and long term (Cleckley 1982; Hare 2004). Although they have no difficulty
attending to particular stimuli, their ability to attend to contextual or secondary
information is reduced. Their attention is narrow (Hiatt and Newman 2006).
Furthermore, psychopaths have problems learning to avoid punishment when the
possibility of gaining a reward competes with the avoidance of punishment, or when
it is a previously rewarded response that is punished (Newman and Kosson 1986).
On many punishment avoidance tasks, however, they experience no problems.
Once we consider the range and variety of the psychopath’s decision-making
impairments, we see that his moral deficit can be explained, not just in terms of his
deficient emotions, but also in terms of his impaired practical reason. Such an
explanation would support rationalism. Narrow attention interferes with a clear view
of what intentions one must entertain in order to achieve one’s goals. Put in Kantian
terms, psychopaths have problems forming consistent maxims (plans) for action (see
kant, immanuel). For instance, considering a variety of different necessary and suf-
ficient means in terms of their suitability and efficiency, as well as their mutual com-
patibility, presents psychopaths with something of a challenge. There are countless
anecdotes of psychopaths losing sight of their ends or the means they require to
achieve them. Hare tells of fighter pilots giving chase to the enemy with no attention to
available fuel, to geographical location, to their location with respect of other enemy
planes, and so on (Hare 1993). Most such chases ended in disaster. Choosing short-
term goals – typically goals that involve some form of immediate gratification, but
which ultimately conflicts with a longer-term goal – is typical of psychopaths. A psy-
chopath may rob a store rather than return home to pick up his wallet (Hare 1993). In
terms of reasoning about means and ends, we may say that psychopaths have difficul-
ties willing the necessary and sufficient means to their ends (Maibom 2005).
3
Somewhat surprisingly, perhaps, psychopaths’ unrealistically high opinion of

themselves and their abilities (“grandiose sense of self worth,” Hare 2004), also
impacts their decision-making. People use their abilities and skills as means to their
ends, e.g., to repair their motorcycle. It is foolish to commence repair work if one is
largely unaware of the workings of such a vehicle. Psychopaths’ schemes and plans
often go wrong precisely because they overestimate their own abilities and talents.
Some would argue that many “normal” men have the same problem, particularly
when it comes to home repairs. This may be true. Psychopaths suffer from many of
the same decision-making shortcomings as ordinary people do, but to an extreme
degree and chronically so. Contrary to some suggestions (e.g., Kennett 2002),
psychopaths are unlikely to lack the very conception of means and ends. Psychopaths
suffer from deficient attention width and span, impulsivity, deficient self-
understanding, and difficulties adjusting their responses. This may not impair their
ability to make good decisions when the situation is simple or relatively constrained.
However, the more complex a process of practical reason is, the worse psychopaths
will do. Psychopaths’ practical reason is impaired, not absent. Consequently, it is not
impossible for them to comprehend a maxim like “only do what you can will that
other people, who are in a similar position, do,” even though it seems to play little
role in their decision-making (Maibom 2005).
It is sometimes suggested that psychopathy is not a mental illness at all. Rather,
society constructs failure to conform to its basic rules as a pathology, an illness. In
fact, psychopathy is no more an illness than homosexuality is (a valid psychiatric
diagnosis only a couple of decades ago). Perhaps psychopaths are nothing more than
frontiersmen of morality and justice. Everyone will agree that being criminal, mean,
or bad is not the same as being mentally ill. Nevertheless, one rather significant
thing separates psychopaths from other criminals. They are entirely undiscerning
when it comes to victims. They may steal from their own families, cheat on their
bosses, or incriminate their children. They have no sense of loyalty, no deep or
enduring attachments, and no real ability for commitment. They would not, in other
words, thrive in a crime family. It is not just that psychopaths reject certain rules of
conduct; they reject all such rules. They appear to have no concern for others that
would make them curb their own selfish impulses.
A different, but related, suggestion is that psychopathy is an adaptation (Mealey
1997). On this picture, psychopathy is an evolved cheating strategy to social
interaction and cooperation. Having flattened affect, experiencing little empathy for
others, having no sense of loyalty or responsibility, they experience little difficulty
exploiting other people for their own ends. The fact that they begin having sex early
and with many different partners lends support to psychopathy being a somewhat
high-risk, but nevertheless viable evolutionary strategy (assuming that the obvious
fitness disadvantage to female psychopaths can be explained). Modeling such a strat-
egy, however, is quite complex (Dugatkin 1997). One difficulty with the account is
that most models require cheaters to migrate frequently from group to group under
a certain cover of anonymity. It is far from clear that Pleistocene societies lent
themselves to that sort of behavior.
4
In continuation with the debate over the nature of the psychopath’s moral deficit
is the question of their moral and legal responsibility. Some people assume that if
psychopaths are morally responsible, then they are also legally responsible (Morse
2008), whilst others believe that legal responsibility is a weaker condition than moral
responsibility (Haji 1998). Because of the size and complexity of the literature
on moral responsibility and psychopathy, I here focus on the psychopath’s
legal responsibility.
The legal responsibility debate focuses on whether or not psychopaths are
criminally insane (see insanity defense), although some argue that if psychopaths
fail to meet the criteria of legal insanity, those criteria are too strict (Morse 2008).
The current legal practice is to hold psychopaths responsible. Leaving the question
of volitional control to the side, many argue that this practice ought to be changed
because psychopaths fail to (fully) understand why what is morally wrong is wrong.
In legal terms, they lack an understanding of malum in se. Some people link this lack
of understanding to deficient rationality (e.g., Murphy 1972), others to reduced, or
absent, empathy (e.g., Morse 2008). It is difficult to argue that psychopaths have no
understanding of moral wrongs, and thus lack understanding of the wrongness of
their actions, as is required by the M’Naghten Rules for moral insanity. However, it is
evident that psychopaths have impaired moral understanding, which, under other,
more lenient, insanity defenses, might absolve them from responsibility. The Model
Penal Code, for example, excuses defendants who lack substantial capacity to
appreciate the wrongness of the criminal act in question.
One problem with allowing psychopaths’ deficient moral understanding to be
excusing is that since their disorder is arguably a moral disorder, we are, in effect,
excusing them for being bad, not mad (Maibom 2008). Psychopaths do not suffer
from a disorder that interferes with an otherwise intact ability for moral under-
standing and reasoning. In a world with no moral or social values, psychopaths
would have relatively few problems. When we further compare psychopaths with
other people having pleaded insanity, we see marked differences. Psychopaths are
neither delusional, nor do they hallucinate. In insanity defenses, it is commonly the
case that, had the defendant’s belief been true, her actions would have been blameless.
The same cannot be said for psychopaths. For the psychopath’s mistaken beliefs
concern morality, and we are not in the habit of excusing people for mistaken moral
beliefs (we do not excuse the Nazis for the Holocaust, for instance). Psychopaths
murder primarily for instrumental reasons; for revenge, to get money, sex, etc. The
instrumentality of these crimes raises further questions about the extent to which
psychopaths are unable, as opposed to unwilling, to conform their actions to the law.
Plausibly, psychopaths are bad more than they are mad, and therefore ought not be
beneficiaries of the insanity defense.
See also: empathy; externalism, motivational; guilt; hume, david;

insanity defense; internalism, motivational; kant, immanuel; moral
psychology; rationalism in ethics; responsibility; sentimentalism; smith,
adam; sympathy
5
REFERENCES
Blair, R. James 1995. “A Cognitive Developmental Approach to Morality: Investigating the
Psychopath,” Cognition, vol. 57, pp. 1–29.
Blair, R. James, Derek Mitchell, and Karina Blair 2005. The Psychopath: Emotion and the
Brain. Oxford: Blackwell.
Cleckley, Hervey 1982. The Mask of Sanity. St. Louis, MO: Mosby Co.
Dugatkin, Lee A. 1997. “The Evolution of the ‘Con-Artist,’” in Simon Baron-Cohen (ed.), The
Maladapted Mind. Hove, East Sussex: Psychology Press, pp. 189–205.
Haidt, Jonathan, and Craig Joseph 2007. “The Moral Mind: How Five Sets of Intuitions Guide
the Development of Many Culture-Specific Virtues, and Perhaps Even Modules,” in
Peter Carruthers, Stephen Laurence, and Stephen Stich (eds.), The Innate Mind, Vol. 3:
Foundations and the Future. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 367–91.
Haji, Ishtiyaque 1998. “On Psychopaths and Culpability,” Law and Philosophy, vol. 17,
pp. 117–40.
Hare, Robert 1993. Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us.
New York: Simon & Schuster.
Hare, Robert 2004. The Hare Psychopathy Checklist – Revised, 2nd ed. Toronto: Mental Health
Services.
Hiatt, Kristina, and Joseph Newman 2006. “Understanding Psychopathy: The Cognitive
Side,” in Christopher Patrick (ed.), Handbook of Psychopathy. New York: Guilford Press,
pp. 334–52.
Ishikawa, Sharon, et al. 2001. “Autonomic Stress Reactivity and Executive Functions in
Successful and Unsuccessful Criminal Psychopaths from the Community,” Journal of
Abnormal Psychology, vol. 110, pp. 423–32.
Kelly, Daniel, et al. 2007. “Harm, Affect, and the Moral/Conventional Distinction,” Mind and
Language, vol. 22, pp. 117–31.
Kennett, Jeanette 2002. “Autism, Empathy and Moral Agency,” The Philosophical Quarterly,
vol. 52, pp. 340–57.
Maibom, Heidi 2005. “Moral Unreason: The Case of Psychopathy,” Mind and Language,
vol. 20, pp. 237–57.
Maibom, Heidi 2008. “The Mad, the Bad, and the Psychopath,” Neuroethics, vol. 1, pp. 167–84.
Mealey, Linda 1997. “The Sociobiology of Sociopathy: An Integrated Evolutionary Model,” in
Simon Baron-Cohen (ed.), The Maladapted Mind. Hove, East Sussex: Psychology Press,
pp. 133–88.
Morse, Stephen 2008. “Psychopathy and Criminal Responsibility,” Neuroethics, vol. 1, pp. 205–12.
Murphy, Jeffrey 1972. “Moral Death: A Kantian Essay on Psychopathy,” Ethics, vol. 82,
pp. 284–98.
Nichols, Shaun 2002. “How Psychopaths Threaten Moral Rationalism, or Is It Irrational to be
Amoral?” The Monist, vol. 85, pp. 285–303.
1
Wang Yangming
Philip J. Ivanhoe
Wang Yangming (1472–1529) is best known for his teachings regarding the nature
of the self, moral action, and self-cultivation. In order to understand his views on
these ethical matters, one needs to understand a bit about his metaphysical beliefs,
which for the most part were shared by all neo-Confucian thinkers.
In general, neo-Confucians believe the world consists of two fundamental
constituents: li and qi (Tien 2010). Li, often translated as “principle,” is what gives
sense and shape to the phenomena of the world. Each and every thing in the world
contains within it all the li of the universe, but only certain li are manifested in
particular things and events. This is because qi, the more substantial but still vital
and active constituent of the universe, which exists in various grades of greater or
lesser purity or clarity, allows only some li to shine forth and manifest themselves.
Inanimate objects and nonhuman animals receive a fixed endowment of qi, and this
determines what they are and remain. At birth, each human being receives an
allotment of qi, some receive more and some less clear qi, and this sets and explains
the different abilities or talents they enjoy. Every human being has the ability to
refine his or her allotment of qi and thereby understand and accord with more of
the li. This roughly describes the task of self-cultivation and explains how people
can come to understand more of the world around them and improve themselves
through proper education and training (Tu 1976; Ching 1976).
Neo-Confucians also believe that all human beings share a common fundamental
or original heart-mind (ben xin). All are endowed with a complete and perfect set of
the principles that underlie, inform, and give meaning to objects and events in the
phenomenal world. Offering a variation of this general picture, Wang believed the
human heart-mind does not contain all the li of the universe but itself is principle;
it is not just a repository of information but a fully formed and active sense: the
conscious, knowing mode of principle. Wang regarded this innate sense as a kind of
moral faculty, which at times he likened to vision; drawing a term from the Mengzi
(see mencius), he called it “pure knowing” (liangzhi).
Pure knowing can guide us to unerring ethical conduct, but we need to liberate
and protect it from the impediments that interfere with its smooth and spontaneous
operation (Angle 2005). Such impediments include the various grades of impure
qi that compose the phenomenal world and which lead us to see ourselves as radi-
cally separated and alienated from other people, creatures, and things. The influence
of qi gives rise to and is compounded by excessively self-centered thoughts and
desires. Such desires take root in and consolidate the less pure substantial aspects of
the self, further agitating these impure elements, generating more turbid qi, and
further obscuring the innate principles of the heart-mind. These aspects of Wang’s
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee068
2
philosophy are shared in one form or another by almost all neo-Confucian thinkers,
but Wang offered much more detailed and developed ideas, especially on the role
that self-centered thoughts and desires play in the process of separating us from an
underlying unity with the world and the importance of regaining this sense of
connection and solidarity.
Once the heart-mind has become beclouded, one will fail to detect and pay
attention to the promptings of pure knowing. Instead of seeing the fundamental
connection between oneself and the people, creatures, and things of the world, one
will view things through a warped and discolored lens that distorts and darkens
one’s perception and presents the world as a largely hostile, objective order, which
one must control and use for one’s own advantage. The only way back to a true sense
of the nature of both self and world is by engaging and bringing into play one’s pure
knowing. Drawing upon another classical source, Wang referred to this process as
the “extension of pure knowing” (zhi liang zhi).
Since Wang held that the heart-mind is the conscious, active, and knowing mode
of principle, he insisted that learning occurs only and whenever one properly applies
one’s heart-mind to the “things” of the world. As a result, Wang understood “the
extension of pure knowing” not as the augmentation through experience and inference
of an initial, limited stock of knowledge, but as a bringing-into-play, an unfolding, or
application of all the knowledge (i.e., “principle”) one already possesses. This aspect of
his philosophy is clear in his distinctive interpretation of another classical term, gewu,
traditionally understood as “the investigation of things” but understood by Wang as
“the rectification of thoughts.” Wang’s view rests on an alternative meaning of the
word ge and the idea that, in this context, wu or “thing” refers to the responses of the
human heart-mind to all that it encounters. Thus, Wang urges us to be watchful over
our thoughts about and responses to the various phenomena we encounter. We must
ge “rectify” our wu “thoughts” and in doing so “extend pure knowing.”
Aside from appeals to classical sources, Wang advanced philosophical arguments
for these, at first sight, startling views. He began by insisting that things do not exist
in any interesting sense for us until they are perceived by the heart-mind. Objects,
events, or ideas only become “things” for us in the act of perception. This aspect of
Wang’s thought has led some people to conclude, hastily and incorrectly, that he
denied the existence of a mind-independent world. There is some similarity between
Wang’s view and Berkeley’s famous claim that to be is to perceive or be perceived
(esse est percipi), but rather than an assault on the ontological status of material
things, Wang’s teachings call us to pay attention to how we understand and respond
to the various phenomena of the world.
Wang’s point here can be understood as related to Western philosophy’s concern
with the nature of secondary qualities, though his primary interests are moral
epistemology (see epistemology, moral) and the proper way to engage in
self-cultivation (see moral development). He insists that seeking for principles by
“investigating” or exploring the objects and events of the world, “inferring” or specu-
lating about imaginary or abstract entities, or studying other people’s problems and
approaches only takes us farther and farther from what we most need: a direct and
3
vital sense of our own pure knowing. We gain such a sense only by becoming aware of
and attentive to our own responses to the actual phenomena we encounter in the
course of each day’s activity. We need to deal with the “things” in our own lives. Wang’s
primary concern was ethical knowledge, but his larger point was that, in a certain
respect, all knowledge is like this. Whenever we understand, we must grasp the point;
whenever we understand, we engage in some kind of evaluative judgment. In the case
of ethical knowledge, where affective, volitional, and dispositional issues play a critical
role in determining how well one understands and appreciates a point, his claim and
overall approach can be understood in ways that still make a good deal of sense.
Many aspects of Wang’s philosophy reviewed in the preceding text can be seen as
culminating in his most famous and influential teaching, the “unity of knowing and
acting” (zhi xing he yi), and pointing toward his ultimate ideal of “regarding Heaven,
earth, and the myriad creatures as one body” (tian di wan wu wei yi ti) (Ivanhoe
2002, 2006). As noted, Wang believed all human beings are endowed with a complete
repertoire of “principles” that enable them to understand how things are and should
be in the world. The heart-mind of human beings is principle in its knowing,
conscious mode, and by bringing the principles of the heart-mind into play, we can
understand the world around us as well as our proper place within it. Such a view
solves a number of vexing philosophical problems; for example, Wang had a coherent
account of how it is we ever could come to see that something is true. Every act of
understanding is the unimpeded operation of a faculty of sapience: “pure knowing.”
It is the unfolding of knowledge we already possess, a matching up or tallying of the
principles of the heart-mind with some phenomenon in the world. Such a view is
similar to our own notions about how the right theory “fits” the phenomena it
purports to explain and our sense that understanding is a kind of “seeing,” which we
experience when “things become clear.”
Human beings, however, are embodied creatures, and the various types of qi that
constitute our physical forms interfere with the principles of our heart-minds and
lead us to mistakenly see ourselves as separate and cut off from the myriad principles
that inform, structure, and give meaning to the rest of the world. This inclines us to
be overly self-centered, which generates selfish desires; these mislead us into acting
badly, thereby reinforcing and intensifying our sense of isolation and alienation.
In order to overcome these pernicious tendencies, we must learn to “rectify our
heart-minds” by “extending pure knowing” as we interact with and act in the world
each day. Rather than thinking about ethics, we are to think ethically about
everything we do.
Once we begin to cultivate the required awareness and attentiveness, our pure
knowing will start to inform and guide us. Like sun shining on thin ice, pure knowing
has the power to melt away and loosen the grip of self-centered desires and light
our path toward the Way. This process will move us from ordinary knowledge
(chang zhi) to real knowledge (zhen zhi). Roughly speaking, we will move from
knowing about ethics to possessing active and committed ethical understanding.
The latter is largely constituted by a strong disposition to attend and respond affec-
tively to ethical situations and act properly and without hesitation. This is the crux
4
of Wang’s teaching of the “unity of knowing and acting.” He insisted there is no real
moral knowledge that does not lead one to act; one cannot really possess moral
knowledge if one has not properly engaged in moral activity.
This constellation of views led Wang to proclaim that we should “regard Heaven,
earth, and the myriad creatures as one body.” He is not claiming that we are or can
be physically coextensive with all the things of the world. Rather, he is invoking the
notion that there is a deep and undeniable connection between each of us and every
aspect of reality. We are “one” in the sense of sharing a common stock of principles,
which link and lead us to care, in varying ways and degrees, about the world. It is not
that the world would not exist without the human heart-mind, but rather that it
would not be what it is without the shared interaction between it and human beings.
For Wang, the teaching that we are one body with the myriad creatures was not just
true but of ultimate significance; realizing this state defined and constituted the goal
of his ethical and spiritual practice. Those who really understand, who themselves
embody this fact about the world, will feel and act accordingly. Knowing and acting
will form a unity and lead them to care in the right ways, to the right degree, for the
right reasons for everything in the universe.
See also: epistemology, moral; mencius; moral development
REFERENCES
Angle, Stephen C. 2005. “Sagely Ease and Moral Perception,” Dao: A Journal of Comparative
Philosophy, vol. 5, no. 1, Winter, pp. 31–56.
Ching, Julia 1976. To Acquire Wisdom: The Way of Wang Yang-ming. New York: Columbia
University Press.
Ivanhoe, Philip J. 2002. Ethics in the Confucian Tradition: The Thought of Mengzi and Wang
Yangming, rev. 2nd ed. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Ivanhoe, Philip J. 2006. Confucian Moral Self Cultivation, rev. 2nd ed. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Tien, David W. 2010. “Metaphysics and the Basis of Morality in the Philosophy of Wang
Yangming,” in John Makeham (ed.), Neo-Confucian Philosophy. New York: Springer.
Tu Wei-ming 1976. Neo-Confucian Thought in Action: Wang Yang-ming’s Youth (1472–1509).
Berkeley: University of California Press.
FURTHER READINGS
Chan, Wing-tsit 1963. Tr. Instructions for Practical Living and Other Neo-Confucian Writings
by Wang Yang-ming. New York: Columbia University Press.
Ching, Julia 1973. Tr. The Philosophical Letters of Wang Yang-ming. Columbia: University of
South Carolina Press.
Dumoulin, Heinrich 1988. Zen Buddhism: A History, Volume I: India and China. New York:
Macmillan.
Ivanhoe, Philip J. 2009. Tr. Readings from the Lu-Wang School of Neo-Confucianism.
1
Children’s Rights
David Archard
Key Questions
Any discussion of children’s rights must ask whether children do have rights and,
if they do, what rights they have. It should at the outset acknowledge the basic
distinction between moral and legal or positive rights (see rights). The latter are
those rights which, as a matter of fact, have been accorded to persons in law or
by existing institutional rules; the former are those rights whose ascription to
individuals can be morally justified. Clearly moral rights need not be positively
recognized, and, conversely, those rights that individuals are given in law may lack
any moral warrant.
The importance of the discussion of children’s rights lies in at least three
considerations. First, it touches on the moral and political status of children (see
moral status). In particular, how should we compare and contrast that status with
the moral status of adult human beings? Are children adults-in-the-making, merely
tinier versions of adults, or are children fundamentally different in their nature to
adults? Second, rights serve as powerful constraints on the actions of states and
they also impose stringent obligations upon states. What must governments do for
children and what are governments forbidden from doing to children if they do have
rights? Third, major social institutions will be shaped by the existence of children’s
rights. What understandings of family and of parenthood are required if children do
possess rights (see family; parents’ rights and responsibilities)?
Children’s Rights as a Test Case

One dispute within the vast literature on rights addresses the question of what it is
for a right to be held. The dispute is between the will or choice theory (Hart 1973;
Steiner 1998; see hart, h. l. a.) and the interest or welfare theory (Raz 1984). The
former views a right as the power to enforce or waive the duty correlate with the
right; the latter views a right as protecting an interest of enough importance to
impose duties on others to allow the rights holder to enjoy that interest.
Children supply a test case for the resolution of this dispute in the following
manner. The will theory alleges that children lack rights since they cannot exercise
the choices that qualify persons to be holders of rights. Thus if children do have
rights the will theory must be false (MacCormick 1982). Children do however have
interests of sufficient importance to accord them rights, a fact that counts in favor
of the interest theory. On the other hand, if the will theory can be shown independently
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee069
2
to be justified then the starting assumption that children do have rights will need to
be abandoned.
A will theorist may allow that children do have rights but assert that those who
exercise the relevant choices will be their representatives (Hart 1973: 184 n.86). Or
he may insist that although children lack rights, adults nevertheless have duties
toward them. There are duties for which there are no correlate rights. Humans are
arguably obliged not to treat animals cruelly without it following that the latter
possess rights. Perhaps everything we might wish to see done for children can be
morally mandated without according them rights.
United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child

No contemporary discussion of children’s rights can ignore the legal and political
reality that there is in force an international, positive legal instrument, the United
Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). The Convention is one of
the most important international covenants of rights (see international bill of
rights). Since its adoption by the United Nations in 1989 it has been ratified by all
but two states – the United States of America and Somalia. The Convention has
exercised a clear influence on the way in which those charged with protecting the
interests of children have understood and exercised their role, clearly laying out the
obligations upon state parties, some of whom have incorporated it into domestic law.
The widespread influence of the Convention has largely been to the benefit of
children in areas such as child mortality, education, child labor, trafficking, and
exploitation (see child abuse and neglect), the use of corporal punishment
(see corporal punishment), and child soldiering. The Convention’s influence
can also be seen in the significant amount of agreement as to those rights that chil-
dren are thought to have if they have any at all. Moreover as an international instru-
ment of law the Convention has global import applying to all children wherever
they live.
The evident status of the UNCRC provides anyone seriously concerned about the
well-being of children with good reasons to support it. Even those persuaded that it
is fundamentally mistaken to think of children as possessed of rights, or who believe
that the Convention misrepresents the rights that children do have, may nevertheless
think that the Convention ought to be defended.
The UNCRC offers a now familiar typology of the different kinds of rights that
children might have: protection, provision, and participation rights. Provision
rights supply children with important goods or benefits, such as health, an adequate
standard of living, and education. Protection rights give children safeguards
against various forms of unacceptable treatment, such as abuse, cruelty, neglect, and
exploitation. Finally, participation rights allow children to take part, as independent
agents, in important activities, such as expressing their views, practicing the religion
of their choice, associating with others, and peaceful assembly.
Defenders of the UNCRC see all of its enumerated rights as fully consistent one
with another. Critics, even sympathetic ones, are disposed to point to a key tension
3
at the heart of the UNCRC, and indeed all accounts of children’s rights. This is
between an essentially paternalistic view of the child as in need of protection against
the actions of adults (see paternalism), and an “empowering” view of children as
active persons who should be encouraged to shape their own lives.
Do Children Have Rights?

There is a range of answers to this section’s question. At one extreme is the
“liberationist” thesis that children should have all the rights that adults have.
“Liberationists” think of the denial of rights to children as analogous to the oppression
of other groups, such as women and ethnic minorities. They argue that an ideology of
“childishness” gives false support to the artificial separation of childhood incapacity
from adult competence (Farson 1974; Holt 1974; Cohen 1980).
At the other extreme of views is the simple denial that children can properly be
seen as bearers of moral rights (Griffin 2002). This is normally argued for by an
appeal to the qualifying grounds for the holding of rights. Thus, it will be said that
in order to have rights one must have a certain basic competence or capacity –
an understanding of one’s own interests or the possession of autonomy, for exam-
ple. Children, it will be asserted, lack such a capacity and thus cannot be rights
holders.
Between these two extremes various other views are possible. It might be
claimed that some children have adult rights. However, this may amount to not much
more than a bid to redraw the boundaries between childhood incompetence and
adult competence. For instance, some classes of persons – such as adolescents – are
arguably wrongly classified as childish and denied their proper rights.
Another view is that children have some of but not all of those rights which
adults have. Joel Feinberg (1980) distinguishes between A-rights, those that only
adults possess, C-rights, those that only children possess, and A-C rights, those
possessed by both adults and children (see feinberg, joel). There is, for instance,
the view that children have fundamental interests which should be protected by
welfare rights, but lack the agency which would make appropriate the attribution
to them of liberty rights (Brighouse 2002).
A still further view is that children have rights but they do so only in the person,
as it were, of the adults they will become. Feinberg categorizes these as constituting
a subclass of C-rights which he terms “rights-in-trust.” The basic idea is that children
possess these rights as the essential prerequisites of developing into adults who will
themselves be equipped to possess and exercise their rights. The single general right
that Feinberg believes captures this kind of entitlement is the “right to an open
future,” namely a right to the greatest possible capacities of adult choice across the
widest possible range of options. Feinberg’s idea of such a right has been enormously
influential. However, it has also been extensively criticized on the grounds that it
is impossible to keep any life completely open, and that no reasonable account of
parenthood could expect, or indeed want, parents to give their children as open a
future as possible (Mills 2003).
4
The Grounds of Skepticism about Children’s Rights

On the whole, philosophers are skeptical about the liberationist idea that children
have adult rights. But the grounds of their skepticism differ interestingly, and it is
important to distinguish various lines of criticism.
First, there is a view that we can best capture what is morally owed to children in
terms of the obligations that we adults owe to them rather than by seeing children as
the holders of rights. Obligations rather than rights have moral primacy (O’Neill
1988). Parents have particular obligations to their own children. All adults have
obligations not to abuse any child. Yet we also have imperfect obligations in respect
of children – to prevent their abuse, for instance. The precise content of such
imperfect obligations cannot be made determinate, nor is it clear what exactly each
of us should do for any child. Yet an insistence upon the discharge of these duties to
children rather than an ascription to them of rights best expresses their moral status.
Moreover, the argument of O’Neill continues, it may make no sense to assert or
claim rights to certain forms of treatment in the absence of institutional arrangements
and practices which identify the agents who must provide the relevant goods and
services and what it is exactly that they must provide. Without such arrangements
the language of rights is mere rhetoric.
In response it will be suggested that the assertion of the moral primacy of
obligations over rights needs further argument. Moreover it is unclear why we
should not think of children as having rights that correlate with the imperfect
obligations. Further, rights can surely be claimed even though institutional
arrangements for determining who should discharge the correlate obligations are
not in place. Indeed the point of claiming rights is to demand that such institutional
arrangements should be put in place.
Those who deny that children lack rights will insist that they do not suffer in
consequence so long as adults discharge their duties to them. Moreover children,
in being denied rights, are not the victims of a permanent and enduring injustice
inasmuch as they will in the normal course of events grow up to be the adults who
do have and exercise rights.
A second ground for skepticism about children’s rights can be found in an
appreciation of the family. The family is an important and immensely valuable
institution, both in itself for the way in which it greatly enriches the lives of its
members, and for the role it can play in the preparation of its dependent children for
their eventual adult lives. Families are constituted by relationships of mutual
affection, sympathy, and support. They flourish insofar as these relationships are
maintained and supported. However, the according of rights to children is thought
by some to be subversive of those relationships (Schrag 1980).
In line with this criticism is a more general skepticism about the way in which rights
are destructive of certain forms of human community. Certain kinds of relationship,
especially those marked by bonds of affection, love, and trust, cannot flourish, it will be
said, if those within them assert rights to the behavior which normally flows from these
bonds. The reply is that the actual making of claims rather than the simple possession
5
of an entitlement erodes valued relationships. Furthermore, rights are needed when

those relationships break down. A loved child in a flourishing family does not need to
assert her right to good parenting, whereas a neglected or abused child in a dysfunctional
family does need to be able to claim her right not to be treated in this fashion.
A third ground for skepticism about children’s rights appeals to what is needed if
adults are to lead certain kinds of lives (Purdy 1992). For adults to pursue their goals
in a meaningful fashion they must acquire particular traits of character. Ensuring
that they do this means denying their earlier childish selves the liberty of making
choices. If we give children such a liberty then they will behave in ways that erode or
destroy the conditions for the acquisition of those traits they need as adults to lead
valuable lives.
The Qualifying Capacity of Rights

The argument that infers the nonpossession by children of rights from their alleged
lack of a qualifying competence has already been noted above. Two further comments
are in order. First, it is a mistake to think of the relevant competence – be it autonomy
(see autonomy) or rationality (see rationality) – as either possessed completely
or lacked completely. Children acquire capacities gradually and display them to some
degree. Moreover, children may only acquire the capacities in question if they are
allowed, indeed encouraged, to exercise those powers they do have.
Second, the claim that children lack the qualifying capacities for rights is charged
by liberationists with arbitrariness. The charge is that the denial of adult rights to
children rests on a putative difference between adults and children that cannot
justify a significant distinction in moral status. The line drawn between adulthood
and childhood is an arbitrary one. The charge is not that the line is drawn in the
wrong place; it is that it is wrong to draw any line. The charge need not be that there
are no differences between children and adults; only that the differences are
insignificant at the margins of each class (say between a 17¾-year-old and an
18-year-old) and thus not such as to warrant the distinction in status drawn between
the two.
The charge of arbitrariness could be made against any line-drawing which
distinguishes between classes of persons, actions, or whatever, with the intention of
denying to members of one class what is accorded to the other. Yet line-drawing in
this fashion is inevitable, and it is motivated by a reasonable conviction that the two
classes do, as classes, differ sufficiently to warrant the difference in treatment.
Moreover, the only alternative to line-drawing that does not concede all adult rights
to every child is the provision of a testing procedure whereby each individual might
be determined as having or not having the requisite qualification for treatment. For
example, the competency of every young person would have to be assessed before
any rights are accorded or withheld. Yet such a test would be immensely costly,
cumbersome, might be exploited for iniquitous purposes, need not be fairly admin-
istered, and would be beset by the problems of agreeing clear criteria of the relevant
competence.
6
Whose Right to Decide?

If children do not have any rights or if they lack liberty rights to make their own
choices, then there is the obvious question of who decides for them. An answer
to this question will broach interesting matters that have to do with the rights of
parents – their source, scope, and ultimate identification – and with the proper lim-
its of the state’s role in determining how any child shall be brought up. However, it
is important here to note that it does not automatically follow from the fact that
children do not have rights to decide their own lives that their parents have the
rights to make those decisions for them.
In a famous English legal case one of the judges, Lord Scarman, identified as an
“underlying principle of law” that “parental right yields to the child’s right to make
his own decisions when he reaches a sufficient understanding and intelligence to be
capable of making up his own mind on the matter requiring decision” (Gillick v.
West Norfolk 1986: 186). His comments might suggest that either a parent decides
for a child or a child decides for herself. But these are not mutually exclusive
alternatives. If a parent does have a right to decide for a child this cannot be just because
the child does not have a right to decide for herself. Why, for instance, should not the
state or an appropriately qualified expert decide for the child?
A Child’s Right to Be Heard

Lord Scarman’s dictum expresses the idea that when a child sufficiently understands
a matter affecting his interests then he has a right to decide, and thus that he may
exercise that right even below the age set in law as marking the formal acquisition of
this right. Article 12.1 of the UNCRC gives every child a right freely to express her
views on matters affecting the child, those views being given “due weight in
accordance with the age and maturity of the child.” This is a right not to decide
what shall happen but to represent how one would wish things to happen, with
the important further qualification that this expression of views should have more
influence on the outcome the more that the child understands matters.
This right is a central right of the UNCRC. It is often cited as the key “participation”
right whose content, as indicated above, is in tension with that of those rights
that aim to protect children, underpinned most obviously by the requirement to
promote the “best interests” of the child. It is a right that can be found in various
instruments of domestic law which legislate on children’s issues.
How exactly might one “weight” the views of a child in proportion to her maturity?
In situations where there may be a limited number of alternative outcomes and the
child expresses a clear preference for one of them, how does giving “due weight” to her
view affect the eventual decision? A further question concerns how one might balance
her right to express her views against the requirement to promote her best interests.
A fundamental issue is what warrant there is for giving any weight to the
child’s voice and for recognizing the right in question. We may distinguish between
regarding children’s voices as authoritative and taking them as consultative. A view is
7
the former when it is sufficient for determining what someone’s interests are in the
context of taking a decision on some matter affecting them; a view is consultative if
we do not treat it as sufficient but nevertheless think the author of that view has a
right to express it. Arguably a child’s views are consultative whereas an adult’s are
authoritative (Brighouse 2003).
On one account the child’s views have consultative value inasmuch as they allow
those adults making decisions in the best interest of the child to form a better
judgment of the optimal outcome. Knowing what the child thinks and wants may
help us determine what is best; it also informs a balanced evaluation of the costs of
implementing a decision which may run against the grain of the child’s views.
However, on another account the right any child capable of forming a view has to
express it on a matter affecting her is not a right to be consulted for these instrumental
purposes. Nor is it a right to attempt to persuade adults that she is mature enough to
make her own choices. Rather, it is a right to express a view because one has a view
and can express it; it is the fundamental right to be involved as the source of views in
a deliberative process whereby an outcome affecting one’s interests is determined.
Conclusion
No one denies that children have a moral and political status, and that institutions
and practices should, in consequence, be designed to honor and to protect that status.
The general disposition of philosophers not to accord children rights may reflect the
fact that the dominant accounts in moral and political theory are unsympathetic to
the idea of children as full members of the community. For instance, those who
contractually agree upon the principles of justice in Rawls’ (1971) influential
hypothetical scenario are so represented – possessed of settled plans of life and
rational – as clearly to exclude the participation of children (see rawls, john). The
interesting philosophical challenge then is to devise a theoretical approach which
accurately captures what is owed to children but which does not merely understand
them privatively in terms of the adult characteristics they lack. Whether or not
children do have all, some, or none of the rights that adults possess, some plausible
account needs to be given of their distinctive moral and political status.
See also: autonomy; child abuse and neglect; corporal punishment;

family; feinberg, joel; hart, h. l. a.; international bill of rights; moral
status; parents’ rights and responsibilities; paternalism; rationality;
rawls, john; rights
REFERENCES
Brighouse, Harry 2002. “What Rights (if any) Do Children Have?” in David Archard and
Colin Macleod (eds.), The Moral and Political Status of Children. Oxford: Oxford
8
Brighouse, Harry 2003. “How Should Children Be Heard?” Arizona Law Review, vol. 45,
pp. 691–711.
Cohen, Howard 1980. Equal Rights for Children. Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Littlefield.
Farson, Richard 1974. Birthrights. London: Collier Macmillan.
Feinberg, Joel 1980. “The Child’s Right to an Open Future,” in W. Aiken and H. LaFollette
(eds.), Whose Child? Children’s Rights, Parental Authority, and State Power. Totowa,
NJ: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 128–53.
Gillick v. West Norfolk and Wisbech Area Health Authority 1986. AC 112.
Griffin, James 2002. “Do Children Have Rights?” in David Archard and Colin Macleod (eds.),
The Moral and Political Status of Children. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 19–30.
Hart, H. L. A. 1973. “Bentham on Legal Rights,” in A. W. Simpson (ed.), Oxford Essays in
Jurisprudence, 2nd series. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 171–201.
Holt, John 1974. Escape from Childhood: The Needs and Rights of Children. Harmondsworth:
Penguin.
MacCormick, N. 1982. “Children’s Rights: A Test-Case,” in Legal and Social Democracy.
Mills, Claudia 2003. “The Child’s Right to an Open Future,” Journal of Social Philosophy,
vol. 34, no. 4, pp. 499–509.
O’Neill, Onora 1988. “Children’s Rights and Children’s Lives,” Ethics, vol. 98, pp. 445–563.
Purdy, L. M. 1992. In Their Best Interest? The Case Against Equal Rights for Children. Ithaca:
Raz, Joseph 1984. “Legal Rights,” Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 1–21.
Schrag, Francis 1980. “Children: Their Rights and Needs,” in W. Aiken and H. LaFollette
(eds.), Whose Child? Parental Rights, Parental Authority and State Power. Totowa,
NJ: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 237–53.
Steiner, Hillel 1998. An Essay on Rights. Oxford: Blackwell.
FURTHER READINGS
Archard, David 2004. Children: Rights and Childhood, 2nd ed. London: Routledge.
Archard, David, and Colin Macleod (eds.) 2002. The Moral and Political Status of Children.
Archard, David, and Skivenes, Marit 2009. “Balancing a Child’s Best Interests and a Child’s
Views,” International Journal of Children’s Rights, vol. 17, pp. 1–21.
Blustein, Jeffrey 1982. Parents and Children: The Ethics of the Family. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Brennan, Samantha, and Rob Noggle 1997. “The Moral Status of Children: Children’s Rights,
Parents’ Rights, and Family Justice,” Social Theory and Practice, vol. 23, pp. 1–26.
Coady, C. A. J. 1992. “Theory, Rights and Children: A Comment on O’Neill and Campbell,”
in P. Alston, S. Parker, and J. Seymour (eds.), Children, Rights and the Law. Oxford:
Eekelaar, John 1986. “The Emergence of Children’s Rights,” Oxford Journal of Legal Studies,
vol. 6, pp. 161–82.
LeBlanc, Lawrence J. 1997. The Convention on the Rights of the Child: United Nations
Lawmaking on Human Rights. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Liao, S. Matthew 2000. “The Right of Children to Be Loved”. D.Phil thesis, University of Oxford.
9
Lotz, M. 2006. “Feinberg, Mills, and the Child’s Right to an Open Future,” Journal of Social
Philosophy, vol. 37, no. 4, pp. 537–51.
Sumner, L. W. 1987. The Moral Foundation of Rights. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Wald, M. 1979. “Children’s Rights: A Framework for Analysis,” University of California at
Davis Law Review, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 255–82.
Worsfold, V. L. 1974. “A Philosophical Justification for Children’s Rights,” Harvard Educational
Review, vol. 44, no. 1, pp. 142–57.
Wringe, Colin 1981. Children’s Rights. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
1
Psychiatric Ethics
John McMillan
As is the case for other medical specialties, many ethical issues in psychiatry are
generic problems for medicine. Issues such as research on human subjects, consent
to treatment, and the basis of professional obligations are generally relevant to
medicine and are discussed under other headings (see bioethics; consent;
research ethics). However, there are some other ethical issues that, although
common to other areas in medicine, are particularly relevant to psychiatry. The
creation of new diseases in order to create a market for pharmaceuticals is a key
challenge to psychiatry, but one that is also discussed under other headings (see
disease mongering; psychopharmacology).
Many difficult moral problems in psychiatry result from a tension between
respect for autonomy and beneficence. Because mental illnesses can compro-
mise rationality and lead people to act in ways that might be, or appear to be,
harmful to them, paternalism and its limits are core ethical issues (see auton-
omy; paternalism). This essay will begin by discussing involuntary treatment
and related concepts such as antipsychiatry, paternalism in psychiatry, compe-
tence, and suicide.
There are moral problems that have a broad scope but that become acute in the
context of psychiatry and therefore merit discussion in this essay. Controversial
treatments, i.e., ones for which there is little evidence of therapeutic effect, but good
reasons for supposing they might cause harm, are generally important for medicine
but especially so for psychiatry where patients have been subjected to very invasive
procedures that have harmed them significantly. Confidentiality is likewise impor-
tant in many domains but especially so in psychiatry where patients are more likely
to disclose information that is relevant to protecting others from being harmed (see
confidentiality).
Involuntary Treatment
The most commonly debated and controversial ethical issue in psychiatry is the use
of involuntary treatment and detention. Most countries have legislation that makes
it possible for treatment or confinement to be compelled because of mental illness.
Whether or not compulsion is justified involves weighing up a number of different
considerations, including the extent to which a person’s rationality is compromised,
the significance of the harm to be prevented, and the harmfulness of compulsion.
Clearly, compulsion of any kind has a degree of badness in that it involves overriding
a desire, if not the rational will, of the person concerned. The following sections
explore these considerations in more depth.
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee070
2
Coercion vs. Compulsion

Before examining involuntary treatment, it is useful to distinguish between the
two ways in which persons can be treated or detained when this is contrary to
their will. There is an empirical literature on the prevalence of coercion by mental
health services (Poulsen 2002). A feature of this literature is that it tends to use
“coercion” and “compulsion” interchangeably (see coercion). There is an impor-
tant similarity between these concepts, in that they both involve overriding what
it is that a person would otherwise want to do, and mean that a person did not
perform an action voluntarily. In other words, compulsion and coercion imply
that a person should not be held morally responsible (see responsibility). How-
ever, there is an important moral difference between these concepts. While there
are a number of competing accounts of coercion, most of them say that coercion
involves making a threat or promise about what will happen to a person unless
they take a particular course of action. In a mental health context, telling a psychi-
atric patient that “you must take your lithium or I will invoke the Mental Health
Act” is an instance of coercion: legislation that can compel is used as a threat.
Even though they are given a choice between taking lithium or being sectioned
under mental health legislation, because the second option is not something
they want to happen, we are justified in describing their taking of lithium as an
involuntary act.
Voluntariness can also be overridden by compulsion. If the attempted coercion is
unsuccessful and the patient is physically escorted to the psychiatric hospital, then it
is more accurate to describe their admission as compelled.
Both coercion and compulsion are bad to some degree, in that they always involve
overriding what a person would otherwise do. However, the likelihood that compul-
sion will involve a degree of physical force instead of a threat or promise means that,
all other things being equal, it is likely to be morally worse.
When involuntary treatment is justified, its badness must be weighed against the
harm to be prevented and the extent to which that agent is rational. If patients are
treated against their will, it is right that coercion and compulsion are minimized.
This thought has been adopted as a legal principle in mental health legislation. For
example, the English Mental Capacity Act says that before a patients’ liberty is
constrained “… regard must be had to whether the purpose for which it is needed
can be as effectively achieved in a way that is less restrictive of the person’s rights and
freedom of action” (2005, 1.6).
Antipsychiatry
During the 1960s and 1970s, discussions of ethics and psychiatry tended to focus on
involuntary psychiatric treatment. The most critical position is “antipsychiatry.”
This is not a straightforward view to define because it is a reaction to involuntary
treatment but also a therapeutic approach to psychiatry (Laing 1960) and an
epistemic position on psychiatry (Szasz 1961; Cooper 1970). Which of these
3
elements is emphasized depends upon the antipsychiatrist concerned. While a num-

ber of related but disparate views are grouped under this term, they all seem to
involve the denial that mental illnesses are genuine diseases. Mental illnesses are
simply patterns of behavior that others find objectionable or deviant.
In actual contemporary social usage, the finding of a mental illness is made by

establishing a deviance in behaviour from certain psychosocial, ethical or legal
norms. The judgment may be made, as in medicine, by the patient, the physician
(psychiatrist) or others. Remedial action, finally, tends to be sought in a therapeutic
or covertly medical framework, thus creating a situation in which psychosocial,
ethical and/or legal deviations are claimed to be correctible by (so-called) medical
action. (Szasz 1961: 105)
Antipsychiatrists do not claim that there is no such thing as mental illness; instead,
they think that it masquerades as a scientific concept when in fact it is a judgment
about deviancy. A good example of this is the way that psychiatry was used for
oppression within the USSR where political dissidents were often described as
mentally unwell because they disagreed with the communist state. While Eastern
European states have more liberal legal and psychiatric practices now, using mental
illness for oppression is recent history (Chodoff 1999). Another example is the way
that homosexuality was classified as a mental disorder by the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders up until 1972 (in the subsequent version, it
was reclassified as a “Sexual Orientation Disturbance” (Spitzer 1981).
There’s no doubt that psychiatry can and has been used for broader social purposes
and that treating people involuntarily for this reason is immoral. However, the fact
that mental illness has been used for these purposes does not mean that it is always
used in this way.
Abolitionism vs. Antipsychiatry

While antipsychiatrists believe that all forms of involuntary treatment are unjustifi-
able, they also have a cluster of other skeptical beliefs about psychiatry. While antip-
sychiatrists are the strongest opponents of involuntary treatment, it is possible to
believe that mental illnesses are genuine disease entities, and that it is always wrong
to treat people against their will (Morse 1982). For this reason, it is useful to distin-
guish “abolitionism,” the view that involuntary psychiatric treatment is always
wrong, from “antipsychiatry.”
Given that it is possible to be an abolitionist and not an antipsychiatrist, this raises
a question about the connection between the justification for involuntary treatment
and antipsychiatry. It is possible to believe that antipsychiatry is true and abolition-
ism is false. Antipsychiatrists such as Szasz believe that involuntary treatment is
always wrong and therefore are abolitionists. However, it might be that mental
illnesses are not real disease entities, and that they refer to deviancy, but that this is
consistent with involuntary treatment being justifiable in some cases.
4
Action Failure and Justifying Paternalism

One response to antipsychiatry is to defend a concept of mental illness that
incorporates a plausible justification for treatment. Evaluative accounts of mental
illness, such as those developed by Fulford (1989) and Nordenfelt (2007), unpack
the concept of illness by showing that all mental illnesses have at their core the
disruption of rationality. This might be taken to imply that evaluative accounts
address the most plausible justification for compulsory treatment: the disruption of
rationality provides a prima facie case for treatment. While these accounts are right
to emphasize the relationship between mental illness and compromised rationality,
more needs to be said about why and whether the presence of a mental illness implies
that treatment, involuntary or otherwise, is warranted. If involuntary treatment can
be justified, it must be a moral and political justification that involves the careful
balancing of the right to self determination, the extent to which rationality is
compromised, the harmfulness of not treating, and the likelihood of treatment
benefiting.
Hard vs. Soft Paternalism

Treating a psychiatric patient involuntarily for the sake of his own good is an
instance of paternalism. Whether or not paternalism is justified depends on a
number of factors, including the extent to which a person is rational and able to
express what it is that he would prefer to happen to him. It is important to distin-
guish hard paternalism from soft. Hard paternalism is usually understood to
involve treatments that are “… intended to benefit a person despite the fact that
the person’s risky choices and actions are informed, voluntary, and autonomous”
(Beauchamp and Childress 1994: 277). The freedom to make decisions about our
lives even when others think that we might be making a mistake is often a funda-
mental right (see mill, john stuart; libertarianism). Hard paternalism involves
overriding fully rational choices and, in most cases, will therefore involve this
right being violated.
Soft paternalism, on the other hand, involves treating “on grounds of beneficence
or nonmaleficence only to prevent substantially nonvoluntary conduct – that is,
to protect persons against their own substantially nonautonomous action(s)”
(Beauchamp and Childress 1994: 277). When a person’s capacity for voluntary
action is significantly impaired by mental illness (as is claimed by the evaluative
account of mental illness), then treatment that aims at protecting that person would
be an instance of soft paternalism.
Soft paternalism is more likely to be defensible because it does not involve
overriding fully rational choices. However, it does not follow from this that soft
paternalism is always justified. Those who have mental illness continue to have an
interest in making their own decisions and not being compelled. Determining when
soft paternalism is warranted involves giving due weight to self-determination even
when that person is not rational.
5
Fully Voluntary, Involuntary and Nonvoluntary Actions

Feinberg distinguishes actions that are “fully voluntary, involuntary and nonvolun-
tary” (1986: 104; see feinberg, joel). For Feinberg, fully voluntary actions are those
performed by adults in “full control of their deliberative faculties.” Involuntary
actions are those which are clearly not causally related to the agency of that person.
For example, a person who finds himself transported somewhere by the wind might
claim that this action was involuntary because the cause of this action did not origi-
nate in his agency. Likewise, a person who eats arsenic after believing it to be a cube
of sugar has in one sense killed herself but at the same time her death did not result
from the causality of her agency.
Mental illness can cause a person’s actions to become involuntary if they are
sufficiently grave to radically misinform the person about the nature of the action
they are performing, or cause them to lose any control over their actions. A plausible
example of the first kind of case is a patient who, due to paranoid schizophrenia,
believes that all of the people in the room are aliens seeking to brainwash her. Actions
that she performs on the basis of this misinformation might be considered involun-
tary. A plausible, albeit somewhat problematic example of the second kind of case is
when a person is so affectively flat because of severe depression that he is physically
unable to eat. If he lacks the ability to control his actions to an extreme degree, then
we might be warranted in describing his failure to eat as involuntary. If, in these
cases, it is also possible to intervene so as to avoid a serious harm to those
persons, then there is a prima facie case for thinking that involuntary treatment
might be warranted.
While there are some cases where it is justifiable to describe a person as fully
voluntary or so compromised that their actions are involuntary, there is a broad
spectrum between these extremes. Feinberg describes actions for which an agent
should be held fully responsible, yet fall short of involuntary, as nonvoluntary. If
mental illness causes a person’s actions to become nonvoluntary or even “substan-
tially nonvoluntary,” it is less clear that compulsory treatment has a sound moral
justification. Our choices and actions are often less than “fully voluntary,” and it
would be highly inappropriate in many of these cases to interfere with our liberty.
For example, someone might have an irrational fear of all medications and refuse
antidepressants on this basis. In this kind of case, we might consider their choice and
action nonvoluntary, to some extent, but it would still be inappropriate to force
treatment upon them.
How Nonvoluntary?
How nonvoluntary does a person’s behavior have to be before we are justified in
overriding their autonomy? Feinberg (1986), along with Buchanan and Brock
(1990), claim that we should weigh the degree of nonvoluntariness against the
risk of harm in order to determine whether paternalism is justified. Compulsory
treatment is always serious and significant, so it is important that it only occurs
6
when the risks are quite high and the degree of involuntariness quite severe.
Mental health legislation tends to require a significant degree of risk before per-
mitting compulsory treatment, so perhaps they often succeed in balancing
risk and “nonvoluntariness” in the right way. In any case, there is a good case
for at least some instances of compulsory treatment being justified on soft
paternalist grounds.
Harm to Self vs. Harm to Others

While there are at least some cases where involuntary treatment is justified on soft
paternalism grounds, there is another kind of case where mental legislation permits
psychiatric patients to be treated against their will. Mental health legislation includes
harm-to-self and harm-to-others conditions within the same legislation (Bartlett
and Sandland 2003), so it is important to distinguish between the different
justifications that these conditions require. Even the most ardent defenders of
liberty place constraints upon the liberty rights of persons (see harm principle). In
some respects, the harm-to-others justification for involuntary treatment is more
straightforward, given that the status of the relevant harm does not depend on the
evaluation of the person whose liberty has been restricted. Harm-to-self cases do
depend on that person’s evaluation and, for this reason, raise important questions
about the probability of this person endorsing that restriction of their liberty at a
future time.
Nonetheless, involuntary psychiatric treatment so as to prevent harm to others is
more problematic than other kinds of medical treatment. Most countries have public
health legislation that makes it possible to quarantine and treat involuntarily those
who have contracted contagious and harmful illnesses such as tuberculosis. If this
kind of legislation is justified, it is a classic harm-to-others justification. However,
while this might be thought to imply that there is a straightforward analogy between
a public health intervention and involuntary treatment for mental illness, there are
some important disanalogies. The risk of infection and spread of tuberculosis is well
known and capable of being predicted with some accuracy, while risk prediction for
mental illnesses is notoriously difficult.
There are clinical appropriate treatments for infectious diseases such as
tuberculosis and, while this is also the case for some of the mental illnesses that
might result in harm to others, such as schizophrenia, many of the relevant mental
illnesses (such as antisocial personality disorder) are notoriously difficult to treat
(see psychopathy). At least those who are treated involuntarily for an infectious
disease are likely to benefit from treatment.
Competence/Capacity and Compulsory Treatment

Competence (in North America) and capacity (in the United Kingdom) are concepts
that determine whether a patient has the right to consent to treatment. Judging a
patient to be competent involves assessing his or her decision-making ability so as
7
determine whether it meets a sufficiently high level. There are good reasons for
supposing that competence to consent is a normative concept, i.e., that it involves
making a judgment about the degree of impairment of a person’s decision-making
ability and the harm that will result if they make bad decision (Buchanan and Brock
1990). If competence to consent is in fact shorthand for a normative judgment about
the degree of nonvoluntariness, the badness of the necessary coercive or compulsive
measures, and the significance of the treatment decision for that person’s welfare,
broadly construed, then it seems highly relevant to the harm-to-self justification of
involuntary treatment. However, mental health laws in most countries do not
explicitly refer to competence or capacity, and these concepts tend to be used in
cases where there is a nonpsychiatric cause of nonvoluntariness (Bartlett and
Sandland 2003).
Competence is a concept that separates those who have the right to make med-
ical decisions on their own behalf from those who do not. Legal tests and clinical
tools such as the MacCat-T check for the presence of significant deficiencies in
reason. There have been a number of discussions in ethics literature that attempt
to broaden the set of abilities that are thought necessary for competence. Tan
et al. (2006) have suggested that appropriate values are necessary for competence.
In other words, in addition to being able to pass a test of cognition, patients
should not act on values such as those related to anorexia nervosa, i.e., believing
that making oneself very thin is worth risking death. Some people have argued
that a stable set of values (Buchanan and Brock 1990) and emotions (Charland
1998) should be included in assessments of competence. These authors are con-
cerned about the possibility that a patient with depression might pass a test of
cognition, but because of the depression might come to value themselves in a
different way. Hence, a stable set of values, with some consistency throughout a
person’s life or emotions that really are that person’s, might be thought relevant
to competence.
An argument against requiring affective abilities is that it might make competence
more difficult to measure. Competence is a legal or quasi-legal justification for
making a decision on behalf of another person. This might be because they are
unable to make a decision, but often it is because they want to do something that is
harmful. Given that deeming a person incompetent implies that they do not have
the right to make their own decisions, it is important to test competency in a consist-
ent way. Tests such as MacCat-T are well validated and can reliably pick out the same
cognitive abilities. Values are much less easy to operationalize and would make the
determination of competence haphazard.
Suicide
While the ethics of suicide has attracted the philosophical interest of major thinkers
as Kant and Hume, it is also an especially pertinent issue for psychiatric ethics (see
suicide). When treatment fails in other areas of medicine, a patient might not
recover from an illness or benefit from a therapy. If a psychiatrist misjudges the risk
8
of self-harm presented by the patient, then the consequence can be that this person
takes his or her life. This means that preventing suicide is often a therapeutic aim,
and that suicide is a reason for thinking that professional care has failed. Some of
Kant’s arguments can be brought sharply into focus in a psychiatric context. For
Kant, suicide is always an intrinsically irrational act, meaning that it would involve
adopting a maxim that could not be willed as a general law without contradiction.
While many would not accept that all maxims about taking one’s own life cannot
be willed universally, or that the categorical imperative is true, the charge of
irrationality is an important one for thinking about suicide in a psychiatric context.
Suicide in psychiatric patients is most common in those who are suffering from
depression, and some studies have reported that up to 90 percent of people who
attempt suicide are suffering from a mental illness (Beautrais et al. 1996). Even if we
do not agree with Kant’s objection to suicide, we should be concerned about persons
who commit suicide nonvoluntarily.
Controversial Treatments
One of the reasons why antipsychiatry was so influential in the 1960s and 1970s is
because many invasive therapies were offered when they could cause great harm
or when there was scant evidence about their positive effect. Perhaps the most
controversial treatment was the psychosurgical operation known as the prefrontal
lobotomy that was common during the 1940s and 1950s (see psychosurgery).
However, a number of other experimental treatments caused significant harm to
patients, such as deep sleep therapy and electro-convulsive therapy. Another contro-
versial therapy that was practiced widely until the 1980s was physical castration for
the prevention of sexual offending.
A major ethical problem surrounds the possibility of sex offenders freely agreeing
to the procedure. The problem is not so much that the sex offenders who are cas-
trated are irrational to the extent that we would consider their decision nonvolun-
tary (although many of them are compromised in this way), but that for many of
them it is the only way that they might be released from prison. In effect, convicted
sex offenders are offered the choice between a long detention or castration, with the
likelihood that they will be judged to be safe enough to be released back into the
community within a few months (Losel and Schmucker 2005). While they are being
given a choice, it is a choice between two unpalatable options and thereby appears to
be a coercive offer (see coercive wage offers).
Confidentiality
While weighing up the right to self-determination and the importance of preventing
harm to others is important for involuntary treatment, it is also important for
confidentiality and psychiatry. The obligation that many professions have to keep
information gathered while providing services is particularly important for
psychiatry. As with many other professions such as law, psychiatrists are likely to
9
discover sensitive facts about their patients. For this reason, there are good
autonomy-based arguments for protecting confidentiality in psychiatry. There is
also a strong public interest argument in favor of psychiatrists keeping confidences.
Psychiatric patients often need to disclose highly private information for diagnosis
and therapy. If they cannot trust their doctor to keep this information secret, they
are less likely to divulge all relevant information, with the effect that diagnosis and
therapy are compromised.
However, the importance of preventing harm to others can trump these arguments.
There are a number of important legal cases that have considered these issues, but
the most influential is Tarasoff v Regents of the University of California (1976).
In Tarasoff, a patient disclosed to his therapist his intention to harm Tatiana Tarasoff.
Despite the therapist’s warning to the campus police, Tatiana was not alerted to the
threat to her life, and she was murdered. There was disagreement between the
presiding judges in this case about whether there was an obligation to warn. This
disagreement was in part due to difficulty in weighing up the patient’s right to self-
determination against the duty to prevent harm to others. The difficult issues
that surround risk prediction for involuntary treatment arise in the context of
confidentiality too.
See also: autonomy; bioethics; coercion; coercive wage offers;

confidentiality; consent; disease mongering; feinberg, joel; harm
principle; libertarianism; mill, john stuart; paternalism; psychopathy;
psychopharmacology; psychosurgery; research ethics; responsibility;
suicide
REFERENCES
Bartlett, Peter, and Ralph Sandland 2003. Mental Health Law and Practice, 2nd ed. Oxford:
Beauchamp, Tom, and James Childress 1994. Principles of Biomedical Ethics. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Beautrais, A., P. Joyce, R. Mulder, D. Fergusson, B. Deavoll, and S. Nightingale 1996.
“Prevalence and Comorbidity of Mental Disorders in Persons Making Serious
Suicide Attempts: A Case-Control Study,” American Journal of Psychiatry, vol. 153,
pp. 1009–14.
Buchanan, Allen, and Dan Brock 1990. Deciding for Others: The Ethics of Surrogate Decision
Making. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Charland, Louis 1998. “Is Mr Spock Mentally Competent? Competence to Consent and
Emotion,” Philosophy, Psychiatry and Psychology, vol. 5, pp. 67–81.
Chodoff, Paul 1999. “Misuse and Abuse of Psychiatry: An Overview,” in Sidney Bloch,
Paul Chodoff, and Stephen Green (eds.), Psychiatric Ethics, 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Cooper, David 1970. Psychiatry and Antipsychiatry. St. Albans: Paladin.
Department for Constitutional Affairs 2005. Mental Capacity Act. At http://www.opsi.gov.
uk/ACTS/acts2005/ukpga_20050009_en_1.
10
Feinberg, Joel 1986. Harm to Self: The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Fulford, Bill 1989. Moral Theory and Medical Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Laing, Ronald 1960. The Divided Self: A Study of Sanity and Madness. London: Tavistock.
Losel, F., and M. Schmucker 2005. “The Effectiveness of Treatment for Sexual Offenders:
A Comprehensive Meta-analysis,” Journal of Experimental Criminology, vol. 1,
pp. 117–46.
Morse, Stephen 1982. “A Preference for Liberty: The Case Against Involuntary Commitment
of the Mentally Disordered,” California Law Review, vol. 70, pp. 54–106.
Nordenfelt, Lennart 2007. “The Concepts of Health and Illness,” in Richard Ashcroft, Angus
Dawson, Heather Draper, and John McMillan (eds.), Principles of Healthcare Ethics, 2nd
ed. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Poulsen, H. 2002. “The Prevalence of Extralegal Deprivation of Liberty in a Psychiatric
Hospital Population,” International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, vol. 25, pp. 29–36.
Spitzer, R. 1981. “The Diagnostic Status of Homosexuality in DSM III: A Reformulation of
the Issues,” American Journal of Psychiatry, vol. 138, pp. 210–5.
Szasz, Thomas 1961. The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct.
New York: Dell Publishing.
Tan, Jacinta, Tony Hope, Anne Stewart, and Ray Fitzpatrick 2006. “Competence to Make
Treatment Decisions in Anorexia Nervosa: Thinking Processes and Values,” Philosophy,
Psychiatry and Psychology, vol. 13, pp. 267–82.
FURTHER READINGS
Dawson, John 1996. “Psychopathology and Civil Commitment Criteria,” Medical Law
Review, vol. 4 (Spring), p. 6283.
Eastman, Nigel, and Tony Hope 1988. “The Ethics of Enforced Medical Treatment: The
Balance Model,” Journal of Applied Philosophy, vol. 5, pp. 49–59.
Bloch, Sidney, Paul Chodoff, and Stephen Green (eds.) 1999. Psychiatric Ethics, 3rd ed.
Chodoff, Paul 1998. “The Case for Involuntary Hospitalization of the Mentally Ill,” Classic
Works in Medical Ethics, ed. Gregory Pence. Boston: McGraw-Hill.
Fulford, Bill, Tim Thornton, and George Graham (eds.) 2006. Oxford Textbook of Philosophy
of Psychiatry. New York: Oxford University Press.
Murphy, Dominic 2006. Psychiatry in the Scientific Image. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Szasz, Thomas 1998. “Involuntary Mental Hospitalization: A Crime Against Humanity,”
Classic Works in Medical Ethics, ed. Gregory Pence. Boston: McGraw-Hill.
Szasz, Thomas 2003. “Psychiatry and the Control of Dangerousness: On the Apotropaic
Function of the Term ‘Mental Illness,’ ” Journal of Medical Ethics, vol. 29, pp. 227–30.
Widdershoven, Guy, John McMillan, Tony Hope, and Lieke Van der Scheer (eds.) 2008.
Empirical Ethics in Psychiatry. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
1
Cohen, Hermann
Wendell Dietrich
Hermann Cohen (1842–1918), a German philosopher, was the principal figure in

the Marburg school of Neo-Kantianism (see kant, immanuel). His significance as
an ethicist will, after an enumeration of his principal works, be spelled out in four
sections: Cohen’s construction of the moral self; social and political theory with
special attention to the theme of social progress; arguments erupting during the
period of World War I about the relation of Deutschtum (Germanness) and Juden-
tum (Judaism); a proposed present-day redeployment of Cohen’s position in recent
discussions about Judaic ethical monotheism and intolerance.
Born into a cantor’s family in the small-town Jewish community of Coswig/
Anhalt, Germany, Cohen enrolled in the modern rabbinical seminary of Breslau.
Part of the seminary’s curriculum was a requirement of university studies. At the
University of Breslau, Cohen came to the conclusion that philosophy, not the
rabbinate, was his focus of interest. In 1873 Cohen received an appointment in
philosophy at the University of Marburg, where he remained until his retirement in
1912. Subsequently, he taught at the liberal rabbinical seminary in Berlin, the
Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums (see rabbinic ethics).
Cohen’s philosophical authorship can be classified under three headings: exegeti-
cal commentaries on Kant; a system of philosophy; and studies on specifically Jewish
topics. His system of philosophy includes the Ethik des reinen Willens (1904/1907;
Ethics of the Pure Will) and Asthetik des reinen Gefühls (1912; Aesthetic of Pure
Feeling). His Die Religion der Vernunft aus den Quellen des Judentums (Religion of
Reason out of the Sources of Judaism) was posthumously published in 1919 and
reissued in a second edition in 1929.
The Construction of the Moral Self

Cohen as a systematic thinker proposes to deal with the whole of reality – nature,
humankind, and God – and to show the interconnections of these elements. Nature
and man as a somatic being can be accounted for by scientific causal explanation
and Cohen does not hesitate to give such causal explanation its due. Indeed, even in
the case of man as a somatic being he provides an extended account of man’s
psychosomatic unity. But in the case of man, another dimension and mode of being
appears, the mode of being of what ought to be. The human self is a being whose
task is the construction of the self in the light of the ideal (what ought to be).
Cohen’s account of the construction of the moral self is found principally in
chapters 4–9 of Ethics of the Pure Will and in the Religion of Reason out of the Sources
of Judaism (on these matters, see Schwarzschild 1975).
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee071
2
Cohen’s point of entry is the will. The will, in distinction from desire (see
desire), is categorically commanded by reason, not conditioned by any empirical
consideration. Such reason cannot be found in the empirical world, the world of
objects. That which is not an object is properly called a subject. That is, the will is
produced by its subject; it is thus autonomous. The subject is that which emerges
from enactments of the will. The subject is the unity of its willed actions. The subject
is a consciousness of the self in the making.
The self may be spoken of as a hypothesis, as a possibility of the will. To transform
this possibility into reality is the task of constructing the self. The self enacts itself in
actions. Not in any and all actions, only in those which tend to constitute a unified
whole. This whole is called character.
The lawfulness according to which willed actions constitute a self actually derives
initially from the positive law of the state. The individual will confronts the law as
“Thou,” the other of its own lawfulness. The positive law is defined by the ethical
category of universality. It must be applied to all men and to all suitable cases. Law
and ethics are dialectically related. Ethics crystallizes the principles of the law, criti-
cizing the law in terms of these principles. And the law is impelled in the direction
of these ethical principles.
The next phase in Cohen’s account of the construction of the moral self revolves
around the question: How does the Nebenmensch, the one who is simply “next to
me,” become a Mitmensch, “a fellow human being” (Cohen 1972: Ch. 9)? Here Cohen
draws on a nonphilosophical source, the Hebrew Bible, especially the teaching of the
prophets. According to that teaching, poverty not death is the major affliction of
humankind. The Nebenmensch becomes the Mitmensch as one witnesses the
Nebenmensch’s social suffering and thus relates oneself to him out of Mitleid
(“sympathy”).
The final stages of the emergence of the self feature the self as in the strict sense
an individual. Here sin and guilt and “self-purification before God” are adduced.
The self is disclosed as standing in correlation with God. Before God, man is not
only culpable but also guilty and he assumes full “self-responsibility.” It is this sinner
who engages in self-purification before God. He emerges from this self-purification
before God as a “freeman.”
Note that Cohen insists on self-purification. The self ’s repentance, this turning
(teshuvah) of the sinner before God, not the forgiveness bestowed by God, consti-
tutes the individual self as “absolute person.” In this process, the self is unified and
integrated. He overcomes his inner self-fragmentation and the self-contradictions
which prevent the individual from achieving the unity of the I.
Social and Political Theory: Historical Progress

I turn now to Cohen’s treatment of the social and political life of humanity, focusing
on the issue of historical progress and on the future of Judaism. A carefully crafted
notion of historical progress is integral to the account of moral action in Cohen’s
Ethik (1981: Ch. 8).
3
Cohen challenges directly Darwinian evolutionary interpretations of the

emergence and development of humankind. The Darwinian theories presuppose as
already given a complete organism with reference to which the formative processes
of the parts are to be interpreted as evolutionary. Such a theory cannot provide an
adequate teleology of the human species. The ethical sense of humankind requires
its own teleology, taking account of the emergence of novelty in humankind’s social
and spiritual reality. Thus Cohen argues for a notion of historical evolution in which
the process is determined not with reference to an already completed organism but
rather with reference to an ideal, an ought to be, the ultimate end of a final task.
History is marked by achievements which exhibit ever-new constellations of
particular situations and the ideal of justice. Each particular achievement of social
justice is a limited and finite constellation of human social construction, to be suc-
ceeded by a further series of such achievements. In Cohen’s judgment, persistence in
the activity of achieving such significant but limited accomplishments requires an
attitude of profound hopefulness which permits, on the basis of its ultimate future
orientation to the ideal of messianic humanity, a confidence that there can be in each
finite social constellation something truly new.
Cohen affirms historical progress in the development of the material condi-
tions of humankind. And he urgently calls for an “ethical socialism” and action to
alleviate the suffering caused by social injustice, death, disease, and war. But,
according to Cohen, a doctrine of historical progress is not the ultimate basis for
the concern for justice and social welfare. Cohen rather asserts an optimism based
on his faith in man’s basic goodness, which is in turn grounded in a correlation
with the unique God.
Deutschtum und Judentum

During World War I, Cohen became associated with a group of German academics
advocating the German cause in the war. Cohen appealed for support for the
German cause especially to the Jews of the still neutral (in 1916) United States.
The issues are spelled out in a series of pamphlets asserting the positive and
mutually supportive connections between Deutschtum and Judentum. In this
controversy, Cohen is preoccupied with a wide range of concrete particular realities:
Jews and the Judaic religious tradition, on the one hand; and on the other, modern
organizational industrial society, Germany as modern Rechtstaat in contrast to
Volkstaat, and ultimately the whole of European–American civilization. Thus, for
Cohen, the notion of Deutschtum, though focused on Germany, is deliberately given
a more extensive connotation.
In the matter of Jews and the Judaic religious tradition, Cohen, throughout his
career, is positively associated with Jewish religious practice and institutions.
As the nineteenth century comes to a close he becomes extensively engaged in the
public defense of Jews in the face of charges brought against them by an increas-
ingly anti-Semitic German public and especially by anti-Semitic professional
academic critics (e.g., Treitschke). Now, in Deutschtum und Judentum (1997
4
[1915]), Cohen confidently claims a place in modern Germany for a continuing

permanent Judaic reality.
But Cohen is playing for even higher stakes. Judaism, according to Cohen, pre-
sents a more rational religious basis for modern civilization than does Christianity.
Christianity with its persisting residue of dogma and miracles retains dangerous
elements of the irrational. Judaism, properly construed as a “Religion of Reason out
of the Sources of Judaism,” is equipped to constitute a basis for modern industrial
scientifically oriented civilization.
It is important to note that the title under which his final major work was initially
published is The Religion of Reason. According to Cohen’s wishes, the title was
changed to Religion of Reason in the second edition. This can perhaps be construed
as opening up a space for a “Religion of Reason” out of historical sources other than
those of Judaism. But Cohen shows no interest in pursuing such options.
Cohen is convinced that the biblical–rabbinic tradition comes to fulfillment in
nineteenth-century German Judaism. A receptive climate for that fulfillment was
established by the Lutheran Reformation of Christian piety with its stress on
inwardness and conscience. The emergence of Kantian philosophy brought to clear
statement themes which a robust modern Judaism can recognize as valid. Thus
modern Germany is the “homeland” of modern Judaism.
In this controversy and subsequently in the history of Cohen’s reception by the
next generation of German Jewish religious thinkers, Cohen’s position is read as the
near identification of Judaism and Germanism. This opens Cohen to scorn from
Martin Buber (see buber, martin) and other Zionists such as Jacob Klatzkin. Cohen
persistently asserts that the “Diaspora” is the proper setting of Jewish life and
repudiates all forms of Zionism. A basic premise of all forms of Zionism is that the
cultural and moral resources of Western civilization are exhausted. A German–
Jewish synthesis has not emerged and it is delusive and dangerous to suppose that it
can. Jews should remove themselves from the nations and culture of the West in
which they have been dispersed. Cohen’s views are antithetic to this basic Zionist
premise. The near-identification of Germanism and Judaism linked with Cohen’s
views on historical progress becomes a focal point for severe criticism of Cohen’s
views by the next generation of more existentially oriented Jewish thinkers,
preoccupied as they are with the “realities of historical catastrophe.”
However, my reading of the Deutschtum und Judentum controversy would take a
quite different line. I find with Steven Schwarzschild (1979) that Cohen is not in fact
mindlessly endorsing every feature of Wilhelmine Germany. Schwarzschild’s inter-
pretation has recently been powerfully endorsed and vindicated by Andrea Poma
(2007). Instead of an endorsement of Wilhelmine politics and culture, Cohen is
in fact presenting a critical normative paradigm. If one focuses on the classic
nineteenth-century Rechtstaat, a state governed by the rule of law, and not the
Volkstaat advocated by, among others, late nineteenth-century anti-Semites, one can
selectively and critically discern desirable aspects of the German political past. And
such an endeavor prospectively might provide ideals to be effected in a series of
progressive paradigms for the future.
5
Despite his sanguine hopes for the well-being and safety of the Jewish community
in Germany, Cohen also paints in darker terms the perennial task of the Jewish
people. No matter what social and political constellation in Western civilization the
Jewish community is associated with, the task of the Jewish people is to “witness” to
the truths of ethical monotheism – especially one God and the future of messianic
humanity. Now landless and without a state of its own, the Jewish people bear
witness to ethical monotheism. This witness will always set the life of the Jewish
people in critical nonconformity to the life of the nations and their failure to
acknowledge ethical monotheistic norms of humanity. The Jewish people’s persecu-
tion and suffering will persist. This people can appropriately be called the Suffering
Servant among the nations to whom Second Isaiah refers.
The Humane Intolerance of Ethical Monotheism

The recent reception history of Cohen’s ethical and social theory indicates that
claims continue to be made for the pertinence of that theory in the discussion of
significant new contemporary issues. I have in view specifically the essay by Robert
Erlewine (2008). Erlewine’s essay is a contribution to the current probing of the
asserted drive of the Abrahamic monotheisms (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) to
universal domination to the exclusion of all other religious options. Thus there is in
Abrahamic monotheisms an intrinsic intolerance.
Appropriating Cohen’s thought, Erlewine makes a fundamental analytical
distinction between “scriptural universalism” and “rational universalism.” Rational
universalism finds its normative formulation in the eighteenth-century European
Enlightenment. Scriptural universalism is exemplified by classic traditional mono-
theisms: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Cohen’s own version of ethical monotheism,
according to Erlewine, exhibits features of both rational and scriptural universalism.
Cohen ultimately chooses to present Judaic ethical monotheism as rational universal
monotheism, but he candidly refrains from effacing the particularity of scriptural
universalism as exhibited in the literary sources of Judaism.
Cohen, according to Erlewine, locates four moments of the “discursive
structure” of scriptural monotheism: the revelation of a truth about God and
man’s relation to God which is universally valid for the whole of humanity; the
election of a particular people as receptors of the revelation; the historical mission
of the people witnessing to the truth of revelation intended for the whole of
humanity; the Eschaton.
Scriptural universalism demands that all idolatry (not idolaters) be destroyed. In
dealing with this issue, Erlewine insists that the deepest reason for demanding the
destruction of all idolatry is that Judaic monotheism is, according to Cohen, firmly
bound to the moral order, to the ideality of reality and especially to the ideal of
humanity. Polytheism, on the other hand, is bound to the celebration of might and
power, of existence as such, thus inhibiting morality at its most profound level.
However, Erlewine asserts that this moral rationale for the destruction of idolatry
creates a deep contradiction. The mission of the Jews to spread monotheism, a
6
mission intrinsically bound up with the command to destroy idolatry, is generated

simultaneously with the idea of the unique God who is the ground of the recognition
of the value of each human being. The mission of the Jews carried out for the sake of
the idea of the unique God involves a conflict with the fruits of the idea of the unique
God of monotheism and the recognition of universal humanity.
According to Cohen, Erlewine insists, the completion of the mission will establish
harmony throughout the whole of humanity. The scheme’s rationality is apparent
when the harmony secured in prospect provides the basis for the conceptualizing of
the ideal of humanity, that is recognition of the inherent value of all human beings.
Indeed this recognition of the inherent value of all human beings is a foundational
concept for philosophical ethics proper.
But an exclusivist intolerance, Erlewine insists, is deeply embedded in the
discursive structures of Judaic monotheism and cannot be totally effaced. In each
generation, in at least some portion of Judaic life and thought, attempts are made to
counter the exclusivist element, for instance, in the rabbinic doctrine of the
Noachide covenant. But the exclusivist intolerant element is ineradicable.
In my judgment, Cohen’s analysis of the discursive structure of Judaic ethical
monotheism is indeed pertinent to contemporary debate. With careful modification,
it could even be employed in the analysis of Christianity and Islam as monotheisms.
It should be further noted, however, that Cohen’s analysis of the witness of the People
Israel assumes the normative persistence of Judaism in the “Diaspora” and the state-
lessness of the Jewish people. Developments in the empirical history of the Jews in
the twentieth century, the Holocaust and the founding of the State of Israel, have
complicated the issues for Judaism in a notable way.
See also: buber, martin; desire; kant, immanuel; rabbinic ethics
REFERENCES
Cohen, Hermann 1972 [1919]. Religion of Reason out of the Sources of Judaism. New York:
Frederick Ungar.
Cohen, Hermann 1981 [1904/1907]. Ethik des reinen Willens. Werke, vol. 7:2. Hildesheim:
Georg Olms.
Cohen, Hermann 1997 [1915]. “Deutschtum und Judentum: Mit Grundlegenden Betrachtungen
über Staat und Internationalismus.” Werke, vol. 16. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, pp. 469–515.
Erlewine, Robert 2008. “Hermann Cohen and the Humane Intolerance of Ethical
Monotheism,” Jewish Studies Quarterly, vol. 15, pp. 148–73.
Poma, Andrea 2007. “Hermann Cohen: Judaism and Critical Idealism,” in Michael Morgan
and Peter Eli Gordon (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Modern Jewish Philosophy.
Schwarzschild, Steven 1975. “The Tenability of Hermann Cohen’s Construction of the Self,”
Journal of the History of Philosophy, vol. 13, pp. 361–84.
Schwarzschild, Steven 1979. “Germanism and Judaism: Hermann Cohen’s Normative
Paradigm of the German Jewish Synthesis,” in David Bronson (ed.), Jews and Germans
from 1860–1933: The Problematic Synthesis. Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitäts,
pp. 129–71.
7
FURTHER READINGS
Cohen, Hermann 1997 [1915]. “Du sollst nicht einhergebein als ein Verlaümder”: Ein Appell
an die Juden Amerikas. Werke, vol. 16. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, pp. 299–310.
Gibbs, Robert 2000. “Hermann Cohen’s Messianism: The History of the Future,” in Religion
of Reason out of the Sources of Judaism: Tradition and the Concept of Origin in Hermann
Cohen’s Later Work. Zurich: Georg Olms, pp. 331–52.
Poma, Andrea 1997. The Critical Philosophy of Hermann Cohen, trans. John Denton. Albany:
State University of New York Press.
Poma, Andrea 2006. Yearning for Form and Other Essays on Hermann Cohen’s Thought.
1
Ethics in the Hebrew Bible

Rimon Kasher
Methodology: Premises of This Essay

This essay will deal mainly with aspects of human behavior, yet will also touch on
aspects of ethics related to God’s attitude toward humans.
The essay will present various Scriptural data as well as evaluate them. The essay
overall will not deal with the question of the contemporary relevance of Scriptural
morals, mainly because we adhere to the cultural relativistic approach (see
relativism, moral), which emphasizes the gaps between various cultures in
general, and the differing ethical standards between the ancient world and the mod-
ern world. At the same time, in the list of references, we refer to several important
studies that discuss the question of relevance.
Is Ethics in the Hebrew Bible Presented as a Separate Category?

In the collections of laws in the Pentateuch, topics of ethics are integrated with topics of
religion, ritual, and cultic practice. Thus, Leviticus 19:3 opens with the double
command: “You shall each revere his mother and his father, and keep My shabbaths,”
i.e., first an ethical directive, and then a directive from the ritual sphere. Further on in
the chapter, various laws are also textually combined (e.g., verses 31–2). In the Ten
Commandments as well (Exodus 20; Deuteronomy 5), the two types of commands –
religious and ethical – appear side by side, albeit not in alternating order. This combining
of commandments from differing spheres, with no clear distinction, may lead us to
conclude that ethics in the Hebrew Bible do not constitute an independent and separate
category (Goldingay 1981: 64). This conclusion is certainly correct regarding Leviticus
19. Yet one can find in the Hebrew Bible evidence of a separate status for ethics,
particularly in the Prophetic literature. So, for example, Hosea 6:6 declares, “For I desire
goodness, not sacrifice” (see also Isaiah 1:11–17, 58; Amos 5:15; Zechariah 7:9–12).
What Is the Basis of Ethics?

All Torah laws are presented as deriving from God, whether unmediated, as with the Ten
Commandments, or via Moses (and occasionally Aaron) as agent. It is therefore certainly
possible to see therein clear expression of a heteronomic/theonomic ethical approach.
Similarly, the words of ethics that are stated by the prophets are uttered in the name of
God – rendering them evidence of a heteronomic approach as well (see deontology).
The Wisdom literature is to all appearances divided on the question of the basis of
ethics. On the one hand, we find in Proverbs the approach according to which the
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee073
2
source of wisdom is human, and the wise calls upon his “son” (biological and/or
pupil) to hearken to his words (Proverbs 1:8), referring to them as “my teaching,”
“my commandments” (e.g., Proverbs 2:1, 3:1, 4:2).
The first collection of Proverbs (chapters 1–9) perceives wisdom as having been
created by God (Proverbs 8:22–36), and thus teaches that the source of ethics is
Divine wisdom. In contrast, in other collections in Proverbs (for example, 10:
1–22:16; 22:17–24:22; 24:23–34), the claim that the source of wisdom is God is
absent. The third collection (22:17–24:22) is partially parallel to the Egyptian book
of proverbs Amenemopet, wherefore we can deduce that we have before us indirect
evidence of attribution of ethical instructions to mortal sages. This deduction
derives reinforcement from the collections at the end of Proverbs, some of which are
attributed to non-Israelite sages (Proverbs 30:1–14; 31:1–9). The inclusion of the
words of non-Israelite sages in Proverbs is evidence of the autonomic ethical
approach (see autonomy of ethics), which is not rooted in Divine revelation.
From various writings, the possibility emerges of a conception of ethics as natural
law, or as Rogerson (2004: 16) terms it, natural morality. This approach is based not on
Divine revelation to humans, and not on the fruits of human wisdom, but rather on
“a moral consensus common to sensitive and thoughtful people” or “sensitivity to justice”
(Rogerson 2004: 16). Thus, for example, the Flood narrative in Genesis (chapters 6–9)
rests on the premise that the Flood generation deviated from the upright way (Genesis
6:1–8, 11–13). The narrative of the taking of Sarah to the house of Pharaoh, king of
Egypt (Genesis 12:10–20) describes Pharaoh as finding fault with Abra(ha)m, claim-
ing that if he had known that Sarah was a married woman, he would not have taken
her (Genesis 12:18–19; see also the parallel stories in Genesis 20:1–18; 26:6–11). Thus,
Prophetic admonitions regarding gentiles’ wrong-doing in one’s house (such as the
corruption of Nineveh, Jonah 3:8), or wrong-doing in international relations (Amos
1:3–2:3) are based on the conception of natural law as well (Barton 2003: 112–14).
The Motivations for Moral Commands and Admonitions

Arguments for ethical commands and admonitions can be classified theologi-
cally in two ways: (1) theocentric arguments, which elucidate the moral direc-
tives in the context of a proper relationship with God; (2) anthropocentric
arguments, which elucidate the moral directives regarding relationships between
people (on the motivations in ethics, see Malchow 1996).
Theocentric arguments
Obedience to the Lord
Many of the commandments in Leviticus 19 end with the phrase “I am the
Lord”/“I the Lord am your God” (such as verses 3, 10, 14). It appears that the role of
this wording is to create a relationship between the commandment and the carrying
out thereof. It may be that the key to this linkage of wording lies in verse 36: “I the
Lord am your God who freed you from the land of Egypt” meaning: “The obligation
to perform God’s commandments stems not only from God’s essence … but also
3
from Israel’s status as God’s servants, who are obligated to serve Him” (Schwartz
1999: 277), being a part of the covenant with God.
Reward and punishment

The obligation to obey is occasionally accompanied by a promise of reward or a
warning of punishment. So, for example, in Exodus 22:20–3 the Israelite is admonished
against exploiting the weak, the stranger, the widow, or the orphan, as such exploita-
tion is liable to lead to a negative reaction on the part of God. In Deuteronomy 15:10
the law promises that whoever stands by the poor during the Sabbatical year when
debts are canceled, will be rewarded (see also Proverbs 11:24– 5; 22:22–3).
Imitatio Dei = Imitation of God

The question of the status of the notion of Imitatio Dei in the Hebrew Bible is
disputed among modern scholars: There are those who see therein the basis for
many ethical directives, while others deemphasize it (on the various opinions, see
Houston 2007; Kasher 2012).
Biblical texts that speak explicitly of Imitatio Dei are few; an (almost) explicit
instance is Deuteronomy 10:17–19: “For the Lord your God … love the stranger …
You too must love the stranger.”
Other examples which reflect the Imitatio Dei approach are concerned with the
holiness of the Israelites. In Leviticus, the command to be holy because God is holy
is mentioned several times (11:44–5; 19:2; 20:26).This is not concerned with Imitatio
Dei literally, but rather with the theoretical outlook regarding Israel’s status com-
pared to that of God – “holy” in Hebrew means apart. Just as God is apart from the
world, it is incumbent upon Israel to set itself apart from the nations. The notion of
emulating God could also emerge from Deuteronomy (and only therein), which
directs Israel to walk in the ways of God (e.g., 8:6; 10:12).
Honoring God
According to Proverbs 14:31, whoever aids the poor is honoring God, and vice versa;
i.e., whoever harasses a poor person curses God. Similarly, Proverbs 17:5 states: “He
who mocks the poor affronts his Maker.”
Anthropocentric arguments
Humanitarianism
In Leviticus 19:33–4, loving the stranger has two motives. The first motive – “for you
were strangers in the land of Egypt” (as well as Exodus 22:20, 23:9, and Deuteronomy
10:19) – obligates the Israelite to relate to strangers in a humane way, and to
demonstrate solidarity with those vulnerable to exploitation and oppression (see
also Exodus 23:9). The explanation for keeping the Sabbath in the Ten
Commandments in Deuteronomy (5:14) has also a humanitarian cast, as it demands
granting rest to those with fewer rights, “your male or female slave … your ox or
your ass … or your stranger” (see humanitarian intervention).
4
Altruism
If we define altruism as an unselfish interest in helping others, we will then find that the
lion’s share of ethical laws actually are motivated by altruism (see altruism and biol-
ogy). Indeed, the ethical laws are intended first and foremost to benefit one’s fellow as
an individual, and as a part of society overall. Wordings of the way of altruism are nearly
nonexistent in the Hebrew Bible. A rare example of altruism are the laws prohibiting
earning interest off a fellow Israelite (Exodus 22:24; Leviticus 25:35–7; Deuteronomy
23:20), as well as the law obligating moratorium of debts (Deuteronomy 15:1–2). Par-
ticularly worthy of note is the law mentioned in Deuteronomy 15:7–11 that obligates an
Israelite to loan money to the poor, and to demonstrate especial generosity leading up
to the Sabbatical year, although the lender loses his money (Houston 2006: 184).
Equality
The explanation for the prohibition on murder is found in Genesis 9:6 in the fact
that humans – all humans, drawing no distinction between them – were created “in
God’s image” (see also Genesis 1:26–7). Job explains his relationship to his slaves
such that God created both he and his slaves in identical fashion (Job 31:15).
According to the law of the Jubilee year in Leviticus 25:10–13, estates are restored to
their original owners every 49/50 years, and equality prevails between all Israelites,
as everyone holds the land (see egalitarianism).
Utilitarianism
In many parts of Proverbs, admonitions or advice are argued based on the results of
observance. Response to the advice of a sage brings about practical benefit. It seems
that the admonitions in Proverbs are mostly directed at youngsters training for jobs
in the royal court, such as advisors or scribes, which apparently explains the use of
utilitarian arguments that are directed more at individual success than they are at
the benefit of the society at large (see utilitarianism).
Here are some examples from Proverbs that emphasize the consequences of indi-
vidual deeds: “He who spurns pledging shall be secure” (11:15); “He who pursues ill-
gotten gain makes trouble for his household; he who spurns gifts will live long” (15:27).
The Principles of Ethics

The principles of ethics in the Hebrew Bible are presented in various ways: by means
of lists of obligations and behaviors; by means of drawing sweeping conclusions via
generalization from the individual laws and commands. Another way is by means of
literary analyzing narratives.
Principles transmitted by lists

The biblical books contain a number of lists that include certain statements, some of
which are delivered to the entire congregation, such as the Ten Commandments
(Exodus 20:1–17; Deuteronomy 5:6–21), Leviticus 19:3–12, and the list of curses in
5
Deuteronomy 27:15–26. Others are directed at the individual, such as Leviticus

19:13–18. Besides, there is a description of the righteous in Ezekiel 18:5–9, Job’s
testimony of his deeds (Job 31), and the behavioral requirements of those coming to
the Temple (Psalms 15; 24:3–4; Isaiah 33:14–16).
If we take Job’s words (Job 31) as an example, we can find expressed several
fundamental ethical principles, such as avoiding sexual temptation (verse 1);
refraining from cheating (5); an egalitarian approach to all (15); refraining from
gloating (29–30); and guarding the environment (38–9) (Fohrer 1974).
Ethical principles as per overall conclusions drawn from individual laws

A clear example of such is the interesting attempt to rest the laws in Deuteronomy
(12–26) on the Ten Commandments, and thus to see the Ten Commandments as a
certain declaration of intent or constitution (Kaufman 1978–9). Another fine
example is from Kaufmann (1960: 316–40), who lists nine elements on which the
laws of the Torah rest:
● the sanctity of life

● freedom and slavery
● marriage and sex
● the sanctity of the spoken word
● the sanctity of property
● justice and righteousness
● reverence to those with status
● love and compassion
● the laws concerning the poor
Ethical precepts as per an individual literary analysis:

The Book of Samuel
In his commentary on the Books of Samuel, Bar-Efrat (2007–9) argues more than
once on behalf of ethical precepts as expressed by Samuel’s author(s). Here are some
examples: leaders (such as Eli’s sons) who abuse their positions are punished and
even replaced (1 Samuel 2–4); in cases of threat to life, saving the life takes precedence
over the prohibitions on lying and honoring one’s father (1 Samuel 19); true
friendship and human decency take precedence over considerations of personal
benefit and gaining power (Jonathan’s behavior toward David, 1 Samuel 20); the
dictates of conscience defying the carrying out of a nefarious order (Saul’s minions
refusing to slaughter the priests of Nob in 1 Samuel 22).
The Scale of Ethical Values

Perusal of the above sections, which discuss arguments for moral behavior and
ethical precepts in the Hebrew Bible, leads us to a hierarchy of the most important.
There follow some prominent examples.
6
In three of the lists of laws, which contain a number of moral directives, the
commandment to honor one’s parents is found in first place: in the Ten
Commandments (Exodus 20:12 = Deuteronomy 5:16), in Leviticus 19:3, as well as
in the list of curses in Deuteronomy 27:16. But in certain biblical narratives, humans
actually choose loyalty to their partners or friends over loyalty to their father: Rachel
and Leah opt for a relationship with Jacob over one with their father, Laban (Genesis
31:14–16); Jonathan rescues David, and refuses to accept Saul’s attitude toward
David (1 Samuel 20).
In several biblical narratives, the principle of saving a life takes precedence over
telling the truth, both in the case of a mortal initiative such as that of Abr(ah)am
(Genesis 12:12–13), and in the case of Divine initiative to rescue a prophet (1 Samuel
16:2–3) (Shemesh 2002).
There are cases of mercy overriding legal justice, a clear case of which is the end
of the Book of Jonah. While the prophet Jonah awaits a judgment on the citizens
of Nineveh, God declares, “And should not I care about Nineveh that great city …
in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons … and
many beasts as well” (Jonah 4:11). Similarly, Hosea declares in God’s name that
the Kingdom of Israel will not be punished, due to God’s mercy (Hosea 11:8–9).
A Multiplicity of Voices
Positions related to ethics aren’t all cast from the same mold, reflecting the array of
subjects with which biblical literature deals. The explanations for this multiplicity
of voices are varied, and can be divided into two main categories. The first is
synchronic explanations, i.e., attribution of the various voices to various social and/
or theological positions, whether of an individual or of a group; whether originat-
ing from a single social stratum or various strata; whether in the Kingdom of Israel
or in Judea. The second category – diachronic – exposes changes and/or a develop-
ment resulting from various circumstances, such as policy or economic and social
conditions.
The multiplicity of voices might express how the author(s) relate to specific
events. We will demonstrate this with a few examples.
How should a new leader behave toward the previous ruler’s family?
According to 2 Kings 9–10 (especially 10:30, ascribed to the Deuteronomists), Jehu
is praised and rewarded for annihilating the family of Ahab, who had ruled up until
this point. In contrast to this supportive stand, Hosea voices the opposite position,
according to which God will punish the Kingdom of Israel for Jehu’s deeds (Hosea
1:4). This example instructs, while the biting criticism of Jehu that emerged from the
mouth of Hosea precedes the praise that Jehu won from the Deuteronomists. We
learn, therefore, that the Hebrew Bible does not always evolve along a straight axis
from the “primitive” to the “developed,” from the less ethical to the ethical, from the
vulgar to the refined.
7
What did Phineas achieve by his “lifetime tenure” as a priest?

According to the narrative in Numbers 25, Phineas the priest killed two people, an
Israelite and a Midianite, on account of their involvement in prostitution and/or
fornication, and/or for idolatry. According to verses 8–11, by killing the couple,
Phineas saved the people from destruction at the hand of God, and earned thereby
a covenant that his descendants would serve as priests. In contrast, in Psalms
106:28–31, a differing stance is found regarding Phineas’ murder: “Phineas stepped
forth and intervened and the plague ceased. It was reckoned to his merit for all
generations, to eternity.” According to Muffs (1992: 40–1), the psalmist opposed the
steps Phineas took, preferring prayer to aggressive acts.
The determination that the evolution of an idea occurs via the prerogative of the
researcher/reader applies based on his or her premises. Therefore, we cannot point to a
general convention regarding any given development in the realm of Scriptural ethics.
In Kaufmann’s opinion (1960: 323–9), an ethics approach in the Wisdom literature
preceded that in the Pentateuch and the Prophets. In the former, ethics is individual
and universal, like other Wisdom literature in the Ancient Near East, and recognizes
one realm only: universal. In contrast, the ethics approach in the Torah and Prophets
is social and national, and distinguishes two realms: Israelite and universal.
Kaufmann opposes the convention of classical biblical criticism according to which
the concept of individual ethics succeeds the social approach, and therefore that
Wisdom ethics succeeds those of the Prophets.
According to Simon (2004: 181), the development of political ethics began with
the Kingdom of Judah, as a result of the disenchantment in the wake of Jehu’s deeds,
and thereafter the practice of killing the offspring of a king’s murderer was halted,
beginning in the eighth century. The author of the Book of Kings claims explicitly
that Amaziah son of Joash, king of Judah, killed his father’s murderers, yet refrained
from harming their sons, according to the law in Deuteronomy 24:16 (2 Kings
14:5–6).
In contrast to the prevailing outlook among the Israelites according to which God
punishes the sinner’s descendants (e.g., Exodus 20:5; 34:7), this was declared null
and void (or incorrect) by the prophets at the end of the First Temple: Jeremiah
31:29–30 and Ezekiel 18:2–4.
Who Is Responsible for Achieving Social Justice?

Three factors are responsible for social justice: God, the king, and the individual.
The Hebrew phrase mishpat usedaqa (or sedaqa umishpat) is rendered into
English in various ways: “true justice,” “justice and righteousness,” “justice and
equity,” “righteous judgment/justice.” Weinfeld (1995: 8) interprets this phrase – in
the context of the deeds of the kings – as meaning “acts on behalf of the poor and less
fortunate classes of the people.” This conclusion is based on its comparison with the
Akkadian pairing kittam/misharim shakanum = “to do truth and uprightness …”
entailed in the proclamation of social reforms by kings.
8
In the Hebrew Bible, God is perceived as extending righteous acts (e.g., Psalms
99:4; 103:6). The direct involvement of God in carrying out justice where humans
fail to do so is conspicuous. Thus, for example, Ezekiel describes God as intervening
to protect the weak and to remove rulers who are violent, greedy, and exploitative
(Ezekiel 34, esp. verses 15–16 and 20).
Doing true/righteous acts is attributed in the Bible mainly to the king. It is written
of David that he “executed true justice” (2 Samuel 8:15); Josiah, king of Judah, was
considered the ideal king because he “dispensed justice and equity,” i.e., “upheld the
rights of the poor and needy” (Jeremiah 22:15–16); and various prophets see the com-
ing/eschatological king as one who would practice justice and equity (Isaiah 9:6;
Jeremiah 23:5; 33:15). In addition, in Psalms 72, the psalmist appeals to God to grant
the king the ability to do justice, i.e., to aid the weak and destroy those who exploit.
What emerges from Psalms is that to do justice is apparently the main role of the king.
The individual has also a part in this endeavor. The choosing of Abraham by God
is based on “that he may instruct his children and his posterity to keep the way of the
Lord by doing what is just and right” (Genesis 18:19). Ezekiel profiles the righteous
one with a series of deeds, the most important of which lie in the social realm
(Ezekiel 18:5–9). Prophets prove this repeatedly and demand justice from each and
every individual (such as Amos 4:1; 8:4–6; Jeremiah 7:5–6).
Reflections on Approaches to Ethics in the Hebrew Bible

Questions and ponderings on the nature of ethics in the Hebrew Bible can be divided
into two: protests expressed in the Scripture itself on the one hand, and reflections
of the modern reader on the other. Both show the adoption of Scripture as ethical
authority to be problematic.
Inner-Scriptural protests against Divine justice

In certain writings, the authors have biblical characters voice protest against Divine
collective punishment that does not distinguish between the guilty and the innocent.
For example, Abraham protests God’s plan to punish all of the Sodomites without
exception: “Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?” (Genesis 18:25). Similarly,
Moses and Aaron plead with God not to punish all of the Israelites for Korach’s
deeds (Numbers 16:22), and David ponders the ways of God in His punishing all of
Israel for the sin of one (2 Samuel 24:17). Like these characters, Job criticizes
vehemently the ways of God: “He destroys the blameless and the guilty” (Job 9:22).
Reflections of the modern reader

Reflections on God’s ways
God’s deeds as described in the Hebrew Bible often give pause regarding the degree
of their morality. God destroys humanity in the Flood (Genesis 6:9–7:24), annihilates
Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:24–5), and directs the annihilation of all the
peoples of Canaan (Deuteronomy 20:16–18) – without distinguishing between
9
adults and minors. In addition, God allows Satan to kill all of Job’s innocent children
(Job 1:12 ff.).
Reflections on social outlooks

Many parts of biblical literature are based on various social values that differ widely
from those of today’s Western society. Below are a few examples.
The Israelite social precept reflects a patriarchal, androcentric system, in which
the man/male is the center of the family, and everyone else is subject to him and is
his property. In other words, the woman is not equal in status to her partner: He is
her master, and he rules over her (Genesis 3:16).
The law in the Hebrew Bible is based on the social concept that allows the existence
of the institution of slavery (Exodus 21:1–6; Leviticus 25:39–46; Deuteronomy
15:12–18).
History of the Commentaries and Scriptural Research

From ancient times until today, the realm of ethics in the Hebrew Bible is both a
commentarial and theological challenge. The range of approaches and opinions is
wide. There are those who accept all of the biblical approaches as binding; there are
those who reject them out of hand; and there are those who adopt those precepts
perceived as “ethical” and befitting the approach of the reader.
In the modern age, the subject of ethics has occupied a growing platform of
discourse, particularly from the 1970s and 1980s. The reasons for this are varied: the
feminist critique of the biblical status of women; the call of the Second Vatican
Ecumenical Council (1962–5) to return to holy writ for answers to theological and
ethical questions; the involvement of the United States in Vietnam and Southeast Asia;
the call of American biblical researcher and theologian Brevard Childs and his British
colleague John Rogerson – all these served to intensify interest in biblical ethics. (For
a history of ancient interpretation and modern research by both Jews and Christians,
see Bretzky 1997, 2004; Wright 2004: 387–414; Kasher 2005; Ratheizer 2007: 11–161.)
see also: altruism and biology; autonomy of ethics; deontology;

egalitarianism; humanitarian intervention; relativism, moral;
utilitarianism
REFERENCES
Bar-Efrat, Shimon 2007–9. Das Erste Buch Samuel – Das Zweite Buch Samuel, aus dem
Neuhebräischen übersetzt von Johannes Klein. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer.
Barton, John 2003. Understanding Old Testament Ethics: Approaches and Explorations.
Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press.
Bretzky, James T. 1997. Bibliography on Scripture and Christian Ethics. Lewiston, NY:
E. Meller Press.
Bretzky, James T. 2004. Bibliography on Scripture and Ethics. Electronic version revised and
expanded February 25, 2004. At www.usfca.edu/fac-staff/bretzkesj/Scripture EthicsBib.htm.
10
Fohrer, Georg 1974. “The Righteous Man in Job 31,” in J. L. Crenshaw and J. T. Willis (eds.),
Essays in Old Testament Ethics: J. F. Hyatt in Memoriam. New York: Ktav, pp. 1–22.
Goldingay, John 1981. Approaches to Old Testament Interpretation. Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press.
Houston, Walter J. 2006. Contending for Justice: Ideologies and Theologies of Social Justice in
the Old Testament. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark.
Houston, Walter J. 2007. “The Character of YHWH and the Ethics of the Old Testament: Is
Imitatio Dei Appropriate?” Journal of Theological Studies, vol. 58, pp. 1–25.
Kasher, Rimon 2005. “Ethics and Morality of the Hebrew Bible in Modern Biblical Research,”
BEIT MIKRA, vol. 51, no. 184, pp. 1–42 [Hebrew].
Kasher, Rimon 2012. “Walking in the Way of God in the Hebrew Bible,” SHNATON. An
Annual for Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies, vol. 21, pp. 29–68 [Hebrew].
Kaufman, Stephen A. 1978–9. “The Structure of the Deuteronomic Law,” MAARAV, vol. 1,
pp. 105–58.
Kaufmann, Yehezkel 1960. The Religion of Israel: From Its Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile,
trans. Moshe Greenberg. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Malchow, Bruce V. 1996. Social Justice in the Hebrew Bible: What Is New and What Is Old.
Collegeville, MI: Liturgical Press.
Muffs, Yochanan 1992. Love and Joy: Law, Language and Religion in Ancient Israel. New York:
Jewish Theological Seminary of America.
Ratheiser, Gershon M. H. 2007. Mitzvoth Ethics and the Jewish Bible. London: T. & T. Clark.
Rogerson, John W. 2004. Theory and Practice in Old Testament Ethics, ed. M. Daniel and
R. Carroll. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark.
Schwartz, Baruch J. 1999. The Holiness Legalisation: Studies in the Priestly Code. Jerusalem:
Magness Press [Hebrew].
Shemesh, Yael 2002. “Lies by Prophets and Other Lies in the Hebrew Bible,” Journal of the
American Near Eastern Society, vol. 29, pp. 81–95.
Simon, Uriel 2004. Seek Peace and Pursue It: Topical Issues in the Light of the Bible, the Bible in
the Light of Topical Issues. Tel-Aviv: Yedioth [Hebrew].
Weinfeld, Moshe 1995. Social Justice in Ancient Israel and in the Ancient Near East. Jerusalem:
Magness Press; Minneapolis: Fortress Press.
Wright, Christopher J. H. 2004. Old Testament Ethics for the People of God. Leicester: Inter-
Varsity Press.
FURTHER READINGS
Barr, James 1993. Biblical Faith and Natural Theology. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Berman, Joshua A. 2008. Created Equal: How the Bible Broke with Ancient Political Thought.
Birch, Bruce C. 1991. Let Justice Roll Down: The Old Testament Ethics, and Christian Life.
Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press.
Carroll, Robert P. 1991. Wolf in the Sheepfold: The Bible as a Problem for Christianity. London:
SPCK.
Carroll, Robert P. 1997. Wolf in the Sheepfold: The Bible as Problematic for Theology, 2nd ed.
London: SCM Press.
Crenshaw, James L., and John T. Willis (eds.) 1974. Essays in OT Ethics: J. Philip Hyatt, In
Memoriam. New York: Ktav.
11
Davies, Eryl W. 2005. “The Morally Dubious Passages of the Hebrew Bible: An Examination
of Some Proposed Solutions,” Currents in Biblical Research, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 197–228.
Green, Joel B. et. al. (eds.) 2011. Dictionary of Scripture and Ethics. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker
Academic.
Greenberg, Moshe 1960. “Some Postulates of Biblical Criminal Law,” in Menahem Haran
(ed.), Yehezkel Kaufmann Jubilee Volume. Jerusalem: Magness Press, pp. 5–28.
Hoffmann, R. Joseph, and Gerald A. Larue (eds.) 1988. Biblical v. Secular Ethics: The Conflict.
Buffalo: Prometheus Books.
Janzen, Waldemar 1994. Old Testament Ethics: A Paradigmatic Approach. Louisville, KY:
Westminster/John Knox Press.
Kaiser, Walter C. 1983. Toward Old Testament Ethics. Grand Rapids, MI: Academic Books.
Knight, Douglas A. (ed.) 1995. “Ethics and Politics in the Hebrew Bible,” Semeia, vol. 66.
Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature.
Nachshon, Amichai 2002. “God’s Requirements from the Gentiles in the Historiographic and
Prophetic Biblical Literature,” Diss., Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University [Hebrew].
Nineham, Dennis 1976. The Use and Abuse of the Bible: A Study of the Bible in an Age of Rapid
Cultural Change. London: SPCK.
Otto, Eckart 1994. Theologische Ethik des Alten Testaments. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer.
Rodd, Cyril S. 2001. Glimpses of a Strange Land: Studies in Old Testament Ethics. Edinburgh:
T. & T. Clark.
Rogerson, John, Margaret Davies, R. Carroll, and M. Daniel (eds.) 1995. The Bible in Ethics:
The Second Sheffield Colloquium, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, suppl. series
207. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.
Wenham, Gordon J. 2000. Story as Torah: Reading the Old Testament Ethically. Edinburgh:
T. & T. Clark.
Wybray, Roger N. 1996. “The Immorality of God: Reflections on Some Passages in Genesis,
Job, Exodus and Numbers,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, vol. 72,
pp. 89–120.
1
Mackie, J. L.
Simon Kirchin
John Leslie Mackie (1917–81) was born in Sydney and taught at the universities of
(in chronological order) Sydney, Otago, York, and Oxford. He was elected a Fellow
of the British Academy in 1974.
Mackie wrote about many philosophical questions. (Here we will not discuss his 1974
work on metaphysics, and his 1982 work on philosophy of religion.) His greatest contri-
bution to modern ethics was in articulating and defending a moral error theory (see
error theory). This entry will concentrate on Mackie’s version of this theory. Although
“error theory” is the commonly used title, he refers to his position as a type of “moral
subjectivism” or “moral scepticism” (see skepticism, moral). As we shall see, Mackie
has a particular use of “scepticism”: he makes a positive metaphysical claim about the
absence of something and is not merely wondering if we have evidence for believing in
something. Before we can understand this we need to understand the larger debate.
In metaethics (see metaethics), one of the chief questions is a metaphysical one,
concerning whether moral values or properties exist. Some theorists, and ordinary
people, are moral realists (see realism, moral). They think that moral properties
exist. Realists are typically cognitivists (see cognitivism). Cognitivists claim that the
mental states expressed using moral judgments are attempts to represent the world
and are things that can encapsulate knowledge (if those states correctly capture
them). Correspondingly, realist-cognitivists are likely to be descriptivists about moral
language and claim that moral utterances typically function to describe the world.
This realist-cognitivist-descriptivist triumvirate, although strong and popular,
can be attacked. For example, non-cognitivists (see non-cognitivism) think that
moral mental states are not matters of cognition; they may instead express, or just
be, desires or commands. Relatedly, non-cognitivists will be expressivists about
moral language: such language expresses attitudes and commands rather than
describes them or other things. Non-cognitivists are typically anti-realists. This is
partly because they think there are good arguments against the existence of moral
properties, and partly because they think that non-cognitivism explains everyday
moral phenomena without needing to assume the existence of such properties.
It is commonly said that whilst the early part of the twentieth century was domi-
nated by realism, for most of the time non-cognitivism held sway. Mackie’s error
theory burst onto the scene in 1977 with the publication of Ethics: Inventing Right
and Wrong. Error theory can trace its lineage to ancient Greek philosophy, although,
for example, Mackie would have disagreed with much of what Plato has Callicles
and Thrasymachus say in Gorgias and Republic respectively. It should be noted that
the position was mooted before 1977, most notably by Mackie himself in 1946. But,
it is unarguable that Ethics contains the position’s clearest, most sustained articulation
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee074
2
up to that point. It is surprising that it took so long to articulate such a simple view.
After all, atheism is a type of error theory, and most people take an error theoretic
stance toward discourses about (literal) magic and phlogiston.
Mackie, and other error theorists, agree with non-cognitivist-expressivists that
there are no moral properties. But, he disagrees about moral language and thought.
Mackie argues that everyday moral thought and language is an attempt to describe
moral properties that seemingly exist. However, because there are no such proper-
ties, such thought and language is erroneous. Mackie specifically worries that people
are committed to the existence of “objective prescriptivity,” but that no such thing
exists. In a moment we will examine his two main arguments for this claim.
Before that, note two things. First, whilst error theorists take a negative attitude
toward everyday moral thought and language, non-cognitivists are more positive.
Despite their anti-realism, non-cognitivists attempt to vindicate everyday moral
thought and language. For them, moral thought and language work differently from
how we might initially characterize them, but moral thought is still valuable.
Second, error theories come in many versions. Here is a suggestion as to the gen-
eral form, which imagines its having two parts: (1) the identification of a commit-
ment that is fundamental to everyday moral thought and language, such that without
it this thought and language cannot continue sincerely; and (2) an argument that
shows why such a commitment is bogus (etc.), which thus casts doubt on the viabil-
ity of the whole of morality. Thus, for an error theory to work there has to be some
assumption about what the folk are committed to, whether or not they realize they
are so. Many commentators mistakenly see Mackie’s version of error theory as what
error theory has to be. But, for example, one could argue for an error theory by
showing as erroneous the widely held belief that agents are free and responsible.
What of Mackie’s arguments? More thought about “objective prescriptivity” will
emerge below, but for now we can state that it is the idea that there exist demands to
act that exist independently of us. (Mackie often uses values and other notions instead
of demands.) Mackie begins his “Argument from Relativity” with the unarguable
claim that there exist differences between the moral beliefs that individuals and
societies adopt. So: my fellows and I might think that such-and-such is demanded
of us and everyone else, whilst others disagree, and may even think that what we do
is impermissible. Mackie then says that this should not be described as a case where
only one person or group, if that, has correctly represented the objectively existing
prescriptions. Rather, we have variation because there is nothing objective to repre-
sent. Mackie notes that the mere existence of disagreement is not enough to sup-
port error theory. He acknowledges that there exists disagreement in scientific
practice. However, he thinks this is to be explained because of inadequate evidence
and because many scientific disputes arise due to a clash between initial specula-
tions that can later be proved or disproved. Moreover, we can add, such disputes are
often resolved. In the moral case it is wrong to interpret difference in the same way.
Mackie considers a counter-response. What if moral variation occurs only at a
specific level, and we have accord at a general level? For example, whilst you and I
agree that old, frail people should be respected, we disagree about how we should act.
3
Whilst you think that they should be allowed to take their life or be helped to do so, I
disagree. Indeed, I think this would show a lack of respect. However, says Mackie, this
counter is only partly successful, since what is considered to be objective are only the
general principles, and they do not constitute the whole of basic and important moral
thought. Furthermore, by characterizing things like this we can see that much of what
passes for “objective” moral thought turns out to be only contingent and derivative.
Is Mackie’s first argument any good? First, we should note that “objective” is differ-
ent from “derivative” and “contingent.” A moral realist need not assume that prescrip-
tions are nonderivative or necessary. They are arguing, strictly, that such things exist
and that they exist objectively. Derivative things and contingent things can exist and
do so independently of humans. Further, a moral realist may wish to fight for general
codes and demands. Mackie’s comments seem weak here. Indeed, even if his overall
point remains strong – moral differences are a striking fact – Mackie offers nothing
concrete beyond a suspicion that the explanation for this difference is because there
is nothing objective to discover. Moral realists can claim that it is rare to find wise
moral judges. Why think that moral difference is to be explained by some ontological
absence rather than thinking it occurs because of some widespread epistemic fault?
Mackie’s second argument, the “Argument from Queerness” is better and has
attracted more attention (see queerness, argument from). He says:
If there were objective values, then they would be entities or qualities or relations of a
very strange sort, utterly different from anything else in the universe. Correspondingly,
if we were aware of them, it would have to be by some special faculty of moral percep-
tion or intuition, utterly different from our ordinary ways of knowing everything else.
(1977: 38)
Most concentrate on the metaphysical part of the challenge, as Mackie himself does.
A first criticism of Mackie follows straight from the quotation. Just because something
is different from something else, even unique, this does not mean it cannot exist.
Humans may be the only conscious things in the universe, but that does not stop us or
our consciousness existing. We need to understand better what it is that makes objec-
tive prescriptions unique and why their existence is dubious. Mackie provides detail:
Plato’s Forms give a dramatic picture of what objective values would have to be. The
Form of the Good is such that knowledge of it provides the knower with both a direc-
tion and an overriding motive; something’s being good both tells the person who
knows this to pursue it and makes him pursue it .… Similarly, if there were objective
principles of right and wrong, any wrong (possible) course of action would have not-
to-be-pursuedness somehow built into it. Or we could have something like [Samuel]
Clarke’s necessary relations of fitness between situations and actions, so that a situation
would have a demand for such-and-such an action somehow built into it. (1977: 40)
What does Mackie mean by “prescriptivity”? This passage reveals an ambiguity. Is

Mackie attacking the thought that there are objectively existing demands that show
4
us what we have to do, as the invocation of Clarke suggests (see clarke, samuel)?
Or is he attacking the (further) thought that objectively existing demands motivate
us – cause us – to act appropriately, as the invocation of Plato suggests (see plato)?
Beyond Mackie there are further possibilities, but even if we stick with his words we
see a crucial difference that affects his objection’s plausibility. The Clarkean idea will
require support, but it seems less odd than its Platonic cousin.
Confusion remains if we switch to “objectivity.” Mackie is clearly attacking the
thought that moral demands exist independently of human beings and their institu-
tions. If people assume that prescriptions exist in this way, then they assume too
much. However, what of the idea that demands for certain individuals have their
source in what other humans and human-created institutions demand? The exist-
ence of such demands, and the claim that they are real and proper, does not seem a
metaphysically extravagant thought. Mackie seems to suggest in other sections of
Ethics, chapter 1 (e.g., ¶7), that he is happy with such “group-based” demands having
legitimacy for individuals. Of course, if that reads too much into him, and his attack
is general, then he can be taken to be attacking the existence of external reasons, or
something like them, as Bernard Williams did (see reasons, internal and exter-
nal; williams, bernard). But, if his concern is only with the queerness of demands
that have their source beyond humans, then this still leaves a certain sort of demand,
a human-centered demand, that morality is built on.
We can look beyond Ethics chapter 1, where error theory is detailed, to give more
perspective. In chapter 3 he considers John Searle’s attempt to show how one can
move from an “is” to an “ought.” Mackie’s essential point is that one can do this only
if there is some endorsement of the institution that supports the existence of such
oughts. Although he often characterizes this endorsement in terms of someone
endorsing the institution, he never explicitly says that the legitimacy of an ought as
applied to an agent depends on that agent’s endorsement of the institution in which
the ought finds itself. Indeed, as the further chapters in Ethics show, such as chapter
4 on the universalization of moral perspective and demands, Mackie is clear that
morality is a social activity that grows up and finds its legitimacy in what we do as
a group. This idea is a key theme in his 1980 work, where Hume is located histori-
cally as responding explicitly to the objectivism and intuitionism of his time by
developing a socially based morality. It is clear why Mackie would admire Hume.
This social theme is a double-edged sword for Mackie. It helps provide some
color, at the least, to his Argument from Relativity. If morality depends on the soci-
ety and institutions we form, then the differences that exist between people really are
a striking fact that deserves reflection. However, in playing up the importance of
social-based institutions we get different notions of prescriptivity and objectivity. Is
it so queer to imagine the existence of demands that are grounded in the thoughts
and desires of (other) humans and which (further) stand as demands that need not
motivate? In short, no. All this shows that more is needed to sharpen Mackie’s chal-
lenge, important and pressing as it initially is.
There is more to say about both arguments, but it is also worth thinking about
both the structure and implications of error theory.
5
First, consider its structure. Recall that an error theory has to focus on a non-
negotiable commitment of the thought and language under investigation. Presumably
this commitment has to have widespread acceptance, and yet it also has to be false
in such a way that the whole of the thought and language of which it is a part is
bogus. Such commitments can be found in the case of (literal) magic discourse, and
perhaps in traditional Christian discourse. Can the same be true of morality? One
worry is that there seems to be no non-negotiable commitment that is widely held
by moral thinkers. Some people may think that there are objective prescriptions,
where this is shorthand for “demands that motivate and which exist human-
independently.” But others may not, and moral thinking might survive any objection
to such an idea. Indeed, moral thought and language may not have a clear, overall
point; their messiness may mean that no error theory works. Or, to put it differently,
the general worry is that one may focus on a moral idea (such as “objective prescrip-
tivity”) that appears bogus, specify it so as to defend it as bogus from those who seek
to show there to be alternative, nonqueer readings, and in doing so fail to make good
on the claim that such an idea is widespread and a non-negotiable element of moral
thinking.
Ironically, the rest of Ethics illustrates this worry. One of Mackie’s chief themes
in his discussion of normative ethics is whether morality is to be understood in a
broad sense (viz., as supplying us with the theory of conduct that trumps all other
considerations) or in the narrow sense (as giving us important guidance as to how
our conduct is to be checked). It is clear that everyday moral thinking, and norma-
tive ethical theories developed by philosophers, cut across both views. Some points
and principles are generated that fit well with morality as a broad activity, whilst
others fit better when it is conceived narrowly. (Mackie is very good on the ten-
sions that utilitarianism faces in this regard.) So, as well as worrying that there is
no specific commitment that unifies morality, such as a commitment to objective
prescriptivity, there may well be no agreement as to what morality is supposed to
be in the first place. The messiness of the thought and language under reflection
can count against finding a non-negotiable commitment, and that bodes ill for
error theory.
What of error theory’s implications? If one is confident that one has decent
arguments that show morality to be bogus, one still has to decide what to do with it.
There are two main camps: fictionalists and abolitionists (see fictionalism,
moral). Fictionalists think that we should retain moral thought and language for
some reason, whilst abolitionists think that accepting error theory entails rejecting
all moral talk. Here is not the place to decide the issue, but it is worth noting that
many are unsatisfied with the various suggested fictionalist solutions, whilst
abolitionism strikes many as extreme and impractical.
What of Mackie? In Hume’s Moral Theory (1980: 154) he defends the retention of
moral thought because it is useful, although he does not defend fictionalism in
detail. Also noteworthy is that beyond part 1 of Ethics, and as already hinted at, he
talks in a sincere and uncomplicated manner about normative moral reasoning and
many first-order ethical topics. He has, for example, many illuminating things to say
6
about the (aforementioned) types of universalization procedure we might adopt

when constructing a moral principle, and how these relate to individual desires and
relationships. Similarly, he has extended discussions of how property rights should
be construed and about life and death issues.
This illustrates a worry with error theory, particularly Mackie’s version. The posi-
tive nature of Ethics illustrates his conviction that moral thinking is to be con-
structed, not discovered. But, what Mackie creates bears a great similarity to, if not
identity with, much of what passes for everyday morality. We may wonder whether
everyday moral thinking is in error. We may have to reject one sense of an idea
(admittedly often voiced), that prescriptions are objective. But that is some way from
convicting morality as a whole as erroneous. The structure of error theory becomes
vital here. We are not just to reject one idea or revise some part of morality, as
non-cognitivists arguably do when they ask us to eschew descriptivism. Instead, the
rejection of a commitment is also supposed to cast doubt on the whole. That is
radical, and may be difficult to pull off.
We have concentrated on Mackie’s error theory here, partly because this is what he
is best known for in ethics, but also because most of his moral philosophy elaborates
upon and exemplifies the position. Even if this essay has at times been critical, it is
essential to realize that Mackie’s position is both brilliant and amazingly fertile. Even in
a summary this short we have touched on some if not all of the key questions in meta-
ethics. His error theory deserves sustained thought despite its controversial core claim.
See also: clarke, samuel; cognitivism; error theory; fictionalism,

moral; metaethics; non-cognitivism; plato; queerness, argument from;
realism, moral; reasons, internal and external; skepticism, moral;
williams, bernard
REFERENCES
Mackie, J. L. 1946. “A Refutation of Morals,” Australasian Journal of Psychology and Philosophy,
vol. 24, pp. 77–90.
Mackie, J. L. 1974. The Cement of the Universe: A Study of Causation. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Mackie, J. L. 1980. Hume’s Moral Theory. London: Routledge.
Mackie, J. L. 1982. The Miracle of Theism: Arguments for and Against the Existence of God.
FURTHER READINGS
Brink, David O. 1984. “Moral Realism and the Sceptical Arguments from Disagreement and
Queerness,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 62, pp. 111–25.
Cuneo, Terence 2007. The Normative Web. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Garner, Richard T. 1990. “On the Genuine Queerness of Moral Properties and Facts,”
7
Honderich, Ted (ed.) 1985. Morality and Objectivity: A Tribute to J. L. Mackie. London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Joyce, Richard, and Simon Kirchin (eds.) 2010. A World without Values: Essays on John
Mackie’s Error Theory. Dordrecht: Springer.
Mackie, J. L. 1973. Truth, Probability, and Paradox. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mackie, J. L. 1976. Problems from Locke. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mackie, J. L. 1985a. Logic and Knowledge: Selected Papers, vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Mackie, J. L. 1985b. Persons and Values: Selected Papers, vol. 2. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Shepski, Lee 2008. “The Vanishing Argument from Queerness,” Australasian Journal of
Timmons, Mark 1999. Morality without Foundations: A Defense of Ethical Contextualism.
1
Anthropocentrism
Bryan G. Norton
The idea that ethics has human relationships and interactions as its exclusive subject
matter has been so central to the Western philosophical tradition that no term for
this belief/assumption existed in general parlance, at least in English, until 1967. For
example, in 1923, the forester/philosopher Aldo Leopold described the dominant
position in Western ethical thought as “premised squarely on the assumption that
man is the end and purpose of creation, and that not only the dead earth, but all
creatures thereon, exist for his use” (1979: 140). In struggling to characterize the
position despite linguistic poverty in the area, Leopold referred to this assumption
as “anthropomorphism” which, when properly used, refers to the attribution of
human characteristics to members of nonhuman species. Although we must be tol-
erant of Leopold’s stretching of a concept because he had no extant linguistic alter-
native, the label is an unhappy one because it apparently implies that nonhumans
have the human characteristics of moral agency and moral standing, which is the
opposite of Leopold’s point.
This poverty of expressive possibilities was remedied by Lynn White, Jr., a histo-
rian, writing in a much-cited 1967 Science essay, “The Historical Roots of Our
Ecologic Crisis.” White, whose central point was that the Western traditions of
ethics provide weak ethical controls on the development of technologies, and that
Westerners seem oblivious to negative impacts of their actions on other species and
ecological systems, described the tradition as “anthropocentric.” In an assertion that
dramatically changed the study of ethics of environmental actions, White said:
“Christianity is the most anthropocentric religion the world has seen,” noting that
the dominant Western creation story claimed humans were made “in God’s image.”
He went on to contrast Christianity with Pagan beliefs that embraced animism, the
view that animals, plants, and rocks have souls, and he intimated that attempts to
protect resources and the natural world will suffer as long as Christians’ “anthropo-
centric” beliefs remain dominant. White’s conceptualization of the “historical”
problem set the stage for a spate of responses by ethicists who questioned the
long-standing ethical divide between humans and nonhumans and explored the
contrary notion, which was referred to as “nonanthropocentrism,” in search of a
more effective environmental ethic (Routley 1973; Rolston 1975; Regan 2004). The
resulting debate, which dominated the first three decades of scholarship in environ-
mental ethics, also precipitated an all-out turf war with mainstream economists who
unabashedly and strongly insisted that value be understood as a function of human,
individual preferences as expressed in self-interested behavior within markets. That
interdisciplinary argument, which will be examined below, continues without
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee075
2
abatement, and it has created havoc in discussions of how to evaluate anthropogenic

changes to the environment.
Since those early nonanthropocentric responses, and also some defenses offered
for anthropocentrism (Passmore 1974), the field of environmental ethics has been
polarized around this apparently unresolvable issue. Environmental ethics as a field
developed subsequently as an exploration of metaethical definitions of possible
forms of human-independent value. These metaethical positions seemed to
correspond to somewhat different underlying ontologies and basic assumptions
regarding the moral status of animals, plants, and ecosystems; and the question
whether nonhuman beings can have intrinsic value became entwined with the
question of which beings are “morally considerable” (deserving of having their
interests considered in human decision-making).
As metaethical and ontological discussions proceeded, the concept of
nonanthropocentrism was partially clarified by substitution of new labels –
biocentrism (referring to the view that nonhuman individuals have value that is
not instrumental to human ends) (see biocentrism) and ecocentrism (referring
to positions that attribute human-independent value to ecosystems and to
species). In the years since the publication of White’s analysis, no consensus has
emerged among nonanthropocentrists as to what, exactly, has “intrinsic value” –
Individuals? Species? Ecosystems? – and hence what deserves to be accorded
“moral considerability.” It should be stated, however, that many Christian authors
have noted that White’s assertion seems to ignore, as White himself notes later in
the discussion, a minority Christian tradition as well as numerous biblical pas-
sages urging stewardship of creation (see animals, moral status of; species,
the value of).
The apparently important disagreement between ecocentrists and biocentrists
injected another disagreement – between holists and individualists – into the debate.
As these two controversies – between anthropocentrism and nonanthropocentrism
and between individualism and holism – interact, four broad categories of theories
of environmental values have emerged:
1 Anthropocentric individualism (Passmore 1974): this is the standard, traditional

view that it is the good of human individuals that should count in
decision-making.
2 Nonanthropocentric individualism (Regan 2004): this is the view, more allied
with animal liberation than with environmental ethics, that argues all value is
individual value – but we should extend our concern to the suffering or rights of
nonhuman individuals because the distinction between human and other
animals is an arbitrary and self-serving one. While anthropocentrism also has
application to treatment of other animals, this essay focuses on anthropocentrism
in environmental ethics (see animal rights). While some authors (e.g., Taylor
1986) have attempted to base an environmental ethic on nonanthropocentric
individualism, such authors have failed to convince most readers that such a
3
theory can be squared with many of our deepest intuitions about comparative
treatment of humans and other animals.
3 Nonanthropocentric holism (Callicott 1980): this is the position that it is
ecological wholes like ecosystems and species that are properly attributed
intrinsic/noninstrumental value by humans, arguing that the well-being of the
individual in ecology is subordinated to the well-being of the whole ecosystem.
4 Anthropocentric holism (Norton 2005): this is the position that, in the interests
of humans, present and future, nature as a whole must be saved because it is
impossible to save nature in fragmented chunks.
While there are variations on these four basic positions in environmental ethics,
these categories are useful in separating possible theories according to their philo-
sophical commitments and principles.
While nonanthropocentrism became very popular in the field of environmental
ethics, advocates of the position disagreed about the exact nature of human-
independent value. Some authors, expanding the idea of intrinsic value as applied to
human beings, argued that natural objects have value that is inherent to the object
and in no way dependent upon humans to exist (Rolston 1994). Others (Callicott
1986) argued that “value” is a verb form that describes a human attribution of value,
so at most natural objects could have “intrinsic” value – value attributed to the object
by a conscious act of a human who bases the attribution on characteristics of the
object. On this latter, “weaker” view, the intrinsic characteristics of the object are
valued, but this value is judged to be independent of human, instrumental uses,
while dependent on the human faculty for evaluation. This latter position, while
making less severe demands on how we might know that an object has human-inde-
pendent value, has proved philosophically unstable. Early attempts at explicating this
position took the view that deeper understanding of the ecology of systems will
uncover characteristics that are especially worthy of being attributed value inde-
pendent of human uses (Callicott 1980). But this position seemed to conflict with the
idea that humans must attribute independent value to the object, undermining the
crucial idea of independence. Callicott, a long-time advocate of this position, for
example, has moved away from the idea that ecological knowledge informs us of
characteristics that we must prize independently of our needs and values, ending
recently in the position that “All value, in short, is of subjective provenance. And
I hold that intrinsic value should be defined negatively, in contradistinction to
instrumental value, as the value of something that is left over when all its instrumen-
tal value has been subtracted (‘intrinsic value’ and ‘noninstrumental value’ are two
names for one and the same thing)” (see intrinsic value). Emphasizing the personal
and the subjective nature of intrinsic acts of valuing, he says: “Indeed, it is logically
possible to value intrinsically anything under the sun – an old worn-out shoe, for
example” (Callicott 2002: 10). At this point, it can be difficult to see how such a posi-
tion, asserted to be nonanthropocentric, can maintain any sense of human-inde-
pendent value because nonhuman value can only exist as a result of human affect.
4
As this debate evolved, it has indeed become more and more difficult to see an
important theoretical difference between weak nonanthropocentrism and weak
anthropocentrism. Advocates of both positions agree that human attribution is an
unavoidable element in all valuing, including the valuing of a nonhuman being
“intrinsically.” While this point of agreement between weak anthropocentrism and
weak nonanthropocentrism is still disputed by strong nonanthropocentrists (e.g.,
Rolston 1994), a consensus of the less extreme positions seems to establish that, at
least in one important sense, all values, including all natural values, are human
values. It seems to follow that resolution of value disagreements will ultimately
require the balancing and prioritizing of competing human values. The remaining
disagreements between the two “weak” positions come down to the insistence of
weak nonanthropocentrists on a sharp distinction between instrumental and non-
instrumental (intrinsic) values, and an insistence by weak nonanthropocentrists
that attributions of intrinsic value can “trump” any human instrumental value when
there is competition among such values (Callicott 2002). Weak anthropocentrists,
who advocate balancing all types of human value through negotiation, cooperation,
and compromise, tend not to think in terms of one position trumping another, but
rather in terms of finding a fair balance among competing values.
If one sets aside the contentious question of the nature of intrinsic value in nature,
and speaks at a more commonsense level, it is possible to wonder whether all of this
theoretical scaffolding was necessary to understand White’s original assertion of
the anthropocentrism of Christianity (Norton 2005). Environmental ethicists have
interpreted anthropocentrism as a “theory” – the theory that only humans
have intrinsic (moral) value. If one assumes, as philosophical ethicists did, that
White intended his attribution of anthropocentrism to Western thought as belief in
this exclusivist theory, then their denial of that theory by extending human morality
to apply to other species seemed within that context to be a reasonable response to
White’s criticism.
This interpretation of White, however, attributes far more to him than would be
necessary to understand his point. Rather than treating anthropocentrism as a
full-blown ethical theory, it is possible that White may simply have criticized the
Western attitude, an attitude of hubris, that insulates the technological efforts of
Westerners from reasonable ethical critique within a human framework of values.
He may, that is, have simply been observing that Westerners, smug in their belief
that they are made in the image of God, are encountering just the kinds of human
problems that traditional ethicists have viewed as ethically unacceptable hubris by
human standards. On this view, the charge of “anthropocentrism” can be thought of
as a warning about hubris, based on the costs of prideful action on humans. It need
not be taken as entailing an entire philosophical theory, replete with many
distinctions, complexities, and questionable assumptions.
Just as nonanthropocentrists come in varying strengths and varieties,
anthropocentrists also exist in two important variants, called strong and weak anthro-
pocentrism. This distinction is important in understanding contemporary debates
about environmental values because it illuminates the above-mentioned rift between
5
most environmental ethicists and mainstream economists (see economics and

ethics; incommensurability [and incomparability]) . Strong anthropocen-
trism, as understood here, asserts that the good of nature is in fulfilling the individ-
ual needs/preferences of human beings. This position, besides maintaining a strong
and unyielding pro-human viewpoint, has gained both intellectual and political
clout because it is consonant with – and might even be understood to support – the
preference-based utilitarianism of mainstream economics. Economists operational-
ize a particular version of utilitarianism, the view that good decisions are those that
bring most happiness, and the least suffering, to the most people. The individual is
understood as happy when existing preferences are fulfilled. This view, then, has
become the target of those environmental ethicists who have developed nonanthro-
pocentric theories and the turf war between intrinsic-values-in-nature advocates
and mainstream economists has dominated the debate about environmental values.
This ongoing war is particularly nasty – and unproductive – because the two sides
use entirely different conceptions of value and attribute it to different sets of entities.
Worse, the dispute causes confusion and polarization in public policy deliberation
about values as advocates of growth and development often advance economic argu-
ments based on preferences of humans, which are countered with incommensurable
arguments that recognize moral considerability outside the human species.
In an effort to bridge the intellectual gulf between ethical and economic discourse
that so bedevils both academic discussions and public deliberations, weak anthropo-
centrism – perhaps better called broad anthropocentrism because it emphasizes the
breadth and variety of ways in which humans value nature – has been suggested as a
less polarizing viewpoint and terminology (Norton 1984). This position, while
sharing with economics a broadly human perspective on decision-making,
challenges the economists’ claim that economic analysis represents a comprehensive
accounting of human values. Weak anthropocentrism differs from strong anthropo-
centrism (and economics) in three important ways:
1 Weak anthropocentrists do not discriminate among humans according to when

they live. Economic analysis typically “discounts” future impacts by some percentage
each year – thereby ensuring “presentism,” the favoring of those currently alive at
the expense of future people. Weak anthropocentrism, by contrast, asserts more
broadly the interests and rights of all people, present and future.
2 Weak anthropocentrists, while taking all values to be ultimately “human values,”
do not try to represent or express all human values in a single rubric; weak
anthropocentrists, that is, recognize that humans value nature in multiple ways,
including consumptive ways, but also for aesthetic and spiritual experiences.
Weak anthropocentrists see no reason to draw a sharp line between intrinsic
and instrumental values; since all values are human values, and diverse and
conflicting values may produce difficult decisions, trade-offs, and balances, but
the weak anthropocentrist sees no value in trying to express all of these human
values and interests in either economic terms or in terms of intrinsic values of
nature.
6
3 Weak anthropocentrists do not follow economists and some ethicists in taking

human preferences to be static and fixed – as givens in the analysis of human
value-seeking behavior. Weak anthropocentrists take human preferences to be
corrigible and open to transformation by experiences with nature; this view is in
direct conflict with economists’ idea of “consumer sovereignty” by which actors
have prior, existing, and unchangeable preferences which they seek to fulfill
within markets, by seeking desired goods or, lacking affordability of such goods,
accepting a substitute (Norton et al. 1998). Weak anthropocentrists, on the other
hand, find value in experiences of nature that transform human preferences.
Because weak anthropocentrists see social values as evolving in a dynamic situa-
tion, they emphasize processes of personal transformation in the face of surpris-
ing experiences, and they advocate public deliberations about environmental
goals, which in turn can result in social learning. Weak anthropocentrists
distinguish their views from those of strong anthropocentrists and economists by
recognizing the dynamic nature of human values, whereas nonanthropocentrists
distinguish their views from economists by attacking the field’s human-centered
assumptions.
Some weak anthropocentrists have proposed an additional theory, not implied by

anthropocentrism, but thought to complement the weak anthropocentrists’ emphasis
on the variety of human values. This theory, called the “convergence hypothesis,” has
proved controversial among nonanthropocentrists (Norton 1991; Minteer 2009). The
convergence hypothesis rests on a key distinction between an action or policy and the
motivation or justification given for the action or policy. The hypothesis states:
If one compares the policy recommendations of sincere, principled, and consistent

nonanthropocentrists committed to protecting intrinsic values in nature with the
policy recommendations proposed by an anthropocentrist who takes into account
the many ways humans value nature and the importance of natural systems to
future humans, these policy recommendations would be similar.
While this hypothesis was offered as a means to reduce the animosity across the
divide among environmental ethicists and environmental economists, it was
attacked by nonanthropocentrists who are uncomfortable with the hypothesis,
claiming it will be used nefariously to justify selfish human activities. This concern
has caused nonanthropocentrists to offer many counterexamples to the hypothesis;
for example, Rolston (2009) points to the conflict between tigers and humans in
India, arguing that continued encroachment on the jungle by burgeoning human
populations will eventually lead to the extinction of the tiger. This is truly a tragic
situation, but offers no counterexample to the convergence hypothesis: it is
abundantly clear that India’s population policies and inability to control population
are a disaster for humans as well as tigers. A counterexample to the convergence
hypothesis would have to establish that a case where human interests – taking into
account the whole range of values for all humans, present and future – are served by
7
a policy that damages natural systems. Humans of the future will, after all, depend
on intact ecosystems just as do currently living humans.
Weak anthropocentrism has, also, an underlying theoretical disagreement that
ensures a contrast with intrinsic value theory as well. As was pointed out in an
influential book on the foundations of environmental ethics, legal scholar Christopher
Stone noted that early debates in environmental ethics, and early skirmishes with
economists over the nature of environmental value, were premised on the view that
the “correct” theory of environmental values must be “monistic.” Stone understood
monism as the view that ethical thought should embody a “single coherent and
complete set of principles capable of governing all moral quandaries” (Stone 1987:
116). Pluralists, by contrast, apply “multiple schemas” side by side. Monism, it turns
out, is a shared assumption of both strong anthropocentrism and intrinsic value
theory, and it functions to create polarization and intolerance of the opposed position.
Insofar as economic practitioners assume that all human value can be represented
in their preference-based model, and intrinsic value theorists generally insist that in
order to understand natural value it is necessary to attribute the same kind of intrinsic
value to natural objects as to human beings, the positions remain incompatible. Both
approaches, that is, assume they are alternative to each other – one or the other must
be correct in endorsing the one true way to understand or calculate value – rather
than possibly complementary. Both sides in the turf war operate on the assumption
that there can be no compromise; one or the other of the positions must be the correct
position; and of course each side assumes further that it is their position that will
eventually hold all of the territory. The dominant, polarized debate between
anthropocentrists and nonanthropocentrists, as noted, has assumed an either–or
outcome; more recently, virtue theorists such as Philip Cafaro (2001) have arrived at
pluralism via a different route (by recognizing the many prerequisites of living a
virtuous life). According to this philosophy, the moral consideration of animals and
nature is one of many virtues to be pursued simultaneously.
Stone’s distinction opened up the possibility that actors have plural “schemas” that
can be employed to “fit” in particular situations, choosing the most insightful ethical
analysis, given the facts of a case, or seeking ad hoc balances among conflicting
values. Monists from both the strong positions objected, arguing that allowing
multiple values that cannot be reduced to a single variety – either economic or
intrinsic values – would render decisions impossible and relativism unavoidable, as
every actor chooses the insight or rule favorable to them. Pluralists, the monists on
both sides argue, are inevitably relativists (see relativism, moral). This argument,
however persuasive it has been with advocates of both strong positions, is built upon
a deeper assumption – that “right” or “correct” environmental ethical positions can
be demonstrated by counting or comparing units or measures of a single “good,”
whether economic or intrinsic value of humans and natural objects; and that is a key
point of ongoing disagreement.
This conflict can be clarified by invoking some useful distinctions from decision
theory. Herbert Simon argued that, in discussions of policy and public actions, one
can defend decisions according to two, alternative conceptions of “rationality.” As
8
monists, both the economist and the environmental ethicist are seeking a
“substantively rational” basis for choosing an action. An action is substantively
rational if “it is appropriate to the achievement of given goals within the limits
imposed by given conditions and constraints” (Simon 1979: 67). On this view of
rationality, it is assumed that outcomes of actions can be judged and compared
according to a single, bottom-line calculation; the strong anthropocentric and the
strong nonanthropocentric positions are consonant with this assumption of a sin-
gle accounting system to resolve disagreements about actions and policies. Indeed,
both positions use this assumption in their arguments that anything less than a
monistic criterion of value will result in relativism and irrationality (Callicott
1990). Weak anthropocentrists and pluralists, however, can take comfort in an
alternative conception of rationality: “behavior is procedurally rational when it is
the outcome of appropriate deliberation” (Simon 1979: 68). Pluralists emphasize
effective processes and stake the rational examination of possible environmental
policies on an examination of the fairness and openness of the processes of public
deliberation.
Pluralism – the recognition that humans value nature in multiple ways that are in
some cases incommensurable – can be supported by the choice to employ the crite-
rion of procedural rationality rather than substantive rationality. Further, this
approach can be explained and justified by reference to another distinction and
hypothesis from decision theory: many environmental problems are “wicked prob-
lems.” Decision theorists distinguish “benign” problems from “wicked” problems; a
benign problem, like a problem in mathematics, has a single determinative solution.
Wicked problems, on the other hand, are not susceptible to a single problem formu-
lation, and they are not susceptible to algorithmic, single-answer solutions. It is
reasonable to understand most environmental problems faced today as wicked
problems because they share the characteristic that differing participants in the dis-
cussion of what to do will characterize the problem differently, and because they see
the problem from a different perspective or are protecting different values (Rittel
and Webber 1973). Because there is no agreement in the problem formulation of
wicked problems, definitive answers cannot be expected, and the best that can be
achieved is temporary resolutions, negotiated among parties, and providing a basis
for cooperation until the situation and social values shift, at which point wicked
problems will appear in a new form. Given that in a diverse society there are many
expressions of environmental values, it is realistic to apply a pluralistic model that,
doubting the availability of single, correct solutions supported by substantive
rational arguments to guide action, places problem formulation and the search for
solutions within a public process of negotiation, social learning, and compromise.
The future of anthropocentrism, if it is possible to speculate, lies in the direction
of an inclusive pluralism, with many advocates of sustainability emphasizing stew-
ardship for future generations, others arguing for the importance of protecting
ecosystem services, while yet others advocate for nature as intrinsically valuable.
Good decisions will have to be informed by all of these viewpoints. If environmen-
tal thinkers can get past the assumption that economists and intrinsic value
9
theorists cannot both be right, reject monism, and recognize that there are multiple
human values, then it becomes possible that all of these values can be represented
in an open process of deliberation. The key is to develop an “appropriate” process
that can ensure that all viewpoints are heard, that voices of the vulnerable are reg-
istered, and that deliberation involves giving of reasons and answering objections.
This pluralistic, open-ended approach to embedding values in community action
seems to point toward the approach, popular in Europe, of communicative ration-
ality and a commitment to deliberative processes that result in social learning,
including learning about environmental values (Habermas 1987; O’Neill et al.
2009). The future of anthropocentrism lies in offering an inclusive, broad
approach to valuations and evaluative tools, and all of these can be employed in
the ongoing process of deliberation and social learning. This system for
understanding environmental decisions, and humans in them, is anthropocentric
in the sense that all values are human values, with human advocates for them and,
further, it will be human actions that in many cases determine the future of natu-
ral systems. The weak anthropocentric approach considers the varied reasons
people give for caring for nature as additive, not in competition with each other,
making it possible to act in ways that serve the interests of both humans and
nature. Inevitably, there will be disagreements and difficult decisions affecting pri-
orities, and conflict will continue over environmental goals and actions. Weak
anthropocentrists, wary of monistic approaches that claim to establish the one
correct way to act, however, embrace pluralism and variety, and put their faith in
democratic, deliberative processes. Citizens must, on this view, engage one another
in deliberation about which goals should be set in the particular situations where
they face decisions about how the human and the natural world will be blended in
their particular place.
See also: agricultural ethics; animal rights; animals, moral status of;
biocentrism; care ethics; conservation biology; cost–benefit analysis;
deep ecology; ecofeminism; ecological restoration; economics and
ethics; environmental ethics; environmental virtue ethics;
incommensurability (and incomparability); intergenerational ethics;
intrinsic value; jain ethics; last person arguments; pragmatic ethics;
relativism, moral; species, the value of; wilderness, value of
REFERENCES
Cafaro, Philip 2001. “Thoreau, Leopold, and Carson: Toward an Environmental Virtue
Ethics,” Environmental Ethics, vol. 23, pp. 3–18.
Callicott, J. Baird 1980. “Animal Liberation: A Triangular Affair,” Environmental Ethics, vol. 2,
pp. 311–28.
Callicott, J. Baird 1986. “Rolston on Intrinsic Value: A Deconstruction,” Environmental Ethics,
vol. 14, pp. 129–43.
Callicott, J. Baird 1990. “The Case Against Moral Pluralism,” Environmental Ethics, vol. 12,
pp. 99–124.
10
Callicott, J. Baird 2002. “The Pragmatic Power and Promise of Theoretical Environmental
Ethics,” Environmental Values, vol. 11, pp. 3–26.
Habermas, Jürgen 1987. The Theory of Communicative Action. Boston: Beacon Press.
Leopold, Aldo 1979. “Some Fundamentals of Conservation in the Southwest,” Environmental
Minteer, Ben A. 2009. Nature in Common? Environmental Ethics and the Contested
Foundations of Environmental Policy. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Norton, Bryan 1984. “Environmental Ethics and Weak Anthropocentrism,” Environmental
Norton, Bryan 1991. Toward Unity Among Environmentalists. New York: Oxford University
Press.
Norton, Bryan 2005. Sustainability: A Philosophy of Adaptive Ecosystem Management.
Norton, Bryan, Robert Costanza, and Richard Bishop 1998. “The Evolution of Preferences:
Why Sovereign Preferences May Not Lead to Sustainable Policies and What to Do About
It,” Ecological Economics, vol. 24, pp. 193–212.
O’Neill, John, Allen Holland, and Andrew Light 2009. Environmental Values. London: Routledge.
Passmore, John 1974. Man’s Responsibility for Nature. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Rittel, Horst W. J., and Melvin M. Webber 1973. “Dilemmas in the General Theory of
Planning,” Policy Sciences, vol. 4, pp. 155–69.
Rolston, Holmes, III 1975. “Is There an Ecological Ethic?” Ethics, vol. 85, pp. 93–109.
Rolston, Holmes, III 1994. Conserving Natural Value. New York: Columbia University Press.
Rolston, Holmes, III 2009. “Converging versus Reconstituting Environmental Ethics,” in Ben
Minteer (ed.), Nature in Common? Environmental Ethics and the Contested Foundations
of Environmental Policy. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Routley, Richard 1973. “Do We Need a New, an Environmental Ethic?” in Bulgarian
Organizing Committee (ed.), Proceedings of the Fifteenth World Congress of Philosophy I.
Sophia, Bulgaria: Sophia Press, pp. 205–10.
Simon, Herbert 1979. “From Substantive to Procedural Rationality,” in F. Hahn and M. Hollis
(eds.), Philosophy and Economic Theory. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Stone, Christopher D. 1987. Earth and Other Ethics: The Case for Moral Pluralism. New York:
Harper & Row.
Taylor, Paul 1986. Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
White, Lynn, Jr. 1967. “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis,” Science, vol. 155, pp. 1203–7.
FURTHER READINGS
Callicott, J. Baird 1989. In Defense of the Land Ethic: Essays in Environmental Philosophy.
Albany: New York University Press.
Devall, Bill, and George Sessions 1985. Deep Ecology: Living as if Nature Mattered. Salt Lake
City: Peregrine Smith Books.
Ehrenfeld, David 1981. The Arrogance of Humanism. New York: Oxford University Press.
Freeman, A. Myrick 1998. “The Ethical Basis of the Economic View of the Environment,” in
Donald VanDeVeer and Christine Price (eds.), The Environmental Ethics and Policy
Book. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, pp. 293–301.
11
Leopold, Aldo 1949. A Sand County Almanac and Essays Here and There. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Light, Andrew, and Eric Katz 1996. Environmental Pragmatism. London: Routledge.
Norton, Bryan 1984. “Environmental Ethics and Weak Anthropocentrism,” Environmental
O’Neil, John 1993. Ecology, Policy and Politics: Human Well-Being and the Natural World.
London: Routledge.
Partridge, Ernest 1981. Responsibilities to Future Generations. Buffalo: Prometheus Books.
Rolston, Holmes, III 1988. Environmental Ethics: Duties to and Values in the Natural World.
Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Sikora, R. I., and Brian Barry 2001. Obligations to Future Generations. Isle of Harris,
UK: White Horse Press.
Singer, Peter 1975. Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for Our Treatment of Animals. New York:
Avon Books.
Singer, Peter, and Tom Regan 1976. Animal Rights and Human Obligations. Englewood Cliffs,
NJ: Prentice Hall.
Stone, Christopher D. 1974. Should Trees Have Standing? Toward Legal Rights for Natural
Objects. Los Altos, CA: William Kaufmann.
Weston, Anthony 1992. “Before Environmental Ethics,” Environmental Ethics, vol. 14,
pp. 331–8.
1
Moral Status
Rosalind Hursthouse
Historical Background
The concept of moral status has developed from three initially independent
philosophical discussions that became prominent in the 1970s. It figured in the
three in rather different ways, which explains why the current concept has some of
the vagaries that it has.
One discussion was about the rights and wrongs of abortion within which the
question of “the status of the fetus” (see fetuses) was usually central. In relation to
abortion, the debate about the fetus’s status tended to be about the question “Is it a
human person/being or isn’t it?” – no distinction having yet been clearly drawn
between “human being” and “person” (see personhood, criteria of) – to which
the conservative’s answer was “Yes the fetus is a human person,” and an extreme
liberal, denying this, would say “The fetus is nothing but a piece of tissue, a part of
the woman’s body.”
It should be noted that these two strongly opposed positions were not, initially,
expressed in terms of “moral status” (or “moral standing”) at all. The liberals did not
say that the fetus had no moral status while the conservatives insisted that it did;
they said it was not a bearer of rights, or that it had no value unless someone wanted
it. But many people wanted to occupy positions between the two, and the obvious
way to describe the variety of views was in terms of moral status. So, by the early
1970s, philosophers were talking about the fetus as “having the same moral status as”
a rational adult human being, a bit of human tissue, an animal such as a dog, or
about its moral status changing as it developed from zygote to third trimester baby,
or about its having a unique moral status, that of a potential human person.
So in the context of the abortion debate, the concept of moral status had the
possibility of degree, and hence hierarchy, built into it. However, it did not, initially,
imply moral cachet; something that had the same moral status as a bit of tissue thereby
had that moral status even though it was at the bottom of the hierarchy and didn’t
matter morally at all. As we would say nowadays, but not then, it had no moral status.
The background attitude in the abortion debate was entirely, albeit unconsciously,
what the philosophers who pioneered another significant discussion about moral
status at this time would come to call “speciesist” (see animal rights). The whole
point of claiming that the fetus had the same moral status as an animal, either from
fertilization to birth, or in the first or second trimester, was to guarantee the
permissibility of abortion and fetal experimentation (see embryo research), while
avoiding the more extreme upshots of the “just a bit of tissue” position. It was simply
taken for granted that no human being could be treated in such a way – nor, probably,
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee076
2
any potential human being – but that, of course, there was no moral issue about thus
treating dogs or monkeys, unless (rather vaguely) it involved “needless cruelty.”
It was this attitude that the “animal liberationists” were out to change and this
meant that their discussion proceeded in a rather different way. The discussions of
abortion and fetal experimentation proceeded roughly as follows:
Doing such and such to Xs is right/wrong. (Generally acceptable premise.)

Ys have the same moral status as Xs. (Conclusion of some argument to that effect.)
Therefore
Doing such and such to Ys is right/wrong.
Given that the starting premise was generally accepted, there was no pressure to
explain why it was Xs rather than, say, Zs, that figured in it, to identify that feature of
Xs, in particular, that made it right or wrong to do whatever was at issue to them but
not to some non-Xs. Everyone would accept that it would be utterly wrong to use
human beings for research purposes without their informed consent, but permissible
to use animals. So there was no need to explain why. But, seeking to change the
prevailing status quo, the animal liberationists demanded an explanation when
the Xs were human beings, argued that those available were speciesist, and proffered
rival explanations in terms of a feature some of the other animals shared.
So their discussion was more along the lines of:
Doing such and such to human beings like us (the authors and their readers) is
wrong. (Generally acceptable premise.)
This is because human beings like us are F, not because they are human or rational
or autonomous agents or … (Conclusion of some argument to that effect,
appealing, in the first instance, to the wrongness of speciesism.)
So it is wrong to do that to Fs.
(Some of) the other animals are F.
Therefore
It is wrong to do such and such to those animals.
The proponents of this line of thought were part of a liberation movement, seeking
to “expand the circle” of our concern beyond our fellow human beings. Parallels
between speciesism, on the one hand, and racism and sexism, on the other, were
constantly drawn, and there was a corresponding stress on equality. Animals which
were F were to be recognized as our equals, for recognizing them as rather more
important than we had hitherto thought but, comfortingly, not as important was just
speciesism all over again. It was just another case of the unacceptable subordination
of the interests of one group to that of another. So, according to this view, the other
animals were either within the circle of the concern or they were not: it was an
all-or-nothing matter, not a matter of degree.
Given that, the natural way to express the animal liberation view was not to say
“Animals have the same moral status as human beings.” That, on the model of the
3
abortion debate, would have implied that it would be possible, albeit speciesist, for
others to say “Animals have the same moral status as children” or “Animals have the
same moral status as bits of tissue” or, indeed, “Animals have a unique moral status.”
The natural way to express it was just to say “Animals have moral status because they
are F” or to talk about “the moral status of animals” (see animals, moral status
of), meaning by that “Animals are within the circle of concern.” Similarly, one might
say “Animals have moral standing,” with the same purpose.
So in the context of the early animal ethics writings, the concept of moral status
(or standing) excluded the possibility of degree or hierarchy and also implied total
moral cachet. Anything with moral status counted or mattered morally, because it
was F, and everything either counted or didn’t, neither more nor less.
In the third discussion, the field of environmental ethics (see environmental eth-
ics), arguments similar to those in the animal ethics literature were being developed.
Here too, the explicit aim was to expand our circle of concern beyond our fellow human
beings. Here too, parallels were drawn between racism and sexism and another prevail-
ing discriminatory attitude, now identified as anthropocentrism (see anthropocen-
trism). So again, given the premise that it was wrong to, say, kill human beings like us,
this could not be because we were human beings but because of some other feature, F,
that we had and that other things shared. And here too, though to a lesser extent, there
was an emphasis on equality, a tendency to say that (for example) all living things were
equally F (had equal inherent or intrinsic value (see intrinsic value), or an equal right
to live and blossom, or were equal in having a good of their own, or interests), and to
express that view in terms of all living things having moral status or (particularly prev-
alent in environmental ethics literature) moral “considerability” (Goodpaster 1978).
Looking back, it is easy to see how different the abortion debate initially was from
the other two discussions. The literature of the first was filled with disagreements, it
expressed every possible position on the rights and wrongs of abortion, and little of
it could be described as aiming to expand the circle of our moral concern,
notwithstanding the contributions of feminists. But the early literatures of the other
two largely expressed a harmony rare in philosophy. Whatever their doctrinal or
detailed disagreements, Singer (1993) and Regan (1983) were united in the general
view that many sentient (see sentience, moral relevance of) animals “had moral
status” – that they counted – and many of those who wrote on environmental ethics
were equally united in their view that this claim had to be extended much further to
embrace all the “animals,” not just the obvious and familiar ones, and everything else
alive. They all had moral status too.
The combined weight of the animal and environmental ethics literature and its
drive to establish that things other than human beings matter morally have, over the
past thirty or so years, changed the abortion literature’s use of “moral status” in at
least one respect. As noted above, nowadays the extreme liberal view on abortion
would not be expressed as “The fetus has the same moral status as a bit of tissue” but
simply as “The fetus has no moral status.” This reflects the fact that, by now, “Xs have
moral status” can be defined as meaning “Xs count, or matter, morally” – they fall
within our circle of moral concern – and hence “Xs have no moral status” means “Xs
4
don’t count or matter morally at all, except when they do so incidentally.” (Anything
can come to matter incidentally – through, for example, one’s having made a promise
concerning it.)
The definition of moral status may also be given in rather more specific terms as
“Xs are the sort of thing toward which we have moral obligations” or “the sort of
things that we have duties to as well as regarding,” though if so, it must be interpreted
in such as way as to allow utilitarians (see utilitarianism) such as Singer, to
subscribe to the view that we have duties to each other and to other sentient animals.
It is also sometimes defined in terms of our having good reasons to consider the
well-being, interests, or rights of Xs, though this has to be interpreted in such a way
as to allow mountains to have well-being, etc.
Whichever definition is used, they all have the same ambiguity – they leave it
open (i) whether the possession of moral status is an all-or-nothing matter, or
(ii) whether it is a matter of degree – or, indeed, (iii) whether there can be things
with different but incommensurable moral status. In the current literature, some
philosophers clearly commit themselves to one or other of the first two, some, less
clearly, to the third, and others do not seem to have noticed the ambiguity and
perpetuate it.
All-or-Nothing Moral Status

The idea that moral status is an all-or-nothing matter ties in with the idea that,
before we can employ a normative ethical theory, we need to know what to apply its
principles (or single principle, in the case of direct utilitarianism) to. Moral principles
enshrine our obligations but, if they are expressed simply as, for example, “It is
wrong to kill,” they leave their application unspecified. We seek a criterion of moral
status – what the feature F is that grounds our obligations – in order to make explicit
just what the principle says it is wrong to kill.
The criterion of (a) personhood/rationality/moral agency is frequently mentioned
in the philosophical literature as a criterion for all-or-nothing moral status, but its
sole cited proponents are Aquinas and Kant and it is not clear that either, particularly
Kant, held this view. For reasons deeply entrenched in their respective ethical
theories, Aquinas and Kant both held that we did not have duties to the other
animals. But neither wanted to say that how one treated animals just didn’t matter
morally at all. Rather, both noted that cruelty (Aquinas doesn’t really have our
concept; his feritate, “brutality” is closer) to animals was wrong, but conceiving of
cruelty as contrary to virtue brought refraining from it under the heading of a duty
to oneself, not to the animals themselves (Kant 1996).
The invocation, in Kant at least, of this distinction between duties regarding
animals and duties to animals (or “indirect” and “direct” duties) is usually interpreted
as implying that the animals are of no account in themselves, and hence as
committing him to the view that they lack moral status. But this seems unlikely,
given that, in the same passage, Kant also maintains that the so-called duty to God
is actually a duty to oneself, regarding “what lies beyond the limits of our experience.”
5
So setting up Kant as excluding the other animals from the circle of our moral
concern as too inferior to count may well be setting up a straw man. He is surely not
doing that with God, and so the direct/indirect duties contrast may be less clear than
is usually supposed.
The view that (b) being a member of homo sapiens is the criterion for all-or-
nothing moral status, and that cruelty to the other animals doesn’t matter, is,
perhaps, an implicitly held grassroots view rather than any philosopher’s. It was in
opposition to this view that, as noted above, the charge of speciesism was invoked
and the criterion of (c) sentience or consciousness introduced. Intended by its ani-
mal liberationist proponents to highlight the wrongness of at least much of com-
mercial farming, hunting, and the use of animals in science, the criterion succeeds
in granting moral status to many animals, and is hence resisted by people who
want to defend meat-eating and medical experimentation on the other animals.
However, it grants the status to members of only a small number of the millions of
species of animal that there are. Hence, it is rejected as insufficiently inclusive by
environmentalists concerned not only about these but also about plants and
indeed ecosystems, mountains, and rivers, and thus we have the criterion of (d)
life/being alive/having a good of its own/being an integral part of an ecosystem/being
part of nature.
The above is a rough outline only. The alternatives given in each of (a), (c), and
particularly (d) are not, of course, equivalent (and may be passionately distinguished
by their proponents), but (a) and (b) combined, followed by (c) and (d), do serve to
pick out the three major camps currently prevailing in the all-or-nothing moral
status debate – namely, avowedly anthropocentric and speciesist, animal liberationist
and environmentalist.
Even if we restrict the class of things with moral status to persons or human
beings, we encounter the problem of conflict (see conflict of interest) – should
I kill this person or that one, should I let another cause my death or may I kill them
to prevent it? Moral philosophers, over the centuries, have come up with reasons for
resolving such conflicts one way or the other, in terms of features of the particular
circumstances, or further features of the person(s) or human being(s) involved, and
enshrined these in principles. But even within this restricted territory, much is
unclear and/or highly disputed, and the more inclusive we make the class of things
with moral status, the more conflicts arise. Assigning equal moral status to ourselves
and the sentient/conscious animals introduces acute conflict in the familiar area of
medical experimentation and more becomes apparent when the environmentalists
remind the animal liberationists that they have assigned the status to wild
sentient animals too. And when the environmentalists go all the way to including
micro-organisms, things do become extremely difficult. Attempts to resolve the
conflicts by applying “priority principles” which have proved moderately, though
not untendentiously, satisfactory in application to equal persons (such as a principle
of proportionality which distinguishes basic from non-basic interests) have, so far,
wound up implicitly favoring us. In the work of an early exponent of this approach
(Taylor 1986), such principles allow us to continue to build more motels, airports,
6
and highways, notwithstanding the wholesale annihilation of millions of living

things with supposedly the same moral status as us.
Faced with such difficulties, many have thought that we need to employ the
concept of moral status rather differently.
Ranked Moral Status

If I occupy one of the more inclusive camps, there is an obvious way for me to argue
for my position against my less inclusive opponents. I find a moral principle that
clearly applies to more beings than they have granted all-or-nothing moral status to. If
I am an animal liberationist I come up with, for example, the principle “It is wrong to
torture (sentient, conscious, subjects-of-a-life) animals as well as persons/human
beings” in support of my view that such animals have this moral status too. And if
I occupy the environmentalist camp, I can employ the same strategy and claim, for
example, that it is wrong to kill plants unnecessarily as well as being wrong to
unnecessarily kill sentient animals and human persons, hence they all have moral sta-
tus. (In the famous “last man” example, the last human being – and animal – on earth
decides that he would like to see out his days laying waste to every living thing he can
destroy. Environmentalists take it that what the last man does is wrong [Routley
1973].)
My opponents can make a variety of responses to this way of arguing for more
and more inclusive views of all-or-nothing moral status. The common response,
however, is to grant that such principles as “It is wrong to inflict gratuitous suffering”
and “It is wrong to destroy life wantonly” do indeed apply to other sorts of being
beyond the Xs originally claimed to be the only things with moral status, but also to
insist that they express a much stronger obligation in the case of the Xs than they do
otherwise.
Hence the persisting presence of the hierarchical concept of moral status that
figured so prominently in the abortion debate. Assuming that, rather than being an
all-or-nothing matter, moral status is a matter of degree, we may place persons (or
humans) at the top, sentient or conscious animals next, and other living things and
parts of nature – all together, or perhaps themselves ranked in some way – last.
At first sight, this looks as though it can provide a satisfactory way of
acknowledging elements of truth on both sides of a disagreement. We can, for
instance, agree with the animal liberationists that torturing and killing sentient
animals is usually wrong. But we can also agree with the anthropocentrics or
speciesists that, when it comes to the overburdened lifeboat examples, you and I
would be justified in throwing the dog overboard before we turn to considering
what, if anything, is justified vis-à-vis each other, because we are persons. Persons
have higher moral status than non-persons.
Singer and Regan both accept that you and I would be justified in throwing the
dog out, but can deny that it compromises their anti-speciesist claim that humans
and sentient animals have equal moral status. As they point out, not only many
animals but also human fetuses or infants, and those human beings who are very
7
senile, also fail to be persons. So again, you and I are justified in throwing any of
those human beings out of the lifeboat before we turn on each other, or indeed on a
chimp if there is one there, and this, they may fairly claim, is hardly a speciesist view.
But whether they accept that persons have a higher moral status than non-persons,
or only that it may be appropriate to systematically treat the former differently from
the latter, is a debatable point.
Their justifications for treating persons and non-persons differently are (mutatis
mutandis) similar. For Singer, persons are bound to have a much greater interest in
their future than non-persons, because they are aware of having a future and have
desires about it, while non-persons do not. So when we give impartial equal
consideration to the interests of the person and the non-person in the lifeboat cases,
the interests of the person always win out (though in other cases, where we were
comparing the interests of a very old person and many non-persons we could not
replace, they may not). Similarly, for Regan, the death of a person is a greater loss to
them than it would ever be to a non-person. We resolve the conflict between the
equal right of persons and non-persons to be treated with respect by using the
worse-off principle, and when we apply that to the lifeboat cases, it always tells us to
save the person; if necessary, you should kill a million non-persons to save the life
of a person.
It is, of course, also possible to go for a mixed strategy in which the interests of the
more psychologically sophisticated animals count as more morally significant than
the comparable interests of the less sophisticated, but a distinction is also drawn
between basic and non-basic interests (VanDeVeer 1979). This increased complex-
ity inevitably makes the resolution of conflicts between human persons and nonhu-
man animals more difficult in particular cases, especially given the granted point
that the distinction between basic and non-basic interests is itself a matter of degree.
Moreover, as before, the complexity and the consequent difficulties in resolving
conflicts are enormously increased when the mixed strategy is used in environmental
ethics (Attfield 1987; Varner 1998).
Reconsidering the Concept of Moral Status

What does the concept of moral status do? The all-or-nothing concept allocates
every “thing” into just one of two classes: the Xs that have it and the non-Xs that do
not. Suppose we have employed the narrowest criterion for moral status – being a
human person. Then the Xs are guaranteed to be similar in lots of ways, but the
non-Xs are guaranteed to form a very heterogeneous class, ranging from, for
instance, infants and chimpanzees, to scraps of paper and stones. But within that
heterogeneous class there are bound to be “things” that cannot be dismissed as
“just a thing, of no moral account.” There are actions that I may or may not, or
ought, to do, with respect to them, not just because my action will in some way
involve an X, but, in some way, because they have the features they have. Hence
the counterexamples which encourage making the class of things with moral sta-
tus more inclusive.
8
But as soon as we extend the class of Xs by changing the criterion, even just a little,
we introduce a new problem – the Xs become less similar. If, for example, we make
being human rather than being a human person the criterion, we bring in all those
humans whose very lack of personhood may give us moral reason to treat them in
ways we do not treat human persons, with, for example, greater care in some ways,
calling for greater subordination of our own interests and rights. And though all of
them may be similar in being human non-persons, they still differ in morally
relevant ways – the infants are potential persons, children, depending on their age,
are almost persons (see children’s rights; parents’ rights and responsibilities),
the very senile and the permanently insane were persons, the temporarily insane
were and will be again. And the class of non-Xs remains heterogeneous, still grouping
the chimpanzees, the other sentient animals, the last man’s trees, and the endangered
species with the scraps of paper. But of course, if we extend the class of Xs as far as
the environmentalists want to extend it, we get the same problem in reverse. Now
the Xs are the heterogeneous class: and stopping at some notional midpoint just
yields two such classes.
Going for ranked moral status does not get round this problem. True, it acknowledges
more than just one feature things may have that may be relevant to good moral
decision-making. It allows, for example, that it may be wrong to cause this being to
suffer because it is a person (who has not consented) and also wrong to cause this
other being to suffer because it is sentient (and hence has an interest in not suffering).
But it offers only a very limited range of such features, the one that differentiates
each class from the one above it, and, again, the class of things with any but the very
top one of them may be heterogeneous.
This difficulty with the class of humans was noted above but is prevalent
throughout the range. The class of persons, taking that to include at least
chimpanzees and dolphins, includes moral agents and nonmoral agents, persons
that can enter into contracts and persons that cannot, persons that are losing their
habitats and persons that are not. The class of sentient animals contains the wild,
the domesticated, the farmed, the feral, pets, laboratory animals, introduced and
indigenous animals, rare and all-too-numerous animals, etc. And any of these may
be a feature we want to cite as a morally relevant reason for why I may, or may not,
or ought to, do something with respect to certain members of the class of sentient
animals but not others.
The class of the non-sentient-but-living possibly contains a further variety of
things with such features; there is nothing like as much in the literature about how
we should treat particular sorts of non-sentient animals or plants as there is about
sentient animals, so this is still an open question. (Thinking of plants, we might also
add ‘the oldest’ as a differentiating feature in this class. It is not absurd to claim that
there would be something especially wrong about killing the extraordinary Norway
spruce, whose root system has been going for 9,500 years.) But the most awkward
thing about this class is the fact that it includes all the microbes that none of us, not
even the most dedicated Jains (see jain ethics), can avoid killing in their millions
(hence Taylor’s problem above).
9
Moreover, the ranked moral status strategy does more than acknowledge that
things may be different in a few morally relevant ways. It ranks the possessors of the
different features, declaring that the first feature carries more moral weight than
the second or third or … So if being a person carries the most moral weight, if we
have the strongest obligations to those who possess that feature, it follows that what
I said above is false. We have no moral reason to treat either humans who lack
personhood or any sentient animals with greater care than human persons when
their interests conflict, notwithstanding their innocence or helplessness. And there
will be no justification for culling introduced animals that are endangering the
survival of native plants.
Abandoning the Idea of Moral Status

Given these difficulties, it is becoming increasingly common to abandon the concept,
especially among environmentalists, since two of the most famous, Leopold (1949)
and Naess (1973, 1989), have never used it.
One way to do without it is to use the concept of intrinsic value instead (see
intrinsic value). Given the close connection between attributing moral status
and attributing intrinsic value, it is sometimes possible to read environmental eth-
ics literature couched in terms of the latter as though it were using the former.
However, such an interpretation is very hard to maintain when one finds an author
maintaining the plausible thesis that there are different sorts of incommensurable
intrinsic value to be found among natural things, that different things have intrin-
sic value for different reasons, and, finally, that some sorts of things may have dif-
ferent intrinsic value in different contexts, as one does in, for example, Rolston
(1986, 1988).
Relying on different sorts of incommensurable intrinsic value is not the only way
to go. Looking back at the various criteria for moral status, it is possible to see each
of them as highlighting a feature that can indeed be put forward as a moral reason,
and, in suitable contexts, a decisive moral reason, for acting or refraining from
acting in a particular way. And then, without undermining their significance, one
can simply acknowledge that a large number of other features, including those
given above, such as “wild” and “rare,” can play the same role. Mary Midgley
takes this approach and, from a completely atheoretical perspective, without any
predetermined set of principles, has been a notable contributor to both the animal
and the environmental literature (Midgley 1983a, 1983b).
Either way, the approach is pluralistic, context-sensitive, and open-ended, rejecting
the ideas that there is just one monolithic set of principles concerning just one form
of value that can be fruitfully used to address the great variety of moral issues we
encounter when we extend our moral concern beyond ourselves. Its proponents also
tend to acknowledge the impossibility of providing decisive arguments for one right
solution rather than another in many cases, preferring to recognize that neither is
one it is easy to accept given what it would involve, but stressing the need – especially
given the looming environmental crisis – for urgent action.
10
Closely allied to the above approach is that of applied virtue ethics which basically
amounts to thinking about what to do using the virtue and vice terms (see virtue
ethics). Long before any philosopher invented the notion of moral status, Hindus,
Buddhists, and some of the ancient Greeks espoused vegetarianism simply on the
grounds that it was required by the virtue of compassion or love, and deplored cruelty
to animals. The anti-anthropocentric literature which calls for us to make a radical
change in our attitudes to the living world characteristically deplores our greed, self-
indulgence, materialism, insensitivity, short-sightedness, wantonness, cruelty, pride,
vanity, self-deception, arrogance, and lack of wisdom, all of which are familiar vices.
Proponents of virtue ethics have never employed the concept of moral status. Its
“principles” just are the virtue and vice rules (do what is compassionate, do not do
what is cruel) and the answer to the question of what these apply to (only persons?
persons and sentient animals? etc.) is given by the meaning of the terms. Doing what
is just or unjust, if we choose to be really strict about the notion of rights, applies
only to actions involving human persons, and forgivingness is similarly restricted;
but any of the vices listed above, and the virtues opposed to them, may be manifested
in relation to our treatment of, and attitudes to, sentient animals (Hursthouse 2006),
and many of them in relation to the rest of the natural world.
See also: animal rights; animals, moral status of; anthropocentrism;

children’s rights; conflict of interest; embryo research; environmental
ethics; fetuses; intrinsic value; jain ethics; parents’ rights and
responsibilities; personhood, criteria of; sentience, moral relevance of;
utilitarianism; virtue ethics
REFERENCES
Attfield, R. 1987. A Theory of Value and Obligation. London: Croom Helm.
Goodpaster, Kenneth 1978. “On Being Morally Considerable,” Journal of Philosophy, vol. 75,
pp. 308–25.
Hursthouse, Rosalind 2006. “Applying Virtue Ethics to Our Treatment of the Other Animals,”
in Jennifer Welchman (ed.), The Practice of Virtue. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing
Company, pp. 136–55.
Kant, Immanuel 1996 [1797]. The Metaphysics of Morals, trans. and ed. Mary Gregor.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 6:443–6:444.
Leopold, Aldo 1949. A Sand County Almanac. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Midgley, Mary 1983a. Animals and Why They Matter. Athens: University of Georgia
Press.
Midgley, Mary 1983b. “Duties Concerning Islands,” in R. Elliot and A. Gare (eds.),
Environmental Philosophy. St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, pp. 166–81.
Naess, Arne 1973. “The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement,” Inquiry,
vol. 16, pp. 95–100.
Naess, Arne 1989. Ecology, Community, Lifestyle, trans. and ed. D. Rothenberg. Cambridge:
11
Rolston, Holmes III 1986. Philosophy Gone Wild. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books.
Rolston, Holmes III 1988. Environmental Ethics. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Routley, R. 1973. “Is There a Need for a New, an Environmental Ethic?” Proceedings of the
15th World Congress of Philosophy, vol. 1, pp. 205–10.
Singer, Peter 1993. Practical Ethics, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Taylor, Paul 1986. Respect for Nature. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
VanDeVeer, Donald 1979. “Interspecific Justice,” Inquiry, vol. 22, pp. 55–70.
Varner, G. 1998. In Nature’s Interests? Interests, Animal Rights and Environmental Ethics.
FURTHER READINGS
Anderson, Elizabeth 2004. “Animal Rights and the Values of Nonhuman Life,” in Martha
Nussbaum and Cass Sunstein (eds.), Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions.
Clark, Stephen R. L. 1984. The Moral Status of Animals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cohen, Andrew 2007. “Contractarianism, Other-regarding Attitudes, and the Moral Standing
of Nonhuman Animals,” Journal of Applied Philosophy, vol. 24, pp. 188–201.
DeGrazia, David 2008. “Moral Status as a Matter of Degree?” Southern Journal of Philosophy,
vol. 46, pp. 181–98.
Frey R. G. 1988. “Moral Standing, the Value of Lives, and Speciesism,” Between the Species,
vol. 4, pp. 191–201.
Hacker-Wright, John 2007. “Moral Status in Virtue Ethics.” Philosophy, vol. 82,
pp. 449–73.
Hale, Benjamin 2006. “The Moral Considerability of Invasive Transgenic Animals,” Journal of
Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, vol. 19, pp. 337–66.
Harley, Cahan 1988. “Against the Moral Considerability of Ecosystems,” Environmental
Ethics, vol. 10, pp. 195–206.
Palmer, Clare 2007. “Rethinking Animal Ethics in Appropriate Context: How Rolston’s Work
Can Help,” in C. J. Preston and W. Ouderkirk (eds.), Nature, Value, Duty. Dordrecht:
Springer, pp. 183–201.
Schmidtz, David 1998. “Are All Species Equal?” Journal of Applied Philosophy, vol. 15,
pp. 57–67.
Warren, Mary Anne 1997. Moral Status: Obligations to Persons and Other Living Things. New
1
Fact–Value Distinction
Catherine Z. Elgin
The fact–value distinction is grounded in an apparent contrast. Facts constitute

reality. They are what they are regardless of what anyone thinks about them or wants
them to be. Our relation to facts is cognitive: Judgments of fact are objective; they
both can and should be responsive to reasons. Values are considerations that bear
on choiceworthiness. They are personal. Our relation to them is conative: They
directly inform the will. Together, judgments about facts and assessments of value
rationalize action. Because Jim wants a drink and believes that the glass contains
water, he drinks from the glass. His wanting consists in his considering the slaking
of his thirst valuable; his belief concerns what will in fact slake his thirst. His action
would be irrational if the two factors did not work together.
Many believe that facts and values are entirely disjoint. Facts are not values; nor
are values facts. Moreover, according to “Hume’s law,” a factual judgment entails
nothing about value and a value judgment, nothing about matters of fact. If, as it
appears, it is impossible to derive an “ought” from an “is,” factual judgments alone
do not motivate (see hume, david). Such a position raises serious questions about
the status of ethical judgments, for such judgments seem Janus-faced. Like stereo-
typical factual judgments, they appear to be objective and responsive to reasons; like
stereotypical value judgments, they are supposed to motivate. Bill’s belief that lying
is wrong is supposed to motivate him to refrain from lying. His understanding of the
wrongness of lying is defective if it has no effect on his motivation. Although the
issues arise in metaethics, they stem to a considerable extent from metaphysical
assumptions about the nature of reality and what it takes for something to be a fact.
There is a fact–value gap only if judgments of value are not judgments of fact.
The widespread commitment to a fact–value gap is not unproblematic. It is
undermined by the existence of thick concepts, like “sleazy,” “cowardly,” and “loyal,”
which fuse descriptive and evaluative elements (Williams 1985; see thick and thin
concepts). To call a person sleazy is both to describe and to disparage that person’s
character. This would be consonant with the fact-value gap if the descriptive and
evaluative aspects of a thick concept could be prised apart. But – arguably – they
cannot. There is no obvious way to delineate the class of sleazy people, or to
characterize the behavior that justifies calling its members “sleazy,” without using
evaluative language.
Three general approaches to the fact–value problem are discussed below:
anti-realism, which maintains that there are no objective moral facts; realism, which
maintains that the world contains objective moral facts (see realism, moral); and
constructivism, which maintains that there are objective moral truths that are the
result of human constructs (see constructivism, moral).
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee077
2
One way to frame the discussion is in terms of Mackie’s two arguments: the
argument from disagreement and the argument from queerness (Mackie 1977;
see mackie, j. l.; disagreement, moral). The argument from disagreement focuses
on the apparent intractability of some moral problems. Although smart people have
devoted considerable time and attention to problems like the tension between free
speech and pornography, there is no consensus on the solution. Anti-realists tend to
be impressed by the range of moral disagreement; realists, by the range of moral
agreement. Realists note, for example, that every culture recognizes a moral obliga-
tion to care for young children, even if they differ over who is supposed to provide
the care. Constructivists are impressed both by the range of agreement and by the
range of disagreement. They acknowledge that many, though not all, moral con-
cerns have been adequately addressed. Societies have developed ways of assuring
that children will be cared for, rules that specify when and to whom one ought to tell
the truth, and so on. They have not yet developed solutions to the problems posed
by pornography, hate speech and the like. Constructivists then consider morality a
work in progress and acknowledge that the unsolved problems indicate that more
needs to be done. The argument from disagreement seems to end in a draw.
Anti-realists contend that there are no moral facts. Mackie maintains that
evaluative facts, if they existed, would be metaphysically queer, because they play no
role in the causal structure of the universe. Value judgments of course play a role.
That Fred judges promise keeping to be obligatory explains why he keeps his
promises. But the fact that promise keeping is obligatory, if it were a fact, would be
causally inert. It would not explain any acts of any agents; two otherwise identical
worlds, one of which included and the other of which lacked that fact, would be
utterly indistinguishable. If Hume’s law is correct, the fact that promise keeping is
obligatory does not, by itself, motivate anyone to keep promises. Mackie concludes
that there are no such facts. He advocates an error theory, one that acknowledges
that many people believe there are facts about what is right and wrong, good and
bad, and so forth but claims that they are mistaken (see error theory). Mackie’s
discussion is itself queer. As Judith Jarvis Thomson has noted, there is no argument
from queerness; there is simply an assertion that certain facts, if they existed, would
be queer. That claim is plausible only on a narrow interpretation of what it takes for
something to be a fact. Numbers are causally inert in the same way in which values
are said to be so. But Mackie does not maintain that people who think it is a fact that
7 + 5 = 12 are in error. If it is reasonable to think that there are mathematical facts,
causal inertness does not exclude items from the realm of facts.
If Mackie is right, it is not the case that cruelty is morally worse than kindness.
Emotivists (Ayer 1950; see emotivism) and prescriptivists (Stevenson 1944; see
prescriptivism) agree. They argue that the function of ethical utterances is different
from the function of fact-stating utterances. Emotivists contend that, in making an
ethical statement, I simply express my emotional attitude toward the object the
statement is about. “Lying is immoral” then functions like “Ouch!” Neither is a
description of anything; both simply voice my displeasure. Prescriptivists maintain
3
that, rather than stating facts, moral utterances are imperatives. “Lying is immoral”
then means “I disapprove of lying; do so as well!” or simply “Disapprove of lying!”
A central problem for both emotivism and prescriptivism is that ethical judgments
can be embedded in logically complex sentences and can figure in inferences. “If
lying is immoral, then all politicians behave immorally” is intelligible, and perhaps
true. “If boo to lying, then all politicians do something boo” makes no sense.
Neither interjections like “Boo to lying!” nor imperatives like “Disapprove of
lying!” are embeddable (see frege–geach objection). This undermines the idea
that the fact–value gap is grounded in grammar.
Expressivism (Gibbard 1990) and quasi-realism (Blackburn 1993; see quasi-realism)
contend that, although ethical statements do not strictly state facts, they are couched in
indicative sentences, and they are capable of being embedded in logically complex
sentences and used in arguments. Such sentences, they maintain, express and thereby
make manifest one’s attitude toward their objects. These positions are more sophisticated
than simple emotivism and simple prescriptivism, because it makes sense to ask whether
the subject who expresses an ethical attitude of approval or disapproval actually has the
attitude she expresses. She might be insincere or lacking in self-knowledge. In either case,
her statement would be incorrect. Although indicative sentences about moral matters do
not state facts, Blackburn maintains, they satisfy minimalist requirements on truth (see
minimalism about truth, ethics and). If one is licensed to utter a declarative sentence
about morality, such as “Lying is wrong,” one is licensed to utter a sentence like “‘Lying is
wrong’ is true.” But, one might wonder, what more is needed for truth beyond
such minimalism? Why not say, as deflationists do, that truth-talk is just a device for
semantic ascent? Then what holds for declarative sentences about morality also holds for
declarative sentences in general. If one is licensed to utter them, one is licensed to utter
that they are true. And, if they are true, they state facts. Such a position embodies an
equally deflationary account of what it takes to be a fact.
The main strength of ethical anti-realism is that it is capable of explaining how
ethical judgments motivate. They express pro- and con-attitudes toward their
objects. Those attitudes motivate in the same way in which desires, aversions, and
preferences motivate. The weakness of anti-realist positions is that they cannot
account for the practice of giving and asking for reasons for ethical judgments. If
I order chocolate ice cream, my reason is that I like it. If I am asked why I like it,
there is little more I can answer beyond “I just do.” But, when it comes to ethical
judgments, reasons are available. If someone asks why I disapprove of lying, I can
readily adduce reasons to back my claim.
Moral realists maintain that there are genuine moral facts. If they are right, there
is no fact–value gap. They disagree with one another about the nature of those facts,
but they agree that (a) moral judgments are judgments about objective facts;
(b) those judgments can be true or false; (c) our relation to those facts is cognitive.
Some philosophers maintain that moral facts are nonnatural facts (Moore 1959;
Shafer-Landau 2003). That is, they are facts that are not, and do not supervene on, facts
about the natural world. It is, then, not surprising that such facts are causally inert. The
4
argument for countenancing moral facts is that, without them, we cannot make sense
of our moral experience. Anti-realist positions, these philosophers maintain, cannot
adequately accommodate the felt psychological difference between moral value
judgments and manifestly subjective tastes. The reason for construing such facts as
nonnatural is captured in Moore’s open question argument (see open question
argument). Given any statement about the underlying natural facts – for example,
facts about the pain and humiliation suffered by torture victims – it is still possible to
ask, “But is torture wrong?” One problem with such positions is that it is hard to see
how we could access nonnatural facts. Another is that it is unclear what a nonnatural
fact is.
Other moral realists contend that moral facts derive from or supervene on
natural facts. Among these are philosophers who contend that moral properties are
response-dependent properties (Wright 1988; Johnston 1989). Like Locke’s secondary
qualities, such properties derive from the responses of (real or hypothetical) subjects
under specifiable circumstances. Ideal observer theories are similar (Firth 1952; see
ideal observer theories). They maintain that moral facts depend on the responses
of a hypothetical ideal moral observer. Such accounts are dispositional. The moral
facts depend on what a suitable subject’s response would be. But the dispositions that
determine the moral facts are supposed to be objective properties. So there is a
determinate fact of the matter as to whether the ideal observer’s response to lying
would vindicate the contention that lying is wrong. The facts are epistemically as
accessible as other facts about dispositions are. One difficulty with such a position is
that of adequately spelling out (1) the characteristics of the agent whose responses or
dispositions are supposed to settle ethical matters; and (2) the characteristics of the
situations that are supposed to be determinative of moral facts.
Alternatively, a realist might maintain that, rather than supervening on natural
properties, moral properties just are natural properties. Boyd holds that morally
positive properties are complexes of natural properties that typically co-occur,
promote one another, and promote biological fitness (Boyd 1988). The instantiation
of such properties constitutes facts about what is good, right, and so forth. If this is
so, then what makes lying morally bad, if it is morally bad, is that lying is a sort of
behavior that destabilizes the cluster of properties that promote fitness in animals
such as ourselves. Whether this is so is a matter of objective fact and is in principle
something science could discover. This sort of position seems to invite Moore’s open
question argument. An action might instantiate a property that belongs to the
fitness-promoting cluster and still leave us wondering, “But is it good?”
The main problem for moral realism is motivation. Moral judgments are supposed
to be intrinsically motivating. Other things being equal, to judge that an action is
obligatory is supposed of itself to provide an agent with a motive for doing it. But
facts seem motivationally inert. The mere fact that otters have webbed feet gives me
no motivation for doing anything; nor, if it is a mere fact, does the fact that truth
telling promotes fitness, or would be approved by an ideal observer, or stems simply
from a nonnatural fact about the way things are. With respect to any such fact, one
can always ask, “Why should I care?”
5
Both antirealism and realism derive their conception of facts from natural
science. They rightly conclude that the fact that one ought to keep one’s promises
(if it is a fact) is not the same sort of fact as the non-queer fact that green plants
photosynthesize. But there are plenty of facts about the social world that are not like
the stereotypical facts of natural science. The fact that Sweden has a low crime rate,
the fact that children in the US start school at about age 5, and the fact that there is a
higher proportion of vegetarians on college campuses than in the general population
are all queer from Mackie’s point of view. But it is hard to deny that they are facts.
Constructivists recognize that there are such facts. Although they owe their
existence to human institutions and practices, once those institutions and prac-
tices are in place, the social facts obtain. Constructivism contends that moral
judgments are objective; they concern matters of fact. But, rather than holding
that such facts are discovered, constructivists maintain that they are created
through the creation of practices and institutions that are bound by them
(Korsgaard 1996). That facts can be created in this way is unsurprising. The fact
that a batter with three strikes is out comes into being with the game of baseball.
The fact that signing on the dotted line constitutes incurring a debt comes into
being with the creation of certain sorts of contracts. In both cases, an institutional
framework must be in place for the relevant facts to obtain. Once the framework
is in place, it is determinate whether the batter struck out and whether the
inscriber incurred a debt.
Games may be arbitrary, but other fact-constituting practices are not. The crucial
difference, according to constructivists, is that moral rules and the practices they
constitute are rules and practices that, on reflection, all things considered, moral
agents can endorse. Following Kant, constructivists maintain that moral agents
make the laws that bind them. Social contract theories provide a familiar example of
the constructivist approach. Such theories define circumstances under which par-
ties could deliberate about the laws they will be bound by, and the parties agree to
be bound by the laws that emerge from their deliberation. If the constraints on
deliberative circumstances are adequate, what emerges will be a contract that no one
could reasonably object to. The contract situation is a fiction that embodies the
considerations that properly bear on the construction of a system of shared morality
that parties could reflectively endorse.
Constructivists differ among themselves over what such constraints must be. Like
moral realists, they ground their accounts in what suitable individuals would do
under suitable circumstances. So their theories are dispositional theories. Like moral
realists, they maintain that there are determinate facts about what such individuals
would do and that those facts are in principle epistemically accessible. It is possible
to enter into the imaginative framework of the contractors and to see whether, from
that point of view, a course of action is one that could be reflectively endorsed. One
problem with such theories is that it is hard to define the conditions under which
the moral facts are constructed without begging important questions. Whether, or
when, or to what extent it is appropriate to take personal projects or ties of affection
into account in delimiting obligations is not obvious.
6
Constructivism has the benefit of bridging the fact–value gap. It recognizes the
existence of objective moral facts; but, since the facts are determined by rules that we
make for ourselves, they carry motivation with them. The fact that an obligation
stems from a practice that I recognize to foster – and to have been designed to
foster – my ends gives me a motive to do what I ought.
See also: constructivism, moral; disagreement, moral; emotivism; error

theory; frege–geach objection; hume, david; ideal observer theories;
mackie, j. l.; minimalism about truth, ethics and; open question argument;
prescriptivism; quasi-realism; realism, moral; thick and thin concepts
REFERENCES
Ayer, A. J. 1950. Language, Truth, and Logic. New York: Dover.
Boyd, Richard 1988. “How to Be a Moral Realist,” in G. Sayre-McCord (ed.), Essays on Moral
Realism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, pp. 181–228.
Blackburn, Simon 1993. Essays in Quasi-Realism. New York: Oxford University Press.
Firth, Roderick 1952. “Ethical Absolutism and the Ideal Observer,” Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research, vol. 12: pp. 317–45.
Korsgaard, Christine 1996. The Sources of Normativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mackie, John L. 1977. Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong. New York: Penguin.
Stevenson, C. L. 1944. Ethics and Language. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Williams, Bernard 1985. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Wright, Crispin 1988. “Moral Values, Projections, and Secondary Qualities,” Proceedings of
the Aristotelian Society, suppl. vol. 62, pp. 1–26.
FURTHER READINGS
Elgin, Catherine 1989. “The Relativity of Fact and the Objectivity of Value,” in Michael
Krausz (ed.), Relativism: Interpretation and Confrontation. Notre Dame, IN: University
of Notre Dame Press, pp. 86–98.
Korsgaard, Christine 2008. “Realism and Constructivism in Twentieth-Century Moral
Philosophy,” in The Constitution of Agency. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 302–26.
Krausz, Michael (ed.) 2009. Relativism: A Contemporary Anthology. New York: Columbia
University Press.
Putnam, Hilary 2002. The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy and Other Essays. Cambridge,
Railton, Peter 2003. Facts, Values, and Norms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sayre-McCord, Geoffrey 1988. Essays on Moral Realism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
7
Stevenson, Charles L. 1975. Facts and Values: Studies in Ethical Analysis. Westport, CT:
Greenwood Press.
Thomson, Judith Jarvis 2001. Goodness and Advice. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
1
Is–Ought Gap
Charles Pigden
No-Ought-From-Is: Hume’s Afterthought

Is it possible to deduce a moral conclusion from nonmoral premises, an ought from
an is? David Hume famously thought not:
In every system of morality which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked,
that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and
establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when
of a sudden I am surprised to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions,
is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an
ought not. … [But] as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or
affirmation, it is necessary that it should be observed and explained; and at the same
time that a reason should be given, for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this
new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it.
(1978: 469–70; see hume, david)
Some think this passage expresses an important truth fraught with metaethical
implications (see metaethics); some think it true but not that important since it tells
us nothing of any consequence about the nature of ethics; and some that it is important
but not true, since it expresses a mistaken dogma which has led many philosophers
down the primrose path to non-cognitivist perdition (see non-cognitivism).
Logical versus Semantic Autonomy

Hume could be denying that it is possible to deduce moral conclusions from
nonmoral premises by logic alone. Or he could be denying that it is possible to
deduce moral conclusions from nonmoral premises with the aid of logic plus ana-
lytic bridge principles (because there are no analytic bridge principles linking the
nonmoral and the moral).
This distinction is often slurred over in the Is–Ought literature. ‘Hume’s Law’
(No-Ought-From-Is) is construed as the claim that no set of nonmoral premises can
entail a moral conclusion. But this formulation is ambiguous since “entails” is widely
used to cover both the concept of logical consequence and the (importantly differ-
ent) concept of analytic entailment. A sentence X is a logical consequence of a set of
premises K if and only if there is no interpretation of the nonlogical vocabulary in
the inference such that K is true and X is false. A set of premises K analytically entails
a conclusion X if and only if X can be logically derived from K with the aid of unstated
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee078
2
analytic bridge principles or truths of meaning. Thus “Fritz is unmarried” is not a

logical consequence of “Fritz is a bachelor” because “bachelor” can be interpreted to
mean “philosopher” in which case “Fritz is a bachelor” could be true and “Fritz is
unmarried” false. But “Fritz is a bachelor” analytically entails “Fritz is unmarried”
since “Fritz is unmarried” can be logically derived from “Fritz is a bachelor” with the
aid of the analytic bridge principle (true in virtue of the meaning of the word
“bachelor”) that “All bachelors are unmarried.”
So we have two distinct theses: the Logical autonomy of ethics, the idea that you
can’t get moral conclusions from nonmoral premises by logic alone and the Semantic
autonomy of ethics, the idea that you can’t get moral conclusions from nonmoral
premises with the aid of logic plus analytic bridge principles (see autonomy of
ethics). How are they related?
Semantic Autonomy implies Logical Autonomy. If you can’t get moral conclusions
from nonmoral premises with the aid of logic plus analytic bridge principles, you can’t
get moral conclusions from nonmoral premises by logic alone. But Logical Autonomy
does not imply Semantic Autonomy. If you can’t get moral conclusions from non-
moral premises by logic alone, it does not follow that you can’t get moral conclusions
from nonmoral premises with the aid of logic plus analytic bridge principles. Some
philosophers seem to think that you can derive Semantic Autonomy from Logical
Autonomy. Not so. For Semantic Autonomy implies that the key moral concepts –
“good,” “bad,” “right,” “wrong,” “ought,” and so on – cannot be defined in terms of
nonmoral concepts or predicates whether natural (to do with human nature or human
reactions) or supernatural (such as predicates connected with the “being of God”).
Logical Autonomy carries no such implications. Thus Semantic Autonomy implies
semantic nonnaturalism summed up in Moore’s notorious no-definition definition of
“good”: “If I am asked, ‘How is good to be defined?’ my answer is that it cannot be
defined and that is all I have to say about it” (Moore 1993: 58; see nonnaturalism,
ethical; moore, g. e.). This is not a thesis that can be established on purely logical
grounds, since logic is blind to the meanings of nonlogical expressions.
No-Ought-From-Is and the Naturalistic Fallacy

Which did Hume believe? I suspect Logical Autonomy. For Hume thought that the
moral could be defined in terms of the nonmoral. “The hypothesis we embrace is
plain. It maintains that morality is determined by sentiment. It defines [my italics]
virtue to be whatever mental action or quality gives to a spectator the pleasing senti-
ment of approbation; and vice the contrary” (Hume 1975: 289). Thus despite a wide-
spread philosophical consensus to the contrary, Hume disagrees with Moore who
thought it a fallacy – the naturalistic fallacy – to define the moral in terms of the
nonmoral, and specifically, the psychological (see naturalistic fallacy). Hence
Moore’s “Naturalistic Fallacy” thesis is not the same as Hume’s No-Ought-From-Is.
Hume’s claim is that you cannot logically deduce an ought from an is, that you can’t
use logic to derive a conclusion with explicitly moral content from premises devoid
of moral “matter.” He is appealing to a commonplace of early modern logical theory,
3
that in a logically valid inference the premises cannot be true and the conclusion
false because the matter of the conclusion is somehow “contained” in the premises.
Subversion and the Vulgar Systems

Why did Hume think that a “small attention” to No-Ought-From-Is “would subvert all
the vulgar systems of morality”? The vulgar moralists were the many philosophers –
Hobbes and Spinoza, through to Locke, Clarke and Balguy – who claimed that the
truths of morality were demonstrable (see hobbes, thomas; spinoza, baruch; locke,
john; clarke, samuel; balguy, john). Now a truth is demonstrable if it can be logi-
cally deduced from self-evident premises. Hume had proved to his own satisfaction
that no moral truths are self-evident. That still leaves open the possibility that moral
truths can be demonstrated by deriving them logically from self-evident truths of some
other kind. The point of No-Ought-From-Is is to put a stop to the pretensions of the
demonstrative moralists by foreclosing this option. If there can be no moral matter in
the conclusion that is not contained in the premises, then you cannot demonstrate the
truths of morality by deriving them logically from self-evident but nonmoral truths.
The Conservativeness of Logic

But if this is correct, Hume’s No-Ought-From-Is is simply an instance of the conserva-
tiveness of logic, the admittedly metaphorical idea that in a logically valid argument
you cannot get out what you haven’t put in. By itself No-Ought-From-Is tells us noth-
ing about the nature of moral judgments. The logical “gap” between fact and value is
on a par with the gap between premises that don’t contain the word “hedgehog” and
conclusions that do (see fact–value distinction). It’s a matter of form rather than
content. As such, it does not imply that there is any fundamental difference between
the moral and the nonmoral. It certainly does not imply non-cognitivism, the doctrine
that moral judgments are not “truth-apt,” true-or-false, but that they serve to express
emotions or convey commands (see non-cognitivism).
Non-Cognitivism and No-Ought-From-Is

This may come as some surprise to readers of Hudson’s anthology, The Is–Ought
Question (1969). Hudson himself seems to think that non-cognitivism and
No-Ought-From-Is are mutually supportive. Many of his contributors attack non-
cognitivism by way of No-Ought-From-Is or try to defend No-Ought-From-Is in
order to vindicate non-cognitivism. Philosophers like MacIntyre (1959) who acquit
Hume of non-cognitivism feel compelled to deny that he subscribed to No-Ought-
From-Is (for Hume, Is–Ought deductions only seem “altogether inconceivable”). But
can you derive non-cognitivism from No-Ought-From-Is?
Perhaps by an abductive argument. If we combine non-cognitivism with the con-
servativeness of logic we can derive No-Ought-From-Is. If in a logically valid argu-
ment you cannot get out what you haven’t put in, and if moral judgments are
4
fundamentally different from factual claims (expressing emotions or conveying com-

mands), then you cannot logically derive a moral conclusion from nonmoral prem-
ises. However, this is an argument from non-cognitivism to No-Ought-From-Is
which is not what the non-cognitivist needs. But perhaps we can run the argument in
reverse as an inference-to-the-best-explanation. Assume No-Ought-From-Is as a
datum. The best explanation of No-Ought-From-Is combines some kind of non-cog-
nitivism – for instance the view that moral judgments are akin to orders – with the
conservativeness of logic. The reason we can’t get moral conclusions from nonmoral
premises is that in a logically valid argument you cannot get out what you haven’t put
in and that moral judgments express emotions or convey commands, thus carrying a
semantic cargo that is not to be found in a set of factual or nonmoral premises. So
probably some kind of non-cognitivism is true (Hare 1952: 28–9; see hare, r. m.) But
this argument rests on a false premise. Non-cognitivism plus the conservativeness of
logic is not the best explanation of No-Ought-From-Is. For there is a better – because
simpler – explanation, namely the conservativeness of logic by itself.
A Promising Counterexample?
Much of the The Is–Ought Question is devoted to Searle’s (1964) attempt to disprove
Semantic Autonomy with the aid of an analytic bridge principle derived from the
institution of promising (though this is not quite how Searle and his opponents see
it; see promises). Searle claims, in effect, that the factual premise
(1) Smith promised to pay Jones $5
analytically entails the moral conclusion
(2) Absent overriding obligations to the contrary, Smith (morally) ought to pay
Jones $5.
Plainly you can’t get from 1 to 2 by logic alone, which means that Searle is implicitly
appealing to the alleged analytic bridge principle
(BP) If X promises to Y, then absent overriding obligations to the contrary, X

(morally) ought to Y.
But is (BP) genuinely analytic? I think not. For you can dissent from (BP) without
manifesting a misunderstanding either of the word “promise” or the institution of
promising. Witness Godwin (1976) who thinks that promising is a pernicious insti-
tution and that we are not, in general, obliged to keep our promises. Bizarre as his
opinions may be, it is clear that he understands the institution he denounces. What
is, perhaps, analytic is this:
(BP’) If X promises to Y, then according to the rules of the promising game, absent
overriding obligations to the contrary, X ought to Y.
5
But this does not deliver the conclusion that Searle requires. Thus Searle’s attempt to
derive a moral conclusion from nonmoral premises seems to be a failure. It confuses
moral obligations with the rules of the promising game (Hare 1964). Semantic
Autonomy is unproven but unrefuted. But even if Searle had succeeded, he would
only have disproved Semantic not Logical Autonomy. For even if you can get moral
conclusions from nonmoral premises with the aid of analytical bridge principles
(derived in this instance from the rules of the promising game), it does not follow
that you can do it by logic alone.
Prior’s Dilemma
The real threat to No-Ought-From-Is comes from a paper by Prior (1960), which
calls into question not only Logical (and hence Semantic) Autonomy but also the
conservativeness of logic. Consider this inference (Tea-Drinker 1):
(1P) Tea-drinking is common in England.

Therefore
(2P) Either tea-drinking is common in England or all New Zealanders ought to
be shot.
This inference is a counterexample to Logical Autonomy since it is a logically valid

inference in which the conclusion is (arguably) moral though the premise is not. It
is also a counterexample to the conservativeness of logic since there is “matter” or
nonlogical content in the conclusion that is absent from the premise set. But the
moral content of (2P) seems to be inessential to the inference. We can replace
“all New Zealanders ought to be shot” with any sentence we like, moral or nonmoral
(including its opposite “all New Zealanders ought not to be shot”), and we would still
have a valid inference. This suggests that (2P) is not really moral. Fine, says Prior,
then consider the following inference (Tea-Drinker 2):
(1P’) Tea-drinking is not common in England.

(2P) Either tea-drinking is common in England or all New Zealanders ought
to be shot.
Therefore
(3P) All New Zealanders ought to be shot.
If (2P) is moral, Tea-Drinker 1 is a valid Is–Ought inference, and if (2P) is not moral,
Tea-Drinker 2 is a valid Is–Ought inference. Either way, it seems we have a counter-
example to No-Ought-From-Is.
Pigden’s Response
Charles Pigden’s (1989) response is to redefine and prove a variant of the conserva-
tiveness of logic and to derive a revised version of No-Ought-From-Is as a special
case. It builds upon the idea that at least in Tea-Drinker 1 it is possible to replace the
6
moral content of (2P) with anything whatever salva validitate, that is, without preju-
dice to the validity of the resulting inference.
First we define the concept of inference-relative vacuity. An expression ϕ occurs
vacuously in the conclusion of a valid inference in which X is a logical consequence
of K, if and only if we can uniformly substitute for ϕ any other expression ψ of the
same grammatical type, yielding a new sentence X’, such that X’ is also a logical
consequence of K. We can then prove a revised version of the conservativeness of
logic: a nonlogical symbol – in the first instance a predicate or propositional
variable – cannot occur nonvacuously in the conclusion of a valid inference unless it
appears among the premises. Thus you can’t get anything nonvacuous out that you
haven’t put in. This gives us No-Nonvacuous-Ought-From-Is – the thesis that if a
(nonlogical) moral expression (e.g., an ought) occurs in the conclusion of a valid
inference but not in the premises, it suffers from inference-relative vacuity. Thus if
there is an inference from nonmoral premises to a partially moral conclusion – a
conclusion containing moral predicates or subsentences – the moral content can be
replaced with any expression whatever (of the right grammatical type) including its
opposite. Hence it is impossible to derive substantively moral conclusions –
conclusions that tell you to do this rather than that – from entirely nonmoral
premises. Logical Autonomy survives but in an amended form.
Schurz’s Response
But Pigden’s solution suffers from a serious defect. He derives No-Nonvacuous-
Ought-From-Is from the claim that in logic you can’t get anything nonvacuous out
that you haven’t put in. But this principle does not apply to logical symbols. Hence
No-Nonvacuous-Ought-From-Is only holds if “ought” is not treated as a logical
operator. Thus Pigden denies that “ought” is a logical symbol and hence that deontic
logics are genuine logics (see deontic logic). Right or wrong, this is a controversial
claim and a hostage to philosophical fortune.
Gerhard Schurz (1997) relaxes this assumption but achieves a similar result. He
proves a version of No-Ought-From-Is without denying the validity of deontic logic.
He treats “ought” both as a logical symbol and as a sentential operator, like the
necessity operator in modal logic. Schurz is agnostic about which deontic logic is
correct, and proves his central thesis, the General Hume Thesis (GH for short) for a
large class of deontic logics without analytic bridge principles. Suppose we have a
Prior-type Is–Ought inference licensed by deontic logic. The key idea behind GH is
not that we can replace the “oughts” with anything we like salva validitate but that we
can replace all the predicates within the scope of the “oughts” with anything we like
salva validitate. Pigden’s point is that the “ought” in Prior’s (2P) can be replaced with
any grammatically appropriate expression without prejudice to the validity of Tea-
Drinker 1, yielding such conclusions as:
(2P*) Either tea-drinking is common in England or all New Zealanders will

be shot.
7
Schurz’s point is that the bit about all New Zealanders being shot can be replaced
with any grammatically appropriate phrase without prejudice to the validity of
Tea-Drinker 1, yielding such conclusions as:
(2P**) Either tea-drinking is common in England or all Chinese ought to play

the bagpipes.
Either way, the “oughts” will be irrelevant from a practical point of view. Again this
means that it is impossible to derive substantively moral conclusions – conclusions
that tell you to do this rather than that – from nonmoral premises. However, GH
itself is an instance of a kind of conservativeness that holds for modal operators
generally, not just the moral “ought.” (If any modal operator appears in the conclu-
sion of a valid inference but not in the premises, then the predicates within its scope
can be replaced salva validitate.) Pigden’s No-Nonvacuous-Ought-From-Is holds
because logic is conservative and Schurz’s GH holds because modal logics, including
deontic logics, are conservative (though in a slightly different sense). Hence neither
tells us anything about the fundamental nature of ethics. Both results are metaethically
neutral.
Conclusion
Thus you cannot derive a substantively moral conclusion from nonmoral premises
by logic alone, a point susceptible of proof. But this implies neither non-cognitivism
nor nonnaturalism. The Is–Ought gap is real but overrated.
See also: autonomy of ethics; balguy, john; clarke, samuel; deontic

logic; fact–value distinction; hare, r. m.; hobbes, thomas; hume,
david; locke, john; metaethics; moore, g. e.; naturalistic fallacy;
non-cognitivism; nonnaturalism, ethical; promises; spinoza, baruch
REFERENCES
Godwin, W. 1976 [1793]. An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Hare, R. M. 1964. “The Promising Game,” Revue Internationale de la Philosophie, vol. 70,
pp. 398–412.
Hudson, W. D. (ed.) 1969. The Is–Ought Question: A Collection of Papers on the Central
Problem in Moral Philosophy. London: Macmillan.
Hume, David 1975 [1748]. Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding and Concerning the
Principles of Morals, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge and P. H. Nidditch, 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Hume, David 1978 [1739–40]. A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge and P. H.
Nidditch, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
MacIntyre, A. 1959. “Hume on ‘Is’ and ‘Ought,’ ” Philosophical Review, vol. 68, pp. 451–68.
8
Moore, G. E. 1993. Principia Ethica, ed. T. Baldwin, rev. ed. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Pigden, Charles R. 1989. “Logic and the Autonomy of Ethics,” Australasian Journal of
pp. 199–206.
Schurz, Gerhard 1997. The Is–Ought Problem: A Study in Philosophical Logic. Dordrecht:
Kluwer.
Searle, John 1964. “How to Derive ‘Ought’ from ‘Is,’ ” Philosophical Review, vol. 73, pp. 43–58.
FURTHER READING
Pigden, Charles R. (ed.) 2010. Hume on Is and Ought. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.
1
Forgiveness
Norvin Richards
When we are done wrong, how should we react? If the answer is that we should take
offense and hold the behavior against the wrong-doer, should that remain our
attitude as time goes by? Or should we put what happened behind us and forgive?
What would be a reason to forgive, and how strong can such reasons be? Can it be
wrong not to forgive?
The questions are important. Since they ask how we should act when we are done
wrong, they concern how wrong-doing ought to matter to us: not in the abstract,
but in how we go on to behave once a wrong has been done. To get that right would
be part of living according to the correct attitude toward right and wrong. It would
also be an aspect of humility, in which you took yourself no more seriously than
you should but also no less so, by neither accepting mistreatment too readily nor
blowing it out of proportion. Finally, being right about when to forgive would
express the right understanding of human frailty, which means all of us sometimes
do wrong.
Moreover, shaping your life intelligently is an important moral good, and our lives
are shaped to a great extent by how we act when someone mistreats us. Forgiving at
such times can leave you vulnerable to further mistreatment in a way in which
cutting all ties with the person would not; but it also means your relationships can
last and deepen rather than being “one and done.” Refusing to forgive can require
the other person to act differently, but it can also bring other changes. So both for-
giving and choosing not to forgive affect what your life is like, by shaping your rela-
tionships with others. That is a second reason for wanting to understand what
forgiveness is, and to understand the morality of forgiveness: not because then you
are more likely to get all of this right, but because then your life is one that you lead
in these respects, rather than one that happens to you (see autonomy).
How we respond to mistreatment also has effects on our happiness (see
happiness). Sustained hard feelings over a wrong can be deeply distressing and
disruptive, and distress and bitterness are generally inimical to happiness. On
the other hand, reacting in too tolerant a way when you are done wrong can invite
further mistreatment, and being continually mistreated is hardly an appealing
route to happiness either. That gives practical value to understanding what forgive-
ness is and to contemplating views about when you should forgive. It also gives
these acts ethical value, since happiness is a moral good when it isn’t corrupted
in some way. The person whose happiness is increased by forgiving when she
should forgive has that moral good, and so do those others who are happy because
she (rightly) forgave them.
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee079
2
Finally, only a moral monster would be completely without remorse and lower
forms of moral regret. The rest of us are sometimes disturbed by what we have done
to others and can be greatly distressed by it. Remorse and regret are often
accompanied by a desire to be forgiven by those we’ve wronged, as if their forgive-
ness could ease our pain and could somehow set things right. That is another reason
for wanting to know what it is to forgive, when (if ever) a person should be forgiven,
and when (if ever) forgiveness should be withheld.
What Forgiving Is Not

Suppose you are angry at someone for what you believe he did to you, but you
come to realize that it wasn’t he who did it after all. Clearly, you should now
stop holding against him what you thought he did. Equally clearly, that wouldn’t
be a case of forgiving him for doing it. There is nothing for you to forgive, where
he is concerned.
Next, suppose that he was indeed the person who wronged you, just as you
thought, but you’ve now learned that it wasn’t the inexcusable villainy you had taken
it to be. Indeed he had so good an excuse for his behavior that you would be wrong
to hold him responsible for it at all. (It turns out that he couldn’t possibly have seen
what he was doing in its true light, and this was through no fault of his own.) Since
he isn’t to blame for what he did, this too calls for a change in your attitude toward
him. But, once again, the change wouldn’t be an act of forgiving him for what you
had mistakenly thought he had done; it would be one of adjusting your reaction to
suit what he actually did do. You would be exonerating him, as he deserved. That,
too, differs from forgiving him – once again, there is nothing there to forgive (see
blame; desert; responsibility).
Imagine, next, that his excuse were not quite as good. Perhaps what he did has
turned out to be an accident rather than something intentional, or to have been done
out of ignorance rather than knowingly, or while he was (understandably) under
great distress rather than perfectly cool. Those excuses do not mean he is completely
blameless, and to recognize them is not to exonerate him. It remains true that he
should have been more careful, or should have taken control of himself, and it isn’t
necessarily wrong to resent him for failing to do these things. Since there is something
to resent, there is also something to forgive. However, when you allow his mitigating
excuse to soften the way you feel about him, this is not itself a case of forgiving him
for what he did. It is yet another instance of adjusting the way you feel so that it
accords with what he has actually done: in this case, with his carelessness about you
rather than with the malice you had taken it to be. You could go on to forgive him
for his carelessness, but that would be a further step.
Another difference follows from these. Recognizing that someone had an excuse
for what she did entails seeing her behavior as less bad than you had taken it to be.
This is true both when her excuse means she is completely blameless and when it
only means she is less blameworthy than you had thought. Forgiving someone does
not carry this implication. Unlike excusing, forgiving does not commit you to a
3
revised view about how badly this person acted when she did you wrong; it is per-
fectly consistent with continuing to regard that act with the same disapproval as you
did before you forgave her. Whereas excusing necessarily involves seeing the behav-
ior in a better light, this is not even a part of forgiving.
These are differences between forgiving and excusing someone whom you
should have excused; but of course we can also excuse people who really had no
excuse. Mistakes of that kind also differ from forgiving the person. In (wrongly)
excusing her you think of her behavior as less blameworthy than you had origi-
nally thought, or perhaps as not blameworthy at all. As was noted, this is not part
of forgiving her – an act in which you retain the same attitude toward what she
did. Forgiving adjusts your attitude toward the wrong-doer in spite of what she did
rather than on account of what you think now of what she has done. This differ-
ence is easy to miss, because coming to think that the behavior wasn’t as bad as
you had initially thought can bring that behavior within the scope of what you
are willing to forgive, whereas before it would not have been there. Even so, this
reduction is not forgiving. That is a next step – not only when we are right
about excusing someone, but also when we are wrong about it.
In sum, to forgive someone, (l) she must be to blame for the behavior you are
holding against her; (2) you must regard her as the person to blame for it; and
(3) you need not reduce your view of how badly she treated you. All three are ways
in which forgiving differs from excusing. They are also ways in which forgiving
resembles being merciful to someone who has been convicted of a crime. It is
merciful to reduce how severely he is punished only if his conduct calls for the harsh
treatment that is being withheld through mercy. Otherwise it is not mercy he is
receiving, but justice. In addition, those who reduce the penalty must believe that
the harsher treatment is called for: otherwise they are not being merciful, they are
only striving to be just. Finally, like forgiving, mercy does not entail a revised view
of how badly the person acted but only a resolution not to hold it against him in the
same way – which is achieved in this case by punishing him less severely than we
might have (see mercy; punishment).
What Forgiving Is
In a seminal article, Jeffrie Murphy (1982) defined forgiving someone in terms of
“foreswearing” the resentment you have toward this person for having done you
wrong. Murphy contends that initially you should resent such a person out of self-
respect, because mistreating you was a way of insulting you and a self-respecting
person resents insults (see self-respect and self-esteem). But suppose you get
yourself to stop resenting him for it. That would be to forgive him, on Murphy’s
view, as long as you did it “on moral grounds.” He contrasts this with abandoning the
resentment for your own peace of mind, or in order to have your continuing life with
this person go better than it would if you were still simmering. A good deal of the
broader literature on forgiveness can be characterized by the ways in which it takes
issue with this analysis.
4
l In an article that preceded Murphy’s, Aurel Kolnai (1974) argued that part of
forgiving someone is “re-accepting” that person, restoring the relationship to
what it had been before the wrong disrupted things. This is criticized by Norvin
Richards (1988) and by Eve Garrard and David McNaughton (2003) and
defended by Robert C. Roberts (1995).
2 Richards also argued that it isn’t only those we resent whom we can later
forgive, but also those whose behavior didn’t anger us but only made us disap-
pointed in them, and those whose behavior filled us with contempt rather than
resentment. If so, to forgive isn’t to banish resentment, as Murphy says, but to
banish any negative attitude based on that misdeed. Later on Murphy accepted
this amendment (for criticisms of it, see Charles Griswold 2007; also Lucy
Allais 2008).
3 Several others have argued that forgiving is not a matter of eliminating hard feel-
ings but one of moderating their effect. Here are two examples.
Andrea Westlund (2009) argues that forgiving someone is not a matter of completely
eliminating your anger, as Murphy and others would have it, but one of preventing
your (justified) anger over the incident from eliminating your good will toward the
person who provoked it. The victim of a wrong, she says, should seek the perspective
of what Joseph Butler (1896) called the “unprejudiced good man.” That perspective
would make one impartial with regard to what was done (as opposed to one’s being
biased in one’s own favor); it would include good will toward the person who caused
it; and it would not necessarily extirpate all the resentment over the incident. On
Westlund’s view, to achieve this perspective is to forgive the wrong-doer.
Lucy Allais (2003) takes a similar position, according to which to forgive is to
prevent what the person did to you from lowering that person in your esteem.
You retain your belief that she is to blame for it, but you disregard this particular
act in your attitude toward her. That differs from ceasing to resent her for it,
Allais argues. One implication is that you wouldn’t be forgiving her if you
managed to stop resenting her by taking what she did to mean she wasn’t worth
thinking about.
4 The “forgiveness as therapy” movement counsels that we should abandon hard

feelings toward those who wrong us, as a way of helping ourselves to deal with it.
As noted, Murphy wouldn’t count this as forgiving, because it is self-centered.
A leading figure in the movement is Robert Enright, and a philosopher who
agrees is Joanna North (see Enricht and North 1998); Jeffrie Murphy and Sharon
Lamb (2002) have edited a good collection of essays exploring it.
The Ethics of Forgiveness

When parties disagree over what it is to forgive, we might expect them also to
disagree about the rights and wrongs of forgiving. Still, whatever forgiving may
be, all moralities of forgiveness grapple with similar issues. What would be a
5
reason (see reasons) to forgive someone? Could such reasons be good enough

to justify forgiving this person? Could they be so good that it would be wrong
not to forgive him? Is any behavior unforgiveable, even if the person is heartily
sorry for it?
Kolnai (1991) offered the following paradox, which was carefully explored by
Leo Zaibert later (2009; Zaibert also finds it in Derrida 2001). Either the person
who distressed us by doing us wrong is to blame for what happened or he is not.
If he is not to blame, then there is nothing for which to forgive him: to do so is
logically inappropriate. But now suppose he is to blame for what happened. Then,
Kolnai suggested, what is justified is to blame him, not to forgive him. So forgive-
ness is never justified. It is always either logically inappropriate or morally
objectionable.
Zaibert (2009) grants that the first leg of the paradox is unassailable – we can only
forgive those who are to blame for doing that for which we forgive them. What Zaibert
disputes is the contention that we cannot be justified in forgiving someone while still
regarding her as having acted in a blameworthy way. For him, the key is that to forgive
is to refrain from imposing yourself the blame or punishment that, in your view, the
wrong-doer has coming to him. You leave that to others, and you do so because you
believe the world will be a better place if you don’t do this yourself (despite also believ-
ing that it would be a better place if someone does it.) This attitude can be defended, he
argues: it means that we are justified in simultaneously forgiving someone and regard-
ing him as blameworthy for what he did. If we agreed instead with Westlund or Allais
about what it is to forgive, we might say that we can blame someone for a particular act
without allowing this judgment to render other changes to our attitude toward the
wrong-doer; that we can be justified in this; and hence that we can be justified in for-
giving someone while we still hold that person to be blameworthy.
Suppose, next, that the wrong-doer is filled with remorse and repents. Joram
Haber (1991) argues that this is the only consideration that could justify forgiving
him. On Murphy’s view repentance can be a reason to forgive, because by repenting
the wrong-doer joins in condemning the behavior with which he once insulted you.
For Murphy, this means that self-respect no longer requires resenting him and that,
in consequence, you can forgive him. (For a different account of why we should
forgive the repentant, see Jean Hampton’s response to Murphy in Murphy and
Hampton 1988.)
Whatever it is that gives repentance its moral importance, Solomon Schimmel
(2002) notes that in the Jewish tradition we have an obligation to forgive the repentant,
rather than only being free to do so if we choose (see duty and obligation). Allais
(2008) and Zaibert (2009) both observe that this runs counter to the idea that forgive-
ness is always a gift we are free either to give or to withhold. If we wanted to say both
that there is generosity in forgiveness and that it is sometimes wrong not to forgive, we
would have to say that it is sometimes wrong not to be generous. One attempt to do so
would be to hold that generosity is an imperfect duty, as charity is often said to be –
essentially, that we would be wrong never to be generous, but we are free to choose the
occasions when we are. Clearly, however, this would not mean that everyone had a
6
duty to forgive those who repent, but only that it would be wrong to be completely
unforgiving (see generosity; supererogation).
What about those who do not repent and make no commitment to act differently?
Haber (1991), Kolnai (1974), Murphy (1982), Lang (1994, 2009), Swinburne (1989), and
Wilson (1988) have all held that it is wrong to forgive such a person. Of interest here is
the literature on the South African Truth and Reconciliation project, which sought to
obtain both the truth about what had happened under apartheid and the reconciliation
of the society by offering amnesty to anyone who came forward to admit responsibility
in a public hearing (see reconciliation). Such meetings brought the wrong-doers into
contact with the loved ones of people whom they had terribly abused (and they now
admitted to it). The wrong-doers had not necessarily repented, but often the victims’
loved ones sought to forgive them. The extent to which they tried to forgive out of con-
cern for the wrong-doer is especially striking, given what the wrong-doers had done and
the fact that they had not necessarily repented. If forgiving them was not morally objec-
tionable but admirable, as both Lucy Allais and Trudy Govier think it sometimes was,
then forgiveness can be morally sound even when the other person does not repent or
recognize that he needs it, and even when the wrong in question would strike many as
unforgivable. The project (together with such questions) is discussed by Allais (2008),
Berel Lang (2009), and at book length by Trudy Govier (2002).
Eve Garrard and David McNaughton (2003) are concerned with the underlying
idea of forgiving “unconditionally.” They, too, argue that it is at least permissible and
often admirable to forgive someone who has had no change of heart about what he
did. They contend that such forgiving need neither condone the behavior nor betray
lack of self-respect; it can express instead a proper humility. In their view, it would
do so by recognizing that you and the wrong-doer share a human nature that makes
it likely that there are circumstances in which you too would have done something
similarly bad. The idea is that it was only your good moral luck that you did not, and
his bad moral luck that he did; and this means you two have reason to overcome
your hostility and seek each other’s good (see moral luck).
It would not follow from these views that nothing can be unforgivable; but they
do suggest that much less is unforgivable than we might have thought. Good
discussions of the concept of the unforgivable are to be found in Govier (2002),
Griswold (2007), and Murphy (2009).
See also: autonomy; blame; desert; duty and obligation; generosity;

happiness; mercy; moral luck; punishment; reasons; reconciliation;
responsibility; self-respect and self-esteem; supererogation
REFERENCES
Allais, Lucy 2008. “Wiping the Slate Clean: The Heart of Forgiveness,” Philosophy and Public
Butler, Joseph 1896. Sermon VIII, “Upon Resentment,” and Sermon IX, “Upon Forgiveness
of Injuries,” in The Works of Joseph Butler, ed. W. E. Gladstone, vol. 5.2. London:
Clarendon Press.
7
Derrida, Jacques 2001. On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness. London: Routledge.

Enright, Robert D., and Joanna North (eds.) 1998. Exploring Forgiveness. Madison: University
of Wisconsin Press.
Garrard, Eva, and David McNaughton 2003. “In Defence of Unconditional Forgiveness,”
Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, vol. 104, pp. 39–60.
Govier, Trudy 2002. Forgiveness and Revenge. London: Routledge.
Griswold, Charles L. 2007. Forgiveness: A Philosophical Exploration. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Haber, Joram 1991. Forgiveness. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Kolnai, Aurel 1974. “Forgiveness,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, vol. 74, pp. 91–106.
Lang, Berel 1994. “Forgiveness,” American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 31, pp. 105–17.
Lang, Berel 2009. “Reconciliation: Not Retribution, Not Justice, Perhaps Not Even
Forgiveness,” The Monist, vol. 92, no. 4, pp. 604–19.
Murphy, Jeffrie C. 1982. “Forgiveness and Resentment,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy, vol. 7,
pp. 503–16.
Murphy, Jeffrie C. 2009. “The Case of Dostoevski’s General: Some Ruminations on Forgiving
the Unforgivable,” Monist, vol. 92, no. 4, pp. 556–82. (Also delivered as a lecture in
March 2010.)
Murphy, Jeffrie C., and Jean Hampton 1988. Forgiveness and Mercy. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Murphy, Jeffrie C., and Sharon Lamb (eds.) 2002. Before Forgiving. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Richards, Norvin 1988. “Forgiveness,” Ethics, vol. 99, pp. 77–97.
Roberts, Robert C. 1995. “Forgivingness,” American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 32: 289–306.
Schimmel, Solomon 2002. Wounds Not Healed by Time: The Power of Resentment and
Forgiveness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Swinburne, R. 1989. Responsibility and Atonement. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Westlund, Andrea 2009. “Anger, Faith and Forgiveness,” The Monist, vol. 92, pp. 507–36.
Wilson, J. 1988. “Why Forgiveness Requires Repentance,” Philosophy, vol. 63, pp. 534–5.
Zaibert, Leo 2009. “The Paradox of Forgiveness,” Journal of Moral Philosophy, vol. 6, pp. 365–93.
FURTHER READINGS
Calhoun, Cheshire 1992. “Changing One’s Heart,” Ethics, vol. 103, pp. 76–96.
Etzioni, A. (ed.) 1997. Repentance: A Comparative Perspective. Lanham, MD: Rowman &
Littlefield.
Govier, Trudy 1999. “Forgiveness and the Unforgiveable,” American Philosophical Quarterly,
vol. 36, pp. 59–75.
Heironimi, Pamela 2002. “Articulating an Uncompromising Forgiveness,” Philosophy and
Holmgren, Margaret R. 1993. “Forgiveness and the Intrinsic Value of Persons,” American
Holmgren, Margaret R. 1998. “Self-Forgiveness and Responsible Moral Agency,” Journal of
Value Inquiry, vol. 32, pp. 75–91.
Hughes, Paul 1995. “Moral Anger, Forgiving and Condoning,” Journal of Social Philosophy,
vol. 26, pp. 103–18.
Hughes, Paul 1997. “What Is Involved in Forgiving?” Philosophia, vol. 25, pp. 33–49.
8
Murphy, Jeffrie 2003. Getting Even: Forgiveness and Its Limits. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Neblett, William R. 1974. “Forgiveness and Ideals,” Mind, vol. 83, pp. 269–75.
North, Joanna 1987. “Wrongdoing and Forgiveness,” Philosophy, vol. 62, pp. 499–508.
Pettigrove, G. 2004. “Unapologetic Forgiveness,” American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 41,
pp. 187–204.
Richards, Norvin, 1992. “Mistreatment,” in Norvin Richards, Humility. Philadelphia: Temple
University Press.
Sussman, David 2005. “Kantian Forgiveness,” Kant-Studien, vol. 96, pp. 85–107.
Tutu, Desmond 1999. No Future without Forgiveness. New York: Doubleday-Random House.
Twambley, P. 1976. “Mercy and Forgiveness,” Analysis, vol. 36, pp. 84–90.
1
Strawson, P. F.
Peter Brian Barry
Sir Peter Francis Strawson (1919–2006) is a seminal figure in twentieth-century

analytic philosophy. By his own account, Strawson authored two papers that
effectively embody all that he had to say about moral philosophy (2008: xxvii). One
of those papers (1961) is rarely read and little discussed. The other (1962) is a widely
read agenda-setting work that continues to shape debates about free will (see free
will) and responsibility (see responsibility).
In “Freedom and Resentment,” Strawson aims to mediate a debate between
“pessimists” who think that our practices of punishment (see punishment) and
holding people morally responsible for their actions are unjustified if the thesis of
determinism is true, and “optimists” who think that these practices may well be
justified even if determinism is true. Very roughly, the distinction between optimists
and pessimists tracks the contemporary distinction between “compatibilists” and
“incompatibilists” – between those philosophers who argue that the truth of
determinism is compatible with the existence of free will and moral responsibility
and those who argue that the truth of determinism is incompatible with free will and
moral responsibility.
Strawson complains that both parties in the debate overintellectualize the
facts and urges them to consider the facts as we know them – that is, to consider
the importance that we attach to the attitudes and intentions of our fellow human
beings and the extent to which our feelings and reactions depend upon beliefs
about their attitudes and intentions (2008: 5). In particular, Strawson calls our
attention to the “reactive attitudes” to which we are prone. For example, we tend
to demand goodwill from others and react with gratitude (see gratitude) when
we receive it and resentment when we do not. When we perceive a failure to
show goodwill we tend to react with blame (see blame) and indignation. It is
only by paying attention to these facts as we know them that we can recover what
we mean when we speak of responsibility (2008: 24). For Strawson, we can
recover facts about moral responsibility from our actual practices of holding
responsible because the facts about those practices just are the facts about moral
responsibility.
Strawson allows that some considerations make it appropriate to modify or
abandon the reactive attitudes. One sort of consideration is expressed by pleas
along the lines of “He didn’t mean to” and “He was pushed” and “He had no alter-
native,” and so forth. Another sort of consideration is expressed by pleas along
the lines of “He’s only a child” and “His mind has been systematically perverted”
and “He is warped and deranged,” and so forth (2008: 7–8). Pleas of the first kind
tend to move us to excuse someone on a particular occasion while pleas of the
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee080
2
second kind tend to move us to exempt someone from responsibility, period.

But absent either sort of plea, agents are appropriate candidates for the reactive
attitudes.
Strawson’s discussion of the reactive attitudes is especially problematic for
incompatibilists. Strawson insists that he “does not know what the thesis of
determinism is” (2008: 1) but it is typically thought to imply that all events are
necessitated by prior events and the laws of nature. But however determinism is
understood, it certainly does not follow that its truth implies that everyone
didn’t mean to act as they did, that no one knew what they were doing, that
everyone was pushed or had no alternative, and so forth. It also does not imply
that everyone is only a child or systematically perverted or warped and deranged,
and so forth. In other words, the truth of determinism does not suggest any
reason to modify or abandon our practices of holding people responsible: the
facts as we know them suggest no reason to refrain from reacting to ill-will and
callous indifference with resentment and indignation, even if determinism is
true (2008: 11–12).
Strawson insists that the real question for philosophers interested in our practices
of holding people responsible “is a question about what it would be rational to do if
determinism were true” (2008: 14). Two other arguments that invoke this assump-
tion are worth considering, given that they emphasize the importance of the reactive
attitudes for Strawson. First, Strawson repeatedly insists that thoroughly abandoning
the reactive attitudes is “practically inconceivable” and “not something of which
human beings would be capable” (2008: 12). Thus, he concludes that “it is useless to
ask whether it would not be rational for us to do what it is not in our nature to (be
able to) do” (2008: 20). If we (effectively) cannot abandon the reactive attitudes and
with it our practices of holding people responsible, then it cannot be the case that it
is rational to do so. Second, even if we had the choice that Strawson doubts that we
have, “we should choose rationally only in the light of an assessment of the gains and
losses to human life” (2008: 14). And given the central importance that the reactive
attitudes play in our personal lives and interpersonal relationships, it cannot be the
case that abandoning the reactive attitudes could be rational since their abandonment
would yield such grave losses.
Strawson’s arguments have significant import for contemporary compatibilist
accounts of responsibility, insofar as they favor a particular strain of compatibilism.
For Strawson, reacting with resentment is appropriate if someone treads on my hand
out of contempt, while showing gratitude is appropriate if someone benefits me out
of goodwill. In this vein, Strawson-style compatibilists are prone to argue that facts
about the actual sequence of events that produce an agent’s action are sufficient to
justify holding the agent responsible. So, while some compatibilists have labored to
provide determinist-friendly accounts of what it means to say that someone “could
have done otherwise,” Strawsonians will be concerned with illuminating just what
happened in the actual sequence of events that make an agent an apt target for the
reactive attitudes.
3
See also: blame; free will; gratitude; punishment; responsibility
REFERENCES
Strawson, Peter 1961. “Social Morality and Individual Ideal,” Philosophy, vol. 36, pp. 1–17
(reprinted in Strawson 2008, pp. 29–49).
Strawson, Peter 1962. “Freedom and Resentment,” in Proceedings of the British Academy,
vol. 48, pp. 187–211 (reprinted in Strawson 2008, pp. 1–28).
Strawson, Peter 2008. Freedom and Resentment and Other Essays. New York: Routledge.
FURTHER READINGS
Fischer, John Martin 1999. “Recent Work on Moral Responsibility,” Ethics, vol. 110,
pp. 93–139.
McKenna, Michael 2005. “Where Frankfurt and Strawson Meet,” Midwest Studies in
McKenna, Michael, and Paul Russell 2008. Free Will and Reactive Attitudes: Perspectives on
P. F. Strawson’s “Freedom and Resentment.” Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
Wallace, R. Jay 1994. Responsibility and the Moral Sentiments. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Wolf, Susan 1981. “The Importance of Free Will,” Mind, vol. 90, pp. 386–405.
1
Quotidian Ethics
David Benatar
Quotidian ethics, or “everyday ethics,” as it is sometimes known, is a branch of

applied ethics devoted to studying the moral questions, problems, and issues that
arise in the daily lives of ordinary people. These include such questions as: Which,
if any, jokes is it wrong to tell? May I gossip with my friends? Do the environmental
effects and other dangers of cars make it wrong to drive? Is it wrong to keep animals
as pets? If it is not wrong, how should I treat my companion animals? Is it morally
permissible to live a lavish or luxurious lifestyle? When should I forgive those who
have wronged me? Is jealousy ever appropriate?
Neither the term “quotidian ethics” nor “everyday ethics” is widely used (yet). Nor
is the area of applied ethics, to which these terms refer, as established as are other,
more famous domains of applied ethics: bioethics and business ethics, for example.
Nevertheless, it is an area of inquiry that is worthy of recognition, and it merits more
attention than it has received until now.
As is the case with other areas of inquiry, there are no clear parameters to quotidian
ethics. We cannot demarcate with precision what it does and does not include. We
can only describe its domain in general terms and provide some indication of how it
differs from other areas of applied ethics. When I say that quotidian ethics is focused
on moral issues that arise in the daily lives of ordinary people, I mean to distinguish
it in at least two ways.
First, the problems of quotidian ethics are ones that arise very commonly. They
are not hypothetical thought experiments, such as trolley problems, for example (see
trolley problem), which most people never face at all. In delineating the area,
however, we should not understand “daily lives” too literally and thus too narrowly.
I do not mean to exclude from the area of inquiry those problems that do not arise
literally every day for everybody. It is sufficient that an issue arises very often in
some ordinary people’s lives.
Second, quotidian ethics is to be distinguished from various kinds of professional
ethics and from the ethics of public policy and law. It is ethics for “ordinary people”
rather than for professionals in their professional capacities, or for the makers of law
or public policy.
Thus, euthanasia (see euthanasia), to choose one of many possible examples, is
not a question in quotidian ethics. It is not a question that ordinary people face very
often. At most, an ordinary person can expect to confront this question in a practical
way only a few times over the course of a life – when loved ones, or oneself, are
enduring or will soon endure a quality of life that is so poor that death may be
preferred. Some doctors and other health professionals encounter these dilemmas
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee081
2
more commonly, but then they are problems of professional rather than quotidian
ethics. Societies also need to ask whether they should legally permit active euthanasia,
but this is a question about law or public policy and thus also not a question in
quotidian ethics. Similarly, abortion, affirmative action, capital punishment, cloning,
the ethics of war, and other staple topics of applied ethics fall outside the domain of
quotidian ethics.
The topics that fall (at least partly) within its domain include the following:
(1) various issues in the ethics of speech, including the ethics of humor (see humor,
ethics of), of gossip, and of lying (see lying and deceit); (2) questions of sexual
ethics (see sexual morality), including premarital and extramarital sex, promis-
cuity, and masturbation; (3) the ethics of rearing children (see parents’ rights
and responsibilities) and of filial relationships (see filial duties); (4) the
treatment of animals (see vegetarianism and veganism) and of the environ-
ment (see environmental ethics); (5) the ethics of such monetary matters as
violating copyright (see intellectual property), of gambling, tipping, and of
giving aid (see aid, ethics of); (6) the ethics of eating and drinking, of smoking,
and the use of drugs; (7) ethical issues pertaining to forgiveness (see forgive-
ness), modesty (see modesty), politeness, gratitude (see gratitude), jealousy,
and envy.
Clearly, there are nonquotidian ethical questions one can ask of these practices.
Thus, for example, questions about the legal regulation of speech, gambling, alco-
hol, tobacco, and other drugs are questions in normative jurisprudence rather
than in quotidian ethics. The quotidian ethical questions concern not the legal
regulation but rather an individual’s actions: Are the relevant practices morally
acceptable (whether or not they ought to be legally regulated)? Although the ques-
tions are conceptually distinct, relevant considerations overlap. For example, the
harm that tobacco smoke poses to nonsmokers is relevant both to the question
whether it is morally acceptable to smoke in the presence of nonsmokers and to
the question whether smokers should be legally permitted to smoke in the presence
of nonsmokers.
The intersection of different areas of practical ethics (or other areas of inquiry,
for that matter) is not uncommon. What businesses may do with their waste, for
example, is a topic for both business ethics and environmental ethics. Confidentiality
is a topic for both bioethics and legal ethics. The existence of overlap between
quotidian ethics and other areas of practical ethics is thus not grounds for rejecting
quotidian ethics as a designated area of inquiry.
Some areas of quotidian ethics have received considerable philosophical attention.
Most notable among these are questions about our treatment of animals (see
animals, moral status of) and the environment, and about our duties to the
world’s poor. The focus has not been exclusively on the quotidian aspects of these
questions – the use of animals for the production of food, or the responsibilities of
individuals regarding the environment or the poor – but has also included the exper-
imental use of animals and the responsibilities of governments and international
organizations towards the environment and to the poor. Nevertheless, there is an
3
ample literature dealing with these topics and the quotidian aspects have been
central, even if not exclusively so.
In contrast to such questions, most issues in quotidian ethics have been relatively
neglected. Very little has been said about the ethics of humor, gossip, adultery (see
adultery), and tipping, for example. And although the treatment of animals in
laboratories and in food production has been discussed, the keeping and treatment
of pets has received very little attention. What explains this relative neglect? A few
related explanations might be proffered (Benatar 2002).
The first explanation attributes the neglect of quotidian ethics to a broader his-
torical trend in moral philosophy or, at least, in recent moral philosophy. In the
early part of the twentieth century, moral philosophy in the analytic tradition
was concerned almost exclusively with questions in metaethics (see metaethics).
Instead of being concerned with making and evaluating normative claims, this
branch of ethics is concerned with analyzing the nature of such claims. In time,
moral philosophers re-broadened their focus to also consider normative moral
theory, a branch of ethics devoted to explaining, at a theoretical level, what makes
some actions right and other actions wrong. The final decades of the twentieth
century saw a burgeoning of interest in practical ethics. What we see, then, is a
trajectory from the most theoretical questions to practical ones – a shift from
questions about ethics, to questions in ethics, first of a theoretical kind and then of
a practical kind. Against this background, it is not surprising that the initial focus
of practical ethics was on those questions that were more general – social rather
than personal.
The second explanation is that the “big” questions – those concerning what
societies and professionals do – are, or at least appear, more momentous than the
quotidian ones. Accordingly, they are more likely to arouse interest.
A third possible explanation is that the research agendas of philosophers (and
other academics) are usually shaped by topical questions in the discipline.
Philosophers are more likely to write about topics other philosophers are writing
about. The consequence of this is that a shift to looking at new questions is less common
than a reexamination of currently popular topics. There are academic fashions, and
quotidian ethics has not (yet) come into fashion.
The relative neglect of quotidian ethical questions is regrettable. It is true that
public policy decisions have a grander scope – they affect whole societies rather than
merely individuals. It is also true that questions in professional ethics have the
stature sometimes associated with the professions themselves. Nevertheless, quotidian
ethical questions are very important. This is in part because they are so common. All
things being equal, there is a greater urgency to deal with common problems than
with rare ones. Moreover, any individual’s deliberations about quotidian ethical
problems can have immediate practical effects. If, for example, one decides that it is
wrong to eat meat or to pollute the environment, one ordinarily has the authority to
change one’s life accordingly. There may be psychological impediments, such as
weakness of will (see weakness of will), to the implementation of one’s decision.
However, acting on one’s decisions is within one’s authority and usually also within
4
one’s control (absent any coercion or irresistible compulsion). By contrast, unless

one is one’s country’s dictator, decisions about public policy are typically enormously
difficult to implement and take a long time to effect.
Quotidian ethical questions are thus important ones, even if the nature of their
importance differs from that of the kinds of ethical questions more commonly asked
and discussed by philosophers.
See also: adultery; aid, ethics of; animals, moral status of;
environmental ethics; euthanasia; filial duties; forgiveness;
gratitude; humor, ethics of; intellectual property; lying and
deceit; metaethics; modesty; parents’ rights and responsibilities;
sexual morality; trolley problem; vegetarianism and veganism;
weakness of will
REFERENCE
Benatar, David 2002. Ethics for Everyday. Boston: McGraw-Hill.
FURTHER READINGS
Benatar, David 2006. “Teaching Ethics for Everyday,” American Philosophical Association
Newsletter on Teaching Philosophy, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 8–12.
Halberstam, Joshua 1993. Everyday Ethics: Inspired Solutions to Real-Life Dilemmas.
New York: Viking.
Martin, Mike W. 2007. Everyday Morality: An Introduction to Applied Ethics, 4th ed. Belmont,
CA: Wadsworth.
1
Constructivism, Moral
Aaron James
Constructivist views in ethics answer several perennial foundational questions:

What are the grounds for ethical truth? Is ethical truth fully objective? How would
we come by ethical knowledge? And how does ethical truth and/or knowledge relate
to rational motivation?
If such questions are more or less standard since Plato, constructivist views
(defined momentarily) are animated by dissatisfaction with the standard answers.
In very general terms, these divide into “realist” views (see realism, moral),
which give values a kind of metaphysical objectivity, and “anti-realist” views, such
as subjectivism (see subjectivism, ethical) and relativism (see relativism,
moral), which seem to lead to skepticism. Constructivism seeks a “third way,”
that is, a position that does without the metaphysics of realism, but still explains
ethical truth, objectivity, knowledge, and motivation in ordinary, nonskeptical
terms.
Why want a different approach? For most constructivists, our ordinary ethical
commitments should be not only affirmed, but explained in a perspicuous way. Or
at least, if we do not affirm all of common sense, we should revise ordinary ethical
understandings only in light of the best, most perspicuous conception of them. We
are to take common sense very seriously. Realist views clearly affirm the objectivity
of values, as well as our ability to know and be motivated by them. But, for many, the
proposed account of this – positing reified values and a human faculty of “intuition”
or “recollection” for accessing them – is less than perspicuous. If this is a sort of
explanation, it poses further metaphysical and epistemological questions at least as
daunting as the questions initially asked. For example: How, exactly, do values sit in
metaphysical reality? How, exactly, do we know about them? And why, exactly,
would we be motivated by awareness of that sort of reality?
On the other hand, many standard “anti-realist” views tend toward skepticism.
Unlike metaphysical realism, subjectivist or relativist accounts start from unprob-
lematic assumptions about our attitudes or social forms. But this comes at the price
of objectivity. We usually assume that, if slavery or disloyalty or promise-breaking is
morally wrong, then it is wrong regardless of what people believe or are motivated to
do. When such ethical views are true, they are objectively true in at least that sense.
In that case, to hold the subjectivist or relativist view that ethical truth is in fact a
direct function of individual psychology or social practice – to hold, that is, that
ethical truth changes when we change our (individual or collective) minds – is to
hold, in effect, that our ordinary assumptions about objectivity are mistaken.
The hope, then, is for a third way – a way of somehow “constructing” values not
anyway or already there in the impersonal order of things, but yet fully objective
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee082
2
in the sense that ordinarily matters to us. The “materials” for construction, on all
constructivist views, are thought to be relatively unproblematic assumptions
about ordinary human practical reason. Put together in the right way, the idea
goes, deep ideas about the nature of human practical reason add up to a perspicu-
ous characterization – and perhaps justification – of (roughly) our ordinary
understandings of ethical truth, objectivity, knowledge, and motivation.
The most famous historical attempt of this kind is Immanuel Kant’s theoretical
and practical philosophy (see kant, immanuel). Our focus, however, will be on
contemporary constructivisms, which, unlike Kant’s philosophy, are limited to the
moral or ethical domain. In contemporary ethical theory, the name “constructiv-
ism” is usually associated with the moral theories advanced by Harvard philoso-
phers John Rawls (see rawls, john), T. M. Scanlon, and Christine Korsgaard
(Rawls 1971, 1980; Scanlon 1982, 1998; Korsgaard 1996, 2003; also noteworthy is
O’Neill 1996). These views – which will be our focus – take the following general
form:
The general thesis of constructivism: Necessarily, a moral (or ethical) proposition

counts as true if and only if, and because, it would be affirmed (as true) by anyone
capable of following the norms of practical reasoning, on the basis of valid,
faultless reasoning in conditions optimal for practical reflection.
This general thesis of course needs to be elaborated in several ways, and the
standard contemporary versions of constructivism take very different approaches.
Though it is tempting to ask whether one version is the real form of constructiv-
ism, the more profitable course is to define constructivism in an inclusive way
(e.g., as above) and explain differences between versions as reflecting divergent
explanatory aims. To this end, we will consider both what the standard versions
have in common and the variety of philosophical purposes they are intended to
serve.
Although it will not be our focus, we might note that this bears closely on
whether some version of constructivism should be ultimately accepted. The best
developed versions of constructivism are a natural place to start in considering
prospects for constructivism generally. And we should of course consider those
views in their best, most attractive forms, including their associated aims of
philosophical explanation. While we won’t focus on answering objections, we will
see that what explanatory purposes we should have is central for understanding
both how and why the standard constructivisms differ and how attractive they
ultimately are.
Common Features: The Status and Content of Morality

The general thesis of constructivism has implications for both the status and content
of any class of moral judgments to which it is applied.
3
The status of moral judgments: Truth

Moral language often takes the form of assertions – of claims to truth (see frege–
geach objection; cognitivism). But how, we may ask, could there be a fact of the
matter whether a moral judgment is true, rather than false? What would the truth of
a moral judgment consist in, when it is true?
Constructivism answers by proposing a form of explanation: moral truth is
nothing more, and nothing less, than being a verdict of the appropriate reasoning.
(The general thesis thus takes the form “Necessarily … if and only if, and because …,”
rather than the mere equivalence “… if and only if …,” which is neutral as to direction
of explanation.) According to constructivism, we need no further account of why
the relevant judgments are true, rather than false. In particular, there is no need to
posit further moral or ethical facts, or “truth-makers,” in the style of moral realism.
The content of morality

Although the general thesis of constructivism has no direct implications for the
content of morality, it provides a basis for justifying substantive moral conclusions.
It suffices to justify a particular moral claim (e.g., “it is usually wrong to break a
promise,” or “inequality is unjust”) to (1) specify appropriate reasoning and (2) show
that such reasoning yields the conclusion in question (when correctly carried out,
under suitable conditions). For constructivism is precisely the thesis that such
conclusions cannot but be true; there is no possibility of error despite best reasoning.
The issues of content and status are separate, but not entirely unrelated. Any
explanation of the grounds of moral truth cannot be entirely neutral about the
content of the conclusions that come out true; the result must be recognizable as
morality. When constructivists do not give substantial arguments to particular
conclusions, they therefore must at least show that we have a clear enough under-
standing of reasoning that leads to recognizably moral results.
The Standard Versions: Rawls, Scanlon, Korsgaard

By way of illustration, consider the three standard constructivisms in turn.
Rawls
Rawls’ theory of justice, which introduced constructivism into contemporary moral
philosophy, affirms the constructivist thesis for certain general moral propositions
(or “principles”) for the “basic structure” of society (1971, 1980). Principles are said
to be justified, as general truths about what justice in the basic structure requires,
because they are selected by appropriate reasoning: we ask what principles self-
interested parties would accept, in ignorance of their specific position in society,
from behind a “veil of ignorance.” When such “original position” reasoning is fault-
lessly carried out, under suitable conditions, we are, according to Rawls, led to affirm
certain egalitarian principles (see difference principle) as against alternatives
4
such as utilitarianism (see utilitarianism). The principles are therefore justified,

not simply as a “noble lie” or other justified fiction, but as true. For being the result
of such reasoning is all it takes to constitute a fact of the matter about what justice
requires. (Note that Rawls [1980, 1996] sometimes misleadingly speaks as if con-
structed principles are “reasonable” rather than “true.” He means only to deny truth
in the realist sense specified by what he terms “rational intuitionism.”)
Scanlon
Scanlon’s (1998) theory has a different target – the domain of interpersonal morality
which he names “what we owe to each other” (see contractualism). According to
Scanlon, in matters of what we owe to each other (regarding fidelity to agreements,
killing and rescue, coercion, exploitation, and so on), the truth about what is owed
depends on the conclusion of certain appropriate reasoning: we ask what regulative
principles of conduct no informed, unforced person could “reasonably reject,” when
motivated by the aim of finding principles that are so justifiable to all. Insofar as
such reasoning is indeed on the side of specific principles of conduct, as Scanlon
suggests it often is, this is all it takes for there to be a fact of the matter that the con-
duct in question is owed.
Rawls asks us to imagine self-interested parties pressed to impartiality by their
ignorance. Scanlon allows full information and blocks partiality by moralizing the
motivation that guides appropriate reasoning. Rawls is particularly concerned to gener-
ate substantial principles. Scanlon is more concerned to characterize central features of
moral reasoning (see moral reasoning) which appear across a wide variety of cases,
in a way which nevertheless might guide judgment about principles in specific contexts.
Most significant among such features is Scanlon’s individualism: reasoning about what
could be reasonably rejected takes different persons one by one, considering and
comparing only their respective “personal reasons,” to the exclusion of all purely
impersonal values (1998: 219; see agent-relative vs. agent-neutral).
Korsgaard
Though all contemporary constructivisms have affinities with Kant’s ethical theory,
Korsgaard’s account is intended as a specifically Kantian account. Rejecting “sub-
stantive realism,” she affirms “procedural realism” about morality (1996: 34–7):
there are facts or truths about what our moral obligations are, because practical
reason requires moral action. Specifically, Korsgaard begins from constructivism
applied to reasons for action in general (i.e., any judgment that an agent has reason,
moral or otherwise, to act in some way): our reasons for action depend on what we
would choose if we were to fully understand and consistently follow the require-
ments of practical reason that arise from our nature as human rational agents. Inso-
far as we must see ourselves as the agent of our behavior, certain requirements apply
as “constitutive” requirements of choice, much in the way someone playing chess is
saddled with certain ground rules simply because chess is being played (Korsgaard
2009). Other more clearly moral requirements arise because fully understanding our
5
self-conscious nature requires us to identify as human, and, ultimately, as a member

of a Kantian Kingdom of Ends (Korsgaard 1996).
Common Aspirations
Aside from taking a similar general form, the standard constructivisms share several
general aspirations.
An alternative to realism and to skepticism

As suggested above, all seek to show that we are not forced to choose between realism
about moral and other values and various forms of skepticism about the objectivity
of values – including subjectivism, relativism, error theory (see error theory),
fictionalism (see fictionalism, moral), and so forth. Constructivism is supposed
to offer an attractive alternative. That is, even if values have no reality independent
of idealized practical reason – e.g., as Plato’s Forms or other brute metaphysical
facts, as commands of God, or even as reduced to “naturalistic” facts about people
and their dispositions (see naturalism, ethical) – they qualify as fully objective in
the sense of “objectivity” that ordinarily matters to us in practical life. Values count
as fully objective, in that sense, because truths about what is valuable do not depend
on what any particular person or group happens to think or value. They depend only
on certain idealized responses (the conclusions of appropriate reasoning, under
suitable conditions), which do not necessarily track actual opinion or practice. The
actual moral views of any individual or group can therefore be a mistake.
The independence of morality

As a matter of methodology, constructivism suggests that morality is best
understood “from the inside,” that is, from within our best, critically reflective con-
ception of its content and general features. According to a traditional, contrasting
view, foundations take priority over substantive theory and limit its potential
content. So, for example, if utilitarianism is the only naturalistically respectable
substantive theory, and if naturalistic foundations are required, we are forced to
conclude that utilitarianism is correct – even before we have considered that it in
principle legitimates slavery. Constructivism has no such tendency. Versions of
constructivism are proposals about certain classes of moral judgment, and in that
sense “metaethical” proposals (see metaethics), at least as regards the judgments
under construction. But because the appropriate reasoning is open to further
specification, we have a free hand to work out the best substantial conception of
morality we can come up with, seen as part of practical reason. Utilitarianism may,
or may not, be the result.
Rawls famously argued for the independence of moral theory from foundations
by articulating a “method of reflective equilibrium” that requires no foundational
assumptions (1971: 19–21, 48–51; 1975; see reflective equilibrium). This might
6
suggest that there is no foundational work for constructivism to do. But one can
instead see constructivism as a complementary proposal (affirmed within “wide
reflective equilibrium”). The proposal admits at least some traditional metaethical
concerns (e.g., about ethical truth, objectivity, knowledge, and motivation) and
suggests that they can be addressed in a way that is fully consistent with the
independence of substantive moral inquiry. (It is a further question how much
this accomplishes: Is the result a distinctive metaethical position, or a way of
transcending traditional metaethical debates? Or does it merely postpone the day of
reckoning? We will return to this question below.)
Protagoreanism
Whatever its exact metaethical status, constructivism suggests a broadly “protago-
rean” understanding of morality. It is intended to block the possibility that ordinary
moral thought is radically in error, that moral truth could be radically esoteric. Like
Kant, contemporary constructivists assume that morality must be understood in
terms of reasoning that is in principle “available” to us given the methods of reason-
ing and observation we ordinarily use. Thus the forms of reasoning relevant for
constructivist explanation are supposed to be familiar from ordinary life, or at least
an elaboration from familiar and ordinary aspects of moral thought.
Different versions of constructivism have a protagorean character in several
further, theory-specific ways. One of Rawls’ guiding aims is to articulate “our sense
of justice” (1971: 50–1). In principle, some human sentiments might have little
internal structure and, upon reflection, little bearing on practical life. Rawls sug-
gests that our sense of justice is quite different: it can be explicated, in a way that
displays rich internal structure and significance, in terms of two general ideal
models (or “model conceptions”), which he takes to be both part of ordinary prac-
tical reason and implicit in the political culture of modern societies, especially
democratic ones (1980, 1996). Persons are to be viewed as “free and equal moral
persons,” while society is to be viewed as a “fair system of cooperation, for the sake
of mutual benefit.” Taken together, the question of social justice becomes: What
would be required for fair, mutually beneficial cooperation among free and equal
persons? This question in turn positions us to evaluate specific fairness concep-
tions. On the basis of this characterization of the question of justice, Rawls justifies
his proposed design of original position reasoning (e.g., how parties are motivated,
what facts the parties are ignorant of), which in turn leads to his proposed
principles. Thus Rawls’ constructivism has a kind of protagorean grounding: the
account bottoms out in a central aspect of human sensibility, which is closely asso-
ciated with ordinary and familiar ideas about what the associated question of social
justice is like.
In a similar way, Scanlon starts from a conception of ordinary moral motivation
(see motivation, moral). When we are moved not to do wrong, our motivating
thought is that we could not justify the action in question to some person. Scanlon
then explicates moral reasoning in light of this motivational concern, much in the
7
way Kant’s conception of the motive of duty shapes his conception of what duties we
have. To say we act in ways that are justifiable to others is to say that they cannot
reasonably reject our acting in those ways (or, more specifically, that they cannot
reject a principle that entitles us to so act). If such reasoning in turn grounds a
constructivist account of how there could be an objective fact of the matter about
what we owe to others, the account thus ultimately answers to a prior conception of
motivation, and, more generally, to the larger aim of “self-understanding” (Scanlon
1998: 147). That is, the basic aim of justifiability to others, once explicated in the
proposed way, is supposed to be not only appealing in its own right, but of sufficient
manifest force to allow us to explain to ourselves why we give moral considerations
the authority we do give them over other concerns. The resulting account is offered,
not as a replacement of our ordinary concerns, but as familiar in ordinary moral
experience and, indeed, an indispensable precondition of ordinary relationships
such as friendship.
Rawls’ and Scanlon’s protagoreanism emerges mainly in their overall strategy of
argument. Korsgaard’s protagoreanism is built directly into constructive reasoning.
According to Korsgaard’s “voluntaristic” conception, the articulated norms of practical
reasoning flow from claims about the nature of self-conscious rational agents, claims
which must in principle be available to such agents themselves, from within their own
reflectively available point of view. Beginning from our basic existential predicament
as agents – that is, that self-conscious agents must act, and can only act for reasons –
Korsgaard (1996, 2009) argues for several “constitutive” constraints on action,
including requirements of instrumental rationality, prudential reason, and other-
regarding morality. Though the argument is different in each case, the common
thread is that nothing comes out as a reason for action or moral obligation unless it
arises within the available perspective of the human agent in this way.
Moral Normativity
The standard constructivisms also have major differences. These reflect sharp
divergence in how morality is understood and how it is to be explained. One such
area of dispute among constructivists – especially Korsgaard and Scanlon – concerns
the nature of “normativity” (see normativity).
Normativity and inconsistency

According to Korsgaard (1996), moral norms not only apply to us, in the sense of
providing a basis for moral criticism, they implicate the very rationality or internal
consistency of agents; one must be motivated to act as required, on pain of inconsist-
ency (see internalism, motivational). The voluntaristic nature of Korsgaard’s
theory in turn explains how this might be so: to fail to act as one is morally obligated
is not simply to fail to appreciate a truth about what is morally right, but to fail to live
consistently with one’s own rational nature, as one can understand it from one’s own
point of view. The skeptic who persistently presses the question “But why be moral?”
8
(see why be moral), and acts accordingly, does not simply fail to grasp the moral
features of an action, he or she fails in self-understanding. He or she fails to see what
consistency with his or her own nature requires – a failure, as Korsgaard variously
puts it, of “integrity,” “unity,” and “self-constitution.”
Scanlon, by contrast, sees no necessary connection between having a moral
obligation, or sufficient reasons for action, and one’s status as rational or irrational,
consistent or inconsistent. Immoral action need not amount to irrationality, or
inconsistency (Scanlon 1998). The question of moral “normativity” is chiefly
about the force of reasons, about what sort of reason could be normally conclusive
in the face of other considerations (see overridingness, moral). Rationality and
irrationality, by contrast, are a matter not of reasons but of internal consistency
within the structure of an agent’s attitudes (Scanlon 2004). Thus, if one judges that
one has sufficient moral reason to keep a promise, and yet breaks it (without
revising one’s judgment), one counts as “structurally irrational.” But the charge
will stick only because a judgment was made; there is no inconsistency within the
agent’s attitudes if one never made the sufficient reasons judgment in the first
place. (This is true even if one in fact has sufficient reason to keep the promise
and to so judge the case in one’s deliberations – reasons which, in this case, are
ignored.)
Accordingly, Scanlon makes no attempt to ground norms of practical reasoning
(concerned with reasonable rejection) voluntaristically, within commitments
implicit and constitutive of rational agency. This is not necessarily a dispute with
Korsgaard over what constructivism is, however. Korsgaard and Scanlon instead
simply have different views about what the phenomenon of normativity is, and so
how it must be explained.
Answering the moral skeptic

We see the same general point in a related dispute about the extent to which we can
or should try to answer the moral skeptic. Korsgaard (1996) not only suggests that
we can saddle the persistent moral skeptic with the charge of inconsistency, but also
that we must do so; we have not adequately characterized the normativity of moral-
ity until we have answered the moral skeptic in this way. (There is a further question
of whether we must answer the moral skeptic to the skeptic’s satisfaction, or simply
to ours. Korsgaard seems to assume the latter: the persistent moral skeptic counts as
inconsistent when we see him or her as failing to appreciate implicit commitments
that are – we say – available to him or her upon reflection.)
Scanlon, by contrast, is chiefly concerned with well-motivated puzzlement. Even
someone quite inclined to moral conduct might wonder what is behind the thought
that an action is wrong, and why it might have the practical importance we often
give it. An adequate answer cannot simply insist that we should do our duty for
duty’s sake, or that right action needs no further reason beyond its being right; this
is simply to ignore the philosophical puzzlement at issue. On the other hand, the
idea of justifiability to others, explicated in terms of reasonable rejection and seen as
9
ground for moral truth, does provide a kind of answer: it explicates why, or how,
actions can be right rather than wrong, in a way that explicates the great importance
of right action (Scanlon 1998). But if the moral skeptic presses, asking why this
reason should be sufficient (“Why care about justifiability to others?”), Scanlon
suggests that we can happily have nothing to say in reply. It is enough if we have
explained our moral motivation to ourselves, to our own satisfaction. We do not
have to explain how the moral skeptic has fallen into inconsistency.
As above, then, we see the difference between Korsgaard and Scanlon as a
difference over what an adequate philosophical account of morality must look like,
as opposed to a dispute about what constructivism is.
The Availability of Justice

Social justice is a second area of divergence between constructivists – in this case between
Scanlon and Rawls. As with normativity, we can trace the divergence to a difference
in explanatory aims which dramatically changes what form constructivism takes.
One dominant and evolving theme in Rawls’ thought is the idea that justice must
be publicly available (see publicity; public reason), in contrast with esoteric
morality. Not only must any principles be of a sort that can be known, and known
to be known, to everyone in a common social order (or at least everyone with cer-
tain basic capacities), the grounds in favor of principles – including both general
factual assumptions and specifically normative reasons – must be in principle
available to all (1980, 1996: 66–7). Rawls began quite optimistically about what
grounds might be generally available in this sense, but over time became concerned
with having been “unrealistic” about the extent and depth of ethical disagreement
in a world in which people have persistent and entirely reasonable differences in
worldview (1996: xviii). Even the specifically Kantian features of Rawls’ own the-
ory, which Rawls at first emphasized (1971: 251–7; 1980), can be seen as too
controversial to provide a publicly available, properly “political” constructivist
view (1996: 99).
Though Scanlon’s theory is officially neutral about political philosophy, he
sometimes suggests social justice is a proper part of “what we owe to each other.” Yet
Scanlon’s theory implies no general commitment to strong public availability in the
style of Rawls. It shares a broadly protagorean, anti-esoteric thrust, and it specifically
limits appropriate reasoning to “generic reasons,” which people can be known to have
given generally available information (Scanlon 1998: 204). But Scanlon avows no
general requirement that a judgment of “reasonable rejectability” be constrained by
underlying facts about agreement and disagreement. Scanlon’s essays in political phi-
losophy sound the theme of respect for disagreement, in the name of mutual respect
for persons (see Scanlon 2003). But he treats this as a largely substantive moral con-
cern rather than a constraint on the very question of social justice, which in
turn screens out substantive principles and grounds as ineligible from the start.
(Compare here Scanlon’s individualism, which does screen out impersonal grounds
from the start.)
10
Reconciliation?
As for what accounts for this difference, a natural suggestion is that Scanlon and
Rawls simply have very different concerns. Scanlon, like Korsgaard, is chiefly
concerned with interpersonal morality. Rawls is concerned almost entirely with the
character of social structures, and, indeed, never suggests that structural issues can
be reduced to questions of interpersonal morality, or any specific duties thereof.
Social structures are assumed to present a largely (but not entirely) autonomous set
of concerns. Thus, when basic social institutions are at issue, Scanlon might well
grant that a special form of public justification is required.
One thing this means, however, is that Scanlon may have to admit that his own
moral constructivism is inappropriate for central areas of social life. Like Kantian
views, it may be too controversial as a basis of public justification, given the diversity
of moral and philosophical points of view (Freeman 2007).
An alternative suggestion takes a similar form but limits the concession’s scope.
On one reading of Rawls, his evolving concern with public availability reflects his
increasing concern with a special issue of legitimacy arising from institutional coer-
cion. That is, the special coercive nature of the basic structure of domestic society, as
well as of central elements of international relations, generates concerns of mutual
respect which are especially sensitive to underlying assumptions about agreement
and disagreement: people need to be able to see coercion as justifiable, from within
their own points of view, if it is to be founded on mutual respect. On the present
suggestion, this is but one special kind of social justice concern. The more general
question of social justice, applicable in a wide range of social arrangements (even
noncoercive, or “nonbasic” ones), might be less sensitive to prevailing realities of
agreement. Or at least there might be more room to extrapolate an eligible basis of
agreement from within different points of view, even if this substantially outruns
what actual people would be likely to accept. We may have a relatively free hand to
assess what is reasonably acceptable, much as Scanlon and the early Rawls assume.
Social constructivism
Even this reconciliation leaves Rawls’ constructivism quite different from Scanlon’s,
however. Well before Rawls’ special concerns with legitimacy came into view, his
constructivism was deeply informed by concerns of public availability that have no
general place in Scanlon’s account. Indeed, the essentially social character of the
question of justice emerges even in Rawls’ most explicitly Kantian phase, where it
might seem most out of place. In “Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory,” Rawls
writes that “conditions for justifying a conception of justice hold only when a basis
is established for political reasoning and understanding within a public culture”
(1980: 517). He explains:
What justifies a conception of justice is not its being true to an order antecedent to and
given to us, but its congruence with our deeper understanding of ourselves and our
11
aspirations, and our realization that, given our history and the traditions embedded in
our public life, it is the most reasonable doctrine for us. We can find no better basic
charter for our social world. (1980: 519)
Rawls is not going so far as to affirm a “social constructivism” that renders justifi-
cation largely or entirely a matter of social or cultural interpretation (cf. Walzer 1983).
He can instead be seen as claiming that constructive reasoning, though in part purely
moral, must also be at least partly grounded in “constructive interpretation” of the
shared arrangements in question, in light of codified and informal understandings
about its nature (James 2005; cf. Dworkin 1987). This is a far cry from reasoning
about what people owe to each other in a state of nature (as, for example, in Scanlon’s
account of promises) (Scanlon 1998: 295–327). The appropriate practice sensitivity
might imply dramatic differences in reasoning across different social forms, cultural
contexts, and historical eras. On the other hand, this is not tantamount to cultural
relativism of a sort constructivists hope to reject. The universality of justice, or cer-
tain principles of justice, depends on delicate questions of exactly how sensitive moral
reasoning must be to underlying social presuppositions. A left-Hegelian constructiv-
ist, for instance, might excavate the preconditions for Rawls’ theory by way of deep
constructive critique of assumptions implicit in any, or nearly any, human society.
(Because implicit commitments have a role, Rawls’ constructivism is perhaps akin to
Korsgaard’s voluntarism, with the difference that the implicit commitments are of an
essentially social and perhaps historically contingent kind.)
Constructivism as a Foundational Theory

We have said that constructivists share at least some limited foundational ambitions.
Constructivist theories are presented as the grounds of ethical truth, at least as
regards the class of judgments being explained. Yet there are several reasons for
wondering whether constructivism amounts to a robust and distinctive founda-
tional view, as opposed, say, to being a way of simply postponing metaethical con-
cerns for another day.
Procedural Specification?
A first issue concerns ideas about what constructivism generally is. Both Korsgaard
and Scanlon seem to hold that constructivist explanation essentially involves speci-
fying a particular procedure or method of reasoning. This potentially limits the
scope of constructivism. For example, Scanlon’s conception of moral reasoning
assumes judgments both about what reasons people have and what reasons support
reasonable objections. But Scanlon does not think such claims are amenable to a
further, deeper method of reasoning. He therefore classifies his view of practical
reasons, not as “constructivist,” but as a kind of “minimal realism” (see minimalism
about truth, ethics and). It follows that constructivism is unfit as a general and
distinctive metaethical theory.
12
One strategy for broadening the scope of constructivism’s application is to relax

the requirement of procedural specification (James 2007; Street 2008, 2009). While
providing a method of judgment may be necessary for particular purposes (e.g.,
justifying principles of justice), it is not needed for specifically metaethical explana-
tion. The basic metaethical issue can be seen as a version of Euthyphro’s dispute with
Socrates (see euthyphro dilemma) about “order of determination.” That is,
although Euthyphro and Socrates agree that acts are pious if and only if the gods love
them, Euthyphro holds that acts are pious because the gods love them, while Socrates
holds that the gods love pious acts because they are independently pious. In the case
of ethical judgment, the constructivist, siding with Euthyphro, takes the norms of
practical reasoning, as followed under suitable conditions, to explain ethical truth.
The realist, siding with Socrates, denies this, holding that an independent idea of
ethical truth is needed to explain what norms count as valid for practical reasoning.
Procedural specification may be helpful but not strictly required to formulate or
adjudicate this dispute. So long as the constructivist can make a case that (perhaps
context-specific) norms of practical reasoning govern a wide range of ethical
judgments, constructivism can then take a robust form.
Circularity?
As with any dispute between “response-dependent” and “response-independent”
views (see response-dependent theories), here concerns of “circularity” come
to the fore. The constructivist must characterize the proposed basis of explanation
– “norms of practical reasoning,” “suitable conditions,” etc. – in terms that do not
presuppose the idea of truth being explained. One obvious line of objection to
constructivism is that this noncircularity condition often cannot be met. But the
force of the objection also depends on subtle matters of what noncircularity
requires. For example, one circularity objection might be that constructivist
accounts make reference to the moral or ethical concept under construction. But
this may be fine insofar as the aim is not to provide conceptual analysis but expla-
nation of a different, deeper kind (Wright 1992; see concepts vs. properties,
moral).
The basis of construction?

Even if we grant that constructivism offers a kind of noncircular explanation, the
question immediately arises of what the proposed explanation would accomplish.
What, we may ask, is the metaethical status of the basis of construction? What, for
instance, does the validity of a norm, for practical reasoning, consist in? Korsgaard
(2009) suggests a special relation of “constitution,” but what, we may ask, is the
metaethical status of this relation? Are we not faced with more or less the same
metaethical questions that we initially faced about the nature of ethical truth? Can’t
we imagine the familiar range of metaethical proposals – realist, expressivist,
dispositional, and so on – as applied to the nature of validity in practical reasoning
(Hussain and Shah 2006)?
13
One response is to suggest that metaethical concerns are unimportant.

Constructivism might be said to capture our central, practically important meta-
ethical concerns – about ethical truth, objectivity, knowledge, and normativity –
leaving further “meta-questions” at best an intellectual curiosity (Korsgaard 2003).
But while this may further demote traditional foundational concerns, it may simply
cede the territory of metaethics to traditional theories. In this vein, Allan Gibbard
(1999) recasts Korsgaard’s constructivism as a version of expressivism. If nothing
else is said, constructivism is not a distinctive metaethical theory.
One approach, then, is to more clearly distinguish constructivism from other
familiar views (Street 2009). A less direct tack, suggested by Rawls as well as by
Korsgaard, is quietism (see quietism) about the questions about practical reasoning
that constructivism leaves unanswered. The claim here is that such questions are
fundamentally confused or misguided, not simply, as above, that they are unimpor-
tant or uninteresting. Perhaps, as Wittgenstein would say (see wittgenstein, lud-
wig), they only seem like real questions when we are made to look for explanation
where none could succeed and none is required. Practical reason, like mathematics,
might simply be an autonomous domain (Rawls 1996: 101; see autonomy of
ethics). Constructivism is not, then, a mere version of any familiar metaethical
theory, but a way of rejecting the questions that familiar theories seek to answer. It is
distinctive because it transcends rather than enters traditional metaethical debate.
At the same time, the standard constructivists do not clearly assume complete
doctrinal autonomy. Recall their broadly protagorean orientation. This might be
expressed as a kind of metaethical thesis, the thesis that the content of practical
reasoning relevant to ethical truth cannot outstrip the forms of thought and judgment
we could find recognizable in ordinary life. It might be added that, as with any num-
ber of human activities or practices, we cannot expect to understand them from the
outside; any characterization requires an “internal” point of view (Stroud 2000).
These broadly metaethical claims – about practical reason generally – need not be
reducible to any familiar metaethical theory, though they might be seen as a distinc-
tive competing answer to the same questions. Or at least they might admit some of
the same questions: constructivists could still assert a qualified quietism about any
remaining questions they fail to address. They then partly engage, and partly tran-
scend, traditional metaethical debate – in either case presenting a distinctive view.
It should be emphasized that such concerns of distinctness are again less about
what constructivism is than about the extent to which it serves particular explana-
tory purposes, in this case, in metaethics. However far it goes (or doesn’t go) in
providing a distinctive competitor to traditional metaethical views, most agree that
constructivism remains of great interest and significance for narrower concerns
about the nature of morality.
See also: agent-relative vs. agent-neutral; autonomy of ethics;

cognitivism; concepts vs. properties, moral; contractualism; difference
principle; error theory; euthyphro dilemma; fictionalism, moral; frege–
geach objection; internalism, motivational; kant, immanuel; metaethics;
14
minimalism about truth, ethics and; moral reasoning; motivation,

moral; naturalism, ethical; normativity; overridingness, moral; public
reason; publicity; quietism; rawls, john; realism, moral; reflective
equilibrium; relativism, moral; response-dependent theories;
subjectivism, ethical; utilitarianism; why be moral; wittgenstein,
ludwig
REFERENCES
Dworkin, Ronald 1987. Law’s Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Freeman, Samuel 2007. “The Burdens of Public Justification: Constructivism, Contractualism,
and Publicity,” Politics, Philosophy, Economics, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 5–43.
Gibbard, Allan 1999. “Morality as Consistency in Living: Korsgaard’s Kantian Lectures,”
Ethics, vol. 110, pp. 140–64.
Hussain, Nadeem, and Nishi Shah 2006. “Misunderstanding Metaethics: Korsgaard’s
Rejection of Realism,” in Russ Shafer-Landau (ed.), Oxford Studies in Meta-Ethics.
James, Aaron 2005. “Constructing Justice for Existing Practice: Rawls and the Status Quo,”
Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 33, no. 3, pp. 281–316.
James, Aaron 2007. “Constructivism about Practical Reasons,” Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research, vol. 74, no. 2, pp. 302–25.
Press.
Korsgaard, Christine 2003. “Realism and Constructivism in Twentieth-Century Moral
Philosophy,” Journal of Philosophical Research, American Philosophical Association
Centennial Supplement.
Korsgaard, Christine 2009. Self-Constitution: Agency, Identity, and Integrity. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
O’Neill, Onora 1996. Towards Justice and Virtue. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rawls, John 1975. “The Independence of Moral Theory,” Proceedings and Addresses of the
American Philosophical Association, vol. 48, pp. 5–22.
Rawls, John 1980. “Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory,” Journal of Philosophy, vol. 77,
pp. 515–72.
Rawls, John, 1996. Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.
Scanlon, T. M. 1982. “Contractualism and Utilitarianism,” in Amartya Sen and Bernard
Williams (eds.), Utilitarianism and Beyond. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
pp. 103–28.
Scanlon, T. M. 1998. What We Owe to Each Other. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Scanlon, T. M. 2003. “The Difficulty of Tolerance,” in The Difficulty of Tolerance. Cambridge:
Scanlon, T. M. 2004. “Reasons: A Puzzling Duality,” in Michael Smith, Philip Pettit, Samuel
Scheffler, and R. Jay Wallace (eds.), Reasons and Values: Themes from the Work of Joseph
Raz. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Street, Sharon 2008. “Constructivism About Reasons,” in Russ Shafer-Landau (ed.), Oxford
Studies in Metaethics, vol. 3. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
15
Street, Sharon 2009. “What Is Constructivism in Ethics and Metaethics?” Philosophy Compass,
vol. 4, pp. 363–84.
Stroud, Barry 2000. Meaning, Understanding, and Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Walzer, Michael 1983. Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality. New York: Basic
Books.
FURTHER READINGS
Bagnoli, Carla 2002. “Moral Constructivism: A Phenomenological Argument,” Topoi, vol. 21,
pp. 125–8.
Barry, Brian 1995. Justice as Impartiality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Brink, David 1989. Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Cohen, G. A. 2008. Rescuing Equality and Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Darwall, Stephen, Allan Gibbard, and Peter Railton 1992. “Toward fin de siècle Ethics,”
Philosophical Review, vol. 101, pp. 137–44.
Hill, Jr., Thomas, E. 1989. “Kantian Constructivism in Ethics,” Ethics, vol. 99, no. 4, pp. 752–70.
Hill, Jr., Thomas, E. 2008. “Moral Construction as a Task: Sources and Limits,” Social
Korsgaard, Christine 1996. “Skepticism about Practical Reason,” in Creating the Kingdom of
Ends. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Korsgaard, Christine 2008. “The Normativity of Instrumental Reason,” in The Constitution of
Agency: Essays on Practical Reason and Moral Psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Krasnoff, Larry 1999. “How Kantian Is Constructivism?” Kant-Studien, vol. 90, pp. 385–409.
Milo, Ronald 1995. “Contractarian Constructivism,” Journal of Philosophy, vol. 92, pp. 181–204.
O’Neill, Onora 1989. Constructions of Reason: Explorations of Kant’s Practical Philosophy.
O’Neill, Onora 2002. “Constructivism in Rawls and Kant,” in Samuel Freeman (ed.), The
Cambridge Companion to Rawls. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
O’Neill, Onora 2003. “Constructivism vs. Contractualism,” Ratio, vol. 16, no. 4, pp. 319–31.
Scanlon, T. M. 1992. “The Aims and Authority of Moral Theory,” Oxford Journal of Legal
Street, Sharon 2006. “A Darwinian Dilemma for Realist Theories of Value,” Philosophical
Studies, vol. 127, no. 1, pp. 109–66.
Wedgwood, Ralph 2002. “Practical Reasoning as Figuring Out What Is Best: Against
Constructivism,” Topoi, vol. 21, pp. 139–52.
1
Buck-Passing Accounts
Jonas Olson
It is a common view that there is an intimate tie between evaluative properties like
goodness, badness, and betterness and appropriate responses to bearers of such
properties. For instance, if an object is good there are reasons to favor it, or as some
say, a favorable response would be fitting. Similarly, many people take there to be a
close tie between deontic properties like rightness and wrongness and appropriate
responses: if an action is wrong, there are reasons to respond disfavorably, e.g., to
blame agents for performing actions of that type. According to buck-passing accounts
(henceforth BPA), evaluative and deontic properties do not themselves provide
reasons for responses. Rather, reasons to respond in various ways are provided by
good-, bad-, better-, right-, and wrong-making properties.
To illustrate, suppose that George takes pleasure in something innocent, such as
reading Principia Ethica or watching a Seinfeld episode. This is a good state of affairs,
we may assume, but its goodness does not provide a further reason to favor it, in
addition to the reason provided already by George’s property of feeling pleasure.
Similarly, suppose Dick tortures a captive for fun. This action is wrong, we may
assume, but its wrongness does not provide a further reason to blame Dick, in
addition to the reason already provided by the captive’s property of feeling pain and
Dick’s property of taking pleasure in his pain. In other words, buck-passers pass the
normative buck on to the properties on which evaluative and deontic properties
supervene (see supervenience, moral).
Many buck-passers make the further claim that evaluative and deontic concepts can
be analyzed in terms of reasons to respond. For an object to have an evaluative or deontic
property just is for that object to have properties that provide reasons to respond favora-
bly or disfavorably. It is sometimes said that BPA reduce the evaluative to the deontic.
This presupposes that the concept of a reason, and that of fittingness, belong in the cat-
egory of deontic concepts (see evaluative vs. deontic concepts). One might query
whether these concepts are clearly deontic, but the essential idea at this point is that
evaluative concepts like goodness and badness and deontic concepts like rightness and
wrongness are analyzable in terms of more primitive normative concepts like fittingness,
or that of a reason. How to categorize these concepts is not of immediate importance but,
as we shall see below, it might have implications for certain challenges to BPA.
The general appeal of BPA is the promise to enhance our understanding of the
evaluative and the deontic; whereas some accounts take the concepts of goodness
and wrongness to be primitive and unanalyzable, BPA offer illuminating analyses. In
addition BPA give an intuitively compelling picture of the reason-providing relation
and demystify the normative “compellingness” of evaluative and deontic properties.
BPA also possess the virtue of theoretical parsimony. These features will be further
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee083
2
discussed in the third section, which considers and assesses five main arguments for
BPA. The fourth section describes five main challenges BPA face. Before we get there
a brief background along with a more detailed outline of BPA is given, and then the
second section discusses briefly the scope of BPA. It should be noted that BPA have
mostly been discussed as accounts of the evaluative, in particular final and
instrumental value (see below), but as has already been indicated, if one accepts
buck-passing about the evaluative it is fairly natural to accept buck-passing about
the deontic too. For ease of exposition we shall mostly talk about the evaluative, but
it should be clear that most of the virtues and vices of evaluative BPA are equally
virtues and vices of deontic BPA.
Brief Historical Background and Outline of BPA

The idea that the evaluative can be analyzed in terms of a normative component – such
as reasons, fittingness, ought, should – and a psychological component – such as
favorable and disfavorable responses – is sometimes called the fitting attitude (FA)
approach (Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen 2004; see value, fitting-attitude
account of). The history of the FA approach goes back at least to Franz Brentano,
who analyzed the good as “that which can be loved with a love that is correct”
(Brentano 1969: 18, emphases added). Henry Sidgwick took “ultimate good on the
whole” to mean “what … a rational being … should desire and seek to realize, assum-
ing [such a being] to have an equal concern for all existence” (1981: 112, emphases
added). An important advocate of the FA approach is A. C. Ewing (1939, 1947; see
ewing, a. c.). Ewing argued in a series of writings that to say that an object is good
is to say that it is a fitting object of a pro-attitude, where “pro-attitude” is an umbrella
term covering “any favourable attitude to something, [such as] choice, desire, liking,
pursuit, approval, admiration” (1947: 149).
Ewing was also a precursor of BPA. According to Ewing, “the ground [for a
pro-attitude] lies not in … goodness, but in the concrete, factual characteristics of
what we pronounce good. Certain characteristics are such that the fitting response
to what possesses them is a pro-attitude, and that is all there is to it” (1947: 172).
In the literature there is no universal agreement on how the FA approach relates
to BPA, but the latter are commonly taken to be variants of the former. The renewed
interest in the FA approach is largely due to T. M. Scanlon (1998: 97), who invented
the label “buck-passing” for his analysis of value. What has since become known as
the buck-passing account is a conjunction of the following two theses, one of which
concerns the reason-providing relation (RR) and one of which concerns analysis of
the concept of value (A):
RR Reasons to favor good objects and disfavor bad objects are provided by good-
and bad-making properties. Evaluative properties provide no such reasons.
A For an object to be good (bad) is not for that object to possess an unanalyz-
able property of goodness (badness), but to possess other properties that
provide reasons to favor (disfavor) that object.
3
(According to BPA about the deontic, we should accept the corresponding deontic
analogues of RR and A.)
Note three things about BPA thus formulated. First, RR and A are logically
independent. One could accept RR while maintaining that goodness is unanalyz-
able, thus rejecting A. Conversely, one could accept A while maintaining that an
object’s property of having other properties that provide reasons to favor or
disfavor the object itself provides a reason, thus rejecting RR. Some authors call
such reasons derivative and maintain that such reasons have no weight of their
own. In understanding and assessing the arguments for BPA it is helpful to keep
in mind that RR and A are logically independent. We will get back to this in the
third section below.
Second, the kind of reasons buck-passers have in mind are normative or justifying,
as opposed to motivating or explanatory, reasons (see reasons, motivating and
normative). Many buck-passers hold that the notion of a (normative) reason is
conceptually primitive, but admits certain paraphrases. In particular, it is a popular
view that a reason for adopting some attitude or performing some action is a consid-
eration that counts in favor of adopting that attitude or performing that action
(Scanlon 1998; Parfit 2001; see reasons). Third, BPA are noncommittal with respect
to the main metaethical views, since the notions of a reason, and that of fittingness,
allow for cognitivist and non-cognitivist, as well as naturalist and nonnaturalist,
analyses (see cognitivism; non-cognitivism; naturalism, ethical; nonnatu-
ralism, ethical). Even error theorists can accept BPA about evaluative and deontic
concepts (see error theory).
The Scope of BPA

There are several questions about the scope of BPA. We have already noted that if
one accepts buck-passing about the evaluative it is rather natural to accept
buck-passing about the deontic. Not everyone agrees, though. Scanlon (1998: 11)
rejects buck-passing about wrongness, while Dancy (2000) takes buck-passing about
rightness and wrongness to be more plausible than buck-passing about goodness.
An early attempt at deontic buck-passing is found in Ewing (1939, 1947).
Another question about scope concerns whether BPA apply both to thin evaluative
and deontic concepts (such as goodness, badness, betterness, rightness, wrongness,
etc.) and to thick concepts (such as kindness, cruelty, fairness, etc.) (see thick and
thin concepts). In the tradition going back to Brentano through Ewing and
onward the main concern has been to analyze thin concepts, but more ambitious
buck-passers set out to analyze both the thinly and the thickly evaluative and deontic
(Schroeder 2010; Skorupski 2010). Distinctions between thick concepts are
sometimes subtle and a challenge for ambitious buck-passers is consequently to
identify the right kinds of distinct attitudes and responses to enable discrimination
between distinct thick concepts (Crisp 2005).
Buck-passers about the evaluative also need to say whether they aim to analyze
both predicative goodness (as in “Pleasure is good”) and attributive goodness (as in
4
“George is a good philosopher”) (see goodness, varieties of). Traditionally, the

focus has been on predicative goodness only, but more ambitious buck-passers
extend the view to attributive goodness (Skorupski 2010). Buck-passers who restrict
the view to predicative goodness might be accused of infusing an unwarranted
heterogeneity into the concept of goodness. On the other hand, these buck-passers
can respond that this restriction gains theoretical support from the intuitive
difference between predicative and attributive goodness. It might be suggested that
the former, but not the latter, is normative in the sense that it entails reasons for
responses. And this in turn explains the intuitive difference between the two.
Note finally that BPA about the evaluative aim to analyze various types of value,
such as instrumental, intrinsic, and final value (see instrumental value; intrinsic
value). According to BPA, an object, x, is instrumentally valuable just in case there
are reasons to favor x on account of what x brings about or prevents; x is intrinsically
valuable just in case there are reasons to favor x on account of its intrinsic properties;
x is finally valuable just in case there are reasons to favor x as an end or for its own
sake. It might be difficult to pin down exactly the attitude of favoring something as
an end or for its own sake, but intuitively we can at least say that it is an attitude of
favoring an object on account of properties that have nothing to do with what the
object brings about, prevents, or signals.
In sum, there is not much consensus among buck-passers concerning the exact
scope of BPA. But most buck-passers about the evaluative agree that BPA cover at
least the thin concepts of final and instrumental goodness and badness. Similarly,
most buck-passers about the deontic agree that BPA cover at least the thin concepts
of moral rightness and wrongness.
Arguments for BPA

This section considers five prominent arguments for BPA: (1), (3), and (4) support
thesis A; (2) supports RR; and (5) supports both A and RR.
1 The open question argument

Scanlon says that he was led to buck-passing about goodness by reflecting on Moore’s
open question argument (Scanlon 1998: 96f.; see open question argument). We
can explain the “open feel” of questions like “x is pleasant but is it good?” by assum-
ing that asking whether some object is good is asking the normative question
whether it has properties that provide reasons to favor it.
But we can turn the matter around and explain the open feel of questions like “x is
pleasant but are there reasons to favor it?” by assuming that asking whether there is
reason to favor some object is asking the evaluative question whether the object
is good or whether the favorable attitude would be good. Hence there is no immedi-
ate route from the open question argument to BPA, although buck-passers can per-
haps maintain that their account gives the better explanation of the “open feel” of the
relevant kinds of questions.
5
2 The redundancy argument

Scanlon also says:
The fact that a resort is pleasant is a reason to visit it or to recommend it to a friend,

and the fact that a discovery casts light on the causes of cancer is a reason to applaud it
and to support further research of that kind. These natural properties … provide the
reasons we have for reacting in these ways to things that are good or valuable. It is not
clear what further work could be done by special reason-providing properties of
goodness and value, and even less clear how these properties could provide reasons.
(1998: 97)
This has become known as the redundancy argument for BPA (Crisp 2005). It is
generally taken to have considerable intuitive force. It highlights that when it comes to
providing reasons, natural properties do all the work and it puts the onus on critics of
BPA to explain what further normative work evaluative and deontic properties do.
3 The demystification argument

Recall that we said in the opening section that it is a common view that there is an
intimate link between evaluative properties and appropriate responses to bearers of
such properties. BPA readily explain and thereby demystify this normative “compel-
lingness” of value (Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen 2004: 391f.) since BPA hold
that for an object to be valuable just is for that object to have properties that provide
reasons to favor it. Analogously, BPA about the deontic demystify the normative
compellingness of deontic properties like wrongness, since BPA hold that for an
action to be wrong just is for that action to have properties that provide reasons not
to perform it and to blame agents for performing it.
Lest the demystification argument be misunderstood, note that the thought is
that BPA demystify the link between on the one hand evaluative and deontic
properties and on the other hand reasons to respond. The thought is not that BPA
demystify evaluative and deontic properties. A normative skeptic can still object that
goodness and wrongness are queer properties because normative reasons are
metaphysically queer. Stratton-Lake and Hooker (2006) argue that BPA allay worries
about queerness and supervenience, but see Olson (2009) for a critique (see queer-
ness, argument from). Note also that the demystification argument does not
lend exclusive support to BPA. An alternative to BPA is the view propounded by
G. E. Moore in Principia Ethica (1903: 1), according to which all normative
notions, including reasons, are reducible to goodness (see moore, g. e.). This view
too can appeal to the demystification argument.
4 The parsimony argument

An obvious attraction of BPA is that they reduce the metaphysically and epistemically
contested notions of goodness and wrongness to the notion of a reason. So what was
formerly a plurality of categories of contested and supposedly interrelated notions
6
are reduced to only one. Hence Ewing prided himself on having suggested “the
minimum non-naturalistic theory of ethics, i.e., the theory other than naturalism
which admits least in the way of non-natural concepts” (Ewing 1939: 14;
cf. Stratton-Lake and Hooker 2006: 157).
Like the previous argument, however, the parsimony argument does not lend
exclusive support to BPA. Moore’s Principia view is equally parsimonious as BPA.
Buck-passers might respond that reflection reveals that an unanalyzable notion of
goodness is intuitively more far-fetched than an unanalyzable notion of a reason
(cf. Ewing 1947: 174). But whether this is so is a contested issue.
5 The heterogeneity argument

It is a popular view that values are irreducibly heterogeneous. Good objects need
have nothing more in common than their goodness. Pluralist accounts of wrongness
take wrong actions to be similarly disparate; wrong actions need have nothing more
in common than being wrong. This irreducible heterogeneity fits well with BPA:
value and wrongness turn out as heterogeneous as the various responses there are
reasons to take up vis-à-vis objects and actions and the properties that provide such
reasons (Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen 2004: 401f.). Irreducible heterogeneity
might be taken to support fundamental incomparability between kinds of values
and perhaps between kinds of wrong actions. Such incomparability might sit
uneasily with a view à la Moore, according to which goodness is a homogeneous
unanalyzable property. These arguments for BPA of course presuppose that
irreducible heterogeneity and fundamental incomparability about goodness and
wrongness are plausible in the first place (see incommensurability [and
incomparability]; value pluralism).
Problems for BPA

This section considers five main problems facing BPA: (a) challenges RR; (b), (c),
(d), and (e) challenge A.
(a) Reason-providing evaluative properties

The claim that evaluative and deontic properties provide no reasons for responses
may seem obviously mistaken. It is highly plausible that a person’s kindness provide
reasons to like that person and respond to her with kindness; a person’s cruelty
provide reasons to shun and condemn that person for being cruel. In other words, it
seems plausible that thick evaluative and deontic properties do provide reasons.
This ties in with one of the questions about the scope of BPA that we considered
above, viz., whether BPA extend to the thickly evaluative and deontic. Scanlon
(2002: 513) has in fact declared that he intended his version of buck-passing to be an
analysis of the thinly evaluative only. Many will agree that it is a lot more plausible to
deny that goodness and wrongness are reason-providing properties than to deny
that kindness and cruelty are.
7
(b) Consequentialism/deontology distinction

Jonathan Dancy (2000) worries that BPA threaten to resolve prematurely the debate
between consequentialism and deontology (see consequentialism; deontology)
in favor of the former. This is because Dancy takes it to be a distinctive deontological
thesis that there are reasons that are not “value-involving.” BPA rule this possibility
out at the conceptual level since they identify being of value with having reason-
providing properties.
Whether BPA are biased against deontology clearly depends on how the disputed
distinction between consequentialism and deontology is drawn. To allay Dancy’s worry,
buck-passers could attempt to identify being of value not with having reason-providing
properties generally, but only with having properties that provide reasons for particular
“value-related” responses. But it is unclear whether this restriction can be spelled out in
a plausible and noncircular way. In any event, it is not obvious that Dancy has identified
a vice in BPA. Ewing noted that his analysis of goodness in terms of the ought of fitting-
ness resolves the debate between Rossian deontology (see ross, w. d.) and consequen-
tialism in the sense that it dissolves the distinction between the two views, for “to give
a list of our different prima facie duties will be to give a list of the different kinds of
things (including actions) which are intrinsically good” (Ewing 1947: 188). In contrast
to Dancy, Ewing considered this an advantage of his account. At issue here is the
methodological question whether an adequate analysis of value should be normatively
neutral (e.g., with respect to the debate between consequentialism and deontology).
One view, which accentuates Dancy’s worry, is that it is an adequacy constraint on
formal accounts of value like BPA that they be normatively neutral. An alternative
view, which is well in line with Ewing’s, is that it is a virtue of BPA that they reconcile
intuitively plausible but apparently incompatible moral intuitions (e.g., consequentialist
and deontological intuitions). This remains a contested issue.
(c) The polyadicity problem

The reason relation is a many-place relation; a reason is always a reason for some
agent to do something. It is less clear that goodness and wrongness are many-place
relations. The worry is that this throws doubt on the buck-passing project of
analyzing goodness and wrongness in terms of reasons. Dancy thinks that this is
especially worrisome for BPA about goodness since even granted that goodness is a
many-place relation, “it has fewer places than … reasons do.… [G]oodness is less
polyadic than reasons [since] reasons belong to, are for, individuals. There are no
reasons hanging around waiting for someone to have them” (2000: 170).
The polyadicity problem does not seem insurmountable, however. Note first that
Dancy presumably means that the reason relation is polyadic. On the common and
plausible assumption that reasons are facts it makes no sense to say that they are
polyadic or monadic. Now, buck-passers can grant that goodness is less polyadic
than the reason relation. For recall that BPA analyze goodness in terms of
reason-providing properties: for an object to be good is for that object to have the
8
higher-order property of having other properties that provide reasons to favor the
object (Scanlon 1998: 97). This higher-order property is monadic (nonrelational).
The reason-providing properties can be polyadic or monadic and their normative
reason-providing status is independent of whether there are in fact any agents
around. Let us suppose for the sake of argument that Da Vinci’s The Last Supper is
finally valuable and let us also suppose that all agents were suddenly to disappear
from the universe. This would not mean that The Last Supper would thereby cease
to be finally valuable, for it would still have properties – vivacity, say – that would
provide reasons to admire it for its own sake, for any agent who could so admire it.
(As we shall see in the next subsection, however, things get trickier if there could be
no agents who can take up the allegedly appropriate responses.)
(d) The solitary-goods problem

Consider the following state of affairs, S: there being happy egrets but no past, present,
or future agents (i.e., beings who can intentionally bring something about) (Bykvist
2009: 5). Let us assume that S is a good state of affairs. (Denying that S is good would
not be a wise tactic for buck-passers to take, since that would rule out by conceptual
fiat too many substantive theories of value, such as standard versions of hedonism
[see hedonism].) According to BPA this means that there are reasons to favor S. But
it is far from clear that there are such reasons. Remember that we use “favor” as an
umbrella term covering various kinds of positive responses. Is there a kind of
response that there is reason to take up vis-à-vis S? Krister Bykvist (2009) argues that
there is not and that, therefore, FA analyses of value, e.g., BPA, fail. It seems false that
there are reasons to bring about S since bringing about S would be logically impossible
(and since just as ought implies can, reasons imply can; see ought implies can). It
seems almost as doubtful that there can be reasons (of the right kind; see the next
subsection) to pursue or desire something that would be logically impossible to bring
about (Bykvist 2009: 5–7). So it seems false that S’s value can be analyzed in terms of
reasons to bring about, pursue, or desire S. Bykvist considers a number of other
possible kinds of responses but finds no plausible candidate.
Buck-passers might suggest that S’s value can be analyzed in terms of reasons for
some kind of positive emotions, e.g., some kind of love, vis-à-vis S. But Bykvist
argues that this does not help for it is plausible that agents have stronger reasons to
love or hate things, persons, states of affairs, etc. that are temporally, spatially, and
modally near rather than distant, although this has no bearing on the value of these
objects (Bykvist 2009: 13–23). (This leads into the problem to be considered in the
next subsection.) Bykvist concludes that the only remaining option is to take
judgments about reasons to respond to be evaluative. But this means that BPA, and
FA analyses more generally, turn out to be circular.
This raises many issues too complex to be resolved here. Let us make two brief
concluding points. First, while the solitary-goods problem seems a hard nut to crack
for evaluative BPA there seems to be no analogous problem for deontic BPA. This is
because it cannot be right or wrong to perform actions that are logically impossible
9
to perform. So even if the solitary-goods problem lacks a satisfactory solution, BPA

about rightness and wrongness survive intact. Second, the solitary-goods problem is
premised on the idea that BPA about value reduce the evaluative to the deontic
(Bykvist 2009: 3 n. 3). This is well in line with the approach many buck-passers
about value take. But others take a different tack and suggest that the evaluative as
well as the deontic are analyzable in terms of some more fundamental and primitive
normative notion, such as fittingness, correctness, or a more fundamental notion of
a reason (e.g., Brentano 1969; Ewing 1939, 1947; Danielsson and Olson 2007). Such
a primitive normative, but neither evaluative nor deontic, notion would avoid the
solitary-goods problem and the circularity problem. But there is no agreement on
whether this is a promising strategy; as Bykvist points out, it is well known that one
philosopher’s primitive is another philosopher’s mystery (2009: 24).
(e) The wrong kind of reasons problem

It seems obvious that there can be reasons to favor an object although this has no
bearing on the value of that object. Similarly, there can be reasons to blame or praise
agents for performing some action without this having any bearing on the deontic
status of that action. This presents a challenge both for evaluative and deontic BPA
(in this respect it is wider than the solitary-goods problem). To illustrate, imagine
that an evil demon threatens to torture your family unless you admire him, or unless
you blame a person for performing some laudable act, such as donating to Oxfam.
This is the notorious wrong kind of reasons (WKR) problem (see wrong kind of
reasons problem). The problem is to distinguish the right kind of reasons (i.e.,
reasons that do bear on the evaluative or deontic status of objects) from the wrong
kind of reasons. Here we shall briefly look at some proposed solutions that help
reveal the nature and magnitude of the problem. Most of the extensive recent debate
about WKR has concerned evaluative BPA and this will also be the focus of the
remainder of this subsection.
A radical response to the demon scenario is to deny that there is reason to admire
the demon. On this view, the demon’s threat only gives you reason to try to admire
him, or to bring about that you admire him. In other words, the demon’s threat is a
reason for action whereas value-implying reasons are reasons for attitudes (Skorupski
2010). But it is difficult to find a rationale for this view that does not seem ad hoc.
First, your family is spared from torture only if you actually admire the demon – that
you try to admire him is not enough. Second, it seems odd to maintain that there is
reason for you to try to be, or bring about that you are, in a state you have no reason
to be in and perhaps even have reason not to be in (Rabinowicz and
Rønnow-Rasmussen 2004: 412; Danielsson and Olson 2007: 513f.).
Several proposed solutions trade in one way or other on the idea that right reasons
must be object-given rather than state- (or attitude-)given, i.e., the reason must be
provided by properties of the object of the attitude rather than by properties of the
attitude itself (Parfit 2001). One might think for instance that in a scenario in which
an evil demon threatens to torture your family unless you admire him, there is only
10
a state-given reason to admire the demon, since it is this state of admiration that will
save your family from being tortured. But as Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen
(2004: 406) explain, there corresponds to every state-given reason for some response
an object-given reason. In the scenario under consideration this means that the
reason to admire the demon is also provided by a property of the demon, viz., his
property of being such that he will torture your family unless you admire him. Philip
Stratton-Lake (2005: 792–4) has responded that this reasoning involves an
objectionable “ontological profligacy” of reasons. According to Stratton-Lake, if we
think that there is a state-given reason to admire the demon we cannot also think
there is an object-given reason to do so, since that would “distort the debate about
how many reasons there are” (Stratton-Lake 2005: 793). But we can indeed think
that there is a state-given reason and an object-given reason to admire the demon, if
we think that this reason is one and the same. The reason to admire the demon is the
fact that admiring him would save your family from being tortured. This reason is
provided by more than one property, so while Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen’s
reasoning involves an unobjectionable profligacy of reason-providing properties, it
invites no ontological profligacy of reasons.
Other proposals for how to solve the WKR problem invoke the aforementioned
idea of a fundamental and primitive normative notion of correctness or fittingness
(see preceding subsection). This approach promises to solve both the WKR and the
solitary-goods problems. But as already observed, critics will object that this only
trades one mystery for another. The debate is still very much alive and a fair guess is
that the WKR problem will remain the most serious challenge to both evaluative
and deontic BPA for some time to come.
Summary
BPA comprise two logically independent theses, one concerning the reason-
providing relation (RR) and one concerning analysis of evaluative and deontic
concepts and properties (A). Proponents of BPA take different views about its scope,
but buck-passers about the evaluative agree at least that BPA apply to thin evaluative
concepts like goodness, badness, and betterness. Buck-passers about the deontic
agree at least that BPA apply to thin deontic concepts like wrongness and rightness.
Much of the attraction of BPA probably stems from the thought that the notion of a
reason is in various respects less problematic than unanalyzable notions of goodness
and wrongness. But whether this thought is ultimately tenable is debatable. Finally,
we have seen that there are outstanding challenges for BPA. The solitary-goods
problem and the WKR problem are particularly forceful.
See also: cognitivism; consequentialism; deontology; error theory;

evaluative vs. deontic concepts; ewing, a. c.; goodness, varieties of;
hedonism; incommensurability (and incomparability); instrumental
value; intrinsic value; moore, g. e.; naturalism, ethical; non-
cognitivism; nonnaturalism, ethical; open question argument; ought
11
implies can; queerness, argument from; reasons; reasons, motivating and

normative; ross, w. d.; supervenience, moral; thick and thin concepts;
value, fitting-attitude account of; value pluralism; wrong kind of
reasons problem
REFERENCES
Brentano, Franz 1969 [1889]. The Origin of Our Knowledge of Right and Wrong. London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Bykvist. K. 2009. “No Good Fit: Why the Fitting Attitude Analysis of Value Fails,” Mind, vol.
118, pp. 1–30.
Crisp, Roger 2005. “Value, Reasons, and the Structure of Justification: How to Avoid Passing
the Buck,” Analysis, vol. 65, pp. 80–5.
Dancy, Jonathan 2000. “Should We Pass the Buck?” in Anthony O’Hear (ed.), Philosophy, the
Good, the True, and the Beautiful. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 159–73.
Danielsson, Sven, and Jonas Olson 2007. “Brentano and the Buck-Passers,” Mind, vol. 116,
pp. 511–22.
Ewing, A. C. 1939. “A Suggested Non-Naturalistic Analysis of Good,” Mind, vol. 48, pp. 1–22.
Ewing, A. C. 1947. The Definition of Good. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Olson, Jonas 2009. “Reasons and the New Non-Naturalism,” in Simon Robertson (ed.),
Spheres of Reason. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 164–82.
Parfit, Derek 2001. “Rationality and Reasons,” in Dan Egonsson et al. (eds.), Exploring
Practical Philosophy. Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 17–39.
Rabinowicz, Wlodek, and Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen 2004. “The Strike of the Demon: On
Fitting Pro-Attitudes and Value,” Ethics, vol. 114, pp. 391–423.
Scanlon, T. M. 1998. What We Owe to Each Other. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Scanlon, T. M. 2002. “Reasons, Responsibility, and Reliance: Replies to Wallace, Dworkin,
and Deigh,” Ethics, vol. 112, pp. 507–28.
Schroeder, Mark 2010. “Value and the Right Kind of Reason,” in Russ Shafer-Landau (ed.),
Oxford Studies in Metaethics, vol. 5. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sidgwick, Henry 1981. The Methods of Ethics, 7th ed., ed. J. Rawls. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Skorupski, John 2010. The Domain of Reasons. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stratton-Lake, Philip 2005. “How to Deal with Evil Demons: Comment on Rabinowicz and
Rønnow-Rasmussen,” Ethics, vol. 115, pp. 788–98.
Stratton-Lake, Philip, and Brad Hooker 2006. “Scanlon versus Moore on Goodness,” in
Terence Horgan and Mar Timmons (eds.), Metaethics after Moore. Oxford: Oxford
FURTHER READINGS
Bedke, M. S. 2011. “Passing the Deontic Buck,” in Russ Shafer-Landau (ed.), Oxford Studies
in Metaethics, vol. 6. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Brännmark, Johan 2008. “Excellence and Means: On the Limits of Buck-Passing,” Journal of
D’Arms, Justin, and Daniel Jacobson 2000. “Sentiment and Value,” Ethics, vol. 110, pp. 722–48.
12
Heuer, Ulrike 2006. “Explaining Reasons: Where Does the Buck Stop?” Journal of Ethics and
Social Philosophy, vol. 1. At www.jesp.org.
Lang, Gerald 2008. “The Right Kind of Solution to the Wrong Kind of Reason Problem,”
Utilitas, vol. 20, pp. 472–89.
Olson, Jonas 2004. “Buck-Passing and the Wrong Kind of Reason,” Philosophical Quarterly,
vol. 54, pp. 295–300.
Olson, Jonas 2006. “G. E. Moore on Goodness and Reasons,” Australasian Journal of
Rabinowicz, Wlodek, and Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen 2006. “Buck-Passing and the Right Kind
of Reasons,” Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 56, pp. 114–20.
Skorupski, John 2007. “Buck-Passing about Goodness,” in Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen et al.
(eds.), Hommage à Wlodek: 60 Philosophical Papers Dedicated to Wlodek Rabinowicz. At
www.fil.lu.se/hommageawlodek.
Stratton-Lake, Philip 2003. “Scanlon’s Contractualism and the Redundancy Objection,”
Analysis, vol. 63, pp. 70–6.
Suikkanen, Jussi 2009. “Buck-Passing Accounts of Value,” Philosophy Compass, vol. 4,
pp. 768–79.
Väyrynen, Pekka 2006. “Resisting the Buck-Passing Account of Value,” in Russ Shafer-Landau
(ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaethics, vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 295–324.
Zimmerman, M. J. 2007. “The Good and the Right,” Utilitas, vol. 19, pp. 326–53.
1
Neo-Aristotelian Ethical Naturalism

Rosalind Hursthouse
The proponents of neo-Aristotelian ethical naturalism (henceforth “Aristotelian

naturalism” for short) include Foot (2001), Geach (1956, 1977), Hursthouse (1999),
McDowell (1995), MacIntyre (1999), Nussbaum (1993, 1995), and Thompson
(1995); and also Anscombe because her work has influenced so many others. (Gaut
[1997, 2002] should also be known as a significant contributor.) Their views are so
unlike those of other proponents of ethical naturalism (see naturalism, ethical),
and they occupy such an unfamiliar position in philosophy, that they are simultane-
ously criticized on at least two quite different bases. Some say they are not trying to
offer naturalism at all, because they avowedly employ a moralized conception of
human nature; some say they are trying to offer naturalism insofar as they offer a
biological foundation for ethics, but that either this has counterintuitive upshots or
the biology is Aristotle’s and thereby pre-Darwinian and not a proper naturalistic
foundation at all.
Unsurprisingly, the truth lies somewhere in between. No proponent of the view
maintains that moral judgments can be derived from facts discoverable by the bio-
logical sciences. They all regard ethics as “autonomous,” in the sense that they do not
think moral judgments can be explained and justified in terms external to ethics.
However, this is not because they think that moral judgments are, obviously, norma-
tive or evaluative, whereas no judgments in any of the fact-stating biological sciences
could be; rather, they all hold that there are facts which are both evaluative and
natural, moral facts being amongst them, and hence reject both supernaturalism
and moral anti-realism or non-cognitivism (see non-cognitivism; realism, moral).
Hence, they disagree with a lot of philosophers in different areas, as well as those
within moral philosophy, on a number of major issues.
The First Issue

Let us start with an issue related to the philosophy of biology. Aristotelian naturalism
takes it that there are many judgments which are (a) indisputably part of some (NB)
of the biological sciences, and (b) are normative. These are, typically, what Thompson
(1995) called “Aristotelian categoricals,” which take the form “The S is (or has or
does) F,” or “Ss are (or have or do) F.” These say, of a species or “life-form” of living
thing, the S, that “it” has certain characteristics or features (is four-legged, has a long
curved beak, has a tap root) or that it operates or behaves in a certain way (sees in
the dark, hunts in packs, self-pollinates, etc.). The class also contains slightly more
specific judgments such as “The female S (or ‘the mature female S’) has/does F,” and
these also count as being about “the S.” And it also, importantly, contains more
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee084
2
complicated judgments of the form “The S has/does F in order to …” A set of Aris-

totelian categoricals about the S itemizes the Fs that, in the life of the S, have the
function of achieving what is needed for development, self-maintenance, and repro-
duction, and thereby, of what an individual S needs in order for its life to go well.
Hence, they are not merely statistical. They supply a standard – a “natural norm” in
Foot’s terminology – for evaluating individual Ss. If it is true that “The S is F,” then
an individual S which is not F is defective in that respect – not “as it should be” or “as
it is supposed to be.” However, if it is F, then it is, in that respect at least, a good F – it
has, again in Foot’s terminology, “natural goodness.” Hence, they supply the norms
we use to evaluate individual Ss as strong or weak, healthy or diseased, good or
defective, Ss.
It has been said (Kitcher 2006) that the use of the Aristotelian categoricals
relies on a notion of function – and others have said of species – which is
Aristotelian and has thus been refuted by post-Darwinian biology. However, Foot
and the others explicitly disavow any intention to use the terms “function” or
“species” in the technical senses of evolutionary biology. The claim is only that
this strange, but immensely useful, form of judgment is alive and well in some of
the biological sciences, whose researchers, we may presume, are proceeding in
full knowledge of the post-Aristotelian insights of evolutionary theory. These
biologists know that the concept of species is theoretically problematic; they
know that the feature they identify as serving a certain function may be a span-
drel, but, concentrating on, say, the threatened indigenous New Zealand kokako,
and the failure of two of the males to feed their mates while she is incubating,
they put this knowledge to one side as not affecting their research, for which the
everyday concepts serve their purposes.
In making this claim about some judgments in some of the many biological
sciences, Aristotelian naturalism becomes involved in a current debate in
philosophy of biology, basically the debate about whether the concept of function
and, relatedly, teleological explanation have a place in the post-Darwinian biologi-
cal sciences, and, if so, whether or not they can be “naturalized,” that is, made
value-free. Hence, that is the first major issue that seems to arise. However, as I
shall suggest in the following text, this really is a red herring. Unlike “biological
ethical naturalists,” as we may call them, such as Casebeer (2003), Aristotelian nat-
uralists are not aiming to provide ethics with an explanatory biological foundation,
so they do not need to deny that some analysis of the Aristotelian categoricals
might show that they can be interpreted in such a way as to be value-free in some
sense. All they need is that they obviously can be interpreted as both evaluative or
normative and fact-stating, and that, when they are, their truth has nothing to do
with our desires or pro-attitudes.
Hence, supposing that the Aristotelian categoricals are normative, and leaving it
open whether they might in some way be naturalized, what follows? Well, it certainly
does not follow that our evaluations of ourselves share, in Foot’s words, “a conceptual
structure with evaluations … of other living things” but that they do is the
distinctively Aristotelian naturalists’ claim.
3
On the face of it, especially when we remember that the claim includes our evalu-
ations of plants, it seems this cannot be right. Only human beings have virtues and
vices (good/excellent or bad/defective character traits), only human beings act “for
reasons” in the sense relevant to moral evaluations, and plants do not act at all.
However, note, the claim is about an abstract “conceptual structure,” not about
details of similarity between moral evaluations and evaluations of other living
things. With respect to the latter, we evaluate their characteristics or properties, their
behavior or operations (even plants “do,” and fail to do, things – they set seed, curl
up their leaves to conserve moisture, etc.); when we evaluate ourselves, the relevant
characteristics include our character traits, and the relevant behavior pre-eminently
includes our acting for reasons.
It has been noted (Copp and Sobel 2004: 534–7) that there are branches of biology
that do not employ these everyday notions of function and species, and they wonder
why just these ones have been chosen if not to give moral judgments a spurious sort
of scientific credibility. What is the point of the claim about the shared conceptual
structure otherwise? Well, it is a claim that embodies several points, as we can see by
looking at the grounds that may be given for objecting to it.
The Second Issue

The claim, as just noted, does not follow from the normative nature of the Aristotelian
categoricals about plants and animals because it is open to the objection that evaluating
individual plants and animals is one thing, but that moral evaluation is something
quite different. And a range of different grounds can be given for that objection.
One is that the meaning of evaluative terms such as “good” and “defective” changes
when we move to evaluating ourselves. When we say someone is a “good human
being” meaning that she is virtuous (or “excellent” in Aristotelian terminology) and
acts well, we mean that she is morally good and acts morally well, not that she is a
normal healthy human being. And such judgments, it may be said, are utterly unlike
the biological ones. This position is, in effect, committed to the idea that the word
“good” is ambiguous, meaning either “morally good” or “good in some other way,”
and, decades before she took up Aristotelian naturalism, Foot (1961) was applying
the basic hermeneutical principle, that we should not ascribe ambiguity to an
expression in our language unless forced to do so, to the adjective “good.” In this
article, she was exploiting Geach’s (1956) point that “good” is used as an attributive
adjective in nonmoral contexts to attack the fact–value distinction (see fact–value
distinction). An attributive adjective is logically tied to the noun it qualifies, which
in part determines the criteria for evaluation for such things, and she illustrated this
with a wide range of examples. The evaluations of plants and animals derived from
the Aristotelian categoricals are a subset of the larger class she discussed there, so
one can see the claim about the shared conceptual structure as, at least, embodying
the hermeneutical principle applied to “good.”
Thus, whether or not we are forced to accept a different meaning for “good,” in
the case of the moral judgments, “good human being” and “good (or right) action”
4
is the second major issue, now in metaethics and philosophy of language, in

which this naturalism is embroiled. One reason for thinking that we are thus
forced is the thought that moral judgments are, in some sense, intrinsically moti-
vating, or, in Hume’s terminology, “necessarily practical” (see error theory;
subjectivism, ethical; projectivism; externalism, motivational), and so
there is an issue over whether the naturalists, such as the cognitivists and the
moral realists, can give some account of this while preserving the fact-stating
nature of the judgments at issue. Müller (2004) has offered such an account on
Foot’s behalf.
Of course, it is not denied that something changes when we move from evalu-
ations of plants and animals to moral evaluations of ourselves. The obvious
thing that changes is that when we ascribe moral goodness, we are evaluating a
human being only in relation to (broadly speaking) her rational agency (Foot
2001: 66). We bracket out those features of her with which the medical sciences
are concerned, such as deafness, or inability to have children (Hursthouse 1999:
207). (Just exactly what is thus excluded is a notorious problem not peculiar to
this naturalism, raising, as it does, the specter of psychopathy [see psychopathy]
as a genetically determined defect.) However, more to the point is the move to
the evaluation of the human being as a rational agent, which is indeed a great
“sea change” (Foot 2001: 52).
Following McDowell (1995), we may draw a distinction between our first and
second natures. Our first nature is what we are born with, what we share with the
other animals, particularly the higher animals, and is the subject matter of the
biological sciences. However, our second nature is what we acquire by being
brought up to be socialized, language-using, reason-giving, culturally embedded
animals which mature to act for their own reasons. And it is our second nature
that is the subject of moral evaluation. This is why I take it that the function issue
in the philosophy of biology is a red herring. That is the issue of whether our first
nature can be reductively naturalized. Let us suppose that it can. However, ethics
is concerned with our second nature, and it is still an open question whether that
can be reductively naturalized (Reader 2000: 343). And Aristotelian naturalists,
who do not suppose that ethics can be derived from our biological first nature,
take it that it cannot.
The Third Issue

As Foot herself notes (2001: 66), the colloquial way to ascribe moral goodness is to
speak of someone’s being “a good person,” not “a good human being,” and this brings
us to the second ground for saying that moral evaluation is something quite different
from the evaluation of plants and animals and the third major issue.
Ever since Locke, but more influentially, Kant, moral philosophy has allowed for
the possibility that moral evaluation is not strictly evaluation of human beings and
their actions as such, but of persons and theirs. The concept of a person is not the
concept of a particular sort of terrestrial animal as the concept of a human being is.
5
Persons do not have to be, in MacIntyre’s phrase “vulnerable and dependent” animals
(1999: 155), or animals whose young need a lot of care and attention if they are to
develop (which includes “develop their reason”) properly, or social animals which
need love and companionship. The intelligent aliens so beloved of philosophers
might be persons, and if they were, we could morally evaluate them. Hence, we have
another ground for saying that moral evaluation is different from the “natural” eval-
uation of plants and animals.
In some contexts, the claim that ethics is concerned with persons rather than
human beings falls foul of the fact that “good” is an attributive adjective. The
philosophers’ concept of a person as a rational self-conscious being that figures in
the context of, for example, debates about whether fetuses or any of the other
animals are persons, is far too thin to generate any appropriate criteria for evalu-
ation: no one thinks we can make sense of the idea that one person is better than
another simply in terms of their being more rational and more self-conscious.
However, in the context of ethics, this is not usually the problem. A person is
taken to be a rational agent, so the criteria for “a good/excellent/virtuous person”
are the criteria for “a good/excellent rational agent,” and these criteria, whatever
they may be, need not, it may be claimed, be anything remotely like “natural
norms.”
What this brings out is that the move from evaluating plants and animals to eval-
uating ourselves opens the question “What are we?” which is the third major issue.
There have been several answers to that question. Two, at least, are supernatural.
One is that we are animals with an immortal soul; the healthiest and fittest human
animal may yet have a bad soul, but to be a good person is to possess a good soul that
recognizes and follows God’s commands. Another is that we have free will which
enables us to transcend the material world; the healthiest and fittest human being
may yet have a bad will, but to be a good person is to have a good will that wills only
what is in accordance with pure practical reason. (A third, not interesting in this
context, is nonnatural, the view that we are, in some sense, cultural beings, formed
entirely by social forces.)
At this stage, the point of the claim about the shared conceptual structure goes
well beyond the previous one about the significance of the fact that “good” is attrib-
utive. One reason for describing Aristotelian naturalism as a form of naturalism is
that it rejects the supernatural views of what we persons are, in favor of a deflationary
view. We are just part of the world of living things, natural persons, with a first
nature, and thinking of ourselves as otherwise leads us sadly astray in ethics,
encouraging us, for instance, to idealize impartiality (see impartiality) at the
expense of family relationships (Baier 1994; Annas 2005).
However, the rejection of the avowedly supernatural view of persons/rational
agents is hardly peculiar to Aristotelian naturalism. In modern thought, there are
many views of ethics which maintain something akin to Kant’s idea that our
rationality enables us to transcend at least some of the features of our first nature
without committing themselves to his noumenal world. And this brings us to the
next issue.
6
The Fourth Issue, with Others

This is the issue of the nature of practical rationality or practical reason, which, in
turn, raises a whole host of others. It is with respect to this cluster of issues, more,
I think, than any other, that Aristotelian naturalism is Aristotelian, in that its propo-
nents all take it that Aristotle, as opposed to Kant, Hume, or Mill, is fundamentally
right about ethics.
Our moral judgments include our evaluations of people as good/virtuous or bad,
of their actions as good/right or bad/wrong, and of the reasons for which they act as
good or bad, right or wrong. Everyone agrees that the virtuous people reliably do the
right actions for the right reasons (and have the appropriate emotions when they do
so), and that good or excellent practical reason latches on to what is right action.
However, the proponents of different approaches in normative ethics then disagree
about how to give an account of these platitudes. The non-Aristotelians assume that
an account of the virtuous person, even if not simply derivable from their accounts of
right action and good practical reason, is still something that comes later; the concept
is not needed in those accounts. However, the Aristotelians assume that it is needed.
If we can give a formal/abstract criterion of right action, as many forms of utili-
tarianism do (see utilitarianism), we can thereby derive the criterion for good
practical reason, relying on the platitude that it latches onto right action. If we can
give a formal/abstract characterization of good practical reason, as modern Kantians
and contractualists do (see constructivism, moral; contractualism; kantian
practical ethics; rationalism in ethics), we can use the same platitude to derive
an account of right action. However, Aristotelian naturalism rejects both possibilities.
According to neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics (see virtue ethics), the concepts of
virtue, good practical reason, and right action are inextricably interwoven. A lot of
right actions – helping strangers, risking one’s life for them, keeping contracts, telling
the truth, looking after one’s children or parents, sticking by one’s friends, giving to
others – are right because they are of a certain type, namely the sort of action that
virtuous people typically do; they are charitable, courageous, just, honest, responsible,
loyal, generous actions. Any of these can be done for the wrong reasons, but the
virtuous agent does them “for their own sake,” recognizing that the circumstances in
which she does any one of them give her a compelling reason to do it. However, it is
not always right to do a particular action of such a type; in some situations, discretion
is the better part of valor, a truth should not be revealed, a promise cannot be kept,
and, recognizing the relevance of the competing considerations, the virtuous agent
acts accordingly. What enables her to do that, particularly in tricky situations, is her
practical wisdom – her good practical rationality. However, her practical wisdom is
inseparable from her virtue; good practical reasoning must be directed at good ends,
and only the virtuous have good ends.
Hence, far from seeking to provide ethics with a foundational account of just one
of the concepts (right action, virtue, practical rationality), neo-Aristotelian virtue
ethics seeks to display the ways the three of them fit together in the belief that seeing
them as thus related yields the best understanding (not justification) of morality.
7
And Aristotelian naturalism takes the further step of displaying how those three, in
turn, are related to, in particular, the concepts of good human being and goodness
and defect in living things, in, again, the belief that this yields the best understanding
(not justification) of morality.
The Aristotelian naturalists, when they say “This is a virtue, this is a good reason
for doing so and so, such and such is a type of good/right action,” claim that the
appropriate justification for such evaluations is like that of the corresponding evalu-
ations of other living things. If true, they are true because we – we human beings –
need this character trait, need to count these sorts of considerations as reasons for
acting in this sort of way, need to do these sorts of actions, in order for our lives to
go well. And, the further justification of the “because” clause appeals to putative
facts about human life – about how it goes, what goods are available within it, how
they are obtained, and what obstacles there are to obtaining them, just as it is in the
case of the other living things.
However – here is the great sea change – what it is for a human life to go well is
very different, because, given our rationality, whether or not our lives go well, what
goods are available to us, what obstacles we encounter, is so undetermined by our
first nature. Our lives, given we are rational and reflective, go well only if we are
exercising our reason well and only if (though not “if ”), in some sense, we are living
the way we want to live. We create cultures; the other animals do not. Hence, as
Nussbaum (1993) has argued, within the Aristotelian structure which makes the
virtues nonrelative to culture, there is still much room for cultural variation and
incommensurable values.
There is also room for rock-bottom disagreement; although the structure
remains the same, sets of rather different putative facts may fill it out, each of
which represents an interpretation of human nature (Hacker-Wright 2009a, 2009b;
Nussbaum 1995). Hence, it is far from being the case that all the putative facts
about human life that are employed by the Aristotelian naturalists are expected to
be recognizable as facts by the wicked, or indeed by adolescents. It is not claimed
that we can get straight from “Human beings are social animals” to “They need
love and kindness” (cf. Foot 2001: 108) or “They need ‘networks of giving and
receiving’” (MacIntyre 1999: 102); nor from “Human beings go in for co-operative
activity” or even “Human beings establish rules of conduct and recognize rights”
(Foot 2001: 51) to “Human beings need to trust each other and keep their con-
tracts.” The latter claims are of a sort that Hursthouse (1999: 178–89) classifies as
“ethical but non-evaluative beliefs about human nature and how human life goes,”
along with “Human beings do not need large amounts of money to be happy or for
their lives to go well,” and “Human beings can acquire a second nature which ena-
bles them to enjoy virtuous activity.” She gives them this clumsy description to
capture the point that, although they look like empirical and not evaluative beliefs,
it is obvious that they are expressive of an ethical outlook because it is so easy to
imagine the immoralist, or the cocky egocentric adolescent, disagreeing with
them. They are the sorts of things that only someone with at least the beginnings
of practical wisdom knows.
8
Amongst the many difficulties that many have with virtue ethics, the most difficult
is probably Aristotle’s concept of phronesis or practical wisdom, given the claim that
it is inseparable from virtue. It is now not uncommon for non-Aristotelians in
normative ethics to accept that moral principles cannot provide a decision procedure
for right action and that practical wisdom is needed to apply them correctly in
particular situations. However, even those who do accept this tend to overlook the
significance of the point that practical wisdom is impossible without virtue. It is
impossible not only because good practical reasoning must be directed to good
ends, but because much of what someone with practical wisdom knows and can
recognize is unavailable to those who lack virtue, a point that McDowell has
constantly stressed. And that something about the world, rather than oneself, can be
known without being “in principle” something that can be made available to any
normally intelligent and sane human being as, “in principle,” all scientific knowl-
edge can, is an idea many find hard to accept.
Foot says (2001: 115) that her claim about the conceptual structure leaves
everything as it is as far as settling disputes about “substantive” moral questions is
concerned. Of course, it cannot settle them; it simply locates their source in
disagreements about human nature. However, looking back over all these issues, one
can see Aristotelian naturalism as putting forward a position opposed, in one way or
another, to most of those prevailing in contemporary ethics – to foundationalism in
all its forms from scientism to rationalism, to subjectivism in any form, and to deon-
tology and consequentialism. And it accepts Aristotle’s concept of practical wisdom.
No wonder it comes under attack from so many quarters.
See also: constructivism, moral; contractualism; error theory; externalism,

motivational; fact–value distinction; impartiality; kantian practical ethics;
naturalism, ethical; non-cognitivism;
projectivism; psychopathy; rationalism in ethics; realism, moral; subjectivism,
ethical; utilitarianism; virtue ethics
REFERENCES
Annas, Julia 2005. “Virtue Ethics: What Kind of Naturalism?” in Stephen M. Gardiner (ed.),
Virtue Ethics: Old and New. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, pp. 11–29.
Baier, Annette 1994. “A Naturalist View of Persons,” Moral Prejudices. Cambridge, MA:
Casebeer, William 2003. Natural Ethical Facts: Evolution, Connectionism and Moral Cognition.
Copp, David, and David Sobel 2004. “Morality and Virtue: An Assessment of Some Recent
Work in Virtue Ethics,” Ethics, vol. 114, pp. 514–54.
Foot, Philippa 2001. Natural Goodness. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Foot, Philippa 2002 [1961]. “Goodness and Choice,” Virtues and Vices and Other Essays in
Moral Philosophy, reprint. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gaut, Berys 1997. “The Structure of Practical Reason,” in G. Cullity and B. Gaut (eds.), Ethics
and Practical Reason. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 161–88.
9
Gaut, Berys 2002. “Justifying Moral Pluralism,” in Philip Stratton-Lake (ed.), Ethical
Intuitionism: Re-Evaluations. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 137–60.
Geach, Peter 1956. “Good and Evil,” Analysis, vol. 17, pp. 33–42.
Geach, Peter 1977. The Virtues. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hacker-Wright, John 2009a. “What Is Natural about Foot’s Ethical Naturalism?” Ratio
(new series), vol. 42, pp. 308–21.
Hacker-Wright, John 2009b. “Human Nature, Personhood, and Ethical Naturalism,”
Hursthouse, Rosalind 1999. On Virtue Ethics. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Kitcher, P. 2006. “Biology and Ethics,” in David Copp (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Ethical
Theory. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 163–85.
McDowell, John 1995. “Two Sorts of Naturalism,” in Rosalind Hursthouse, Gavin Lawrence,
and Warren Quinn (eds.), Virtues and Reasons. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 149–80.
MacIntyre, Alisdair 1999. Dependent Rational Animals. London: Duckworth.
Müller, A. 2004. “Acting Well,” in A. O’Hear (ed.), Modern Moral Philosophy. Cambridge:
Nussbaum, Martha 1993. “Non-Relative Virtues: An Aristotelian Approach,” in Martha
Nussbaum and Amartya Sen (eds.), The Quality of Life. Oxford: Clarendon Press,
pp. 242–69.
Nussbaum, Martha 1995. “Aristotle on Human Nature and the Foundations of Ethics,” in
J. E. J. Altham and R. Harrison (eds.), World, Mind, and Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge
Reader, Soran 2000. “New Directions in Ethics: Naturalisms, Reasons and Virtue,” Ethical
Thompson, Michael 1995. “The Representation of Life,” in Rosalind Hursthouse, Gavin
Lawrence, and Warren Quinn (eds.), Virtues and Reasons. Oxford: Clarendon Press,
pp. 247–97.
FURTHER READINGS
Anscombe, G. E. M. 1963. Intention, 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell.
Anscombe, G. E. M. 1995. “Practical Inference,” in Rosalind Hursthouse, Gavin Lawrence,
and Warren Quinn (eds.), Virtues and Reasons. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 1–34.
Foot, Philippa 2002 [1994]. “Rationality and Virtue,” Moral Dilemmas and Other Topics in
Moral Philosophy, reprint. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Foot, Philippa 2002 [1995]. “Does Moral Subjectivism Rest on a Mistake?” Moral Dilemmas
and Other Topics in Moral Philosophy, reprint. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Foot, Philippa 2004. “Rationality and Goodness,” in A. O’Hear (ed.), Modern Moral
Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–14.
Gowans, Christopher W. 2008. “Virtue and Nature,” Social Philosophy and Policy, vol. 25,
pp. 28–55.
Hendley, Stephen 2009. “Reassuring Ourselves of the Reality of Ethical Reasons: What
McDowell Should Take from Foot’s Ethical Naturalism,” Dialogue, vol. 48, pp. 1–25.
MacIntyre, Alisdair 2002. “Virtues in Foot and Geach,” Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 52,
pp. 621–31.
Thompson, Allen 2007. “Reconciling Themes in Neo-Aristotelian Meta-ethics,” Journal of
10
Thompson, Michael 2004. “Apprehending Human Form,” in A. O’Hear (ed.), Modern Moral
Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 47–74.
Thompson, Michael 2008. Life and Action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Toner, Christopher 2008. “Sorts of Naturalism: Requirements for a Successful Theory,”
Metaphilosophy, vol. 39, pp. 220–50.
Wiggins, David 1991. “Moral Cognitivism, Moral Relativism and Motivating Moral Beliefs,”
Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, vol. 90, pp. 61–85.
1
Rancière, Jacques
Todd May
At first glance, it would seem unusual to include an article on Jacques Rancière in an

encyclopedia dedicated to work in ethics. Rancière has written no books with the
term ethics in the title, nor has he written any articles on the issue. He has no
reflections that would be broadly categorized as ethical in the traditional sense. His
work has been concerned with labor history, political reflections, and, more recently,
aesthetic theory and art history.
And yet, it would not be overstating the point to say that Rancière’s work is
bathed in the ethical. In particular, it is immersed in the ethics of equality and
inequality (see equality). From his earliest independent reflections to his more
recent aesthetic works, the question of equality – what it is, how it can manifest
itself, how it is so often denied – is never far from the surface of his texts. In fact,
Rancière’s early move toward his own independent reflections is driven by a
concern for equality and its denial in the most prominent leftist political arena in
the 1960s France.
In order to understand the ethical core of Rancière’s thought and to see its wider
implications, we will proceed in three stages. First, and briefly, we will recount his
intellectual itinerary. This will already give us a glimpse of the ethical character of
his thought. Second, we will canvass his thought on equality, particularly as it
appears in his political writings on the 1990s, where it is most prominent. Third, we
will ask how this thought of equality contrasts with other approaches to equality and
what this means for ethical thought in general.
Rancière was a student of the prominent French Marxist theorist Louis Althusser,
and in fact wrote one of the texts for Althusser’s seminal 1965 collection Reading
Capital. However, Rancière broke with his teacher in the wake of the events of May
and June 1968 in France. What has come to be called “May 1968” involved a series
of strikes and demonstrations, initiated by students but soon joined by workers and
others, that nearly brought down the DeGaulle government. It also destroyed the
credibility of the French Communist Party, which opposed the uprising, since it was
not led by the Party itself. At this time, Althusser was a Party intellectual, and, in
keeping with the Party, he also criticized the events. Because of this, Rancière
abandoned Althusser, claiming in his 1974 book La Leçon d’Althusser that Althusser’s
thought was hierarchical, seeing the intellectual as the vanguard of mass movements
and relegating the people to the status of followers. In Rancière’s eyes, to distinguish
between those who lead because of their intelligence and those who follow is to deny
the very equality that leftist thought is supposed to embrace.
After the break with Althusser, Rancière spent years in the archives of French labor
history, researching pre-Marxist labor movements. What he found was neither worker
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee085
2
passivity nor a reduction of worker consciousness strictly to class consciousness, but

instead various assertions of the equality of workers. These took the form of writings,
poetry, and other activities thought to be outside the province of workers. He pub-
lished his research in his 1981 The Nights of Labor, a book marked by his unwillingness
to speak for the workers but instead to let their writings speak for themselves. From
there, Rancière turned to his own reflections on the politics of equality, culminating in
his major theoretical statement Disagreement, published in 1995. Soon after this, the
focus of his work turned toward aesthetics, and particularly the intersection between
aesthetics and politics. Unsurprising, this intersection is often centered on equality,
although Rancière’s writings insist that the manifestation of equality is not the same in
politics as in aesthetics, and that we should not see in aesthetic works merely the
expression of a political will or the illustration of political lessons.
If the centerpiece of Rancière’s thought is that of equality, how is it that he thinks
of equality? What is it, and what is its role in his thought? The key for understanding
the role of equality for Rancière lies in the break from Althusser. If the workers do
not need to be led by the intellectual vanguard, this is because they are capable of
liberating themselves. This thought, in turn, leads in two directions. The first
concerns that from which the workers (and others) must liberate themselves. The
second involves that capacity for liberation and how it manifests itself.
The first hinges on what Rancière calls “the police,” a term whose resonance for him
has more to do with Michel Foucault (see foucault, michel) than with uniformed
officers of the law. In Foucault’s lectures on governmentality at the Collège de France, he
refers to the German science of police that emerged in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. In this context, “police” refers to the state’s attempt to maximize the produc-
tivity and well-being of a population. Rancière himself defines “police” this way.
Politics is generally seen as the set of procedures whereby the aggregation and
consent of collectivities is achieved, the organization of powers, the distribution
of places and roles, and the systems for legitimizing this distribution. I propose to
give this system of distribution and legitimization another name. I propose to call
it the police. (1999: 28)
The police, in Rancière’s view, is the arrangement of different social and political
roles along with the justifications that are offered for that arrangement. In every society,
of course, such arrangements exist. Some of these roles are formal, for example, certain
people are legally empowered to make certain decisions. They are also informal, as
with the relegation of women or minorities to inferior treatment. What is crucial for
Rancière is that a police arrangement is always hierarchical. It distinguishes who gets to
say and do certain things from who does not. As Rancière sometimes puts the point, it
distinguishes those who have a part to play from those who do not. In understanding
this distinction, we must be careful not to think that there is a strict division between
those who occupy one side and those who occupy another. Since the hierarchical divi-
sions of a police arrangement are, in most societies, multifarious, there are various
vectors of having and not having a part to play. A Hispanic male in the United States,
3
for instance, has a part to play by virtue of his maleness but is likely to be refused a part
to play in other areas of his life because of prejudice against Hispanics. Rancière’s view
of hierarchy and oppression, then, is nonreductive. There is no single parameter of
oppression, but multiple and intersecting ones.
Therefore, the workers in a Rancièrean framework consist not only of those whom
Marx (see marx, karl) would consider the proletariat, but of everyone who suffers
from not having a part to play by virtue of occupying a certain place (or places) in
a particular police order. To fail to be accorded a part is to be considered for one
reason or another to be inferior to those who are accorded a part. Alternatively, to
insist on playing a part is to insist on one’s equality. Rancière calls this insistence
politics, or what I would like to call, in order to avoid confusion, democratic politics
(see democracy).
I now propose to reserve the term politics for an extremely determined activity
antagonistic to policing: whatever breaks with the tangible configuration whereby
parties and parts or lack of them are defined by a presupposition that, by defini-
tion, has no place in that configuration – that of the part of those who have no
part … political activity is always a mode of expression that undoes the percepti-
ble divisions of the police order by implementing a basically heterogeneous
assumption … the equality of every speaking being with any other speaking
being. (Rancière 1999: 29–30)
There are two elements of the definition that require focus. The first is that politics
is an activity performed by those who are not accorded but insist upon their part to
play. In contrast to traditional mainstream political theory which insists upon
distributive justice – a justice that ultimately comes from the state or a governing
institution – Rancière’s view of politics is one that focuses on the people themselves,
those who speak and act on their own behalf.
The second element is that of equality. To act politically, to engage in a democratic
political action or movement, is to act on the presupposition of one’s equality with
others, and most important, with those who are considered one’s superiors in a
particular aspect of a police arrangement. What kind of equality is this? In a narrow
sense, the equality would be an equality of participation or role. However, Rancière
offers another answer as well. The equality insisted upon in democratic politics is an
equality of intelligence.
The equality of intelligence, Rancière posits, is not an equal ability to understand
advance quantum mechanics or the intelligence to write a literary masterpiece. It is
rather the equal ability to reflect upon, make decisions about, and act upon one’s life
alongside others. We might call it an equality of political intelligence, if we think of
politics as the participation in collective life. Democratic politics, then, is a participation
in the creation of equality through the presupposition of equal intelligence.
These two elements of democratic politics are connected, and through their
connection we can begin to draw out the implications of Rancière’s thought for ethics.
In his book on the French revolutionary Joseph Jacotot, who posited the equality of
4
intelligence as a pedagogical principle while in exile from France during the Restoration,
Rancière writes, “[O]ur problem isn’t proving that all intelligence is equal. It’s seeing
what can be done under that presupposition. And for this, it’s enough for us that the
opinion be possible – that is, that no opposing truth be proved” (1991: 46). The move-
ment of Rancière’s thought is not the application of a proof to a political situation. In
other words, he does not start by proving that all intelligence – in the sense of intelli-
gence we have isolated – is equal, and then proceeding to apply it to political move-
ments. The bond between equal intelligence and democratic politics is much closer
than that. Democratic politics is the performance of equal intelligence. In democratic
politics, people prove (to themselves, first and foremost) their equal intelligence, pre-
cisely by acting on the presupposition of the equality of intelligence.
This may seem strange at first glance, but the thought is not as foreign as it may
appear. We are all aware of cases of people’s engaging in activities beyond what one
might have thought they were capable of, precisely because that was what was expected
of them. That is what happens in democratic politics, except (a) the action is collective,
and (b) the expectation comes not from without but from within. The expectation is
the presupposition of equality. To act democratically, in Rancière’s eyes, is to do nothing
other than to collectively perform one’s own equality, and in doing so to emancipate
oneself from the presupposition of inequality animating the police hierarchy.
This framework for thinking about democracy and politics is not without ethical
implications. There are at least two that are worth considering, both of which inter-
sect with Kantian ethics (see kantian practical ethics). The first is drawn more
directly from Kant’s ethical thought. It is the striking expression that Rancière’s
political framework gives to the Kantian idea of respect for others. To treat others as
ends in themselves is, for Kant, to treat them as autonomous beings, as givers of laws
(and especially the moral law) to themselves. While Rancière’s thought does not go
so far as to posit humans as rational creatures in the specific Kantian sense, and
therefore as self-legislators of the moral law, he does offer a picture of what it is to
treat others with equal respect on the political level. In Kantian ethics, the posses-
sion of rationality and thus the merit of respect is not a matter of degree. Beings
are either rational – and therefore capable of autonomous action – or they are not.
If they are, then they deserve respect. Moreover, each rational being merits respect
equal to that of every other rational being. As Rancière puts the point, it is a matter
of “the equality of every speaking being with any other speaking being.”
To act collectively from the presupposition of equality is a matter of each
participant treating each other participant (as well as himself or herself) as equally
worthy of respect. Contrary to the inegalitarian presuppositions of the police
arrangement, democratic politics presupposes that everyone is capable of conduct-
ing his or her life – of autonomy, broadly construed. Therefore, everyone in a
democratic movement is considered to be equally autonomous with everyone else.
This, while not being a strict Kantian vision of autonomy, is surely as close as one
gets to the second and third formulations of the categorical imperative without
importing the transcendental assumptions that are some of the more contentious
elements of Kant’s ethics.
5
The other implication of Rancière’s picture lies at the intersection of ethics and
politics. There are, of course, many theorists who see their work emerging from a
Kantian ethical framework. Robert Nozick defends a libertarian view based on an
interpretation of Kant’s ethics as implying maximal individual liberty. John Rawls
(see rawls, john) follows a different path, seeing in Kant’s rational being a model
for judging political principles from the standpoint of every different position in
society. What these political theories share, however, and share with other
mainstream political views, is a commitment to politics as a matter of distributive
justice. The core element of politics, on this common approach, is a matter of what
people are owed, of what the state or other governing institutions ought to do for
and to citizens (and perhaps others residing in a particular polity). It is precisely this
assumption that Rancière’s view challenges, and it can be interpreted (although
Rancière himself does not do so) as a challenge emerging directly from the Kantian
ethics to which the assumption appeals.
The core of political action does not lie, in Rancière’s eyes, in what it is that people
receive. It lies in what they do. Equality is not, or at least not primarily, to be conceived
as a matter of what one is owed. That places the recipient in the position of passivity
relative to the one who distributes what is owed. That there are those who give and
those who receive is a hierarchical characteristic that is more accurately associated
with a police arrangement than with democratic politics. It creates an inequality at
the outset. A politics that is to retain the equality characteristic of Kantian ethical
thought cannot be a politics that distributes from above; it must be a politics that
emerges from below. Or better, it must be a politics that challenges the very
distinction of above and below. That is precisely what Rancière’s politics does. In
collective democratic action, politics of the Rancièrean kind enact what mainstream
theories of distributive justice betray: a commitment to Kant’s ethics of equal respect.
If this is right, then the intersection between Kantian ethics and democratic politics
is very different from what has generally been assumed, even by Kant himself, who is
committed in his political writings to a constitutional order as the preferred mode of
preservation of the autonomy of rational beings. The intersection between ethics and
politics is much more an anarchist (see anarchism) than a liberal (see liberalism)
matter. This is not to say that Rancière’s view is a utopian anarchist one. For him, police
orders will always be with us, and democratic politics will always take place within
those orders. Moreover, he concedes that police orders are not all of a piece; there are
differences between them, those differences often being the result of democratic polit-
ical action. “There is a worse and a better police – the better one, incidentally, not
being one that adheres to the supposedly natural order of society or the science of
legislators, but the one that all the breaking and entering perpetrated by egalitarian
logic has most often jolted out of its ‘natural’ logic” (Rancière 1999: 30–1). The issue is
not that of conceiving a Kantian community of ends as an actual political arrangement,
but rather seeing that community as it makes its appearance – to one extent or another
and to the degree possible – in the politics that arises within and challenges the hierar-
chies of the police orders that inevitably seek to govern and divide us, that is to deny
the equality that a democratic politics enacts.
6
See also: anarchism; democracy; equality; foucault, michel; kantian

practical ethics; liberalism; marx, karl; rawls, john
REFERENCES
Rancière, Jacques 1991 [1987]. Le Maître ignorant: Cinq leçons sur l’émancipation intellectuelle.
Paris: Fayard. English translation: The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual
Emancipation, trans. Kristin Ross. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.
Rancière, Jacques 1999 [1995]. La Mésentente: politique et philosophie. Paris: Galilée. English
translation: Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy, trans. Julie Rose. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press.
FURTHER READINGS
Deranty, Jean-Philippe 2010. Jacques Rancière: Key Concepts. London: Acumen Press.
Hewlitt, Nick 2007. Badiou, Balibar, Rancière. Re-thinking Emancipation. London: Continuum.
May, Todd 2008. The Political Thought of Jacques Rancière: Creating Equality. Edinburgh and
University Park: Edinburgh University Press and Penn State Press.
Rancière, Jacques 1995 [1992]. On the Shores of Politics, trans. Liz Heron. London: Verso.
Rancière, Jacques 2010. Dissensus: Politics and Aesthetics, ed. and trans. Steve Corcoran.
London: Continuum.
Rockhill, Gabriel, and Philip Watts 2009. Jacques Rancière: History, Politics, Aesthetics.
Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
1
Profit Motive
Joakim Sandberg
The profit motive refers to what is generally taken to be the underlying motivation
of business and commercial activity: to collect revenues in excess of costs or, more
simply, to make money. While both “profit” and “profit motive” may be given more
technical definitions in economics, the latter’s meaning is typically broader in philo-
sophical discussions and so, for example, even managers of nonprofit organizations
may be accused of sometimes acting from a profit motive. The profit motive is typi-
cally the object of ambivalent moral attitudes in present-day society: on the one
hand, the plethora of commodities and services made possible by the modern mar-
ket economy, fuelled to a large extent by the profit motive, are easily recognizable.
On the other hand, it is generally regarded as a serious moral criticism to say of a
certain commercial agent that he or she is motivated by profit alone, and pecuniary
motives are often associated with selfishness and greed (see egoism). (Compare
comments like: “While it perhaps was a good thing that company X supported this
social venture, they are not to be trusted – they only did it for the money!”)
Many examples of both positive and negative views on the profit motive can be
found throughout the history of moral philosophy; indeed this has tended to be a
polarizing topic. A long tradition of moral and religious thinkers have been highly
critical of the profit motive and therefore of commerce in general, basically viewing
it (commerce) as an (at best) unfortunate practical necessity in society. Aristotle
(see aristotle), for instance, held that while money can be useful as a means for
facilitating the circulation of goods in society, it is unnatural to desire it for its own
sake, or as an end-in-itself, like most merchants do (see usury). According to the
early Christians, the pursuit of profit typically leads to greed and deceit; that is, an
endless desire to have more for oneself and also a propensity to do almost anything
to get it. Therefore true believers should not engage in commerce – indeed they
should not have any possessions whatsoever. This critical stance toward the profit
motive could be said to have reached its pinnacle in the socialist tradition: accord-
ing to Marx (see marx, karl), the capitalist’s profit is essentially money stolen from
the workers and so the profit motive thus constitutes willful exploitation of the
working class.
Present-day capitalist societies obviously exhibit a more positive view toward
business and private ownership than this, and perhaps also toward the profit motive.
Some trace the roots of this more positive view to Protestantism and the associated
idea that merchants can be just as virtuous as people of other vocations; indeed some
Protestant thinkers held that there are certain virtues that are especially common
among commercial agents. Others attribute it to Adam Smith’s (see smith, adam)
famous argument about the positive societal side-effects of a self-interested pursuit
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee086
2
of profits: although the baker and brewer aim only at their own respective good,
Smith suggested, they are “led by an invisible hand” – economic competition – to at
the same time promote the public good. This argument may be viewed as a sort of
utilitarian vindication of practices influenced by the profit motive – indeed this is
basically how modern economics and associated disciplines tend to treat the subject
of the profit motive (see economics and ethics).
Curiously, even though commercial activities and interests permeate almost
each and every part of life in modern societies, contemporary philosophers have
devoted much less attention to ethical issues concerning the profit motive than,
for instance, their medieval counterparts. While the exact reasons for this remain
obscure, a possible explanation could be the extremely multifaceted, and therefore
almost impenetrable, nature of the modern business world. With the rise of the
modern corporation, for instance, the profit motive has become more formalized
than simply the motivation of certain individuals (the merchants and traders), and
it may not be as easy to say exactly at whom allegations of selfishness can be
directed. For example, are managers selfish when they seek to maximize the prof-
its of the companies they work for? Can corporations as such have morally illegiti-
mate motivational structures?
To some extent, however, perhaps large parts of the relatively new field of busi-
ness ethics (see business ethics) could be understood as consisting in attempts
to develop some middle ground between the two historical extremes outlined
above. A fairly common idea in this field is that commercial agents ought to give
equal weight to the interests of all of their so-called stakeholders – that is, not only
cater to their shareholders’ interests but also the interests of, for instance, their
customers, employees, and the local community. On this view, while profit-seek-
ing is recognized as an important moral goal – essentially a way of looking out for
one’s shareholders – its pursuit is only perceived as legitimate as long as certain
non-financial (social or environmental) goals are given equal attention. Not eve-
ryone agrees with this idea, however, and a more liberal idea is that pecuniary
motives may be morally unproblematic even as the most central motivation of
commercial agents, as long as these agents at least recognize certain side-con-
straints in their pursuit of profits – that is, it is okay to seek maximum profits as
long as one, for example, respects human rights and observes certain minimal
environmental standards set by government (for both views, see stakeholder
theory).
The latest trend in contemporary business, it may be noted, is actually to directly
incorporate some of these ideas from business ethics, and so the issue of the profit
motive has received a further twist in recent years. Many contemporary corpora-
tions claim to be ‘socially responsible’ and to care just as much about people and the
planet as they do about profits (see corporate social responsibility). However,
many consumers seem to be doubtful of this trend – and indeed they treat the term
‘business ethics’ as something of an oxymoron; unconvinced that the profit motive
on which business is based really can be reconciled with any ethical commitment
worth its name.
3
See also: aristotle; business ethics; corporate social responsibility; economics and
ethics; egoism; marx, karl; smith, adam; stakeholder theory; usury
FURTHER READINGS
Bowie, Norman E. 1999. Business Ethics: A Kantian Perspective. Oxford: Blackwell.
Flew, Antony 1976. “The Profit Motive,” Ethics, vol. 86, pp. 312–22.
Frederick, Robert E. (ed.) 2002. A Companion to Business Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell.
Walsh, Adrian, and Tony Lynch 2008. The Morality of Money: An Exploration in Analytic
Philosophy. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
1
Usury
Joakim Sandberg
Usury originally and simply meant the practice of charging interest on loans. This
practice was forcefully condemned and generally banned in both Ancient and
Medieval times. Indeed, prohibitions against interest can be found in the traditions
of all the major religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity –
compare, for instance, the commandments of the Hindu lawmaker Vasishtha, and
the biblical story of how Jesus cast the moneylenders out of the temple (Matthew
21:12). As interest started to become socially acceptable, however, usury came to
mean the charging of (legally or morally) excessive or exorbitant rates of interest,
and this is also how it is commonly used today. Thus, although many people now
may regard as usurious so-called payday loans – which sometimes come with up to
1,000 percent interest – we do not generally regard as usurious the normal bank
practice of charging for loans at regulated interest rates. Modern Islam still contains
a general prohibition against interest, however, and many countries still have at least
partial usury laws – most often setting an upper limit on acceptable interest rates.
A number of attempts at justifying the general prohibition against interest can be
found in the works of both classical and Medieval philosophers and religious
thinkers. Some of the more obscure arguments concern the supposed true nature of
money: Aristotle (see aristotle) famously argued that there is something
“unnatural” with “money begetting money.” While money may be a useful means for
facilitating commercial exchange, Aristotle thought that it has no productive use in
itself – he calls it barren and sterile – and so receiving interest over and above the
amount borrowed is unnatural and therefore wrong. A somewhat related argument
can be found in the works of St. Thomas Aquinas (see aquinas, saint thomas),
who argued that money is a fungible good – that is, a good which is consumed on
use (much like a loaf of bread: consume it and it is gone). Although a lender can
legitimately demand repayment of an amount equivalent to the loan (or an equivalent
loaf of bread), then, Aquinas suggested that it is illegitimate to demand payment for
the use of the borrowed amount, and that adding interest is hence unnatural and
wrong.
Other and more promising historical arguments connect the immorality of
interest to matters of justice. Plato (see plato), for instance, expressed worries that
allowing interest may lead to societal instability. It may be noted that the biblical
condemnations of usury most straightforwardly prohibit exacting interest from the
poor (see ethics in the hebrew bible), and a number of interpretations of this
may be possible. One idea could be that we simply owe a duty of charity to the poor,
or all fellow human beings, and charging interest is incompatible with this duty: we
should just give them what they need. Another idea could be that the problem lies
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee087
2
in the outcome of interest payments as such: It has been argued that loans typically
are extended by someone who is relatively richer (someone with capital) to someone
who is relatively poorer (someone without capital) and so asking for additional
money (interest) in exchange for loans directly increases the inequitable distribution
of wealth in society. For Martin Luther (see luther, martin), however, the
immorality of usury was rather connected to the supposedly typical opportunism
of lending: the way in which moneylenders were thought to exploit the urgent
needs of the have-nots to force them to accept terms they would not otherwise have
accepted.
Many other arguments can be found in the classical debate. Some tie the immo-
rality of usury to the supposed immorality of commerce or the profit motive in
general (see profit motive). Others connect it to even more general ideas about
what kind of things one can appropriately own or sell. Traces of most of these ideas
can be found in the modern Islamic debate on usury (see islamic ethics). However,
the seemingly most central tenet of modern so-called Islamic banking is the further
idea that interest essentially is unearned or undeserved income: Since the lender
neither partakes in the actual productive use of the money lent, nor exposes him- or
herself to commercial risk in the same way as the borrower does, the lender cannot
legitimately expect to share in the gains which the lent money may produce.
Influenced by this idea, Islamic banks typically insist that lenders and borrowers
must form a business partnership, or at least somehow share the commercial risk, in
order for fees on loans to be morally legitimate.
The gradual abandonment of the Medieval usury doctrine in the non-Islamic
world during the sixteenth century is typically attributed to a growing
acknowledgment of the great potential for economic growth unleashed by easy
access to loan capital. One could perhaps say that history itself disproved
Aristotle – (easy access to) money indeed proved to have a (semi-)productive use.
In a short text from 1787, Jeremy Bentham (see bentham, jeremy) famously
poked fun at many of the classical anti-usury arguments and defended the practice
of charging interest on loans from a utilitarian standpoint. This has also tended
to be how modern economics treats the issue of interest. It may be noted, however,
that some early economists struggled with attempts to show how interest also can
be deserved: Is it because of the risks involved in lending (that the borrower may
lose all the money and not be able to repay), or the so-called opportunity costs
(that the lender could have put the money to productive use elsewhere), or
perhaps it is because we value present consumption more than future such (the
lender deserves compensation for postponing his or her consumption)?
It seems fair to say that the moral permissibility of charging interest on loans is
generally taken for granted in present-day Western societies. Now, this does not
mean that worries about and allegations of usury have disappeared entirely, however.
As noted earlier, usury today means charging either illegal or morally outrageous
rates of interest – and many people are outraged by payday loans, for example, and
also the way in which rich countries continue to exact interest on their loans from
poor countries (see global distributive justice). Exactly to what extent the
3
classical philosophical debate on usury can inform these allegations, however,

remains unclear.
See also: aquinas, saint thomas; aristotle; bentham, jeremy; ethics in

the hebrew bible; global distributive justice; islamic ethics; luther,
martin; plato; profit motive
REFERENCES
Bentham, Jeremy 1952 [1787]. “A Defence of Usury,” in Werner Stark (ed.), Jeremy Bentham’s
Economic Writings, vol. 1. London: George Allen & Unwin, pp. 121–87.
FURTHER READINGS
Afzal, Mohammad 2005. “Debate over Interest: Islamic Perspective,” Journal of Economic and
Social Research, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 51–69.
Aquinas 1963. Summa Theologica. London: Blackfriars.
Aristotle 1946. The Politics of Aristotle, trans. E. Baker. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Plato 1996. The Republic, trans. R. W. Sterling and W. C. Scott. New York and London:
W. W. Norton.
Visser, Wayne A. M., and MacIntosh, Alastair 1998. “A Short Review of the Historical
Critique of Usury, ” Accounting, Business and Financial History, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 175–89.
Walsh, Adrian, and Lynch, Tony 2008. The Morality of Money: An Exploration in Analytic
Philosophy. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
1
Intergenerational Ethics
Tim Mulgan
Unless something goes drastically wrong in the next few centuries, most of the
people who will ever live are yet to be born. Our actions have little impact on those
who are dead, considerable impact on those currently alive, and potentially enor-
mous impact on those who will live in the future. Our decisions affect who those
future people will be, and even if there will be any future people at all. The threat of
environmental crisis gives us some inkling of the magnitude of our impact on future
generations. Only in the last few decades have moral philosophers really begun to
grapple with the complexities of intergenerational ethics. Underlying their often
technical debates are some of the deepest moral questions. What makes life worth
living? What do we owe to our descendants? How do we balance their needs against
our own?
Philosophical discussion of intergenerational ethics focuses on ways that our
relations with future people differ from relations between contemporaries. There is
only a distinct subject if there is a distinctive subject matter. One difference is that,
while everyday decisions impact on other people, only in intergenerational ethics do
our decisions affect who will begin to exist – and how many people will begin to
exist. Different population or family planning policies bring different sets of people –
and different numbers of people – into existence.
A related feature of intergenerational ethics is a stark lack of reciprocity. While
our decisions affect the lives of future people, their actions have no impact on us. We
can do a great deal for (or to) posterity but posterity cannot do anything for (or to)
us. If we think of morality as a bargain or contract, then it seems we have no
obligations to future people at all.
These distinctive features of intergenerational ethics raise three central questions:
(1) Do we have any obligations to future people? (2) If so, what grounds those obli-
gations? (3) Finally, what obligations do we have? While the third question is clearly
the most urgent from a practical point of view, most philosophical attention has
focused on the first two questions. This essay examines the two dominant traditions:
utilitarianism and social contract. It first asks why intergenerational ethics is such a
recent subject.
Why Did Philosophers Ignore the Future?

Until very recently, moral philosophy concentrated on interactions between con-
temporaries. Future generations were only ever an afterthought. To see why, we first
distinguish three general sets of background assumptions one might bring to the
study of intergenerational ethics.
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee088
2
The Optimistic Model. We will certainly leave future generations better-off than
ourselves, and we ought to do so. The central question is how much better-off we
should leave them, and at what sacrifice to ourselves.
The Stasis Model. We can leave future generations at least as well-off as ourselves,
at some cost to ourselves. We ought to do so. However, we cannot make future
generations better-off than ourselves.
The Pessimistic Model. We cannot avoid leaving future generations worse-off than
ourselves. By making significant sacrifices, we can reduce the extent to which
they are worse-off than us. The crucial questions are: How much worse-off are we
allowed to leave them, and how much are we required to sacrifice?
Until recently, the optimistic model was largely taken for granted by moral and
political philosophers. This optimism enables contemporary political theory to
ignore the future. We need only look after ourselves, do what is best for present
people, and then bequeath our stable liberal democratic institutions, thriving econ-
omy, and scientific advances to future people. What is good for us is also good for
them. There is no conflict between present and future. The classic example is John
Rawls (see rawls, john). Rawls (1971) devotes just 10 pages to justice between gen-
erations; and his only intergenerational ethical question is the just savings problem:
How much better-off should we leave our descendants?
After the oil shocks of the early 1970s, the realization that the standard of living of
the developed nations currently requires the rapid depletion of nonrenewable
resources lead philosophers to explore the implications of the stasis model. Barry
(1978) explored various constraints on the appropriation and consumption of
resources modeled on John Locke’s principle that those who appropriate resources
must leave “as much and as good” for others (see libertarianism; locke, john).
Even if we cannot ensure that future generations are better-off, we should at least not
leave them worse-off – perhaps by compensating them with the provision of supe-
rior technology.
The stasis model raises many practical issues. But it may not seem very theoretically
troubling. If we can leave future people as well-off as ourselves, then obviously we
should do so. However, the stasis model is important, because it raises the possibility
of a conflict between generations. Once we admit that possibility, we need to know
how to think about such conflicts. And we need to talk in terms of obligations to
future people.
One exception to the general optimism of political philosophy has been the
recognition, since Robert Malthus in the early nineteenth century, of the threat that
overpopulation will reduce average welfare. Overpopulation has also featured prom-
inently in philosophical discussion of famine in the developing world, especially in
Africa, since the 1960s. In recent years, debates over carbon emissions, greenhouse
gases, ozone depletion, and the serious threat of climate change have all brought the
pessimistic model to the fore in relation to the developed world (see environmental
ethics). It may already be too late to prevent future generations being worse-off
3
than us. Furthermore, any feasible proposal to minimize the harmful effects of cli-
mate change will involve a major reduction in the standard of living of affluent peo-
ple in developed countries. The pessimistic model raises many difficult and novel
ethical and political questions – and brings a new urgency to the search for founda-
tions and principles in intergenerational ethics.
Utilitarian Intergenerational Ethics

The recent philosophical literature on intergenerational ethics is dominated by
utilitarianism (see utilitarianism). Unlike some competitors, utilitarianism has a
natural and compelling explanation of the existence of obligations to future people.
Morality is based on the promotion of human well-being (see happiness; well-
being). Human lives matter equally wherever – and whenever – they are lived. If
there will be future people, and if our actions can impact on their quality of life, then
we have obligations with respect to them. Those obligations are no different to those
we have regarding present people.
More controversially, utilitarianism also explains why we have an obligation to
ensure that there are future people. If human well-being is a good thing, then it is
good that there be happy people – and not just that any people who happen to exist
are happy. Some opponents regard this implication as a defect of utilitarianism.
They argue that the value of happiness is conditional on the existence of people. If
people exist, then it is good that they be happy – but it is not good that there be
people (Narveson 1967).
Utilitarianism seems, if anything, to give us too many obligations. Given the
enormous numbers of future people, and the significance of our potential impact on
them, it looks as if intergenerational ethics will swamp all other ethical considera-
tions. Intergenerational ethics is thus a very striking case of a perennial problem for
utilitarianism – its demandingness. Consider the analogous case of people who
already exist and live in poverty in distant lands. There are very many such people,
and I am in a position to assist many of them. But then my utilitarian obligations to
them will swamp all my personal projects, and my special obligations to my nearest
and dearest. Some utilitarians respond by trying to develop a moderate utilitarian
intergenerational ethic – taking existing solutions to the demandingness problem
and applying them to future people (Mulgan 2006).
The primary focus of recent utilitarian debate, however, concerns a prior question:
the issue of aggregation. We can introduce this issue via a pair of distinctions intro-
duced in Parfit (1984: 351–441) – generally regarded as the starting point for all
recent intergenerational ethics. Parfit first distinguishes two kinds of moral choice:
same people (where our actions affect what will happen to people in the future, but
not which people will come to exist) and different people (where our actions do affect
who will come to exist in the future).
Utilitarianism treats same people and different people choices identically. What
matters is how happy people are, not who they are. In Parfit’s terminology, utilitar-
ians endorse a no difference view (1984: 367). If A and B are two situations, and if the
4
only difference between them is that A is a different people choice and B is a same
people choice, then there is no moral difference whatsoever between A and B. Under
the no difference view, different people choices do not, per se, present any new ethi-
cal issues. Intergenerational ethics looks easy. We just take our familiar principles
and apply them to new cases. Unfortunately, things are not so simple. As Parfit
notes, we can further divide different people choices into same number (where our
choice affects who exists, but not how many people exist) and different number
(where we decide how many people ever exist). Different number choices raise
many new difficulties. These centre on a seemingly very abstract question. Suppose
you could create any possible world, with any possible population. Which world
should you choose? Because they base morality on the maximization of happiness,
utilitarians obviously need to answer this question (see greatest happiness prin-
ciple). If we aim to produce the best amount of happiness, then we must decide
what counts as the best happiness. Utilitarians need a theory of aggregation – taking
us from the values of individual lives to the value of a population as a whole (see
population).
As far as possible, when constructing a theory of aggregation, utilitarians seek to
remain neutral as to the nature of happiness. In these discussions, “happiness” is
often used as a generic place-holder – it refers to whatever makes life worth living.
Utilitarian aggregation is exclusively about human well-being. This may seem unac-
ceptably parochial, speciesist, or anthropocentric (see anthropocentrism). What
about ecological values or the welfare of animals? However, utilitarian values can be
combined with nonhuman values. If we believe that human well-being is one value,
then we still need an account of aggregation – we can then supplement it by adding
the aggregate value of animal lives, or else we can combine aggregated happiness
with other ecological values. The question of how to balance these different values is
a key issue in environmental ethics.
The utilitarian tradition offers two contrasting ways to aggregate the values of
human lives. On the total view, the best outcome contains the greatest total amount
of happiness. On the average view, the best outcome contains the highest average
level of happiness. The two are not always clearly distinguished. This is under-
standable. In any same-people choice – or any choice where numbers are not at
stake – the two views must coincide. Whatever maximizes the total also maximizes
the average. But the two views can come apart in a different-number choice.
Suppose we must decide between two population policies for our society. One will
lead to a large population with a moderate average level of happiness, while the
other would produce a smaller population with a higher average level of happiness.
We calculate that the former policy offers greater total happiness, and the latter
offers higher average happiness. If we confine our interest to human happiness,
which outcome is better?
The total view is the simplest theory of aggregation. It has also been the most
popular among utilitarian philosophers (economists, by contrast, often favor the
average view). The basic argument for the total view is simple. If we value happiness,
then presumably we should aim to produce as much happiness as possible. The most
5
famous problem for the total view is an inference that goes back to Henry Sidgwick
(see sidgwick, henry). It takes its modern name from Parfit (1984: 388).
The repugnant conclusion (see repugnant conclusion). For any possible popula-
tion of at least 10 billion people, all with a very high quality of life, there must be some
much larger imaginable population whose existence, if other things are equal, would
be better, even though its members have lives that are barely worth living.
To see why the total view implies the repugnant conclusion, begin with a world
where 10 billion people all have extremely good lives. Call it A. Imagine a second
world, with twice as many people, each of whom is more than half as happy as the
people in A. Call this new world B. Total happiness in B exceeds that in A. Now
repeat this process until we reach a world with a vast population whose lives are
barely worth living. Call this world Z. As each step increases total happiness, Z must
be better than A.
Parfit (1984: 390) finds this conclusion “intrinsically repugnant.” If the repugnant
conclusion is a consequence of the total view, then the total view is unacceptable.
The repugnant conclusion is one of the organizing problems of contemporary inter-
generational ethics – most philosophers begin their discussions by saying how they
will deal with it. They either reject Parfit’s intuition that A is better than Z or they
reject the total view. The repugnant conclusion is a classic example where a thought
experiment is alleged to provide a decisive counterexample to a philosophical view.
It is worth exploring both in its own right, and also to illustrate the main approaches
in contemporary intergenerational ethics.
Some philosophers reject intuitions altogether. What does it matter if a conclusion
“appears” repugnant, so long as it follows from well-established premises? These
philosophers then face the challenge of explaining what could ground ethical prem-
ises other than a moral intuition of some kind. Most often, when philosophers say
that they reject intuitions, this means that they reject some intuitions in favor of
others. Nonutilitarians have the option of rejecting all intuitions about the compara-
tive value of possible futures. They have no need to decide whether A is better or
worse than Z. However, utilitarians do not have this option. Without a theory of
aggregation, their moral theory lacks foundation. A more modest view – one that is
open to utilitarians – is to reject all intuitions regarding very large numbers. For
instance, Broome (2004: 57–8) argues that “we have no reason to trust anyone’s intu-
itions about very large numbers, however excellent their philosophy. Even the best
philosophers cannot get an intuitive grasp of, say, tens of billions of people.” We need
not abandon intergenerational ethics – nor abandon moral intuitions altogether. We
should rely instead on a theory built on our everyday intuitions. Broome argues that
the best such theory is the total view.
A less radical response to any alleged counterexample is simply to reject the
specific intuition underlying it. In the case of the repugnant conclusion, Ng (1989)
objects that we privilege our own perspective and are guilty of “misplaced partiality.”
We picture the A-lives as similar to our own, and imagine the A-people choosing
between A and Z. If we were more impartial, we might see that Z contains more total
value than A, and is thus better.
6
Another general response is to elaborate the thought experiment – highlighting

suppressed background assumptions that color our intuitions. Many proponents
of the total view defend the repugnant conclusion by examining the Z-world more
closely. By definition, the Z-lives are “barely worth living.” So we need to know
what such lives are like. On the total view, we should create an extra life whenever
doing so would raise the total happiness – whenever the extra life itself is worth
living. If we imagine a numerical scale of well-being, then the lives in Z must be
above zero.
Think about what it means to say that a life is “barely worth living,” as the
Z-lives are meant to be. This phrase can evocate a life of frustration and pain – one
that we would rather not live at all. But, if the Z-lives are like that, then the total
view does not conclude that Z is better than A. Parfit (1986b: 148) describes the
Z-lives as consisting of nothing but muzak and potatoes. If they are human lives,
then it is natural to suppose that such lives also contain negative elements – such
as boredom, frustration, or lack of accomplishment and friendship. These features
reduce the value of a life. A friendless underachieving human is badly off in a way
that a friendless slug is not. We may well feel that a muzak and potatoes life is well
below zero.
Utilitarianism says that we should create future people only if (future) aggregate
human happiness is positive. If the zero level is so high that most people fall below
it – or if the minority who fall below zero have very miserable lives – then it might
be better if there were no future people. Utilitarianism would then tell us to bring the
human story to a close.
Some utilitarians do defend the total view. But others agree with Parfit’s intuition,
and seek alternatives. The simplest is the average view. This easily avoids the repug-
nant conclusion, as A has a higher average happiness than Z. If we average over
everyone alive in the future, then the average view tells us to kill anyone whose hap-
piness is below average. To avoid this repellent consequence, we average over all
those who will ever live. Killing someone typically makes their life go worse; it does
not make it the case that they never existed.
The average view faces other objections that are harder to dissolve. Many of these
are variants of the hermit problem. Suppose everyone in the cosmos is extremely
happy. On a distant uninhabited planet, we create a new person. His life, while very
good, is slightly below the cosmic average. The average view says that we have made
things worse; and that what we ought to do depends on the happiness of people in
distant corners of the cosmos, with whom our hermit will never interact – as the
value of those distant lives affects the cosmic average. Both claims seem intuitively
implausible. As Parfit (1984: 420) puts it, the mere addition of lives worth living can-
not make things worse; and our moral decisions should not depend on how happy
the ancient Egyptians were.
The hermit problem plays a similar dialectical role to the repugnant conclusion.
Defenders of the average view have the same broad options. They can reject the
intuition or deny that this result follows from their theory. One popular response is
to limit our calculation of the average happiness to those affected by our actions – thus
7
removing the need to take account of the welfare of people in the distant past or on
distant planets.
Another popular account of aggregation is the lexical view (see incommensura-
bility [and incomparability]). Suppose you enjoy both Mozart and muzak.
Someone offers you a choice between one day of Mozart and as much muzak as you
like. You opt for the former, because no amount of muzak could match the smallest
amount of Mozart. Philosophers would say you believe that Mozart is lexically
superior to muzak.
Lexicality avoids the repugnant conclusion. Suppose the creatures in A and Z
belong to different species. Perhaps A contains flourishing human beings while Z is
full of slugs. A is better, because 10 billion human lives are more valuable than any
number of slug lives. To return to our original comparison, a lexical view of human
well-being would hold that 10 billion flourishing human lives trump any number of
human lives that are barely worth living. A is better than Z.
The most worrying problem for any lexical account is Parfit’s continuum objection:
Mozart and Muzak … seem to be in quite different categories. But there is a fairly
smooth continuum between these two. Though Haydn is not as good as Mozart, he
is very good. And there is other music which is not far below Haydn’s, other music
not far below this, and so on. Similar claims apply to the … other things which
give most to the value of life. … Since this is so, it may be hard to defend the view
that what is best has more value than any amount of what is nearly as good.
(Parfit 1986b: 164)
The challenge for the lexical view is to tell us where to draw the line – and why.
The philosophical literature contains many other theories of aggregation.
However, these all face similar problems to the three theories we have discussed.
One focus of debate is Parfit’s mere addition paradox, which shows that we cannot
avoid the repugnant conclusion and at the same time claim that the mere addition of
happy lives never makes things worse. Temkin (1987) concludes that it is impossible
to construct an intuitively plausible theory, because our intuitions themselves are
inconsistent (see intransitivity). Dasgupta (1994) and Roberts (2002) propose
relativized models of value, where we evaluate different possible worlds relative to
the interests of the people who live in them. Perhaps A is better than B from one
perspective, while B is better from another.
Intergenerational Social Contracts

One influential strand of Western political philosophy pictures both morality and
justice as a contract between rational individuals (see social contract). But how
can we bargain with future people when their very existence is in our hands? If moral-
ity depends on contract, then surely there can be no intergenerational ethics. Some are
prepared to bite the bullet. We may choose to take future people into account. And, if
some of our contemporaries happen to care about future people (perhaps their own
8
distant descendants), then we owe it to those contemporaries to consider the interests

of those future people. But we have no obligations to future people (Heyd 1992). Con-
sider a time bomb that devastates people in the distant future but has no direct impact
until then. Suppose the people who will be affected are so far in the future that no one
alive today cares for them. Is it wrong to plant a time bomb? If so, is this as wrong as
planting a bomb that would cause the same devastation today?
Here we seem to reach intuitive bedrock. Utilitarians advocate strict temporal
neutrality. Planting a time bomb is just as wrong as planting a bomb that explodes
today. Others may feel that planting a time bomb violates no obligations – even if
they would not plant one themselves. Others fall somewhere in between. Planting a
time bomb is wrong – but not as wrong as planting a present bomb. Future people
matter, but not as much as present people.
This intermediate view is captured in economics by the social discount rate –
where we discount costs or benefits that will occur in the future (see economics
and ethics). Social discount rates have enormous impact in the long term. Even a
modest discount can mean that it is not economic to spend a few dollars today to
avert a global catastrophe in five hundred years’ time. To take one striking example:
whether cost–benefit analysis concludes that the future benefit of preventing climate
change is worth the present cost, depends very largely on our choice of discount rate.
Everyone agrees we should discount for uncertainty – or for such things as the
possibility that humanity will be wiped out by an asteroid strike. But some econo-
mists go future. They apply a pure time preference – future happiness counts for less
simply because it is in the future. The justification is that this reflects how people
actually make decisions about the future. We do discount future benefits – both to
ourselves and to others. Others disagree. For instance, Cowen and Parfit (1992)
argue that a pure time preference has no place in intergenerational ethics.
Suppose we want to construct an intergenerational social contract. We might first
note that overlapping generations do interact and bargain. We can then extend our
contract indefinitely into the future, using what Gosseries (2001) dubs the zipper
argument. Suppose we have only three generations: G1, G2, and G3. G1 and G3 do
not interact, but G2 interacts with both G1 and G3. G2 know that they will have to
bargain with G3. So G2 will take G3’s interests into account when bargaining with
G1 – and ask G1 not to leave a bomb that will devastate G3.
This ingenious argument is problematic. Standard social contracts assume
self-interest. But then why will G2 object to a time bomb that will impact only on
G3? On the contrary, G2 might welcome the bomb, as it strengthens G2’s position
against G3 (“If you don’t give us what we want, we will not defuse the time bomb”).
G2 would then ask G1 to plant such a bomb – and so time bombs would be morally
desirable (Mulgan 2006: 28–32).
Many philosophers conclude that a self-interested contract is a poor foundation
for morality. They prefer hypothetical or idealized contracts. The classic recent
example is Rawls (1971), who asks what people would agree to under certain ideal-
ized circumstances. Rawls seeks principles of justice everyone can recognize as a
fair basis for mutual interaction. These principles are chosen in an original position,
9
from behind a veil of ignorance. The choosers know what their society will look
like if any given principle is adopted, but they do not know who they will be in that
society. Imagine a very simple society with two groups: rich and poor. What prin-
ciples would a rational person choose if they did not know whether they were rich
or poor?
In Rawls (1971: 284–93), the parties to the original position belong to the same
generation. Unless they care about future people, intergenerational justice will not
feature in their principles. Nothing we do to future people – however devastating –
could count as unjust. As an egalitarian, this conclusion would be unacceptable for
Rawls. He must accommodate future generations. Rawls originally added a motiva-
tional assumption. Those in the original position care about their descendants, at
least for the next generation or two. This solution is ad hoc. Why allow concern for
descendants, when we allow no concern for contemporaries? Furthermore, any real-
istic motivational assumption only works for a few generations. It thus cannot
remove the threat of time bombs. Rawls focuses on savings from one generation to
the next, not on longer term environmental or resource issues. This focus was
controversial even at the time (1971) – and seems much more problematic now.
Rawls (1993: 273–4) abandoned this solution, and stipulated instead that those in
the original position must behave in a way that they would want previous genera-
tions to have behaved. Total self-sacrifice is ruled out, as the cost of our sacrifice
outweighs the benefits of the sacrifices of others. Total selfishness also fails, as the
damage of earlier selfishness outweighs our own freedom to behave as we wish. We
need something in between. Unfortunately for Rawls, it is very hard to say what that
something will be.
A more intriguing option for Rawls is to extend the veil of ignorance, so that
people don’t know what generation they belong to (Barry 1989: 179–203). Each gen-
eration then cares for the interests of all. But now we must decide who participates
in this new original position. Before the present generation decide how they will
live, there is no fact of the matter as to who will exist in the future. We thus have two
alternatives. The first is to extend the veil of ignorance to include everyone who will
ever live. We do know we will live at some point, but we do not know when. This
leads to problems analogous to those faced by the total view. The parties will seek to
maximize their chances of existing even if the result is Parfit’s Z-world. The other
alternative includes everyone who might exist. Now we do not even know whether
we will ever exist. But this leads to problems similar to those facing the average view,
as the parties will opt for a tiny population with the highest possible quality of life.
Like utilitarianism, the social contract seems to need radical revision if it is to
ground intergenerational ethics. It is thus no surprise that philosophers seek
alternatives to both utilitarianism and social contract. They seek to ground inter-
generational ethics in something other than the welfare of individual human beings,
or the interactions of contemporaries. Perhaps our obligations are owed not to future
people but to past people – who sacrificed so that we could thrive, and would expect
us to do the same for those who will come after. Our obligations regarding future
people would then actually be debts owed to our ancestors. Or perhaps our moral
10
obligation is to a community that persists through the generations – or perhaps even

to humanity as a whole. One early exploration of the various resources available to
communitarian intergenerational ethics is de Shalit (1994; see communitarianism).
These solutions remove the distinctiveness of intergenerational ethics, by focusing
on features it shares with relations between contemporaries.
Person-Affecting Principles
The search for foundations for intergenerational ethics is problematic. An alternative
is to look instead for concrete principles of intergenerational ethics. One place to
start is with a set of principles rejected by Parfit (1984: 351–79). Parfit claims that
different people choices are more frequent than we think; and that traditional moral
theories are designed for same-people choices, and must be amended for different-
people choices. These claims constitute the nonidentity problem, so called because
those who exist in one possible future are not (numerically) identical to those who
exist in another. To illustrate the nonidentity problem, consider an example adapted
from Parfit (1984: 371). Suppose we must choose an energy policy. Should we bury
nuclear waste in a desert, or opt for a safer alternative? Different policies produce
different patterns of migration. Suppose we choose the riskier option. It leads to a
catastrophe in several centuries’ time. Intuitively, we have done something wrong.
But now take any particular individual killed by that catastrophe. It is almost certain
that she herself would never have existed if we had chosen the other policy. So no
particular person is worse-off than she herself would have been if we had chosen
differently.
Parfit (1984: 362) also offers a less dramatic example, where we choose between
depleting and conserving natural resources. Those who live in the future are
worse-off under depletion, but they still have lives worth living. Because they would
not have existed under a policy of conservation, they seem to have no complaint.
Nonidentity is thus a significant problem for any person-affecting principle – any
principle that says an action can only be wrong if some particular person is worse off
than they would otherwise have been. In a different people choice, whatever we do,
no particular individual is worse-off than she would otherwise have been – as she
would otherwise not have existed, and we cannot compare existence with nonexist-
ence. No person-affecting theory can ever condemn any different people choice,
however horrific the resulting lives. Even if we create a person whose life contains
nothing but excruciating agony, we have done nothing wrong.
The nonidentity problem has implications for many areas of practical ethics. In
medical ethics, it arises whenever any individual reproductive choice or medical
procedure affects the identity of the resulting child. For instance, many people
object to new reproductive technologies on the grounds that they harm the result-
ing children. But, if they affect a child’s genetic makeup, and if genetic identity is a
component of individual identity, then such technologies generate different peo-
ple choices – and the resulting children would not otherwise have existed. If their
lives are worth living, how can they be said to be harmed (see genetic testing;
11
reproductive technology; savior siblings; wrongful life)? The noniden-

tity problem also arises in discussions of reparations for historical injustice. Should
present people be compensated for some past wrong if they would not have existed
in an alternative future where the injustice did not occur? Can the descendents of
those who suffered from slavery or colonization consistently complain about
injustices without which they themselves would not exist? Or do they need to
make their claims on behalf of groups that would otherwise have existed (see
reparations)?
The nonidentity problem is often used to defend utilitarianism. Because it
adopts a no difference view, utilitarianism is not person-affecting. It can easily say
what is wrong with Parfit’s risky policy, or with any action that creates less happy
people. Others seek to defend the person-affecting view. They first argue that cre-
ating a person who experiences nothing but agony is wrong. Such a life is not
worth living. And we can reasonably say that such a life is worse for that person
than nonexistence – even though there is no sense in which nonexistence would
have been better. This enables person-affecting principles to condemn the creation
of a person whose life is below zero (McMahan 2001).
Many person-affecting theorists seek stronger obligations. One common
defense is as follows. The main intuition underlying any person-affecting theory
is that an action is only wrong if someone is wronged. But a person can be
wronged even if it is not the case that they would otherwise have been worse-off
(Woodward 1986). The classic example is when a person is prevented from
boarding a plane because of his race, and the plane goes on to crash. This person
has been wronged – even though he would otherwise have died. A person can be
wronged by an act leading to her creation, even if her life is worth living and she
would otherwise not have existed at all. For instance, if a couple choose to have a
disabled child simply to develop their own capacity for compassion, then they
wrong that child by treating her as merely a means to their own ends – even if her
life is overall worth living. Parfit (1986a) replies that if a future person has a life
that is overall worth living, then she will waive her rights – precisely because her
only alternative was not to exist at all. Debate then centers on whether rights are
the appropriate moral idiom for this situation, and whether such rights can really
be waived. Person-affecting theorists are also challenged by cases such as Parfit’s
depletion versus conservation, where it is much more controversial whether any
rights are violated – especially if depletion leaves future people better-off than
many present people. (On the other hand, the anti-person-affecting intuition
is less compelling in this case. Is depletion really wrong when it leaves future
people well-off?)
An alternative approach is to reinterpret person-affecting principles so that
they apply directly to different people choices. Kumar (2003) gives the example
of principles governing the way a parent should treat her child. What matters
here is the relationship between parent and child, not the identity of the child.
Suppose a prospective mother decides not to take a drug that would give her a
disabled child. Pausing to take the drug would have changed the identity of her
12
child, so she faced a different person choice. She can still say, “I didn’t do that
because it would have harmed my child.” In this case, the phrase “my child” cov-
ers both of the two (numerically distinct) children she might have had. Kumar
embeds his broader person-affecting principle in a contractualist framework,
thereby offering another possible foundation for intergenerational ethics (see
contractualism).
Both the foundations and the content of intergenerational ethics are sources of
controversy. Intergenerational ethics is a comparatively new area of philosophical
inquiry, and is thus likely to see significant developments in the future.
See also: anthropocentrism; communitarianism; contractualism;

economics and ethics; environmental ethics; genetic testing;
greatest happiness principle; happiness; incommensurability
(and incomparability); intransitivity; libertarianism; locke, john;
population; rawls, john; reparations; reproductive technology;
repugnant conclusion; savior siblings; sidgwick, henry; social
contract; utilitarianism; well-being; wrongful life
REFERENCES
Barry, Brian 1978. “Circumstances of Justice and Future Generations,” in R. Sikora and
B. Barry (eds.), Obligations to Future Generations. Philadelphia: Temple University
Press, pp. 204–48.
Barry, Brian 1989. Theories of Justice. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Broome, John 2004. Weighing Lives. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cowen, Tyler, and Derek Parfit 1992. “Against the Social Discount Rate,” in Peter Laslett and
James Fishkin (eds.), Justice between Age Groups and Generations. New Haven: Yale
Dasgupta, Partha 1994. “Savings and Fertility: Ethical Issues,” Philosophy and Public Affairs,
vol. 23, pp. 99–127.
Gosseries, Axel 2001. “What Do We Owe the Next Generation(s)?” Loyola of Los Angeles Law
Review, vol. 35, pp. 293–354.
Heyd, David 1992. Genethics: Moral Issues in the Creation of People. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
Kumar, Rahul 2003. “Who Can Be Wronged?” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 31, pp. 99–118.
McMahan, Jeff 2001. “Wrongful Life: Paradoxes in the Morality of Causing People to Exist,”
in John Harris (ed.), Bioethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 445–75.
Mulgan, Tim 2006. Future People. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Narveson, Jan 1967. “Utilitarianism and New Generations,” Mind, vol. 76, pp. 62–72.
Ng, Yew-Kwan 1989. “What Should We Do About Future Generations? Impossibility of
Parfit’s Theory X,” Economics and Philosophy, vol. 5, pp. 235–53.
Parfit, Derek 1986a. “Comments,” Ethics, vol. 96, pp. 832–72.
Parfit, Derek 1986b. “Overpopulation and the Quality of Life,” in Peter Singer (ed.), Applied
Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 145–64.
13
Rawls, John 1993. Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.
Roberts, Melinda 2002. “A New Way of Doing the Best We Can: Person-Based
Consequentialism and the Equality Problem,” Ethics, vol. 112, pp. 315–50.
Shalit, Avner de 1994. Why Posterity Matters: Environmental Policies and Future Generations.
Oxford: Routledge.
Temkin, Larry 1987. “Intransitivity and the Mere Addition Paradox,” Philosophy and Public
Woodward, James 1986. “The Non-Identity Problem,” Ethics, vol. 96, pp. 804–31.
FURTHER READINGS
Arrhenius, Gustaf 1999. “Mutual Advantage Contractarianism and Future Generations,”
Theoria, vol. 1999, pp. 25–35.
Barry, Brian 1977. “Justice between Generations,” in P. M. S. Hacker and J. Raz (eds.), Law,
Morality and Society: Essays in Honour of H. L. A. Hart. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, pp. 268–84.
Feinberg, Joel 1986. “Wrongful Life and the Counterfactual Element in Harming,” Social
Policy and Philosophy, vol. 4, pp. 145–78.
Fotion, N., and J. C. Heller (eds.) 1997. Contingent Future Persons: On the Ethics of Deciding
Who Will Live, or Not, in the Future. Dordrecht: Springer.
Griffin, James 1986. Well-Being. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hurka, T. 1983. “Value and Population Size,” Ethics, vol. 93, pp. 496–507.
Kavka, Gregory 1982. “The Paradox of Future Individuals,” Philosophy and Public Affairs,
vol. 11, pp. 93–112.
Meyer, Lukas 2008. “Intergenerational Justice,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. At
http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/justice-intergenerational/, accessed
December 27, 2011.
Roberts, Melinda 1998. Child Versus Childmaker: Future Persons and Present Duties in Ethics
and the Law. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield.
Roberts, Melinda, and David Wasserman (eds.) 2009. Harming Future Persons: Ethics,
Genetics and the Nonidentity Problem. Dordrecht: Springer.
Ryberg, Jesper, and Torbjorn Tannsjo (eds.) 2004. The Repugnant Conclusion: Essays on
Population Ethics. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Steinbock, Bonnie 1986. “The Logical Case for ‘Wrongful Life’,” Hastings Centre Report,
vol. 16, pp. 15–20.
Vallentyne, Peter 1993. “Utilitarianism and Infinite Utility,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy,
vol. 71, pp. 212–17.
1
Journalistic Ethics
Christopher Meyers
What does it mean to be an ethical journalist? It is tempting to answer this by simply

and approvingly citing the Society of Professional Journalists’ (SPJ) Code of Ethics,
whose Preamble describes ethical journalism as follows:
Public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy.

The duty of the journalist is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair
and comprehensive account of events and issues. Conscientious journalists from all
media and specialties strive to serve the public with thoroughness and honesty.
Grand words, all, and ones that seem to capture most persons’ sense of ethical jour-
nalism and to serve, thus, as a sufficient foundation for journalistic ethics.
Such a simple appeal to the Code might have worked in 1995 and if the target
audience was restricted to the United States and most of Western Europe, where
journalists have indeed long seen themselves as having a duty to further justice and
democracy. But since many committed and responsible reporters worldwide do not
share those sentiments, and since even in the West the intervening years have
produced a sweeping transformation of news media, we need a different way of
making sense of ethical journalism.
Journalism Transformed
The SPJ Code was developed for, and for some time quite aptly applied to, the West’s
so-called “mainstream press.” That characterization, now often used with scorn,
references a type of news rooted in a distinct financial model – one heavily reliant on
advertising – and comprised putatively independent and “objective” (see journal-
istic objectivity) reporters striving to fulfill their Fourth Estate function as watch-
dogs over government and other powerful social institutions.
The transformation, driven by a confluence of economic, technological, and ideo-
logical factors, was caused by, and resulted in, a proliferation of alternative news
sources, many of which explicitly reject the mainstream model. News is not, they
say, and never has been in fact independent or objective; rather, it is and has been
filtered by economic and political interests, with reporters, and especially editors,
acting as the gatekeepers for those interests. The associated hierarchical editing
model serves to stifle rather than to promote good reporting, some such critics
argue, since in reality those editors are not just enforcing accuracy and good writing,
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee089
2
but filtering the news and thereby establishing and maintaining an agenda, often a
corporate agenda.
Many of the alternative news sources (e.g., blogging and other online modes, talk
radio, and cable television), by contrast, are explicitly ideological, reflecting political,
religious, and cultural worldviews. And, once scorned by the mainstream press, they
are increasingly recognized for their quality and important social contributions –
see for example Pro Publica, recipient of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for investigative
reporting.
One way of understanding the transformation is as an affirmation of what critical
theory scholars have been arguing for years: news outlets, and the businesses behind
them, are not and cannot be independent of the social, economic, and political con-
text in which they reside. Such outlets, and the news they produce, rather, both
define and are defined by that context.
All these forces have also motivated a transformation of journalism ethics:
traditional craft norms like independence and traditional objectivity are not always
practiced by these emerging news sources; or, better, those norms must reside along-
side the ones attached to new media.
Who Is a Journalist?
Concomitant with the transformation has been a kind of identity crisis: whether
one is a journalist used to be determined by whether one worked for a recognized
news outlet, like the New York Times, Reuters, the BBC, or the Akron Beacon Jour-
nal – in part because such reporters were committed to the craft norms described
in the SPJ code. Any debate over status was attached to how to characterize those
who worked for such tabloid outlets as The National Enquirer or News of the
World; and, until recently, mainstream reporters have been only too happy to
exclude these writers from the journalistic brethren. While, again, the sharp lines
are starting to shift – see, for example, the British Press Award’s decision to
include tabloid reporters among its winners (resulting in a particularly raucous
2005 ceremony [Wilby 2005; Greenslade 2005]) and by, in the United States, The
National Enquirer receiving two 2010 Pulitzer nominations (for its reporting on
former presidential candidate John Edwards’s extramarital affair) – the shifts are
often seen as exceptions that help prove the rule: real journalists work for real
news outlets.
Given, however, the profoundly changing nature of the business of journalism
(Edmonds 2010) – shrinking newsrooms and folding newspapers in the midst of
thriving online and cable sources – it no longer makes sense to insist on where one
works being a necessary condition, even if some such news outlets surely still count
as a sufficient one. It is easy enough to recognize New York Times or Reuters
Afghanistan reporters as journalists; what about the blogger with a clear and explicit
political agenda? Or a similarly focused radio personality like Rush Limbaugh in the
United States? Or Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks? The “where” answer leaves
us hanging in all such cases, as evidenced by a Los Angeles Times editorial giving an
3
affirmative answer in Assange’s case: “Is Assange a journalist? … [T]he answer seems
to us to be yes. In principle, we can’t see a difference between WikiLeaks and one of
the newspapers that published the information” (Los Angeles Times 2010).
What about, then, how one works, whether one adheres to established craft
norms? Since those norms are, as noted, undergoing significant change and, fur-
thermore, never applied to the press worldwide, the obvious question is: Which
craft norms? The mainstream norms urged by the SPJ Code won’t do, since the
criteria must be able to account for both the mainstream model and the reporter
who is committed to furthering a specific political or religious or economic interest
– so long as either meets the basic conditions of responsible news reporting (as
outlined below).
To suggest, in fact, that the reporter with an agenda is not ethical – maybe is not
even a reporter – is at best parochial, more probably condescending. A significant
percentage of reporters – maybe even a majority – are independent bloggers or work
for what are widely regarded to be news outlets, in countries around the world,
doing great news reporting – reporting that accurately and informatively covers
matters vital to its consumers, but that also pushes an agenda.
Analyzing the Criteria

The problem with SPJ’s standards is they are in main part empirically grounded,
describing what mainstream journalists in fact do and did, with insufficient connec-
tion to the essential features of responsible journalism. Such essential features,
emerging from a conceptual evaluation of the fundamental meaning and purpose of
journalism, combined with a careful analysis of the facts of journalistic practice,
serve to distinguish ethical journalism from all other forms of information commu-
nication. Michael Davis refers to this process as “philosophical” or “Socratic,” as
opposed to a strictly empirical or “sociological” approach (Davis 2010: 94–8; see
professional ethics).
Advocating for such core features is admittedly risky business and helps account
for journalists’ long resistance to adopting the credentialing model taken by traditional
professions like law and medicine. It is not just that the nature of news gathering and
reporting does not lend itself to a set-in-stone method; it is also that journalism’s
ethos, at least in the West, has reveled in being authority-challenging outsiders –
challenging even of internal authority telling them “this is the way you must do jour-
nalism.” The craft has thus preferred, instead, to inculcate its ethical norms through
education and apprenticeship. This approach served fine when cub reporters were
working their way up in an established newsroom, but now?
With the breakdown of the mainstream model, with so many reporters working
independently with no ties to a newsroom, there must be some way to distinguish
those doing real journalism from the 12-year-old kid loading YouTube videos, or,
more importantly, from the radio personality whose first and foremost motive is
political influence (and, correspondingly, ratings) and who is seemingly comforta-
ble playing fast and loose with the facts.
4
Establishing standards would thus serve two purposes. First, they would provide
the ethical framework for anyone wanting to be a responsible journalist; he would
know the values that drive his enterprise. And, second, they would present an evalu-
ative mechanism for consumers to judge whether a purported news provider is, in
fact, engaged in responsible journalism. (They could also potentially provide guid-
ance for who qualifies for Shield Law protections in the United States, under either
existing state laws or proposed Federal legislation.)
The list below is an attempt to identify the necessary elements that define ethical
journalism, indeed that identify journalism as such. “As such” because journalism is
an inherently normative enterprise. Its basic activities are undertaken, justified, and
often legally protected because they are directed toward defending and promoting a
basic human good: access to the information necessary for persons to achieve per-
sonal and political autonomy, to be safe from human or natural threat, to enhance
their community, and to encourage opportunities to do well for others. Other com-
munication activities (e.g., storytelling through literature or film) may achieve such
values incidentally, and journalism does not achieve it with every account, but jour-
nalism is the only one that has such normativity as its fundamental purpose. Built
into the very meaning of journalism, thus, is a commitment to the responsible
acquisition and dissemination of important information, that is, information that
enables citizens to make intelligent choices on a range of matters of concern, from
where to go to dinner that night, to who to vote for for president. This does not
mean all journalists always act ethically, but it does mean that to be a journalist is to
be fundamentally committed to its structural norms.
Achievement of the second purpose for these standards – giving consumers an
evaluative tool – clearly places demands on the news consumer. Providers can give
plenty of lip service to their commitment to the structural norms, but the only way
to accurately judge that dedication is by carefully watching what they do, day in and
day out. Responsible journalism is thus a mutually developed and reinforced
enterprise (Wyatt 2010).
The Essential Principles of Journalism

Respect others and promote the free flow of information
Treat others as free, autonomous, and moral persons who must not be used merely
as tools for personal gain, and strive to create the conditions in which such persons
can thrive. Among those conditions is access to the information necessary for
understanding and exploring choices and for avoiding human and natural threats.
Arguably the first principle of all moral systems in that it provides the ground for
why we should care about whether we hurt others, benefit them, treat them justly,
and so on, respect for persons also serves as a foundational principle for journalism,
justifying its commitment to, and insistence upon, the free exchange of information.
At the same time, it places a strict – and routinely violated – constraint on journalistic
5
activities not to use subjects and sources (or other journalists) merely as resources
for information, without regard for how such usage impacts them, in particular for
how it impacts their privacy. Respecting others, in short, imposes upon journalists a
strict duty to treat sources and subjects fairly, to present their words and circum-
stances in the most truthful light, and not to engage in harm-causing activities
unless no less-damaging option exists.
The principle also demands that journalists treat news consumers with due
consideration, as persons in need of vital and interesting information, who deserve
to have their interests and intellect respected, and with awareness that they will be
directly impacted – for better and for worse – by the power of news media.
Note, however, the principle prohibits treating others “merely as tools.” The quali-
fier, coming straight out of Kant (see kant, immanuel), is crucial, since we regularly
and appropriately use one another for mutual benefit or even to achieve a singular
purpose. For example, reporters routinely use sources as founts of information, or
public figures as the “thing” that is newsworthy. To do so “merely,” however, is to
treat them wholly as an object, to not give them free opportunity not to participate
in the news making activity, either by refusing to be a source or by choosing not to
be in the public realm.
Use of others is not only unavoidable; it often promotes great ethical relationships
(think tutor–student); disrespectful use of others, objectifying them into a thing that
you manipulate for personal gain, is, however, nearly always unethical. (“Nearly”
because none of these principles is absolute: one can always come up with
circumstances in which a greater moral good – e.g., rooting out widespread civic
corruption – justifies the objectification of someone – e.g., actively lying to a corrupt
a civic leader to get her to reveal damning information.)
Strive to fulfill the public’s right to know and be independent

A clear corollary to the first principle, this one creates a duty for reporters to respon-
sibly engage in the activities that help make it possible for free, autonomous persons
to thrive. The analysis above explaining journalism’s normative foundations, in
fact, makes the first part of this duty redundant: journalism’s very purpose and
justification lie in acquiring and disseminating information vital to protecting and
promoting basic human goods, including autonomy.
Achieving this most effectively, though, requires a level of independence neces-
sary for sufficiently critical assessment of the community’s sources of power. This
does not mean a legitimate news outlet could not be supported, even wholly, by the
government or by powerful economic entities: Freedom House rankings for free
press typically rank some government-supported news sources as freer than, for
example, commercial news in the United States (Freedom House 2010). It does,
however, mean the outlet must still be willing and able to critically report on those
to whom it is beholden, and the more dependent upon power brokers the news
outlet is, the harder it will obviously be to achieve such a critical stance.
6
Be accurate, be honest, and keep promises

Subsumed under the general principle of fidelity, these norms serve as the ground for
the trust necessary for developing and maintaining social relationships – personal,
professional, and commercial. Such trust, typically characterized as credibility, is
news media’s stock in trade: if news consumers cannot count on reports to be credible,
their appropriate response is “Why bother?”
Accuracy in its simplest form – correctly capturing the facts of the situation – is
vital, but also only the minimum: the responsible journalist also seeks a truthful
account. Accuracy gets the facts right; truthful gets the right facts right. Truthful
journalism provides the context that makes accurate facts meaningful; it provides
multiple perspectives and does so discerningly so that the reader or viewer can make
sense of them. Such truthful reporting requires honesty in the obvious sense of
never providing information one knows to be false or misleading, as well as in the
richer sense that one must move beyond mere balance to provide contextually valid
and meaningful information.
Promise-keeping is also of course a basic element of morality, found in such
society-affirming commitments as contracts, vows, and courtroom swearing. For
journalists, it affords the grounds on which source relationships, especially con-
fidential sources, are established and maintained. Good journalism is dependent
on information that can sometimes be obtained only from sources who insist on
confidentiality. The most famous example of this is Mark Felt, who, as Bob
Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s confidential informant “Deep Throat,” made
possible the revelations of Watergate, eventually leading to US President Richard
Nixon’s resignation from office. Although journalism’s craft norms typically
regard maintenance of source confidentiality as an inviolable commitment, any
number of examples reveal it should instead be considered as prima facie binding
only (Quinn 2010). Furthermore, anonymous sourcing is in direct tension with
credibility and thus the conscientious reporter strives to find sources willing to
go on the record.
Be accountable and transparent

The responsible person not only recognizes her duties and strives to fulfill them; she
also accepts responsibility when she errs; she is accountable for her actions, good or
bad. Exemplified in news outlets’ prominent acknowledgment of mistakes and in
quick online corrections (with explanation), the call for accountability is also a key
motivation behind the growing “transparency” movement, that is, in the commit-
ment to give readers and viewers details on the processes behind news gathering and
reporting (Aspen Institute 2005; Smolkin 2006).
Do not harm others

Avoid causing gratuitous or unwarranted harm, including physical, psychological,
emotional, and economic damage.
7
Again present in all moral systems, “avoid harming others” is also the least
abstract principle: one doesn’t need a metaphysical theory of personhood or auton-
omy; one just needs to understand what it means to harm – to be harmed and to
harm others. On the other hand, it is often impossible to act ethically and not cause
harm – it may be that all ethical dilemmas, by definition, produce harm even when
properly resolved – and this is certainly true of journalism: good reporting rou-
tinely hurts people. In its revelations of corruption, of abuse of power, of criminal
behavior or charges, and of natural disasters, good reporting invades persons’
privacy, damages reputations, emotionally disturbs, and forces us to face circum-
stances we might rather not know about. Imagine, thus, the damage caused by bad
reporting.
Given such often unavoidable harm, journalists have two strict duties. They must,
first, ensure the harm is warranted by a resulting moral good (e.g., protecting inno-
cents or promoting justice). And, second, they must strive to mitigate the harm (e.g.,
by being cautious in their use of accusatory language or by giving follow-up exonerat-
ing or rectifying stories equal play). These duties seem straightforward enough – do
what you can not to harm others – but for journalists faced with deadlines and
immersed in an ethos that exalts “getting the story,” acting upon them is often no
simple task.
That ethos also makes it easier for journalists to avoid the hard, harm-justifying
work and instead make a facile leap to their fallback craft norms: “We have a right to
cover it and the public has a right to know.” Both of these are in fact vital principles
(see above), but a simplistic appeal to them rarely provides the needed justification.
The ethical reporter still must ask whether she has a right to cover this issue,
whether the public has a right to this information (it certainly does not have a right
to all), and whether respect for that right morally outweighs any associated harms
(Meyers 1993).
The most prevalent examples involve privacy invasions in which reporters may
have a legal right to cover activities or events – for instance, tragic automobile crashes
that occur in public space – but in doing so they invade the privacy or dignity of
victims. Unless there is some compelling public interest – say revelation of a preva-
lent mechanical defect – the journalistic value of a good film or a compelling story
is often insufficient to justify the privacy invasion. Put another way, the public does
not in fact have a right to know all the details of such events and the journalists’ legal
right is – or should be – trumped by the more compelling moral value of protecting
privacy and dignity.
Do good
The principle calls for persons to do what they reasonably can to improve the
situation of others, a duty most journalists have not historically seen as central to
their role (see consequentialism; utilitarianism). Although the recent
emphasis on community journalism has motivated a greater commitment to
doing good, the principle still does – and should, given journalism’s social role
8
described above – lag behind the other duties detailed here, at least as a direct,
positive duty.
The indirect achievement of good through taking positive measures to try to
prevent harms, however, has long been central to responsible journalism. News
media are in a socially unique position, for example, to warn citizens of impending
harm so they can escape a threatened area, in the case of a natural threat like a hur-
ricane, or to provide the information needed to both motivate and facilitate political
mobilizing, in the case of human abuse or corruption.
Be competent; know what you are doing

As should be clear from the preceding, journalism has tremendous potential to
do great good, and just as much to do appalling bad. If the arguments here are
sound – if journalism is properly defined as a normative enterprise and if excel-
lent journalism is responsible journalism – then the determinant of great good
versus appalling bad lies with the practitioner’s competence. Because of this,
competency is the baseline duty, the one that precedes, in effective practice, the
first six.
Journalistic competence includes, at a minimum, superior writing and reason-
ing skills, a natural curiosity about the world and the people in it, and sufficient
background knowledge to be able to make real sense out of a story, to be able to
move from the merely accurate to the truthful. It also includes good editing. It is
the rarest of writers who doesn’t benefit from assistance provided by an experi-
enced and skilled editorial expert. Whatever benefit is attached to the Wiki move-
ment – and there is considerable – it cannot replace the able hand of a first-rate
editor.
In short, smart, discerning, well-written, and contextually developed reporting
can change lives, while stupid, indiscriminate, sloppy, and too-facile reporting can
ruin them – regardless of how it is delivered. Good journalism meets those standards
whether it is spoken, printed, or blogged.
See also: consequentialism; journalistic objectivity; kant, immanuel;

professional ethics; utilitarianism
REFERENCES
Aspen Institute, January 2005. “Journalism, Transparency and the Public Trust,” Report of the
Eighth Annual Aspen Institute Conference on Journalism and Society. At http://www.
aspeninstitute.org/sites/default/files/content/docs/communications%20and%20
society%20program/jourtransptext.pdf, accessed December 28, 2010.
Davis, Michael 2010. “Why Journalism Is a Profession,” in Christopher Meyers (ed.), Journalism
Ethics: A Philosophical Approach. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 91–102.
Edmonds, Rick 2010 (and ongoing). “BizBlog,” Poynter Center. At http://www.poynter.org/
category/latest-news/business-news/the-biz-blog, accessed December 29, 2011.
9
Freedom House 2010 (and ongoing). “Freedom of the Press.” At http://www.freedomhouse.

org/template.cfm?page=16/, accessed December 30, 2010.
Greenslade, Roy 2005. “The Hall of Shame,” Guardian. At http://www.guardian.co.uk/
media/2005/mar/21/mondaymediasection/, accessed December 24, 2010.
Los Angeles Times 2010. “What to Do about Wikileaks?” At http://www.latimes.com/news/
opinion/editorials/la-ed-assange-20101209,0,347291.story/, accessed December 22,
2010.
Meyers, Christopher 1993. “Justifying Journalistic Harms: Right to Know vs. Interest in
Knowing,” Journal of Mass Media Ethics, vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 133–46.
Quinn, Aaron 2010. “Respecting Sources’ Confidentiality: Critical but Not Absolute,” in
Christopher Meyers (ed.), Journalism Ethics: A Philosophical Approach. New York:
Smolkin, Rachel 2006. “Too Transparent?” Columbia Journalism Review. At http://www.ajr.
org/article.asp?id=4073/, accessed December 28, 2010.
Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics. At http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp,
accessed August 12, 2010.
Wilby, Peter 2005. “So What Is Journalism? The Two Ends of the Newspaper Market Can’t
Agree,” The Independent. At http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/so-what-is-
journalism-the-two-ends-of-the-newspaper-market-cant-agree-530014.html, accessed
December 24, 2010.
Wyatt, Wendy 2010. “The Ethical Obligations of News Consumers,” in Christopher Meyers
(ed.), Journalism Ethics: A Philosophical Approach. New York: Oxford University Press,
pp. 283–95.
FURTHER READINGS
Calcutt, Andrew, and Philip Hammond 2011. Journalism Studies: A Critical Introduction.
Herman, Edward S., and Noam Chomsky 2002. Manufacturing Consent: The Political
Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon.
Kovach, Bill, and Tom Rosenstiel 2007. The Elements of Journalism, rev. ed. New York: Three
Rivers Press.
Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism’s “Principles of Journalism.” At
http://www.journalism.org/resources/principles/, accessed December 29, 2011.
1
Environmental Virtue Ethics

Ronald L. Sandler
Environmental ethics (see environmental ethics) is the study of the ethical rela-
tionships between human beings and the natural environment, including the non-
human individuals that populate and constitute it. It involves developing a proper
understanding of the human–nature relationship, identifying the goods and values
that are part of or emerge from that relationship, determining the norms (rules/
principles) that those goods and values justify, and applying those norms to generate
guidance on environmental issues and interactions. Environmental virtue ethics is
that part of environmental ethics that concerns character (see virtue ethics). The
core questions of environmental virtue ethics are these:
1 What makes a character trait an environmental virtue or environmental vice,

and which particular character traits (i.e., attitudes and dispositions) are envi-
ronmental virtues and which are environmental vices? That is, what are the char-
acter norms of environmental ethics?
2 What is the role of environmental virtue ethics (or an ethic of character) within
environmental ethics?
After a brief background on the history of environmental virtue ethics, this essay
addresses these questions in turn.
History of Environmental Virtue Ethics

Reflections on character and virtue are prominent in the work of early and influ-
ential environmental thinkers. For example, voluntary simplicity (or temper-
ance) is central to Henry David Thoreau’s environmental ethic (see thoreau,
henry david). According to Thoreau, simplicity is conducive to happiness
because it leads to an uncluttered life and mind, which can focus more readily on
those things that have real and lasting value, such as beauty, nature, justice, and
friendship:
Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not
indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind. … To be a
philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but
so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independ-
ence, magnanimity, and trust. (1951: “Economy,” Pt. 1)
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee090
2
Whereas Thoreau emphasizes the relationship between character and flourishing,

Aldo Leopold emphasizes the link between character and activity. On his view,
proper treatment of the environment is only possible when we change our perspec-
tive on it and cultivate love and respect toward it:
We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see

land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and
respect … That land is a community is the basic concept of ecology, but that land
is to be loved and respected is an extension of ethics. (1968: viii–ix)
Like Leopold, Rachel Carson believes that cultivating virtue is central to appreci-
ating the value and beauty of the natural world. For her, wonder is a preeminent
environmental virtue, since “Wonder and humility are wholesome emotions, and
they do not exist side by side with a lust for destruction” (1999: 94). Like Thoreau,
Carson also believes that wonder toward nature enriches one’s life:
It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for
what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach
adulthood … I should ask that … each child in the world be [given] a sense of
wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing anti-
dote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoc-
cupation with things that are artificial, and alienation from the sources of our
strength. (1956: 42–3)
These early and influential environmental thinkers are not atypical in their use of
virtue concepts and language. Louke van Wensveen conducted a review of the post-
1970 environmental literature and found that virtue language is diverse, dynamic,
integral, and pervasive within environmental discourse. She catalogued 189 distinct
virtue terms and 174 distinct vice terms, and did not find “a piece of ecologically
sensitive philosophy, theology, or ethics that does not in some way incorporate
virtue language” (2000: 5).
Although virtue language and concepts always have been ubiquitous and
integral within environmental discourse, recognition of environmental virtue
ethics as a distinct aspect of environmental ethics is more recent. In 1983, Thomas
Hill published an article in which he asked the reader to imagine a person who
chooses to cut down and pave over an entire wooded lot so as to avoid the costs of
maintaining it, as well as to increase the amount of sunlight coming into his home.
Hill argued that neither the language and concept of utility nor the language and
concept of rights captures fully what is disturbing about the person’s behavior. On
Hill’s view, there is something troubling that goes beyond the action itself and is
captured by the question, “What sort of person would do a thing like that?” This
suggests that virtue has significance to environmental ethics beyond its disposing
its possessor to perform right actions. Providing an account of an environmentally
virtuous person (i.e., providing substantive accounts of environmental virtues
3
and vices) and articulating the relationships between environmental virtue and
right action (i.e., characterizing the roles of environmental virtue within
environmental ethics) have since become increasingly prominent projects within
environmental ethics.
Characterizing Environmental Virtue and Environmental Vice

One of the core projects within environmental virtue ethics is specifying which
character traits are environmental virtues and which are environmental vices.
A character trait is a disposition to take certain types of considerations as reasons (or
as motivational) for action or emotion under certain types of circumstances. Differ-
ent people have different character traits if they are disposed to respond differently
toward the same types of considerations. For example, a person who is moved nei-
ther emotionally nor to action by the suffering of others (when she is in a position to
help alleviate the suffering) is indifferent, whereas a person who is empathetic and
tries to alleviate the suffering (when in an appropriate position to do so) is compas-
sionate. The two people are disposed regarding the same thing – that is, the suffering
of others; however, they are differently disposed.
A character virtue (hereafter just “virtue”) is a well-justified character trait (see
virtue). It is a disposition to respond to considerations in the world in excellent
ways. If the suffering of others is bad, and one is indifferent to it (or aims to cause
it), then one fails to respond well to a morally salient fact about the world.
Therefore, cruelty and insensitivity toward the suffering of others are vices, and
compassion toward others is a virtue. To paraphrase Aristotle (see aristotle), a
virtuous person is disposed to respond to the right thing, for the right reason, and
in the right way, while also having the right desires and feelings about it (Aristotle
1985). Specifying what counts as “right” for each of these is the primary project of
virtue theory.
There are several competing virtue theories, but the most prominent ones share
this crucial feature: what constitutes right responsiveness is largely determined by
the goods and values in the world (and the nature of those values), as well as by the
relevant facts about the agent (and her situation). When a character trait is justified
as a virtue at least in part by environmental goods and values – be they instrumental
goods (e.g., natural resources, ecosystem services, or recreational opportunities),
intrinsic values (e.g., aesthetic or spiritual values), or inherent worth (i.e., the value
of environmental entities in and of themselves) – it is an environmentally justified
virtue. Care for living things, appreciativeness of natural beauty, and moderation in
use of natural resources are examples of environmentally justified virtues.
Nonmaleficence toward nonhuman living things, insensitivity to natural beauty,
and profligacy in the use of natural resources are some corresponding vices.
Different virtues have different fields or spheres of operation. Compassion, for
example, is a virtue regarding the suffering of others. It is not operative (and does
not provide guidance) in a situation where one’s activities or decisions do not impact
the well-being of sentient others. Compassion is not operative when skipping stones.
4
Loyalty is a virtue that is operative only when dealing with people (or, perhaps,
places) with which one has an appropriate history. Loyalty is not operative with
strangers. A virtue is an environmentally responsive virtue if it is an excellent charac-
ter trait whose field of operation includes some aspect of the natural environment.
Wonder toward nature, compassion toward animals, and restraint regarding the
use of natural resources are examples of environmentally responsive virtues.
Incuriousness toward nature, cruelty toward nonhuman animals, and profligacy in
the use of natural resources are some corresponding vices.
Some virtues are productive. They aim at bringing something about. Compassion
aims at reducing suffering and wonder aims at increasing understanding, for
example. Other virtues, such as gratitude and appreciation, are primarily expressive
or receptive. Virtues that are productive of environmental ends – that is, that aim at
protecting or promoting environmental goods and values – are environmentally
productive virtues. Ecological sensitivity, temperance regarding material goods, and
perseverance (e.g., in the domain of environmental advocacy) are environmentally
productive virtues. Hubris regarding our ability to control the environment, apathy
regarding environmental issues, and intemperance in consumptive practices are
some corresponding vices.
Environmentally justified virtues, environmentally responsive virtues, and
environmentally productive virtues are each a (not mutually exclusive) type of
environmental virtue. Because not all environmental virtues are environmentally
responsive virtues, the environmental virtues are not just character traits operative
in natural contexts (e.g., when walking in the woods or studying barnacles). Among
the environmental virtues are traits that make for effective environmental stewards
and advocates (such as trustworthiness, loyalty, and perseverance), as well as traits
operative in our daily lives that are conducive to promoting ecological sustainability
(such as temperance, humility, and far-sightedness) (Welchman 1999; Cafaro 2001a;
Sandler 2007; Treanor 2010).
The particular character traits that an environmental ethic endorses or emphasizes
as environmental virtues and vices depends upon the environmental values that it
prioritizes, as well as upon the theoretical framework that it employs. For a utilitar-
ian (see utilitarianism) environmental ethic such as Peter Singer’s, on which the
criterion for moral standing is the capacity to experience pleasure and pain, the
virtue of compassion and the vice of cruelty are central, and a character trait is a
virtue to the extent that it is conducive to promoting pleasure and the absence of
pain (e.g., considerateness and benevolence) (Singer 1975). For a Kantian biocentric
ethic (see kantian practical ethics; biocentrism) such as Paul Taylor’s, on
which all living things are regarded as having inherent worth, the virtue of respect
for nature and the vice of nonmaleficence toward living things are central, and a
character trait is a virtue to the extent that it is conducive to allowing living things to
pursue their own goods unconstrained by human activity (e.g., restraint and won-
der) (Taylor 1986). On a communitarian (see communitarianism) environmental
ethic such as Aldo Leopold’s, on which the biological community is of primary
importance, the virtue of ecological sensitivity and the vice of hubris will be central,
5
and character traits will be virtues to the extent that they promote the health, integ-
rity, or flourishing of the biotic community (e.g., love and gratitude) (Leopold 1968;
Shaw 1997).
Again, what each of the above examples demonstrates is that the virtues that an
environmental ethic advocates are the product of both the environmental values
that it endorses (including their comparative significance) and the broader norma-
tive or theoretical framework in which they are situated. The former (the values)
describes what sorts of things matter, the latter (the normative framework) describes
how they matter, and the virtues describe (based on the values and framework) how
we ought to respond to those entities that possess value. The same is true of the
corresponding vices.
Nevertheless, there are some norms of character on which theories of environ-
mental ethics tend to converge. For example, most theories recognize hubris,
indifference, apathy, greed, wastefulness, and laziness as environmental vices, and
most theories recognize humility, courage, benevolence, temperance, perseverance,
integrity, and wonder as virtues. The reason for this convergence is that ecological
degradation – e.g., unsustainable use of natural resources, habitat loss, and pollution –
tends to compromise a wide range of environmental goods and values: human health,
nonhuman flourishing, ecosystem services, natural resources, recreational and scien-
tific opportunities, and natural beauty, for example. Therefore, character traits that
promote ecological degradation tend to be detrimental to recognizing, protecting,
promoting, or acknowledging the environmental goods and values emphasized by
just about any environmental ethic. As a result, there tends to be convergence
among different types of environmental ethics – e.g., anthropocentric and nonan-
thropocentric, individualistic and communitarian, and consequentialist (see
consequentialism), deontological, and virtue ethical – in support of character
traits that promote ecological sustainability and against traits that promote ecological
degradation (Wenz 2005).
Virtue and Vice in Environmental Ethics

Environmental virtue ethics is a crucial component of environmental ethics in
several respects: virtue and vice language helps to characterize the human relation-
ship with nature and our environmental challenges; environmental virtue theory
elucidates the ways in which environmentally considerate behavior is conducive to
agent flourishing; environmental virtue disposes an agent to act according to
environmental ethics rules and principles of action; and environmental virtue helps
to identify or determine correct environmental actions and policies. In this section,
these roles are discussed in turn.
As discussed earlier, environmental virtue language is pervasive and integral to
environmental ethics. The reason for this is that the language of virtue and vice is far
more diverse and nuanced than the languages of duty and consequences. There are
hundreds of virtue and vice terms – honest/dishonest, compassion/cruelty, generosity/
miserliness, optimism/pessimism, courage/cowardice, temperance/intemperance,
6
respect/disregard, gratitude/ingratitude, and so on. This allows for more subtle and
rich evaluations of both character and conduct than the standard deontological and
consequentialist categories – i.e., wrong, permissible, obligatory, and supererogatory.
This diversity and richness is crucial for environmental ethics because of the complex-
ity of the human relationship with the natural environment. Nature is a source of basic
resources, knowledge, recreation, renewal, and, for some, spiritual experience. It is
also a threat, indifferent to us, and a locus of human-independent values. Environmental
ethics needs the resources to accommodate this complexity, without homogenization
or misrepresentation, and the language of virtue and vice provides them.
Moreover, our environmental challenges are diverse and complex. The wilderness
and land-use issues that dominated early environmentalism are still prominent (e.g.,
off-road vehicle use and road building in national forests, fire suppression policy,
wolf “management” programs, and species preservation), as are the pollution issues
that first emerged in the 1960s and 1970s (e.g., industrial zoning and permit issuance,
manufacturing and consumer waste disposal, water privatization, and environmen-
tal justice). To these have been added global issues, such as climate change, ozone
depletion, and population growth, which are impersonal, distant (both spatially and
temporally), collective action problems that involve the cumulative unintended
effects of an enormous number of seemingly inconsequential decisions, as well as
issues associated with advanced technologies such as genetic modification and
nanobiotechnology. Given the wide array of environmental issues, environmental
ethics requires a dynamic and diverse set of evaluative concepts, which again
environmental virtue ethics provides.
As Thoreau and Carson emphasize, environmental virtue is beneficial to its
possessor. On Carson’s view, this is because it opens a person to beneficial experi-
ences and relationships in nature. The natural environment provides aesthetic and
recreational goods, as well as opportunities to develop physically, intellectually,
morally, and spiritually. However, these goods are more available to some people
than to others. Those who possess traits like wonder, humility, and love experience
nature and relate to it differently than those who are arrogant, lazy, and indifferent
to the natural world. For the former, nature often is a source of nurturing, renewal,
knowledge, and joy; for the latter it is less likely to be so, since they are less likely to
go into nature and explore, study, reflect, and appreciate it.
Environmental virtue is also thought to benefit its possessor by focusing her on
what is truly valuable in life. This is largely the basis of Thoreau’s advocacy for simplicity
and temperance. Moreover, for a person who embraces temperance, foregoing
unnecessary material things is not likely to be regarded as a sacrifice. From the per-
spective of a temperate person, such things are a distraction that do not add to the
quality of one’s life. She will be pleased to be without the burden of them. This is an
instance of what might be called the “integrating effect of virtue.” Environmental vir-
tues (and virtues more generally) often appear to involve sacrifice from the perspective
of a person who does not possess the relevant virtues, but from the perspective of the
virtuous person they are not sacrifices at all. For example, many people who are
environmentally committed take pleasure in the activities that this requires – e.g.,
7
composting, cleaning green spaces, reducing energy use, or biking to work – even as
those who do not share their values or commitments (i.e., their virtues) would con-
sider these activities to be burdensome or sacrifices.
The role that environmental virtue plays in enriching a person’s life and integrat-
ing environmentally considerate behavior with individual flourishing complements
and, in some respects, counterbalances other aspects of environmental ethics. One
prominent area of environmental ethics concerns the value of (nonhuman) environ-
mental entities, such as species or animals. This aspect of environmental ethics
standardly emphasizes duty and restraint – i.e., the values ground obligations regard-
ing what we cannot or must do to nature. Another prominent area of environmental
ethics concerns our dependencies upon and vulnerabilities to the natural environ-
ment. This aspect of environmental ethics standardly emphasizes the harms or
losses to us that will occur if we do not change our behaviors regarding the environ-
ment. By emphasizing how ecological sensitivity, care, and concern (and other envi-
ronmental virtues) can benefit their possessor – even when she is doing her duty or
acting prudentially – environmental virtue ethics provides a positive vision for the
human–nature relationship, one in which human flourishing and environmental
flourishing not only coincide but also are intertwined with each other (Cafaro 2001b).
Another role of environmental virtue ethics within environmental ethics arises
from the fact that character is relevant to how one behaves. As Leopold (1968)
emphasizes, how people act depends upon what of the world they perceive and how
they perceive it. A person who loves and respects nature does not see a particular
landscape or run of river as merely a resource for satisfying human wants and needs.
She sees it as well as a place of beauty, where nonhuman organisms strive to flourish,
and as the product of complex ecological processes. This perspective informs how
she interacts with it. To paraphrase Carson, a person who has wonder regarding the
natural world is opposed to destruction of it. More generally, an environmentally
virtuous person – precisely because of her virtue – is disposed both to recognize
environmental values and respond to them appropriately. As a result, environmental
virtue disposes its possessor to act according to the rules, principles, or norms of
action of the correct environmental ethic. Virtue, including environmental virtue, is
conducive to right action.
In addition to disposing a person to perform right actions, environmental virtue
ethics can help to identify which actions are right. As discussed above, many of our
environmental challenges are longitudinal collective action problems. When faced
with such challenges, an ethic is needed that emphasizes sustained commitment, the
development of communities of agents, and the importance of doing one’s part even
when others fail to do theirs. The constancy and centrality of a person’s character in
orienting her life, in addition to her episodic actions, is thus conducive to an effective
environmental ethic (Jamieson 2007; Sandler 2010).
Moreover, the sensitivity to values and context (i.e., wisdom) that is part of virtue
is often instrumental in the application of action-guiding rules and principles to
concrete situations. At a minimum, sensitivity and attending to the relevant contex-
tual details are required to determine which rules or principles are applicable to
8
which situations, as well as for determining what course of action they recommend
in those situations where they are operative. But these may also be indispensable in
adjudicating between conflicting demands of ethics or resolving ethical dilemmas
that arise from a plurality of sources of value and justification. Many moral philoso-
phers have argued that it is implausible and unreasonable to expect that there is
some finite set of rules or principles that can be applied by any moral agent in any
situation to determine what the proper course of action is in that situation
(Hursthouse 1999). If they are correct – if action guidance cannot always be accom-
plished by rules and principles alone – then the wisdom and sensitivity that are part
of virtue (including environmental virtue) are in some situations indispensable for
identifying right action, including environmentally right action.
The roles of environmental virtue within environmental ethics discussed so far
cast environmental virtue ethics as a crucial component of any environmental ethic,
regardless of its theoretical or normative framework (e.g., consequentialist, com-
munitarian, or deontological). However, some have suggested that virtue ethics or
virtue-oriented ethics may also provide an alternative theoretical framework to
other approaches to environmental ethics. On this view, the virtues would be the
primary evaluative concepts of the environmental ethic, and right action would be
explicated through them (Sandler 2007). On such an ethic, when determining what
action or policy to pursue, one would first identify which virtues are operative and
then determine what they would call for individually and overall. Because on this
view right action is explicated through the virtues, providing substantive accounts of
environmental virtues and vices is crucial to generating the normative resources of
the ethic.
Conclusion: The State of Environmental Virtue Ethics

Environmental virtue ethics is a vibrant area of environmental ethics. Many envi-
ronmental philosophers are doing work on characterizing the substantive disposi-
tions that constitute particular environmental virtues and vices (e.g., forgiveness,
tolerance, patience, anger, greed, and apathy). Work is also being done on the roles
of virtue in responding to particular environmental problems (e.g., global warming
and environmental injustice) and to environmental challenges more generally. In
addition, there is continued interest in whether virtue ethics provides a viable and
preferable alternative environmental ethic to those supported by other normative
theories. What appears to be settled, however, is that environmental virtue ethics is
an indispensable component of environmental ethics.
see also: anthropocentrism; aristotle; biocentrism; communitarianism;

consequentialism; environmental ethics; kantian practical ethics;
thoreau, henry david; utilitarianism; virtue; virtue ethics
9
REFERENCES
Aristotle 1985. Nicomachean Ethics, trans. T. Irwin. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Cafaro, Philip 2001a. “The Naturalist’s Virtues,” Philosophy in the Contemporary World,
vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 85–99.
Cafaro, Philip 2001b. “Thoreau, Leopold, and Carson: Toward an Environmental Virtue
Ethic,” Environmental Ethics, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 3–17.
Carson, Rachel 1956. The Sense of Wonder. New York: Harper & Row.
Carson, Rachel 1999. “Design for Nature Writing,” in L. Lear (ed.), Lost Woods: The Discovered
Writings of Rachel Carson. Boston: Beacon, pp. 93–7.
Hill, Thomas 1983. “Ideals of Human Excellences and Preserving Natural Environments,”
Environmental Ethics, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 211–24.
Hursthouse, Rosalind 1999. On Virtue Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jamieson, Dale 2007. “When Utilitarians Should Be Virtue Theorists,” Utilitas, vol. 19, no. 2,
pp. 160–83.
Leopold, Aldo 1968. A Sand Country Almanac. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sandler, Ronald 2007. Character and Environment. New York: Columbia University Press.
Sandler, Ronald 2010. “Ethical Theory and the Problem of Inconsequentialism: Why
Environmental Ethicists Should be Virtue Oriented Ethicists,” Journal of Agricultural
and Environmental Ethics, vol. 23, nos. 1–2, pp. 167–83.
Shaw, Bill 1997. “A Virtue Ethics Approach to Aldo Leopold’s Land Ethic,” Environmental
Ethics, vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 53–67.
Singer, Peter 1975. Animal Liberation. New York: New York Review Books.
University Press.
Thoreau, Henry David 1951. Walden. New York: Bramhall House.
Treanor, Brian 2010. “Environmentalism and Public Virtue,” Journal of Agricultural and
Environmental Ethics, vol. 23, nos. 1–2, pp. 9–28.
Welchman, Jennifer 1999. “The Virtues of Stewardship,” Environmental Ethics, vol. 21, no. 4,
pp. 411–23.
Wensveen, Louke van 2000. Dirty Virtues: The Emergence of Ecological Virtue Ethics. Amherst,
NY: Humanity.
Wenz, Peter 2005. “Synergistic Environmental Virtues,” in R. Sandler and P. Cafaro (eds.),
Environmental Virtue Ethics. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 197–213.
FURTHER READINGS
Cafaro, Philip 2001. “Environmental Virtue Ethics,” special issue of Philosophy in the
Contemporary World, vol. 8, no. 2.
Frasz, Geoffrey 1993. “Environmental Virtue Ethics: A New Direction for Environmental
Ethics,” Environmental Ethics, vol. 15, no. 3, pp. 259–74.
Hursthouse, Rosalind 2006. “Applying Virtue Ethics to Our Treatment of the Other Animals,”
in J. Welchman (ed.), The Practice of Virtue: Classic and Contemporary Readings in
Virtue Ethics. Indianapolis: Hackett, pp. 136–54.
Macintyre, Alasdair 1999. Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues.
Chicago: Open Court.
Newton, Lisa 2003. Ethics and Sustainability: Sustainable Development and the Moral Life.
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
10
O’Neill, John 1993. Ecology, Policy, and Politics: Human Well-Being and the Natural World.
London: Routledge.
Sandler, Ronald, and Philip Cafaro 2005. Environmental Virtue Ethics. Lanham: Rowman &
Littlefield.
Sandler, Ronald, and Philip Cafaro 2010. “Environmental Virtue Ethics,” special issue of
Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, vol. 23, nos. 1–2.
Swanton, Christine 2003. Virtue Ethics: A Pluralistic View. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
1
Egoism
Richard Fumerton
Introduction
There are a number of important and potentially interrelated theses associated with
the concept of egoistic action. In particular, it is useful to distinguish the psychological
claim that everyone always does act egoistically (sometimes called psychological
egoism), claims about the morality of acting egoistically, and claims about the ration-
ality of acting egoistically. As we shall see, the nature of the connection, if any,
between these views is a matter of considerable controversy. At least some philoso-
phers will argue that if it is virtually a law of human nature that people act egoistically,
then questions about whether they rationally or morally ought to act that way are
moot. Claims about what one rationally ought to do might be distinct from claims
about what one morally ought to do, but, again, as we shall see, there may be a seri-
ous price to be paid by the philosopher who lets morality and rationality come apart.
But before we try to say more about any of these issues we must define more clearly
the critical concept of acting egoistically.
Acting Egoistically
Let us define an egoist as someone who always acts egoistically, or at least does so in
contexts of deliberative choice. But what is it to act egoistically? We want to define
egoistic action in such a way that the issue of whether or not one acts egoistically is
not trivial. So, for example, we don’t want to say that people act egoistically when-
ever they do what they want to do (all things considered) or whenever they act so as
to maximize satisfaction of their desires. Paradigmatic altruists who strive to make
others happy and who want to avoid purely egoistic behavior are clearly in some
sense doing what they want to do. But their desire to avoid egoistic behavior is hardly
self-defeating (as it would be if we define egoistic action as any action the agent
wants to take). These same altruists may also be acting so as to maximize satisfaction
of their desires (many of which are altruistic desires), and it seems equally wrong to
suggest that they are for that reason acting egoistically.
To define an interesting distinction between egoistic action and other sorts of action
we should focus on the ultimate goal or end an agent has in acting. So on one view, we
might say that agents are acting egoistically when their sole goals or ends in acting are
their own happiness and avoidance of suffering (see happiness; suffering). We might
go on to define a person’s ultimate goals or ends in terms of what that person desires (see
desire) or values intrinsically. Many of the things we desire, we desire only as a means
to something else we desire (see instrumental value). So when the student wants that
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee091
2
summer job in construction, it is plausible to suppose that the job is desired only as a
means to making some money. The money in turn might be desired only as a means to
acquiring various goods and services. But it cannot be the case that everything desired
is desired only as a means. There must be some things that are desired or valued for
their own sake. And we can say that a person’s ultimate goal or end is something that
person desires or values for its own sake. The egoist characterized above desires or val-
ues for its own sake only his or her own happiness (and avoidance of suffering).
The philosophical question of how to understand happiness is itself highly
controversial. Some construe happiness as a sensation-like state. Others think of it
in terms of enjoyment where enjoyment necessarily takes some object (one always
enjoys acting in some way or being in some state). Still others want to understand
happiness in terms of satisfaction of desire. This last view, however, risks reducing
an egoistic thesis stated in terms of pursuit of the agent’s own happiness to that less
than interesting claim about pursuing the objects of one’s desire.
On at least some conceptions of happiness, some will object that the restriction of
egoistic goals to happiness and avoidance of suffering is too narrow, and would
prefer expanding the characterization of an egoist’s goals to include any sort of
self-regarding well-being. So, for example, if my ultimate goals include my power or
my wealth, or my fame, but exclude the power, wealth, or fame gained by others, that
agent might still be appropriately characterized as acting egoistically. In an intui-
tively plausible sense my wealth, power, and fame are constituents of my well-being
or self-interest. For simplicity of exposition I’ll presuppose the hedonistic charac-
terization of egoistic action, but most everything said will apply mutatis mutandis to
the more expansive characterization of egoistic action as action undertaken with the
ultimate goal of maximizing the agent’s well-being.
Notice that the proposal is that we define egoistic action in terms of the agent’s
goals or ends, not in terms of successful achievement of those goals or ends. We want
to allow for the possibility of incompetent egoists – egoists who almost never succeed
in achieving their self-regarding ends. And we must, of course, distinguish the egoist
from the egotist. Egotists are people who have an exaggerated high opinion of
themselves – unrealistically, they think that they are particularly attractive, intelli-
gent, charming, witty, and so on. One can be an egoist and have a rather dim view of
one’s attributes and a rather pessimistic view about the probability of one’s achieving
one’s egoistic goals or ends. Conversely, one can be an egotist pursing altruistic goals.
The Thesis of Psychological Egoism

The thesis of psychological egoism is the claim that everyone always does act egoisti-
cally, at least when they are making conscious, deliberative choices. In its strongest
form, the thesis claims that it is a kind of law of human nature that people act
egoistically. As suggested earlier, if it is a brute fact about our psychology that only
egoistic goals motivate us, then it might be pointless to ask whether or not we should
be egoists. Many accept the Kantian doctrine that “ought” implies “can” (see ought
implies can). You cannot sensibly advise people either that they ought or ought not
3
to be egoists if they have no choice in the matter. It would be like advising people
that they ought to obey or violate the laws of gravity. But why think that people
always do act egoistically?
It is often argued that the construal of human behavior as egoistic is simply the
best explanation of why people do what they do. You might think that you gave your
friend a gift on her birthday because you desired as an end your friend’s happiness,
but if you are a normal person you probably also got, and knew you would get,
pleasure from seeing your friend happy. But if you knew you would get happiness
from seeing your friend happy, why shouldn’t we think that your own happiness was
your ultimate goal or end? Almost all parents get enormous pleasure from seeing
their children succeed, and again, one might reasonably wonder whether the sacri-
fices parents make on behalf of their children are ultimately designed to get precisely
that feeling of satisfaction.
One must immediately concede, however, that it certainly doesn’t follow from the
fact that a person knew that he or she would get happiness from an action that such
happiness was that person’s goal or end in acting. I know that when I scratch my
head I will displace various molecules, but that known consequence of my action
has nothing to do with why I act. So I can quite consistently admit that I know I’ll get
happiness from seeing my children succeed in life, while denying that I acted solely
for that reason. One might even insist (with Butler 1827) that the very reason I get
happiness from seeing my children succeed is that I do desire their happiness intrin-
sically (see butler, joseph). It is the satisfaction of that desire, Butler seems to
argue, that yields the relevant happiness. But while Butler’s thesis could be true, it is
hard to see why it would be necessarily true. Why should one suppose that it is only
the satisfaction of a desire for something other than happiness that can yield
happiness (unless perhaps one embraces that view that happiness should simply be
identified with satisfaction of desire)?
Against the proponent of the thesis of psychological egoism, one might also argue
that there are obvious examples of sacrifice that defy any reasonable construal of the
selfless behavior as egoistic. Consider the ultimate sacrifice, the sacrifice of one’s life
for another. Such sacrifices might be relatively rare, but they obviously occur. To be
sure, matters are complicated when the agent believes in an afterlife replete with
rewards and punishments. But atheists have been known to sacrifice their lives in
combat to save the lives of comrades. Again, in desperation, one might fall back on
the cliché that a coward dies a thousand deaths, a hero but one. One might suppose
that when I give up my life for the well-being of others I implicitly act on the knowl-
edge that I would feel enormous guilt (a kind of suffering) if I failed to act. If my
motive was avoiding the guilt, my behavior could still be egoistic. But it is surely less
than obvious that this is the most plausible explanation of why the hero makes the
sacrifice.
In the final analysis, it’s hard to see how one could definitively settle the controversy
over what ultimately moves people to act. It’s not even clear that one could in
principle devise experiments. One might suppose, for example, that one could try to
find out whether people would still do something if they no longer got pleasure from
4
doing it. If we discover that philanthropists stop giving when they no longer receive
pleasure from doing so, we can conclude that it really was the philanthropists’ pleas-
ure that was their ultimate goal in acting. But as we saw above, the pleasure people
get from acting in a certain way might be lawfully correlated with their desire that
the act benefits someone else. So by changing the psychological fact that I get pleas-
ure from helping my friend, you might change the psychological fact that I desire as
an end my friend’s happiness. Perhaps people have some sort of intuitive grasp of
what ultimately moves them to act, but I rather suspect that most of us often aren’t
sure why we do the things we do.
Ethical Egoism
There is a strong and a weak version of ethical egoism. The strong version says that
everyone morally ought to act egoistically. The much weaker version states only that
there is nothing immoral about acting egoistically. The two theses are obviously
distinct. It is obviously false that everyone ought to wear red sweaters, but there is
surely nothing immoral about wearing a red sweater. Both the strong and the weak
version of ethical egoism have come under considerable criticism.
Why would one think that everyone ought to act egoistically? On one common,
but controversial, view in ethics, one ought to pursue all and only those states of
affairs that are intrinsically good (see intrinsic value; consequentialism). The
distinction between being good in itself and good as a means precisely parallels the
distinction made above between being desired as an end and being desired as a
means. So the egoist might think we ought to be egoists because our own happiness
is intrinsically good. Now if one thinks that there is an objective property of being
good in itself (a property something has quite independently of anyone’s attitude
toward it), one might wonder with Moore (1903) what could make my happiness
good in itself that would not also make your happiness equally good (see moore, g. e.;
impartiality). Consider two flowers, a and b, that are exactly alike in terms of all
of their color, shape, and so on, and imagine someone who admits all this, but goes
on to insist that b is beautiful while a is not. When pressed, the person explains this
odd conclusion by insisting that it is the fact that b has the relevant properties that
makes for the difference. It is tempting to reject the intelligibility of the above claim
by insisting that a particular is only beautiful in virtue of its properties. Similarly, one
might insist that something is intrinsically good only in virtue of its properties. My
being happy cannot be better than your being happy just in virtue of the fact that the
happiness is mine rather than yours.
Of course the above argument presupposes a certain conception of goodness. The
ethical egoist will probably introduce the notion of something being good for a per-
son. The idea, then, would be that what a given person ought to do is a function of
what is good for that person. My happiness is good for me, but not for you. Such a
view requires that one come up with a plausible analysis of the critical relativized
property of being good for a person. One might, for example, try to define “being
good in itself for S” as “being desired as an end by S.”
5
Alternatively, one might reject the idea that we should understand claims about
what one ought to do in terms of the goodness or badness of outcomes. Any such
view needs to identify a source of moral obligation. Many, for example, would argue
that I have certain obligations to family or friends that I don’t have to strangers, and
that these obligations derive from intimate relations I bear to family and friends (see
agent-relative vs. agent-neutral). In the same fashion, someone might argue
that I have a special obligation to benefit myself in virtue of the intimate relation I
bear to myself – one that I don’t bear to anyone else. I care, one might argue, about
myself in a way in which I simply don’t care about anyone else. And that psychological
fact generates an obligation to myself that I don’t have toward anyone else.
Another class of objections to ethical egoism, in either its strong or its weak form,
relies again on assumptions about the nature of moral judgments. Many moral phi-
losophers accept some version of the view that moral judgments are universalizable
(see universalizability). On this view, I can only accept the view that I ought to
act in a certain way if I also concede that anyone else relevantly similar to me ought
to act that way as well. Some philosophers (Hume 1888; Hare 1963; Medlin 1957)
also accept the view that there is an intimate connection between judging that some-
one ought to do something and wanting them to do it, or even acquiescing in their
doing it (see hume, david; hare, r. m.; prescriptivism). But now imagine a situa-
tion in which I conclude that my doing X is in my interest while your stopping me
from doing X is in your interest. It looks as if my universalized ethical egoism
requires me to conclude both that I ought to do X and that you ought to stop me
from doing X. But do we want an ethical theory that commits me to wanting the
impossible, or worse still, that commits me to acting in impossible ways (doing X
while allowing you to stop me from doing X)?
All of the assumptions made by the proponent of the above argument are
controversial. For one thing, the argument, if successful, might enable one to reject
all agent-relative moralities, egoistic or not – a conclusion that would be unwelcome
to many. Furthermore, even if the needed assumptions are accepted, there is a
fallback position for the egoist. The egoist can abandon morality and focus instead
on rationality (see practical reasoning; rationality; reasons for action,
morality and).
Rationality Theses of Egoism

Just as we could distinguish a strong and a weak version of ethical egoism, so also we
can distinguish a strong and a weak rationality thesis endorsing egoism. The strong
claim is that the only rational way for a person to act is egoistically. The weaker claim
is that there is nothing necessarily irrational about acting egoistically. Notice that as
soon as one moves to claims about what it is rational to do, the alleged problems
concerning universalizability might seem to disappear. There is nothing odd about
thinking both that it would be rational for me to do X while it would be rational for
you to stop me from doing X. Think about competitive games. I realize that your
weakness in tennis is your backhand and that when playing you I (rationally) ought
6
to hit high lobs to that backhand. I also realize that the rational thing for you to do
is employ whatever strategy might be effective in preventing me from hitting to your
backhand. Or consider the situation at the outset of World War II. The rational
thing for Germany to do after the fall of France might have been immediately to
invade England. The rational thing for England to do was to prevent that invasion
in whatever way they could.
Claims about rationality might be just as universalizable as claims about morality.
In judging that it is rational for me to act in a certain way, I might be committed to
the view that anyone relevantly similar to me ought to act that same way. But it
doesn’t seem even the slightest bit plausible to suppose when I judge that it is rational
for you to do X, that commits me to wanting you to do X or acquiescing in your doing
X. My tennis backhand isn’t the best and I assure you that I don’t want people to hit
to it, and, if I can, I’ll stop them from doing it.
There may however be different conceptions of rationality. The judgments about
what we ought rationally to do that seem so utterly disconnected from what we want
people to do or what we think we should let people do might be best construed as
what Kant (1981) called hypothetical imperatives (see imperatives, categorical
and hypothetical). In judging that it is rational in this sense for you to do X, per-
haps we uncritically take whatever goals or ends you have, and make a judgment
about the most effective means for you to achieve those ends. But at least some phi-
losophers think that we can rationally evaluate goals or ends themselves. And this is
perhaps one of the most important disputes lying at the center of controversies con-
cerning the rationality of egoism. Inspired by Hume (1888), some philosophers
would argue that it makes no sense to characterize someone’s ultimate goals or ends
as intrinsically irrational. To be sure, having a given goal might frustrate one’s ability
to satisfy another goal, but that doesn’t show that there is anything intrinsically
problematic in the mere having of either goal. If one’s ultimate goals, defined in
terms of what one values intrinsically, are brute psychological facts about people, not
susceptible to rational criticism, then the only intelligible judgments about rational
action are instrumental – judgments about means to ends. On the Humean view, if
one has only egoistic goals, it is trivially rational to act so as to achieve those goals.
If one doesn’t have egoistic goals or ends, then it (trivially) won’t be rational to act
egoistically. Again, all rationality for the Humean is instrumental. By contrast, if one
can criticize ultimate goals as themselves irrational (perhaps because what is desired
is intrinsically bad, for example), then one is back in business distinguishing the
instrumental rationality of a person’s actions from the categorical rationality of that
person’s actions.
But where does that leave us? Philosophers like Medlin (1957) make clear that the
target of their criticism is the ethical egoist. The rejection of ethical egoism might be
consistent with allowing that perfectly rational people might still act egoistically (if
considerations of morality don’t somehow trump considerations of rationality) (see
why be moral). But what ought we to do if morality and rationality can come apart
in this way? It might seem that the question is equivocal just because there are two
“oughts,” the “ought” of morality and the “ought” of instrumental rationality. Trivially,
7
we morally ought to do what we morally ought to do, and we rationally ought to do

what we rationally ought to do. But we are left in the awkward position of wanting
to ask a question that surely seems significant but that doesn’t have any nontrivial
interpretation: Should we do what we morally should do or what we rationally
should do?
see also: agent-relative vs. agent-neutral; butler, joseph;

consequentialism; desire; happiness; hare, r. m.; hume, david; impartiality;
imperatives, categorical and hypothetical; instrumental value;
intrinsic value; moore, g. e.; ought implies can; practical reasoning;
prescriptivism; rationality; reasons for action, morality and; suffering;
universalizability; why be moral
REFERENCES
Butler, Joseph 1827. Fifteen Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel. Cambridge: Hilliard &
Brown.
Hare, R. M. 1963. Freedom and Reason. London: Oxford University Press.
Hume, David 1888. A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Kant, Immanuel 1981. Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. James W. Ellington.
Medlin, Brian 1957. “Ultimate Principles and Ethical Egoism,” Australasian Journal of
FURTHER READINGS
Baier, K. 1958. The Moral Point of View. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Brink, D. 1992. “Sidgwick and the Rationale for Rational Egoism,” in B. Schultz (ed.), Essays
on Henry Sidgwick. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Broad, C. D. 1971. “Egoism as a Theory of Human Motives,” in Broad’s Critical Essays in
Moral Philosophy. London: Allen & Unwin.
Feinberg, J. 1978. “Psychological Egoism,” in Reason and Responsibility. Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth.
Gauthier, D. 1970. Morality and Rational Self-Interest. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Hobbes, T. 1991 [1650]. Human Nature, in D. D. Raphael (ed.), British Moralists 1650–1800.
Kavka, G. 1986. Hobbesian Moral and Political Theory. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Parfit, D. 1984. Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Shaver, R. 1999. Rational Egoism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sidgwick, H. 1981. The Methods of Ethics. Indianapolis: Hackett.
1
Native American Ethics

Christopher Vecsey
It has not been conventional in philosophical overviews of ethics to include

Native American concepts. A century ago, the famous Encyclopaedia of Religion and
Ethics (Hastings 1913–27) contained much about the religious ideas and practices of
the “Amerinds” (I: 379), including tribes such as the Navajo (IX: 254–6), but little
about American Indian ethics. Even in the recent Encyclopedia of Ethics (Becker and
Becker 2001), American Indian ethical ideas are absent from discussion.
How are we to explain this lacuna? Perhaps it is because of the relative lack of
written records in aboriginal America, the dearth of treatises by identifiable Native
American authors expressing verifiable and falsifiable arguments. Perhaps it is due
to the religious nature of traditional American Indian ethics, grounded in super-
natural cosmologies, buttressed by ritual custom, and valorized by community
mores. For whatever reason, mainstream philosophy has tended not to dwell upon
Native America as a source of philosophical reflection.
In 1956, Vergilius Ferm edited Encyclopedia of Morals, which contained
several descriptive, ethnological articles on morality (see morality, definition
of) among “primitive” peoples, including the ancient Aztecs of Mexico, the
Tapirapé of modern Brazil, the Navajos, and the Rio Grande Pueblo Indians of
New Mexico (1956: 434–41, 41–5, 601–8, 383–90, 491–504). In these articles,
emphasis was placed on morals as implicit, community-sanctioned codes of con-
duct (see codes of ethics), mores regarding values about good and bad human
behavior. Among Ferm’s essayists, morals have their genealogy in the common
good (see common good), the “customary” (1956: 434) conventions of a people,
and their ethno-philosophy. In short, “ ‘good’ is what conserves the community,
and ‘bad’ is what injures it” (1956: 607). Normative ethics – explicit argumentation
formulating, explicating, and defending moral codes – were not primary foci for
these authors.
This essay examines the morals and ethics of North American Indians, the
interplay between the two, values upon which they are based, and the behaviors they
encourage and discourage. It will show that most Native American morals have been
connected to religion: beliefs in, attitudes toward, and relations with the sacred
sources of life. In inspecting Native morals and ethics, we see what Indians have held
to be sacred (in interrelated human, natural, and supernatural realms) and what
duties and prohibitions they have postulated in order to enhance sacrality, avoid
profanation, and define themselves as peoples of propriety. Perhaps the reasons for
philosophy’s neglect of Native American ethics – its conventional and religious
aspects – make it worth philosophical observation.
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee092
2
What can be said about the ethical concepts of hundreds of different Native
peoples of North America, speaking many different languages, formulating their
thoughts in various contexts and manners? How is one to depict Native American
ethics over five centuries, under Christian and acculturative influences? This essay
will survey the most prominent themes and the most important scholarly analyses
of American Indian ethics. In addition, the essay aims to demonstrate the place of
normative ethical utterances in Indian societies, especially under pressures of
historical circumstance.
Concepts of “Sin”
From the earliest contact, Europeans sought to fathom the moral worldviews of
American Natives, partly to understand, and partly to change them through
Christianization. Louise M. Burkhart (1989) has demonstrated how Christian
missionaries among the imperial, urban Nahuatl speakers of Mexico – Aztecs,
primarily – in the sixteenth century were daunted in their attempt to translate
Christian ethical terms into Indian languages – not because these Indians lacked
terminology and discernment regarding the sacred, but because they already had
their own sophisticated moral regimen.
The preachers engaged in a “slippery dialogue” with the Nahuas. The Christian
instructional terminology for “sin” (Latin, peccatum; Spanish, pecado; a voluntary
transgression of the law of God; see sin, concepts of) differed from the Nahuatl
term, tlatlacolli, which carried not only the Christian notion of intentional evil
(see intention; evil) performed by humans, but also traditional Aztec notions of
damage, spoil, or harm. The term could refer to a weaver tangling threads, a warrior
slipping in battle, a singer failing to harmonize, a mouse gnawing garments, or hail
harming crops. A person could damage someone’s heart by offending him or her;
slaves were damaged by their servitude. Sexual excesses (see sexuality in
religions), intoxications, and theft could also be depicted as tlatlacolli; so could a
dislocated bone, a woman in the later stages of pregnancy, a rotten egg, or spoiled
maize. In short, the Nahuatl term connoted the effects of harmful action, as well as
the intentionality implied in the Christian notion of sin.
In addition to conflating concepts of immorality and accidental damage, the
Nahuas posited a cosmic struggle between order and chaos. Order contained chaos;
chaos was part of the universal order. Things died and decayed, and their rotting fed
and fertilized the future. Indians like the Nahuas believed in promoting the overall
sacred order but also allowing for chaos, including in one’s own actions, while all the
time attempting to protect oneself against the damage wrought by chaos.
The aim of the Christian teaching was to make Indians aware of their suppos-
edly innate and voluntary sinfulness, their transgressions of divine law, so that the
sinners would feel guilt (see guilt) and therefore seek God’s forgiveness, in order
to make eternal salvation possible. Christian ethics was motivated by such
supernatural concerns. The Nahuatl speakers cared about the effects of damage –
their traditional sacrifices and ritual compulsions attempted to avoid or undo
3
those effects in this world – but they did not accept the Christian notion of human
ontological depravity before God – Original Sin – nor the guilt involved in that
sinfulness. By focusing upon “sin,” the padres hoped to convert the Indians to a
Christian ethical view; however, by using the Nahuatl term tlatlacolli, the Natives
seemed to persist in their traditional frame of reference, at least in the first century
after contact, without adopting the Christian concepts regarding personal guilt
and need for salvation.
Without doubt, Indian peoples regarded themselves as imperfect and their
moral codes posited behaviors considered wrong, even sinful. A. Irving Hallowell’s
1939 depiction of Northern Ojibwa (Saulteaux) concepts of “sin” (Hallowell’s usage)
is instructive. According to Hallowell, a major cause of disease in the Ojibwa world-
view was “sin.” An atomistic, hunting people, lacking civil or political coercion
beyond the domain of the clan to enforce community morals, the traditional
Ojibwas employed anxiety about disease as a means of exerting social control and
upholding the sacred order.
In Hallowell’s view, the Ojibwas held beliefs about the proper relationship
between humans and the rest of the universe, particularly with the sacred, powerful
manitos (spirits), but also including other humans, animals, plants, and natural
phenomena, all of which were thought of as morally significant persons. Misconduct
in relations with any of these entities, but particularly with the manitos, could be
thought of as a “sin,” an offense to the sources of life. Ojibwas did not view themselves
as naturally sinful or evil; however, they held sins to be specific actions that violated
the rules of the universe, offended the living entities of the universe, and were
avenged by the manitos. Punishment (see punishment) for sins against these
persons was either the withdrawal of game, or disease – indicating the two most
prominent concerns of the aboriginal Ojibwas: hunting (see hunting) and health
(see health and disease in religions).
Failure to share with others, improper treatment of the dead, cruelty to animals
or humans, incest, homicides: these were all moral transgressions, punishable by
disease or famine. The Ojibwas did not expect nemesis after death; their concern
was for disease and hunting failure in this life. On the other hand, punishment did
not necessarily come at once. It could wait for years, even transferring to the
descendants of the transgressor. As a result, one could never be sure which “sin”
caused a particular disease, and hence the need for divination in diagnosis.
Transgressions against manitos included ritual misconduct or neglect, either
intentional or unintentional. Sins also included pride in the human–manito
relationship, that is, claiming too much power as a human, not giving credit to the
sources of one’s success, or claiming the personal help of manitos who were not, in
fact, one’s guardians.
One offended the manitos, too, through one’s improper or harmful actions toward
other humans and transgressions against the animals they hunted (see animals,
moral status of). Indeed, for the Ojibwas, “sins” could be committed against all
manner of persons, including divine, human, and animal. Killing animals without
purpose was avenged by the manito overseeing that species. Improper disposal of
4
the killed animal’s bones, or torture of the animal before killing, or bestiality, also
resulted in disease brought by the manitos. These were profaning acts against
persons, and thus they offended the manitos, the ultimate upholders of morality.
Kinship Ethics: Human and Nonhuman Persons

For Native Americans, kinship was a key element of their ethical understanding.
But kinship for them was much broader than the merely human. One sees in the
Ojibwa example the emphasis placed on personal relationships (see personal
relationships) with manitos, humans, and animals. For most North American
Indian peoples, ethics were (and are) a function of kinship relations, broadly defined
(see family). How one ought (see ought) to behave, and toward whom, was a matter
of relationship in aboriginal societies. Creating bonds of kinship and living up to the
duties (see duty and obligation) owed to one’s relatives, broadly conceived, consti-
tuted goodness itself. According to Ella Deloria, in Dakota familial camp circles
(tiyospaye), “nobody living there was unattached” (1983: 17), and “the ultimate aim of
Dakota life … was quite simple: One must obey kinship rules; one must be a good
relative.” A good relative addressed all kin – and behaved toward them in the tiyospaye –
as a matter of sacred obligations. That circle included all living beings, especially the
supernatural – wakan tanka (holy, great) beings, who are related to humans as well as
to each other. In Dakota language, wacekiye means “to address a relative” and “to pray.”
Thus, Deloria says, “A socially responsible Dakota might not thoughtlessly indulge his
moods”; he or she was required by kinship ethics to engage fellows with propriety.
Kinship was sacred; hence, grandparents taught the young the first rule of life: “Be a
good relative. That is of paramount importance!” (1983: 20, 21, 32).
One can see the application of Native American ethics to nonhuman beings,
often perceived by Indians as beloved but paradoxical relatives to humans. Recent
scholars have addressed the question of American Indian environmental ethics (see
environmental ethics), couched in terms of religious worldviews (Vecsey 1980;
Callicott and Nelson 2004). Archeological and historical records strongly suggest
that Native efficiency in economic activities – gathering, hunting, farming: utilization
of the environment for human good – was informed by spiritual concerns. There
was both balance and tension between effective utilization of, and personal partici-
pation in, the world, between exploitation and reverence. That is where religion
played a role, mediating between the two modes of living in the universe, and here
we can see ethics in a process of creative spiritual tension, played out in cosmology,
myth, and ritual.
Effective utilization depended upon the explicitness of local knowledge – empirical
observation of animal habits in trapping, or astronomical record-keeping in
calendars, gathering of medicinal herbs, or domestication of food plants. Aboriginal
peoples in North America took a living land and made it productive. Indian peoples,
however, were more than efficient. They differentiated, organized, and used the
world around them; however, through their religious beliefs, conceptions, and
attitudes, Indian peoples contemplated more deeply than mere “use value”; through
5
their religiousness, they pondered their relational association with the world upon
which they depended for sustenance.
Indian peoples regarded the world as their source of life. Indians expressed this
belief in their narratives of origin, for instance, where the first humans emerge
from the earth as if from a birth canal. Their religiousness posited a theology that
conceived of many deities as aspects of a sacred Nature (see nature and the
natural), so much so that it might be argued that “natural” and “supernatural”
were porous categories in Native conception. Throughout aboriginal Native North
America, the earth, air, sky, water, animals, and plants had the power to fill human
persons with life, and thus were considered sacred and spiritually animated.
There was, however, a creative tension in Indian–Nature relations, between the
utilitarian and the spiritual. Indian peoples made use of – they exploited, to use a
strong word – the very same beings with whom they claimed spiritual relationship.
It therefore was necessary for Indians to assert through the genius of their religious
expression both their connections to the environment and also their felt separate-
ness from it. Thus, Indian oral traditions and rituals communicated themes of
alienation, incompleteness, loss, and search for reunion with their nonhuman kin,
as well as interrelationship and love.
Aboriginal American Indians lived in a personalized universe, filled with
relatives. Their world was alive with human and nonhuman persons, each with con-
sciousness and needs, the ability to act, feel, and express their wills, needs, likes, and
dislikes. Animals above all, but plants, stones, clouds, celestial bodies, and other
natural phenomena had spiritual vitality.
As with human persons, nonhuman persons were deemed of sufficient value to
deserve ethical consideration. Hence, humans entered into social contracts with
nonhuman persons, covenants marked by reciprocity and mutual concern (see
reciprocity). Indians’ environmental ethic approached the level of reverence
toward a powerful, nourishing cosmos – the source of life – which was also fragile
and deserving of human propriety. In Indians’ perspective, humans were dependent
upon nature for survival; however, nature in its many personal aspects was not
invulnerable. It could be harmed (see harm); it could be profaned; it deserved
respect.
The major problematic expressed by American Indians’ environmental ethic was
the inescapable fact of exploiting their living, nonhuman relatives in order that humans
should live. The Indian ideal was harmony between humans and nonhumans; how-
ever, there was also dissonance between Indians and their sources of life, inescapably
so because Native Americans were aware that they must exploit nonhuman kin in
order that humans should live.
The most obvious example concerned animals – relatives to humans, who were
killed for the sake of human survival. As Peggy Beck and Anna Walters wrote in
their book The Sacred, “The songs and prayers” of American Indians “were … based
on the fact that they had to kill their kin, the animals, in order to survive” (1977:
108). In traditional Indian narratives and related rituals, this problematic was
worried over obsessively, and apologetically.
6
Apologetically in a double sense:
(a) In rituals, Indians literally apologized to the animals they killed; they expressed
remorse and made offerings.
(b) In myths, Indians set forth an apologia – a rationale – for killing animals,
because of relational ruptures that had devolved in primordial time, as the
world took shape, and because, in Native religious conception, “the death of
the animals killed under the proper circumstances is not final; rather, they will
come back to life to enjoy the offerings they receive” (Callicott and Nelson
2004: 116).
Insofar as it reflected upon environmental relations, American Indian religion

troubled itself with the ethics of utilizing nonhuman persons for human benefit. To
say that Indians existed in harmony with nature is a half-truth in Native cosmology.
Indians felt both a part of nature and apart from nature, as expressed in their
environmental religious ethics.
Community Ethics: Hopis and Navajos

The two most thorough studies of ethics in specific American Indian communities
are Brandt (1954) on the Hopis, and Ladd (1957) on the Navajos.
Brandt’s Hopi Ethics is tinged with condescension regarding “primitive peoples,”
like the twentieth-century Hopis, about whom he asks “whether, strictly speaking …
[they] can be said to have ethical attitudes at all” (1954: vii, 12). Having spent the best
part of three years interviewing many Hopis, his answer was affirmative: “The Hopi
definitely do have ethical attitudes,” and they voice emotions of “moral experience,”
such as admiration, contempt, disgust, respect, and shame (1954: 68–9, 66).
The Hopis express their values as a small community of mutually dependent,
sedentary farmers: in good crops, rain, sheep, horses, money, family well-being,
equanimity, work skills, relatives, and ceremonies. In order to enhance these valued
entities, the Hopis pray to their divinities, the kachinas, for abundance of food,
health, unison, fertility, happiness, and protection from witchcraft and illness. They
also regularly discuss ethical questions, criticizing or praising the acts of others.
They “believe in supernatural punishment” (Brandt 1954: 73) for wrongdoing,
directly or indirectly, through disease, accident, misfortune, death; and not only on
themselves, but on the whole human community, through environmental dangers
such as wind and drought. Bad behavior can ruin things for everyone, the Hopis say,
and thus societal punishment of morally defective behavior is appropriate, in order
to develop “conscience” (Brandt 1954: 80; see conscience) – and good character in
individuals.
Brandt found ethical concepts put into Hopi words. Even without professional-
ized philosophers, Hopis are fully capable of depicting behaviors termed evil,
shameful, blameworthy, or just right; they identify persons called troublemakers,
bad, not-Hopi in conduct, or good, in performing duties. The Hopis aim to be
7
“ethically consistent” (1954: 101). Wrong behavior, for them, is not merely contrary
to custom, but impartially, categorically wrong. A wrong behavior in one instance is
wrong in all cases and for all persons.
Brandt entered his study of the Hopis wondering about their ability to
discriminate vocally between good and bad human traits. He was amazed to discover
the fluent enunciation of their discernments. Hopis are moralists, ever ready to list
acceptable and unacceptable behaviors. Not surprisingly, they say it is right to be
modest, humble, uncomplaining, cheerful, calm, careful, candid, hopeful (especially
in prayer), reliable, brave, friendly, knowledgeable, helpful, content, cooperative,
foresighted, generous, gentle, hospitable, decent, persistent, closed-mouthed, thrifty,
etc. Hopis are critical of argumentative, snobbish, conceited, worried, vengeful,
jealous, mercurial, loud, flattering, lazy, boastful, broody, and grouchy behavior.
They have clear rules against harming others and requiring themselves to help oth-
ers in need. Hopis seek to promote fairness and assure just distribution of benefits
and burden, and they share the view that all persons have duties not only to others,
but also to themselves (Brandt 1954: 247–50).
Brandt analyzed Hopi values, morals, and explicit ethical principles; moreover,
he observed the religious sanctions operating in Hopi society, enforced by the
kachinas. He remarked that the “causal chain” (1954: 267) between ethical utter-
ances and behaviors has been weakened among the Hopis under acculturative
forces, including Christian missions. Still, he found an operating moral system in
which individuals internalize community norms, in order to achieve “prestige”
(1954: 272) among their fellows. The Hopis assume that Hopi values are right; in
the main, they do not question them; yet, they are capable of analyzing them
rationally and ritually, for example, through the public behaviors of ceremonial
clowns.
Often, scholars have contrasted the values of the communitarian Hopis to their
neighbors, the purportedly individualistic Navajos. Therefore, it is worth observing
what the philosopher John Ladd found among the twentieth-century Navajos.
Navajo ethicists are “rationally coherent”; they talk things over before acting, and
“public deliberation” is part of their examined life. Their moral code is a form
of “materialistic prudentialism”: “mechanistic and naturalistic,” “with no final
overarching purpose to life or the world in general,” even though basic premises
involve supernatural beings (Holy People) and the uniformity of natural laws
(Brandt 1954: 2, 203, 6, 207). In an anthropomorphic universe (see anthropocen-
trism), one’s treatment of persons – including nonhuman persons of nature – is
fraught with dangerous repercussions: “Be careful not to antagonize people!” If you
treat others kindly, however, they will reciprocate. The content of the Navajo moral
code reflects practical concerns and fears – regarding subsistence, health, and social
relations – both personal – “egotistic,” and societal – “altruistic” (Brandt 1954: 236,
213). Navajos want to avoid sickness, trouble, shame, and poverty. They want to
attain wealth and live a long life. Navajo prescriptions for a moral life can be
expressed in principles: “Take care of yourself and others.” “Don’t hurt anybody or
yourself.”
8
In these ways, Navajo morals are not unlike the Hopis’; however, for the Navajos,
moral judgment is nonauthoritarian; everyone has ethical competence (predeter-
mined to a degree by one’s personal soul, given at birth by the divine) and needs
to make his or her own moral decisions. It is up to you, the Navajos say, even though
there are times when Navajos provide public and private “moral utterances” (Brandt
1954: 212) as advice. The Navajo moral code tends toward “limited morality,”
an “ethics of constraint” (1954: 302), which aims to avoid excessive behavior.
Rectification is possible when moral codes are broken. Means of restoration include
curing rituals, social communication with those you have offended, and legal
proceedings.
Other scholars (see Further Readings) have examined many facets of Navajo
ethics, a topic worthy of its own special delineation and analysis.
Prophetic and Contemporary Native Ethics

History has witnessed many ethical reform movements among Native Americans.
Under Christian influence, prophets – opposed to Western hegemony but also critical
of traditional morality – have exhorted their fellows to seek personal and tribal
redemption through moral reform. Sometimes, their proposed reforms excoriated
behaviors deemed foreign (Nativist ethics), such as agricultural plowing of the earth’s
body. At other times, the reforms were aimed at improving the treatment of one
another, hence putting an end to Western behaviors such as alcohol abuse. Often,
these prophets claimed inspiration from the supernatural realm. The Peyote Religion,
for example, has a strong ethical code regarding pan-Indian relational solidarity,
sobriety, trustworthiness, generosity (see generosity), humility, and above all, broth-
erly love – all validated by the ritual ingestion of the hallucinogenic peyote cactus.
No North American Indian prophetic movement is better documented and
more long lived in its ethical influence than Handsome Lake’s Code – the Gaíwiio,
or good news (Parker 1968: 5) of the Senecas and their relatives among the Iroquois,
based upon the several revelations Handsome Lake received from Sky World
messengers, under Quaker impetus, beginning in 1799. Specific behaviors are said
in the Code to constitute “a great and monstrous evil”– Onéga – and “So now all
must now say, ‘I will use it nevermore,’ ” for “the Creator did not make it for you”
(Parker 1968: 27). What are these evils? Alcohol, witchcraft, secret poisons, abortions,
marital violence, abandonment and mistreatment of children, in-law strife, gossip,
adultery, sodomy, incest, calumny, unkindness to the old, family feuds, vanity, boast-
ing, and thievery. And what behaviors are encouraged in order to strengthen the
sacred bonds of kinship? Adoption, hospitality, sharing with the poor, work for the
commonweal, cultivating land, animal husbandry, chiefly authority, and the perfor-
mance of traditional thanksgiving ceremonies. The Code calls for people, indeed
the “world,” to “repent … sin” (Parker 1968: 43). This Code was promulgated and
reaffirmed with prophecies of the world’s end, divine punishments for evil-doers,
and rewards for adherents to Gaíwiio. It is still influential among “traditional”
Iroquois in their Longhouse Religion.
9
In 1992, two American Indian women – Viola Cordova (Apache) and Anne
Waters (Seminole) – were the first Native Americans in the United States to be
granted a PhD in philosophy. Both became active (Cordova is now deceased) in
expounding the characteristics of American Indian “thought” (Waters 2004) or
“philosophy” (Cordova 2007), including ethical dimensions. The “first principle” of
living in a “moral universe,” Waters says, is “relatedness” (2004: xvii). Cordova says,
“The American Indian is a monist,” and in this world of “oneness, … the creature,
man, stands at all times to the earth as an infant child to its mother” (2007: 114–15).
“Human beings are a part of a whole …,” they “are not alone”; rather, they “occupy
a specific place” (2007: 151, 184), and have a responsibility to sustain it. Her ethic
toward the earth is that of environmental “reverence” (2007: 201–7).
Today, in scholarly and popular literature, one can find frequent references to
Native American wisdom and philosophy, including the implication of noble values –
especially in contrast to those of colonizing Euro-Americans. In journals such as
Wicazo Sa Review, Ayaangwaamizin, Newsletter on American Indians in Philosophy,
and American Indian Law Review, many articles depict indigenous philosophy, land
ethics, and Native rights, and call for the repatriation of sacred objects, religious
freedoms, and moral autonomy for Native communities, according to the principles
depicted in this essay and summarized in the writings of Cordova and Waters. Native
American ethics has become increasingly literate, self-conscious, argumentative, but
no less anchored in community morals and religion.
See also: animals, moral status of; anthropocentrism; codes of ethics; common
good; conscience; duty and obligation; environmental ethics; evil; family;
generosity; guilt; harm; health and disease in religions; hunting; intention;
morality, definition of; nature and the natural; ought; personal relationships;
punishment; reciprocity; sexuality in religions; sin, concepts of
REFERENCES
Beck, Peggy V., and A. L. Walters 1977. The Sacred: Ways of Knowledge, Sources of Life. Tsaile,
AZ: Navajo Community College.
Becker, Lawrence C., and Charlotte B. Becker (eds.) 2001. Encyclopedia of Ethics, 2nd ed.,
3 vols. New York: Routledge.
Brandt, Richard B. 1954. Hopi Ethics: A Theoretical Analysis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Burkhart, Louise M. 1989. The Slippery Earth: Nahua-Christian Moral Dialogue in Sixteenth-
Century Mexico. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Callicott, J. Baird, and Michael P. Nelson 2004. American Indian Environmental Ethics: An
Ojibwa Case Study. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Cordova, Viola Faye 2007. How It Is: The Native American Philosophy of V. F. Cordova, eds.
Kathleen Dean Moore , Kurt Peters, Ted Jojola, et al. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Deloria, Ella C. 1983. Speaking of Indians. Vermillion: University of South Dakota Press.
Ferm, Vergilius (ed.) 1956. Encyclopedia of Morals. New York: Philosophical Library.
Hallowell, A. Irving 1939. “Sin, Sex and Sickness in Saulteaux Belief,” British Journal of
Medical Psychology, vol. 18, pp. 191–7.
10
Hastings, James (ed.) 1913–27. Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, 13 vols. New York:
Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Ladd, John 1957. The Structure of a Moral Code. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Parker, Arthur C. 1968. Parker on the Iroquois, ed. William N. Fenton. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse
University Press.
Vecsey, Christopher 1980. “American Indian Environmental Religions,” in Christopher
Vecsey and Robert W. Venables (eds.), American Indian Environments: Ecological Issues
in American Indian History. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, pp. 1–37.
Waters, Anne (ed.) 2004. American Indian Thought: Philosophical Essays. Oxford: Blackwell.
FURTHER READINGS
Farella, John R. 1984. The Main Stalk: A Synthesis of Navajo Philosophy. Tucson: University of
Arizona Press.
Griffin-Pierce, Trudy 1992. Earth Is My Mother, Sky Is My Father: Space, Time, and Astronomy
in Navajo Sandpainting. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
Haile, Berard 1943. “Soul Concepts of the Navaho,” Annali Lateranensi, vol. 7, pp. 59–94.
Hobson, Richard 1954. Navaho Acquisitive Values. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Kluckhohn, Clyde 1949. “The Philosophy of the Navaho Indians,” in F. S. C. Northrop (ed.),
Ideological Differences and World Order. New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 356–84.
Little, David, and Sumner B. Twiss 1978. Comparative Religious Ethics. San Francisco: Harper
& Row.
Matthews, Washington 1899. “The Study of Ethics among the Lower Races,” Journal of
American Folklore, vol. 12, pp. 1–9.
McNeley, James Kale 1981. Holy Wind in Navajo Philosophy. Tucson: University of Arizona
Press.
Rapoport, Robert N. 1954. Changing Navaho Religious Values: A Study of Christian Missions
to the Rimrock Navahos. Cambridge, MA: Peabody Museum of American Archaeology
and Ethnology.
Reichard, Gladys A. 1963. Navaho Religion: A Study of Symbolism. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Roberts, John M. 1951. Three Navaho Households: A Comparative Study in Small Group
Culture. Cambridge, MA: Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology.
Schwarz, Maureen Trudelle 1997. Molded in the Image of Changing Woman: Navajo Views on
the Human Body and Personhood. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Schwarz, Maureen Trudelle 2001. Navajo Lifeways: Contemporary Issues, Ancient Knowledge.
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
Schwarz, Maureen Trudelle 2008. “I Choose Life.” Contemporary Medical and Religious
Practices in the Navajo World. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
Spencer, Katherine 1957. Mythology and Values: An Analysis of Navaho Chantway Myths.
Philadelphia: American Folklore Society.
Werner, Oswald, Allen Manning, and Kenneth Y. Begishe 1983. “A Taxonomic View of the
Traditional Navajo Universe,” in Alfonso Ortiz (ed.), Handbook of North American
Indians, Vol. 10: Southwest. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, pp. 579–91.
Witherspoon, Gary 1975. Navajo Kinship and Marriage. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
11
Witherspoon, Gary 1983. “Language and Reality in Navajo World View,” in Alfonso Ortiz
(ed.), Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 10: Southwest. Washington, DC:
Smithsonian Institution, pp. 570–8.
Wyman, Leland C. 1970. Blessingway. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
1
Torture
Vittorio Bufacchi
The idea of “torture” plays a strategic role in our ethical reasoning, being often
identified as the limit case of savage human behavior, unspeakable agony, and even
political injustice. That torture holds this place in our collective imagination finds
affirmation in the everyday use of the term “torture” as a figure of speech, when cer-
tain personal experiences are too readily labelled as a form of torture, as in the case of
a visit to the dentist or a university exam. Less figuratively, the term “torture” can be
used to bestow the most intransigent condemnation of a certain act – for example,
when (rightly or wrongly) rape is equated to torture (McGlynn 2008; see rape).
The concept of “torture” appears to perform a curiously pivotal role in moral
reasoning, being the conceptual territory fought over by opposing sides on the
debate between moral absolutists and contextualists (see contextualism in
ethics). Moral absolutists appeal to this concept to show that there are some
human acts that can never be justified, or in other words that there is a category of
actions that is morally prohibited without exceptions (Tindale 2005; Shue 2006).
For absolutists torture represents the quintessential category of wrongness; hence
when “rape” is equated to torture it is precisely to suggest that rape could never,
under any circumstance, be justified or tolerated. Moral contextualists, on the
other hand, use the same concept to draw the opposite conclusion: they appeal to
torture to show that nothing can be morally prohibited without exception; hence
even something as awful as torture can, under certain conditions, be warranted
(Gross 2004).
Definitions of Torture
The concept of torture is highly contested. The only unanimously held belief
regarding torture is that there is no universally accepted definition of torture. It has
even been suggested that torture cannot be defined (in the sense that it is impossible
to define torture), and in any case it is undesirable to define torture (in the sense that
it is counterproductive to define torture).
Those who claim that torture cannot be defined appeal to the view that real things,
such as tables, rivers, happiness, pornography, or abortion, are impossible to define.
Torture is simply another example of a “real thing” that defies definition. The
impossibility lies in the fact that as part of the real world, all these things can change
without becoming something else. There are borderline cases in all real things, and
these borderlines are bound to change over time, particularly as new technology is
developed. Acknowledging the inevitability of such change is to embrace the thesis
that it is impossible to rely on rigid definitions (Brecher 2007).
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee093
2
Leaving aside the question whether torture can be defined, it has also been
suggested that torture should not be defined, in the sense that it is counterproductive
to do so. What makes any definition of torture counterproductive is the fact that it
invites genuine disputes about whether certain specific practices are part of the
definition or not. It also legitimates abuses below the defined threshold. For example,
a rigid definition of domestic violence allows plenty of scope for a violent husband
to “push around” his spouse without his actions falling on the wrong side of the law.
Similarly, a rigid definition of torture condones a great deal of dubious treatment of
prisoners without it contravening any international convention (Waldron 2005).
Holding the position that torture cannot and should not be defined is tempting, if
only because it invites us to bypass a problem of infinite complexity. Yet it is generally
unwise to be tempted by expediency, especially on such morally significant issues,
since a definition of torture is a prerequisite for a moral analysis of torture. Without
a precise definition of torture, even if only a working definition, it would be very
difficult, if not impossible, to proceed to a moral assessment of torture. It is not
simply a case of linguistic analysis having moral and political implications, but moral
theory being rooted in linguistic analysis (Barry 1990); for example, we know that
rape is wrong because we know what rape is, and we know what rape is, and when it
occurs, to the extent that we can define the act of rape. The same goes for torture.
One reason why it is difficult to define torture is that this is an extremely versatile
term, which can appropriately be found in different scenarios, to describe a variety of
realities, according to miscellaneous rationales; sometimes it refers to specific tech-
niques, from the grotesque (electric shock) to the subtle (sleep deprivation), although
other times torture identifies a precise purpose (usually punishment, intimidation, the
procurement of suffering, the retrieving of information, or all of the above).
In searching for a definition of torture, the first place to look is perhaps
international law. The United Nations General Assembly’s Convention against
Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
(hereafter UN Convention against Torture), adopted in 1984 and put into force in
1987, defines torture in Article 1, Paragraph 1, as follows:
Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally
inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person
information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has
committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a
third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or
suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a
public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or
suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.
The second paragraph of Article 2 goes on to say:
No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war,

internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a
justification of torture.
3
Whether the moral absolutism of Article 2 is indeed the correct position to take is
open for philosophical discussion, notwithstanding what the United Nations General
Assembly indicates, but first of all we need to focus on the definition of torture.
As one might expect, the definition of torture invoked by the UN Convention
against Torture has both strengths and weaknesses. The fact that according to this
definition torture can only be performed by a “public official or other person acting
in an official capacity” has been the subject of much consternation, and rightly so
(Davis 2005; Kenny 2010). Leaving this issue aside, this definition of torture deserves
to be praised for not restricting pain and suffering to the physical realm, as it rightly
includes also mental anguish. Furthermore, it clearly states that for torture to occur,
the pain and suffering must be inflicted intentionally, not accidentally. Finally, it
includes a list of the reasons or purposes why torture may be used. And yet, for all
its efforts to formulate a definition of torture that is both unequivocal and
comprehensive, this definition remains clouded in vagueness. After all, it is not the
severity of the physical or mental pain and suffering that will establish whether
torture is being practiced. Torture is not a peg on a quantitative index; hence there is
more to torture than the magnitude of pain and suffering being administered. The
definition of torture in the UN Convention against Torture leaves one with the
distinctive feeling that there is still something missing. The missing component is
necessary to determine when acceptable (or even legitimate) intentionally inflicted
physical or mental pain and suffering ends, and torture begins.
The ambiguity intrinsic in the definition of torture in the UN Convention against
Torture has often been lamented, although how to improve on the definition has
proved to be equally elusive. Short of making a list of banned techniques or practices
that count as torture, any definition will always have an element of imprecision, but
of course making such a list is highly undesirable, for it would not be difficult to
devise a practice not on “the torture list”; in fact it may even spur on the worst type
of sadist creativity: if ripping out nails is on the list, then placing a sterilized needle
under somebody’s fingernails for 15 minutes, causing excruciating pain but no
permanent physical damage, is by definition not torture. Clearly, an alternative
strategy to listing torture techniques is required.
Torture Today
In the past few years, the lack of clarity regarding what exactly constitutes torture
and what doesn’t, where legitimate methods of interrogation end and where torture
begins, has been fully exploited by certain key actors on the international political
arena intent to use so-called “enhanced interrogational techniques” while still
professing not to condone torture (Wolfendale 2009; Sussman 2009). In the ongoing
war on terrorism, the US administration has sanctioned a number of interrogational
techniques that have reignited the debate on torture. These techniques came to the
public attention almost accidentally in 2004 when photographs from Abu Ghraib
prison were published showing Iraqi detainees under US control being sexually
4
shamed, or threatened by dogs, or hooded and chained naked to a cell door handle
(Danner 2005). What has transpired since then is that the abuses of Abu Ghraib
were not the acts of rogue soldiers taking their own initiative for the sake of a sadistic
private joke, as originally claimed by US authorities, but the more-or-less legitimate
interpretation of techniques first sanctioned in Guantánamo and then used in
Afghanistan and Iraq, and possibly elsewhere, as part of the policy of extraordinary
rendition.
At the origin of this scandal stands a document listing 18 techniques of enhanced
interrogation. This document, dated December 2, 2002, bears the signature of
Donald Rumsfeld, then US Secretary of Defense. The 18 techniques in question,
divided into three categories, are the following:
Category I:
1) Yelling at the detainee.

2) Deception regarding interrogator identity.
Category II:
3) The use of stress positions (like standing) for a maximum of four hours.
4) The use of falsified documents or reports.
5) The use of the isolation facility for up to 30 days.
6) Interrogating the detainee in an environment other than the standard interrogation
booth.
7) Deprivation of light and auditory stimuli.
8) The detainee may also have a hood placed over his head during transportation and
questioning.
9) The use of 20-hour interrogations.
10) Removal of all comfort items (including religious items).
11) Switching the detainee from hot rations to meals, ready to eat.
12) Removal of clothing.
13) Forced grooming.
14) Using detainees’ individual phobias (such as fear of dogs) to induce stress.
Category III:
15) The use of scenarios designed to convince the detainee that death or severely painful
consequences are imminent for him and/or his family.
16) Exposure to cold weather or water.
17) Use of a wet towel and dripping water to induce the misperception of suffocation.
18) Use of mild, non-injurious contact, such as grabbing, poking in the chest with the
finger, and light pushing.
It is with these 18 techniques of enhanced interrogation in mind that the urgent

issue of establishing an adequate definition of torture must be approached. This list
of techniques is relevant as much for what it says as for what it doesn’t say. In the
official documents there is precious little detail specifying exactly what these
5
techniques amount to, which leaves the door open for creative interpretations and
gruesome abuses: for example, techniques 12 and 14 are clearly evident in the
photographs that were made public from Abu Ghraib; technique 3 is also extremely
ambiguous, although we know that in 2003 in an effort to interpret and put into
practice a “stress position” interrogators in Iraq accidentally killed Iraqi general
Mowhouse when he was asphyxiated due to smothering and chest compression
when put in a sleeping bag and tied up with an electrical cord.
When Rumsfeld sanctioned these techniques, he made the point that all 18
practices may be legally available, although he also expressed the view that as a
matter of policy, a blanket approval of Category III techniques was not warranted
at the time. Regarding technique 3, a stress position like standing for four hours,
Rumsfeld famously scribbled at the end of the document, “However, I stand for
8–10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?” (Jaffer and Singh 2007:
A-83). Regarding technique 17, also known as waterboarding, then vice president
Dick Cheney described it as a “dunk in a water” and a “no-brainer” if it could
save lives.
Are the 18 techniques listed above legitimate methods of enhanced interrogation,
or are they forms of torture? In searching for an answer, it may be necessary to ask a
preliminary question: what is distinctive about the violence of torture? Torture is, of
course, an act of violence, but what makes torture different from any other act of
violence? Violence could be defined as an act that intentionally inflicts physical or
mental (psychological) pain or suffering (see violence). If we compare this
definition of violence to the above definition of torture from the UN Convention
against Torture, it would appear that the only difference is that torture involves
severe pain or suffering. That cannot be right. The difference between violence and
torture cannot be one of degree, where torture is simply the most extreme form of
violence. Instead, there is a qualitative difference between violence pure and simple
and torture, which is precisely why torture holds such a special place in our ethical
landscape. It is therefore necessary to understand what is distinctive, and unique,
about the violence of torture.
Philosophical investigations into the violence and wrongness of torture have resulted
in many significant contributions to the literature. It has been suggested that what makes
torture profoundly wrong is the fact that the experience of torture is degrading, in the
specific sense that victims of torture are reduced to their bodies and the pain experienced
through their bodies (Scarry 1985). Or, the absolute domination of the torturer over the
body of another puts the latter in a position of absolute subordination (Améry 1980),
which is both humiliating and offensive (Lukes 2005). Or, it is the defenselessness (Shue
1978) or forced passivity (Sussman 2006) of the torture victim that is most objectionable
about the practice of torture. Or, torture forces its victim into a position of colluding
against himself or herself, to contribute to his or her own violation, therefore turning the
victim’s agency against itself (Sussman 2005). Finally, it has also been suggested that what
distinguishes torture from other legitimate techniques of interrogation is the role
assumed by, and extent of control exercised by, the torturer on the tortured, where
control entails a time-specific total command over another person’s body (Kenny 2010).
6
All of the above suggestions are valid, and valuable. The task is to find a definition
of torture that captures the way in which such practices involve degradation,
domination, humiliation, offense, defencelessness, forced passivity, perverting
agency, or subjugation of control. The term that comes to mind, which comes closest
to capturing all of the above, is “dehumanization.” Perhaps what is distinctive about
torture, and profoundly disconcerting, is the fact that the practice of torture is
dehumanizing to the victim, and possibly also to the victimizers (Tindale 1996;
Kelman 1973). The dehumanizing nature of torture also explains the qualitative
difference between torture and mere violence. What makes torture distinctive from
other forms of violence is not that the pain or suffering being intentionally inflicted
is “severe,” but that torture dehumanizes (or aims to dehumanize) the victim. Not all
acts of violence dehumanize the victim, but torture does.
The definition of torture can therefore be revised as follows:
Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is inflicted on a
person for such purposes as obtaining from that person or a third party information or
confession, or punishing that person for an act committed or suspected to have been
committed, where the act in question either aims at or results in dehumanizing the
person being interrogated or punished.
On the basis of this definition, it is opportune to revisit the 18 so-called “techniques

of enhanced interrogation” administered to detainees in Guantánamo, Afghanistan,
Iraq, and other places during the ongoing war on terrorism. While it could be argued
that some of these techniques (1 and 2, certainly, and perhaps 4) are indeed forms of
interrogation that stop short of torture, there is no doubt that all the other techniques
are aimed at encroaching on the humanity of the person at the receiving end of the
treatment. The pictures of Abu Ghraib are disturbing exactly because in being forced
to strip naked, to pile up, or to masturbate while soldiers looked on, laughing, taking
pictures, the detainees were also being treated as less than human, and therefore
being deprived of their dignity.
On the other hand, it could be argued that the intrinsic vagueness of the term
“dehumanizing” at the heart of the definition of torture is gravely problematic, as it lends
itself to philosophical debates of a highly contested nature. The accusation that the term
“dehumanizing” is vague cannot be refuted. Yet introducing an element of vagueness in
the definition of torture could have some benefits – or, in other words, an aspect of
ambiguity in the definition can be a virtue rather than a vice. At the start of this section,
it was suggested that whether or not it is possible to define torture, it is undesirable to do
so. The reason why defining torture is deemed by some to be counterproductive is that
it permits (indeed encourages) all kinds of malicious practices as long as they stop short
of the technical definition of torture. The ambiguity and abstraction of the term
“dehumanizing” could introduce an element of uncertainty in the minds of the inter-
rogators (and their officials) about whether a specific technique is merely vicious (and
therefore legitimate) or torture (and therefore illegitimate). Just as a violent husband is
perhaps less likely to abuse his wife if he doesn’t know for sure whether “pushing his wife
7
round a bit” constitutes domestic violence or not, similarly the vagueness in the term
“dehumanizing” introduces an element of doubt as to what techniques of enhanced
interrogation are legitimate, including many practices currently in use.
Justifications of Torture
Violence is not always wrong, it is only prima facie wrong, which explains the reason
why violence can be justified, depending on the circumstances. Can the same be said
for torture? Some have tried to argue that as with any other type of violence, torture
can also be justified, depending on the circumstances, notwithstanding the severity
of the act in question. The argument typically used to justify torture tends to rely on
a ticking-bomb scenario. This is the fictional story of authorities arresting a terrorist
who holds information on an explosive device about to go off in a crowded city cen-
tre. In those circumstances, it is argued that it is not only not wrong to torture the
terrorist, but that it would be wrong not to torture the terrorist, if doing so could
save the lives of many innocent people.
The ticking-bomb story has received far more attention than it deserves. It is, after
all, nothing more than a dramatic narrative. As such, its heuristic potential is in the first
instance emotional rather than cognitive (Finlay 2011). Not surprisingly details of the
story vary according to the dramatic effects being sought: for example, the bomb could
kill 500 innocent people, or 1,000, or 10,000, or what if the explosive device is an atomic
bomb? Not surprisingly the ticking-bomb scenario has proved to be popular among
those who are prepared to entertain the notion that in extreme and well-specified con-
ditions the use of torture can be vindicated on moral grounds (Dershowitz 2003;
Allhoff 2005; Miller 2005; Steinhoff 2006). In fact this line of reasoning is riddled with
logical and factual snags. It is not wise to ground one’s argument on fictional hyperbole,
since as every moral philosopher ought to know fantasy makes for bad ethical theory.
It is to be hoped that the abuses of hypothetical scenarios will eventually give way to the
serious task of philosophizing (Luban 2005; see thought experiments in ethics).
Whatever the fictional number of prospective deaths, the justification for allowing
the terrorist to be tortured is generally of a consequentialist nature, since torturing
one terrorist is seen as a lesser evil compared to the deaths of many innocent people
(see consequentialism). The standard refutation of this type of consequentialist
argument is on absolutist lines, held by those who maintain that torture is essentially
wrong and evil, and therefore it is never justified, consequences notwithstanding
(Shue 2006). Alternatively, the ticking-bomb argument can be refuted on both
logical and consequentialist grounds (Bufacchi and Arrigo 2006). From a logical
standpoint, the problem with the ticking-bomb scenario is that there are a number
of potentially disruptive hidden assumptions in the story of the ticking bomb that
could easily derail the simplistic reasoning being encouraged by this fictional
account. The hidden assumptions in question include the postulation that the
terrorist being caught and tortured is in fact the one holding information regarding
a primed bomb; that torture will give the desired results within the time frame; that
the information given by the terrorist under duress is in fact the correct information.
8
All the empirical evidence of torture confirms that the ticking-bomb story is based
on simplistic, optimistic, and unrealistic assumptions.
From a consequentialist point of view, the ticking-bomb story also runs into
serious difficulties. The ticking-bomb argument ignores the larger social and
political consequences of state-sponsored torture. On a cost–benefit analysis, the
potential consequences of not only allowing, but also preparing for, the eventuality
of torture are extremely damaging. Again, all the empirical evidence points to the
fact that institutionalizing torture interrogation of terrorists has a detrimental effect
on civil, military, and legal institutions, making the costs higher than any potential
benefit, as was the case in Algeria and Brazil. To be effective, torture cannot be
improvised; but training someone in the art of torture just in case a ticking-bomb
scenario arises is a dangerous policy to endorse. There is a legitimate concern that
the institutionalization of torture can damage the democratic ethos of a polity –
although this is a risk often overlooked by those prepared to justify torture.
See also: consequentialism; contextualism in ethics; rape; thought

experiments in ethics; violence
REFERENCES
Allhoff, Fritz 2005. “A Defense of Torture: Separation of Cases, Ticking Time-bombs, and
Moral Justification,” International Journal of Applied Philosophy, vol. 19, pp. 243–64.
Améry, Jean 1980. “Torture,” in At the Mind’s Limits: Contemplations by a Survivor on
Auschwitz and Its Realities, trans. Sidney Rosenfeld and Stella P. Rosenfeld.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 1–20.
Barry, Brian 1990. Political Argument: A Reissue with a New Introduction. London: Harvester
Wheatsheaf.
Brecher, Bob 2007. Torture and the Ticking Bomb. Oxford: Blackwell.
Bufacchi, Vittorio, and Jean Maria Arrigo 2006. “Torture, Terrorism and the State: A Refutation
of the Ticking-bomb Argument,” Journal of Applied Philosophy, vol. 23, pp. 355–73.
Danner, Mark 2005. Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib and the War on Terror. London:
Granta.
Davis, Michael 2005. “The Moral Justification of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or
Degrading Treatment,” International Journal of Applied Philosophy, vol. 19, pp. 161–78.
Dershowitz, Alan M. 2003. Why Terrorism Works: Understanding the Threat, Responding to
the Challenge. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Finlay, Christopher 2011. “Dirty Hands and the Romance of the Ticking Bomb Terrorist:
A Humean Account,” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy,
vol. 14, pp. 421–42.
Gross, Oren 2004. “The Prohibition on Torture and the Limits of the Law,” in Sanford
Levinson (ed.), Torture: A Collection. New York: Oxford University Press.
Jaffer, Jameel, and Amrit Singh, 2007. Administration of Torture: A Documentary Record from
Washington to Abu Ghraib and Beyond. New York: Columbia University Press.
Kelman, Herbert C. 1973. “Violence without Moral Restraints: Reflections on
the Dehumanization of Victims and Victimizers,” Journal of Social Issues, vol. 29, pp. 25–61.
Kenny, Paul 2010. “The Meaning of Torture,” Polity, vol. 42, pp. 131–55.
9
Luban, David 2005. “Liberalism, Torture and the Ticking Bomb,” Virginia Law Review,
vol. 91, pp. 1425–61.
Lukes, Steven 2005. “Liberal Democratic Torture,” British Journal of Political Science, vol. 36,
pp.1–16.
McGlynn, Clare 2008. “Rape as ‘Torture’? Catharine MacKinnon and Questions of Feminist
Strategy,” Feminist Legal Studies, vol. 16, pp. 71–85.
Miller, Seumas 2005. “Is Torture Ever Morally Justified?” International Journal of Applied
Scarry, Eleine 1985. The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World. Oxford:
Shue, Henry 1978. “Torture,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 7, pp. 124–43.
Shue, Henry 2006. “Torture in Dreamland: Disposing of the Ticking Bomb,” Case Western
Reserve Journal of International Law, vol. 37, pp. 231–39.
Steinhoff, Uwe 2006. “Torture – The Case for Dirty Harry and against Alan Dershowitz,”
Journal of Applied Philosophy, vol. 23, pp. 337–53.
Sussman, David, 2005. “What’s Wrong with Torture?” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 33,
pp. 1–33.
Sussman, David 2006. “Defining Torture,” Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law,
vol. 37, pp. 225–30.
Sussman, David 2009. “ ‘Torture Lite’: A Response,” Ethics and International Affairs, vol. 23,
no. 1, pp. 63–7.
Tindale, Christopher 1996. “The Logic of Torture: A Critical Examination,” Social Theory
and Practice, vol. 22, pp. 349–74.
Tindale, Christopher 2005. “Tragic Choices: Reaffirming Absolutes in the Torture Debate,”
International Journal of Applied Philosophy, vol. 19, pp. 209–22.
Waldron, Jeremy 2005. “Torture and Positive Law: Jurisprudence for the White House,”
Columbia Law Review, vol. 105, pp. 1681–750.
Wolfendale, Jessica 2009. “The Myth of ‘Torture Lite,’ ” Ethics and International Affairs,
vol. 23, pp. 47–61.
FURTHER READINGS
Allhoff, Fritz 2012. Terrorism, Ticking-Bombs, and Torture. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Ginbar, Yuval 2008. Why Not Torture Terrorists? Moral, Practical, and Legal Aspects of the
“Ticking-Bomb” Situation for Torture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Greenberg, Karen (ed.) 2006. The Torture Debate in America. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Levinson, Sanford (ed.) 2004. Torture: A Collection. New York: Oxford University Press.
Peters, Edward 1996. Torture, expanded ed. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press.
Sands, Philippe 2008. Torture Team: Rumsfeld’s Memo and the Betrayal of American Values.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Wantchekon, Leonard, and Andrew Healy 1999. “The ‘Game’ of Torture,” Journal of Conflict
Resolution, vol. 43, pp. 596–609.
Wolfendale, Jessica 2007. Torture and the Military Profession. Basingstoke and New York:
Palgrave Macmillan.
1
Victimless Crimes
Vera Bergelson
The term “victimless crime” refers to behavior that is proscribed by law but does not
violate the rights of any particular person. The term is used mainly in Anglo-
American political and criminal justice literature and is of fairly recent origin. It
entered the academic and public discourse in the 1950s, with the birth of victimology,
a branch of criminology focusing on the victims and the interaction between victims
and perpetrators.
There is no single, universally accepted definition for victimless crimes. Most
commonly, the term is used to mean one or more of the following:
1 A prohibited act that does not involve any direct harm to others. The perpetrator
is the principal bearer of the adverse consequences of his own actions (e.g.,
suicide [see suicide], drug use)
2 A consensual transaction between adult, rational individuals – a “willing
exchange, among adults, of strongly demanded, but legally proscribed goods or
services” Schur (1965: 169) (e.g., gambling, prostitution [see prostitution],
sadomasochistic beating, assisted suicide)
3 Harmful acts whose costs are borne by society at large rather than a specific,
identifiable victim (e.g., tax violations, insider trading)
4 “Harmless immorality” – private acts that are prohibited despite their harmless
nature in order to protect society against “moral deviancy” (e.g., fornication,
homosexuality [see homosexuality], incest [see incest], flag-burning)
The concept of victimless crimes is highly controversial. Any definition listed

above – with the possible exception of (3) – is likely to raise serious issues of political
legitimacy, moral fairness, and efficiency. The essence of the controversy is the
fundamental premise of a liberal state that coercive power may be used against an
individual only in order to prevent harm to others. This principle, also known as the
“harm principle” (see harm principle), originated in the works of John Stuart Mill
(see mill, john stuart), who maintained that “the sole end for which mankind are
warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any
of their number, is self-protection,” and “the only purpose for which power can be
rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to
prevent harm to others” (Mill 1859: 51–2). As Mill argued:
the individual’s own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant. He cannot
rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so,
because it will make him happier, because, in the opinion of others, to do so would be
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee094
2
wise, or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning
with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting
him with any evil in case he do otherwise. (1859: 21–2)
Historically, most of the common law offenses were premised on the “harm to
others” principle, and victims bore primary responsibility for the apprehension,
charge, and prosecution of offenders. As one scholar noted, the “development of the
medieval English system evolved around the needs and interests of the victim”
(Kirchengast 2006: 24). From the thirteenth century, however, courts started shifting
focus away from the victim to the communal peace and security (Kirchengast 2006:
23–4). By the sixteenth century, numerous public order offenses were enacted to
protect those interests, and criminal law “came to be accepted as ordering the social
over the needs of victims” (Kirchengast 2006: 150). With the growth of the state
power, the understanding of crime as a violation of the victim’s interest was replaced
with another interpretation: the disturbance of society (Schafer 1977: 22).
This new interpretation of crime is at the foundation of the expansion of victimless
crime legislation in a number of countries. The American “war on crime,” for
instance, has been primarily a war on victimless crime. Eighty percent of those who
started their sentences in US federal prisons in 2007 were convicted of victimless
crimes – drug trafficking, immigration violations, weapon offenses, mailing or
transporting obscene materials, tax evasion, drug possession, and other regulatory
and public order offenses (FBI 2007: 1). State penal codes often include hundreds of
victimless crimes, with possession offenses topping the list (e.g., 150 possession
offenses in New York alone) (Dubber 2002: 14–15).
The main arguments against victimless crimes usually fall into two categories. The
first category denies the legitimacy of victimless criminal legislation as such.
Proponents of this view focus on the principle that, in a free society, people should be
able to pursue their interests. The state ought to have powerful reasons to limit people’s
liberty (see liberty) or autonomy (see autonomy). Only serious transgressions that
threaten society as a whole may be subject to criminal sanctions, and transgressions
that violate no one’s rights are never serious enough. Accordingly, acts that involve
only harm to self, consensual harm, or harmless immorality may not be criminalized.
Nothing under this view, however, precludes criminalization of the acts that cause
harm to a group of non-identifiable victims. Such offenses as bribery, espionage, tax
fraud, or insider trading hurt society as a whole and may be legitimately included
in a penal code. These offenses cause or directly threaten “harm to others” and,
therefore, are not victimless.
The second, more numerous group of opponents attacks victimless legislation
from the consequentialist perspective. They maintain that, even if it might be
legitimate to punish victimless crimes, there are certain practical reasons why it is
unwise to do so. These arguments usually focus on the matters of efficiency, privacy,
control of police misconduct, and selective enforcement. From this perspective,
harm to self, consensual harm, or harmless immorality is almost never worth crim-
inal prosecution. Even harm to an unspecified, wide group of people (as in insider
3
trading) may not be worth the resources involved in the enforcement of such an
offense, unless the costs of the enforcement are significantly outweighed by benefits
to society.
More specifically, the following moral and practical arguments have been raised
against victimless crimes.
Inconsistency: To be fair and morally influential, law has to be consistent. Yet,
prosecution of victimless crimes is undermined by its logical and moral arbitrariness.
One cannot help but wonder:
Why, for example, do we allow persons to gamble with their money, so long as they
spend it on some risky ventures (the stock market), but prohibit them if they wish to
spend it on others (offtrack betting, the numbers pool)? Why do we license the sale of
some personal services (escort services, massage parlors) and not others (“massage
parlors,” prostitution)? Why do we allow some demonstrably harmful substances to be
sold without prescription and merely tax them (tobacco, alcohol) whereas some others
(marijuana, cocaine) are unavailable over the counter at all? … The explanation in
every case is ideological or historical, not logical or moral. (Schur and Bedau 1974: 100)
Inefficiency: Opponents of victimless legislation often draw attention to the

expenditure of police and criminal justice resources in attempting to enforce statutes
prohibiting prostitution, drug-trafficking, gambling, and other matters of private
morality. These statutes are directed against voluntary exchanges between willing
participants who do not consider themselves victims, do not report lawbreaking
to the authorities, and have no interest in cooperating in the prosecution. Not
surprisingly, the costs of enforcement of those statutes are extremely high.
For example, in 2005, there were 160,000 misdemeanor arrests for personal
possession of marijuana and prostitution in the state of California, United States.
According to critics, police spent at least 500,000 hours on the processing of those
minor wrongdoings, while more than 100,000 of the 189,000 reported serious
felonies remained unsolved (Beck-Brown 2006: 1).
Limited resources: Concerns about the cost of punishing victimless crimes have
become particularly vocal in the last few years, as the recent financial crisis has
forced many governments to cut down spending in all areas of public life. For
example, it is believed that marijuana possession and prostitution laws alone cost
California US$200 million a year in police, court, prison, and probation expenses
(Power 2009: 1) and that California spends more money today on prisons than on
higher education (Beck-Brown 2006: 1). In contrast, according to a reporter, the
Dutch state earns €400 million annually in tax revenues from “coffee shops” that
legally serve cannabis (NIS News Bulletin 2008).
Privacy: Critics argue that victimless crime laws encroach on the privacy
(see privacy) of innocent people. Since victimless crimes are almost never reported to
the authorities by their participants, officials must engage in extensive monitoring,
wiretapping, and surveillance of suspects and the public in order to enforce these laws.
4
Wrong incentives to law enforcement: Another problem associated with victimless

crimes is that the absence of a complaining victim sometimes leads the police to
employ unlawful means of investigation (Levenson 2009: 1). Illegal searches and
seizures, electronic surveillance, and entrapment, as well as police corruption and
demoralization are cited among the byproducts of enforcement of victimless crime
laws (Schur and Bedau 1974: 66–70).
Outgrowth of organized crime: In addition, it has been argued that prosecution
of vice leads to the growth of organized crime. The Prohibition regime in the
United States (1919–1933) stimulated development of an underground liquor
market in which organized crime thrived. Gangsters grew in power due to the
financial benefits brought about by the lack of legitimate business competition.
Similarly, the increase in violent crime in Iran has been associated with the 1955
ban on cultivation of opium, which created a flourishing illicit market. After the
prohibition was lifted in 1969 and opium growing was resumed under the
government regulation, the rate of violent crime dropped appreciably. Critics of
victimless crime legislation maintain that, once crime syndicates step in, the ten-
dency of lawmakers is to attempt to eliminate the problem by intensifying the
severity of the laws that caused it. Such attempts may have a temporary restrictive
effect, but in the long run they only force the criminals to change tactics and
locations (Norwitz 1994: 1).
Unenforceability: Some critics have argued that victimless crime laws are
essentially unenforceable. Despite occasional “crackdowns” on streetwalkers, drug
dealers, or illicit gambling operations, there is little evidence of any appreciable
success in curtailing the activities against which these laws are directed. As two
authors observed, the “ ‘revolving door’ practice with respect to prostitution – in
which streetwalkers are routinely hauled into court, fined, bailed out and back on
the job in short order – typifies the aura of hypocrisy and futility that surrounds
the attempt to enforce legislation against such borderline crimes)” (Schur and
Bedau 1974: 19).
Selective enforcement: Finally, victimless crime legislation has been criticized for
targeting mainly the poor and the underprivileged. Particularly with respect to drug
laws, there is a huge gap in the level of enforcement between poor, minority, and
rich communities. Similarly, the anti-prostitution efforts concentrate largely on
lower-class streetwalkers rather than the more hidden and affluent call girls, and
gambling enforcement focuses on the poor man’s “numbers” racket rather than the
rich man’s wagering activities (Schur and Bedau 1974: 24).
In contrast, those who defend victimless crime legislation usually maintain that
society ought to protect itself and its members from physical and moral harms.
Some argue that there is no such thing as “victimless” crime: crime always has
victims. For example, a drug user is a victim of his addiction and a prostitute is a
victim of sexual exploitation.
Proponents of victimless crime laws argue that, even if an act includes no rights
violation, is not perceived by the participants as an act of victimization, and is not
reported to the police, it may still warrant a criminal ban. After all, injuries hurt and
5
disable even when they are incurred willingly. Participants of an unlawful fist fight
or duel may suffer a setback of their important long-term welfare interests, regardless
of whether they see themselves as victims or file police reports. Even crimes that
undoubtedly involve victimization for a variety of reasons often go unreported: a
victim of extortion may be too scared of repercussions to report the threat to the
authorities; a victim of blackmail may choose not to report the crime in order to
keep an embarrassing secret private; and a victim of date rape may wish to avoid the
trauma of police interrogation.
Furthermore, victimless crimes often negatively affect people other than their
participants. For example, residents of a red-light district may experience a decrease
in their property values or a sense of moral decay within the surrounding community
(Davis 2002: 273).
In sum, pursuant to this view, victimless crimes are never truly victimless. They
victimize crime participants, their families, neighbors, and communities. To prevent
that victimization, it is legitimate to criminalize an activity that inflicts harm,
regardless of who suffers the harm and how direct or serious the harm is.
The other widespread view in support of victimless crime legislation is that crime
is, first and foremost, a wrong against the state, not against an individual. It is, there-
fore, immaterial whether the particular victim suffered an injury, or whether
there even was a specific victim. As Markus Dubber sarcastically described it, from
the state perspective:
Any violation of the state’s missives, any disruption of its administrative scheme,
perhaps even of its very foundation – unquestioning obedience to its carefully
calibrated rules and regulations formulated by expert bureaucrats guided exclusively
by the concern for common good – victimizes the state. Contumacious conduct of this
sort not only challenges the state’s authority but also inflicts palpable emotional harm
on its officials, who feel unappreciated and inconvenienced by the persistent and
perplexing unwillingness of the commoners to comply with the very rules promulgated
for their common well-being, their commonwealth. (2002: 26–7)
The long list of harms an individual can inflict upon the state usually includes
military, economic, sociopolitical, and moral. Courts and legislatures have been
citing those harms as reasons for banning conduct that, on its face, does not cause or
threaten harm to anyone other than the willing participants.
Military service. Following the common law tradition, some courts continue to
criminalize consensual harm, opining that a person may not consent to an act that
would deprive society of his military service. In State v. Bass, the court remarked
that the “commonwealth needs the services of its citizens quite as much as the
kings of England needed the services of theirs” (State v. Bass 1961). Considering the
realities of the modern day military operations, some critics found this argument to
be completely out of date (Bergelson 2007: 191).
Public charge. A more general argument for criminalization of consensual or
self-inflicted harm is premised on the concern that injured individuals may become
6
“public charge.” Courts have held that the state has an “interest in preventing citizens
who are capable of being productive members of society from disabling themselves
if they or their dependents would be forced to rely either on the gifts of others or on
the state itself for support” (State v. Bass 1961). The problem with this argument lies
in its authoritarian presumption that the state has the right to ban any conduct that
may impose moral or economic costs on society. Pursuant to this logic, nothing
should prevent a legislature alarmed by the rise in obesity from criminalizing
possession or consumption of fattening food substances.
Breach of peace. Another common argument, which has been successfully invoked
for the past 300 years, is that the state has the right to intervene in consensual
activities if they constitute a breach of peace. Duels and prizefights have been held to
threaten peace, therefore, an agreement to fight has been held invalid. The reasoning
behind this policy has been that, when assaults are committed publicly or in the
presence of others, they tend to incite riotous, disorderly, or offensive behavior. To
the extent this argument is supported by data, it may have merit, yet it loses much of
its force when cited in connection with private activities, such as sadomasochistic
sex (R. v. Brown 1994). Moreover, as the British Court of Appeal has admitted, in the
times of a well-established police force and numerous statutory offenses directed at
specific instances of public disorder, the “breach of peace” rationale for disregarding
participants’ consent is outdated and unpersuasive (Attorney-General’s Reference
1981: 715).
Immorality. The immorality argument has been used by lawmakers and judges
primarily to ban perceived sexual transgressions. Historically, examples of morals
legislation included laws against sodomy, fornication, bigamy, adultery, incest,
sadomasochistic sex, and prostitution.
Until recently, there has been little doubt that protecting morality is a legitimate
state interest, even within private relationships of adult citizens. The role of criminal
law in enforcing moral norms, however, became the subject of considerable public
debate in the middle of the twentieth century. One of the most famous exchanges
took place in the United Kingdom following the 1957 publication of the Wolfenden
Report (The Report of the Departmental Committee on Homosexual Offences and
Prostitution), which recommended decriminalization of private homosexual
behavior between consenting adults. The participants of the debate were Lord Devlin,
a prominent British judge who criticized the report’s conclusions, and H. L. A. Hart
(see hart, h. l. a.), a leading jurisprudential scholar, who supported them.
Devlin argued that a society’s existence depends on the maintenance of shared
political and moral values. Violation of the shared morality loosens one of the
bonds that hold society together and thereby threatens it with disintegration. “No
society can do without intolerance, indignation, and disgust; they are the forces
behind the moral law” (Devlin 1965: 17). Thus, if society perceives homosexuality
as “a vice so abominable that its mere presence is an offence” (Devlin 1965: 17),
then society should ban it. In contrast, Hart argued that the state should not crim-
inalize matters of morality, particularly sexual morality (see sexual morality):
private in nature, they do not jeopardize the integrity of society. As Hart wrote,
7
“we have ample evidence for believing that people will not abandon morality, will
not think any better of murder, cruelty, and dishonesty, merely because
some private sexual practice which they abominate is not punished by the law”
(1959: 162).
In the years that followed, many countries confronted their laws regulating
morals. Homosexual sex, fornication, adultery, and to some extent adult incest
have been widely decriminalized. In a recent decision, the Supreme Court of the
United States invalidated anti-sodomy laws and held that a conflicting earlier
precedent “was not correct when it was decided, and it is not correct today”
(Lawrence v. Texas 2003).
Yet, the debate surrounding victimless crime legislation is far from being over.
Both sides of the debate concur that a liberal state should not punish private,
self-regarding, or consensual activities unless the actors are not fully autonomous
individuals (e.g., children, mentally ill) or unless these activities impose direct
significant harms on third parties or society in general. Where the proponents and
opponents of the victimless crime legislation differ is, first, whether society is in fact
harmed by a particular activity; and second – if it is harmed – whether the harm to
society at large is significant enough to outweigh the harm to the individual members
whose self-regarding choices are overridden.
Specifically, both sides of the debate usually view the harm to society brought
about by such offenses as treason, insider trading, or tax fraud as direct and
significant enough to justify their criminalization. Criminalization of harmful
consensual activities, such as assisted death, dueling, or consensual torture, is
more controversial but still finds support among not only the proponents but
also some opponents of victimless crime legislation (e.g., those who question
the voluntariness of the participants’ consent in particularly vulnerable
circumstances). However, in the areas of self-regarding harm (e.g., drug use)
and harmless immorality (e.g., fornication, adultery, polyamory), the positions
of those who support and those who oppose victimless crime laws remain
largely irreconcilable.
See also: autonomy; harm principle; hart, h. l. a.; homosexuality; incest;

liberty; mill, john stuart; privacy; prostitution; sexual morality; suicide
REFERENCES
Attorney-General’s Reference, QB 715 (1981).
Beck-Brown, D. 2006. “The High Cost of Prison Overcrowding,” The San Diego Union-
Tribune, April 27, 2006.
Bergelson, Vera. 2007. “The Right to Be Hurt: Testing the Boundaries of Consent,” Geo.
Wash. L. Rev., vol. 75, p. 165.
Davis, Mark 2002. The Concise Dictionary of Crime and Justice. California: Sage.
Devlin, Patrick 1965. The Enforcement of Morals. New York: Oxford University Press.
8
Dubber, Markus Dirk 2002. Victims in the War on Crime: The Use and Abuse of Victim’s
Rights. New York: New York University Press.
FBI 2007. “Estimated Number of Arrests,” Crime in the United States. At http://www.fbi.gov/
ucr/cius2007/data/table_29.html.
Hart, H. L. A. 1959. “Immorality and Treason,” The Listener, July 30.
Kirchengast, Tyrone 2006. The Victim in Criminal Law and Justice. Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 588, 578 (2003).
Levenson, M. 2009. “Police Balk at Ticketing Marijuana Offenders,” The Boston Globe, January
3, 2009. At http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/01/03/police_
balk_at_ticketing_marijuana_offenders.
Mill, John Stuart 1859. On Liberty. Ontario: Broadview Press.
NIS News Bulletin 2008. “State Earns 400 Million Euros a Year from Cannabis Bars,” NIS
News Bulletin, May 3. At http://www.nisnews.nl/public/030508_1.htm.
Norwitz, Michael 1994. “Victimless Crime Laws,” The Trouble with Normal, April 1994,
pp. 13–16.
Power, R. 2009. “Victimless Crimes,” Libertarian Party of San Francisco. At http://www.lpsf.
org/issues/69-victimless-crimes.html.
R. v. Brown, 1 A.C. 212 (H.L.) (1994).
Schafer, Stephen 1977. Victimology: The Victim and His Criminal. Reston, VA: Reston Pub. Co.
Schur, Edwin 1965. Crimes Without Victims: Deviant Behavior and Public Policy – Abortion,
Homosexuality, Drug Addiction. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.
Schur, Edwin, and Hugo Adam Bedau 1974. Victimless Crimes: Two Sides of a Controversy.
Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.
State v. Bass, 120 S.E. 2d 580, 586 (1961).
FURTHER READINGS
Feinberg, Joel. 1984–88. The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law, 4 vols. Vol. 1: Harm to Others
(1984); Vol. 2: Offense to Others (1985); Vol. 3: Harm to Self (1986); Vol. 4: Harmless
Wrongdoing (1988). New York: Oxford University Press.
Hart, H. L. A. 1963. Law, Liberty and Morality. Stanford, California: Stanford University
Press.
Oaks, Dallin H. 1975. “The Popular Myth of the Victimless Crime,” University of Chicago Law
Alumni Journal, pp. 3–14.
Packer, Herbert 1986. The Limits of the Criminal Sanction. Stanford, California: Stanford
University Press.
McWilliams, Peter 1993. Ain’t Nobody’s Business if You Do: The Absurdity of Consensual
Crimes in a Free Society. Los Angeles, CA: Prelude Press.
Meares, Tracey 1997. “Rethinking Federal Criminal Law: Charting Race and Class Differences
in Attitudes Toward Drug Legalization and Law Enforcement: Lessons for Federal
Criminal Law,” Buffalo Criminal Law Review, vol. 1, p. 137.
Wertheimer, Alan 1977. “Victimless Crimes,” Ethics, vol. 87, pp. 302–18.
1
Engineering Ethics
Michael S. Pritchard
What is engineering? No doubt it is easier to present examples that involve engineering

of one sort or another than it is to define what engineering is. (A version of “I know
it when I see it.”) The same is true of ethics, and the combination, engineering ethics.
To illustrate some of the difficulties, consider a definition of engineering attributed
to the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET):
Engineering is the profession in which knowledge of the mathematical and natural

sciences gained by study, experience, and practice is applied with judgment to develop
ways to utilize, economically, the materials and forces of nature for the benefit of
mankind. (Kemper and Sanders 2001: 104)
This definition has several noteworthy features. First, it quite rightly indicates that
engineering is intimately related to the mathematical and natural sciences. It employs
these sciences in the practical endeavor of developing ways of making practical use
of the materials and forces of nature. However, second, the phrase “applied with
judgment” suggests that this is not simply an algorithmic process. The exercise of
judgment is needed (see moral judgment), and this may allow for alternative ways
of making use of the mathematical and natural sciences, and perhaps much else, as
well. Kemper and Sanders (2001: 104–5) succinctly put it this way:
It should be realized that not every aspect of every engineering problem is solved with
the use of science and advanced mathematics. Many problems are simply not amenable
to scientific solutions, and experienced judgment is used instead. Such would be the
case, for example, in problems involving suitability of manufacture, assembly, and
maintenance. On the other hand, many engineering projects are impossible to complete
without the use of science and advanced mathematics. Some examples are projects
dealing with jet aircraft, digital computers, suspension bridges, nuclear reactors, and
space satellites.
Third, the examples offered by Kemper and Sanders may help us understand why
the ABET definition links engineering with providing benefits for humanity. Jet
aircraft, digital computers, suspension bridges, nuclear reactors, and space satellites
all provide some such benefits – by deliberate design and intent. Of course, they
might also be used for purposes that many would argue are not necessarily
beneficial – in fact, which may be deliberately designed to cause serious harm and
destruction (e.g., in a military setting). Also, some of these same engineering
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee095
2
products may bring serious risks along with promised benefits even when intended
to benefit humanity. Jets may crash. Bridges may collapse. Satellites may malfunction
with resulting harms, and so on.
The potential for good or ill in engineering raises the question of whether the
ABET definition offers too sanguine a view of engineering. Even if engineering
were always to aim at benefiting humanity in some way, it may sometimes fail –
perhaps even disastrously (e.g., a faulty structural design for a high-rise building).
Engineering might also aim at benefiting some, while at the same time aiming at
harming others. For example, what about the Nazi gas chambers, designed for the
purpose of exterminating millions of people? Or, on a smaller scale, what about
mechanisms designed to torture, sometimes even those who have done nothing
wrong? Or, what about the electric chair, a product opposed by critics of capital
punishment, as well as by those who may favor capital punishment, but not by
means of electrocution?
These complications help us to understand how ethics and engineering are
linked. What engineers do has profound effects on human well-being, for good or
ill. Engineering also has profound effects on nonhuman life, and on the environ-
ment in general. What engineers do, individually or collectively, is one thing.
What they ought to do, or what it is morally permissible for them to do, is another –
and that is what engineering ethics is concerned with. For reasons that will soon
become apparent, this can be as complicated and controversial as it is important.
A fourth noteworthy feature of the ABET definition of engineering is its emphasis
on specialized knowledge, study, and experience. Specialization of this sort is a mark
of most professions. The Preamble of the National Society for Professional Engineers’
(NSPE 2007) Code of Ethics emphasizes this in framing the ethical responsibilities
of engineers:
Engineering is an important and learned profession. As members of this profession,

engineers are expected to exhibit the highest standards of honesty and integrity.
Engineering has a direct and vital impact on the quality of life for all people.
Accordingly, the services provided by engineers require honesty, impartiality, fairness,
and equity, and must be dedicated to the protection of the public health, safety, and
welfare. Engineers must perform under a standard of professional behavior that
requires adherence to the highest principles of ethical conduct.
The NSPE Preamble is a normative statement regarding what is ethically required of

engineers, not merely a descriptive statement of what they, in fact, do (see codes of
ethics). The basis for these requirements is engineering’s “direct and vital impact
on the quality of life for all people.” That what engineers do, individually and
collectively, has this impact is a factual claim. What responsibilities go with this, and
what is required of engineers in fulfilling them, is the concern of engineering ethics.
The Preamble’s opening sentence stresses not only that engineering is an important
profession (given its “direct and vital impact” on our lives), but it is also a learned
one (see professional ethics). This lines up nicely with ABET’s emphasis on the
3
specialized knowledge, study, and experience necessary for good engineering. As

William F. May (1988: 408) has noted, a consequence of the increasing societal role
of the professions, including engineering, is what he calls a “knowledge explosion.”
However, much of this knowledge is highly specialized and, therefore, not widely
shared. Even within engineering, those with different expertise may find it difficult,
if not impossible, to “talk shop” in any depth. So, May adds, the “knowledge
explosion” that goes with our increased reliance on the professions is accompanied
by an “ignorance explosion” – an ignorance that virtually everyone else has of the
specialized knowledge possessed by those in this or that area of expertise.
May (1988: 408) concludes: “[Professionals] had better be virtuous. Few may
be in a position to discredit [them]. The knowledge explosion is also an ignorance
explosion; if knowledge is power, then ignorance is powerlessness.” In some
instances, the shortcomings of an engineer or group of engineers may be quite
obvious, even to those who lack special engineering expertise. However,
more typically, problems may surface long “after the fact” – years after the mistakes
or events leading to failures have occurred. By then, not only is the damage done, it
may be difficult to determine who should be held accountable, and for precisely
what. The fact that most engineers work in large organizations makes such
determinations all the more difficult.
Given this, not only in engineering, but in the professions generally, May (1988:
408) adds: “One test of character and virtue is what a person does when no one is
watching. A society that rests on expertise needs more people who can pass that
test.” It is clear that, the more we must rely on engineers doing their work well
“when no one is watching,” the more we must place our trust in the competence
and integrity of engineers. So, it is not surprising that the Preamble to the NSPE
Code of Ethics stresses the importance of honesty and integrity for engineers. Nor,
given the impact engineers have on society, should it be surprising to see the
Preface emphasize the importance of engineers attending to public health, safety,
and welfare.
However, engineering codes of ethics have not always paid explicit attention to
responsibilities to the public. In fact, prior to 1970, most engineering codes listed
engineers’ first responsibility to be fidelity to their employers or clients. No explicit
mention of responsibilities to the public could be found. However, for a variety of
reasons, the 1970s were marked by increased public attention to ethical issues in
science, engineering, medicine, and business. For example, the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration
(OSHA), and the Belmont Report (regarding the use of human subjects in
experimentation) all emerged in the United States during this period.
This period was also marked by striking changes in ethics education, especially in
colleges and universities. Prior to this time ethics was taught primarily in departments
of philosophy and religion, with little emphasis on ethics in the professions as such.
Now business ethics, engineering ethics, legal ethics, medical ethics, ethics in
communication, psychology, social work, and other more specific areas began to show
up in conspicuous ways across the curriculum. This proliferation of courses, seminars,
4
and workshops gave rise to a Hastings Center project devoted to trying to determine
what, if any, common aims and goals all these educational endeavors might share.
The product of this project was the publication, in 1980, of a series of monographs
about ethics in higher education in a variety of settings, ranging from the standard
areas of philosophy and religion to business, communication, engineering, and the
natural and social sciences. Each of these monographs, including Robert Baum’s
Ethics and Engineering (1980), emphasized five aims and goals that had gained the
consensus of the diverse group of educators who had gathered together at the
Hastings Center. Ethics education, they agreed, should aim at:
● stimulating the moral imagination of students;

● helping students recognize moral issues in relevant areas of inquiry;
● helping students analyze and clarify key moral concepts and principles;
● stimulating students’ sense of responsibility;
● helping students deal constructively with moral ambiguity and disagreement.
Much of the teaching and literature on engineering ethics can be seen to reflect these
aims and goals. A popular vehicle has been the use of case studies, typically depicting
actual events that have received significant media coverage – most especially
disasters and alleged wrong-doings that involve engineers in significant ways. An
unfortunate consequence is that this may suggest that engineering ethics is primarily
concerned with attributions of fault, irresponsibility, and blame – or defenses against
such allegations.
Nearly exclusive concentration on what might be called “big news/bad news” stories
raises two worries. The first is that students might unwittingly be encouraged to think
that ethics in engineering is only about the “newsworthy,” in which case they might
(correctly) conclude that they have little to worry about, as it is very unlikely that any of
them will ever find themselves featured in the media, at least not for their engineering
work. Like the vast majority of engineers, they will remain unnamed and unnoticed by
the public in general, and the media in particular. The second is that they might be
misled into thinking that engineering ethics is mainly about the negative – bad things
happening, wrong-doing, or, shifting slightly to the positive, avoiding wrong-doing.
The remedy for the first worry is to present cases that are not newsworthy in the
“big news” sense, but which are, nevertheless, ethically significant – like having one’s
judgment compromised by accepting a gift from a vendor. However, at best, this
takes care of only half of the worry – the “big news” part. Cases still may dwell on the
negative – only on a smaller scale.
The remedy for this second worry is to consider a fair sampling of positive cases,
as well – whether “big news” or not. Here it is helpful to realize that wrong-doing has
a contrary. Although we seem not to have a word, “right-doing,” we do have a positive
notion of responsible behavior.
It is helpful to think of a spectrum of responsibility, ranging from the clearly
irresponsible to the exemplary. On such a spectrum, we can find at one end cases
that are clear instances of wrong-doing. At the other end we can find cases that go
5
well beyond what can reasonably be expected as a matter of duty or obligation. In

between we find cases of ordinary, competent, and responsible engineering work
that can be expected as a matter of professional duty or obligation.
One way to begin to appreciate the positive side of engineering from an ethical
point of view is to consider the larger impact that engineering has had on society. In
2000 the National Academy of Engineers (NAE) attempted to identify the 20 greatest
engineering achievements of the twentieth century. Here is the list that evolved
(Wulf 2000):
● electrification
● the automobile
● the airplane
● water supply and distribution
● electronics (vacuum tubes, transistors, etc.)
● radio and television
● agricultural mechanization
● computers
● the telephone
● air conditioning and refrigeration
● highways
● spacecraft
● the Internet
● imaging (especially in medicine)
● household appliances
● health technologies
● petroleum and petroleum technologies
● laser and fiber optics
● nuclear technologies
● high-performance materials
Of course, these innovations, whatever benefits they may have brought, also carried
with them risks of harm, if not actual harm. So, for such innovations to be successful,
both in the laboratory and in the public domain, acceptance of a high degree of
responsibility on the part of engineers has been necessary.
Bearing these accomplishments (and their accompanying risks) in mind, we can
see why the opening words of the Preamble to the NSPE Code of Ethics are fitting:
Engineering is an important and learned profession. As members of this profession,

engineers are expected to exhibit the highest standards of honesty and integrity.
Engineering has a direct and vital impact on the quality of life for all people.
This statement places large responsibilities for public health, safety, and welfare in
the hands of engineers, both collectively and individually. That honesty and
integrity are central values in this regard can be seen if one considers the possible
6
consequences of a licensed, professional engineer putting a seal of approval on a

construction project without regard to whether or not it actually satisfies relevant
building standards. Furthermore, those who do provide their seal of approval need
to rely, to at least some extent, on the honesty and integrity of those whose work
they monitor or supervise. Even aggressive monitoring and supervising cannot
involve watching every move of those on whom the success of a project depends.
Much engineering work is done in teams, composed of members who must trust
each other, just as different teams on complex projects must trust each other.
So, taking into account both positive and negative aspects of engineering ethics, what
are some of the leading areas of ethical concern in engineering? Here is a partial list:
● engineering design (its ethical as well as technical and economic dimensions)

● ethical and legal aspects of safety, risk, and liability
● trust, reliability, honesty in engineering work and communication
● conflicts of interest
● ownership of ideas (copyright, trade secrets, patents)
● confidentiality
● communication with managers, clients, and the public
● barriers to responsibility (e.g., self-interest, fear, ignorance, narrow vision,
groupthink)
● engineers in organizations (manager–engineer relations, dissent, whistleblowing,
loyalty)
● environmental concerns
● engineers in international settings (different needs, laws, practices, and
expectations)
● career choice
● role and responsibilities of engineering societies
● public service (pro bono, disaster relief, policy advisory roles, expert witnessing)
● codes of ethics
The last item on this list, codes of ethics, has been the subject of some controversy,
both in engineering and in other professions. Engineering codes of ethics are products
of the deliberation of members of professional societies such as the National Society
for Professional Engineers, the American Society for Civil Engineers, the American
Society for Chemical Engineers, the American Society for Mechanical Engineers, the
Institute for Electronic and Electrical Engineers, and so on. One concern is that only
a relatively small percentage of practicing engineers belong to professional engineer-
ing societies. Membership in a professional organization is not a requirement for
engineering practice (nor is being licensed to practice). Should the codes be regarded
as addressed only to those who are members of their respective societies? If so, then
what should be said about ethics in regard to engineers who are not members?
A first response to these questions is that the prescriptions and guidelines typi-
cally found in engineering codes of ethics are grounded in concepts and principles
of common morality, shared by engineers and nonengineers alike (Gert 2004). The
7
codes attempt to articulate the ethical dimensions of engineering in the various

areas of practice, regardless of whether the practitioners are members of any of the
special engineering societies that explicitly endorse these codes. This is reflected
both in the Preamble of the NSPE’s code and in the large number of professional
society codes that are patterned after the NSPE code.
So, for example, the NSPE code holds that all engineers ought to hold public
health, safety, and welfare paramount – not because the code says so, but because of
what engineers do, regardless of whether they are members of NSPE. Affirming the
NSPE code by becoming a member may provide an additional reason for satisfying
its requirements (a promise or commitment made); but there are reasons for accept-
ing its basic requirements even without having made an explicit promise or
commitment to abide by them.
Of course, codes of ethics do change through time. The NSPE’s Board of Ethical
Review (BER) acknowledges that not only does this happen, but that it should when
there is good reason for change. One area in which the NSPE has responded to
difficulties in the NSPE Code is conflicts of interest, a topic about which the BER
receives more queries than any other. The BER (1985) provides assistance in
interpreting the NSPE code. It comments on Case 85–6 (a conflict of interest case):
“While that provision of the Code has been interpreted many times over the years, it
is, as are all Code provisions, subject to constant examination and reinterpretation.
For any code of ethics to have meaning, it must be a living, breathing document
which responds to situations that evolve and develop.”
As already noted, the provision that there is a paramount duty to protect public
health, safety, and welfare was introduced to most codes only in the early 1970s.
However, it does not follow that adopting this provision created, as distinct from
acknowledged, that duty; rather, this formalized in codes what should have been,
and probably was, already acknowledged in practice. (In fact, in the 1920s the
American Association of Engineers had such a provision in its code, but it
disappeared when the AAE itself dissolved in the late 1920s [Taeusch 1926: 101].)
In recent years engineering societies have wrestled with the question of whether
their codes should have special provisions about environmental concerns, as well as
provisions about sustainable technology (see sustainability; environmental
ethics). A growing number of societies have responded affirmatively. However, the
fact that the introduction of these provisions has been subject to much controversy
points to one of the limitations of codes of ethics. As consensus statements within
given areas of engineering, they express what might be called the “highest common
denominator” among its members. As such, they will not contain provisions that
have not obtained consensus. But individual engineers cannot be expected to agree
on all matters that ethically matter to them as engineers. Some, for example, object
to working on military projects; but this is clearly a minority position among
engineers, one that cannot be expected to be endorsed by an engineering society’s
code of ethics. So, although engineering codes of ethics present important guide-
posts for ethics in engineering, they are by no means exhaustive.
8
Although much of engineering ethics focuses on the responsibilities and

performance of individual engineers, there are other levels of concern that warrant
consideration. Engineers commonly work in groups. This raises questions about
how engineers should work with others on common projects. Here individual
responsibility may best be understood in terms of one’s role within a larger unit (see
responsibility). It is possible, and often desirable, to view an engineering problem
as “ours,” rather than simply “mine” or “yours.” This not only calls for joint endeavor,
but perhaps also for compromise (not “my way or no way”). This, in turn, raises the
question of how much (and what kinds of) compromising is compatible with
maintaining one’s own integrity as an individual. In the case of design, one
may need to support a design that would not be one’s first choice if the choice
were left up to him or her. However, success on the project requires cooperation,
not stubborn resistance. Teams, in turn, may need to work with, and compromise
with, other teams (other engineering teams, managerial teams, or other units in the
organization).
Historically, engineering societies have played fundamental roles in establishing
standards of acceptable design and practice. The American Society for Mechanical
Engineers, for example, played a leading role in developing uniform standards in the
boiler industry, in response to disastrous explosions of boilers due to inadequate
safety standards. However, this can also give rise to ethical problems, as it did in the
famous Hydrolevel v. ASME legal case that went all the way to the US Supreme Court.
(For a discussion of this case, see Harris et al. 2009: 253–5.) The Court found against
ASME for failing to guard itself against conflicts of interest interfering with fair
trade in the boiler industry. So, even efforts to protect public health and safety can
involve a professional society in ethical difficulties (and costly litigation).
The recent involvement of the American Society for Civil Engineers in the
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is a much more positive story. At the request of the
US Army Corp of Engineers, ASCE formed the Hurricane Katrina External Review
Panel to assess the causes of the destruction wreaked by Hurricane Katrina in 2005,
and to recommend future actions that might be taken to deal more effectively with
future hurricanes. The resulting ASCE report, The New Orleans Hurricane Protection
System: What Went Wrong and Why? (2007), makes a strong set of recommendations
that pivot around engineers’ responsibility to protect public health, safety, and
welfare (with explicit reference to the paramouncy of public safety clause now found
in virtually all engineering societies’ codes of ethics). These recommendations range
from the replacement of what they found to be a woefully inadequate hurricane
protection system with a well-organized, coordinated one, to the refusal to compro-
mise public safety, health, and welfare. In regard to the refusal to compromise, the
ASCE report (2007: 82) makes a particularly strong appeal to ethics: “In the face of
pressure to save money or to make up time, engineers must remain strong and hold
true to the requirements of the profession’s canon of ethics, never compromising the
safety of the public.” Not content to apply this canon only to Katrina, the report
urges that “it must be applied with equal rigor to every aspect of an engineer’s work –
in New Orleans, in America, and throughout the world.”
9
ABET 2000 requires that all engineering students become acquainted with how eth-
ics, in addition to economic and technical factors, is an integral part of design itself,
and not simply a matter of external appraisal. What might illustrate this? Consider a
question of utility. All cars have some sort of mechanism for clearing water off the
front windshield and, typically, the rear window as well. How does it work? Where is it
located? What is required of the driver when he or she wants to turn it on or off? There
is no single design for this mechanism, as those who rent cars sometimes find out – to
their frustration, dismay, or possibly even great regret. The mechanism typically has
different settings – for slow speed, medium speed, high speed, intermittent delayed
speed, and off. Similar settings may be available for the rear windshield. Furthermore,
all of these settings may be found on the same slim, several-inches-long lever – typi-
cally placed alongside other such levers just beneath the steering wheel. The wiper’s
mechanism, with its multiple settings on one slim, short lever, exhibits an economy of
space utilization. For those who know the mechanism well, there is ease of operation.
The mechanism is likely quite cost effective. However, for those not familiar with a
particular mechanism in a rental car they are driving for the first time, it can be a
nightmare. Turning on the wiper at the appropriate speed can be challenging while
trying to keep one’s eyes on the road. Turning it off after the rain or snow has stopped
can be even more challenging – even for passengers who try to assist the driver.
Where might ethics enter into this? The placement and usability of something as
small and inconspicuous as a wiper mechanism can be crucial. If it cannot be easily
located, there is serious risk of accident for driver, passengers, and others who might
be hit by the car. However, even if it can be easily located, it must be easily operable
and not pose a risk of serious distraction from attending to the road when attempting
to turn it off. In short, here is a feature that by its very design may pose unfortunate
safety risks.
Whether we focus our attention on major disasters like Katrina, the availability of
safe drinking water, advancements in medical technology, television, or windshield
washers, a little reflection reveals the importance of ethics in engineering. Disasters,
large or small, are bad news. Safe drinking water is good news. Cell phones, seat
belts, and windshield washers may be either, depending on the competence and
ingenuity of engineers, their ability and concern to anticipate problems of use or
misuse, and their level of ethical commitment and concern.
see also: codes of ethics; conflict of interest; conscience and

professionals; corporate social responsibility; cost–benefit analysis;
environmental ethics; imagination in ethics; intellectual property;
loyalty; lying and deceit; moral character; moral development; moral
education; moral judgment; professional ethics; responsibility; risk;
strict liability; sustainability; trust; truth in ethics; utilitarianism;
virtue; whistleblowing
10
REFERENCES
American Society for Civil Engineers 2007. The New Orleans Hurricane Protection System:
What Went Wrong and Why? Reston, VA: American Society for Civil Engineers.
Baum, Robert 1980. Ethics and Engineering. Hastings-on-Hudson, NY: Hastings Center.
Board of Ethical Review 1985. “Case 85–6,” in Opinions of the Board of Ethical Review.
Arlington, VA: National Society of Professional Engineers.
Gert, Bernard 2004. Common Morality. New York: Oxford University Press.
Harris, C. E., Michael S. Pritchard, and Michael J. Rabins 2009. Engineering Ethics: Concepts
and Cases, 4th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Kemper, John D., and Billy R. Sanders 2001. Engineers and Their Profession, 5th ed. New York:
May, William F. 1988. “Professional Virtue and Self-Regulation,” in Joan Callahan (ed.),
Ethical Issues in Professional Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
National Society of Professional Engineers 2007. “Preamble,” in NSPE Code of Ethics.
Alexandria, VA: National Society of Professional Engineers.
Taeusch, C. F. 1926. Professional and Business Ethics. New York: Henry Holt.
Wulf, William A. 2000. “Great Achievements and Grand Challenges.” Annual meeting of the
National Academy of Engineering.
FURTHER READINGS
Davis, Michael 1998. Thinking Like an Engineer. New York: Oxford University Press.
Gorman, M. E., M. Mehalik, and P. Werhane 2000. Ethical and Environmental Challenges to
Engineering. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Herkert, Joseph 2001. “Future Directions in Engineering Ethics Research: Microethics,
Macroethics and the Role of Professional Societies,” Science and Engineering Ethics,
vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 403–14.
Martin, Mike, and Roland Schinzinger 2005. Ethics in Engineering, 4th ed. New York:
McGraw-Hill.
Pfatteicher, Sarah K. A. 2010. Lessons amid the Rubble: An Introduction to Post-Disaster
Engineering and Ethics. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Pritchard, M. S. 2007. Professional Integrity: Thinking Ethically. Lawrence: University Press of
Kansas.
Unger, S. H. 1994. Controlling Technology: Ethics and the Responsible Engineer, 2nd ed. New
York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Van de Poel, Ibo, and A. C. Gorp 2006. “The Need for Ethical Reflection in Engineering
Design,” Science, Technology and Human Values, vol. 31, no. 3, pp. 333–60.
Van de Poel, Ibo, and Lamber Royakkers 2011. Ethics, Technology, and Engineering. Oxford:
Wiley-Blackwell.
Vesilind, P. Aarne, and Alasdair Gunn 1998. Engineering, Ethics, and the Environment.
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Whitbeck, Caroline 1998. Ethics in Engineering Practice and Research. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
1
Religion, Freedom of
Roger Trigg
Two Enlightenment Views of Freedom and Religion

Religious freedom is part of the more general issue of the role of human freedom,
with the latter as the absolute precondition of morality. Without it, genuine moral
responsibility seems impossible. In the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, the idea
of the importance of freedom, and individual autonomy, went hand in hand with
an emphasis on the role of reason. Freedom and reason were regarded as insepara-
ble. This was a continuation of ideas which had flourished in the seventeenth
century at the start of modern science, and of the stress by John Locke (see locke,
john) on the role of consent (see consent) by citizens to government. Without the
freedom to believe what one chose, as a basis for such consent, the latter would
appear meaningless.
In particular, the Cambridge Platonists (Taliaferro and Teply 2004), a group of
philosophers and theologians whose influence is often underestimated, saw the
crucial importance of freedom and reason in morality and elsewhere, but with an
important distinction from the later Enlightenment, particularly as it developed in
France. They grounded their views of human freedom in a theistic view of the world,
whereas later materialists were to see the traditional authoritarianism of the Roman
Catholic Church as an enemy of freedom.
Thus, there came from the Enlightenment a tension between two different visions,
one rooting the whole idea of reason in a belief that all reason was ultimately
grounded in God, or the divine “Logos.” For the Cambridge Platonists, in a slogan of
theirs which was to be often repeated, reason was “the candle of the Lord.” It may not
be a powerful searchlight, and only give partial illumination, but it was rooted in
the nature of the world and the Creator of that world. The second vision saw
Enlightenment as freedom from the shackles of traditional authority and supersti-
tion. For the one side, to be rational was to acknowledge the roots of reason in the
God who had made humans in His image. For the other, rationality (see rationality)
was bound up with the fact of human autonomy (see autonomy), and, at its extreme,
the ability of humans, particularly in the field of morality, to decide for themselves
what was good and bad. Instead of conforming to moral obligations built into the
very nature of the world, and stemming from human nature, as believers in natural
law (see natural law) would hold, they had the powers, in a strong sense, to decide
for themselves how to live.
The different visions could easily lead to opposite views concerning the role of
religion in society. The first would stress the importance of human freedom and
rationality, but would see this as a result of religious belief. The second would look to
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee097
2
religion not as a support for freedom, but as its enemy. Although the French Revolution
started by making a declaration of “the rights of man and the citizen,” recognizing
them “in the presence and under the auspices of the Supreme Being,” it soon became
more avowedly atheistic, and turned churches into “Temples of Reason.” The Church
was seen as an enemy, even though Article 10 of the Declaration asserted that “none
shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious views, provided
their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by law.”
Whether religion is seen as an indispensable support for ideas of freedom and
democracy (see democracy), or as an alternative source of power intent in thwarting
the will of the people, will clearly have an enormous influence on notions of religious
freedom. The early Enlightenment view, grounding both reason and freedom in the-
ism, not only gave birth to modern science, in the work of Newton and other founders
of the Royal Society in 1660, but it also proved to spur the work of John Locke, who was
himself much influenced by the Cambridge Platonists, and used the phrase “candle of
the Lord” on more than one occasion. For several years, he attended the church of St
Lawrence Jewry in London where Benjamin Whichcote, one of the leading Cambridge
Platonists, was the incumbent and an influential preacher. Locke went on to become
one of the most influential advocates of religious toleration and religious freedom, and
his ideas underpinned the so-called “Glorious Revolution” of 1688 in England, which
paved the way to considerable, though not unqualified, religious freedom.
Both strands of the Enlightenment have influenced later views of human freedom,
and it is no exaggeration to say that the presence of both views is the cause of many of
the contemporary tensions concerning the role of law and religion in the United States.
Even the founders of the United States had different ideas concerning the role of reli-
gion. Was religion a support for democracy, or a possible enemy? By positing a separate
source of authority from the State, or the will of the people, was it a danger, or, on that
other hand, an indispensable support in developing the character of a free people?
George Washington, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson (see jefferson, thomas)
all had definite, but significantly different, views on the matter (Munoz 2009).
Religion and Morality

One central issue in facing the problem as to whether religion should be discour-
aged, tolerated, or positively encouraged is the general connection between morality
and religion. If morality needs some kind of anchorage in the way things are, and
through the place of humans in the wider scheme of things, morality cannot be
separated from doctrines about human nature. Who we are, and what it is to be
human, will be seen as indissolubly linked to wider metaphysical views about the
kind of world in which we are situated. Religious ideas will have a direct influence
on our beliefs on what is beneficial and harmful to humans. What it is to flourish
will not then be seen merely as a matter of personal choice. We can make erroneous
decisions, with disastrous results for ourselves and others if we act in ways which go
against the grain of human nature. Religion can then be viewed as a major source of
wisdom and inspiration about what should constitute the common good.
3
Another important element in the connection between morality and religion lies
not in the epistemological basis for our moral views, but in the way in which, even if
we know what we ought to do, we have the motivation to do it, even at some cost to
ourselves. We have to have some idea why other people matter, but we also need
to be given the psychological will to do something about it. In other words, we need
to acquire a good moral character, which comes to see other people as important as
ourselves. This needs example, education, and practice. Religion may not be essen-
tial, but many, in the past, have seen it as a central force for good in society. John
Locke, himself, while advocating toleration, and influencing a century later the
Constitution of the United States, with its stress on the “free exercise” of religion,
drew the line at the toleration of atheists. He said that “promises, covenants and
oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist”
(2003: 246). He adds that “the taking away of God, though but even in thought,
dissolves all.” Yet, a few pages earlier he had asserted, in sentiments to be echoed by
Thomas Jefferson in his fight for religious freedom in Virginia, that “if truth makes
not her way into the understanding by her own light, she will be but the weaker for
any borrowed force violence can add to her” (2003: 241).
The relevance of religion to morality, and to the good of society, can itself be
disputed, and in contemporary pluralist societies, it is itself one of the basic matters
in dispute. The temptation is to see the issue of religious freedom as a part of the
wider problem of human autonomy. A democratic society is inevitably founded on
the assumption of continuing disagreement between citizens. In it, the idea that
there can be any substantive beliefs which can hold the society together, and
contribute to community cohesion, is itself much disputed. Many “liberals” would
see the need for agreement about procedures for resolving disputes and living
together in the face of fundamental disagreement (see liberalism). Liberals such as
John Rawls (see rawls, john) would resist the idea that societies could be based on
any substantive beliefs, even of the broadest kind. They would want any society to be
totally neutral in its approach to religion, so as not to come down on either side of
the differing Enlightenment approaches to religion. They would wish a government
neither to support nor to thwart religion. Whether religion was a necessary foundation
for reason and society, or was itself a threat to human freedom, would not itself, they
would claim, be one of the issues a free society, as a whole, should adjudicate on.
Whether atheists or theists make the better citizens is not itself a judgment to be
made by a state or a society. The respect for diversity implied by democracy should
leave this to the individual.
There are, however, dangers lurking in the wish to give maximum freedom to the
individual, in making decisions about the importance and role of religion, while
taking up a position of official indifference. It is, for instance, most unlikely that a
state would take up the same kind of position of neutrality to science. A neutral state
would not see religion of any kind as having a place in the classroom of a school. Yet,
the teaching of science would undoubtedly be given priority. The implication must
be that religion is not as important as science, that scientific method is more reliable
than “faith,” or even that science can be true, and that no religion can be. Implicit
4
signals are being given about the role and importance of religion in human lives,
so that, at best, religion is regarded as private, and of only personal importance to
individuals. It is not being viewed as something that is of collective value, or as a
major contributor to the common good. This only illustrates how absolute neutrality
is an illusion.
Religion and Human Nature

Issues about religious freedom will inevitably come up against wider judgments
about the role and importance of religion in human society. If religion is regarded as
the idiosyncratic pastime of a minority, it may be tolerated within a liberal society,
as a matter for individuals. It may, on the other hand, be seen as a potential source of
division and conflict, and then more strenuous efforts will be made to control it. Yet,
efforts by states to control religion have always been seen as exceptionally dangerous.
They certainly strike at the roots of democracy, as do any attempt to influence what
people believe, and to coerce them into manifesting the kinds of belief and behavior
which are congenial to those in power. Democracy can only flourish when people
are free to come to their own judgments about what constitutes good policy.
Coercion of any kind is its enemy. Indeed, democracy and freedom perish when
beliefs and practices are prescribed by those in power. Religion is always the most
vulnerable target, as it sets up sources of authority and principle which are totally
independent of the will of particular rulers. Those who have wished to keep church
and state separate are not only motivated by a fear that religious ideas may govern a
state. They also fear that national priorities may be imposed on religious institutions,
so that the latter can become a tool of the state. This can happen if, even with the best
of intentions, the availability of state funding alters a religion’s priorities so as to
follow those of the government of the day. Many feel that it is safer for both if
“church” and state keep each other at arm’s length.
It is difficult to avoid judgments about the role of religion in human life. In this
context, research in the so-called cognitive science of religion may be relevant,
in that it indicates that many of the impulses that go to constitute religion are deeply
rooted in human nature. As one researcher puts it, “Belief in God (or gods) comes
from the same mental processes that the vast majority of beliefs come from: the
operation of mostly non-conscious mental tools” (Barnett 2004: 90). He continues:
“Belief in gods in human groups may be an inevitable consequence of the sorts of
minds we are born with in the sort of world we are born into” (2004: 91). Examples
of the building blocks of religion which appear to be built into our cognitive frame-
work include our readiness to assume agency, even if it is not physical, a natural
predisposition to see purpose in things and events, and an “intuitive” dualism which
makes it easy to conceive of the separation of mind and body, and to conceive of life
after death. In the field of morality, evidence suggests that belief in an all-knowing
god who sees everything can act as a powerful constraint on our actions, inclining
us to behave more “morally.” We know in those circumstances we are not escaping
detection.
5
The implication of such research is that religious belief is the “default option” in
human life. Humans are not natural atheists. This would certainly explain the
undoubted ubiquity of religion, in all its various forms, in all human societies across
time. Anthropologists can safely take it as a given that any society they are studying
will have a religion firmly rooted in its midst. The implications of this in discussions
of religious freedom have nothing to do with the alleged truth (or falsity) of any reli-
gious belief. It has everything to do with the fact that religion is deeply rooted in
human nature, and will inevitably be manifested in all human societies. Trying to
control or extinguish it will be challenging one of the deepest springs of what it is to
be human. It will be thwarting our deepest nature, almost as much as we were deprived
of other “goods” such as food or shelter, which we need to enable us to flourish.
Scott Atran (2002) holds that, for better or worse, religion is here to stay. This
points to the fact that if religion is so much the natural expression of what is to be
human, however it is manifested, it is unlikely to go way. Therefore, any attempt at
repression, however oppressive to our natural inclinations, is unlikely to succeed in
the long run. This is to contradict the “secularization thesis” popular amongst soci-
ologists in the 1960s, positing the inevitable and continued decline of religion in the
face of modern scientific knowledge. As one sociologist puts it, “Secularisation was
made part of a powerful social and historical narrative of what had once been and
was now ceasing to be” (Martin 2005: 18). Yet, subsequent events have shown that
this was to jump to a very speedy, and erroneous, conclusion. If religion is deeply
rooted in human nature, one would expect that, however great the oppression, it
would reassert itself, and this is certainly what has happened in countries that were
Communist. Religion is resurgent, and growing in influence in many parts of the
world, with Western Europe an apparent exception. States may attempt to repress
religion, seeing it as challenge to their authority, but they will not be successful in
doing so in the longer term. Religious freedom is not only a basic human right,
springing from our basic needs, but it will always prove to be an insistent demand.
Religious Freedom and Toleration

One recurring complaint, dating from American debates in the eighteenth century,
is that religious toleration is not enough (see toleration). It does not guarantee
real religious freedom. This became explicit in the debates in 1776 in Virginia
about a Declaration of Rights, and the new Virginia Constitution. George Mason
originally wanted to codify the principles of tolerance, enacted in the Act of Tolera-
tion in England in 1689, but James Madison, the future president of the United
States, intervened in the debate in Williamsburg and revised the article, demanding
an equal entitlement for all citizens to the “free exercise of religion” (Mason 2008:
86), substituting this phrase in preference to the “fullest toleration” of their faith.
The argument was that “toleration” assumed the subordination of some groups and
authorities to others. The implication (and the reality in colonial Virginia) was that
one set of beliefs were the expected norm (exemplified in Virginia by the establish-
ment of the Church of England). Deviations from the norm in belief and practice
6
were only to be allowed by the grace of those who held authority. Others were
“dissenters” or “nonconformists.”
This was not to treat all citizens equally, and Madison’s revision of the proposed
Virginian Bill of Rights put the notion of equality to the forefront. Freedom alone
was not sufficient, if it was merely the gift of those who could just as easily withdraw
the right. For Madison, freedom was far greater than toleration, and the later Virginia
Statute for Religious Freedom, of which Thomas Jefferson was the author, made it
clear that “our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions” (Church
2004: 75). Instead, the Statute concludes, “the rights hereby asserted are of the natural
rights of mankind.” These debates paved the way for the wording in the
First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States upholding the free
exercise of religion and subsequent ideas of the “separation of church and state.” Yet,
although religious belief and civic status were made independent of each other, the
role which religion is to have in society, given the demands of religious freedom, was
left vague. Fierce debates continue into the twenty-first century over how far free-
dom demands the exclusion of all religious influence from the public square (Trigg
2007). The example of Virginia perhaps suggests that it should not, since even the
sixteenth article of the Virginian Bill of Rights couples the idea of free exercise, with
the “Duty which we owe to our Creator,” and “the mutual Duty of all to practice
Christian forbearance, love, and charity towards each other” (Mason 2008: 86). The
ideas of freedom and equality which became so important in Virginia had explicitly
Christian foundations, and would have been unlikely to last if not resting on them.
Law and Religion

Religious beliefs go to the roots of who we think we are and how we relate to what
we conceive of as reality. For that reason, religious faith can often be felt to be a
defining feature of one’s identity, and not just a set of beliefs subscribed to by a
particular individual. They tend to flourish in communities, and too individualist an
understanding of religion can sometimes fail to take this into account. Contempo-
rary declarations of human rights, such as the European Convention on Human
Rights, tend to look at individuals and to widen reference to religion by talking of
“religion or beliefs” (see human rights and religion). This is certainly more
inclusive than the American reference to the “free exercise of religion,” but what it
gains in breadth, it loses in precision. The definition of religion is always a much
vexed issue, and reference to “belief ” may seem to circumvent the problem. No
court should want to be in the position of having to accept that whatever individuals
treat as their personal religion must be counted as a religion, however idiosyncratic.
Particularly, if religion gives ground for exemptions from generally applicable laws,
this could give people an all-purpose excuse for disobeying any law they fancy.
Unfortunately, the inclusion of reference to “belief ” can only make the situation
worse. The sincerity of belief should not by itself be enough to give anyone the right
to opt out of obeying laws. Yet, it is going to be difficult specifying which sorts of
beliefs deserve protection. Those which are defined by their relationship with
7
religion, such as agnosticism or atheism, should clearly be covered. Freedom of reli-

gion must include the freedom to criticize or deny any religion, or indeed religion as
such. The difficulty comes when other kinds of beliefs demand equal protection.
How important in the lives of people do beliefs have to be to be thought on a par
with religious ones? There is clearly scope here for endless arguments in the courts.
The mere fact of making religion a species of a more general freedom of conscience
could be seen as evidence of a secularizing tendency, intent on downgrading the
importance of religion in society. It is no longer singled out for special attention, as
it is in the Constitution of the United States. Other aspects of religion can also be
treated merely from a secular perspective. Freedom of public worship, for example,
can be viewed merely as a part of a more general freedom of assembly.
Article 9 of the European Convention of Human Rights follows the pattern of
many documents tabulating human rights, by giving an unconditional right to
belief. One can believe what one likes. The problem comes when such beliefs are
put into action. Even taking a narrow approach to religious belief, many actions
sanctioned and motivated by religion would be unacceptable in a free society.
The greater the freedom to believe, the more restricted has to be the capability of
putting such beliefs into action. Religious beliefs cannot excuse human sacrifice,
nor, more controversially, have societies considered polygamy acceptable. However,
this is sanctioned in Islam, and some other religions. The European Convention
tries in part to meet this problem by differentiating between a “right to freedom of
thought, conscience and religion,” and distinguishing this from a “freedom to mani-
fest one’s religion or beliefs.” The unconditional right to believe what one wants is
heavily qualified when it comes to action. One may wonder how valuable a right to
believe is if it cannot be publicly expressed in some way. Totalitarian governments
are no doubt quite satisfied for religious believers to think what they want as long as
this is never “manifested.” For many, though, religion is public, not private; commu-
nal, not just individual; and a matter of action and not just propositional belief.
The qualification given by the European Convention in its article (2) include “such
limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the
interests of public safety, for the protection of public order, health or morals, or for the
protection of the rights and freedoms of others.” The assumption is that these notions
can be clarified without the aid of any religious outlook. Yet, the idea of an ethically, and
religiously, neutral state making such judgments is contradictory. Ethical judgments
need some idea of human nature to inform them (Trigg 1999). Any state with an eye to
“protecting” morals, or with a clear view of which “rights and freedoms” are important
is operating with some principles, perhaps unexamined. What does it base such
principles on? They will clearly be of an ethical nature, but without a clearly delineated
grounding it is all too easy for them to be dissolved in the mists of political expediency.
Other jurisdictions recognize the need to qualify an untrammeled right to
religious freedom. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms makes its right of
“freedom of conscience and religion,” subject, like other rights “only to such
reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and
democratic society.” Yet, this approach leaves open the real possibility that freedom
8
of religion can be overridden by the interests of the state. At the very least, other
rights and freedoms can be given precedence. This becomes a very pressing matter
when it is thought that all beliefs must be treated equally. The doctrine is that if a
state favors the beliefs of one group of citizens, even those of the majority, as against
others, the latter can be made to feel as “second-class” citizens. At its extreme, in a
situation where there are religious tests for civic participation, this may well be true.
However, it could also appear to demand complete neutrality on the part of the state
in religious and ethical matters, so that, as some forms of liberalism demand,
individuals can make their own decisions on how to live.
Yet, each state has to stand somewhere in deciding how to weigh rights against
each other, and how far to constrain, for instance, the right to religious freedom.
Some notion of procedural justice alone cannot give the answer to such questions
as whether religion contributes to the public good sufficiently to deserve special
protection. The founders of the United States appeared to think so, and therefore
singled it out in the irst Amendment. For them, the right to free exercise of religion
was not just one of a catalogue of rights and freedoms to be weighed against each
other. It was given priority. The European Convention is more ambivalent, and, as
result, other rights and freedoms, particularly rights for certain groups not to suffer
discrimination (see discrimination), can be given priority. Arguments about
homosexuality have been proved particularly intractable in recent years. Religious
objections to, say, homosexual marriage, face equally strong voices, wanting an end
to what is seen as arbitrary discrimination of a group which has often been victim-
ized. The problem then arises as to which right – to religious freedom or freedom
from discrimination – should trump the other. In many contexts, it often appears
that both cannot be given equal weight. Needless to say, the test should not be which
side one agrees with. The test for religious freedom is how far people are free to
practice their beliefs, despite the disapproval of many. The suspicion is that religious
beliefs are too often downgraded, so that no particular attention is given to the
continuing role and importance of religion in human life.
The problem is always in identifying at what point the interests of society should
demand that such freedom be limited. Often, the decision can only be given on a
case-by-case basis. How great is the social interest at stake? How great a burden is
being placed on religious people? Yet, if religion is not given special attention, the
latter question becomes of scant interest. In this connection, there is always an issue
not just how laws are applied, but in which laws are passed in the first place. An
apparently neutral law can bear down more severely on some religious groups than
others. A requirement that motorcyclists wear crash helmets, for instance, can
appear an innocuous contribution to public safety. Yet, it has a disproportionate
effect on Sikhs, who have to wear turbans because of their religion. An obvious
compromise is to provide an exemption from the law for them. Apparently neutral
laws can, in other words, be far from neutral in their effects. This has been recog-
nized over the years in such instances as conscientious objection for pacifists who
think it absolutely wrong to kill. Conscription can exempt them, or at least allow
objectors to take noncombative roles.
9
There are still, however, regular disputes in many countries about how far, if at all,
religious obligations should be allowed to override ethical demands such as the need
to treat everyone equally. Notions such as those of human dignity come to the fore.
Concern is often expressed about what happens when the standards of particular
religious communities clash with contemporary beliefs in equality, and the evil
of apparently arbitrary discrimination against women, and other disadvantaged
groups. How far should membership of a particular religious group provide a barrier
for the administration of the law of the land in even-handed way? Some may worry
about the possible consequences, say, of recognizing Muslim sharia law in a country
which wishes to see women treated equally with men. Some feminists object to the
fact that even when discrimination against women is illegal, the Roman Catholic
Church has a dispensation, in the name of religious freedom, to ordain only men to
priesthood. In such dispute, the demands of equality and those of freedom can
clearly be seen to clash, and it is not always easy to see the solution.
The law in any country, it may be thought, has to apply to everyone equally
without distinction. Yet, once religious exemptions are sought, and reasonable
accommodation given on grounds of religious conscience, there may be a danger
that, at the extreme, a society can begin to fracture, with different laws applying to
different groups. This is a very real fear, particularly when readily identifiable groups
seem to want to opt out of the society of which they are a part. Yet, the opposite view
would ignore religious beliefs entirely, and fail to accommodate any religious
conscience. That, though, is to set the state up as the ultimate authority in a way that
is anathema to anyone who sees ultimate authority as lying with God. It also
subordinates basic human rights, and assuredly the right to freedom of religion
must be one such right, to the will of a legislature. Whatever the difficulties of
combining rights to equality and freedom, one cannot just be allowed to trump
another. Religion cannot be ignored. Its roots lie too deep in human nature for that.
A truly free society must make room both for those who reject all religion and for
those who conscientiously wish to practice it. It should recognize that religious
institutions can provide an important context in which individuals find meaning for
their lives. A free society can, in fact, only flourish if individuals and institutions
are left free to promote their visions of the common good.
See also: autonomy; consent; democracy; discrimination; human rights

and religion; jefferson, thomas; liberalism; locke, john; natural law;
rationality; rawls, john; toleration
REFERENCES
Atran, Scott 2002. In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion. New York and
Barnett, Justin 2004. Why Would Anyone Believe in God? Lanham, MD: Altamira Press.
Church, Forrest (ed.) 2004. The Separation of Church and State Writings on a Fundamental
Freedom by America’s Founders. Boston: Beacon.
10
Locke, John 2003 [1689]. “A Letter Concerning Toleration,” in Two Treatises of Government
and a Letter Concerning Toleration, ed. Ian Shapiro. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Martin, David 2005. On Secularization. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Mason, George 2008. Forgotten Founder. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Munoz, Vincent Phillip 2009. God and the Founders: Madison, Washington and Jefferson.
Taliaferro, Charles, and Alison Teply 2004. Cambridge Platonist Spirituality. New York:
Paulist Press.
Trigg, Roger 1999. Ideas of Human Nature, 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell.
Trigg, Roger 2007. Religion in Public Life: Must Religion Be Privatized? Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
FURTHER READINGS
Beneke, Chris 2006. Beyond Toleration: The Religious Origins of American Pluralism. Oxford:
Bradley, Gerard V. 2008. Religious Liberty in the American Republic. Washington, DC:
Heritage Foundation.
Eisgruber, Christopher, and Lawrence G. Sager 2007. Religious Freedom and the Constitution.
Evans, Carolyn 2001. Freedom of Religion Under the European Convention on Human Rights.
Novak, David 2009. In Defense of Religious Liberty. Wilmington, DE: ISI Books.
Nussbaum, Martha 2008. Liberty of Conscience: In Defense of America’s Tradition of Religious
Equality. New York: Basic Books.
Peterson, Merrill D., and Robert C. Vaughan 1988. The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom.
Trigg, Roger 2007. Religion in Public Life: Must Religion Be Privatized? Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Trigg, Roger 2010. Religious Freedom in the Liberal State. London: Theos.
Trigg, Roger 2012. Freedom, Equality and Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
1
Perfectionism
Richard Kraut
“Perfectionism” is a term that began to gain currency among Anglo-American

philosophers during the 1970s, due, in large part, to its use by John Rawls (1921–2002)
in A Theory of Justice to designate one of the moral and political theories to which he
was opposed (see rawls, john). Although his principal target in that work is not per-
fectionism but utilitarianism (see consequentialism; utilitarianism), he takes
both to share a single structure: each proposes a theory of what is good, and each
defines moral rightness as the maximization of that good (which, in order to avoid
circularity, is identified independently of rightness). Utilitarianism, as he defines it,
holds that an action is right if and only if it maximizes the satisfaction of rational
desires. Perfectionism similarly proposes that right actions maximize something,
namely “the realization of human excellence in the various forms of culture” (1999: 22).
Rawls does not cite any other authors who use “perfectionism” (or its equivalent in
other languages) in this way, but he says that, among others, Nietzsche and Aristotle
defended versions of the doctrine to which he gives this name. He cites the statement
made by Nietzsche (1844–1900) in Untimely Meditations (1997) that “Mankind must
work continually to produce individual great human beings – this and nothing else
is the task …” (1999: 286, n. 50; see nietzsche, friedrich). Here, the production of
excellence and achievement in a few exemplary figures is implausibly portrayed by
Nietzsche as the sole task of all human beings. Rawls acknowledges that perfectionism,
so understood, is not a thesis that has played an important role in any period of the
history of moral philosophy. “The absolute weight that Nietzsche sometimes gives
the lives of great men such as Socrates and Goethe is unusual” (1999: 286).
However, he attributes to Aristotle (384–322 bce) and others a “more moderate
doctrine,” according to which “a principle of perfection is accepted as but one
standard among several” (1999: 286; see aristotle). Here, Rawls characterizes
Aristotle as a maximizer of the good for whom there are a plurality of goods – one
of which is “the realization of human excellence in the various forms of culture.”
Presumably, Rawls has in mind Aristotle’s thesis that the human good consists in
two kinds of excellent uses of reason. One of them arises from ethical training: it is
the fusion of emotional and deliberative excellence manifested by just, courageous,
generous individuals. The other kind of perfection of reason consists in the discovery
of and reflection on the ultimate causes of the universe – the sorts of activities in
which philosophers and pure scientists are engaged.
Several early-twentieth-century moral philosophers can also be characterized as
“moderate perfectionists” in Rawls’ sense. Both G. E. Moore (1873–1958) and
Hastings Rashdall (1858–1924) hold that our sole moral duty is to maximize the
good, and they conceive of what Rawls calls “human excellence in the various forms
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee098
2
of culture” as one kind (but not the only kind) of good (see moore, g. e.; rashdall,
hastings). Rashdall writes that “we regard knowledge, culture, enjoyment of beauty,
intellectual activity of all kinds, and the emotions connected with these things, as
having a higher value than the pleasures arising from the gratification of the mere
animal propensities to eating and drinking or physical exercise or the like” (1907:
vol. 1, 191). Similarly, in Chapter VI of Principia Ethica (1993: 237–8), Moore holds
that one of the main criteria of social progress is the extent to which a society enjoys
objects of beauty – a thesis that implies that aesthetic education and support of the
arts is one of the principal aims of the state. The distinction between “higher values”
and “mere animal propensities” made by Rashdall is a familiar idea among moral
philosophers – it is, for example, reminiscent of J. S. Mill’s (1806–73) thesis that
pleasures differ in quality and not only in quantity (see mill, john stuart).
However, Mill insists that pleasure is the sole good, whereas Moore and Rashdall
hold that there are other goods besides pleasure (see hedonism; pleasure). Rawls
acknowledges the role that Rashdall plays in his formulation of the idea of
moderate perfectionism (1999: 287, n. 51), and he is right to treat it as a distinct
theory of the good.
In his opposition to perfectionism, both in its moderate and extreme forms,
Rawls seeks to found liberal political philosophy (see liberalism) on the moral
principle that the constitution of the state must tolerate diverse religions and
philosophies, and thus must remain neutral between competing worldviews or
all-encompassing moral theories. The liberal state, as he wishes to portray it, is not
a community of individuals bound together in the pursuit of substantive goals, and
therefore it cannot permissibly be dedicated to the improvement of human nature or
any other sort of excellence. In this respect, he departs from several political theorists
of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century who embrace a form of liberalism
but do not conceive of it as a way of maintaining a stance of neutrality between
competing philosophies of life. On the contrary, they hold that the state must
facilitate or encourage the self-development of citizens; they also believe that liberal
rights and freedoms play an important role in achieving that end. Some of the
leading advocates of that “perfectionist liberalism,” as it might be called, are Thomas
Hill Green (1836–82), Bernard Bosanquet (1848–1923), and Leonard Trelawny
Hobhouse (1864–1929; see green, t. h.). The defense of liberty offered by J. S. Mill
earlier in the nineteenth century is similarly committed to a definite conception of
the proper development of the human personality.
Earlier in the twentieth century, the word “perfectionism” was used by E. F. Carritt
(1876–1924), in The Theory of Morals, to designate the thesis that the sole good for
which we should strive in all that we do is moral goodness. Our duty to others is “to
induce in them right conduct and better character” (1928: 45). “To this doctrine the
name of perfectionism has been sometimes given,” he notes. However, it is not, in his
opinion, “a very important theory. … It would perhaps never have been formulated
except as an amendment to utilitarianism, being similarly one-sided but in the
opposite direction. That it is often our duty to make other people in some sense better,
as it often is to give them pleasure, I should not deny, but only that it covers all our
3
duties” (1928: 45). Carritt here implies that sometimes one ought to aim at making
people (oneself and others) “in some sense better,” rather than at pleasing them;
whereas at other times, on the contrary, one ought to aim at pleasing them rather than
making them more excellent in some respect. He is no doubt right to reject the
extreme perfectionist thesis that making people more virtuous is our sole duty.
However, it is in reaction to Rawls, not Carritt (who is now a little-studied author),
that some contemporary philosophers defend a doctrine that they call “perfectionism.”
Rawls uses that term to designate a theory that identifies right action with the
maximization of some single good (human perfection) or bundle of goods (one that
includes human perfection), but the word is now often used more broadly to include
both maximizing and nonmaximizing forms of perfectionism. What is most
characteristic of perfectionism, according to the current usage of the term, is its
conception of what is good: one important intrinsic good, it holds, is some form of
human excellence. That excellence might be moral virtue, but it need not be; it might
instead (or in addition) be intellectual accomplishment, or the excellence of a work
of art, or the skills of a creator of such works. The perfectionist holds not only that
some such things are good but that they are noninstrumentally good; that is, they
count as good whether they are productive of other good things or not. Nor are
they good because they are desired, or because they give rise to pleasure; rather, the
order of explanation moves in the reverse direction: they should be desired and
having them should please us because they are good. The perfectionist, so
understood, says that one sufficient reason for seeking excellent character traits, or
excellence in the arts and sciences, in ourselves or others, is precisely the excellence
of these characteristics and activities. Excellence is all the recommendation that an
excellent feature or object needs.
Some perfectionists speak of excellence as a good thing, and something’s being a
good thing, they say, does not consist in its being good for anyone. They might say,
for example, that such moral virtues as justice and courage are good – period.
By that, they do not mean that these qualities are necessarily good for the just and
courageous person – that it is in one’s interest or a benefit to be such a person.
Perhaps being just, in certain circumstances, does no one any good. Perhaps a
courageous act achieves or aims at nothing that is good for anyone. Even so, they
maintain, acts of virtue are good, because they are manifestations of an excellence.
W. D. Ross (1877–1971) can be classified as a perfectionist of this sort (see ross, w. d.).
He holds that one fundamental concept of moral theory is the concept of good “sans
phrase,” and that moral virtue is one item in the category of things that are good
“sans phrase” (1930: 102).
However, the term “perfectionism” can also be used to designate a moral theory
in which what is good for someone, rather than what is good absolutely, is treated as
a fundamental evaluative category (see good and good for; intrinsic value).
Such a perfectionism would not be that of Moore and Ross: they make it clear that
when they designate certain things as good, they do not mean to be saying that they
are beneficial or good for anyone. However, some moral philosophers treat what is
good for human beings as a central normative concept. One of Plato’s (427–347 bce)
4
principal goals in the Republic (2004), for example, is to show that, in itself, justice is
good for the just person, apart from any consequences it may bring (see plato). For
Aristotle as well, what is advantageous to oneself and others – what serves the com-
mon good – is one of the fundamental grounds on which decisions are to be made.
It would be arbitrary to stipulate that “perfectionism” applies only to such theories
as those of Moore, Rashdall, and Ross, but not to those of Plato and Aristotle. In fact,
it is likely that when Rawls treats perfectionism as one of the major types of ethical
and political philosophy, he thinks of it as a doctrine about what is good for indi-
viduals, rather than as a doctrine about what is good simplicter. A Theory of Justice
treats justice as a virtue that is needed because human interests conflict, and benefits
and burdens must be allocated in some fair way. These terms – “interests,” “benefits,”
and “burdens” – refer to what is good or bad for someone, not what is simply good
or bad. Perfectionists, as Rawls conceives of them, propose that, in the design of
fundamental political institutions, we must leave a place for certain forms of human
excellence, not because they are means to further ends, but because it is noninstru-
mentally beneficial for citizens to partake in these excellences.
Why does Rawls reject even the moderate form of perfectionism that he considers,
according to which human excellence of some sort is one of the goods by reference
to which the fundamental design of institutions is to be guided? He argues that the
principles that are to govern a society are the ones that would be unanimously
accepted as a fundamental charter by hypothetical individuals who are prevented, by
their lack of certain kinds of information, from designing institutions that would
give them an unfair advantage. They choose from behind what Rawls calls a “veil of
ignorance”: they do not know their social status, economic class, gender, talents,
level of intelligence, or their conception of the good – for these are differences
among people that often distort their sense of fairness. Rawls believes he can
demonstrate that certain principles would be accepted by people who are deprived
of this information, and that others would be rejected. Utilitarianism would be
rejected because the parties in this “initial situation” (as he calls it) would seek to
protect their freedom to pursue their own conception of the good once they are
beyond the veil of ignorance and full information about themselves is restored. Why
should they endanger their own projects (what they are, they do not know, but they
know they have them) and impose on themselves instead the duty to maximize the
satisfaction of rational desire throughout their society?
His argument against the extreme form of perfectionism takes the same form:
why should these hypothetical individuals agree to curtail the pursuit of the projects
they undertake beyond the veil of ignorance whenever doing so will maximize the
amount of excellence exhibited in their society? If one is ignorant of the details of
one’s conception of the good, it may be that, for all one knows, one will want to
undertake activities in which the achievement of excellence plays no role. If Rawls’
argument against Nietzsche’s extreme perfectionism is sound, the same considerations
he uses to defeat it will work equally well against the more moderate form of
perfectionism that he attributes to Aristotle and Rashdall, and that can also be found
in Green, Bosanquet, Hobhouse, and Moore. The fundamental idea is that the
5
contracting parties will want to safeguard their ability to pursue their good as they
conceive it, whatever it is, or to revise it as they choose. Placing even moderate
perfectionism into the fundamental charter of their society would impede them, if
their goals are to pursue ends that do not include excellence of some form.
Rawls’ argument suffers from a limitation that is inherent in his approach to
moral and political philosophy: for his argument against even moderate perfectionism
to succeed, one must first be convinced that moral and political principles are to be
assessed by asking whether they would be chosen in a hypothetical situation. If one
has doubts about the fruitfulness of his contractual approach to normative questions,
then his rejection of perfectionism will be no less doubtful.
It is tempting, therefore, to look for material in A Theory of Justice that can be
used against perfectionism without presupposing the whole apparatus of the
hypothetical contract from behind a veil of ignorance. One way to do so would be to
take the theory of human good that guides Rawls throughout this work as a refutation
of perfectionism. Rawls identifies what is good for individuals as the achievement of
their rational plans. More fully, it is the achievement of “the plan that would be
decided upon as the outcome of careful reflection in which the agent reviewed, in
the light of all the relevant facts, what it would be like to carry out [his] plans and
thereby ascertained the course of action that would best realize his more fundamental
desires” (1999: 366).
If that conception of what is good for someone is correct, then excellence will be
part of someone’s good only if he would aim to achieve it after carefully reflecting on
his “fundamental desires.” Perhaps some people would aim at it; but perhaps others
would not. And, in any case, when excellence is included among someone’s
fundamental aims, it counts as good only because it is aimed at. Rawls’ theory of
goodness holds that perfectionism inverts the proper order of explanation: for him,
excellence is good (for certain individuals) because it would be aimed at by their
fully informed rational deliberation; but for the perfectionist, excellence is to be
aimed at (by all) because it is good (or good for each).
Opponents of perfectionism might wish to use Rawls’ theory of goodness in this
way, but he makes it clear, in his later work, Political Liberalism (1996), that he does
not conceive of the theory of the good put forward in A Theory of Justice as a
self-standing alternative to or refutation of a perfectionist conception of the good. In
that later work, he portrays his critique of utilitarianism and of perfectionism as
challenges not to the truth of those doctrines, but only to the moral rightness of using
them as ultimate principles governing the political community. He claims that it is
no more defensible to make the pursuit of excellence constitutionally fundamental
than it is to assign such a role to the practice of religion. Even if there is one right
religion, it would be wrong for citizens to govern themselves by reference to it; and
similarly, Rawls holds, even if the best sorts of lives are the ones that embody various
excellences, it would be wrong for the constitution to be based on a theory that
affirmed those excellences to be good. The conception of goodness as the achievement
of rational aims – the theory that guides A Theory of Justice – is to be construed as
part of the political charter by which citizens treat each other fairly, and not as a
6
competitor with other theories of the good that philosophers have proposed. It is a
political conception of goodness – a conception that citizens must use if they are to
treat each other fairly – and not a rival to the traditional conceptions of goodness
advocated by other philosophers.
One way to assess the plausibility of Rawls’ opposition to perfectionism is to
imagine a society in which there is unequal access to outstanding cultural artifacts
(music, theater, film, literature, philosophy, history) or to natural beauty (parks,
forests, mountains, wilderness). There are no public museums or libraries, no areas
of great beauty open to the public, and no public schools that expose students to the
humanities. As a result, the children of the poor, unlike their wealthy counterparts,
develop no interest in feats of the imagination, or works of beauty, or exemplary
products of the human mind. There would be something deeply wrong with such a
society, even if the poor could fully achieve their limited aims. This would be an
unjust society, but its defectiveness, so evident to us, is not a matter that would be of
concern to the hypothetical contracting parties posited by Rawls’ theory. They are
not described as individuals who have a sense of beauty; they are not eager to ensure
that they have access to beauty, once the veil of ignorance is lifted. For Rawls, justice
has to do, primarily or exclusively, with only certain goods: political liberties and
rights, and fair access to economic opportunities and wealth, for these goods are the
means by which citizens can safeguard their capacity to achieve their ends, whatever
those ends are. They are therefore the only goods that the contracting parties are
allowed to care about. The complaint made by perfectionists is that these contracting
parties are, for this reason, ill-suited to design a good and just society.
A different critique of perfectionism can be found in the final chapter of
L. W. Sumner’s Welfare, Happiness, and Ethics, although he defines this doctrine in a
way that some philosophers who describe themselves as perfectionists would reject.
Perfection, as he conceives of it, “is in no way determined by [an individual’s]
interests or concerns. Perfectionist evaluation imposes on an individual standards
derived from the species as a whole; it exemplifies the hegemony of the natural
kinds” (1996: 214). Here, Sumner is taking perfectionism to endorse the thesis that
you ought to acquire the excellences of a human being not because this will be
intrinsically good for you, but because you have a duty to be the best possible
exemplar of humanity that you can be. Not only must you perfect yourself in this
way, regardless of your interests or concerns; you must also sacrifice the welfare of
others for the sake of their perfection. Sumner conceives of a person’s welfare or
well-being – what is good for that person – as a matter that is determined by that
individual’s personal perspective. Perfectionism, as he depicts it, ignores that
perspective in order to produce excellent human specimens. So described, the
perfectionist treats all others as does a parent who forces his children to practice
the piano and take dance lessons even when it is apparent that they will never
develop any interest in or pleasure from these activities.
One strategy for protecting perfectionism against this line of attack would be this:
First, perfectionists could question Sumner’s thesis that what is good for someone is
determined solely by that individual’s attitudes, plans, or desires. After all, we can
7
validly criticize a person’s conception of happiness and his plan of life because we
think his ambitions are too limited, or because we believe that the achievement of
his goals will do no good – even for him. Second, perfectionists could agree with
Sumner in his rejection of what he calls “the hegemony of natural kinds.” They can
acknowledge that the psychological and physical powers of each human being may
only partially overlap with those of every other. No doubt, there are broad similarities
among human excellences – one person’s courage or musical ability, for example,
cannot be totally unlike that of every other – but that leaves room for important
individual differences as well. Accordingly, the excellences that a person has most
reason to acquire will be those that are not only socially valuable but also in his
best interests to have, in the light of his distinctive personality and powers. When
perfectionism is so conceived, it does not endorse sacrificing what is good for
individuals to the production of excellence for the sake of excellence.
Thomas Hurka (1993) proposes a different strategy in his Perfectionism. He
counts three things as intrinsically good: human physical perfection, the excel-
lence of practical reasoning, and the excellence of theoretical reason. These things
are valuable because they are the fullest development of properties that belong to the
essence of human beings. We know that they are part of the human essence because
our intuitions reveal that nothing would count as a human being unless it had the
powers of an embodied rational mind, and because the best scientific theory about
human beings will take embodied rationality to be the most central property in
explanations of human behavior. Our moral duty, Hurka argues, is to promote the
fullest possible perfection of all human beings at all times. This form of perfectionism
is precisely the sort that Rawls rejects: it is a theory that proposes that excellence be
maximized, just as utilitarianism calls for the maximal satisfaction of rational desire.
And it unashamedly affirms (in Sumner’s phrase) “the hegemony of natural kinds.”
Hurka does not believe that it can be bad for someone to perfect his nature as a
human being, because what is good for someone precisely is the perfection of
properties essential to the species to which he belongs.
This approach faces several difficulties. First, anencephalic infants, who are born
without cerebral hemispheres, are undoubtedly human beings, even though they lack
any rational capacity. Second, what makes an individual classifiable as a member of this
or that species (our own or any other) seems to be an exclusively biological question,
and it is doubtful that our duties to some individual depend on how the community of
biologists classify him for taxonomic purposes. Third, we owe it to other human beings
(and other sorts of animals) not to bring them pain and suffering for frivolous reasons,
but that is not because doing so will impede their perfection, but simply because it is
bad for them to live through these experiences. Not all that is bad is bad because it is an
imperfection. And not all that is good is good because it is excellent. It is, for example,
better for someone to be happy than unhappy, but happiness is not an excellence: being
happy is not a feature that even partly constitutes being a good human being.
What seems most attractive to some contemporary philosophers about perfectionism
is not the sort of Aristotelian essentialism that Hurka defends, but a sense, nurtured by
a long tradition in moral philosophy, that we can distinguish between higher and
8
lower goods, that certain excellences are among the higher goods, that our treatment
of others must reflect that distinction, and that the state can play an important role in
sustaining higher goods and transmitting them to future generations. Rawls does not
seek to capture that distinction in his conception of goodness as rationality because his
political theory is animated by the conviction that the state must be neutral between
competing conceptions of the good. In this, he has many allies: Bruce Ackerman,
Brian Barry, Ronald Dworkin, Charles Larmore, Robert Nozick, among others. Hurka’s
Aristotelian essentialism provides one alternative to these anti-perfectionists, but there
are other ways of defending the distinction between higher and lower values and
upholding the legitimacy of building that distinction into the design of political insti-
tutions. Among the defenders of a nonessentialist perfectionism are such authors as
Richard Arneson, George Sher, Joseph Raz, and Steven Wall.
See also: aristotle; consequentialism; good and good for; green, t. h.;
hedonism; intrinsic value; liberalism; mill, john stuart; moore, g. e.;
nietzsche, friedrich; plato; pleasure; rashdall, hastings; rawls, john;
ross, w. d.; utilitarianism
REFERENCES
Carritt, E. F. 1928. The Theory of Morals: An Introduction to Ethical Philosophy. London:
Hurka, Thomas 1993. Perfectionism. New York: Oxford University Press.
Moore, G. E. 1993 [1903]. Principia Ethica, rev. ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nietzsche, Friedrich 1997. Untimely Meditations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Plato 2004. Republic. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Rashdall, Hastings 1907. The Theory of Good and Evil: A Treatise on Moral Philosophy, vols. 1
and 2. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Rawls, John 1999 [1971]. A Theory of Justice, rev. ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Ross, W. D. 1930. The Right and the Good. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Sumner, L. W. 1996. Welfare, Happiness, and Ethics. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
FURTHER READINGS
Ackerman, Bruce 1980. Social Justice and the Liberal State. New Haven: Yale University
Press.
Aristotle 2000. Nicomachean Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Arneson, Richard 2003. “Liberal Neutrality on the Good: An Autopsy,” in Steven Wall and
George Klosko (eds.), Perfectionism and Neutrality. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield,
pp. 191–208.
Barry, Brian 1995. Justice as Impartiality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bosanquet, Bernard 1923. The Philosophical Theory of the State, 4th ed. London:
Macmillan.
Brink, David O. 2003. Perfectionism and the Common Good: Themes in the Philosophy of
T. H. Green. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
9
Dworkin, Ronald 1978. “Liberalism,” in Stuart Hampshire (ed.), Public and Private Morality.
Green, Thomas Hill 1986. Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation, ed. P. Harris and
J. Morrow. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Green, Thomas Hill 2003. Prolegomenon to Ethics, ed. David O. Brink. Oxford: Clarendon
Press.
Hobhouse, Leonard Trelawny 1911. Liberalism. London: Oxford University Press.
Larmore, C. 1987. Patterns of Moral Complexity, Ch. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Mill, John Stuart 1978. On Liberty. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Raz, Joseph 1986. The Morality of Freedom. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Raz, Joseph 1994. Ethics in the Public Domain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sher, George 1997. Beyond Neutrality: Perfectionism and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Wall, Steven 1998. Liberalism, Perfectionism and Restraint. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Wall, Steven 2007. “Perfectionism in Moral and Political Philosophy,” Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy. At http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perfectionism-moral.
1
Well-Being
Richard Kraut
The Concept of Well-Being

In ordinary speech, “well-being” is often used interchangeably with such terms as
“health,” “happiness,” and “prosperity” (see happiness). To be concerned about
someone’s well-being is to care whether he is doing or faring well. The word “well”
that appears in these expressions plays an evaluative role – it is the adverbial form of
the adjective “good,” and of course “good” is a grade we use to evaluate things. If
someone is well-off, his life is good. Hence, it is not surprising that we commonly
move back and forth so easily between “well-being” and such terms as “health,”
“happiness,” and “prosperity”: most people assume that the life of a human being is
a good one – that someone living such a life is faring well – only if it has at least some
measure of these goods.
Philosophers nonetheless make a distinction that is not often observed in everyday
speech: they say that to be a constituent of well-being is one thing, and to be a means
to well-being is another. Take physical health, for example: one might believe that it
is a necessary pre-condition of well-being, but that it is to be sought and welcomed
only because of what it leads to or makes possible. In that case, one is not taking it to
be a constituent of well-being. It is not, as we might put it, intrinsically valuable (see
intrinsic value). On the other hand, one might hold that being physically healthy
is in itself good for us, whether or not it leads to further results. In that case, one is
regarding health as a component or constituent of well-being. It is, in other words,
intrinsically good.
The question, “What is well-being?” can thus be interpreted to mean “Which
things are intrinsically good for an individual?” So understood, it is the same
question that was raised in antiquity by Greek and Roman philosophers. For such
thinkers or schools of thought as Socrates (469–399 bce), Plato (427–347 bce),
Aristotle (384–322 bce), the Stoics, and the Epicureans, the deepest question of
practical reasoning – the one that underlies all other ethical questions – is: what is
the highest or ultimate good (see aristotle; hellenistic ethics; highest good;
plato; stoicism)? Aristotle, for example, observes near the beginning of the
Nicomachean Ethics (2000) that some goods are sought for the sake of others, and
then argues that it cannot be that every good we pursue is desirable only for the sake
of something else. There must be something, he insists, that is desirable in itself and
not sought for the sake of anything else, and that goal must be the one for the sake
of which all others are to be sought. He regarded it as an open question, to be
answered by philosophical methods, what that ultimate good is. The word he applies
to it is the common Greek term eudaimonia, which combines the adverb eu, meaning
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee099
2
“well,” and the word for a god, daimon (see eudaimonism). Hence, Aristotle’s term
eudaimonia, which he equates with living or faring well, is like our word “well-being,”
in three respects. First, both incorporate an evaluative notion – that of wellness.
Second, eudaimonia, as with well-being, consists in something, and it can be pursued
only if one identifies what it consists in. Third, what it consist in must be something
that is not merely instrumentally good.
It is common to use the words “good” and “bad” elliptically – to say, for example,
that health is good and disease bad, when what we mean is that health is good for
someone and disease bad for someone, namely the individual who is healthy or ill.
Of course, any instance of health is always the health of someone, but to say that
health is good for someone goes beyond saying that it is the health of someone.
To speak of health as good for the healthy person is equivalent to calling it beneficial
for or advantageous to him, or in his interest (see good and good for).
Some philosophers, nonetheless, insist upon the importance of a nonelliptical use
of “good.” Perhaps the clearest example is provided by G. E. Moore (1873–1958; see
moore, g. e.). He holds in Principia Ethica (1903) that goodness is the fundamental
property to which all practical reasoning must attend, but he is not talking about the
property of being advantageous to or good for anyone. Rather, he is proposing that
there is such a thing as impersonal or absolute goodness – goodness period, or
simpliciter, or sans phrase.
Moore believes, for example, that beauty is absolutely good. To prove this, he asks
us to imagine two worlds, both devoid of people: one entirely beautiful, the other
wholly ugly. Is not the first world better than the second, he asks, even though there
is no one for whom it is better? It clearly is, he replies, and that is because it contains
something that is, quite simply, good: beauty. He accepts the common assumption
that the value of a beautiful world would be immeasurably increased were it occu-
pied by people who enjoy the contemplation of its beauty. That, he holds, is because
of the absolute value of such pleasures. For Moore, both beauty and the enjoyment
of beauty are good (period). Their being good does not consist in their being good
for anyone.
In fact, he believes that it is misleading to speak of anything as good for someone,
or my good, or your good. Rather than say that the pleasure I take in contemplating
beautiful things is good for me, or that my good consists in such enjoyment, we
should say instead: “Such a pleasure is absolutely good, and I am the one whose
pleasure it is. It is not in relation to me that aesthetic pleasure is good. It is simply a
good thing, and I should seek that kind of pleasure because my doing so increases
the amount of value in the universe.” Moore is attracted to this way of thinking
because it leaves no room for rational self-interested motivation, and opens the door
to an impartial stance towards the universe. One is not to maximize what is good for
oneself, or one’s family, or one’s own group, however large – that policy, he holds,
rests on a confusion. Clear thinking shows that what is to be maximized is the
amount of good that exists in the universe.
These points about Moore are relevant to the topic of well-being, because many
contemporary philosophers use “well-being” to designate a condition that is good
3
for the well-off individual. So used, to be concerned about someone’s “well-being” is

to care about whether his or her life contains things that are good for that individual.
It is to ask whether the person living that life is benefiting from living it. Moore,
then, has no theory of well-being in this sense – rather, he is opposed to the idea that
well-being of this sort is worth caring about. For the same reason, if we take Aristotle
and other thinkers of Greek and Roman antiquity to be offering, in their reflections
on eudaimonia, theories about well-being, and we equate well-being, as many
philosophers do, with what is good for an individual, then we must be prepared to
take those ancient philosophers to be theorizing not about what Moore calls
absolute goodness but about what is noninstrumentally advantageous or beneficial.
Alternatively, if we use the word “well-being” in the way that even Moore is talking
about it, no less than are philosophers who propose theories about what constitutes
an individual’s advantage, then we risk confusion: some theories of well-being will
be about what is good (period), and others about what is good for someone. To
avoid misunderstanding, it is best to abide by common philosophical usage and to
treat theories of well-being as theories about what is noninstrumentally good for
someone. So used, we are making a substantive and contestable claim if we say that
well-being – one’s own or that of others – should be among one’s ultimate goals.
The concept of well-being, as we have seen, is best understood as the concept of
what is good for an individual, but in common usage “good for” and “bad for” have
a wider range. We can say, for example, without any sense of oddity, that it is bad for
an automobile to sit idly in the garage for many months, or that it is good for it to be
driven occasionally. However, it would be peculiar to talk about the well-being of a
car. Well-being is something that belongs above all to human beings and other
animals, rather than to plants and artifacts (see animals, moral status of).
Furthermore, a concern for the well-being of a person or a cat or a dog is a concern
for the whole life of that individual, or a significant stretch of it. Someone who felt
an urge to give you a momentary benefit would not be said to care about your
well-being. So, when we talk about well-being, we assume that lives have a temporal
duration and shape, and a concern for well-being must take into account what is
good for a person over that longer period of time. A similar point is made by Aristotle
when he remarks that no one can be eudaimon (the adjectival form of the noun
eudaimonia) for a day or any other brief period – just as springtime is not simply the
appearance of a single swallow.
The term “subjective well-being” has recently been used by experimental
psychologists to designate a certain state of mind that they believe to be open to
scientific investigation. Subjects are asked how they feel either about the present
moment, or about their lives as a whole, or about certain dimensions of their lives.
Similar experiments can be conducted in which subjects are asked to rate the
intensity of pain on a scale between 1 and 10. Results can be aggregated and
conclusions drawn about the economic or political conditions that are correlated
with these states of mind; the effectiveness of various drugs in alleviating pain can
also be assessed. Such studies can be of great interest, insofar as we want to know
how people are feeling about their lives and how they respond to pain. However, by
4
their nature, these investigations are not addressed to the evaluative question that is
asked by philosophers when they discuss the topic of well-being. Philosophers who
reflect on well-being want to know what really is good for someone, not what seems
to be good. Psychologists, by contrast, are not in the business of making evaluations,
but are searching for the causes of certain states of mind – a sense of well-being, or
happiness, or pleasure, or their opposites. The term “subjective well-being” is
therefore misleading if it suggests that empirical studies of mental states tell us what
is good for us. It may indeed be true that when one feels happy about one’s life, that
is a good state to be in. However, whether it is good or not is a matter that is open to
and can be resolved only through philosophical inquiry.
Theories of Well-Being
Aristotle seeks a theory of human well-being – a theory that is applicable not merely
to Greeks or to the fourth century, but to all people at all times. He holds that
virtuous activity (i.e., the exercise of such excellent qualities as wisdom, courage,
and justice) is the central ingredient of human well-being, but that it is not by itself
sufficient for eudaimonia, because human beings, no matter how virtuous, are
vulnerable to such misfortunes as enslavement or the depredations of tyrants. The
Stoic school, founded by Zeno of Citium (334–262 bce) one generation after
Aristotle, departs from him in precisely that respect: it takes virtuous activity to be
the only good, and the failure to attain it as the only evil. A third conception of
well-being was endorsed by the Epicureans (another school founded soon after
Aristotle’s death): they took pleasure to be the sole good, and pain the sole evil.
The term “hedonism” is often used as a label for this doctrine (see hedonism;
pleasure). Notice that the Epicurean doctrine is even broader in scope than Aris-
totle’s. It proposes not only a conception of human well-being, but a theory about
the good of all creatures. For an animal to live well, according to the Epicureans, is
for it to live pleasantly. Even if what pleases animals does not please us, we have the
same ultimate goal that they do.
Aristotle would agree with the Epicureans to this extent: a life devoid of pleasure,
he insists, cannot be eudaimon. His picture of a well-lived life is that of a human
being who enjoys being wise, just, and courageous (and has the resources to act in
these ways). How does this differ from the Epicurean theory? Pleasure, for Aristotle,
should not by itself be our ultimate end; rather, his thesis is that our proper ultimate
end – enjoyable virtuous activity – has pleasure in it as one component. Pleasure is
one kind of intrinsic good but not the only kind. And he believes that some kinds of
pleasure are not good at all. But for the Epicureans, all pleasures are good, nothing
other than pleasure is noninstrumentally good, and our ultimate end is not the
pleasure of virtuous activity but pleasure alone.
Hedonism was revived in the modern era, and some authors combined it with the
principle that our supreme goal should be to produce the greatest quantity of good.
The result is utilitarianism – the doctrine embraced and popularized by Jeremy
Bentham (1748–1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806–73), and refined by Henry
5
Sidgwick (1838–1900), that the supreme moral rule commands us to maximize

pleasure (see bentham, jeremy; greatest happiness principle; mill, john
stuart; sidgwick, henry; utilitarianism). Well-being, according to these
utilitarians, consists simply in pleasant consciousness. However, one is not to be
concerned solely with one’s own well-being, or with the well-being of one’s own
society or political community. Even a concern with human well-being would be too
narrow a focus. The best that one can do is to increase, as fully as possible, the total
amount of well-being of humans and of any other creature that is capable of
well-being. Moore too holds that our supreme goal is to maximize something, but as
we have seen, he thinks that it is not well-being (what is good for someone) that is to
be maximized, but good simpliciter.
Mill’s conception of well-being is subtle and complex because he rebels against
Bentham’s doctrine that only the quantity of pleasure matters. For Bentham,
pleasures are to be assessed solely along the following dimensions: intensity,
duration, certainty, temporal propinquity, fecundity (likelihood of producing more
pleasure), and purity (unlikelihood of producing pain). Mill protests that Bentham
is attentive merely to the quantitative aspect of pleasure, and entirely overlooks their
qualitative differences. Some pleasures are “higher” (he is thinking, for example, of
the pleasures of reading great poetry), others “lower” (the satisfaction of desires for
food, drink, and sex). To determine that one kind of pleasure is higher than another,
he says, we need only ask about the preferences of those who have experienced both.
Even if Mill is right that this is a reliable way to assess the quality of pleasures, his
attempt to improve on Bentham is problematic, and few hedonists have followed his
lead. It is difficult for a hedonist to reject the thesis that the more pleasant of two
alternatives is the one that should be chosen. That thesis is an instance of a more
abstract generalization: if G is the sole good, and one option has more G than the
other, one ought to select it. Mill may be right that sometimes you should spend an
evening reading poetry rather than drinking, even if drinking would bring you more
intense pleasures. However, the easiest way to defend that thesis is to insist that
pleasure is not all there is to well-being.
Mill’s doctrine may nonetheless appear to have some plausibility because the
quantitative–qualitative contrast is often significant and unproblematic. One city
may have more schools than another, but that does not show that you should move
there – unless they are also better schools. One novel may have more words than
another, but it may be a worse novel. Similarly, when we compare two pleasures, we
can say that although one is more intense, the other is nonetheless a better pleas-
ure. However, this point will help Mill only if what makes one pleasure better for
someone to experience than another is some empirically detectable hedonic feature
of the two experiences other than intensity. If the goodness or badness (for us) of a
pleasant experience were features of it that we can sense, just as we taste the flavor of
a peach, or recognize the timbre of an oboe, or recognize the intensity of pain, Mill
would be on solid ground. However, pleasures are evaluated as good by our faculty
of judgment; their goodness is not sensed in the way in which the flavor of a
strawberry is detected by the tongue. If it is not simply the way reading poetry feels,
6
compared with the way tasting a fruit feels, that makes the former better for us than
the latter, then Mill’s attempt to improve on Bentham does not succeed.
The lesson many philosophers have drawn is that hedonism is too narrow a
conception of well-being. The hedonist is stuck with the fact that some pleasures –
the rush of a drug-induced high, for example – are extremely intense, and yet their
intensity seems a poor guide to their choiceworthiness. Even if they could be
artificially extended over the course of a lifetime and involved no pain, the life of
someone who experienced nothing other than that single kind of intense pleasure
does not seem appealing. Reasoning along these lines, Hastings Rashdall (1858–1924)
proposed a nonhedonistic version of utilitarianism, which he called “ideal” utilitari-
anism (see rashdall, hastings). The good is to be maximized, according to
Rashdall, but well-being consists in many other things besides pleasure: among
them are virtue, knowledge, and various artistic, intellectual, and cultural pursuits.
Not all of them are on a par, but each is good to some degree.
One can accept Rashdall’s idea that well-being is a composite of many different
sorts of things without agreeing to his utilitarianism. The result would be a theory
that bears some resemblance to those of Plato and Aristotle. In the Philebus, Plato
has Socrates argue that a life that contained nothing but knowledge and entirely
lacked pleasure would be inferior to one that includes both sorts of goods; and
similarly, a life that contained nothing but pleasure but entirely lacking in knowledge
would be far from the best we could live. The best life for human beings, then, is a
mixed life – one that harmoniously integrates goods of various kinds. As we have
seen, Aristotle proposes a similar idea: the best life is one that combines virtue,
pleasure, and other sorts of goods.
Many philosophers are nonetheless dissatisfied with both hedonism and this
pluralistic alternative to it. What disturbs them is that all such theories overlook
what might be called the subjectivity of well-being: what is good for someone is what
is good from that individual’s perspective. Statements about what is good for
someone, they argue, are made true by facts about that individual’s preferences.
However, the theories we have been examining seem to pay no attention to those
kinds of subjective differences. They can be accused of imposing on us a conception
of what is in our interest that rests only on rough generalizations about human or
animal nature. Virtue, for example, may be a component of the good of many
people – but must it be a component of everyone’s good? If someone turns his back
on pleasurable experiences and activities, and devotes himself to tasks that he takes
to be important but unenjoyable, on what basis is he to be criticized? David Hume
(1711–76) speaks for many when he says, in An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of
Morals (1983), that: “Ultimate ends … can never … be accounted for by reason” (see
hume, david). For Hume, it is sentiment – not reason – that provides a grounding
for statements about what is good or bad. A theory of well-being inspired by Hume’s
thesis might therefore say that if someone has a favorable attitude towards some
ultimate goal, then it is good for him to achieve it, and what makes it good for him
is precisely the fact that he aims at it. Something close to this idea is endorsed by
Hobbes (1588–1679) when he says, in Leviathan (1651), that: “Whatsoever is the
7
object of any man’s appetite or desires, that is it which he for his part calleth good.”
Hobbes is implying that there is no basis for criticizing what someone aims at. What
is good for each is what “he for his part calleth good” (see hobbes, thomas).
The rise of liberal political philosophy (see liberalism) has contributed to the
attractiveness of this subjective way of thinking about well-being – “subjective”
because one’s perspective determines one’s good (see subjectivism, ethical).
According to the liberal, there is no good reason to interfere with an individual’s
pursuit of well-being, provided he is not interfering with others, because the best
judge of an individual’s interests is that individual. Why is one the best judge of one’s
own interests? The subjective conception of well-being replies: because one’s aims
and desires are constitutive of one’s good. Admittedly, people sometimes go astray in
their choice of which means to take to the achievement of their ends. However,
society should not try to steer its members towards certain ends rather than others.
It should let individuals set their own ends, because their well-being lies in the
achievement of goals they have chosen for themselves.
Subjectivism about well-being is inevitably a form of conservatism, because it
denies that there is any basis for saying that people ought, for their own good, to
have more ambitious or more enriching goals than the ones they currently pursue.
Its only standard for assessing a life as good or bad for the person living it is one that
is fixed by that person’s actual goals. It therefore lacks the resources for saying that
those who make the best of a bad lot might have had better lives. If, for example, an
impoverished slave achieves the little that he aims to achieve, subjectivism must say
that his well-being is as great as that of anyone else who has an equally good record
of success in achieving his aims.
The subjectivist faces other difficulties: (1) When we say that a 3-month-old child
is faring well, our judgment rests on a conception of how the faculties of a human
infant should develop, and not on an assessment of how fully that child is getting what
she wants. (2) If someone, acting out of self-hatred, injures his body or mind, we say
that he is undermining his well-being; he may achieve his aims, but his aims are bad
for him. (3) When we are faced with important decisions about the future – whether
to marry, or have children, or pursue one kind of career rather than another – we ask
which ends to choose, and not merely which means will serve ends that we already
have. We worry that we might make a poor decision. However, if we were subjectiv-
ists, we ought to reckon that it does not matter which goals we adopt – all that matters,
for well-being, would be their achievement. (4) It is a matter of common sense that
people sometimes sacrifice their own well-being, at least to some degree, for the good
of others. When they do so, they are achieving their aims – after all, they have delib-
erately decided to make such a sacrifice. However, if they are achieving their aims,
then, according to subjectivism, they are not making a sacrifice after all.
The theory of well-being that John Rawls (1921–2002) proposes in A Theory of
Justice (1971) is not subjectivist, but neither is it a form of hedonism or the pluralism
proposed by Plato, Aristotle, and Rashdall (see rawls, john). His basic idea is that
someone’s good consists in the achievement of his rational goals or desires. One’s
rational goals may not be the ones that one actually has; rather, as Rawls defines
8
them, they are the aims one would have, were one to plan one’s life with great care,
after ascertaining all the relevant facts. That conception of well-being might be
interpreted in a way that allows it to criticize the actual plans that many people
have: one can claim, for example, that people who seek to accumulate luxury goods
and exercise power over others are acting contrary to their interests, because were
they to deliberate more rationally, they would reject these goals in favor of the
pursuit of knowledge and artistic accomplishment. However, that would not be to
use Rawls’s theory in the way he intends. As he sees it, the standard he proposes
to assess whether someone’s goals are rational is not difficult for most people to
achieve, and it provides no basis for saying that some goals are inherently more
worthwhile than others, or that some pleasures are (as Mill thinks) qualitatively
superior to others. To make this point, he imagines someone whose only pleasure in
life is to count blades of grass. If that plan is the one he would choose after careful
deliberation, then his way of life, Rawls admits, is good for him. Rawls’s conception
of well-being provides no basis for saying that other people have better lives than
this – lives that are good for them to a higher degree than the grass-counter’s life is
good for him.
However, Rawls is not entirely comfortable with the fact that his theory forces
him to this conclusion, for he says that if there is no way to alter the psychological
condition of the grass-counter, then his plan of life establishes what is good for him
(1999: 380). This implies that, were we able somehow to induce in the grass-counter
different goals – goals that made fuller use of a human being’s cognitive powers,
imagination, and emotional resources – that would be good for him, because his life
would be richer, fuller, more flourishing. That new life would be better for him than
his old one, even though the old life might have been highly enjoyable and full of
success in the achievement of its (very limited) ambitions. Rawls’s example of the
grass-counter is fanciful, as he acknowledges, and it is perhaps poor philosophical
methodology to rely heavily on scenarios that we have never encountered. However,
it is analogous to the real sorts of cases that we mentioned earlier: those of slaves or
people living in impoverished circumstances that force them to pursue highly
constricted goals. Just as the grass-counter’s peculiar psychological condition leads
him away from a full development of his cognitive and emotional resources, so
economic and political conditions impose on many human beings no less severe
limitations.
There are several goals, as we have seen, that a philosophical theory of well-being
should try to achieve. It must account for the fact that some human lives are better
(for the person living it) than others. It must acknowledge that some goals are better
to pursue (for the one pursing them) than others. It must grant that one can fail to
see that one’s life could be much better than it is. It must say not only what is good
for an adult but also for a child and an animal. It must be consistent with the common
assumption that one can deliberately sacrifice one’s well-being for the good of
others, and that one can even aim at doing what is bad for oneself for its own sake.
A non-subjective and pluralistic conception of well-being might be in the best posi-
tion to give such an account.
9
See also: animals, moral status of; aristotle; bentham, jeremy;

eudaimonism; good and good for; greatest happiness principle; happiness;
hedonism; hellenistic ethics; highest good; hobbes, thomas; hume, david;
intrinsic value; liberalism; mill, john stuart; moore, g. e.; plato;
pleasure; rashdall, hastings; rawls, john; sidgwick, henry; stoicism;
subjectivism, ethical; utilitarianism
REFERENCES
Aristotle 2000. Nicomachean Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hobbes, Thomas 1994 [1651]. Leviathan. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Hume, David 1983 [1751]. An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. Indianapolis:
Hackett.
Moore, G. E. 1993 [1903]. Principia Ethica, rev. ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rawls, John 1999 [1971]. A Theory of Justice, rev. ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Sidgwick, Henry 1907. The Methods of Ethics, 7th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
FURTHER READINGS
Bentham, Jeremy 1970 [1789]. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, ed.
J. H. Burns and H. L. A. Hart. London: Athlone Press.
Crisp, Roger 2008. “Well-Being,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. At http://plato.stanford.
edu/entries/well-being.
Darwall, Stephen 2002. Welfare and Rational Care. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Feldman, Fred 2004. Pleasure and the Good Life. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Griffin, James 1986. Well-Being: Its Meaning, Measurement, and Moral Importance. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
Habron, Daniel M. 2008. The Pursuit of Unhappiness. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Kahneman, Daniel, Ed Diener, and Norbert Schwarz (eds.) 1999. Well-Being: The Foundations
of Hedonic Psychology. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Keyes, Corey L. M., and Jonathan Haidt (eds.) 2003. Flourishing: Positive Psychology and the
Life Well-Lived. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Kraut, Richard 2007. What is Good and Why: The Ethics of Well-Being. Cambridge, MA:
Layard, Richard 2005. Happiness: Lessons from a New Science. London: Penguin.
Mill, John Stuart 1998 [1861]. Utilitarianism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Parfit, Derek 1984. Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Plato 2004. Republic. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Rashdall, Hastings 1907. The Theory of Good and Evil: A Treatise on Moral Philosophy, vols.
1 and 2. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Sumner, L. W. 1996. Welfare, Happiness, and Ethics. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Tiberius, Valerie 2008. The Reflective Life: Living Wisely Within Our Limits. New York: Oxford
University Press.
White, Nicholas P. 2006. A Brief History of Happiness. Oxford: Blackwell.
1
Eugenics
Nicholas Agar
The word “eugenics” was coined by Francis Galton, a Victorian intellectual who
was among the first to explore the social implications of the theory of evolution. It
combines the Greek eu, meaning “good” or “well,” with the suffix – genēs, meaning
“born.” In a definition published in 1883, Galton characterized eugenics as “the science
of improving stock, which is by no means confined to questions of judicious mating,
but which, especially in the case of man, takes cognizance of all influences that tend in
however remote a degree to give to the more suitable races or strains of blood a better
chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable” (Galton 1883: 17 n.1). The history
of eugenics has been decidedly spotty. This essay samples selectively from that history
and comments on the relevance of the concept to contemporary moral debates.
Galton and his followers mapped out two main tasks for those seeking to improve
human stock. They should implement negative eugenics, which consists in discour-
aging those with poor-quality hereditary material from reproducing. They should
also practice positive eugenics, by encouraging the well-born to have as many children
as possible. Millennia of successes in selectively planting crop species and breeding
livestock led to confidence that these techniques could influence human evolution
for the better.
After Galton, an ideologically disparate collection of eugenicists urged, and in some
cases implemented, programs designed to perpetuate the “more suitable races or
strains of blood” and to purge the less suitable. Daniel Kevles and Diane Paul give
excellent accounts of eugenics during the final years of the nineteenth century and first
half of the twentieth. Today, eugenics is remembered chiefly for the misdeeds of the
Nazis. In the lebensborn program, a component of Nazi positive eugenics, members of
the German armed forces were encouraged to impregnate racially vetted female citi-
zens of occupied territories. We are accustomed to thinking of the Holocaust as a sin-
gular moral catastrophe, but it is possible to view it as part of Nazi eugenics (see
holocaust). The death camps were negative eugenics on an industrial scale – a brutal
but effective means of stopping the people the Nazis despised from having children.
The years following World War II witnessed a decline in the advocacy of
eugenics. There is some debate about which was the chief wrong of Galtonian
eugenics (see Buchanan et al. 2000: 46–52). Some critics find failures of distribu-
tive justice to be its crowning moral flaw. The improvements eugenicists claimed
to be pursuing were to be achieved by imposing significant penalties on the
members of groups whose hereditary material was not wanted. Other critics of
eugenics focus on the denial of moral pluralism. Eugenicists tended to believe in
the objective moral superiority of certain kinds of human beings or certain ways
of life over all alternatives. Still other critics indicate the suppression of procreative
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee100
2
freedom as eugenics’ chief vice. A program of human selective breeding requires

the population-wide coordination of reproduction; those judged to have inferior
hereditary material will be obliged not to reproduce, and those judged to have
superior hereditary material will be subject to an obligation to maximize their
reproductive efforts.
Is Eugenics Still Relevant?

There are two questions we can ask about the relevance of eugenics in the early
twenty-first century. First, should the concept of eugenics play a role in the debate
about humanity’s future? Second, is any eugenics program morally defensible?
The early-twenty-first-century understanding of heredity and its role in making
human beings is far superior to that possessed by Galton and his followers. We have
moved beyond the mistaken notion that virtuous hereditary factors cluster in
certain social or racial groups while vicious factors collect in others. Today, DNA
sequencing technologies and powerful statistical tools expose links between specific
traits and particular genetic variants (see genetic testing). Pre-implantation
genetic diagnosis enables the decision about whether to become pregnant with an
embryo to be guided by its genetic makeup (see reproductive technology).
Geneticists are learning how to introduce DNA into embryos and how to excise it
(see biotechnology).
These advances make Galtonian selective breeding seem a relic of a distant,
best-forgotten past. It would be a mistake, however, to ditch the term “eugenics” in
favor of a term that pretends to be morally neutral, such as “human enhancement,”
for example. The concept of eugenics has continuing relevance to the debate about
the technologies of genetic selection and modification.
The scope of eugenics is broader than that of human enhancement. The concept
“human enhancement” assumes a distinction between therapy, which includes
measures designed to restore or preserve people at levels of functioning considered
normal for human beings, and enhancement, which encompasses measures
whose purpose is to boost levels of functioning beyond those norms. Eugenics
straddles the divide between therapy and enhancement. Galton was interested in
what we would recognize as human enhancement, but an important focus of his
eugenics was the elimination of congenital illness. Those who consider the distinc-
tion between therapy and enhancement to be ill-founded should find the concept of
eugenics to be a more suitable topic for debate than a concept that assumes the
distinction (for skepticism about the therapy/enhancement distinction, see Agar
2004; Harris 1998; Kitcher 1996; Savulescu 2001).
The goal of human improvement that motivated Galton and his followers is
separable from the means they chose to achieve it. While human selective breeding
seems morally problematic, other means of human improvement may deserve dif-
ferent verdicts. For example, a policy of making pre-implantation genetic diagnosis
available to prospective parents seems compatible with procreative liberty. It enables
them to make limited choices about the genetic constitutions of their children-to-be.
3
If, as seems probable, the technology is mainly used to avoid passing on genetic
variants linked with serious diseases, then it may also promote the eugenic goal of
improving human stock. Thus, we may have eugenics without selective breeding.
Finally, retaining the term “eugenics” may prevent an inappropriate forgetting.
Terrible things were done in eugenics’ name. This is partly because the practice of
selecting or modifying human hereditary material is unavoidably dangerous. We
are more likely to remember this if we do not reserve the term “eugenics” for evil
things done by Nazis and their ideological allies. Consider an analogous case. The
Tuskegee syphilis experiments are properly acknowledged as medical research (see
research ethics). They were designed to improve our understanding of a serious
medical condition. Yet, they failed to respect the humanity of the test subjects and
as such serve as indispensable reminders of the dangers of medical research on
human subjects.
Liberal Eugenics
A program that has come to be called liberal eugenics aspires to avoid the moral
failings of Galtonian eugenics. Liberal eugenics borrows from liberal political theory
a commitment to pluralism according to which the good life takes many mutually
incompatible, incommensurable forms (see liberalism). It purports to extend
rather than restrict procreative freedom. Liberal eugenicists would permit prospec-
tive parents to seek guidance from their own particular values in deciding whether
and how to enhance their children. What counts as an improvement for some may
not be similarly viewed by other prospective parents. Like other liberties, the
welfare of others, including that of the future child, will constrain these choices. Just
as we consider advocating racial hatred as an abuse of the freedom of speech,
procreative choices that predictably lead to suffering can justifiably be banned.
Liberal eugenicists think that there is a precedent for the freedom to genetically
enhance. The interactionist picture of development emphasizes that key human
characteristics emerge through an interaction of genetic and environmental factors.
Parents in liberal societies make a variety of different choices about how to nourish
and educate their children (see parents’ rights and responsibilities). The state
outlaws educational and nutritional choices it finds to be incompatible with children’s
flourishing (see children’s rights; child abuse and neglect). It should have
similar powers in respect of genetic choices.
Liberal eugenics has elicited significant opposition. Jürgen Habermas finds genetic
enhancement to be incompatible with liberal principles. According to Habermas, a
parent who seeks to enhance his child by modifying her genome “makes himself the
co-author of the life of another, he intrudes – from the interior … into the other’s
consciousness of her own autonomy.” He continues: “The programming intentions of
parents who are ambitious and given to experimentation … have the peculiar status
of a one-sided and unchallengeable expectation” (2003: 51). Habermas rejects liberal
eugenicists’ comparison of genetic and environmental influences. He claims that a
child can resist her parents’ selection of environmental influences. She can oppose a
4
plan to turn her into a tennis superstar by refusing to participate in intensive practice
sessions. Excessively dictatorial parents may overcome this resistance. But they can-
not remove its very possibility. Habermas envisages genetic enhancement achieving
exactly this. A child has no power to reverse her parents’ modification of her embry-
onic DNA. This asymmetry between genetic enhancer and genetically enhanced
undermines the equality characteristic of liberal societies. Habermas portrays the
future generations of a society that implements liberal eugenics as “defenseless objects
of prior choices made by the planners of today” and continues “the other side of the
power of today is the future bondage of the living to the dead” (2003: 48).
Michael Sandel (2004) directs a further challenge at liberal eugenics. He argues
that genetic enhancement exemplifies an unhealthy attitude to children. According
to Sandel, parents should accept that there is much about their children that is not
up to them. A child’s genome is, depending on one’s religious commitments, either
a chance recombination of parental genetic material or part of God’s design. The
love of acceptance acknowledges and, indeed, celebrates this independence from
parental plans. Genetic enhancers differ in choosing to view their offspring as
objects of transformation. Suppose we accept the liberal comparison of genetic
enhancement with environmental molding. Sandel insists that we pair it with the
“heavily managed, high-pressure childrearing” that he calls “hyperparenting” (2004:
58). Hyperparents acknowledge few limits to their efforts to transform their children
into sports champions or academic superstars. According to Sandel, genetic
enhancement both facilitates and exaggerates the same tendencies.
It goes without saying that liberal eugenicists have rushed to defend their theory
against these challenges. One response accuses Habermas of overlooking
opportunities to resist the plans of genetic enhancers (Agar 2004: 117–20). While
you may be too late to make it the case that the DNA of your embryo was never
altered, you can prevent the alterations from having the effects your enhancer
was hoping for. This opportunity is a consequence of the interactionist view of
development, according to which significant traits emerge not from the action
of genes alone, but from the interactions of genes and environment. You can refuse
to place the modified gene or genes in the environment necessary for them to have
their intended effect. Suppose that you learn that your genome was altered with the
intention of turning you into a brilliant mathematician. You are unlikely to become
one if you refuse to study mathematics beyond grade school level. Liberals object
that Sandel overstates the power of genetic enhancers (Agar 2008: 63–6). They take
control of a small subset of the total collection of genetic influences. The modification
of a single gene shown to influence intelligence does not significantly diminish the
domain of the love of acceptance.
Transhumanism as Eugenics?
Transhumanism is the contemporary descendant of Galtonian eugenics with the most
unambiguous and emphatic commitment to human improvement. Transhumanists
differ from liberal eugenicists in having very specific ideas about how human
5
beings should be enhanced. According to Nick Bostrom, the movement’s foremost

philosopher, transhumanists want to “eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human
intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities” (The Transhumanist FAQ).
The term “transhumanism” was coined by the British biologist Julian Huxley, who
argued in a paper published in 1957 that the human species must transcend itself. This
transcendence would shift human existence as it has always been, “a wretched make-
shift, rooted in ignorance,” toward “a state of existence based on the illumination of
knowledge and comprehension” (Huxley 1957: 16). Huxley endorsed Galtonian eugen-
ics; he thought that we should achieve transcendence by human selective breeding.
Modern transhumanists have different ideas about how our life spans are to be extended
and our intellects enhanced. In place of selective breeding, they advocate a variety of
transformative technologies or therapies. Some of these bypass human hereditary
material altogether. For example, transhumanists advocate grafting a variety of cyber-
netic implants and neuroprostheses to our bodies and brains. A belief in the superiority
of certain kinds of contemporary humans over others is no part of contemporary tran-
shumanism. Transhumanists view our humanity as raw material to be refashioned into
radically improved forms – the racial or ethnic origins of that raw material makes no
difference to its refashioning. Moreover, they think that the appeal of extended lifes-
pans and enhanced cognitive powers is such that no violations of liberty are necessary.
The enhancements proposed by transhumanists differ in magnitude from those
entertained by liberal eugenicists. Some transhumanists envisage our changing to such
an extent that we are no longer human. We will become posthuman. It is curious that a
movement that began with Galton’s suggestion about improving human stock seems to
be leading to the idea that we should abandon our humanity altogether. The unabashed
advocacy of enhancement by transhumanists has pushed questions concerning the
concept of humanity and value of remaining human to the philosophical center stage.
see also: biotechnology; child abuse and neglect; children’s

rights; genetic testing; holocaust; liberalism; parents’ rights and
responsibilities; reproductive technology; research ethics
REFERENCES
Agar, Nicholas 2004. Liberal Eugenics: In Defence of Human Enhancement. Oxford: Blackwell.
Agar, Nicholas 2008. “How to Defend Genetic Enhancement,” in Bert Gordijn and Ruth
Chadwick (eds.), Medical Enhancement and Posthumanity. Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 55–67.
Buchanan, Allen, Dan Brock, Norman Daniels, and Daniel Wikler 2000. From Chance to
Choice: Genetics and Justice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Galton, Francis 1883. Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development. London: Macmillan.
Habermas, Jürgen 2003. The Future of Human Nature. Cambridge: Polity.
Harris, John 1998. Clones, Genes, and Immortality: Ethics and the Genetic Revolution. Oxford:
Huxley, Julian 1957. “Transhumanism,” New Bottles for New Wine. London: Chatto & Windus,
pp. 13–17.
6
Kitcher, Philip 1996. The Lives to Come: The Genetic Revolution and Human Possibilities.
Middlesex: Penguin.
Sandel, Michael 2004. “The Case Against Perfection,” Atlantic Monthly, vol. 293, no. 3, pp. 51–62.
Savulescu, Julian 2001. “Procreative Beneficence: Why We Should Select the Best Children,”
The Transhumanist FAQ collated by Nick Bostrom and available at http://humanityplus.org/
learn/philosophy/faq.
FURTHER READINGS
Agar, Nicholas 2010. Humanity’s End: Why We Should Reject Radical Enhancement.
Atwood, Margaret 2006. The Handmaid’s Tale. New York: Everyman’s Library.
Bostrom, Nick 2008. “Why I Want to Be a Posthuman When I Grow Up,” in Bert Gordijn and
Ruth Chadwick (eds.), Medical Enhancement and Posthumanity. Dordrecht: Springer,
pp. 107–136.
Huxley, Aldous 2006. Brave New World. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics.
Kevles, Daniel 1998. In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity.
Paul, Diane 1995. Controlling Human Heredity: 1865 to the Present. Atlantic Highlands, NJ:
Humanity Books.
Robertson, John 1994. Children of Choice: Freedom and the New Reproductive Technologies.
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Sandel, Michael 2007. The Case against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering.
Wasserman, David 2003. “My Fair Baby: What’s Wrong with Parents Genetically Enhancing
Their Children?” in V. Gehring (ed.), Genetic Prospects: Essays on Biotechnology, Ethics,
and Public Policy. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 99–110.
1
Genetically Modified Organisms

Julian Lamont and Justine Lacey
A genetically modified organism (GMO) is an organism whose genetic characteristics

have been changed through the insertion of a modified gene or of a gene from
another organism, or through the elimination of a gene. These genetic engineering
techniques, also known as “recombinant DNA [deoxyribonucleic acid] technology,”
aim to introduce a new property into an existing organism’s genome for some human
purpose (see biotechnology). The genes inserted to create GMOs may include
modified gene sequences from within the same species or from sexually compatible
species (intragenic GMOs), or they may be sourced from distinct species (transgenic
GMOs). Some examples of GMOs include transgenic microbes used to produce
insulin for treatment of diabetes, transgenic plants created in order to resist pests or
to provide greater nutritional value, and genetically modified viruses that deliver
disease-curing genes into human cells. Genetic engineering has also produced
transgenic fish with growth-enhancing properties, and even ornamental transgenic
fish with fluorescent color.
The first GMO was created in 1973, through the production of a recombinant
E. coli bacterium that expressed the genetic sequences and properties of both E. coli
and Salmonella (Cohen et al. 1973); it triggered ethical concerns about tampering
with natural species boundaries, and also objections to the commodification of life
forms through such processes (Cahill 2001; see commodification). Alongside
these concerns, arguments about risks to human health or potential misuses of the
technology, for example in the development of biological weapons, were also raised.
Broadly, these kinds of ethical concerns about GMOs can be categorized as intrinsic
or extrinsic.
Intrinsic objections are based on the premise that the process or use of GMOs is
objectionable in itself. The majority of intrinsic objections to GMOs involve the
claim that such a process is morally objectionable and cannot be justified, because it
is “unnatural” (Comstock 2010: 226).
Extrinsic objections focus on the potential risks or harms associated with GMOs.
Such objections raise a series of important considerations to bear in mind when we
make our decisions about the use of such technology. While these ethical concerns
are significant, they must be examined in light of the many potential benefits of
GMO applications in agriculture, pharmaceutical development, and other medical
research. Thus extrinsic objections regarding GMOs are characterized by assessing
risks and long-term benefits (Meghani 2009; see cost–benefit analysis;
utilitarianism).
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee101
2
GMOs Are “Unnatural”

Public hostility towards the use of GMOs has been, in part, associated with the idea
that GMOs are “unnatural.” Such intrinsic objections may be reflected in claims that,
in modifying organisms in this way, scientists are “playing God,” by transgressing
natural species boundaries or by commodifying life forms.
Unfortunately the labeling “unnatural” as a way of analyzing the ethics of human
activities, although common, has not proved useful, because there are innumerable
human activities that are “unnatural” on all the standard definitions of “unnatural”
but are morally permissible, or perhaps even obligatory. For example, many
non-controversial procedures in medicine aim to use artificial devices or medicines
in order to interfere with the natural progression of a disease. Expressing the problem
involved in genetic modifications as “playing God” is similarly unenlightening, since
the claim merely reintroduces the relevant moral question as to what sorts of scien-
tific techniques would be condoned by God, and why.
A further objection centers on the issues of species integrity and of the moral
permissibility of recombinant techniques, particularly those that mix human and
animal genes. Such objections tend to rely on the belief that species boundaries are
fixed and immutable. However, naturally occurring instances of cross species breed-
ing, such as the existence of mules for example, may imply that species boundaries
can in fact be more indeterminate (Rollin 1995).
Another intrinsic objection to GMOs is that genetic modification involves the
commodification of life forms. However, even if this concern is legitimate, it is not
distinct and specific to GMOs, since even conventional plant and animal agricul-
tural methods often involve treating plants or animals as commodities. Insofar as
this concern might be expressed as an extrinsic objection to ownership of life forms,
it is covered in the section on intellectual property concerns below.
Alongside these intrinsic objections there are legitimate environmental and health
concerns associated with the creation and introduction of GMOs by scientists who
and corporations that may not fully understand the science or the consequences
associated with their genetic engineering activities. The most important of these
extrinsic objections are highlighted next.
Environmental Concerns
The most widely used applications of GMOs have been in the agricultural sector.
Genetic techniques aim to create agricultural plants or animals with particularly
desirable traits, such as drought resistance, higher yield, pest resistance, faster
growth, and greater nutritional value. A well-known example relates to the
development of GM soybeans by the biotech company Monsanto, the world’s
largest supplier of GM seeds. In this case the soybeans were genetically modified
so as to withstand spraying with the herbicide glyphosate, which killed the inva-
sive weeds without affecting the GM soybean plants (Glover 2007). This exam-
ple has been particularly controversial, in part because Monsanto is also the
3
world’s largest producer of glyphosate (which is known under the trade name
Roundup).
The leading environmental concern regarding GM crops has been that they will
“escape” from the targeted farms in which they have been deliberately planted.
The associated potential problems are manifold. First, GM crops could become
mixed with non-GM crops, harming farmers who wish to grow and sell non-GM
produce and consumers who wish to avoid GM food. Second, GM crops could
breed with unmodified organisms in nature, and this could have irreversible
impacts on ecosystems and species integrity. While these potential impacts have
been difficult to quantify, the likelihood of GM crops “escaping” from their
original plantings is undoubtedly high, given pollen transfer from wind, birds,
other animals, and insects.
Other environmental concerns regarding GM crops tend to arise from potential
changes to agricultural and land management practices. Particularly in developing
nations, there is a concern that GM crops will accelerate an already existent trend
towards large-scale farming. More generally, a shift to monocultures, or to less diverse
crop planting, as a result of introducing GM crops could make local food production
more vulnerable to environmental catastrophes, such as crop failure due to an unpre-
dicted new susceptibility to pests, to other invasive species, or to the impacts of cli-
mate change. These risks, however, must be weighed against the already known risks
of crop failure from non-GM sources – since, somewhat paradoxically, the genetic
modifications have often been developed to respond to traditional sources of crop
failure.
For the most part, the environmental concerns with respect to GM animals
parallel the concerns with respect to GM crops. For example, the production of GM
fish with enhanced growth potential has been explored in various species, for human
consumption. However, farming requires careful containment of the GM species, as
the release of transgenic fish into natural waterways could alter ecosystems
detrimentally. Similar concerns apply to transgenic microbes such as GM bacteria,
which are widely used in the development of medical therapies.
Health Concerns
Ethical concerns with respect to GMOs and human health highlight the health
effects, on humans, of consuming GMOs, or the dangers associated with coming
into contact with harmful GMOs in some other way – such as the dangers that are
studied for the development of biological weapons. Although the latter concern has
been largely theoretical, the concern about the health effects of consuming GMOs
has had a much higher public profile, given the proliferation and availability of foods
containing GM products. From the late 1990s there has been a noticeable public
backlash against biotech companies over GMO-derived food products and over the
safety risks that might be posed by consuming these products (Seidler 2005).
Advocates of GMO-derived food products point out that the introduced genes are
typically found in other food products too, and that there is no evidence that
4
consumption of such products is associated with any adverse health effects. Those
against the introduction of GMO-derived food products often agree with the claim
about the lack of evidence, but they point out that this is simply a result of lack of
scientific study of the topic. Their most common position is that there should be a
moratorium on the introduction of such foods until long-term scientific studies on
health effects have been conducted.
The ethical concerns with respect to animal health are mostly focused on the welfare
of GM laboratory or agricultural animals. While genetic modification potentially
introduces new ways in which animals may suffer (by being more susceptible to
disease or deformities), the ethical issues surrounding such organisms are similar in
nature to the standard ethical issues associated with the more traditional use of animals
in agriculture and experimentation (Rollin 2006; see animal experimentation).
Intellectual Property Concerns

After environmental and health concerns, the single largest area of ethical concern
with respect to GMOs is the use of patents to claim ownership over them (see patents).
An immediate concern with patents over GMOs has been that these patents appear to
blur the distinction between scientific discoveries and human-made inventions. Dis-
coveries are generally equated with uncovering knowledge about naturally occurring
resources – such as laws of nature, chemical elements, and genetic material. While the
technologies that lead us to these discoveries are considered to be patentable inven-
tions, before the patenting of GMOs the discovered material itself was rarely consid-
ered part of the invention. Even if the discovered material has commercial value, its
prior existence calls into question the claim that scientists or corporations are morally
entitled to full property rights over the material or slight modifications thereof. The
question is, in particular, why the discovery that organisms with slightly altered genes
have somewhat different properties should give the discoverer full property rights
over those organisms. The award of patents over GMOs implies that the genetic mate-
rial (albeit rearranged) is an invention. Our traditional concept of inventions is one of
products built up from simpler inanimate parts and assembled in such a way that they
demonstrate an increasing complexity. The creation of GMOs, by contrast, involves
manipulation, sometimes performed in a very simple way, of pre-existing complex
living matter, with the object of altering it in some way. So arises the ethical question
of whether the manipulator, who has not created most of the complexity, should be
awarded a patent over the resulting complex organism (Lacey and Lamont 2006).
Independently from the question of whether scientists or corporations deserve or are
morally entitled to own the living organisms that they have “tinkered with” (rather than
“built” by themselves), there is also the question of whether the consequences of allow-
ing patents over GMOs are of net benefit overall. On the one hand, some argue that,
without the potential for profit that patents create, corporations and scientists would
have insufficient incentives to advance research in genetics to a degree where the pos-
sible social benefits would be realized. However, patenting also has a number of adverse
consequences, particularly by raising the price for the end products delivered to the
5
public. While patents benefit some industries and scientists, the social and welfare
losses can be significant (e.g. corporatization of food production in the developing
nations, or prohibitive pricing on medical therapies, which would prevent their use
within public-health systems). Moreover, the common practice of allowing patents over
GMOs that have had very basic modifications may slow down research and innovation
in a fast-developing industry, because other scientists and corporations may cease fur-
ther research in the area as a result of uncertainties over the ownership of final products
(Heller and Eisenberg 1998).
Democracy and Corporatisation Concerns

Many of the potential risks associated with the introduction of GMOs are not readily
quantifiable, and hence the degree of risk is typically contested. It has been observed
that current practices for public engagement and consultation with regard to GMOs
do not serve the interests of democracy; nor do they “increase consensus, enable
better decisions to be made, or establish trust” (Ahteensuu and Siipi 2009: 129).
One of the main concerns at the consumer level has been that governments have
been slow to introduce regulations and mandatory labeling of GM food products,
thereby undermining the public’s ability to be informed about the origin of the food
they are consuming (Thorpe and Robinson 2004). At the food producer level, one of
the main concerns has been whether the corporatization of food production, which is
accelerated by the use of GMOs, will have adverse implications for the gap in standards
of living between the citizens of developed and developing nations. In particular, the
development of technologies such as the controversial “terminator” technology,
which produces second-generation sterile seeds from GM crops and prevents farm-
ing practices such as seed saving, may fundamentally disempower farmers in the
developing nations (Griesse 2007; see corporate social responsibility).
There has also been exploitation of Indigenous knowledge in this area – for
example, seed banks and collections of genetic resources have been developed with
the knowledge and assistance of Indigenous populations, often with inadequate
compensation, or with none (Shiva 1993; Cloatre 2006). This raises issues of ethical
informed consent (see consent), of democratic control, and of ownership of the
world’s genetic resources.
See also: animal experimentation; biotechnology; commodification;

consent; corporate social responsibility; cost–benefit analysis; patents;
utilitarianism
REFERENCES
Ahteensuu, Marko, and Helena Siipi 2009. “A Critical Assessment of Public Consultations on
GMOs in the European Union,” Environmental Values, vol. 18, pp. 129–52.
Cahill, Lisa Sowle 2001. “Genetics, Commodification, and Social Justice in the Globalization
Era,” Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, vol. 11, pp. 221–38.
6
Cloatre, Emilie 2006. “From International Ethics to European Union Policy: A Case Study on
Biopiracy in the EU’s Biotechnology Directive,” Law and Policy, vol. 28, pp. 345–67.
Cohen, Stanley N., Annie C. Y. Chang, Herbert W. Boyer, and Robert B. Helling 1973.
“Construction of Biologically Functional Bacterial Plasmids in vitro,” Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 70, pp. 3240–4.
Comstock, Gary L. 2010. “Genetically Modified Foods,” in Gary L. Comstock (ed.), Life
Science Ethics, 2nd ed. London: Springer, pp. 221–38.
Glover, Dominic 2007. Monsanto and Smallholder Farmers: A Case-Study on Corporate
Accountability (Working Paper 277). Brighton, UK: Institute of Development Studies,
University of Sussex.
Griesse, Margaret Ann 2007. “Developing Social Responsibility: Biotechnology and the Case
of DuPont in Brazil,” Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 73, pp. 103–18.
Heller, Michael A., and Rebecca S. Eisenberg 1998. “Can Patents Deter Innovation? The
Anticommons in Biomedical Research,” Science, vol. 280, pp. 698–701.
Lacey, Justine, and Julian Lamont 2006. “The Ethics of Patents on Genetically Modified
Organisms,” Journal of the Australian Association of Professional and Applied Ethics,
vol. 11, pp. 1–11.
Meghani, Zahra 2009. “The US’ Food and Drug Administration, Normativity of Risk
Assessment, GMOs, and American Democracy,” Journal of Agricultural and
Environmental Ethics, vol. 22, pp. 125–39.
Rollin, Bernard E. 1995. The Frankenstein Syndrome: Ethical and Social Issues in the Genetic
Engineering of Animals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rollin, Bernard E. 2006. Science and Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Seidler, Maurya (ed.) 2005. The Ethics of Genetic Engineering. Farmington Hills, MI:
Greenhaven Press.
Shiva, Vandana 1993. Monocultures of the Mind: Perspectives on Biodiversity and Biotechnology.
London: Zed Books.
Thorpe, Andy, and Catherine Robinson 2004. “When Goliaths Clash: US and EU Differences
over the Labeling of Food Products Derived from Genetically Modified Organisms,”
Agriculture and Human Values, vol. 21, pp. 287–98.
FURTHER READINGS
Adams, Frederick (ed.) 2005. Ethical Issues for the Twenty-First Century. Charlottesville,
VA: Philosophy Documentation Center.
Barash, Carol Isaacson 2008. Just Genes: The Ethics of Genetic Technologies. Westport, CT:
Praeger.
Comstock, Gary L. 2000. Vexing Nature? On the Ethical Case against Agricultural Biotechnology.
Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Devos, Yann, Pieter Maeseele, Dirk Reheul, Linda Van Speybroeck, and Danny De Waele
2008. “Ethics in the Societal Debate on Genetically Modified Organisms: A (re)quest for
Sense and Sensibility,” Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, vol. 21,
pp. 29–61.
Russell, A. Wendy, and Robert Sparrow 2008. “The Case for Regulating Intragenic GMOs,”
Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, vol. 21, pp. 153–81.
Wynne, Brian 2001. “Creating Public Alienation: Expert Cultures of Risk and Ethics on
GMOs,” Science as Culture, vol. 10, pp. 445–81.
1
Pacifism
William J. Hawk
Pacifism involves a number of related moral positions, endorsed for different

reasons, often evoking powerful emotional responses. To understand pacifism, we
need to identify what pacifism is, or what pacifisms there are, by (1) looking at
pacifism’s core meaning, etymology, uses, near neighbors, and relationship to just
war theory; (2) distinguishing absolute versus contingent pacifism; (3) categorizing
pacifism’s chief motivators such as nonviolence, nonkilling, moral autonomy,
libertarianism, nuclear war, and religious teachings; (4) highlighting pacifism’s role
in international relations in the United Nations, pacifist nations, the human rights
debate, and legal standing as conscientious objectors; and (5) articulating and
responding to pacifism’s perennial criticisms.
What Is Pacifism?
Pacifism at its core is moral rejection of war. Pacifists reject warfare and/or their
participation in it as morally wrong. Many pacifists hold that, because war is immoral,
they have both negative obligations to refuse to participate as well as positive
obligations to work for alternatives. At its core, pacifism challenges the widely
held view that warfare can be morally justified and that citizens morally ought to
participate in wars when their nations call.
Self-described pacifists use the term to reference a large number of positions and
beliefs, some having to do with moral rejection of war and others pertaining to
advocacy of nonviolence, absolute prohibitions against intentional killing, and other
forms of peace advocacy. Critics frequently use “pacifism” as a derogatory epithet
referring to unwelcome behaviors or attitudes ranging from naïve or wrong-headed
moral reasoning to cowardice and treason.
Etymologically, “pacifism” comes from the Latin pax “peace” and ficus (from
facere) “to make or produce.” Pacifists, technically, are peacemakers; and pacifism
refers to the beliefs, theories, and practices which make for peace.
The actual use of the term “pacifism” has diverged from its etymological beginnings.
According to Jenny Teichman, the word “pacifism” first appeared in English when an
attendee to a 1902 international peace conference used it as a positive synonym for
the less-elegant-sounding anti-warism. Teichman (1986: 1) quotes a 1915 National
Review article which reinforces pacifism’s anti-war (see war) connotation by calling
World War I “the greatest war in history … now being fought in the cause of paci-
fism.” The “war to end all wars” was characterized as a war to achieve pacifism! Thus,
from its first instances, pacifism has been identified as and associated with peace-
making activities that specially focus on the elimination of war.
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee102
2
One way to locate pacifism is by distinguishing it from its rivals political realism,
holy war (and jihad), and just war theories. Political realism and holy war (and jihad)
claim that warfare is not properly subject to moral assessment. Political realism is the
view that a nation’s political necessities or interests that favor war trump attempts at
moral criticism. Holy war (and some jihad) advocates contend that if divine authority
sanctions war, then countervailing moral judgments necessarily fail. Each position
dismisses moral criticisms of war as misguided, wrong-headed, or both.
Just war theories share pacifism’s view that war as an enterprise is a proper subject
of moral appraisal. Contrary to pacifism, however, just war theorists find some wars
morally justified and hence find persons morally required to participate in or
support them. Just war theory attempts to untangle the conditions necessary for
morally justified war. Morally relevant considerations include considerations of
initiating war (jus ad bellum) and how a war should be conducted (jus in bello).
Pacifism agrees with just war theory’s claim regarding war’s amenability to moral
appraisal but rejects the idea that war is ever justified (see just war theory,
history of).
The Moral Critique of War

Pacifists are united by their moral critique of war. However, that critique may be
applied with different levels of strenuousness, i.e., for all or only some wars.
The paradigm instance of pacifism rejects as immoral all wars – historic, current,
and future. War as an intentional human enterprise is judged as categorically
immoral. This position, known as absolute pacifism, is most often criticized or
caricatured by opponents and most often envisioned by self-proclaimed pacifists.
Absolute pacifists condemn all wars, including those fought in self-defense or
defense of others, those fought for honorable causes (such as the defense of freedom,
the promotion of lofty political ideals or even, as with World War I, the elimination
of warfare itself), and even World War II, which featured a ruthless despot aspiring
to dominate the world.
Agreeing that all wars are categorically condemned does not mean that absolute
pacifists agree on what makes them condemnable – for some, it is war’s total
consequences, including the magnitude of destructiveness; for others, the killing of
innocents; and for yet others, the utility losses from environmental damage and
productivity declines. Kantian pacifists focus on the irrationality and patent
immorality of war and reason’s demand for “perpetual peace” (Kant 1983). William
James (2006) sees warfare as an inculcator of important virtues which might,
however, be attained through activities less damaging to the human community.
Some reject war as an expression of political aspirations for power or resources, or
as being generated covertly by capitalist business interests. Religious absolutist
pacifists may view war as a violation of God’s command or God’s will, or antithetical
to the reign of God’s Kingdom (see war and religion). Followers of the Buddha
(see buddhist ethics) or Jesus might reject war because their teachers do.
In assessing any absolutist pacifism, it is critical first to recognize that there are
3
different, perhaps competing, moral justifications at work, and secondly, to evaluate

the specific reasons adduced for pacifism in any given case.
Not all pacifists are absolutist. Contingent or conditional pacifism rejects one or
more, but not all wars, because of particular features in that or those wars. For
instance, contingent pacifists during the Vietnam War emphasized specific problems
in Vietnam. The use of napalm in a guerrilla war, indiscriminate killing of innocent
women and children, the absence of a credible compelling rationale (skepticism
regarding the Cold War’s Domino Theory, for example), resistance to the military
draft, etc., lead many persons to contingent pacifism. More generally, some have
adopted pacifism as a result of the tremendous destructiveness of modern military
weaponry. The morally egregious realities of specifically modern war, as represented,
for instance, by Jonathan Glover (2000), have generated a number of contingent
pacifists with respect to modern war. In terms of moral analysis, many versions
of contingent pacifism appear indistinguishable from just war theorizing. The
differences seem more presentational than substantive.
As with absolutist pacifism, there are many – sometimes competing – moral
reasons for contingent pacifisms. The reasons adduced by absolutists may prove
compelling when applied to a particular war even though they fail as reasons for
rejecting all wars. Both Bertrand Russell (see russell, bertrand) and Albert
Einstein endorsed a form of contingent pacifism when they backed away from
absolute pacifism in response to the evils perpetrated by Adolph Hitler. Russell
(1943) termed his position relative pacifism. Contingent pacifism may be pacifism
derived from the failure to pass just war tests.
Refusing to Participate in War

The core notion of pacifism condemns war and refuses to support or participate in
it. Reasons specific to pacifist war refusal vary. Some, but by no means all, of the
supporting reasons for pacifism include those discussed in the following
subsections.
Nonviolence
In the twentieth century, primarily due to India’s Mohandas K. Gandhi and America’s
Martin Luther King, Jr., nonviolence (see nonviolence in religions) gained
attention as a critique and alternative to war. Gandhi, relying upon resources
common to Hinduism, Christianity, and the pacifism of Leo Tolstoy, practiced
ahimsa (nonviolence) and satyagraha (truth force). M. L. King, Jr., influenced by
Christianity and Gandhi’s example, modeled nonviolence as a morally sound and
effective force for social change (see king, jr., martin luther). Each employed
nonviolent direct action to achieve social and political revolutions, in the one
instance defeating colonialism and in the other disenfranchising racism. Gandhi,
King, and their followers saw nonviolence as more than a critique of the immorality
of warfare. They understood nonviolence as encompassing a comprehensive plan of
4
life as well as a strategy to address social and political injustices, to resolve conflicts,
and to bring about social change, without resorting to interpersonal violence or war.
Within the community of those who espouse nonviolence, there is a division between
the principled absolutists and those who view nonviolence as an effective strategy.
Strategic nonviolence practitioners are often referred to as pragmatic pacifists.
Nonkilling
Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (1995) identified human repugnance to killing (see killing)
running so deep that modern militaries had to implement methods of operant
conditioning in order to transform soldiers into killers. While not committed to
nonviolence per se, some persons become pacifists as an expression of their profound
moral repulsion to killing. Homicide rejection may be religiously, morally, or even
affectively based. Refusing to kill may be rationally expressed (1) as a Kantian
categorical imperative (see categorical imperative), (2) as a virtue (as in Socrates’
argument [Crito 49a] that it is always impermissible to harm someone [Drake
1959]), or (3) as a religious duty, for example, “Thou shalt not kill.” Aesthetically, the
sight or smell of human death sometimes turns the bravest, most bellicose soldier
into a pacifist. Stemming from many sources, honoring absolute prohibition against
homicide operates as both a de facto and de jure moral limit for some persons. For
them, refusing to participate in war expresses their basic moral commitment. The
basic commitment not to kill another human being approximates what Cheyney
Ryan (1983: 520) identified as “the pacifist impulse.”
Autonomy
A concern for moral autonomy (see autonomy) prompts some to pacifism. Military
operations require chain-of-command organization with obedience. Personal
moral judgments disrupt effective war efforts. Those who value moral autonomy as
fundamental to their moral integrity may refuse war even though they reject
nonviolence and nonkilling as absolutes. This contingent pacifism may not reject
justified killing, but it does reject participating in warfare because military command
practices violate moral autonomy.
Nuclear pacifism
The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union featured, among
other things, a defense strategy called Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). MAD
involved the production of military arsenals with sufficient nuclear firepower to
wipe out humanity many times over. Thousands of nuclear warheads, the strategic
willingness to use them, and the foreseeable devastation that would result from such
use combined to cause a reaction from many who previously were silent about the
morality of warfare. Albert Einstein and members of the Union of Concerned
Scientists spearheaded a new contingent pacifist position, which was termed nuclear
pacifism.
5
Libertarianism
Rejecting war may come as an inference from a prior judgment against the institution
of modern nation-states or from a moral judgment prioritizing individual rights.
John Hospers (1971: 400), a defender of libertarianism, stated, “War in any form
must now be opposed.” Hospers’ critique focused on the illegitimacy of war’s
indiscriminate killing:
The libertarian’s basic attitude toward war must then be: it is legitimate to use violence
against criminals in defense of one man’s rights of person and property; it is completely
impermissible to violate the rights of other innocent people. War, then, is only proper when
the exercise of violence is rigorously limited to the individual criminals. We may judge for
ourselves how many wars or conflicts in history have met this criterion. (1971: 401)
Hospers’ libertarian pacifism is contingent in that he recognizes the logical possibility,

although he implies the empirical counterfactuality, of morally legitimate war (see
libertarianism).
Religious pacifism
In other traditions, aspiring to be peacemakers and rejecting warfare have histori-
cally been ideals found in religious callings. Among the various religious pacifists,
the moral prohibition against warfare is frequently expressed in terms of reverence
for the sanctity of human life. Some honor God’s sovereignty over life and draw the
inference that human beings lack the intellectual discernment and moral authority
to decide who should die.
Jain (see jain ethics) reverence for the sanctity of all life is expressed as nonviolence,
for example, by sweeping away living organisms in their path lest they step on one and
cause death. Buddhists, at least Buddhist monks, are generally ranked among the
pacifists. Pacifist Hindus, Jews, and Muslims, minorities in their respective religious
communities, strive to honor their gods by loving and/or reverencing all of creation.
In Christianity, which some claim to be the originator of much of Western
pacifism, Roman Catholics and mainline Protestants tend toward just war theory.
The historic peace churches of Christian Protestantism – Church of the Brethren,
Mennonite, and Quaker – refuse war and often observe nonkilling as a moral
constraint in their efforts to follow Jesus and his teachings (Brethren and Mennonite)
or reverence of God in others (Quaker). The late Mennonite theologian John
Howard Yoder (1971) distinguished and identified more than two dozen distinct
versions of religiously based pacifism and claimed that his list was not exhaustive.
The moral reasoning to be found among the various Christian pacifists covers
a spectrum from consequentialism to deontologism, virtue and care theories, to
divine command approaches. Some view pacifism (contra-war), nonresistance
(“turn the other cheek”), or nonviolent resistance to evil (pursue justice, eschew
violence) as incumbent on all, while others understand their stance vocationally or
as a matter of special religious calling.
6
Pacifism: Nations and Citizens

Typically, pacifism applies at the personal level with someone’s refusal to engage in
warfare. However, in modern times, pacifism has had an impact in international
affairs. What motivated the creation of the League of Nations and the United Nations
was a moral critique of war. After World War II, Japan’s constitution made it a
permanently pacifist nation. In addition, international human rights theories may
carve out a space for pacifist consciences to be recognized in the status of conscien-
tious objection.
International pacifism
Political theory holds that sovereign, legitimate nation-states reserve, as a right, a
final recourse to war for settling disputes. Pacifists work for a new political order in
which nations renounce the right to warfare. In 1928, under a multilateral agreement
titled the General Treaty for the Renunciation of War, better known as the
Kellogg-Briand Pact, war was “permanently” renounced as an instrument of national
policy. After World War II, the United Nations Charter stated a pacifist agenda as its
first purpose:
To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective
measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression
of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful
means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law,
adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a
breach of the peace …
The UN Charter goes on in Article 2(3) to renounce recourse to warfare saying: “All
Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a man-
ner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.”
After World War II, modern Japan was organized under a constitution which
contains a provision that is known as the pacifist clause:
Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese
people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of
force as means of settling international disputes. (2) To accomplish the aim of the
preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never
be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.
While this article has been subject to debate both inside and outside Japan, it
provides the constitutional framework for the nation.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights generates debates about whether the
refusal to participate in a nation’s wars is a fundamental human right. James Madison,
author of the Bill of Rights, proposed such a basic right for the US Constitution,
although it was defeated. Some argue that the right to pacifism is already recognized
7
in the UN Declaration through the proper interpretation of Article 18, which reads:
“Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right
includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in
community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in
teaching, practice, worship and observance.” Currently, for example, the German
Constitution Article 4(3) recognizes the right to pacifism stating: “No person shall be
compelled against his conscience to render military service involving the use of arms”
(see international bill of rights). Legal recognitions of pacifism (absolute or
contingent) use the language of “conscientious objection.” The category also applies
to critics of war who refuse to voluntarily pay taxes or engage in other war-resistance
activities. Absolute pacifists are labeled conscientious objectors; contingent pacifists
are labeled selective conscientious objectors. Selective conscientious objection
presents greater recognition problems for states because selection permits citizens to
make personal political judgments which contradict their nation’s.
Challenges to Pacifism
In what follows, we explore some of the common criticisms raised against pacifism
and consider an array of typical responses by pacifists.
Cowardice
In war time, the most common criticism of pacifism is that it provides a cover for
cowardice. According to this charge, fear prompts the cowardly to shirk political or
moral obligations and espouse pacifism.
Actual pacifists frequently confront hostile and threatening responses from fel-
low citizens and, in some instances, government officials or soldiers. Social stig-
matism, prison, physical abuse, and even death await many who declare pacifism.
There is little empirical evidence that the pacifist/nonpacifist demarcation tracks
the coward/courage distinction. Many pacifists, Gandhi and King heading the list,
prove their courage by standing for their moral principles against intimidation
and death threats.
Treason
“The pacifist is as surely a traitor to his country and to humanity as is the most
brutal wrongdoer.” These sentiments, expressed by Theodore Roosevelt in 1917,
are indicative of another common charge against pacifism. The charge is that pac-
ifists are traitors. In a similar fashion, Alfred North Whitehead charged: “The
absolute pacifist is a bad citizen; times come when force must be used to uphold
right, justice and ideals.” Whitehead apparently broke off his professional
relationship and personal friendship with Bertrand Russell in part over the latter’s
pacifism.
Pacifists frequently understand themselves along the lines of a Socratic gadfly, a
prophetic voice for justice, or as Ronald Dworkin (1977: 207) characterized draft
8
dissenters, as among society’s “most loyal and law-respecting citizens.” As gadfly,

prophet, or loyal opposition, pacifists often claim that their stance expresses their
nation’s core values better than their war-justifying critics.
Pacifism as self-contradictory
In a widely read and influential article in the 1960s, Jan Narveson (1965) con-
tended that pacifism is self-contradictory. Narveson conceives of pacifism as a
commitment to nonviolence and alleges that the real point of pacifism is opposi-
tion to violence. The self-contradiction is generated by recognizing that being
opposed to violence entails that one is willing to stop violence. Yet, being willing
to stop violence, Narveson contends, entails being willing to use violence. Hence,
to oppose violence requires that one be willing to use violence, so that pacifism is
inconsistent. Narveson joins Reinhold Neibuhr’s famous allegation that pacifists
display naïveté.
Pacifists see Narveson’s refutation as overly simplistic. Many pacifists are not
committed to full nonviolence, but even for those who are, the argument fails.
To oppose violence is to be unwilling to use it. And to be unwilling to use violence
entails not participating in warfare. What distinguishes pacifists from nonpacifists is
not their allegedly self-contradictory refusal to be violent to stop violence, but rather
their perfectly consistent opposition to using violence because they are opposed to
it. Anyone who says they oppose violence but uses it anyway verges on a pragmatic
self-contradiction. Naïveté applies to those who believe that war and violence solves
anything.
Absolute moral rules and assessing consequences

In challenging pacifism, critics typically focus on the absolute variety. They contend
that absolute pacifism suffers from the maladies common to all deontological moral
prescriptions. Are there really no consequences sufficiently dire to defeat
the proposed moral rule? Must the rule be followed “though the heavens fall”?
In addition, they ask, what is to be done when absolute moral rules conflict, as in the
moral duty to save the innocent versus the obligation not to kill? Moral absolutism’s
critics frequently amass hypothetical or historical cases in which the balance of
negative outcomes so overwhelms following an absolute moral rule that no
reasonable moral agent could be expected to resist.
Responses to these criticisms depend chiefly on the reasons for the particular
absolute pacifism in question. For example, an absolute prohibition to war proves
easier to defend than absolute nonviolence.
Along with living a life dedicated to nonviolence, proponents of nonviolence view
absolute pacifism as the necessary expression of nonviolence in the domain of
warfare. War’s violence adds to the moral evils in the world and fails to solve
problems. Neither history nor contrived hypotheticals present a moral imbalance
favoring war. The supposed good consequences of war always depend upon an
accounting of current outcomes which is too narrow and the failure to expand the
9
temporal scope of negative outcomes into the distant future. Pacifism – either as a
symbolic gesture or as actual nonviolence – contributes to a future in which the
balance of good over evil rewards an absolute commitment.
Those committed to an absolute principle of not killing contend that only this
principle is absolute, i.e., that the nonkilling principle can and should be universalized
for all of humanity. The alleged problem of conflicting absolutes falls short here
because not killing is ranked as the most basic moral requirement.
Absolutist pacifists typically welcome consequentialist challenges which allege
the justifiability of war. A legitimate and full accounting of the real and total costs of
warfare, as opposed to the idealized versions given by war advocates, will, the
absolutist argues, support and not undermine their position. In addition, absolute
pacifists frequently point to the reasonableness of their skepticism about the real as
opposed to the purported justifications of warfare. A wide variety of epistemic
problems pertaining to issues of self-deception and unforeseen consequences serve
to buttress the absolute pacifist’s confidence in the face of what is often an avalanche
of criticisms.
With contingent pacifists, criticisms originate from adversaries with differing
assessments of the consequences (real or anticipated) from a particular war.
Nonpacifists tend to focus on war’s alleged benefits, and contingent pacifists focus
on war’s costs. Nonpacifists iterate things worth dying for. Contingent pacifists
counter with a list of values not worth killing for.
Dirty hands vs. moral purity

Following Michael Walzer (1973), critics suggest that pacifists are unjustifiably
concerned with personal moral purity. In their self-absorbed moral self-interest,
pacifists leave to others the necessary unpleasantries which require dirtying one’s
hands (see dirty hands). Pacifists are said to be moral free-riders who benefit from
war but fail to carry their weight in relation to its moral burdens.
Some pacifists are fastidious about their moral purity, perhaps unjustifiably so.
They can take heart from Bernard Williams’ (see williams, bernard) critique of an
exclusively outcomes-based orientation in moral thinking, one which unjustifiably
disregards personal identity and integrity (Williams and Smart 1973). Others deem
the so-called “dirty hands” necessity as a convenient excuse for immorality. According
to this tack, “dirty hands” all too conveniently exculpates those who fire-bomb
Dresden, destroy Hiroshima, drop napalm on Vietnam, and guide drone air attacks
that sometimes kill innocents. Pacifists argue that dirty hands activities frequently
undermine and erode the very values which justify getting one’s hands dirty.
Negative responsibility
For moral consequentialists, someone may be as responsible for not preventing as
they would be for causally bringing about an evil. Negative responsibility involves
the assignment of responsibility for those special times when people have it within
10
their power to prevent something bad from happening, but fail to do so. Employing
negative responsibility arguments, critics charge pacifists with an array of adverse
consequences that result from refusing to engage in war. For example, Hitler would
have ruled Europe but for World War II.
Some pacifists challenge the controversial concept of negative responsibility itself.
However, pacifists also tend to expand the scope of moral responsibility, often includ-
ing failure to prevent moral evils among moral duties. Accordingly, pacifists argue for
the duty that we all have to prevent wars. If the human community spent but a small
fraction of its personal, economic, and technological resources to prevent conflicts
and, if they arise, to solve them amicably, rather than preparing for war, the problems
of negative responsibility would evaporate. Einstein said, “You cannot simultaneously
prevent and prepare for war.” In this way, pacifists turn negative responsibility back to
those who prepare for war, and even to those who do nothing to prevent it, laying at
their doorstep the moral responsibility for war’s harms (see doing and allowing).
Self-defense or defense of others

Surely, self-defense (see self-defense) justifies using deadly force against an aggres-
sor. While individuals may welcome their own sacrifice due to their moral scruples
against killing, some argue that permitting other innocents to be fatally harmed or a
nation to not fight back in self-defense cannot be morally expected or required.
The self-defense justification for personal and national lethal force has received
careful analytical attention from philosophers. Cheyney Ryan (1983), a reformed
conscientious objector, framed some difficulties attending the self-defense
justification for lethal violence. More recently, David Rodin (2002), in a carefully
nuanced and tightly argued analysis, shows, in effect, that the self-defense analogy
for justifying war runs into a series of damning problems, most having to do with
the difficulties involved in treating nations as persons. Though neither Ryan nor
Rodin necessarily espouse pacifism, they demonstrate that self-defense justifications
for lethal force prove problematic.
Just war theorizing

Just war theorists argue that the real moral problem with pacifism is that there are
instances when war is justifiable. If one is attentive to the conditions necessary for
going to war, one will find that such conditions have existed in the past. War is
sometimes morally justified.
Pacifists counter that the differences between pacifism and just war theorizing
cause such animosity because the two positions have so much in common. Put
simplistically, just war theorists tend to look to conditions which justify going to war
and then find ways to justify the conduct of the war. Pacifists tend to look at the
immorality of the conduct of war and then attempt to find alternatives to going to war.
Were we to begin with the immoralities attendant to the conduct of war as pacifists do,
all of our moral reasoning – deontological, consequentialist, virtue, care, and divine
will – would prompt us to oppose war and do everything that we can to make peace.
11
See also: autonomy; buddhist ethics; categorical imperative; dirty

hands; doing and allowing; international bill of rights; jain ethics; just
war theory, history of; killing; king, jr., martin luther; libertarianism;
nonviolence in religions; russell, bertrand; self-defense; war; war and
religion; williams, bernard
REFERENCES
Drake, Henry L. 1959. Plato’s Complete Works. Paterson, NJ: Littlefield, Adams.
Dworkin, Ronald 1977. “Civil Disobedience,” Taking Rights Seriously. Cambridge, MA:
Glover, Jonathan 2000. Humanity: A Moral History of the 20th Century. New Haven: Yale
University Press.
Grossman, Lt. Col. Dave 1995. On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War
and Society. Boston: Little, Brown.
Hospers, John 1971. Libertarianism: A Political Philosophy for Tomorrow. Los Angeles: Nash
Publishing.
James, William 2006. “The Moral Equivalent of War,” in Larry May, Eric Rovie, and Steve
Viner (eds.), The Morality of War: Classical and Contemporary Readings. Upper Saddle
River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Kant, Immanuel 1983. Perpetual Peace and Other Essays, trans. Ted Humphrey. Indianapolis:
Hackett Publishing.
Narveson, Jan 1965. “Pacifism: A Philosophical Analysis,” Ethics, vol. 75, pp. 259–71.
Russell, Bertrand 1943. “The Future of Pacifism,” American Scholar, vol. 13, pp. 7–13.
Ryan, Cheyney C. 1983. “Self-Defense, Pacifism and the Possibility of Killing,” Ethics, vol. 93,
pp. 508–24.
Teichman, Jenny 1986. Pacifism and the Just War: A Study in Applied Philosophy. Oxford:
Blackwell.
Walzer, Michael 1973. “Political Action: The Problem of Dirty Hands,” Philosophy and Public
Williams, Bernard, and J. J. C. Smart 1973. Utilitarianism: For and Against. Cambridge:
Yoder, John Howard 1971. Nevertheless: A Meditation on the Varieties and Shortcomings of
Religious Pacifism. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press.
FURTHER READINGS
Brock, Peter 1968. Pacifism in the U.S.A. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Cady, Duane L. 1989. From Warism to Pacifism: A Moral Continuum. Philadelphia: Temple
University Press.
Camus, Albert 1972. Neither Victim nor Executioners. Chicago: World Without War.
Chambers, John, and Charles Moskos Jr. (eds.) 1993. The New Conscientious Objection: From
Sacred to Secular. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Eller, Cynthia 1991. Conscientious Objectors and the Second World War: Moral and Religious
Arguments in Support of Pacifism. New York: Praeger.
Gandhi, Mohandas K. 1972. Non-Violence in Peace and War, 1942–1949. New York: Garland Press.
12
Gray, J. Glenn 1959. The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle. New York: Harcourt Brace.
Hallie, Philip 1979. Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed: The Story of the Village of Le Cambon and
How Goodness Happened There. New York: Harper & Row Publishers.
Hauerwas, Stanley 1984. Should War be Eliminated? Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press.
Holmes, Robert 1989. On War and Morality. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Johnson, James Turner 1981. Just War Tradition and the Restraint of War. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Johnson, James Turner 1984. Can Modern War be Just? New Haven: Yale University Press.
Keen, Sam 1986. Faces of the Enemy: Reflections of the Hostile Imagination. San Francisco:
Harper & Row Publishers.
May, Larry, Eric Rovie, and Steve Viner (eds.) 2006. The Morality of War: Classical and
Contemporary Readings. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Nhat Hanh, Thich 1987. Being Peace. Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press.
Norman, Richard 1995. Ethics, Killing and War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sharp, Gene 1983. Making the Abolition of War a Realistic Goal. New York: Institute for World
Order.
Shue, Henry, and David Rodin (eds.) 2007. Preemption: Military Action and Moral Justification.
Walzer, Michael 1977. Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations.
1
Mozi
Chris Fraser
Mozi (fl. ca. 430 bce) was the charismatic founder of an influential philosophical,
political, and religious movement that flourished during the Warring States era
(479–221 bce) in ancient China. Arguably the first real philosopher in the Chinese
tradition, Mozi initiated the practice of ethical argumentation in China. He was the
first figure to undertake – as Socrates did in ancient Greece – an explicit, reflective
search for objective moral criteria and to support his views with tightly constructed
arguments. He and his followers – the Mohists (Mo zhe) – developed a systematic set
of ethical, political, and epistemological doctrines that included history’s earliest
version of a consequentialist ethical theory (see consequentialism), a state of
nature argument for the existence of government, and an inchoate just war theory
(see just war theory, history of). The Mohists played a pivotal role in shaping
the central concepts, premises, and issues of classical Chinese ethics, political theory,
epistemology, philosophy of language, and logic (Graham 1978, 1989; Hansen 1992).
They also contributed to early Chinese science and mathematics. The Mohist
movement continued for two to three centuries after Mozi’s death before eventually
fading away during the Western Han dynasty (206 bce–8 ce).
Among the various early Chinese schools of thought, the Mohists were the main
rivals to the Confucians in promoting a way of life centered on ethical teachings (see
confucian ethics). But unlike the Confucians, many of whom made their living as
elite ritual masters, Mozi and his followers came largely from sub-elite classes,
including artisans, farmers, merchants, and soldiers (Graham 1989). They rejected
the traditional courtly rituals and music central to the Confucian way of life, deeming
them pointless and wasteful, and instead emphasized practical utility and thrift.
Rather than grounding their way of life in contingent, fallible traditions, as they
believed the Confucians did, they sought to identify objectively justified moral
norms. The fundamental norm they proposed was that morally right practices are
just those that promote the welfare of all.
About Mozi himself, we know little beyond what can be conjectured from
scattered remarks in Mohist texts. His surname was “Mo” (pronounced roughly like
“mwuh”), his personal name “Di” (“dee”). “Mozi” (“mwuh-dz”) is an epithet meaning
“Master Mo.” He seems to have been of humble social origins and was probably
originally an artisan, perhaps a carpenter. The Shi Ji, a Han dynasty record completed
in 91 bce, reports that he was an official of the state of Song, who lived either at the
same time as or after Confucius (d. 479 bce). But Mohist texts contain no indication
that he ever held office, in Song or elsewhere. Textual evidence suggests he was from
the state of Lu, also Confucius’s home.
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee103
2
The major source for Mohist thought is an anthology called the Mozi, a collection
of essays, anecdotes, dialogues, and notes written and compiled by various hands over
about two centuries, starting from Mo Di’s lifetime. Though the names of a handful of
Mohist leaders after Mo Di are known, none is reported to have presented original
philosophical views. The doctrines in the Mozi are all either attributed to the master or
presented anonymously. However, much writing in early China was anonymous, and
it was customary to attribute one’s own ideas to a venerated teacher, both out of respect
and humility and to lend them authority. The writings in the Mozi represent different
stages of doctrinal evolution and perhaps also the positions of different Mohist fac-
tions (Graham 1989; Fraser 2002). Thus, many of the views in the anthology may not
be Mo Di’s own, but developments or revisions introduced by later followers.
Mohist ethics and political theory seem to have originated in Mozi’s dismay at
the war, feuding, crime, exploitation of the poor and weak, and other wrongdo-
ing he saw as endemic to his era. He and his followers were urgently concerned
to restore society to the good order that they believed China’s ancient sage-kings
had achieved in the distant past. They saw people as naturally social, concerned
about their family and community, and generally committed to doing what they
take to be right. But if people disagree about what is right, or if they fail to distin-
guish right from wrong properly, conflicts may arise, leading to social disorder.
Indeed, the Mohists thought that in a state of nature, before the establishment of
political society, disorder would be inevitable. In the absence of political leader-
ship, people would follow diverse conceptions of morality, many of them pre-
sumably in ignorance of the right moral norms. If people are strongly committed
to their conception of morality, yet endorse different, incompatible norms, they
are likely to come into conflict and ultimately resort to violence. Moreover, igno-
rant of proper moral norms, some may act without regard for others, willingly
injuring them in pursuit of self-interest. A hierarchical system of political leader-
ship is thus justified, the Mohists hold, in order to achieve and maintain good
social order.
The fundamental cause of disorder, as the Mohists see it, is the diversity of
individuals’ conceptions of what is morally right. So the primary task of government
is to train people to follow unified moral norms. According to the Mohist doctrine
of “identifying upward,” this task is to be carried out by a centralized, hierarchical
administration run by wise, virtuous rulers. At each level of the state hierarchy –
from the village up to the empire – political leaders are to guide their subjects to
identify with their superiors in drawing moral distinctions according to unified
norms. The major method of education is model emulation. Leaders selected for
their moral merit and intelligence set an example of morally correct statements and
conduct for all to emulate. To reinforce this training, correct conduct is praised and
rewarded, incorrect conduct criticized and punished.
The Mohist political system thus provides a means to teach everyone to follow uni-
fied moral norms. But to achieve proper order, the content of the shared norms must be
correct. The Mohists thus mounted a search for objective moral criteria, or as they saw
it, reliable, easily applicable “models” by which to guide judgment and action (Hansen
3
1992). These would lead everyone to distinguish right from wrong correctly, just as a
straight-edged tool clearly and reliably guides a carpenter in sawing a straight line.
Who or what should serve as such models? The Mohists held that human role
models, such as parents, teachers, or political leaders, and social customs, such as the
Confucian rituals, are not sufficiently reliable, since they might well be morally faulty.
So they proposed as their ultimate model the intentions of the noblest and wisest
moral agent in the cosmos, Heaven (tian, also nature or the sky), whom they revered
as a quasi-personal deity. According to their beliefs, Heaven is an infallible moral
agent that is benevolent, impartial, and consistent, and so it unfailingly sets a correct
example of what is morally right. The Mohists’ view contrasts with a divine command
theory (see divine command), in that they do not claim that the feature of morally
right acts or practices by virtue of which they are right is that Heaven wills them (Loy
2006). It also contrasts with ideal observer theories (see ideal observer theories),
in that they also do not claim that the right-making feature of such acts or practices is
that Heaven endorses them. Rather, their proposal is an epistemic appeal to a concep-
tion of an ideal moral agent who, they claim, provides an impartial, objective “model”
by which to distinguish morally correct norms from incorrect ones (Duda 2001).
According to the Mohists, by observing Heaven’s conduct, we can determine its
intentions, which can then serve as normative guidelines. From Heaven’s conduct,
they contend, we can know that it cares about and benefits all humanity. It gives all
people life and the resources needed for survival. According to traditional lore, it
rewarded the ancient sage-kings who advanced the welfare of all and punished the
vicious tyrants who mistreated their subjects. Examples such as these, they hold,
show that moral right and wrong can be distinguished by the criterion of “promoting
the benefit of all the world and eliminating harm to all the world.” That is, morally
right norms, practices, and acts are just those that tend to advance the benefit of or
eliminate harm to all.
The Mohists’ notion of the “benefit of all” is a conception of the public good
comprising material prosperity, an abundant population, and sociopolitical “order”
(Ivanhoe 1998). Core features of “order” are the absence of war, strife, crime, and
hostility and the universal virtuous performance of the paradigmatic social roles of
ruler, subject, father, son, and brother (Fraser 2002). More broadly, “order” also
includes such goods as neighborly sharing of knowledge, surplus labor, and surplus
resources and fair administration of the penal system. As this list of goods indicates,
Mohist ethics is communitarian, not individualist. The goods that serve as criteria
of morality are mainly collective or public. The Mohist theory thus contrasts with
utilitarianism, the most familiar Western form of consequentialism, in which the
basic good is individuals’ happiness (see utilitarianism).
Drawing on this framework of ethical, political, epistemological, and religious
theories, the Mohists offered systematic arguments for what they considered
beneficial norms and against practices they considered detrimental to general
welfare, such as military aggression, extravagant funerals, and excessive public
spending on nonessentials. They developed a reform platform of ten major ethical
and political doctrines addressed to rulers and officials. Their signature doctrine
4
among the ten was “inclusive care.” To better promote the welfare of all, they argued,
people should inclusively care about each other, having as much concern for others
and their families and communities as for themselves and their own, such that when
interacting with others they seek mutual benefit. A second prominent doctrine was
“condemning military aggression.” The Mohists distinguished three sorts of warfare:
wars of aggression, defensive wars, and punitive wars (Van Norden 2007). Wars of
aggression are immoral and unjustified, they argued, for the same reasons that theft,
robbery, and murder are: they harm others in pursuit of self-interest and so fail to
promote the benefit of all. Defensive warfare is justified when unavoidable. (The
Mohists themselves were renowned as experts in defensive warfare.) Punitive
warfare is justified only when certain demanding criteria are met. The war must be
for good cause, specifically to punish a “disorderly” state that has committed crimes
against people. It must be waged with good intention, namely to promote the benefit
of all. It must have divine sanction and be assured of success, as indicated by
supernatural portents and spirit emissaries. These criteria functioned mainly as an
apology to justify wars conducted by the legendary sage-kings of antiquity. The
Mohists seem to have assumed that no purported punitive war of their own time was
likely to meet them.
Other major planks in the Mohist platform included “moderation in burial,”
which called for an end to the custom of rich, elaborate funerals and protracted
mourning rituals – traditions staunchly defended by the Confucians – in order to
better promote prosperity and social order; “moderation in use,” which advocated
eliminating wasteful luxury and useless expenditures so as to better ensure basic
material welfare for all; and “condemning music,” which denounced the extravagant,
state-sponsored entertainment and luxuries enjoyed by the ruling elite, since these
wasted resources that could otherwise be used to feed and clothe the poor. As these
summaries suggest, the Mohists saw themselves primarily as a moral, political, and
religious reform movement devoted to promoting the welfare of all, in particular
those worst off, whose basic needs they perceived as often going unmet. Their texts
aim mainly to promulgate their practical reforms, rather than to explore the ethical
and epistemological theories that support them. To philosophically minded readers
today, however, the latter are the Mohists’ chief legacy.
See also: confucian ethics; consequentialism; divine command; ideal

observer theories; just war theory, history of; utilitarianism
REFERENCES
Duda, Kristopher 2001. “Reconsidering Mo Tzu on the Foundations of Morality,” Asian
Fraser, Chris 2002. “Mohism,” in Edward N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy (Fall 2009 Edition). At http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2009/entries/
mohism/.
5
Graham, A. C. 1978. Later Mohist Logic, Ethics and Science. Hong Kong: Chinese University
Press.
Graham, A. C. 1989. Disputers of the Tao. LaSalle: Open Court Press.
Hansen, Chad 1992. A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ivanhoe, Philip J. 1998. “Mohist Philosophy,” in Edward Craig (ed.), The Routledge
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 6. London: Routledge, pp. 451–55.
Loy, Hui Chieh 2006. “The Moral Philosophy of the Mozi ‘Core Chapters’. ” PhD Dissertation.
Berkeley: University of California.
Van Norden, Bryan W. 2007. Virtue Ethics and Consequentialism in Early Chinese Philosophy.
FURTHER READINGS
Cheng, Chung-ying (ed.) 2008. Mozi Reconsidered, special issue. Journal of Chinese Philosophy,
vol. 35, pp. 377–491.
Fraser, Chris forthcoming. The Philosophy of Mozi. New York: Columbia University Press.
Lai, Karyn 2008. An Introduction to Chinese Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Lowe, Scott 1992. Mo Tzu’s Religious Blueprint for a Chinese Utopia. Lewiston, NY: Edwin
Mellen.
Schwartz, Benjamin 1985. The World of Thought in Ancient China. Cambridge, MA: Belknap
Press.
1
Secession
Margaret Moore
What Is Secession?
Secession is the removal of part of the state and the territory from an existing state.
Secession usually occurs along administrative boundaries, and is common when the
administrative unit is culturally or linguistically distinct from other parts of the state
(McGarry and O’Leary 1993). It is different from partition, because partition
typically involves a “fresh cut” and is imposed by an external actor, such as Britain in
Ireland and in India (O’Leary 2004).
Methodological Approach to the Ethics of Secession

There are different methodological approaches to thinking about the normative
merits of secession. First, one is to think about what moral principles should come
into play in evaluating a particular case of secession or particular secessionist move-
ment. This doesn’t tell us what institutional rule should govern secession, but sug-
gests various principles that help us, as citizens, to evaluate particular claims to
secession (Miller 1995). Another way to think about secession is to consider the
implications of accepted moral theories or moral principles for the issue of secession.
On this view, secession does not give rise to any particularly interesting principles
on its own, but is a practical application of more fundamental principles, such as the
principle of autonomy (Philpott 1995; Copp 1998; Beran 1984; Wellman 2005). A
third approach views secession as a practical application of a theory of state legiti-
macy (see authority). This approach is adopted by just cause theorists of seces-
sion, who link the legitimacy of the state with the dispensation of justice within state
borders. Allen Buchanan’s (2004) just cause theory modifies this standard theory,
and marks a striking departure from individual autonomy theories, because he
views secession as an instance of nonideal institutional design. On Buchanan’s view,
ethical theories of secession should consider the conditions under which a group
should be recognized as having a moral right to secede as a matter of international
institutional morality, including a morally defensible international law. This approach
directly considers the way in which a right to secession can be incorporated into
international institutions and international law, thus bringing questions of perverse
incentives directly into the reasoning about whether there is such a right in the first
place (see international relations).
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee104
2
Four Different Theories in the Ethics of Secession

There are four different positions or theories in the ethics of secession, which, in part,
flow from the metaethical theories about the way in which we should reason about
secession. These are, broadly, the statist view (which fundamentally opposes seces-
sion as destructive and unjustifiable), individual autonomy (or choice) theories, just
cause theories and collective autonomy (or national self-determination) theories.
Statist theories
The first position, which is anti-secession or anti-self-determination, fundamentally
opposes any kind of right to secession. This might be grounded in a number of
different reasons, but liberal individualist and statist/realist ones are typical. This posi-
tion is generally held by unionists in the state who regard the secession of any part of
the state as unjustifiable. This statist view could be grounded in a number of different
arguments, but two are dominant. The first depends on a realist view of the inter-
national order, which regards the state system as crucial for the achievement of peace
and stability; borders as crucial to the maintenance of the system; and secessionist
movements as fundamentally destructive and destabilizing to the system. Many inter-
national relations accounts point to the destructive and destabilizing nature of seces-
sion and conclude that it should not be allowed (Saideman and Ayres 2008).
This realist account of secession, though, presupposes exactly what is at issue: that
the group in question does not have a right to secede in the first place. To see that
this is an assumption of the argument, rather than its conclusion, we need only
reflect on the nature of rights: part of having a right is a right to do wrong (or the
wrong thing) and we sometimes think that people have rights – for example, the
right to divorce their partners – even if this would be destructive and destabilizing
for the other people affected. If it is a right, then the question of how to think about
third-party obligations is brought in, but the mere fact that there are negatively
affected third parties does not mean that the right does not exist.
A more worked-out account of the statist position has a democratic story of the
transformation, through a defining constitutional moment, of the various peoples
into a single people, and the government (or federal government, in federal systems)
as expressive of this common will of the whole people, conceived as a unity (see
democracy). This account of the relationship between the territory of the state and
popular sovereignty of the people suggests that the federal government is an agent of
the people as a whole, and so suggests a fairly statist view of political boundaries.
The problem with this view is that, while it does have democratic credentials, there
are probably equivalent democratic arguments on the side of the subunits or prov-
inces, especially in what are called ‘coming together federations,’ like Canada, where
the various colonies of Britain (and, in the case of Lower Canada, a conquered part
of Britain, now turned into its colony) joined together to create the country of
Canada. If they have the democratic power to enter into the union, so the argument
goes, they have the democratic power to exit, too. The statist argument often has a
3
democratic story, which helps to strengthen it. However, it is sometimes the case
that the terms of the union are such that it doesn’t support a unitary state, but, rather,
residual rights for the constituent elements, who are also democratically organized.
In that case, they also claim to represent a legitimate democratic ‘voice.’
A third statist, or anti-secessionist, argument associates states with a number of
moral goods: the achievement of peace and stability, the rule of law, the protection of
individual rights (see rights), and argues that secession from such a legitimate polit-
ical order is unjustified. On this view, the basic justification of the state also gives it
its legitimacy, and so the democratic legitimacy of the state is not really the question.
This is an argument against secessionists, but, since it assumes that there might be
states which fail to achieve the requisite moral goods, it also shades into the next
argument, which I will canvass below. It can be a statist argument, though, when the
moral goods that the state must achieve to be legitimate are so minimal that it would
be hard for any functioning political order not to achieve them. So – depending on
how high the threshold is for justifying the state (and so rendering it legitimate) this
version of the statist argument shades into the just cause theory of secession.
Individual autonomy/choice theories of secession

Another theory of secession focuses on the moral good of individual autonomy and
links this with secession (see autonomy). This theory, also called the choice theories
of secession, is associated with Copp (1997, 1998), Beran (1984), and Philpott
(1995). They take a permissive stance on the right of secession, grounded in indi-
vidual autonomy considerations.
These theories typically require that a territorially concentrated majority express
a desire to secede in a referendum or plebiscite for the secession to be legitimate, and
do not require that the seceding group demonstrate that it is the victim of injustice
at the hands of the state or the majority (remainder) group on the territory. Typically,
those who adopt this line of argument view the right to self-determination, including
a right to secession, as based on an argument about the right of political association.
The right of political association is then grounded in a deeper argument about the
value of individual autonomy. This type of theory typically deploys fairly stringent
practical requirements on the redrawing of boundaries, requiring usually that both
the seceding unit and the remainder units are capable of performing the function of
states; that the areas be territorially contiguous and viable (Beran 1984), and that the
groups are territorially concentrated and as likely to be protective of human rights as
the state that they are leaving (Philpott 1995). Although individual autonomy theo-
ries represent a philosophically rich argument based on liberal conceptions of
consent and political legitimacy, there is a certain ambiguity in the choice theory of
secession in the relationship between territory and democratic will. It is crucial to
this account that states are mainly viewed as composed of (consenting) members,
but this seems to simplify the relationship between self-determination, geographical
space, and citizenship (see citizenship). It sometimes seems, contrary to choice
theory, that states rule particular territories first, and citizens only incidentally:
4
“being born within a state’s territory usually makes one legally a citizen, unless some
clear and obvious commitment to another state prevents this”(Hendrix 2009: 4).
Moreover, states usually claim the right to conscript citizens to defend their territo-
ries, even when those territories were themselves acquired through force and fraud
(most of the United States) or are virtually uninhabited (much of Greenland).
Just cause theory of secession

According to just cause theories of secession, secession is justified if the group in
question has suffered egregious and long-standing injustices at the hands of the
state. This is essentially Allen Buchanan’s (1991) view, but it is also contiguous with
a long-standing view of state legitimacy as rooted in deeper justice considerations.
Just cause theories typically argue in favor of a general right to secede for groups
that have suffered certain kinds of injustices at the hands of the state. Different just
cause theories focus on different kinds of injustices: some on prior occupation and
seizure of territory; some on serious violations of human rights, including genocide;
others view discriminatory injustice as sufficient to legitimize secession (Norman
1998). One advantage of this type of theory is that it suggests a strong internal con-
nection between the right to resist tyranny – exploitation, genocide, oppression,
wrongful seizure of territory – and secession. By suggesting a strong link between
secession and human rights, this kind of argument grounds the ethics of secession
within the generally accepted framework of human rights, and a generally accepted
theory of state legitimacy.
This theory is much more restrictive than it first appears. It is restrictive in the
obvious sense that it restricts secessions to groups that have been victimized or
discriminated against; but it sets the bar even higher by requiring that the injustice
be the result of deep state structures, rather than simply the actions of an illegiti-
mate government. According to Buchanan, the just state has an obligation to pro-
tect all (existing and future) citizens’ legitimate interests in their political and
territorial community. Secession is permissible only when the state forfeits its claim
to being a legitimate trustee by failing to fulfill its justice-based obligations
(Buchanan 1991: 109). A crucial question raised by the structure of this argument
is: at what point do we regard the state as an unjust one? And, at what point do we
regard the regime (as distinct from the state) as an unjust one? This theory of seces-
sion, rooted in a theory of state legitimacy, does not turn crucially on whether the
seceding group is a victim of injustice; in fact, it doesn’t really require that at all. The
crucial question is whether the state has perpetrated, or is perpetrating, acts of
injustice. And this raises the question of the distinction between a state and a par-
ticular governing regime.
If unjust acts are committed by a particular government, then the logic of the
analysis is that they can be rectified by a change in government. We are then in the
realm of revolution, as John Locke argued in 1690. Buchanan argues that remedying
the flaws of an illegitimate state involves more than a change of character in the
government: it requires profound constitutional changes that transform the state
5
itself. The conditions that have to be met to qualify as an ‘unjust state’ are quite
stringent, and this makes the theory of secession very restrictive. Indeed, Buchanan
cites only two examples of unjust states: Apartheid South Africa and the ante-bellum
South of the United States (Buchanan 2004: 282–3). Secession is justified if the state
is illegitimate, because by definition the state does not deserve the rights (to territo-
rial integrity) that it has had conferred on it by the international community.
Collective autonomy/national self-determination arguments

The collective autonomy (or national self-determination) theory (see nationalism
and patriotism) is like the individual autonomy arguments of Beran (1984),
Wellman (1995), and Philpott (1995) in that it would support a democratic vote in
the self-determining area, although not a state-wide vote throughout the over-holding
region. This is justified in terms of the collective autonomy of the nation or people:
it is this which justifies them in being able to decide as a group whom to associate
with, and it is the collective autonomy of the nation that would be violated by a state-
wide vote. Indeed, most accounts of national identity that have a strong subjectivist
element – viz., where part of the prerequisite for being classified as a nation is that
there is a generally shared sense of identity as a member of a group that aspires to be
collectively self-governing (Renan 1939: 203; Tamir 1995; Miller 1995: 27; Moore
2001) – will mirror the same results as the individual autonomy argument. However,
a democratic vote is not always required on this argument: many proponents of
national self-determination rely on ‘tests’ of shared national identity or political
community such as markers of national mobilizations – electing national parties,
lobbying or organizing along national lines, possibly a majority vote in a referendum
on secession, especially if there are indications of a persistent desire for a self-
determining political community.
National self-determination accounts are frequently rooted in further arguments,
about the protection of cultural identities through control of the public dimensions of
one’s life (Margalit and Raz 1990; Kymlicka 1995); shared culture and shared national
identity to trust, which is internally related to the creation and maintenance of effec-
tive democratic institutions (Miller 1995); but there is a sense in which nationalists
who believe in national self-determination projects do not accept these instrumental
arguments, but simply think that there is intrinsic value in collective autonomy, in
their nation (and by logical extension all nations) being collectively self-determining.
See also: authority; autonomy; citizenship; democracy; international

relations; nationalism and patriotism; rights
REFERENCES
Beran, Harry 1984. “A Liberal Theory of Secession,” Political Studies, vol. 32, pp. 21–31.
Buchanan, Allen 1991. Secession: The Morality of Political Divorce from Fort Sumter to
Lithuania and Quebec. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
6
Buchanan, Allen 2004. Justice, Legitimacy and Self-Determination: Moral Foundations of

Copp, David 1997. “Democracy and Communal Self-Determination,” in J. McMahan and
R. McKim (eds.), The Morality of Nationalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
pp. 277–300.
Copp, David 1998. “International Law and Morality in the Theory of Secession,” Journal of
Ethics, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 219–45.
Hendrix, Burke H. 2009. Ownership, Authority and Self-Determination. University Park:
Pennsylvania State University Press.
Kymlicka, Will 1995. Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1995.
Locke, John 1952 [1690]. Second Treatise of Government, ed. Thomas P. Peardon. Indianapolis:
Bobbs-Merrill.
McGarry, John, and Brendan O’Leary 1993. “The Macro-Political Regulation of Ethnic
Conflict,” in The Politics of Ethnic Conflict Regulation: Case Studies of Protracted Ethnic
Conflicts. London: Routledge, pp. 1–40.
Margalit, Avishai, and Joseph Raz 1990. “National Self-Determination,” Journal of Philosophy,
vol. 87, pp. 439–61.
Moore, Margaret 2001. The Ethics of Nationalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Norman, Wayne 1998. “The Ethics of Secession as the Regulation of Secessionist Politics,” in
Margaret Moore (ed.), National Self-Determination and Secession. Oxford: Oxford
O’Leary, Brendan 2004. “Partition,” in A. and J. Kuper (eds.), The Routledge Social Science
Encyclopedia, 3rd ed., vol. 2. London: Routledge, pp. 708–10.
Philpott, Daniel 1995. “In Defence of Self-Determination,” Ethics, vol. 105, no. 2, pp. 357–72.
Renan, Ernst 1939. “What is a Nation?,” in Alfred Zimmern (ed.), Modern Political Doctrines.
Saideman, Stephen M., and R. William Ayres 2008. For Kin or Country: Xenophobia,
Nationalism and War. New York: Columbia University Press.
Tamir, Yael 1995. “The Enigma of Nationalism,” World Politics, vol. 47, pp. 418–49
Wellman, Christopher H. 1995. “A Defense of ‘Secession and Political Self-Determination,’”
Wellman, Christopher H. 2005. A Theory of Secession: The Case for Political Self-determination.
1
Cudworth, Ralph
Mark Schroeder
Ralph Cudworth (1617–88) was a leading member of the Cambridge Platonists, and
an early and important influence on the British rationalist moral philosophers of the
eighteenth century. In 1645 he became master of Clare Hall in Cambridge and was
elected Regius Professor of Hebrew, and in 1654 became master of Christ’s College,
where he continued until his death in 1688. He was recognized as a leader among
the Cambridge Platonists, a group of thinkers including, in addition to Cudworth,
Henry More, Benjamin Whichcote, Nathaniel Culverwel, Peter Sterry, John
Worthington, and John Smith.
Cudworth’s major work, published in 1678, was The True Intellectual System of the
Universe: The first part, wherein all the reason and philosophy of atheism is confuted
and its impossibility demonstrated. Though the advertised later parts of the True
Intellectual System never appeared, it was followed by much shorter works on ethics
and on free will, which are usually assumed to represent, at least in outline, their
intended contents. Cudworth’s most important contribution to moral philosophy,
A Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality, was completed in 1687 and
published posthumously in 1731; A Treatise on Freewill was published posthumously
in 1838. In addition to his published works, thousands of pages of original Cudworth
manuscripts remain in the custody of the British Museum today.
Cudworth’s views combined a Cartesian perspective on matter with Platonistic
views about metaphysics, and his convoluted, learned scholastic writing style, full of
obscure references, not only makes engaging with his work difficult for readers
today, but was already old-fashioned even at the time, and may have obscured the
originality of his thought. Nevertheless, Cudworth’s importance several decades
after his death was sufficient that his entire published works were translated into
Latin by Johann Lorenz Mosheim and published in 1733 with Latin notes. Leibniz is
known to have been familiar with Cudworth, and he would also have been an
influence on Shaftesbury and Locke, in part through his daughter, the philosopher
Lady Damaris Masham, who was one of Locke’s close friends (see locke, john).
A Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality was Cudworth’s great
contribution to moral philosophy. It is divided into four books; Book I, which
makes the greatest contributions specifically to moral philosophy, is devoted to
several arguments that moral good and evil are part of nature, independent of
what anyone believes or wills them to be, and as such are necessary and unchange-
able (“eternal and immutable”). Book I also describes some of the main intellec-
tual forebears of the contrary voluntarist thesis that moral good and evil depend
on “will” – whether the will of God, the masses, a temporal sovereign, or each
of us individually – among the chief of whom he lists Protagoras, Democritus,
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee105
2
Epicurus, Ockham, Hobbes, Descartes, and various predestinarian theologians,

all of whose views he sees as making a common mistake (see hobbes, thomas;
divine command).
The following three books are less centrally connected with moral philosophy,
although Book IV develops a positive moral epistemology, embedded, as makes sense
given the consequences of Book I, in a broader epistemology of necessary truths.
Book II traces out the history of voluntarism, largely attributing it to a misunderstanding
of the implications of the atomistic theory of matter, which he claims was originally
stated by the biblical Moses, before being passed down and picked up by Democritus
and subsequently revived by Descartes. Book III is devoted to a discussion of the
relationship between knowledge and sense, whose main lesson is that knowledge
cannot come from sensation, and Book IV offers a contrary positive account of
knowledge as an “inward active energy of the mind” (Cudworth 1996: 5), which is
connected to Cudworth’s preferred interpretation of the consequences of the atomis-
tic philosophy – since it is “demonstrably evident” that “no cogitation can possibly
arise out of the power of matter” (1996: 151), there must be a God, “that is, an infinite
eternal mind that is the first original and source of all things” (1996: 150) and “from
which all created understandings are constantly furnished with ideas” (1996: 6).
Cudworth offers at least two distinct arguments against the voluntarist ideas of
Protagoras, Hobbes, and the others. The first appears to rely on a general meta-
physical principle: “things are what they are, not by will but by nature. … Neither
can Omnipotence itself (to speak with reverence) by mere will make a thing white or
black without whiteness or blackness.” This argument is sweeping in its generality,
but limited in its consequences. For example, Descartes can agree that nothing is
white that God couldn’t have made black (naturally, by giving it the nature of
blackness rather than that of whiteness); similarly Descartes may contend, nothing
is wrong that God couldn’t have made right (naturally, by giving it the nature of
rightness, rather than that of wrongness).
Hobbes could also respond to Cudworth’s first argument by defending the
reductive thesis that being prohibited by the sovereign is the nature of wrongness; if
that is so, the sovereign can make things wrong by prohibiting them after all, and
without violating Cudworth’s maxim that things are wrong by wrongness – because
being prohibited by the sovereign gives them the nature of wrongness (see reduc-
tionism in ethics). However, Cudworth heads off this response at the start by
assuming this is not the view:
Wherefore in the first place, it is a thing which we shall very easily demonstrate, that
moral good and evil, just and unjust, honest and dishonest (if they be not mere names
without any signification, or names for nothing else but willed and commanded, but
have a reality in respect of the persons obliged to do and avoid them) cannot possibly
be arbitrary things, made by will without nature. (1996: 16)
Schneewind (1998) interprets this remark as simply assuming without argument

that such a reductive view is false; Darwall (1995) interprets the remark (with
3
substantial help from hindsight) as anticipatory of Moore’s open question argument

(see moore, g. e.; open question argument). (Certainly, when Price [1948]
closely duplicates Cudworth’s arguments, he offers a very explicit version of the open
question argument at this point.)
Cudworth’s second, central argument against the voluntarist position is stronger
and more interesting (cf. Schroeder 2005; Prior 1949). The argument is designed to
show that even those who believe that obligations arise due to the commands or will
of God (the same argument goes for the view that they arise from anyone else’s will
or commands) are committed to the view that some obligations are independent of
God’s will or commands. He first argues that even commands of God do not create
obligations to obey, simply in virtue of the threat of punishment. Threats of punish-
ment can make it prudent to obey, but not obligatory. It is only because God has
legitimate authority that His commands create obligations.
But, Cudworth argues, to say that God has legitimate authority is just to say that
it is obligatory to obey His commands. And Cudworth argues that this obligation –
to obey God – is not one that can arise as a result of God’s will or command:
And if it should be imagined that anyone should make a positive law to require that
others should be obliged or bound to obey him, everyone would think such a law
ridiculous and absurd. For if they were obliged before, then this law would be in vain
and to no purpose. And if they were not before obliged, then they could not be obliged
by any positive law, because they were not previously bound to obey such a person’s
commands. So that obligation to obey all positive laws is older than all laws, and
previous or antecedent to them. (1996: 18–19)
This argument has the right structure to show not only that morality does not
derive from the will of anyone or any positive command, but that it is, as Cudworth
claims, necessary and unchangeable. For take anything which could possibly lead to
a change in what is right or wrong. According to Cudworth, nothing could have
such an effect without having the legitimate authority to do so. But that is just to say
that the power of this thing to affect what is right or wrong is really due to the fact
that we have an independent and “antecedent” obligation to act in accordance with
this factor. Consequently, nothing could change what is right or wrong, except in
virtue of some independent fact about what is right or wrong that it is unable to
change – for the same reason that the legitimate authority of God cannot be due to
God’s own command.
Cudworth goes on to outline the way of thinking about moral obligations which
underlies this argument. According to this model, when our obligations seem to
change – as when we make a promise – we really only change our circumstances in
a way that affects which actions will constitute doing something right or wrong. We
don’t really change what is right or wrong. So, by making a promise to do something,
you change your circumstances in a way that makes not doing that thing an instance
of breaking your promise; but it is not failing to do that thing which is wrong; it is
only that in your circumstances, if you fail to do that thing, then you will do
4
something wrong (namely, break a promise). On this model, the only things that are
genuinely wrong are necessarily and unchangeably so.
A different, competing, model for thinking about how commands can affect what is
right or wrong could be offered by the reductive view, considered above. On this view,
the reason that when the sovereign commands not to do something, it becomes wrong,
is not that there is an antecedent obligation to obey the sovereign, but rather that
the nature of being wrong just is being commanded against by the sovereign. If being
commanded against by the sovereign just is the nature of being wrong, it is no wonder
that the sovereign’s commands can make some things wrong, even if there is no ante-
cedent obligation to obey the sovereign. Consequently, a reductive theory about the
nature of wrongness is the kind of thing to make it possible for the basic moral obliga-
tions to be neither necessary nor unchangeable. As noted above, Cudworth explicitly
excludes such reductive views from consideration, but the legitimacy of this move
becomes very important, in considering the significance of this central argument.
If we accept Cudworth’s conclusion, several consequences come very close on its
heels. First, if Cudworth is right, then no reductive theory of the nature of morality
can be correct, because on any such theory, what is right or wrong depends on
something else. Of course, we’ve just seen that this inference may be question
begging, but Cudworth’s view certainly rules it out. Second, if morality is necessary
and unchangeable, then knowledge of it will have to come in the same sort of way as
we are able to grasp other necessary truths. And finally, if there are some basic
obligations that can’t be explained by anything else, then it is hard to see why there
shouldn’t be more than one of them, so it is a short step to pluralism. (In contrast,
for the reductive theorist, it is easy to see why there must be only one basic moral
rule – the one that tells us the nature of wrongness.) This same package of views –
nonreductivism, intuitionism, and pluralism – have often been bundled together –
not only by Cudworth, but by Clarke (1706), Price (1948), Prichard (2002), and Ross
(1930), just to list some prominent examples (see intuitionism, moral; clarke,
samuel; price, richard; prichard, h. a.; ross, w. d.).
The argument from the nature of authority has been periodically rediscovered by
moral philosophers who sometimes recognize its antecedent in Cudworth and
sometimes do not. This same argument was Samuel Clarke’s (1706) master argument
against Hobbes, and at the center of Richard Price’s (1948) system. Prichard (2002)
placed great weight on it, as does Korsgaard (1996). An analogous argument plausi-
bly plays an important role in Moore’s (1903) views about intrinsic value and organic
unities, and it supports the kind of generalism that is the primary target in Dancy
(2004). So despite its relative neglect, Cudworth’s contribution to moral philosophy
has had lasting impact and is worth revisiting.
See also: clarke, samuel; divine command; hobbes, thomas;

intuitionism, moral; locke, john; moore, g. e.; open question argument;
organic unities; price, richard; prichard, h. a.; reductionism in ethics;
ross, w. d.
5
REFERENCES
Clarke, Samuel 1706. A Discourse Concerning the Unchangeable Obligations of Natural
Religion, and the Truth and Certainty of the Christian Revelation. Selections reprinted in
D. D. Raphael (ed.), British Moralists 1650–1800. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967,
pp. 191–225.
Cudworth, Ralph 1996 [1731]. A Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality, ed.
Sarah Hutton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dancy, Jonathan 2004. Ethics Without Principles. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Darwall, Stephen 1995. The British Moralists and the Internal “Ought”: 1640–1740. Cambridge:
Press.
Price, Richard 1948. A Review of the Principal Questions in Morals, ed. D. D. Raphael. Oxford:
Prichard, H. A. 2002. Moral Writings, ed. Jim MacAdam. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Prior, A. N. 1949. Logic and the Basis of Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Schneewind, J. B. 1998. The Invention of Autonomy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schroeder, Mark 2005. “Cudworth and Normative Explanations,” Journal of Ethics and Social
Philosophy, vol. 1, no. 3. At www.jesp.org.
FURTHER READINGS
Cragg, G. R. (ed.) 1968. The Cambridge Platonists. New York: Oxford University Press.
Cudworth, Ralph 1964 [1678]. The True Intellectual System of the Universe, facsimile reprint.
Stuttgart-Bad Canstatt: Friedrich Frommann.
Hutton, Sarah 2007. “The Cambridge Platonists,” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. At
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cambridge-platonists/.
Passmore, J. A. 1951. Ralph Cudworth: An Interpretation. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Rogers, G. A. J., J.-M. Vienne, and Y.-C. Zarka (eds.) 1997. The Cambridge Platonists in
Philosophical Context: Politics, Metaphysics and Religion. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
1
Semantics, Moral
Mark Schroeder
Semantics is the investigation of meaning, and semantic theories, including semantic

theories about moral language, come in two very different kinds. Descriptive semantic
theories are theories about what words mean. So descriptive moral semantic theories
are theories about what moral words mean: words like “good,” “better,” “right,”
“must,” “ought,” “reason,” and “rational.” In contrast, foundational semantic theories
are theories about why words mean what they do, or, more specifically, about what
makes it the case that words mean what they do. So foundational moral semantic
theories are theories about what makes it the case that moral words mean what they
do: words like “good,” “better,” and so on. Since both kinds of theory are sometimes
referred to as varieties of “moral semantics,” this essay will cover both.
Just as semantic theories themselves come in two kinds, descriptive semantics
raises two very different kinds of issues. Some issues in descriptive semantics turn
on the question of what kind of theory is required, in order to be able to account
for the meanings of words – including moral words, in particular. Such questions
are questions about the nature of semantic theorizing. So, for example, according
to truth-conditional theories, an adequate descriptive semantic theory needs to
provide a recursive and compositional characterization of values for sentences
which determine the truth conditions of each sentence. Whereas according to
expressivist theories, an adequate descriptive semantic theory does not need to
determine truth conditions at all, but does need to recursively and compositionally
associate each sentence “P” with a mental state – intuitively, with the state which
constitutes what it is to think that P. Truth-conditional and expressivist theories
involve very different conceptions of the nature of linguistic meaning, but their
contrast is one of the most important issues in moral semantics, and they are not
even the only live competitors.
In contrast, other issues in descriptive semantics, rather than turning on what
kind of theory is required, raise questions about specific properties of the mean-
ings of particular words. Some of these questions are theory-internal – for example,
the question of which attitude is involved with thinking that murder is wrong is
internal to expressivism, and the question of what the conditions are under which
“murder is wrong” is true is internal to truth-conditional semantics. But other
questions about the meanings of particular words are theory-neutral, in the sense
that they come up, no matter what kind of semantic theory is correct. An impor-
tant class of such questions includes questions about the number and categories of
the argument places associated with some word. For example, while some philoso-
phers believe that “good” is semantically a one-place predicate, others believe that
it is semantically a two-place relation, or even that it is a three- or four-place
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee106
2
relation. And of those who believe that it is a one-place relation, there are differences
over whether its argument place is filled by propositions, or events, or by items
belonging to some other category. Similarly, those who adopt two-or-more-place
theories about “good” can disagree about the categories to which each of its argu-
ment places belong. And in addition, there are disagreements about whether there
is only one sense of “good” or whether there is more than one, and, if so, which
ones there are, how many argument places they have, and what categories those
argument places belong to. All of these are theory-neutral questions about the
meaning of “good,” because they are questions that any descriptive semantic the-
ory about “good” will need to answer, whether it is truth-conditional, expressivist,
or of some other variety.
In the remainder of this essay, we will introduce, first, foundational theories of
moral semantics; second, theories about the nature of moral semantics; and, third,
theory-neutral questions about the semantics of particular moral words, focusing
on “good,” “better,” “ought,” and “reason.”
Foundational Semantic Theories

As noted above, foundational semantic theories seek to answer the question of what
makes it the case that words mean what they do, or, to put it in other words, in virtue
of what words mean what they do. So a foundational moral semantic theory seeks to
answer the question of what makes it the case that moral words mean what they do.
Of course, the very idea of a foundational moral semantic theory raises the question
of just why we need a special theory at all of what makes it the case that moral words
mean what they do. After all, if moral words mean what they do in virtue of the same
things that make any words mean what they do, then there is no distinctive question
for foundational moral semantic theories to ask, that is not already asked by
foundational semantic theories in general.
In keeping with this observation, foundational moral semantic theories split over
a central question from descriptive moral semantics: namely, whether moral words
have the same kind of meaning as most ordinary nonmoral words. Some theorists,
who believe that moral words have a different kind of meaning from that of ordinary
nonmoral words, believe that a different sort of foundational semantic theory is
required for moral words than for ordinary descriptive words. In contrast, theorists
who believe that moral words have the same kind of meaning as ordinary nonmoral
words generally agree that the same foundational semantic theory applies to moral
words as to nonmoral words. Still, even though these theorists advocate the same
kind of theory for moral words and nonmoral words alike, the foundational semantic
theories that they prefer are often linked to their metaphysical views. Some
philosophers have foundational semantic theories which make it hard to see how
any words could refer to nonnatural or irreducible moral properties, which leads
some of them to believe that moral properties can’t be nonnatural or irreducible. In
constrast, some other philosophers take this connection in reverse; because they
believe that moral properties are nonnatural or irreducible, they reject foundational
3
semantic theories which make it hard to see how any words could refer to nonnatural
or irreducible moral properties (see reductionism in ethics).
In his 1988 paper, “How to Be a Moral Realist,” Richard Boyd set out the framework
for one influential foundational moral semantic theory. Boyd’s theory is a causal
regulation theory, and seeks to generalize on causal theories of reference by claiming
that moral terms, like other natural kind terms, refer to properties, and that the
properties to which they refer are the ones to which they stand in a certain sort of
causal relation. On Boyd’s view, we do not need a different, special, theory about in
virtue of what moral words mean what they do; we only need to apply the best
theory that we have about in virtue of what words mean what they do, in general.
And he offers this theory in order to make room for the view that moral words do
have the same kind of meaning as other, nonmoral, words, and in particular that
they pick out natural properties in the world.
An important competitor to causal theories like Boyd’s (sometimes known as
“Cornell” realism, after Boyd’s institutional affiliation and that of some of his
sympathetic colleagues) is the “Canberra plan” espoused by Frank Jackson (1997)
(so called for Jackson’s institutional affiliation and that of some of his sympathetic
colleagues). Whereas Boyd’s theory appeals to causal relations in order to explain
how moral terms come to refer directly to properties, and does not make any
assumptions about linguistic competence, Canberra planners like Jackson suppose
that each moral term is associated with a set of “platitudes” which competent
speakers understand to be true. For example, competent users of the term “water”
will know that it is the watery stuff of our acquaintance which flows in the rivers and
falls from the sky as rain, and, similarly, competent users of the word “wrong” will
know that when someone thinks that something is wrong, she will tend to be
motivated not to do it, unless she is being irrational. Or they might know that if one
action is wrong and another is not, then the former action is worse than the latter.
According to Jackson’s theory, “wrong” refers to that property, whatever it is, which
best fits the platitudes with which it is associated. Like Boyd’s theory, Jackson’s theory
treats moral words on a par with nonmoral words, holding that they require no
special foundational semantic theory. But unlike Boyd, Jackson not only seeks to
make room for the view that moral terms refer to natural properties, but uses his
foundational semantic theory to actually argue that moral terms must refer to natural
properties.
In a series of overlapping papers (especially Horgan and Timmons 1991), Terry
Horgan and Mark Timmons have argued that any foundational semantic theory
whatsoever which explains how moral words come to refer to properties must fail.
According to Horgan and Timmons, their view dispatches theories like Jackson’s
and Boyd’s with equal ease. Their argument trades on trying to raise a disanalogy
between words like “good” and words like “water,” on which both Boyd and Jackson
model their theories. Whereas Boyd and Jackson assume that “water” and “good” are
similar, Horgan and Timmons’ argument is designed to suggest that they require a
very different foundational semantic theory (and consequently, they infer, a very
different descriptive semantic theory).
4
The disanalogy is supposed to be that whereas it is easy to imagine “Twin Earth”

examples, in which people live in a world that is mostly indistinguishable from ours,
and speak a language that is mostly indistinguishable from English, but whose word
“water” means something different from ours, it is very difficult to imagine “Moral
Twin Earth” examples, in which people live in a world that is mostly indistinguishable
from ours, and speak a language that is mostly indistinguishable from ours, but
whose word “good” means something different from ours. Horgan and Timmons
contend that because Boyd’s and Jackson’s theories treat “water” and “good” in
fundamentally the same way, and since it is possible for there to be a Twin Earth
scenario in which there is a world like ours but where “water” means something
different, Boyd and Jackson are committed to holding that it is possible for there to
be Moral Twin Earth scenarios in which there is a world like ours but where “good”
means something different. Against this, Horgan and Timmons allege that it is
intuitively clear that in any world that is very much like ours in terms of people’s
behavior, linguistic and otherwise, people’s word “good” would have the same
meaning as our word “good” (see twin earth, moral).
At the heart of Horgan and Timmons’ argument is the idea that attitudes matter
more than properties to moral disagreement. Following an old argument of Hare’s
(1951) that has also been developed by James Dreier (1990), they invite us to consider
a world in which people call different things “good” and “bad” than we do, but are
still generally motivated to pursue what they call “good” and avoid what they call
“bad” (see hare, r. m.). Each of these authors invites us to infer that despite the
difference in what people apply the words “good” and “bad” to, these people still
mean the same thing as we do by those terms. This is what makes Horgan and
Timmons believe that moral words are not “Twin Earth-able.”
There are several problems with Horgan and Timmons’ argument, one of which
is illustrated by inferential role foundational semantic theories, such as that defended
by Ralph Wedgwood (2007). According to inferential role theories, words mean
what they do because of the inferential or “conceptual” role that those words play.
The best examples for such theories are logical words like “and.” If a society has a
word “*” with the features that when “P” and “Q” are sentences, people are willing to
infer “P * Q” from “P” and “Q,” and are willing to infer either of “P” or “Q” from
“P * Q,” then that is pretty much what it takes for “*” to mean what “and” does.
Wedgwood’s version of inferential role semantics is somewhat complicated, because
it is primarily a theory about how concepts come to refer to properties, and leaves out
the story of in virtue of what words express the concepts that they do. But the basic
idea is that just as “and” is associated with elimination rules as well as introduction
rules, the inferential role of “ought” is primarily its elimination rule: that if you
believe “I ought to do A,” then you are to form not another belief, but an intention to
do A. According to Wedgwood’s theory, this is what makes “ought” refer to the
property that it does. Wedgwood’s conceptual role theory, or one like it, can
intuitively explain why moral terms aren’t “Twin Earth-able”; if people were not
motivated in accordance with their “ought” judgments, then they would not be using
“ought” with the inferential role that gives it the meaning that it has.
5
The Nature of Moral Semantics
As just discussed, Wedgwood accepts a truth-conditional descriptive moral

semantics, but uses an inferential-role foundational theory in order to explain why
the meaning of moral words like “ought” is closely tied to motivation. In contrast,
Horgan and Timmons advocate following Stevenson (1944), Hare, and other
philosophers in the “non-cognitivist” tradition, and accepting the view that moral
words require a different kind of descriptive semantic theory, because they have a
different kind of meaning from ordinary nonmoral words (see stevenson, c. l.;
emotivism; non-cognitivism).
A. J. Ayer articulated a clear version of this idea in Language, Truth, and Logic
(1936), where he suggested that “he acted wrongly” does not say anything more, or
different, from “he acted” (see ayer, a. j.). The word “wrongly,” Ayer held, does not
contribute to what is said by the sentence, but only reflects how it is said – with
disapproval. In that way, the meaning of “wrongly” is much like that of “the heck,” as
in “what the heck was Ayer’s theory?” In the 1950s R. M. Hare offered a more
nuanced and sophisticated cousin to Ayer’s theory; rather than saying that moral
words don’t contribute to the “significance” of sentences, as Ayer did, Hare held that
moral words contribute in the kind of way that mood-markers for imperative and
interrogative mood contribute – rather than in the kind of way that nonmoral
adjectives contribute.
Both Ayer’s and Hare’s theories were therefore built on analogies with other words.
But these analogies rapidly break down when we consider more interesting and
complex sentences. For example, consider the sentence, “if being friendly is wrong,
then my parents lied to me.” Ayer’s view, according to which “wrong” doesn’t add to
the significance of the sentence, should let us remove “is wrong” to get a sentence
that says the same thing, but merely in a different way: “if being friendly, then my
parents lied to me.” But this sentence doesn’t even make any sense, much less is it
plausible that it says the same thing in a different way. To take another example,
“Max did everything wrong” turns into “Max did everything,” when we take out
“wrong.” In this case the new sentence makes sense, but does not need to be true in
order for the first sentence to be acceptable. So these are certainly not different ways
of saying the same thing.
Some complex sentences make sense on Hare’s theory. For example, Hare carefully
noted that we can issue negative imperatives, such as “don’t shut the door,” and that
these conflict with their positive counterparts (“shut the door”) in something very
analogous to the way that “I shut the door” and “I did not shut the door” conflict.
So negative imperatives are a model for negated moral sentences. Similarly, we can
issue conjunctive imperatives, like “shut the door and open the window,” which, like
conjunctive indicative sentences, conflict with the negatives of each of their
conjuncts – that is, with “don’t shut the door” and with “don’t open the window.”
But it is hard to mix indicative and imperative sentences under conjunctions or
disjunctions: try “shut the door and I did it yesterday” or “I shut the door or open the
window.” If mixed-mood sentences like these don’t really make sense, that is a
6
problem for Hare’s view, according to which the former is like “stealing is wrong and
I stole” and the latter is like “I stole or lying is wrong.” Both of these sentences make
perfect sense. Ordinary truth-conditional theories of meaning, which treat moral
predicates like “good” and “wrong” in exactly the same way as they treat nonmoral
predicates like “tall” and “square,” can easily explain what these complex sentences
mean. But if we take Hare’s analogy at face value, it is hard to do so.
Later theorists inspired by Ayer, Hare, and others have proposed that to understand
what moral words mean, we need to understand what kinds of thoughts they express,
rather than, as Ayer and Hare held, what they are used to do. In general, according
to the central idea of expressivism, to know what “P” means, we need to know what
it is to think that P. Moral words and nonmoral words have a different kind of
descriptive meaning, according to expressivists, because thinking that stealing is
wrong is a different kind of mental state from thinking that grass is green. Thinking
that grass is green is just having an ordinary descriptive belief about grass, but
thinking that murder is wrong is not having the same kind of belief about murder –
rather, it is a matter of having a negative attitude toward murder: call it “disapproval.”
Because disapproval isn’t just ordinary descriptive belief, “wrong” has a different
kind of meaning from “green.”
It is well known that expressivists still face a serious problem accounting for the
meanings of complex sentences. Following Geach (1960), much of the literature
focuses on conditional sentences, but the simplest case is negation. Given the
meaning of “stealing is wrong,” an adequate compositional descriptive semantic
theory should be able to generate the meaning of “stealing is not wrong.” Since
according to expressivism the meaning of “P” consists in what it would be to think
that P, expressivists need a recipe which tells us what it is to think that stealing is not
wrong, given what it is to think that stealing is wrong, as input. But no such recipe
has been forthcoming from expressivists, and a simple structural assumption makes
it hard to see how there could be one (see frege–geach objection).
Nicholas Unwin (1999) illustrated the structural problem by asking us to consider
the following four sentences:
w Jon thinks that stealing is wrong.

n1 Jon does not think that stealing is wrong.
n2 Jon thinks that stealing is not wrong.
n3 Jon thinks that not stealing is wrong.
The project of saying what “stealing is not wrong” means, in expressivist terms, is the
project of saying what it takes for n2 to be true. But since expressivists have already
told us what it takes for w to be true, we can make the following observations:
w Jon disapproves of stealing.

n1 Jon does not disapprove of stealing.
n2 ???
n3 Jon disapproves of not stealing.
7
The structural problem is that “Jon disapproves of stealing” has less structure than
“Jon thinks that stealing is wrong,” and so it admits of one fewer place in which we
can put a “not.” But the place that it is missing, is precisely the place that we need to
put a “not” in order to understand what it would take for n2 to be true – which is
what it takes to have an expressivist account of the meaning of “stealing is not
wrong.” This basic structural problem remains at the bottom of a wide range of
unsolved problems facing the expressivist project.
Some new descriptive moral semantic theories, including those of Copp (2001),
Ridge (2006), and those discussed in Schroeder (2009), depart both from ordinary
truth-conditional semantics and from pure expressivism, and advocate the view that
moral words like “good” need to be associated with ordinary truth-conditions and
with speech-acts or attitudes. (Many of the original non-cognitivist theories,
particularly including Stevenson’s, were antecedents of this idea.) These theorists
suppose that since they are allowing that moral words have ordinary truth-
conditions, they will not face the special problems faced by expressivists in
accounting for the meanings of complex sentences, but that since they are allowing
that there is more to the meaning of moral words than truth-conditions, they can
also explain the apparently distinctive features of moral language, including its
putative connection to motivation.
Whether such “hybrid” descriptive moral semantic theories will get the results
they promise, however, without incurring significant costs of their own, is still an
open question; it is already clear that there are many, and deeply different, ways of
developing a hybrid theory, and that these ways will differ widely in their prospects
and commitments.
Theory-Neutral Questions
Even once we settle on a theory about what kind of descriptive semantic theory
we need in order to adequately account for the meaning of moral words, and
what kind of foundational semantic theory we need in order to explain in virtue
of what they mean what they do, there is still a wide range of questions left open
about the meanings of individual words. The most interesting of these questions
are ones that confront us no matter what kind of foundational semantic theory
we accept, and no matter whether we have a truth-conditional descriptive
semantic theory, or otherwise. Here we’ll be able to consider just a couple of
examples.
According to some philosophers, moral sentences are not true or false simpliciter,
but require completion in some way in order to be evaluated for truth – by something
like a point of view, or a value system. This kind of relativistic view involves a
hypothesis about each and every moral term assumed to be so relativized – “good,”
“right,” “ought,” and so on – that its semantics involves a relational structure with an
extra argument place to be filled by a point of view. So relativism like this is just one
example of many issues that can turn on the argument structure of the semantics for
moral words.
8
Another example comes from an ongoing debate about the semantic structure
of “good.” G. E. Moore (1903) famously claimed that “good” denotes a simple and
unanalyzable property, in the course of elaborating his metaethical and norma-
tive theory (see moore, g. e.). Against Moore, Geach (1956) argued that “good”
can’t denote a property, because it is really a predicate modifier. Rather than hav-
ing only one argument place, as Moore assumed, the word “good” is properly
used in sentences like “he is a good man” or “he is a good skier.” These sentences
are not equivalent to conjunctions of the form, “he is good and he is a man” or “he
is good and he is a skier”; rather, “man” and “skier” play a role in the semantics for
“good.”
Another problem with Moore’s idea that “good” denotes a simple property, is that
it gave him trouble in making sense of what it means for something to be good for
someone. Ethical egoism is the view that each person ought to do what will bring
about the most of what is good for her, and Moore famously tried to refute this view
by invoking his assumption that “good” denotes a property, rather than a relation to
individuals. Given Moore’s assumption, he assumed that egoists had to mean that
each person ought to do what will bring about the most of what is good and in her
possession, or the most of what it is good that she possesses. And then Moore
showed that given either of these two interpretations, ethical egoism is incoherent.
But most observers (Smith 2003) have noted that the tables can just as well be flipped
– since ethical egoism certainly makes perfect sense, Moore has a problem, since he
can’t make sense of what it is for something to be good for someone (see egoism).
Capitalizing on problems like this for Moore, Judith Jarvis Thomson (2001) has
argued that “good” never denotes a property, but that it is central to consequentialism
that it does, and hence that consequentialism is deeply flawed (see consequentialism).
Another kind of theory requires an extra argument place for “good” in order to
explain agent-centered constraints in a consequentialist framework. If we understand
consequentialism as the thesis that everyone ought always to do what will bring
about the most good, it appears to be inconsistent with what are known as
agent-centered constraints (sometimes called “restrictions”) – things that you ought
not to do, even if by doing them you can get more other people not to do them
(see agent-centered restrictions). For example, it is plausible that you ought
not to murder, even if by murdering you can prevent two other murders (perhaps it
is okay to murder to prevent a thousand murders – agent-centered constraints need
not be absolute side-constraints). Ordinary consequentialism can’t allow this,
because there is no way of ranking how bad each murder is, which can explain why
each person ought not to murder even in order to prevent two other murders.
Consequentialists can explain why one person ought not to murder even in order to
prevent two other murders – but only by assuming that the first person’s murders
would be worse than the others. But then according to consequentialism, it would
make sense for other people to murder in order to prevent the first person from
murdering. There is simply no “agent-neutral” way of evaluating how good or bad
outcomes are that can account for agent-centered constraints in consequentialist
terms (see agent-relative vs. agent-neutral).
9
Some theorists who accept the existence of agent-centered constraints therefore

argue that we need to think that “good” has an extra argument place for an agent,
so that “everyone ought always to do what will bring about the most good” can be
interpreted as “∀x(x ought always to do what will bring about the most goodx)” If
“good” is agent-relative in this way, then even though there is no single way of
evaluating how good or bad outcomes are that can capture constraints, there may
be a combination of ways of evaluating how good or bad outcomes are – namely,
one for each agent – which allows us to explain constraints. This leads to a theory
that is supposed to be a generalization of consequentialism that can escape some
of its major problems. But it turns on an assumption about the logical structure of
“good” – namely, whether it has a surprising extra argument place for an agent in
this way.
All of the issues that I’ve mentioned so far turn on the argument structure of
“good,” which is a theory-neutral semantic question. Any descriptive semantics for
“good” will have to build in an understanding of how many argument places “good”
has, what sort of things fill those argument places, and how the things filling those
argument places are determined. The same thing goes for expressivists and
truth-conditional semanticists alike – although here, too, things can get complicated,
as some authors have argued that if “good” has more than one argument place, that
will be a problem for expressivists. In the abstract, it’s hard to see why this would be
so, but Horgan and Timmons’ (2006) expressivist theory gives us an example of how
at least one expressivist theory can run into a similar kind of trouble.
Horgan and Timmons’ theory doesn’t tell us anything about what “good” or, for
that matter, any other moral adjective means. But they do tell us what “ought” means.
On their view, the difference between “Max runs” and “Max ought to run” is that
“Max runs” expresses an is-belief in the proposition that Max runs, and “Max ought
to run” expresses an ought-belief in the proposition that Max runs. Same proposition,
but different attitudes. Theirs is an expressivist view, because it holds that rather
than contributing to the truth-conditions of the sentence, or to what someone
believes, who accepts a sentence in which it figures, “ought” functions to change the
kind of belief that you have, when you accept a sentence in which it figures. Rather
than an is-belief, it is an ought-belief.
In order to work, Horgan and Timmons’ view therefore requires the assumption
that “ought” has exactly one semantic argument, which is filled by a proposition.
This is the kind of picture of “ought” that is manifest in some ways of interpreting
Standard Deontic Logic, according to which “ought” is a propositional operator,
and all simple sentences involving “ought” amount to saying that something ought
to be the case (see deontic logic). (The thesis that “Max ought to run” is equiva-
lent to “it ought to be that Max runs” is sometimes known as the Meinong-
Chisholm thesis.)
This theory about the nature of “ought,” however, is very controversial. According
to John Broome (1999) and Ralph Wedgwood (2007), for example, though “ought”
is indeed a propositional operator, there is one important sense of “ought” on which
it has a separate argument place, for an agent, in addition to its argument place for a
10
proposition. If Broome’s and Wedgwood’s view is right, then sentences involving

that “agential” sense of “ought” cannot be understood in terms of a distinctive kind
of attitude that the speaker bears toward a proposition, as Horgan and Timmons
claim, because such an account could not distinguish between accepting the “ought”
sentence relative to one agent, and accepting it relative to another. Moreover, other
theorists, prominently including Peter Geach (1982) and Gilbert Harman (1973),
have gone farther, arguing that “ought” does not have an argument place for a
proposition at all. If Geach and Harman are right, a view like Horgan and Timmons’
would certainly fail.
Extra argument places for “ought” have also been argued for from other directions.
According to a standard linguist’s treatment of “ought,” which offers a unified
explanation of how “ought” works in both deontic and “epistemic” uses, “ought”
sentences require both a modal base and an ordering source in order to be semantically
interpretable (Kratzer 1977). And another dispute concerns whether and in what
sense “ought” is relative to evidence. In poker, it may be that a player ought to fold,
relative to her own evidence, but that she ought to call, relative to the evidence of
someone who has seen both her cards and her opponent’s. Any of these extra
argument places for “ought” would raise problems for Horgan and Timmons’ theory,
which is just one example of many of how questions about argument structure,
which are theory-neutral in nature, can have broader implications for other questions
about moral semantics, as well as for broader questions in both normative and
metaethics.
See also: agent-centered restrictions; agent-relative vs.

agent-neutral; ayer, a. j.; consequentialism; deontic logic; egoism;
emotivism; frege–geach objection; hare, r. m.; moore, g. e.; non-cognitivism;
reductionism in ethics; stevenson, c. l.; twin earth, moral
REFERENCES
Ayer, A. J. 1936. Language, Truth, and Logic. New York: Dover.
Boyd, Richard 1988. “How to Be a Moral Realist,” in Geoffrey Sayre-McCord (ed.), Essays on
Moral Realism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, pp. 181–228.
Broome, John 1999. “Normative Requirements,” Ratio, vol. 12, no. 4, pp. 398–419.
Copp, David 2001. “Realist Expressivism: A Neglected Option for Moral Realism,” Social
Dreier, James 1990. “Internalism and Speaker Relativism,” Ethics, vol. 101, no. 1, pp. 6–25.
Geach, Peter 1960. “Ascriptivism,” Philosophical Review, vol. 69, pp. 221–5.
Geach, Peter 1982. “Whatever Happened to Deontic Logic?” Philosophia, vol. 11, pp. 1–12.
Harman, Gilbert 1973. “Review of The Significance of Sense: Meaning, Modality, and Morality,”
Philosophical Review, vol. 82, no. 2, pp. 235–9.
Horgan, Terry, and Mark Timmons 1991. “New Wave Moral Realism Meets Moral Twin
11
Horgan, Terry, and Mark Timmons 2006. “Cognitivist Expressivism,” in Terry Horgan and
Mark Timmons (eds.), Metaethics After Moore. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
pp. 255–98.
Kratzer, Angelika 1977. “What ‘Must’ and ‘Can’ Must and Can Mean,” Linguistics and
Ridge, Michael 2006. “Ecumenical Expressivism: Finessing Frege,” Ethics, vol. 116, no. 2,
pp. 302–36.
Schroeder, Mark 2009. “Hybrid Expressivism: Virtues and Vices,” Ethics, vol. 119, no. 2,
pp. 257–309.
Smith, Michael 2003. “Neutral and Relative Value after Moore,” Ethics, vol. 113, pp. 576–98.
Stevenson, C. L. 1944. Ethics and Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Thomson, Judith Jarvis 2001. Goodness and Advice. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Unwin, Nicholas 1999. “Quasi-Realism, Negation and the Frege-Geach Problem,” The
Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 49, no. 196, pp. 337–52.
FURTHER READINGS
Cariani, Fabrizio 2009. The Semantics of “Ought” and the Unity of Modal Discourse. PhD
dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.
Dreier, James 1993. “The Structure of Normative Theories,” Monist, vol. 76, no. 1,
pp. 22–40.
Finlay, Stephen 2005. “Value and Implicature,” Philosophers’ Imprint, vol. 5, no. 4. At
www.philosophersimprint.org/ 005004/.
Hare, R. M. 1970. “Meaning and Speech Acts,” Philosophical Review, vol. 79, no. 1, pp. 3–24.
Schroeder, Mark 2008. Being For: Evaluating the Semantic Program of Expressivism. Oxford:
1
Dilemmas, Moral
Carla Bagnoli
Moral dilemmas are cases where agents are bound by conflicting moral claims and
cannot resolve the conflict by further deliberation. Jean-Paul Sartre (1957) relates
the dilemma of a student torn between joining the Resistance and assisting his
mother at home. He is bound by patriotic and filial duties. Either he fails to do his
part in liberating his country, or he fails to support his mother.
While literature abounds with these cases, and our experience of moral choice and
deliberation seems to confirm that such cases occur in real life, philosophers sharply
disagree about what moral dilemmas are and what they show. Most normative ethical
theories devise strategies for resolving moral dilemmas or explaining them away,
assuming that an adequate moral theory should not admit them. Mainly because of
the seminal work of Bernard Williams (1973, 1985; see williams, bernard), this
assumption has been under attack in recent debates. Williams argues that the expec-
tation that normative ethics could resolve all kinds of moral dilemmas is misplaced
because they cannot be definitively eliminated or prevented. He challenges the very
idea that the practical relevance of ethical theory resides in its capacity to give us
determinate and precise instructions about what to do. By discounting our experience
of moral dilemmas, ethical theory misunderstands the complexity of moral life and
becomes a useless simplification. This dispute revolves around several and partly
overlapping foci: the nature of moral dilemmas, the criteria of adequacy of ethical
theory, the nature of value, and the structure of deliberation.
This essay offers first an overview of the most important definitions of moral
dilemmas and their philosophical relevance. The second section examines four main
arguments for and against moral dilemmas: the argument from logical incoherence
and the argument from practical irrationality count against the possibility of moral
dilemmas; the argument from emotional experience and the argument from value
incommensurability count in favor of the possibility of moral dilemmas. The third
section examines how traditional normative ethics deals with moral dilemmas. The
fourth section considers moral dilemmas as a test of adequacy for ethical theory, and
discusses their importance in identifying the desiderata of ethical theory.
The Problem of Definition: What is a Moral Dilemma?

One important aspect of the controversy about moral dilemmas is how best to
interpret and formally define cases such as Sartre’s student. There are alternative
definitions of moral dilemmas, each with distinctive philosophical implications.
Some distinguish between “epistemic” and “ontological” dilemmas (McConnell
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee107
2
2003). Epistemic moral dilemmas arise because of subjective uncertainty, negli-

gence (see negligence), or some cognitive defects of the agent. Ontological moral
dilemmas are not due to such subjective shortcomings, but depend on the nature
of the values and obligations. This distinction corresponds to that between a
“subjective quandary” (in which one does not know what to do, and does not
know whether anything can settle the matter, but there is a fact that settles the
matter), and an “objective quandary” (in which one does not know what to do,
and there is no fact that settles the matter). The philosophical debates on moral
dilemmas typically focus on ontological moral dilemmas and discount epistemic
dilemmas as spurious, unless it is independently shown that in those cases incom-
patible obligations really apply.
Most definitions of ontological dilemmas deploy deontic concepts and define
moral dilemmas in terms of “ought,” where this term may stand for “duty,” “obliga-
tion,” “requirement,” or “reason” (see ought; duty and obligation; reason and
passion). Defined in terms of duty or obligation, moral dilemmas are particularly
problematic. On this deontic interpretation, collisions of duties are the practical
analogues of contradictions, and thus raise the issue of incoherence. Some philoso-
phers argue that plausible principles of deontic logic do not preclude the possibility
of prohibition dilemmas, even when they exclude the possibility of conflicts of
obligations (Vallentyne 1987). Prohibition dilemmas are cases in which all feasible
actions are forbidden. The definition of moral dilemmas in terms of prohibitions
has the advantage of capturing the sense of inescapable wrongdoing that is associ-
ated with the experience of moral dilemmas.
To avoid the objection of logical incoherence, some define dilemmas by weaker
deontic concepts, such as pro tanto reasons or prima facie duties, which admit
of being overridden by an all-things-considered judgment about what to do
(Ross 1930; Hare 1981; see ross, w. d.; hare, r. m.). While these weaker definitions
present the advantage of avoiding the charge of incoherence, they suggest that
all-things-considered judgments cancel the normative force of the claim overrid-
den and thus resolve the dilemma. To this extent, such proposals do not seem to
adequately represent the predicament faced by agents in moral dilemmas, where
wrongdoing seems inescapable.
One more attractive definition of moral dilemmas is in terms of moral
requirements, whose violation is a case of wrongdoing, unless they are overridden
by a stronger moral consideration (Sinnott-Armstrong 1988: Ch. 1). Moral dilem-
mas are cases where some moral requirements conflict and yet neither of the con-
flicting requirements is overridden or overriding. This definition is consistent with
the experience of wrongdoing, sense of guilt, and blameworthiness that typically
accompany moral dilemmas.
Some philosophers purposefully avoid deontic concepts in their account of moral
dilemmas. For instance, Nussbaum analyses Agamemnon’s predicament and his
decision to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia in terms of loyalties and claims
(Nussbaum 1986: 34–6). This conflict is a dilemma because it is inescapable and
destructive of Agamemnon’s integrity. These descriptions have the merit of pointing
3
out that moral dilemmas are of philosophical relevance not only because they tell us
something about the logic of moral ought and the consistency of ethical systems, but
also and perhaps more importantly because of their implications for moral integrity
and practical identity.
Arguments For and Against Moral Dilemmas

The argument from incoherence
In Plato’s Euthyphro (8a) Socrates argues that moral dilemmas are akin to logical
contradictions, and thus undermine the distinction between what is pious and what
impious (see plato). Many modern and contemporary philosophers share the
Socratic view and argue that moral dilemmas are signs of incoherence. This argu-
ment allows for different variations.
One important variation of this argument defines moral dilemmas in terms of
obligations and takes obligations as the practical analogue of alethic modalities.
Accordingly, it takes as axioms the principle of agglomeration which states that
“I ought to do a” and “I ought to do b” together imply “I ought to do a ∧ b,” and the
principle “ought implies can” (Donagan 1984; see ought implies can). On the
basis of this deontic axiomatization, one can define dilemmas as a contradiction
of the form “I ought to do a ∧ ¬ a,” which makes ethical theory inconsistent.
Inconsistent theories are trivial. This is because of the “principle of explosion,”
which holds that one can logically derive any conclusion from a contradiction. If so,
by admitting moral dilemmas ethical theory faces a deontic collapse and becomes
incapable of drawing interesting distinctions between prohibitions, obligations, and
permissions.
Most replies to the argument of deontic collapse are strategies that contain
incoherence by weakening the deontic axiomatization. This is accomplished by
relaxing either the axiom of agglomeration (Marcus 1980) or the principle “ought
implies can.” A more radical option is to relinquish the requirement of logical
consistency and reject the principle of explosion. Paraconsistent logicians argue
that even though moral dilemmas are contradictions, they do not lead to deontic
collapse. That is because it is possible to insulate the contradiction and thus warrant
interesting nontrivial inferences in logically contradictory systems (Routley and
Plumwood 1989).
There are deontic formalizations of moral dilemmas that avoid deontic collapse,
and there are consistent ethical systems that admit of dilemmas. This debate shows
that the deontic formalizations express controversial moral intuitions about the
structure of the moral domain, and thus arguments based on deontic logic are not as
neutral as they are generally thought to be. On the contrary, such arguments depend
on specific and tacit presumptions about the nature of morality and of the purpose
of ethical theory.
Furthermore, it is questionable whether all dilemmas are cases of logical
contradiction (Marcus 1980). Some moral dilemmas arise when there is a conflict
4
between two different obligations “I ought to do a” and “I ought to do b,” rather than
two opposite obligations “I ought to do a” and “I ought to do ¬ a.” In this case, the
obligations are merely incompatible, and the contradiction is derived thanks to
the addition of an empirical premise “I cannot do a ∧ b” (Nussbaum 1986: 47–8).
These are genuine cases of moral dilemmas that occur in consistent ethical theories.
The argument from practical irrationality

According to a long-standing tradition, the state of health of the self is characterized
by the unity of the will, which is the faculty of choice. Moral dilemmas are cases
where the agent’s will is fragmented and cannot choose. Ambivalence, indecision,
and dilemmas all count as signs of practical irrationality. This view is typically
associated with rationalism, which is the claim that there are moral truths which
reason is capable of discerning.
In defending this position, contemporary philosophers appeal to Aquinas’
distinction between perplexitas secundum quid and perplexitas simpliciter (Donagan
1984; see aquinas, saint thomas). On this view, moral dilemmas arise because
the agent committed a moral crime and are the consequence of his moral wrong
(perplexitas secundum quid). These are spurious dilemmas because they always
depend on some inadequacy of the agent, such as ignorance or culpable negligence.
However, there cannot be cases where the agent through no fault of his own finds
himself bound by two incompatible obligations (perplexitas simpliciter). The impos-
sibility of this latter sort of case shows that the moral realm is perfectly ordered.
This gives imperfect and defective agents reassurance that objective obligations
never conflict, but it leaves them with the practical problem of fulfilling seemingly
contradictory obligations generated through their own fault.
The view that moral dilemmas invariably depend on subjective shortcomings has
the advantage of avoiding the objection of incoherence. Agents often are negligent,
precipitate, rushed, and have limited access to relevant information. Some moral dilem-
mas are certainly due to the agent’s limitations and defects. The question is whether all
moral dilemmas are due to such subjective failures. To propose that all moral dilemmas
originate in subjective defects is to judge ordinary moral experience as invariably
marred by error. This approach raises important issues about the nature of value and
the complex and multifaceted demands of morality. It assumes that there is always one
answer to the question of what is morally reasonable to do in any given situation, which
the agent may fail to see. The canonical objection is that this ethical theory underesti-
mates the contingent complexity of the situation as well as the possibility that no option
available to the agents leaves their moral integrity intact (Williams 1981).
The argument from emotional experience

The main argument for the possibility of moral dilemmas starts with the agent’s
emotional experience (Williams 1973; Nussbaum 1986: Ch. 2; Greenspan 1995).
When moral claims conflict, we feel regret (Williams 1973) or guilt (Greenspan
5
1995) no matter which option we choose (see regret; guilt). These negative
emotions emerge through moral thinking and are taken to show a deliberative
residue, which signals a loss in value.
The canonical objection against this sort of argument is that the negative emotions
may be misplaced or they are not residual. In the first case, the agent’s feeling is
irrational, since she does not have reason to regret what she has done. In the second
case, her regret does not have moral value, because she really did the right thing
to do. The phenomenology of inevitable wrongdoing can be explained without
admitting that moral obligations may collide. For instance, if guilty feelings are
associated with the violation of prima facie duties, rather than obligations, their
presence is rationally justified when they are overridden in moral deliberation (Hare
1981). In such cases, though, there is no moral remainder. Invoking these cases,
many hold that the argument from emotional experience is question begging. Either
side of the dispute over the possibility of moral dilemmas can plausibly account for
the appropriateness of negative moral emotions. Their disagreement concerns the
standards of appropriateness of negative emotions such as regret and guilt, which
may be appropriate even when the agent did nothing wrong. Others find paradoxical
that one is blameworthy and should feel guilty no matter what one does.
The force of the argument from emotional experience and of the counterargu-
ments to it depends significantly on further disputes about the nature of emotions
and their epistemological import. Supporters of this argument hold that the
phenomenology of dilemmas is not intelligible unless we take into account the
sentiments of regret and guilt as genuine practical responses assessable on the basis
of some criteria of correctness or appropriateness. To make sense of emotions as
practical responses, one has to admit that they have cognitive and evaluative content
(Nussbaum 1986). Even when emotions are taken to count as practical responses,
whether they really show the possibility of moral dilemmas depends on further
claims about the nature of value and the structure of deliberation.
The argument from value incommensurability

The arguments about the incommensurability of value occupy a special position
in the debate about moral dilemmas. It is arguable that both the arguments about
consistency and the arguments about emotions ultimately rest on presumptions
about the nature of value and the structure of deliberation. When values are plural,
conflicts of values are inevitable. If there is no general criterion that solves their
conflict, no principled way to rank the values at stake, and no independent value
that may be invoked as the umpire, moral dilemmas become pervasive and inevitable
(Williams 1981). Thus, in dilemmatic contexts, something valuable goes lost; and
this loss justifies the emotional experience of regret or guilt. The incommensurability
of value or the absence of a universal currency makes trade-offs and compromises
impossible without moral residue. One significant consequence of the argument
from incommensurability is that moral dilemmas are far more pervasive than we
6
may think if we only focus on tragic choices. If values are incommensurable, moral
dilemmas are ubiquitous, an ineradicable feature of our moral life.
The hypothesis of the incommensurability of values is widely shared. Interestingly,
it is also at work in many arguments against the admissibility of moral dilemmas.
The thrust of these arguments is that by admitting incommensurable values, ethical
theory abandons the aim of providing a method of practical reasoning that helps the
agent determine what to do (Hare 1981). Some further object that value pluralism
turns every choice into an insoluble riddle and makes ethical theory impractical. To
be relevant in practice, they argue, ethical theory should determine what our duty is
for any choice we face. The commensurability of value is regarded as a necessary
condition for ethical theory to perform this task. In this respect, monistic theories,
which take value to be commensurable and uniform, seem to be at a significant
advantage. Against this view, pluralists argue that the apparent advantage of monism
is achieved at a very high cost: by privileging normative determinacy monism
becomes incapable of taking into account the experience of moral agents.
While incommensurability of values prevents trade-offs and compensation
among kinds of values, it is debatable whether it also prevents any sort of comparison.
It is thus useful to distinguish between incommensurability and comparability of
value (Williams 1985: 17). Pluralists also admit of several strategies for ranking
values which do not presume full commensurability, such as partial orderings,
dominant orderings, vague orderings, and specification (Chang 1997). An impor-
tant point of agreement among various pluralist models is that failures of commen-
surability and/or comparability are not threats to practical rationality. On the
contrary, one may argue that in such contexts it is irrational to expect a uniform
solution for all kinds of value conflicts. On the basis of this argument, Thomas Nagel
holds that justification in ethics is not homogenous, but reflects the fragmentation
and plurality of values. In some cases, incompatible actions are fully justified on the
basis of different values, and it is absurd to search for a method or a decision
procedure that applies across different value domains (Nagel 1979).
Moreover, it is debatable whether commensurability frees us from moral
dilemmas. Symmetrical moral dilemmas count as cases against this claim. In
symmetrical moral dilemmas, the agent faces a choice between two incompatible
actions, which are equally justified on the basis of the same value. These cases are
generally discounted as spurious or irrelevant on the assumption that, when there is
no failure of commensurability, choice between symmetrical requirements is
indifferent and can be determined by randomization. The appeal to randomization
allows the agent to overcome a deliberative impasse, but it does not really resolve the
moral dilemma. This is because randomization fails to provide the agent with a
genuine moral reason for action. In these cases, like when options are incommensu-
rate, reason can neither determine nor completely explain our choices or actions.
Agents cannot rationally refuse to act, but action is arbitrary. While arbitrary actions
are not irrational, they cannot be taken to express full agency and authorship of
action. On this view, then, moral dilemmas undermine the agent’s authority over his
action, rather than showing a failure of value commensurability.
7
Moral Dilemmas and Normative Ethics

Normative ethical theories approach moral dilemmas in order to solve them or explain
them away. utilitarianism and Kantian ethics are often regarded as promising free-
dom from dilemmas and thought to be capable of keeping the promise because of
their monistic structure (see utilitarianism; kantian practical ethics). If there
are interesting moral dilemmas that are not generated by failures of incommensurability,
it is arguable that such Kantian and utilitarian theories do not keep their promise.
Moreover, in striving for normative determinacy, these theories discount the agent’s
experience of morality and thus face the objection of misunderstanding moral life and
moral deliberation (Williams 1981, 1985). Recent debates in normative ethics show
that both utilitarians and Kantians have engaged in this dispute and attempted to
accommodate the phenomenology of moral dilemmas.
Utilitarians try to make room for dilemmas by distinguishing between ideal and
nonideal levels of moral thinking. At an ideal level, moral thinking is capable of
resolving all sorts of conflicts. Moral dilemmas occur at a nonideal level of moral
thinking, because of rational and epistemic defects (Hare 1981). More radical
attempts to account for moral dilemmas admit that the maximization of utility
allows for moral costs (Slote 1985); others introduce constraints on the maximization
of utility in order to protect the plurality of values.
The case of Kantian ethics is perhaps more complex. Some take Kantian ethics to
be a form of monistic deontology (see deontology) and hold either that it has the
merit of being free from dilemmas (Donagan 1984) or the disadvantage of being
false to facts (Williams 1973). However, recent scholars defend a pluralist Kantian
ethics, and reject the view that it is meant to offer a complete decision procedure or a
system of duties. In the Doctrine of Virtue, Kant famously held that moral obligations
cannot collide (see kant, immanuel). This is because he understands obligations
as unconditional imperatives, akin to practical necessity. However, he admitted that
there might be a conflict between grounds of obligations. In some cases, neither
ground of obligations has sufficient authority to determine the obligation, so ethical
theory cannot say that one obligation overrides the other, but only that the stronger
ground prevails (Kant 1983: 224). Scholars disagree about the implications of this
claim. Some Kantian philosophers argue that in such cases one has only a disjunctive
obligation. Others make room for more radical cases of moral dilemmas where imper-
sonal and personal sources of obligations clash (Nagel 1979). Like utilitarians (Hare
1981), Kantians point to the unfortunate gap between the ideal and nonideal condi-
tions of practical and epistemic rationality. However, it seems unlikely that the prob-
lem of moral dilemmas can be approached or solved by integrating ethical theory with
principles designed for imperfect agents (Williams 1981). No such integration could
prevent situations where agents, through no fault of their own, find themselves bound
by conflicting and nonoverridden moral claims. The resources of ethical theory do
not suffice to protect our moral integrity in such cases.
Aristotelian ethics seems to provide promising resources to account for the
experience of moral dilemmas. On the Aristotelian view, moral knowledge depends
8
on judgment and requires sensitivity to the particulars of the situation. Practical

wisdom consists in choosing the right action by moral discernment, without relying
on any decision procedure. Aristotle thinks that the ethical domain is inexact and
thus regards the search for normative determinacy as misguided (see aristotle).
His ethics seems hospitable to the idea that moral dilemmas are not only possible,
but also pervasive (Nussbaum 1986). However, the possibility of moral dilemmas
clashes with Aristotle’s claims about the unity of virtues, and the claim that the good
person is without regrets and remorse (Aristotle 2000: Book IX 1166a27–9). Aristotle
approaches the issue in discussing cases of mixed actions where a person of good
character is required to do something shameful, for instance because a tyrant holds
his family hostage (Book III, 1110a–1113b). Scholars disagree about whether these
cases are genuine moral dilemmas. For some, these are to be categorized as cases of
dirty hands (see dirty hands), which are kinds of moral dilemmas (Nussbaum
1986). For others, instead, the philosophical problem concerns what a wise person
would consider worthy of choice, and at the price of what. The question is whether
the agent shows good character, rather than which option he has most reason to
select. Mixed actions are revelatory of character. Other supporters of virtue ethics
provide a complex taxonomy of moral dilemmas, and show how virtue ethics can
resolve them (Hursthouse 1999: 43–62; see virtue ethics).
Moral Dilemmas and the Criteria of Adequacy of Ethical Theory

These disputes over the possibility of moral dilemmas call into question the criteria
of adequacy of ethical theory. Insofar as moral dilemmas are taken to be signs of
logical incoherence or normative indeterminacy, they undermine ethical theory as
a theoretical and practical enterprise. In both cases, moral dilemmas are considered
pathologies of practical reasoning, which ethical theory is required to explain away or
remedy. By contrast, supporters of moral dilemmas hold that they are not akin
to contradictions, and reveal the richness and complexity of value and moral life. They
argue that the primary task of ethical theory is not to instruct us about what to do, but
to give us the conceptual tools to reflect intelligently on the significance of moral life;
thus, it cannot simply ignore the agent’s experience of moral dilemmas (Williams
1981). Foes of moral dilemmas hold that ethical theory should be able to determine
the right action in any context of choice, in order to be of any practical relevance.
By admitting moral dilemmas, ethical theory shows itself to be inadequate to this task
and therefore it fails in its basic practical purpose. Both sides agree that an adequate
ethical theory should explain how it is that one faces such practical conflicts, but
disagree about whether ethical theory can accomplish this descriptive task without
admitting that moral obligations collide, instead imputing any apparent such collision
to subjective shortcomings on the part of the agent. This disagreement ultimately
concerns the notion of practical guidance. Some think of it in terms of normative
determinacy and expect ethical theory to provide a complete decision procedure for
resolving all moral conflict. Others regard this expectation as misplaced and the search
for determinacy misguided because ethics does not admit of uniform justification.
9
Bernard Williams (1973) was the first to voice the concern that searching for a
technique to eradicate moral conflict amounts to misunderstanding the nature of
moral claims and falsifying the logic of moral thought. This objection is mainly
directed against utilitarianism and Kantian ethics. Williams holds that such ethical
theories base their normative ambitions on the idea that there is a right answer to any
moral problem because there is a truth of the matter. That is, he takes moral dilemmas
to counter the plausibility of moral realism. Realist ethical theories treat moral judg-
ments as true or false assertions about a sector of reality, and assimilate them to
beliefs. In virtue of this assimilation, realism adopts an epistemic model of rationality
which reduces moral dilemmas to contradictions and describes practical reasoning
as a coherence-driven procedure of revision that aims to expunge false moral
beliefs. Williams (1973) argues that this model is inadequate in ethics because when
moral claims conflict we are not at liberty to get rid of one claim for the sake of con-
sistency. This is an influential argument, but it is also contested. Whether realism can
accommodate moral dilemmas crucially depends on the alleged implications of its
ontological and epistemological claims about the nature of morality (Marcus 1980;
Sinnott-Armstrong 1988).
See also: aquinas, saint thomas; aristotle; deontology; dirty hands;

duty and obligation; guilt; hare, r. m.; kant, immanuel; kantian
practical ethics; negligence; ought; ought implies can; overridingness,
moral; plato; reason and passion; regret; ross, w. d.; utilitarianism;
virtue ethics; williams, bernard
REFERENCES
Aquinas, Saint Thomas 1964. Summa Theologiae, trans. T. Gilby at al. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Aristotle 2000. Nicomachean Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Chang, Ruth (ed.) 1997. Incommensurability, Incomparability and Practical Reason.
Donagan, A. 1984. “Consistency in Rationalist Moral Systems,” Journal of Philosophy, vol. 81,
pp. 291–309.
Greenspan, Patricia S. 1995. Practical Guilt: Moral Dilemmas, Emotions, and Social Norms.
Hare, Richard M. 1981. Moral Thinking: Its Levels, Method and Point. Oxford: Oxford
Kant, Immanuel 1983 [1797]. Doctrine of Virtue, in A. Wood (ed.), Practical Philosophy.
McConnell, Terrance C. 2003. “Moral Dilemmas,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
At http//plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-dilemmas/.
Marcus, Ruth Barcan 1980. “Moral Dilemmas and Consistency,” Journal of Philosophy, vol. 77,
pp. 121–36.
Nagel, Thomas 1979. “The Fragmentation of Value,” in Mortal Questions. Cambridge:
10
Nussbaum, Martha. C. 1986. The Fragility of Goodness. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press.
Plato, 1997. Euthyphro, trans. David Gallopp. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Routley, Richard, and Val Plumwood 1989. “Moral Dilemmas and the Logic of Deontic
Notions,” in G. Priest, R. Routley, and J. Norman (eds.), Paraconsistent Logic: Essays on
the Inconsistent. Munich: Philosophia, pp. 653–90.
Sartre, Jean-Paul, 1957 [1946]. “Existentialism is a Humanism,” in Walter Kaufmann (ed.),
Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre. New York: Meridian, pp. 287–311.
Slote, Michael 1985. “Utilitarianism, Moral Dilemmas, and Moral Cost,” American
Vallentyne, Peter 1987. “Prohibition Dilemmas and Deontic Logic,” Logique et Analyse,
vol. 18, pp. 113–22.
Williams, Bernard 1973. “Ethical Consistency,” in Problems of the Self. Cambridge: Cambridge
Williams, Bernard 1981. “Conflicts of Values,” in Moral Luck. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
FURTHER READINGS
Baumann, Peter, and Monika Betzler (eds.) 2004. Practical Conflicts: New Philosophical
Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gowans, Christopher W. (ed.) 1987. Moral Dilemmas. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mason, Henry E. (ed.) 1996. Moral Dilemmas and Moral Theory. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Statman, Daniel 1995. Moral Dilemmas. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
1
Feminist Ethics
Grace Clement
Emerging as an identified area of academic philosophy in the 1980s, feminist ethics

begins with the assertion that there is a masculine bias in traditional ethics and
then goes on to rethink ethics and correct that bias. Feminist ethicists have shown
that the bulk of the Western philosophical tradition of ethical thinking has a mas-
culine bias in the sense that it focuses on and prioritizes the experiences and values
of men over those of women. This tradition is, in general, biased not only against
women but against the concerns, activities, and ways of thinking associated with
women. This bias is more often evident through a lack of attention to certain inter-
ests and experiences than through explicit denigration of them. Feminist ethicists
seek to reformulate ethics in ways that regard women and women’s experiences and
values as equally worthy of respect as men and men’s experiences and values. They
therefore often seek to demonstrate the moral significance of areas of human expe-
rience that have generally been excluded from the realm of moral significance in
traditional ethics. For instance, feminist ethics often concerns itself with the so-
called “private” realm of family and personal relations, care for children and other
dependents, and emotion and bodily experience, all areas of life which have been
regarded as “feminine” and none of which fits comfortably into traditional moral
frameworks.
However, feminist ethics is much more than an extension of traditional ethics to
include women and the feminine. It also involves a feminist interpretation of the femi-
nine; that is, the claim that femininity itself is not a natural fact about women and their
differences from men. It is, instead, a set of social expectations, or gender norms, by
which in a sexist society women are disadvantaged or disempowered relative to men.
Far from uncritically championing femininity, then, feminist ethicists call into question
gender norms to the extent that they undermine women’s equality, autonomy, or well-
being. Hilde Lindemann (2006: viii) has defined feminist ethics as “the attempt to
understand, criticize, and correct our moral beliefs and practices, using gender as a
central category of analysis.” In focusing on gender, feminist ethicists tend to pay close
attention to empirical and experiential facts of social life and seek to understand par-
ticular experiences and actions in the context of broader social forces, in contrast to
traditional moral philosophers who often focus more exclusively on moral ideals.
Because of its careful attention to actual social practices, feminist ethics is often
categorized as applied ethics. In fact, however, feminist ethicists have addressed the
basic questions and expanded the scope of all levels of philosophical ethics – practical
(or applied) ethics, normative ethics, and metaethics (see feminist metaethics).
Recognizing the ways in which traditional approaches to ethics have served to
reinforce male privilege, feminist ethicists are especially attentive to the effects of
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee108
2
different ways of thinking about ethics, or what Cheshire Calhoun (2004: 4) calls
“the politics of theory construction.” The concern that feminist ethics should be
politically responsible has fueled much of the development of feminist ethics. Like
others in socially dominant positions, those writing academic philosophy can have
the privilege not to have to notice or think about others who are not like them.
Feminist attempts to adjust moral frameworks to make them more inclusive of
women and women’s concerns have sometimes led to claims about “women” that are
true of only some women and exclude many other women. Just as male philosophers
have taken themselves as representative of humanity, so too some feminists have
inadvertently taken white, middle-class, heterosexual, Western women to be repre-
sentative of all women. For this reason, Calhoun (1994) argues against the tendency
to regard lesbian theory as a subset of feminist theory: feminist theory does not fully
represent the concerns and experiences of lesbian women in relation to the institu-
tion of heterosexuality.
Gender is a crucial category of analysis, but so are race, class, sexual orientation,
ethnicity, and disability status, as all of these social structures distribute power
unequally and shape individuals’ experiences, including their experiences of gender.
Thus feminist ethicists have realized that they cannot focus on gender alone; to
respect women’s experiences and oppose women’s oppression, they must focus on
differences other than gender as well (see oppression). This of course makes femi-
nist theorizing much more complex; it would be simpler to refer to “women” and
“women’s experiences” as if it were clear what they all have in common. However,
doing so tends to reproduce some of the very problems feminists seek to overcome.
In this way, the project of feminist ethics has become very self-reflective and
self-critical as it seeks to identify and eliminate often subtle and covert biases.
Historical Antecedents to Feminist Ethics

With few exceptions, philosophers in the history of Western ethics have not
regarded women as men’s moral equals. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle
(see aristotle), for instance, wrote:
[T]he free person rules the slave, the male the female, and the man the child in different
ways … . The slave is wholly lacking the deliberative element; the female has it but it
lacks authority; the child has it but it is incomplete. It is to be supposed that the same
necessarily holds concerning the virtues of character: all must share in them, not in the
same way, but each in relationship to his own work. (1984: 53)
Philosophical views of women had not improved more than 2,000 years later, when
Hegel wrote that women “are not made for activities which demand a universal
faculty such as the more advanced sciences, philosophy, and certain forms of artistic
production. Women may have happy ideas, taste, and elegance, but they cannot
attain to the ideal. The difference between men and women is like that between
animals and plants” (1967: 263; see hegel, georg wilhelm friedrich).
3
While most philosophers may not have expressed such views of women so openly,
few before the nineteenth century expressed any disagreement with the view that
women are naturally inferior to men and that they lack full moral agency. The
conventional wisdom among Western philosophers was that men’s and women’s
natures suit them to different roles and different virtues. Therefore, it is only right
that men and women receive differential treatment. On this view, it would not be
just, but unnatural and unjust, to treat men and women alike.
The early feminists Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–98; see wollstonecraft,
mary) and John Stuart Mill (1806–73; see mill, john stuart) opposed women’s
subordination by challenging such accounts of women and of the differences
between women and men. Both held that there is no essential difference between
men and women, so there is no such thing as women’s virtue or men’s virtue, only
virtue appropriate to humans. In fact, the so-called virtues appropriate to women
are not true virtues at all, but restrictions on women’s autonomy. Justice requires
that women be provided the education and the opportunities to develop true vir-
tue. One of the main branches of contemporary feminism, humanist feminism,
can be traced to Wollstonecraft’s (1988 [1792]) and Mill’s (1970 [1870]) views.
Humanist feminists hold that women have been oppressed by being denied rights
that men have been granted. As Iris Marion Young put it, the most important
moral insight of this sort of feminism is that the “ideal of universal humanity –
that all persons have equal rights whatever their station or class – should be
extended to women” (1990: 86). In the mid-twentieth century, Simone de Beauvoir
expressed an existentialist version of humanist feminism (see beauvoir, simone
de). She argued that “woman” has been defined as “the second sex” relative to
man, who defines himself:
Humanity is male and man defines woman not in herself but as relative to him; she is not
regarded as an autonomous being … She is defined and differentiated with reference to
man and not he with reference to her; she is the incidental, the inessential as opposed to
the essential. He is the subject, he is the Absolute – she is the Other. (1989 [1952]: xxii)
According to Beauvoir, one distinguishes oneself as human through free self-creation,

yet fulfilling one’s roles as a women prevents one from exercising that capacity.
Humanist feminism has been quite influential both in philosophy and in Western
society more generally. Feminist ethicists of all varieties would agree with the
humanist claim that women should not be denied rights or opportunities that men
are granted. The women’s movement of the late 1960s and 1970s challenged legal
barriers to women’s rights, and feminists since that time have challenged the gender
roles that inhibit women’s autonomy and development. Obviously, there is still much
to be done, especially when it comes to gender roles, but one could argue that
Western culture has recognized the fundamental problem – that women have been
denied rights and opportunities granted men – and that it is moving in the right
direction in addressing that problem. Similar progress can be seen in modern moral
theory. The three dominant modern moral theories – social contract theory,
4
utilitarianism, and Kantian ethics – would all seem to be able to accommodate

humanist feminism by recognizing that women, like men, are rational beings and
thus full-fledged moral agents. Indeed, contemporary Kantian ethicists do not con-
cern themselves with Kant’s view that women are incapable of true moral motivation
(see kant, immanuel); they treat his moral theory as addressing equally men and
women. Thus humanist feminists have reason for optimism. Yet new generations of
feminists have argued that male biases in the history of Western ethics are often
more hidden and pervasive than humanist feminism recognizes.
Feminine and Feminist Ethics

The critical examination of humanist feminism has led to extensive work on the
connections between gender and morality. Much of this work takes an approach
that has been called “gynocentric” or “difference” feminism, and holds that women’s
oppression consists in the fact that traditionally feminine experiences and values
have been ignored or devalued. For gynocentric feminism, “[f]emininity is not the
problem, not the source of women’s oppression, but indeed within traditional
femininity lie the values that we should promote for a better society. Women’s
oppression consists of the devaluation and repression of women’s nature and female
activity by the patriarchal culture” (Young 1990: 79). On this view, women’s
liberation would consist in the recognition and celebration of the feminine. Young
(1990: 86) argues that the ideal of universal humanity is in fact “unrealistic and
oppressive” and that gynocentric feminism makes a more radical critique of male
dominated society than does humanist feminism. Some gynocentric feminists have
identified women’s bodily and sexual experiences as a source of a kind of thinking
that challenges the male-defined status quo, and some have held that women are
more in touch with nature than men due to their reproductive biology and the
activities of mothering (Lorde 2007).
But the most influential version of gynocentric feminism has been the “ethic of
care.” In fact, Carol Gilligan’s book In a Different Voice (1982) issued a new challenge
to traditional ethics and thereby initiated the discussion and debate now most
identified as “feminist ethics.” Gilligan’s work began as a critical examination of
prevailing theories of ethics and moral development expressed in the moral
psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg’s (1981) work which was itself based on a Kantian
theory of morality. Kohlberg’s theory claims to describe the process of (all) human
moral development. On this model, moral thinking becomes more developed as it
becomes more universalistic and principle-governed: morality on this account is
equivalent to justice. Gilligan argued that this model is based on male/masculine
norms (and a study of 84 males over 20 years), as a result of which girls and women
often fall short and appear to be less morally developed than boys and men.
Gilligan identified a “second track” of moral development that is found almost
exclusively among females (though it does not predominate in most females), and
argued that girls and women who operate according to this “ethic of care” are not
judged fairly by the standards of Kohlberg’s preferred “ethic of justice.” The ethic of
5
care differs from the ethic of justice in three main ways: (1) in its method: it focuses
on specific features of particular situations rather than abstract moral principles that
can be applied to situations; (2) in its priorities: it is concerned with meeting needs
of specific others and creating and maintaining particular relationships, rather than
with protecting equal rights; and (3) in its conception of the self: it assumes that the
self must be understood in terms of its relationships rather than as first and foremost
an independent agent (see care ethics). Gilligan’s primary purpose was to draw
attention to the existence and the merits of this traditionally neglected or
marginalized approach to ethics.
Gilligan’s work has inspired a great deal of debate within and in opposition to
feminist ethics. There were, first, a number of methodological and empirical
questions about Gilligan’s work. Were her studies scientifically valid? Has she really
shown how girls and women think about morality? Even if she did capture the moral
thinking of some women, were these women representative of all women? Are there
class and race biases in Gilligan’s work (Larrabee 1993)? In response to these sorts of
questions, it is clear that Gilligan’s account of the ethic of care should not be under-
stood as a claim, scientific or otherwise, about all women (and indeed she did not
make any such claim). Nevertheless, Gilligan does identify a “different voice” in
morality. This voice departs from the dominant Kantian moral tradition and from
masculine-associated norms; it expresses certain feminine-associated norms. More
generally, Gilligan’s work shows connections between practice and theory: gendered
experience shapes the way one understands and thinks about morality. Not all
women are caregivers, but caregivers are overwhelmingly women, and the ethic of
care is an approach to morality taken overwhelmingly by females. Other forms of
practice culturally identified as masculine promote thinking in line with Kohlberg’s
preferred ethic of justice. Thus, while Gilligan does not show that women, in general,
have a “different” moral voice, she does show real connections between gender and
moral thinking. The dominant versions of Western ethics promote ways of thinking
regarded as masculine and discourage ways of thinking regarded as feminine.
Nel Noddings (1984) and Sara Ruddick (1989) are among the ethicists who have
explored the moral perspective that arises out of practices culturally regarded as
feminine. They have argued for correcting the gender bias against such a perspective
by showing how valuable a “feminine” ethic would be for society as a whole. Ruddick,
for instance, explores the practice of mothering, focusing on the mother’s purposes
of protection, nurturance, and training, and the “maternal thinking” to which it
gives rise. This maternal thinking, she argues, has implications beyond the immediate
familial context in that, taken seriously, it can and should promote a “politics
of peace.”
Of course, the connection between gender and moral thinking doesn’t necessarily
mean that the ethic of care is worth celebrating. In fact, given that the ethic of care
has arisen out of women’s subordinate status, some have made the case that there is
feminist reason to be skeptical of this ethic (e.g., Houston 1987). The concern is that
a feminine ethic brings with it the dangers of femininity, namely that it relies upon
and reinforces gender stereotypes and women’s socially subordinate status. Women’s
6
traditional roles as caregivers have required sacrificing their own needs to those of
others, and the designation of women’s caregiving as “natural” has served to make
such sacrifice a requirement of women. Women have been required to take care of
others instead of pursuing their own self-interests; they have been expected to accept
and serve the will of others even if it means sacrificing their own will and integrity.
Critics have pointed out that calling these requirements virtuous does not make
them any less exploitative. In fact, the celebration of the ethic of care seems suspi-
ciously similar to the doctrine of separate virtues that humanist feminists sought to
eliminate. Perhaps what women need is not the ethic of care but the autonomy,
independence, rights, and self-sufficiency championed by the ethic of justice.
A number of feminist ethicists (e.g., Kittay 1998) have responded to such criticisms
by seeking to build into the ethic of care (or supplement the ethic of care with)
protections for caregivers. Recognizing that caregiving is essential work, not just for
particular recipients of care but for society as a whole, should lead us to ensure that
the practice of caregiving receives social support. With such support, a caregiver
would not have to sacrifice her own will or integrity.
Some feminists have made a more fundamental challenge to both gynocentric
and humanist feminist approaches, arguing that neither goes far enough to
identify and challenge the male biases in traditional ethics. Catharine MacKinnon
(1987) and Sandra Bartky (1990) are among the advocates of such an approach,
which is sometimes referred to as “dominance” feminism. Both argue that the prob-
lem is not just that women have been thwarted from achieving their goals or that
women have had their accomplishments devalued; it is that women’s ideals them-
selves are structured by sexism. Moreover, masculinity and femininity are not just
alternative sets of values, one of which has been valued more than the other; they
are domination and subordination. Thus, to be a woman in sexist society is to have
and to take pride in a role that oppresses you; it is to desire in men their dominance
over you. Thus, dominance feminists claim that often what seems like women’s
choice is in fact women’s acceptance of oppression; women may think they are
happy and fulfilled when in fact they are oppressed and denied. Bartky uses the
work of the philosopher Michel Foucault to elucidate the ways in which women
are “disciplined” into having a feminine body and a feminine mind. She calls this
discipline psychological oppression, meaning that even women’s subjectivities are
structured by unjust social forces. On this view, the less radical approaches to
feminism – humanist feminism and gynocentric feminism – serve to disguise and
reinforce the fundamental reality of sexist oppression.
Thus feminist ethics has focused on the relationship between gender and morality,
with humanist feminism, gynocentric feminism, and dominance feminism
representing three main branches of thought. There has been no clear resolution to
the debates among advocates of these different approaches, perhaps because these
are not really alternative accounts of a single truth but accounts of three different
facets of women’s oppression: Women have been denied rights granted to men; fem-
ininity has been denigrated relative to masculinity; and oppression has affected
women’s ideals and mindsets. Thus the most important challenge may not be to
7
determine which approach to feminism is the correct one, but rather to find ways to
recognize the insights of all three approaches.
Feminist Moral Theory: Rethinking Gendered Dichotomies

Much of feminist ethics has moved beyond examination of its own nature to develop
critiques of and alternatives to traditional approaches to ethics. Typically, modern
ethics has been structured by a number of interrelated distinctions; for instance,
reason and emotion, universality and particularity, the mind and the body, self and
other, form and matter, and the public and private spheres. These distinctions have
often been regarded as dichotomies and as hierarchies in which one component is
superior or appropriately dominant over the other. They are also gender-coded, in
that the first component of each set is associated with men and the second component
of each set is associated with women. This structure has served to define morality in
terms of the norms of masculinity and the denial of the norms of femininity: to be
moral is to be “like a man,” and to avoid being “like a woman.” Many of the contribu-
tions of feminist ethics have come from rethinking these hierarchical distinctions –
not by defending one side of the gender division against the other, but by calling into
question the divide between these important features of morality and by rethinking
moral experience in ways that are more realistic and fair to all involved.
First, feminist ethicists have examined the distinction often made between reason
and emotion (e.g., Baier 1994; Jaggar 1998; see emotion; reason and passion).
The dominant modern moral theories share a view of morality as a rational exercise
and a view of reason as distinct from emotion: Reason and emotion are often seen
as competing motivational forces, such that a moral action is the result of ordered
reason controlling unruly emotion. This view of reason has troubled feminist
ethicists for several reasons: first of all because it is misogynistic insofar as reason is
associated with maleness and emotion is associated with femaleness. Beyond that,
feminist ethicists have made the case that this dichotomy misrepresents both emo-
tion and its relationship to reason. In reality, emotions can play an important and
positive role in our moral thinking. The traditional reason/emotion dichotomy fails
to acknowledge that emotions invariably have a cognitive dimension and can appro-
priately be regarded as rational insofar as they reliably focus one’s attention on mor-
ally important considerations. Feminist ethicists have also made the case that moral
reason is not and cannot be unaffected by psychological and sociological factors; it
does not operate in the highly abstract way that traditional moral philosophers often
assume. For instance, Margaret Urban Walker (2007) has called into question the
“view from nowhere” that has served as an ideal in traditional moral theory and has
developed an alternative moral epistemology based on expressive and collaborative
social relations.
Feminist ethicists have also done important work on the concept of the self and its
relations to others (e.g., Meyers 2002). Traditional moral theories tend to think of
persons as rational and self-sufficient adults of equal power. On this individualistic
conception of the self, a person may have relationships to others, but a person is
8
what he (or she) is apart from relationships to others. All such individuals are con-
sidered interchangeable; they are all alike in the abstract way they are defined. Moral
questions then concern the limited conditions under which one individual is
obligated to others, and the primary moral requirement is that we refrain from
interfering with one another.
Feminist ethicists have pointed out the gender bias in this conception of the self.
To assume that persons are independent, adult moral agents is to take for granted
that they have received an upbringing and education that has allowed them to
develop cognitively and emotionally to moral maturity. But of course this cannot be
taken for granted, nor is it outside the realm of moral importance. This view of the
self is a masculine ideal, but it is not even true of men. All of us become who we are
through our interactions with others, and even those of us who are fully realized
individuals in this mode are not self-sufficient. In fact, we rely on the caregiving of
others, and those others are usually women who do not at all fit this model of the
self. As Lindemann (2006: 76) puts it: “To realize the ideal you need people to look
after you, but because they’re looking after you, they are not free to realize the ideal
for themselves.”
Similarly, we cannot assume that adults are self-sufficient beings, for even if we
have supposedly achieved that status, we all get ill, grow old, and are in many other
ways dependent upon others. Thus, feminist ethicists have rethought the notion of
the self by recognizing the ways we are dependent on and vulnerable to one another
and by examining the nature of relationships that help constitute and sustain
individuals. This has led feminists to call into question individualistic and
abstract ideals of autonomy and to develop in their place accounts of the social and
context-dependent dimensions of autonomy (e.g., MacKenzie and Stoljar 2000; see
autonomy). More generally, it has led to more realistic accounts of the ways in
which identities can be damaged and repaired by social interactions. Feminist
ethicists have also examined the concept of the self as it relates to the gendered
dichotomy between mind and body, exploring especially the ways in which we are
embodied creatures and the role of the body in morality.
A third dichotomy challenged by feminist ethicists is the public/private divide
(e.g., Okin 1989). On the traditional account, a person is a true moral agent in the
public realm of impersonal interactions, as it is the public sphere that can be governed
by impartial universal law and in which one’s rights can be secured. The private
sphere of family and personal relations is, in contrast, the realm of particularistic
goods and in which our relationships are often unchosen and our motivations are
partial. However, like the other dichotomies that have structured traditional ethics,
the division of society into public and private spheres is misleading and harmful. It
is harmful, and harmful specifically to women, because the public/private dichot-
omy is gendered: the private realm is understood as women’s place, but it is a realm
that does not allow for morality as it is defined here. “Man” has been associated with
the human, and “woman” with the natural, such that mothering is seen as natural
and instinctive rather than as moral. This dichotomy serves to privilege the points of
view connected to the public domains of the state, law, and business, all areas
9
regarded as masculine. Thus, as Jaggar (1998: 95) writes, “Virtually no moral theory
in the history of ethics has taken mothering, as experienced by women, seriously as
a source of moral insight, until feminists began to do so in recent years.”
The public/private dichotomy is misleading in suggesting that these two realms
are distinct. In fact, the realm of personal relations is shaped by “public” conceptions
of justice, and the public realm is shaped by what happens in the realm of personal
relations. This suggests that the ethic of justice and the ethic of care should be
understood as connected as well. Joan Tronto (1993) is among the feminists who
have developed this line of thought, arguing that the ethic of care requires a politics
of care, namely one recognizing and supporting the caring labor that is crucial to the
existence of society. Also, care cannot be entirely removed from broader concerns of
justice; caregiving must not focus on the particular needs of those cared for without
regard for the goods of others beyond personal relations. To make sense of social
reality and to morally evaluate social practices, ethics must not be confined to one
side of the public/private divide (see feminist political theory).
Rejecting the dichotomies that have traditionally structured ethics requires
thinking in new ways. Some of the most interesting work in feminist ethics has
involved identifying and thinking through morally significant experiences that are
not recognizable in terms of the traditional dichotomies of ethics. For instance,
Annette Baier (1994) has made the case that trust can be understood as fundamental
to morality (see trust). Trust has both emotional and cognitive dimensions; thus
making sense of trust requires that we set aside the reason/emotion dichotomy.
Another example is Claudia Card’s (1996) work on the notion of moral luck, or the
idea that moral character is affected by circumstances beyond the individual’s con-
trol (see moral luck). Card examines social categories of gender, race, class, and
sexual orientation, and the ways these forms of privilege and oppression create good
and bad moral luck. This phenomenon would not fit comfortably within a Kantian
view of the self and morality, for on that view doing the right thing is always in our
power. Of course, the notions of trust and of moral luck should be critically
examined; the crucial point here is that they should not be (as they have been) ren-
dered invisible by a moral framework that cannot even recognize them. Identifying
and exploring such concepts is an important contribution of feminist moral theory.
Feminist Practical Ethics: Expanding the Domain of Ethics

In an important sense, all of feminist ethics is practical ethics, in that it expresses a
distrust of the dichotomy between theory and practice, just as it expresses distrust of
the dichotomies discussed in the previous section. Indeed, the theory/practice
dichotomy is another in the same gendered framework. Feminist ethicists are always
concerned with practice, or moral experience, not to the exclusion of moral theory,
but as integral to theory. But some feminist ethics focuses especially on areas usually
identified as applied ethics, and much of feminist ethics seeks to expand what is
included in applied ethics. Still other versions of feminist ethics have even broader
applications, in that they expand the realm of ethics to include ethics itself, and
10
make recommendations about how we should do philosophy. Perhaps the most

dramatic contribution of feminist ethics is that it has helped expand the notion of
what counts as, and in, ethics.
Feminist ethicists have addressed topics and expressed perspectives in practi-
cal ethics that have been ignored or denigrated by traditional ethics. Some of
these are topics of particular concern to women, such as discrimination, sexual
harassment, violence against women, and abortion (see sexual harassment;
rape; abortion). For instance, feminists have examined the phenomenon of
date rape by focusing on the norms of femininity and the notion of consent.
Susan Sherwin (1992) is among the feminist bioethicists who have brought new
perspectives not just to “women’s issues” like reproductive technologies, but to
the full range of issues in the field, from physician-assisted suicide to allocation
of healthcare resources (see feminist bioethics). Uma Narayan (1997) and
Martha Nussbaum (2001) are notable feminists who have made contributions in
the ethical questions related to international development, globalization, and
cross-cultural judgments, areas that affect women especially but not exclusively.
It should be noted that much of the work in feminist practical ethics crosses into
legal philosophy, as the injustices at issue are judged to be of a kind that require
new legal concepts and/or approaches. The legal term “sexual harassment,” for
instance, was coined by the feminist legal theorist Catharine McKinnon (1979).
Likewise, the boundary between moral and political philosophy is not a sharp
one in feminist philosophy. Susan Moller Okin (1989), for instance, examined
the justice of familial arrangements in light of the political context within which
the family exists.
In its practical applications feminist ethics does not necessarily mean think-
ing in any direct way about women in particular. The analytical tools of femi-
nism can be employed to address the moral concerns of any people who are
subordinated by and within social hierarchies. Along these lines, the legal theo-
rist Martha Minow (1990) has done important work on “the dilemma of differ-
ence,” by which she means the problem of how to recognize differences between
groups or individuals without thereby reinforcing or stigmatizing those differ-
ences. In general, feminist applied ethics is not a narrowly defined field, but
identifies and resists oppression in all its forms, and identifies and promotes the
social and political conditions that would best foster a humanly good life – while
remaining aware of the dangers of any attempts to generalize about all humans.
In fact, feminist ethicists are not concerned only with humans. The human/ani-
mal and culture/nature dichotomies belong in the same set as the gendered
dichotomies discussed above, and they are misleading and damaging in similar
ways. Karen Warren’s (2000) work in ecofeminism and Josephine Donovan and
Carol Adams’ (2007) work in animal ethics use feminist insights to develop ways
of understanding and transforming our relationships to animals and the natural
world (see ecofeminism).
Another area in which feminist practical ethics has made important contribu-
tions concerns the practice of philosophical ethics itself. Certain features of
11
conventional philosophical practice favor approaches understood as masculine

over those understood as feminine. For instance, traditional ethics often
addresses moral questions not through reflection on actual human experiences
but through far-fetched thought experiments. Few of us will ever be in a “life-
boat” situation, in which everyone will die unless one member of the group is
thrown overboard, but such scenarios are frequently featured in traditional
moral philosophy. While allowing that there is something to be learned by
thinking through such thought experiments, feminist ethicists tend to be skepti-
cal of their prominent role in moral philosophy, and prefer to use the everyday
activities of ordinary people for their central examples. Feminists have also
expressed skepticism about the use of the “adversarial method” of philosophical
argumentation. Using this method, philosophical discussion becomes a con-
frontational, even aggressive, attempt to identify the “fatal” flaws in other phi-
losophers’ positions, with the rationale that this method will sort out the strong
and the weak ideas. Of course, it may do this in certain cases and to a certain
extent; the feminist concerns are that this method also makes us inattentive to
everything good that an imperfect position has to offer; it would seem to dis-
courage philosophical creativity and courage, and it may favor the most forceful
arguers rather than the best ideas (Cole 1993: 19). It certainly favors “masculine”
styles of philosophizing over “feminine” ones.
In contrast to more traditional ethicists, feminist thinkers tend to examine eve-
ryday activities and experiences of ordinary people, including experiences of feel-
ings, emotions, and perceptions, and to do so in quite realistic ways. Yet of course
it is not obvious how to make sense of the everyday experiences of ordinary peo-
ple. Feminists’ study of traditional ethics has made them acutely aware that what
seems obvious to philosophers usually seems so only because they have not con-
sidered their own unacknowledged biases. Philosophical theory and practice
reflects social realities and has practical consequences, and thus responsible
philosophical theory and practice must be attentive to related social and political
realities. We must, for instance, give up attempting to speak for all humankind,
and recognize that each of us brings particularities of race, class, gender, sexuality
(and so on) to our thinking. This also means we should seek out differing perspec-
tives – including those from sources not traditionally recognized in philosophy. It
is better to be open about our perspectives and provisional in our conclusions than
to delude ourselves into thinking that we can avoid all bias and know the whole
truth. It is also important to consider the broader social and political implications
of our philosophical theories and practices, and to philosophize responsibly with
respect to these. Such a set of “ground rules for philosophizing,” as articulated by
Eve Browning Cole (1993), serves as a valuable kind of ethics of feminist ethics.
Indeed, feminist ethics has important implications for thinking, for institutions,
and for lives, both “inside” and “outside” of philosophy. Feminist ethics is arguably
ideally equipped and positioned to break free of philosophy’s stereotypical “ivory
tower” isolation from the problems of society, as well as to transform philosophy
for and through that process.
12
See also: abortion; aristotle; autonomy; beauvoir, simone de; bioethics;

care ethics; ecofeminism; emotion; feminist bioethics; feminist
metaethics; feminist political theory; hegel, georg wilhelm friedrich;
kant, immanuel; mill, john stuart; moral luck; oppression; rape; reason
and passion; sexual harassment; wollstonecraft, mary
REFERENCES
Aristotle 1984. The Politics, trans. Carnes Lord. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Baier, Annette 1994. Moral Prejudices: Essays on Ethics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Bartky, Sandra Lee 1990. Femininity and Domination: Studies in the Phenomenology of
Oppression. New York: Routledge.
Beauvoir, Simone de 1989 [1952]. The Second Sex, trans and ed. H. M. Parshley. New York:
Vintage.
Calhoun, Cheshire 1994. “Separating Lesbian Theory from Feminist Theory,” Ethics, vol. 104,
pp. 558–81.
Calhoun, Cheshire (ed.) 2004. Setting the Moral Compass: Essays by Women Philosophers.
Card, Caudia 1996. The Unnatural Lottery: Character and Moral Luck. Philadelphia: Temple
University Press.
Cole, Eve Browning 1993. Philosophy and Feminist Criticism. St. Paul: Paragon House.
Donovan, Josephine, and Carol Adams (eds.) 2007. The Feminist Care Tradition in Animal
Ethics: A Reader. New York: Columbia University Press.
Gilligan, Carol 1982. In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development.
Hegel, G. W. F. 1967. Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, trans. T. M. Knox. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Houston, Barbara 1987. “Rescuing Womanly Virtues: Some Dangers of Moral Reclamation,”
in Marsha Hanen and Kai Nielsen (eds.), Science, Morality and Feminist Theory. Calgary:
University of Calgary Press.
Jaggar, Alison 1998. “Feminist Reconceptualizations in Ethics,” in Janet A. Kourany (ed.),
Philosophy in a Feminist Voice: Critiques and Reconstructions. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Kittay, Eva Feder 1998. Love’s Labor: Essays on Women, Equality and Dependency. New York:
Routledge.
Kohlberg, Lawrence 1981. The Philosophy of Moral Development: Moral Stages and the Idea of
Justice. San Francisco: Harper & Row.
Larrabee, Mary Jeanne (ed.) 1993. An Ethic of Care: Feminist and Interdisciplinary Perspectives.
Lindemann, Hilde 2006. An Invitation to Feminist Ethics. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Lorde, Audre 2007. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Freedom, CA: Crossing Press.
Mackenzie, Catriona, and Natalie Stoljar (eds.) 2000. Relational Autonomy: Feminist
Perspectives on Autonomy, Agency, and the Social Self. New York: Oxford University
Press.
MacKinnon, Catharine 1979. Sexual Harassment of Working Women. New Haven: Yale
University Press.
13
MacKinnon, Catharine 1987. Feminism Unmodified: Discourses on Life and Law. Cambridge,
Meyers, Diana Tietjens 2002. Gender in the Mirror: Cultural Imagery and Women’s Agency.
Mill, John Stuart, and Harriett Taylor Mill 1970 [1870]. Essays on Sex Equality, ed. Alice
Rossi. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Minow, Martha 1990. Making All The Difference: Inclusion, Exclusion, and American Law.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Narayan, Uma 1997. Dislocating Cultures: Identities, Traditions, and Third World Feminism.
Okin, Susan Moller 1989. Justice, Gender and the Family. New York: Basic Books.
Ruddick, Sara 1989. Maternal Thinking: Toward a Politics of Peace. Boston: Beacon.
Sherwin, Susan 1992. No Longer Patient: Feminist Ethics and Health Care. Philadelphia:
Temple University Press.
Tronto, Joan C. 1993. Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care. New York:
Routledge.
Walker, Margaret Urban 2007. Moral Understandings: A Feminist Study in Ethics. New York:
Warren, Karen 2000. Eco-Feminism: A Western Perspective on What It Is and Why It Matters.
Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Wollstonecraft, Mary 1988 [1792]. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. New York:
Dover.
Young, Iris Marion 1990. Throwing Like a Girl and Other Essays in Feminist Philosophy and
Social Theory. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
FURTHER READINGS
Card, Claudia (ed.) 1991. Feminist Ethics. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
Friedman, Marilyn 2003. Autonomy, Gender, Politics. New York: Oxford University Press.
Frye, Marilyn 1983. The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory. Trumansburg, NY:
Crossing Press.
Hanen, Marsha and Kai Nielsen (eds.) 1987. Science, Morality and Feminist Theory. Calgary:
University of Calgary Press.
Held, Virginia (ed.) 1995. Justice and Care: Essential Readings in Feminist Ethics. Boulder, CO:
Westview.
Hoagland, Sarah Lucia 1988. Lesbian Ethics: Toward New Value. Palo Alto, CA: Institute of
Lesbian Studies.
hooks, bell 1984. Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. Boston: South End Press.
Lloyd, Genevieve 1984. The Man of Reason: “Male” and “Female” in Western Philosophy.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
1
Religious Saints
Andrew Flescher
Saints as a Moral Category

The term “saints” is traditionally understood in connection with Roman
Catholicism and signifies publicly venerated figures formalized through a process
of “canonization,” the act of declaring a dead person a saint following beatification
(the formal act of declaring one blessed in Heaven), and an examination of the
miracles attributed to the person while he or she was living (Cunningham 1980: 7,
48–9). In this context, the “cult” of the saints refers to those early Christians who,
having practiced the Christian virtues to an exceptional degree, or having martyred
themselves, have officially been put forward by the Church as interceding
mediators between heaven and earth (Brown 1981: 1–3). When we speak of
“religious saints,” we thus technically allude to a process sanctioned by a specific
institutional mechanism.
This standard use of “saints” notwithstanding, there is a broader, cross-cultural
sense of the term that pertains to charismatic, moral, and spiritual paragons who
stand in relation to us as virtuous exemplars, a sense which, more and more, is
becoming the standard use in comparative religious ethics (see comparative
religious ethics). This sense of “saints” still allows for spiritual identification, but
it is not necessarily tied to belief in divinity, only an exemplification of some
extraordinary set of moral traits (Flanagan 1991: 1). While this sense does not
require saints to be Catholic or recognized for canonization, they are still understood
as “holy” beings who convey a “transparent goodness, deep holiness, and broad
encompassing charity” (Cunningham 1980: 7).
Understanding saints as especially virtuous exemplars who go so far to substitute
their own welfare and well-being for that of the other should thus not lead us to
conceive of them as rootless, apart from the traditions within which they come to be
recognized and cultivate their deepest moral convictions. Saints’ virtuous example
immeasurably adds to the goodness in the world, but this “goodness” is frequently
inspired by some transcendent, religious referent. Thus, while in the remainder of
this essay we will be treating “religious saints” as a moral category, the boundless
compassion and generosity for which saints are known, it cannot be ignored, often
originates within a supra-moral worldview.
Saints’ religious orientation is one respect in which they are to be distinguished
from moral heroes; while heroes, due to their virtuous dispositions, are altruistic
individuals equipped far better than others to involve themselves in the plights of
needy others (Flescher 2003: 154). Saints, whose traditions characteristically lead
them to substitute their own interests for that of the other, proactively seek others in
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee109
2
need, wherever in this world they are to be found. In addition, because of this
substitution, saints, beyond heroes, can be properly said to engage in self-fulfillment
rather than self-sacrifice upon undertaking their saintly activity. They do not
necessarily, or even typically, require an overcoming of self-interest to attend to the
one in need. Compassion, not costliness, best characterizes the saintly deed.
Saints – Traits and Definition

What are the virtues and traits that the saints possess? Hagiographic narratives tend
to reveal four perhaps unexpected features of saints and saintly existence:
1 Saints have a maximally robust sense of other-regard, embracing an unlimited

commitment to devoting themselves to the relief of others’ psychological sorrow
and physical suffering. Their altruism is neither measured nor calculated. Saints
substitute their own welfare for that of another.
2 Yet, saints themselves do not tend to regard the practice of unlimited giving as
sacrificing their own interests. In fact, according to saints’ own testimony, such
giving is self-fulfilling, and, in their view, constitutes our own fulfillment as well
(at least potentially). Saints, for this reason, see themselves as fundamentally
standing with, not apart from, nonsaints.
3 Saints, despite their rootedness in this world, can nevertheless be eccentric and
certainly colorful characters who, in terms of their nonmoral habits and
dispositions, are perhaps not so easy to emulate.
4 Saints, despite their universal message, tend to be motivated by faith-commitments
specific to their own traditions. While saintly action transcends culture and
community, saints are reared in particular – often “religious” – settings that
furnish them with the ability to achieve their moral best and inspire others.
This said, what is essential about identifying saints as saints is precisely that
they transcend their local settings in order to reach out to the stranger and
address whatever his or her concrete needs happen to be. Ultimately, it is this
concern – and not those that pertain to this or that particular religious
tradition – that is of the most spiritual value to saints.
With regard to the first two of these traits, extensive other-regard and the
conviction that limitless giving is tantamount to human flourishing, saintly
testimonials abound. (Constraint of space allows the consideration of only a few
examples.) St. Francis of Assisi urges “voluntary poverty” – the proactive relinquish-
ing of what one owns in order to acquire an accurate sense of the predicament, and
improve the plight, of impoverished others – while Dorothy Day exhorts us to
“strip ourselves of our possessions” as a symbolic commitment to the shunning of
complacency in an effort to eradicate involuntary poverty (1992: 109–10). St.
Thomas Aquinas developed the idea that unconditional love of the other (caritas) is
a cardinal virtue that binds the other virtues together into a “perfect unity” (Flew
1968: 214; see aquinas, saint thomas; love). Martin Luther King, Jr., repeatedly
3
identifies the kernel of ethics as agape, the unconditional love of the other for the
other’s sake, which he defines specifically as one’s “willingness to go any length to
restore a community” (see agape; king, jr., martin luther). King justifies the
ubiquity of agape in light of our metaphysical connectedness to one another (1986:
20). In kind, Gandhi embraces ahimsa, compassionate nonviolence, as an “experi-
ment” that will work because of its grounding in the counterintuitive truth that we
are redeemed by a willingness to suffer when that gesture amounts to the ameliora-
tion of another’s pain (2008: 55). This other-regarding conviction is similarly
reflected in the Buddhist tradition in the Bodhisattva’s selfless choice to forego
heaven and return to earth to attend to the well-being of every sentient being (see
buddhist ethics). Since we can predict that there is a surplus of pain to be felt by
sentient beings, we know the Bodhisattva’s decision has eternal consequences. Yet,
the self-commission of the Bodhisattva’s presence to suffering on this earth is
regarded as an act of self-fulfillment rather than self-sacrifice. The existence of ine-
luctably callous psychopaths aside, saintly compassion, according to what saints
themselves have to say, is a prescription for human flourishing.
It should be noted that saints, despite their charismatic and virtuous examples, are
colorful and even eccentric figures with regard to some of their nonmoral traits.
St. Francis was reputed to have arranged to have himself dragged naked through the
streets for eating a portion of meat (even though he was ailing), as well as to have
preached to the birds after his regular sermons (Gelber 1987: 17). St. Teresa of Ávila
describes in detail the painful “piercing” experiences of divine love that threatened her
physical well-being (Vann 1954: 363). St. Louis of Gonzaga obsessive-compulsively
refused even his own mother’s presence in order to preserve a self-imposed commit-
ment to stay out of the presence of females (James 1982: 250–51). Some medieval
women saints, such as Catherine of Siena, in their attempt to imitate Christ suffering on
the cross, went well beyond traditional renunciations of voluntary poverty and chastity
by taking on dangerous dietary rituals, some of which involved starving themselves or
eating harmful foods (Bynum 1987: 174). To these four examples, we could add many
others. In saints, we find quirky traits not readily assimilable to ordinary personalities.
Finally, there is something distinctively holy and perhaps even “transcendent”
about saintly existence. We cannot speak of the concept of “voluntary poverty,” for
example, without referring to a long, historical tradition of Christian virtue,
reinforced by Pauline theology, which centered on the kenotic decree to become an
example in the world. Dorothy Day, Mother Teresa, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr.,
Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, and others were reared in deeply religious
upbringings and draw, in each of their writings, on language laden with religiously
symbolic meaning in order to reach more extensive audiences. This observation
highlights the resourceful nature of religions generally, which have the capacity to
inspire global movements through recourse to local concepts and beliefs. The extent
to which saintly maxims that develop in particular settings is “translatable” to broader
venues depends on which saints we are talking about. Whereas Mother Teresa
insisted that her work on behalf of the poor was sustained exclusively by virtue of the
love commandments in the Gospels (1985: 54), Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.,
4
speak of a cross-cultural human condition that positions different people from

different places to hear and be inspired by their message. Religion, we might conclude,
is an “enabling” but not necessarily a “limiting” condition of saintly ubiquity.
With the virtues of religious saints thus enumerated, one may begin to formulate
a stipulative characterization that presents neither the necessary nor sufficient
conditions of sainthood but represents the beginnings of a “family resemblance”
definition (Flescher 2003: 219–20). Saints are: extraordinarily virtuous altruists,
maximally disposed to feel, desire, and act in an other-regarding manner for the sake
of that other. They acknowledge no limitations to what is morally required of them.
They do not think in terms of “duty” or “above and beyond.” They proactively meet
their responsibility to others in need, which entails nothing short of substituting their
welfare and well-being for that of others. Although meeting the demands of saintly
responsibility can be costly, it is pursued in the service of self-fulfillment rather than
self-sacrifice. Finally, despite their sometimes eccentric personalities, saints loom not
apart but travel humbly among nonsaints, inspiring us to be better than we ourselves
have as of yet imagined we can be.
Morally Characterizing Religious Saints

Not all moral theorists, of course, would accept the preceding definition, and certain
questions naturally arise. Are saints radically distinct from ordinary human beings,
born with a talent that disposes them to be especially compassionate and attuned to
human suffering, or are they individuals in essence no different than the rest of us,
traveling further along a path meant for all of us (Hick 1989: 307)? Should they follow
their own moral code or be regarded as paragons not merely for us to admire from
afar, but also to emulate up close? Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker
Movement, maintained that it is up to everyone to assume responsibility for the
impoverished in the way nurses do for their patients and mothers do for their children
(Day 1992: 110). Gandhi once said, “Whatever is possible for me is possible even for
a child” (2008: 3); and Martin Luther King, Jr., exhorted, “We are inevitably our
brother’s keeper because we are our brother’s brother” (1986: 626). These saintly
proclamations are essentially prescriptions for nonsaints to “go and do likewise.” Are
we to read these statements literally, as earnest reflections of what their utterers
think, or rhetorically, as instances of “moral modesty”? Is it realistic to try to heed
saintly admonishments when saints tell us to act as they do? On the other hand, isn’t
it disingenuous to praise saints for their noteworthily virtuous conduct while failing
to trust them as credible authorities for informing us of the nature of our own moral
obligations? What is the nature of the relationship between saints and ordinary men
and women?
There is a variety of positions one could occupy in answering these distinct, but
related, questions. In The Variety of Religious Experience, the pragmatist, psychologist,
and philosopher of religion William James characterizes saints as “vivifiers,”
“impregnators,” and “slow leavens of a better order,” the torchbearers of virtue who
light the way for our own character development (1982: 358; see character; james,
5
william; moral development). Writes James: “Treating those whom they met, in
spite of the past, in spite of all appearances, as worthy, they have stimulated them to
be worthy, miraculously transformed them by their radiant example and by the chal-
lenge of the expectation” (1982: 357). According to this view, we are all potentially
saints in the making. We are not strictly morally required to seek out the one in need
and give of ourselves for the other to the utmost degree. Saintly altruism, for James,
is supererogatory (see supererogation; moral status; ought). However, we
should see ourselves as beholden to a telos of moral betterment. Through our long-
term exposure to saints, what we once considered supererogatory becomes, as our
contact with saints increases, morally required. Saintly influence furnishes us with
the capacity to cultivate the kind of compassionate disposition necessary for habit-
ual selfless behavior.
A less morally demanding and perhaps more realistic view of the relationship
between saints and the rest of us is advanced by the moral theorists J. O. Urmson and
David Heyd. According to Urmson and Heyd, saints engage in praiseworthy
but morally optional conduct. Saintliness is objectively deemed always to be
supererogatory, despite how saints may characterize their own conduct. In a famous
article, “Saints and Heroes,” Urmson raises the example of St. Francis going above
and beyond when he preached to the birds; no moral theory could begin to
universalize such an extravagant action (1958: 203–4). Heyd, following Urmson, is
worried that adopting a saintly ethic as a social code will have dangerous
consequences. He argues that by failing to make clear what is the moral purview of
saints, on the one hand, and the rest of us on the other, morality as such can come to
be seen as too demanding. The more we confuse saintly altruism with minimal
moral requirement, the more we will lose respect for all of morality, and morality as
a whole will languish (Heyd 1982: 166). According to this “commonsense” view, one
of the identifying marks of saints is the deliberate and voluntary vigor with which
they rush to offer a helping hand, often at significant cost to themselves. Saints see
someone in need, and the loving deed is done. How could such a process be
universalizable within the constructs of a moral theory (see universalizability)?
A. I. Melden and John Coleman dispute commonsense morality’s construal of
saints as supererogatory – saints are morally beholden to seeking out and helping
the ones in need – but nevertheless support Urmson and Heyd’s standard
characterization of them as “different sorts of beings” whom it behooves us only to
admire and not emulate. Saints, argues Melden, transcend moral categories
altogether, leaving nonsaints hard-pressed even to understand their (holy)
motivations, to say nothing of their sui generis talent for affective response (1984: 77).
Melden gives much more credence than does Urmson or Heyd to saints’ conceptions
of themselves, but resists the notion that we are positioned to learn from them.
Coleman questions whether it is in the first place appropriate to consider “saintliness”
in the context of religious ethics (and so would likely object to this encyclopedia
entry). “Sainthood,” writes Coleman, is “primarily not about ethics,” and is “rarely
generated in a search for virtue, heroic deeds, or ethical goodness”; rather, it is an
“aspect of a thrust toward union with God, and virtue … flashes forth from that
6
union” (1982: 207, 212). In other words, we impose ethical connotations on saint-
hood at the expense of the I–Thou relationship that is precipitated by a saint’s indi-
vidual connection with the divine. In these articulations of the saintly ethos, Melden
and Coleman channel Kierkegaard, invoking his resistance to collapsing the ethical
“stage of life” into a (superseding) religious one.
There is a group of ethicists who embrace the descriptive observation that saints
exist a category apart from the rest of us while fundamentally rejecting the
normatively positive value attributed to saints ascribed by James, Urmson, Heyd,
Melden, and Coleman. The feminist Aristotelian Susan Wolf, for example,
characterizes saints as a “bland do-gooders” who insofar as they pursue an existence
of undiluted altruism, fail to live balanced, healthy lives. Wolf argues that saintly
self-sacrifice stands in tension with self-worth and the ability to form and maintain
special relations, to which end she cites George Orwell: “Many people genuinely do
not wish to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood
have never felt much temptation to be human beings” (1982: 436, n. 4). Sainthood,
according to this line of reasoning, is not only a profoundly different sort of
experience than the human one; it is also something that is inimical to flourishing.
We ought not to aspire towards sainthood because sainthood represents a normatively
inadequate form of human existence, a breach of the good life.
In sharp response, the theological ethicist Robert Merrihew Adams takes Wolf to
task for mischaracterizing saints as utilitarian automatons for whom the altruistic
deed is construed as paradigmatically self-sacrificial. Adams argues that saints are
often eccentric and not only not aloof, but very much in touch with the different
sorts of nonsaints they encounter; far from sacrificing themselves, saints are
self-fulfilled in their saintly enterprises (1984: 393). Adams’s view is similar to
the Jamesian one expounded earlier that sees saints as not only vocationally but
also humanly obligated to travel to the suffering “other” (see suffering), but
who nevertheless display a humility and inspirational charisma that make them
accessible to nonsaints. Dostoevsky’s characterization of the compassionate Alyosha
Karamazov is apt:
He certainly loved people: throughout his life he seemed to believe in people and trust
them, and yet no one ever thought him simpleminded or naïve. There was something
in him (and it stayed with him all his life) that made other people realize that he refused
to sit in judgment of others, that he felt he had no right to, and that, whatever happened,
he would never condemn anyone. (1970: 21)
In this portrayal, the saint embodies an inner, pure goodness among, not apart from
or above, his flock.
In contrast to Urmson, Heyd, and even James, who characterize saintly conduct
as optional, Melden and Coleman, who posit a hard distinction between saints and
nonsaints, and Wolf, who questions whether saintliness is admirable (let alone a
trait to emulate), the French Judaic philosopher Emmanuel Levinas (see levinas,
emmanuel) and contemporary post-modern theorist Edith Wyschogrod take
7
seriously the normative implications of saints’ own self-assessments, contending,

in effect, that since we are all saints-in-the-making, it behooves us to bridge our
existence with our essence and strive throughout our lives to become saintly.
Levinasian metaphysics refers to an “original goodness” according to which we are
always indebted to the other in need (1974: 121). Nothing short of the self ’s yielding
to its infinite devotion to the other is morally acceptable. “Responsibility,” for
Levinas, is defined as meeting the demands of our essential nature by responding
to the other who commands us with her gaze (see responsibility). What this
concretely means is that, in our everyday existence, we are at all times to give others
priority before taking care of ourselves. Our actions should be governed not by our
own projects and ambitions, but by the needs of the other to whom we stand in
proximity. Wyschogrod names the formalization of this imperative as an “ethics of
excess,” which is to be adopted as a widespread ethos in society. Given that the
needs of the destitute and vulnerable other exceed the capacities of the ones able to
help, this is an imperative that shall never cease. Altruism becomes for the “exces-
sivist” a never-ending project from the moment it is conceived: “The saint is an
extreme sumptuary, a subject that spends more than she/he has to the point of
spending her/his own substance” (Wyschogrod 1990: 147). Human beings, in their
initial condition, are constituted to exist for others. This raises a problem for
defenders of the “ethics of excess”: if we are essentially for-the-other, if altruism is
hard-wired into human nature, then what accounts for the de facto rarity of altru-
ism? Wyschogrod’s answer is that while our goodness is essential, not everyone
responds to the pressure of this primordial encounter. The saintly talent latent in
everyone is accessed by the few who strive to “know themselves” as the saints they
truly are, and, in turn, become those (inner) persons.
Critical Issues
Universalizing a saintly ethos raises a practical concern about the applicability of an
ethic to a population that, despite its potential to heed its better angels, is limited in
various ways that prevent it from meeting the demands of much beyond the moral
minimum. There is an argument to be made that morality should be devised of rules
that we can expect anybody to be able to heed. By implication, by making morality too
demanding, we jeopardize morality as such and risk, as a result, society becoming cha-
otic and uncivil. Human beings are just not hard-wired for a morality that seeks proac-
tively to move beyond the avoidance of wrongdoing. In light of the kinds of beings we
are, it behooves us to be psychologically realistic and not confuse necessary proscrip-
tions against violating others’ rights with optional prescriptions for acting selflessly.
According to this criticism, an “ethics of excess” is too excessive. In order for moral
theories to be effective, we must be able to live by them lest they strike us as foreign
impositions that we are unlikely to heed (Stocker 1976: 66; see motivation, moral).
Moreover, there is a question about whether a saintly commitment to ameliorating
the suffering other should be considered morally permissible, let alone morally
required. King and Gandhi, for all of the compassion they were known to exhibit on
8
behalf of the one in need, arguably did not make the best husbands and fathers
(Dyson 2000). This raises the question of whether it is possible to be a saint and still
meet the obligations of one’s role as a special relation. In a provocative case discussed
in The New Yorker Magazine, Zell Kravinski, a self-made millionaire, harbored a
sense of unending obligation which caused him not only to give away nearly his
entire fortune in service of charity (reserving a modest amount of money for his
kids’ education) but also, against the wishes of his wife, secretly to plan and carry out
a plot to donate one of his kidneys to a complete stranger (Parker 2004). Here, the
conflict between the needs of the impersonal other and the special relation come
into direct conflict. Kravinski’s altruistic gifts, requiring the depletion of a life savings
and donation of a bodily organ, beckon us to reflect upon the donor’s motives,
psychological state, and the manner in which competing loves should be ordered.
Cosmopolitan altruists such as Kravinski operate according to the maxim that as
long as imbalance between the giver and recipient exists – even when the recipient
is the stranger – the giver’s resources must flow in the direction of the recipient.
Does this constitute social justice? Why should generosity trump honesty and
loyalty? While some see Kravinski’s “saintliness” as an instance of moral fortitude,
other interpret it as self-aggrandizement, a misordering of love, or insanity. The case
of Kravinksi leads us to assess critically the actions of other “saints,” such as Camus’s
fictional Dr. Rieux, who in The Plague abandons his family to remain behind in a
quarantined town despite being given the opportunity to leave with them, as well as
the real-life Paul Farmer, co-founder and director of Partners in Health, who
acknowledges no moral distinction between his “adopted” Haitian patients and his
own children (Kidder 2003). Partners in Health has made an enormous on-the-
ground difference in Haiti, Russia, Peru, and elsewhere – as a result of Farmer’s
hands-on commitment to the project – at the expense, however, of Farmer’s
maximally caring for those related to him. Whether the saintly ideal of unconditional
love is justified in light of the objection from the perspective of special relations is
something that warrants serious attention.
Saints as a “Bridge Concept” for Comparative Religious Ethics

That we can talk about “religious saints” in the first place, as opposed to this or that
saint from a particular tradition, is a testament to the health of the expanding field
of comparative religious ethics. As discussed at the outset, if we do not consider
saints only in the narrow sense as venerated figures who have been canonized within
the Catholic tradition, but broadly, as “religious and moral exemplars,” then the idea
of “saints” becomes a way of participating in the (intellectually optimistic) project of
“translating between traditions.” According to the “family resemblance” definition
of saints introduced earlier, the saint possesses a maximally compassionate
disposition on which he or she has habitually directed him- or herself to act. Can we
cross-culturally identify exemplary practitioners of religions who demonstrate this
trait in traditions other than Christianity, such as the zaddik of the Jewish tradition,
the guru of the Hindu tradition, or the Bodhisattva of the Buddhist tradition?
9
The noncomparativist is worried that, by answering “yes,” we commit the Procrustean

error of painting all traditions with the same brush, judging their descriptive, ethical,
and soteriological criteria in a manner that is favorable to one or some of these tradi-
tions (see incommensurability [and incomparability]). Surely, there are some
concepts, such as the Zen Buddhist’s notion of “experiencing-only,” the Christian’s
belief in the resurrection of Jesus, or the Judaic existential grappling with “chosenness”
that simply do not have cognates in other traditions. This is not to say that the com-
parative enterprise is illegitimate, only that it is limited by the establishment of “bridge
concepts” (Stalnaker 2006: 122), such as compassion, that do appear as central in sev-
eral traditions. Thus, we can say without doing much cultural injustice that agape in
the Christian tradition and karuna in the Buddhist tradition both refer to a selfless love
or compassion, the presence of which leads to the transformation of selves and socie-
ties alike. Religious saints, who cultivate love and compassion to the greatest degree,
can in this sense be similarly identified across cultures and, in turn, serve as one of the
ways in which it makes sense to engage in the project of comparative religious ethics.
See also: agape; aquinas, saint thomas; buddhist ethics; character;

comparative religious ethics; incommensurability (and incomparability);
james, william; king, jr., martin luther; levinas, emmanuel; love; moral
development; moral status; motivation, moral; ought; responsibility;
suffering; supererogation; universalizability
REFERENCES
Adams, Robert 1984. “Saints,” Journal of Philosophy, vol. 81, pp. 392–401.
Brown, Peter 1981. The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Bynum, Caroline Walker 1987. Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to
Medieval Women. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Camus, Albert 1991 [1947]. The Plague, trans. Stuart Gilbert. New York: Vintage Press.
Coleman, John A. 1982. “After Sainthood?” in John Stratton Hawley (ed.), Saints and Virtues
Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 205–25.
Cunningham, Lawrence 1980. The Meaning of Saints. San Francisco: Harper & Row.
Day, Dorothy 1992. Selected Writings: By Little and By Little, ed. Robert Ellsberg. New York:
Orbis Books.
Dostoevsky, Fyodor 1970 [1880]. The Brothers Karamazov, trans. Andrew H. MacAndrew.
New York: Bantam.
Dyson, Michael Eric 2000. I May Not Get There With You: The True Martin Luther King, Jr.
New York: Free Press.
Flanagan, Owen 1991. Varieties of Moral Personality: Ethics and Psychological Realism.
Flescher, Andrew 2003. Heroes, Saints, and Ordinary Morality. Washington, DC: Georgetown
University Press.
Flew, R. N. 1968. The Idea of Perfection in Christian Theology: An Historical Study of the Ideal
for the Present Life. New York: Humanities Press.
10
Gandhi, Mahatma 2008. Mahatma Gandhi: The Essential Writings. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Gelber, Hester G. 1987. “The Exemplary World of St. Francis of Assisi,” in John Stratton
Hawley (ed.), Saints and Virtues. Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 15–35.
Heyd, David 1982. Supererogation: Its Status in Ethical Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Hick, John 1989. An Interpretation of Religion: Human Responses to the Transcendent.
New Haven: Yale University Press.
James, William 1982. The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature.
New York: Penguin.
Kidder, Tracy 2003. Mountains Beyond Mountains. New York: Random House.
King, Martin Luther, Jr. 1986. A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of
Martin Luther King, Jr., ed. James M. Washington. San Francisco: HarperCollins.
Levinas, Emmanuel 1974. Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, trans. Alphonso Lingus.
The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
Melden, A. I. 1984. “Saints and Supererogation,” in Ilham Dilman (ed.), Philosophy and Life:
Essays on John Wisdom. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, pp. 61–79.
Mother Teresa 1985. Total Surrender, ed. Brother Angelo Devanada. Ann Arbor: Servant
Publications.
Parker, Ian 2004. “The Gift,” The New Yorker. At http://facstaff.unca.edu/moseley/
zellkravinsky’skidney.pdf.
Stalnaker, Aaron 2006. Overcoming Our Evil: Human Nature and Spiritual Exercises in Xunzi
and Augustine, Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Stocker, Michael 1976. “The Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories,” Journal of
Urmson, J. O. 1958. “Saints and Heroes,” in A. I. Melden (ed.), Essays in Moral Philosophy.
Seattle: University of Washington Press, pp. 198–216.
Vann, Father Joseph (ed.) 1954. Lives of Saints. New York: John J. Crawley & Co., Inc.
Wolf, Susan 1982. “Moral Saints,” Journal of Philosophy, vol. 79, no. 8, pp. 419–39.
Wyschogrod, Edith 1990. Saints and Postmodernism: Revisioning Moral Philosophy. Chicago:
FURTHER READINGS
Anscombe, G. E. M. 1958. “Modern Moral Philosophy,” Philosophy, vol. 33, pp. 1–19.
Aronson, Harvey B. 1986. Love and Sympathy in Theravada Buddhism. Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidass.
Coles, Robert 1987. Dorothy Day: A Radical Devotion. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley Longman.
Day, Dorothy 1979. Thérèse. Springfield, Illinois: Templegate.
Day, Dorothy 1997. The Long Loneliness: The Autobiography of Dorothy Day. San Francisco:
HarperCollins.
Farmer, David Hugh 1987. The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Flescher, Andrew, and Daniel Worthen 2007. The Altruistic Species: Scientific, Philosophical, and
Religious Perspectives of Human Benevolence. Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation Press.
Gandhi, M. K. 1965. My Varnashrama Dhama. Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan.
11
Hawley, John Stratton (ed.) 1987. Saints and Virtues. Berkeley: University of California Press,
pp. xi–xxiv.
Inchausti, Robert 1991. The Ignorant Perfection of Ordinary People. Albany: State University
of New York Press.
Saint Teresa of Ávila 1957. The Life of Saint Teresa of Ávila by Herself, trans. J. M. Cohen.
New York: Penguin.
Spoto, Donald 2003. Reluctant Saint: The Life of Francis of Assisi. New York: Penguin.
Woodward, Kenneth 1990. Making Saints: How the Catholic Church Determines Who Becomes
Saints, Who Doesn’t, and Why. New York: Simon & Schuster.
1
Attitudes, Reactive
Michelle Mason
The term “reactive attitude” entered the philosophical lexicon with P. F. Strawson’s
seminal essay “Freedom and Resentment” (2003: 72–93; see strawson, p. f.).
Strawson introduces the term to refer to a class of attitudes that respond to qualities
of will – good, ill, or indifferent – that people manifest toward each other and
themselves. Consider: You are riding on a crowded bus and someone steps on your
toe, causing you great pain. In such circumstances, you might understandably feel
angry. Compare, however, the scenario where the person’s toe-stepping reflects no
ill will (perhaps the bus took an unexpected turn, forcing the person onto your
foot) with the scenario where the person intended to cause you pain (perhaps in
the hope of beating you to the last available seat). In the former case, presumably,
resenting the person’s action is out of place in a way that in the second case it
arguably is not. The phenomenon of resentment, a paradigmatic reactive attitude
for Strawson, thus demonstrates that whether or not a person’s actions and atti-
tudes manifest ill will, indifference, or good will matters to us. It matters, moreover,
in varying degrees depending on the relationship in which we stand to the person.
(Try substituting, for example, your spouse for the stranger.) This suggests a con-
nection between the kind of relationship in which we stand to another person and
the expectations and demands for good will that we legitimately make of them. We
can thus understand the reactive attitudes to be “reactive” in the sense of being
reactions to features of persons that manifest their response to the expectations and
demands of good will that constitute our relationships to one another. To regard
oneself and others as legitimate targets of reactive attitudes – such as gratitude,
resentment, forgiveness, love, and moral praise and blame (see gratitude; love;
blame) – just is to hold oneself and others responsible for meeting such expecta-
tions and demands.
Strawson’s employment of the concept of a reactive attitude is in the service of rec-
onciling traditional opponents in the debate over free will (see free will) and deter-
minism, that is, the incompatibilist and the compatibilist about determinism and
moral responsibility (see responsibility). Strawson agrees with the compatibilist in
arguing that the justification of the reactive attitudes, including those of moral praise
and blame, does not require free will in any sense of freedom that is incompatible
with the truth of determinism. At the same time, Strawson is sympathetic to the
incompatibilist insistence that something vital is lacking in those compatibilist justi-
fications of moral praise and blame that appeal to the efficacy of such attitudes in
regulating behavior. Thus, although Strawson would have the incompatibilist aban-
don metaphysical worries about free will, he acknowledges a remaining moral worry.
The moral worry is that the appeal to the efficacy of moral praise and blame provides
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee110
2
the wrong sort of justification of moral attitudes that purport to be forms of moral
address, as opposed to merely tools of social control. Strawson’s reconciling project
thus requires the incompatibilist to abandon (metaphysical) freedom of will as a
necessary condition of the justification of moral praise and blame, while requiring the
compatibilist to concede that appeals to social efficacy are not adequate justification.
Strawson’s Catalogue of Reactive Attitudes

Strawson draws a number of distinctions in outlining the concept of a reactive
attitude. He first isolates the “personal” or “participant” reactive attitudes, citing
resentment, gratitude, forgiveness, love, and hurt feelings as paradigm cases. The
personal reactive attitudes are what Strawson calls “nondetached” in the sense that
they are “reactions of people directly involved in transactions with each other” (2003:
75). Although the language of transaction perhaps is unfortunate in suggesting a
material exchange, Strawson intends to draw our attention to attitudes that typically
arise in the context of particular interpersonal relationships (e.g., among family
members, friends, lovers, and colleagues) and direct encounters. The nondetached,
personal reactive attitudes are the reactions of persons involved in such relationships
to each other’s qualities of will as manifested toward each other, in the light of the
expectations and demands legitimate to relationships of the relevant kind.
The personal reactive attitudes contrast both with “detached” reactive attitudes
and with self-reactive attitudes. Strawson describes the detached reactive attitudes,
of which moral indignation is a paradigm case, as “sympathetic or vicarious or
impersonal or disinterested or generalized analogues” of the nondetached reactive
attitudes (2003: 83). Thus, moral indignation is the analogue of resentment in being
directed at another person in virtue of the ill will that they manifest but differs from
resentment in responding to ill will as manifested toward another, not toward
yourself. For example, a stranger’s intentional insult warrants my moral indignation
when directed at a third person, whereas the insult warrants my resentment when
directed at me. The detached, impersonal reactive attitudes thus are reactions among
persons whose only relationship may be that in which any two moral agents stand to
one another, and the expectation of good will they presuppose is one made on behalf
of moral agents simply considered as such.
Finally, the self-reactive attitudes are a person’s reactions to his or her own quality
of will as manifested toward others. Your self-reactive attitudes reflect your
acknowledgment of (if not always compliance with) the expectations and demands
that others make on you. Strawson places in this class the sense of obligation,
compunction, guilt, remorse, and shame (see guilt; shame and honor).
The Reactive Attitudes as Moral Attitudes

Given Strawson’s understanding of the reactive attitudes as reactions to manifest
qualities of will and the role he assigns them in constituting moral responsibility, one
might suppose they are essentially moral attitudes – in a way that attitudes such as
3
disgust or admiration, for example, arguably are not. Strawson’s own account,
however, suggests a different understanding of the moral–nonmoral distinction as
applied to the reactive attitudes. Strawson proposes to distinguish moral from
nonmoral reactive attitudes by appealing to his distinction between, respectively,
detached and nondetached reactive attitudes.
The tendency to view the moral domain as requiring impartiality – such that moral
demands are addressed, and compliance with them owed, to all – offers one explana-
tion why Strawson may be drawn to designating only the detached reactive attitudes
“moral.” Even waiving objections that challenge understanding the moral domain in
this way, however, Strawson’s proposal is problematic. Certainly, the fact that another’s
insult reflects ill will toward me rather than toward some third person fails to make the
insult any less morally objectionable as a violation of a legitimate demand for good
will. In both cases, we can assume, the target of the insult is wronged. Why suppose,
then, that my subsequent resentment is not properly deemed a moral attitude, with
indignation, as against a nonmoral attitude such as disgust? Indeed, Strawson (1980)
later acknowledged his proposal was too restrictive in limiting the class of moral reac-
tive attitudes to those experienced vicariously or impersonally. Rather than take a
restrictive understanding of the “moral” to delimit a proper subset of the reactive atti-
tudes, then, one alternatively might welcome the breadth of attitudes Strawson’s con-
cept encompasses as an invitation to reconsider the range of attitudes of significance to
moral philosophy. On the latter proposal, regarding someone as within the scope of
the reactive attitudes is constitutive of regarding that person as a moral agent in the
sense of being answerable to an expectation or demand that forms part of a system of
expectations, demands, and rights regulation accordance with which is necessary for
aspiring to moral community with one’s fellows. Absent some further distinction
among particular reactive attitudes, then, there is no reason to suppose that certain of
them (e.g., indignation) are privileged so far as their moral import is concerned.
The Objective Attitude

The fundamental moral import of the reactive attitudes in general is evident once one
turns to Strawson’s distinction between reactive attitude and “objective” attitude.
When we take what Strawson calls the objective attitude toward a person, we view
him or her as “an object of social policy; as a subject for what, in a wide range of sense,
might be called treatment” (2003: 79). Consider, again, the example of a stranger on
the bus who steps on your toe, causing you great pain. Suppose that you find yourself
resenting the stranger because you believe she deliberately stepped on your toe out of
frustration at not getting your seat. Later, however, you discover that the person has
Tourette Syndrome and that her behavior is a symptom of her disease. This explana-
tion of the stranger’s toe-stepping behavior breaks the connection between the behav-
ior and the person’s attitude toward you. You thus come to realize that the behavior
does not manifest ill will or indifference to your pain in the way that justified resent-
ment presupposes. In short, her condition gives the stranger an excuse and gives you
a reason to forgo resenting her symptomatic behavior. Imagine, however, that you
4
were to regard all of someone’s behavior as if it were like the involuntary physical and
verbal tics characteristic of Tourette Syndrome and, so, divorced from his attitudes
toward you and his judgments about how to behave toward you. Imagine, that is,
that you were to regard his behavior never as expressions of his will but as mere
happenings – much as you regard the weather. You would thereby take toward him
the attitude that is Strawson’s concern in speaking of the wholly objective attitude.
To take the wholly objective attitude toward someone is to cease to regard him as
a moral agent. It is a stance adopted at significant cost to the possibilities for
relationship, for as Strawson poignantly expresses it, “If your attitude towards
someone is wholly objective, then though you may fight him, you cannot quarrel
with him, and though you may talk to him, even negotiate with him, you cannot
reason with him. You can at most pretend to quarrel or to reason with him”
(2003: 79). In a relatively neglected passage, Strawson also insightfully acknowledges
the phenomenon of adopting the objective attitude as a strategic refuge from “the
strains of involvement” in a relationship – albeit a strategy that forebodes the
relationship’s likely demise (2003: 79–80).
Relevance to the Debate Over Free Will and Determinism

How does Strawson intend his investigation of the reactive attitudes, understood as
above, to reconcile the incompatibilist and the compatibilist about determinism and
moral responsibility? Strawson sides with the view of someone he dubs “the optimist” –
a compatibilist – in arguing that being a legitimate target of the reactive attitudes does
not require that one’s will be free in any metaphysically robust sense that would be
undermined by the truth of determinism. Moral responsibility requires not freedom
in that sense but, rather, freedom from a range of standard excusing conditions.
Strawson nonetheless is sympathetic to a moral worry that might nag a person he
dubs “the pessimist” – an incompatibilist libertarian – and which the pessimist might
press against those compatibilists (such as Strawson’s own example of P. Nowell-Smith
[1948]), who wed an account of (nonmetaphysical) conditions of moral responsibility
to a utilitarian justification of our evaluative practices. The worry with the latter is
that, first, it treats the targets of our moral praise and blame as objects for social con-
trol rather than as moral agents. Second, it provides the wrong kind of reason to jus-
tify our evaluative practices: in appealing to the fact that the target will be positively or
negatively influenced rather than the fact that the target otherwise merits or deserves
praise or blame, it fails to capture the intrinsic value to us of standing in the relation-
ships of mutual regard that the reactive attitudes constitute (see desert).
With the compatibilist, Strawson emphasizes the significance of the kinds of
conditions that we in practice tend to treat as conditions calling for the modification
or withdrawal of reactive attitudes that would otherwise be warranted. Among the
excusing conditions Strawson highlights are, in one category, considerations that alter
our view of the relevant behavior of an agent (e.g., some injury or benefit) without
altering our view of the agent: the agent remains a person properly placed within the
scope of the reactive attitudes. In the example of the stranger who steps on your toe,
5
the stranger has caused you an injury. But where the circumstances of the injury are
such that the stranger’s behavior manifests no disregard of expectations, demands, and
rights regulation accordance with which is necessary for aspiring to moral community
with us, the circumstances enjoin us to view the injury as an inappropriate basis for
resentment. They do not, Strawson emphasizes, “invite us to view the agent as other
than a fully responsible agent. They invite us to see the injury as one for which he was
not fully, or at all, responsible” (2003: 77–8). In addition to force, Strawson includes in
this first class of excusing conditions (nonculpable) ignorance, among others.
A second class of excusing conditions differs from the first in altering our view not of
the behavior but of the agent – either temporarily (subclass 2a) or indefinitely so (sub-
class 2b). In 2a Strawson groups cases where a person has acted out of character, under
great stress, or even post-hypnotic suggestion. Class 2b includes the cases of children,
psychological compulsion, and pathology. Class 2 cases call in varying degrees for the
suspension of our typical expectations or demands for good will from the person in
question. In thus calling for us to view the person as lying outside the proper scope of
the reactive attitudes, they call for adopting the objective attitude toward the person.
Strawson’s investigation of the conditions that we typically treat as calling for the
modification or withdrawal of reactive attitudes gives rise to two lines of response to
the incompatibilist. First, with regard to the participant reactive attitudes, he argues
that it would be “practically inconceivable” to abandon them altogether, because to
abandon them would entail a form of emotional isolation that would make adult
relationships as we know them impossible. Second, supposing it were possible for us
to so alter our psychology, he argues that the truth of determinism would not suffice
to render such a choice rational; the weight of countervailing reasons for retaining
our practices as they stand is simply too great to be outweighed by whatever reason
a conviction in such a theoretical truth is thought to provide. Finally, Strawson
argues that, as it goes with the personal reactive attitudes, so too with their impersonal
analogues: “they stand or lapse together” (2003: 87). That is, although Strawson
acknowledges that it might be easier to conceive of forgoing impersonal attitudes,
such as indignation, without as great a cost to our relationships as the abandonment
of the personal reactive attitudes would entail, the result would be a form of “abnor-
mal egocentricity” (2003: 87). It would be so, presumably, because it would require
one to treat responses to the expectations and demands that one makes on those
with whom one stands in special relationships as significant to oneself but of no
significance to other members of the moral community.
While Strawson thus lends support to the compatibilist cause, he nonetheless
offers a novel account of the status of the excusing conditions, an account meant to
comfort the incompatibilist. Whereas compatibilists such as Nowell-Smith and
J. J. C. Smart (1961) take conditions that call for forgoing praise and blame to do so
because neither will influence the target’s future behavior, Strawson suggests another
explanation: in the cases where an excusing condition is present, the behavior is not
properly regarded as an expression of the agent’s will. The significance of the
excusing conditions for Strawson, then, lies not in their implications for the
possibility of controlling a person’s future behavior but in their implications for what
6
the person’s actions express or mean in the context of their relationships. Far from
tools of social control, moral praise and blame emerge on Strawson’s picture as
invaluable forms of moral address. That this is so even in the case of moral
indignation is registered in the fact that moral offenders accept that they merit such
reactive attitudes for violating legitimate expectations of good will, an acceptance
reflected in their corresponding forfeiture of the reactive attitudes that injury would
typically provoke (e.g., resentment). This, then, is the vital element that the
incompatibilist correctly demands of the utilitarian compatibilist and which
Strawson’s account of the reactive attitudes aims to provide.
Relevance of the Reactive Attitudes in Contemporary

Moral Psychology
Although Strawson’s work on the reactive attitudes is perhaps most often cited in the
context of philosophical discussions of moral responsibility, it enjoys a broader
influence on contemporary moral philosophy. A less remarked but nonetheless
significant achievement of the work, especially given the time and context of its
writing, is the attention it focused on a broad range of sentiments that contemporary
Anglo-American moral philosophers had long neglected (see sentiments, moral).
Most recently, the work has inspired important contributions to the metaethics of
moral obligation. Stephen Darwall draws on what he dubs “Strawson’s Point” – the
view that “Desirability is a reason of the wrong kind to warrant the attitudes and
actions in which holding someone responsible consists in their own terms” (Darwall
2006: 15) – to support a sophisticated account of a perspective he calls “the second-
person standpoint.” The second-person standpoint implicit in the reactive attitudes,
Darwall argues, is indispensable for understanding the authority that moral obliga-
tions purport to have over us all.
See also: blame; desert; free will; gratitude; guilt; love; responsibility;
sentiments, moral; shame and honor; strawson, p. f.
REFERENCES
Darwall, Stephen 2006. The Second-Person Standpoint: Morality, Respect, and Accountability.
Nowell-Smith, P. H. 1948. “Freewill and Moral Responsibility,” Mind, vol. 57, pp. 45–61.
Smart, J. J. C. 1961. “Free Will, Praise, and Blame,” Mind, vol. 70, pp. 291–306.
Strawson, P. F. 1980. “Reply to Ayer and Bennett,” in Z. van Straaten (ed.), Philosophical
Subjects: Essays Presented to P. F. Strawson. New York: Clarendon Press.
Strawson, P. F. 2003 [1962]. “Freedom and Resentment,” in G. Watson (ed.), Free Will. Oxford:
7
FURTHER READINGS
Ayer, A. J. 1980. “Free Will and Rationality,” in Z. van Straaten (ed.), Philosophical Subjects:
Essays Presented to P. F. Strawson. New York: Clarendon Press.
Fischer, John Martin 1999. “Recent Work on Moral Responsibility,” Ethics, vol. 110, pp. 93–139.
Fischer, John Martin, and Mark Ravizza 1998. Responsibility and Control: A Theory of Moral
Responsibility. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Hurley, Elisa A., and Coleen Macnamara 2010. “Beyond Belief: Toward a Theory of the
Reactive Attitudes,” Philosophical Papers, vol. 39, no. 3, pp. 373–99.
McKenna, Michael 1998. “The Limits of Evil and the Role of Moral Address: A Defense of
Strawsonian Compatibilism,” Journal of Ethics, vol. 2, pp. 123–42.
McKenna, Michael, and Paul Russell (eds.) 2008. Free Will and Reactive Attitudes: Perspectives
on P. F. Strawson’s “Freedom and Resentment.” Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
Russell, Paul 1992. “Strawson’s Way of Naturalizing Responsibility,” Ethics, vol. 102,
pp. 287–302.
Scanlon, T. M. 2008. Moral Dimensions: Permissibility, Meaning, Blame. Cambridge, MA:
University Press.
Watson, Gary 1987. “Responsibility and the Limits of Evil,” in Ferdinand Schoeman (ed.),
Responsibility, Character, and the Emotions. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Watson, Gary 1996. “Two Faces of Responsibility,” Philosophical Topics, vol. 24, pp. 227–48.
Watson, Gary (ed.) 2003. Free Will. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wolf, Susan 1981. “The Importance of Free Will,” Mind, vol. 90, pp. 386–405.
1
Overcriminalization
Douglas Husak
The title of this essay invites evaluative judgment. No one believes that overcriminali-
zation can be sound policy. The contested issues are: (1) What is overcriminalization
and how is it measured? (2) Why is overcriminalization undesirable? (3) Why might
a country overcriminalize? (4) What are some viable means to cope with the problem
when it occurs?
What Is Overcriminalization?
Is the United States (and/or other countries) guilty of overcriminalization? I believe
the answer is affirmative, although I will describe five reasons why this question is
difficult to answer.
First, the claim that we overcriminalize – and subject too much conduct to
punitive sanctions – is unintelligible without a baseline or reference point. In other
words, some standard is needed to determine when our degree of criminalization is
exactly right – not too much or too little. This baseline must be normative. Since
there is no consensus about the normative criteria that need to be satisfied before
a state is justified in enacting a penal law, disagreement about whether and to
what extent a state overcriminalizes is inevitable. Theorists who believe that these
criteria are stringent are far more likely to conclude that our state is guilty of
overcriminalization than those who think these criteria are relatively undemanding.
Second, no simple measure of the degree of criminalization exists. That is, no
single metric can be used to determine whether one society criminalizes a wider
range of conduct than another. Suppose, for example, that one country prohibits
many consensual sexual activities but permits persons to consume whatever
substance they like, while a second country has the opposite set of laws. Which
country has more criminalization? No “right answer” to this question can be given.
Without a device to quantify the degree of criminalization, the sheer number of
criminal statutes is often taken to be a surrogate for it. But the volume of criminal
statutes, although clearly relevant to allegations of overcriminalization, is a very
imperfect measure of its true extent. An increase in the number of statutes contained
in a criminal code is but one of many imperfect measures of the trend toward greater
criminalization. No single figure tells an accurate story about the size and scope of
criminal law.
Third, theorists may disagree about what makes a given law criminal. The most
plausible answer is that the criminal law (see criminal law) is that body of law
that coerces (see coercion) and subjects offenders to state punishment (see
punishment). If a law does not authorize the imposition of punitive sanctions, we
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee111
2
should not categorize it as part of criminal law. Unfortunately, this answer only
shifts the controversy elsewhere. Theorists disagree about what punishment is, and
thus about whether given sanctions are modes of punishment. I believe that state
punishment is best defined as the intentional imposition of a stigmatizing depri-
vation. Even if this definition is accepted, jurisdictions have ample incentives to
label sanctions as nonpunitive in order to withhold the procedural protections
that are required (typically by constitutional interpretation) when persons
are accused of a criminal offense. Debate surrounds such borderline cases as civil
forfeiture, community notification for sex offenders, deportation, and a host of
others.
Fourth, the allegation that a state is guilty of overcriminalization is compatible with
the admission that that state sometimes is guilty of undercriminalization (Ashworth
and Zedner 2010). A state overcriminalizes when it subjects to punishment conduct
that fails to satisfy the negative conditions in a normative theory of criminalization.
Conversely, it undercriminalizes when it fails to subject to punishment conduct that
satisfies the positive conditions in a normative theory of criminalization. Undoubtedly,
some conduct should be punished that presently is immune from criminal sanctions.
Many commentators believe, for example, that the United States desperately needs
additional gun control measures.
Fifth, judgments of whether a given legal system overcriminalizes should not
be made solely by reference to the “law on the books.” A better indication of
overcriminalization is the “law in action.” The latter refers to the way penal statutes
are actually construed and enforced by police, prosecutors, and judges. Several
states, for example, continue to retain antiquated laws regulating sexual behavior,
and others have enacted new laws prohibiting music piracy. Since few of these laws
are enforced, however, they are not good evidence of overcriminalization. The
question of whether a state overcriminalizes depends largely on empirical data about
the existing practices of legal officials.
In light of these five difficulties, theorists should be cautious before concluding
that any particular country is guilty of overcriminalization (Brown 2007).
Why Is Overcriminalization Undesirable?

The above difficulties notwithstanding, overcriminalization is pernicious for several
reasons. I will focus on two broad concerns. First, overcriminalization almost
certainly results in too much punishment that is undeserved. Second, overcrimi-
nalization threatens the rule of law. Like the phenomenon itself, each of these
problems is difficult to substantiate.
Although there is no necessary connection between overcriminalization and
overpunishment, the correlation between them is strong. A state that subjects too
much conduct to punitive sanctions inevitably punishes some individuals who
should not have been punished at all. The resulting injustice is among the most
serious that a system of criminal law can commit. Everyone agrees that it is imperative
not to punish persons who are not guilty of a criminal offense. It is only slightly less
3
objectionable to punish persons who have engaged in conduct that should not have
been criminalized in the first place. In addition, even when persons are punished for
conduct that merits punitive sanctions, overcriminalization is likely to produce
punishments that are disproportionate. The principle of proportionality requires the
severity of the sentence to be a function of the seriousness of the offense, and
overcriminalization contributes to violations of proportionality. No one can pretend
to understand the workings of criminal justice in the United States, for example,
without addressing the incidence of plea-bargaining. Among the main consequences
of overcriminalization is that prosecutors are able to induce defendants to plead
guilty by charge-stacking. Defendants are routinely prosecuted for multiple crimes –
even when, from an intuitive perspective, they have engaged in a single instance of
criminal conduct. Obviously, defendants face a more severe potential sentence when
multiple charges are brought against them. Prosecutors need to make credible
threats that these punishments will be imposed if defendants assert their innocence.
In order for these threats to induce guilty pleas, the sentences defendants receive
through plea bargains must be discounted, that is, made more lenient than would be
inflicted after a verdict of guilt in a trial (Barkow 2003). Therefore, overcriminalization
helps to impose disproportionate sentences on persons who exercise their right to be
tried and found guilty.
Next, overcriminalization erodes the principle of legality itself, jeopardizing our
status as a government of laws and not of men. This erosion of the rule of law takes
place in many ways, both obvious and subtle. First, the sheer volume of criminal
statutes makes it unreasonable to expect ordinary citizens to know what the law is.
Even experts are aware of only a handful of the penal laws to which we are subject.
Since ignorance of the law is rarely an excuse, the criminal law is prone to ambush
persons, punishing them for behavior they did not realize is prohibited. Second, the
money and time diverted into enforcement deplete the resources available to
tackle the social problems that create the incentives and occasions for offending. We
squander opportunities to foster a social environment conducive to conformity with
law. Third, as citizens encounter more and more petty and obscure criminal laws,
their respect for the legal system probably declines, threatening the role of law in
maintaining voluntary compliance. Fourth, the criminal law frequently borrows
categories and decisions from other areas of law, such as property, contract, and
administrative law, which are even more complex and difficult for ordinary persons
to grasp. Decisions to ban a given substance, for example, are made not by legislatures
but by administrative agencies. Finally, and perhaps most strikingly, the expansion
of criminal law means that typical citizens who regard themselves as law-abiding are
now committing crimes on a regular basis, and only official discretion (in arrest or
prosecution) protects them from the ensuing trials, convictions, and punishments.
When the criminal justice system overcriminalizes, no discernable principle
distinguishes those persons who are punished from those who are not (Husak 2003).
The expansion in criminal law contributes greatly to the recent growth in the
discretion of officials, many of whom are able to make use of increasingly vague and
recondite criminal laws to intimidate people selected for attention on some other
4
basis. As a result of these several factors, William Stuntz bluntly concludes “criminal
law is not, in any meaningful sense, law at all” (Stuntz 2002).
Why Might a Country Overcriminalize?

Why do countries subject so much conduct to punitive sanctions? No single answer
will suffice, and I propose to distinguish two very different kinds of responses. The
first is political; the second cites peculiar features of the way questions about
criminalization are approached in scholarly disciplines. Both are important. If we
hope to reverse the pernicious trend toward overcriminalization, we must try to
understand the forces that have helped to create and sustain it.
Criminologists debate the empirical realities that have contributed to our current
situation. Although no consensus has emerged, a hodgepodge of loosely related
factors is worth mentioning. Commentators uniformly complain about the extent to
which criminal justice in Western industrialized countries has become politicized.
The highly democratic character of criminal justice causes many of its best and worst
features. Perhaps most importantly, no political party is willing to allow others to
earn the reputation of being tougher on crime. Legislators hope to be perceived as
“doing something” to combat unwanted behaviors. Tabloids and the popular media
thrive on accounts of how offenders “get away” with crime by escaping through loop-
holes and technicalities. No significant political organization wants to represent the
“crime lobby” by protesting our eagerness to resort to criminalization and punishment.
Yet another explanation is the longstanding obsession with the judiciary and, in
the United States, with the Constitution. What passes for a general theory of law
in jurisprudence often is nothing more than a theory of how courts should decide
hard cases. We tend to focus on those issues that can be debated before a judge. In a
criminal proceeding in the United States, one can argue that the legislature has
overstepped its bounds only by citing some constitutional provision that has been
breached. Remarkably few of these provisions, however, limit the substantive
criminal law itself. Because of this fixation on the Constitution, relatively little
thought is given to the issue of whether given kinds of conduct should or should not
be criminalized.
The peculiar approach of academics to criminal law scholarship also contributes
to our present predicament. With a few noted exceptions (Kadish 1967; Schonsheck
1994), criminal law scholars have paid remarkably little attention to the topic of
criminalization. Criminal law scholarship has become overly specialized. Those
commentators who are most knowledgeable about the substantive criminal law are
not especially conversant with the latest developments in criminology or criminal
justice. Applications of a theory of criminalization require a willingness to wrestle
with empirical issues, and few legal theorists are proficient in the social sciences.
Although each of these several factors plays a role, we must understand how the
discipline of criminal theory is conceptualized if we hope to appreciate why a theory
to combat the problem of overcriminalization has not been produced. Legal
philosophers typically carve their subject matter into two halves: the general part
5
and special part of criminal law (Williams 1953). When the domain of criminal
theory is divided between its general and special parts, controversies about the
limits of penal liability seem destined to fall between the cracks. To which half of
criminal theory should we assign this issue? Principles of criminalization cannot
easily be located in the special part of criminal law – in that part that deals with
specific crimes such as burglary or arson. If these limitations are not included some-
where in the general part, they will have a hard time finding a home in criminal
theory at all.
As a result of our political and academic culture, the resources to question dubious
applications of the penal sanction are woefully undeveloped. Consider, for example,
the long-standing “war on drugs” that originated in the United States but has
profound consequences throughout the globe. Statutes punishing the use and
possession of given substances are probable examples of overcriminalization (Husak
1992). It is doubtful that these crimes could satisfy the criteria in a respectable theory
of criminalization. If I am correct, the implementation of a normative theory of
criminalization has the potential to bring about major reforms in our treatment of
drug offenders, with ramifications that would echo throughout the entire system
of criminal justice.
What Are Some Viable Means to Cope with Overcriminalization?

Legal philosophers should endeavor to construct a theory of criminalization if they
hope to reverse the trend toward overcriminalization. Ideally, this theory should
include both positive and negative principles. The positive principles should specify
when criminal statutes are justified; the negative principles should specify when
they are unjustified. If our primary concern is to retard overcriminalization, the
negative principles would naturally attract a larger focus. These negative principles
are expressed in the form of constraints that limit the authority of the state to enact
and enforce penal offenses. A theory that contains these constraints should be
minimalist (Ashworth 2006). The task of producing a minimalist theory involves at
least four related steps. First, constraints must be formulated. Second, they must
be interpreted; that is, they must be given meaning or content. Third, they must be
defended; arguments in favor of adopting them must be presented. Finally, these
constraints must be applied to particular cases. These complex tasks are the work of
a lifetime (Husak 2008).
I believe that positive law itself is committed to at least three overlapping
constraints on the scope of the criminal law: what I call the nontrivial harm or
evil constraint, the wrongfulness constraint, and the desert constraint (see harm).
First, no statute is justified unless it is designed to prevent a nontrivial harm
or evil. Moreover, criminal liability may not be imposed unless the defendant’s
conduct is wrongful. Finally, state punishment is justified only to the extent it is
deserved. I claim that these three constraints are internal to positive law itself
because much of criminal practice is unintelligible unless we suppose it is
committed to them.
6
I offer only three brief observations about these constraints. First, so-called mala
prohibita offenses are not exceptions to them. The trick is to show why the conduct
proscribed by a justified malum prohibitum offense is wrongful, not to show why it
may be proscribed notwithstanding its permissibility (Husak 2003). Second,
presumably all theorists believe punishments must be deserved. The conditions
under which punishments are deserved should help to identify a set of constraints
that limit the content of the substantive criminal law. Third, it is clear that the
foregoing constraints overlap significantly; most criminal laws that violate one will
violate the other(s) as well. But the overlap between these principles should not be
mistaken for an identity; we should not think, for example, that punishments are
undeserved if and only if they are imposed for conduct that is permissible. In par-
ticular, the desert and wrongfulness constraints diverge because not all wrongdoing
should make persons eligible for state punishment. Private wrongdoing, however
identified, does not render persons deserving of state punishment. The task of
distinguishing public from private wrongdoing is yet another major hurdle in
formulating a theory of criminalization (Duff 2007).
At least three additional constraints on criminalization derive from political
theory. After all, criminal punishment is imposed by the state. In light of the fact that
a system of criminal justice is extraordinarily expensive, error-prone, and subject to
abuse, citizens must be given good reasons to create and invoke it. What could justify
this exercise of state coercive power? I believe, first, that the state must have a
substantial interest in whatever objective a statute is designed to achieve. Second,
a justified law must directly advance that interest. Third, a statute must be no more
extensive than necessary to achieve its purpose.
A few observations about these three conditions are as follows. First, the initial
requirement that criminal legislation must aim toward a substantial state interest
includes three analytically distinct parts: legislators must (1) identify a state interest,
(2) determine its legitimacy, and (3) decide whether that interest is substantial. The
second constraint requires a finding that the law directly advances that interest. This
condition moves from the what to the how of legislation. To make this transition
successfully, empirical evidence rather than unsupported speculation is needed to
show that a legislative purpose will actually be served. Although this condition may
seem trivial, it jeopardizes an enormous amount of criminal legislation. At the
present time, persons may be subjected to deprivation and censure, despite the
complete lack of evidence that the statute in question will further its objective. In
particular, the requirement of empirical support cannot be met by facile allegations
that a statute will deter. In a great many cases, social scientists have demonstrated
that the conditions under which statutes achieve marginal deterrence simply do not
exist in the real world (Robinson and Darley 2004). Finally, the third and last con-
straint in this part of a minimalist theory of criminalization requires the state to
show that an offense is no more extensive than necessary to achieve its objective. To
apply this condition, legislators must be prepared to entertain and evaluate alterna-
tive means to attain their purpose. Applying this condition throughout the corpus of
penal laws would open up an entirely new area of investigation. Deciding whether
7
and under what circumstances one option would be less extensive than another
would again necessitate research that criminal theorists have seldom recognized the
need to undertake.
I have taken only a small step toward sketching the constraints in a minimalist
theory of criminalization. I am hopeful that the application of this theory would
help to retard the pernicious tendency toward overcriminalization from which the
United States and other Western industrialized countries presently suffer.
See also: coercion; criminal law; harm; punishment
REFERENCES
Ashworth, Andrew 2006. Principles of Criminal Law, 5th ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Ashworth, Andrew, and Lucia Zedner 2010. “Preventive Justice: A Problem of Under-
Criminalization?,” in Antony Duff, Lindsay L. Farmer, S.E. Marshall, et al. (eds.), The
Boundaries of the Criminal Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Barkow, Rachel E. 2003. “Recharging the Jury: The Criminal Jury’s Constitutional Role in an
Era of Mandatory Sentencing,” University of Pennsylvania Law Review, vol. 152, p. 33.
Brown, Darryl K. 2007. “Democracy and Decriminalization,” Texas Law Review, vol. 86,
p. 223.
Duff, R. A. 2007. Answering for Crime. Oxford: Hart Publishing.
Husak, Douglas 1992. Drugs and Rights. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Husak, Douglas 2003. “Is the Criminal Law Important?” Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law,
vol. 1, p. 261.
Husak, Douglas 2008. Overcriminalization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kadish, Sanford 1967. “The Crisis of Overcriminalization,” Annals of the American Academy
of Political and Social Science, vol. 374, p. 157.
Robinson, Paul H., and John M. Darley 2004. “Does Criminal Law Deter? A Behavioural
Science Investigation,” Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, vol. 24, p. 173.
Schonsheck, Jonathan 1994. On Criminalization: An Essay in the Philosophy of the Criminal
Law. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Stuntz, William J. 2002. “Correspondence: Reply: Criminal Law’s Pathology,” Michigan Law
Review, vol. 101, p. 828.
Williams, Glanville 1953. Criminal Law: The General Part. London: Stevens & Sons.
FURTHER READINGS
Ashworth, Andrew 2000. “Is the Criminal Law a Lost Cause?” Law Quarterly Review,
vol. 116, p. 225.
Colb, Sherry F. 1994. “Freedom from Incarceration: Why Is This Right Different from All
Other Rights?” New York University Law Review, vol. 69, p. 781.
Dripps, Donald A. 1998. “The Liberal Critique of the Harm Principle,” Criminal Justice Ethics,
vol. 17, p. 3–18.
Duff, R. A., and Stuart P. Green (eds.) 2005. Defining Crimes: Essays on the Special Part of the
Criminal Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
8
Feinberg, Joel 1984. Harm to Others: The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Husak, Douglas 2005. “Malum Prohibitum and Retributivism,” in R. A. Duff and Stuart
P. Green (eds.), Defining Crimes: Essays on the Special Part of the Criminal Law. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, p. 65.
Whitman, James Q. 2003. Harsh Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
1
Addiction
Douglas Husak
What is the relevance of addiction to ethics? I propose to focus on one small but
important aspect of this topic: the impact of addiction on autonomy (see autonomy).
Since each of these concepts is enormously contentious, it may seem hopeless to
suppose that anyone can make much progress relating the two. I believe this
pessimism is unwarranted.
Begin with autonomy. We are more interested in personal than in moral autonomy,
that is, in a sense of autonomy roughly equivalent to self-governance, self-rule, self-
authorship, or the like. As I construe it here, personal autonomy is best understood
as reason responsiveness. Individuals are autonomous to the extent that they respond
to reasons for action (see reasons). Some of us are more autonomous – responsive
to reasons, on my account – than others. Unlike moral autonomy, personal autonomy
is an achievement that some of us attain far better than others and a few of us attain
hardly at all. On any reasonable conception, the achievement of personal autonomy
is a matter of degree. Moreover, each of us becomes less or (hopefully) more
autonomous over time. No human being has ever conformed to an ideal of perfect
autonomy in every action. Only an infant or severely mentally defective human
being is wholly nonautonomous in being totally unresponsive to reasons. In the
latter case, we would not describe the human being as an agent at all. He would lack
moral autonomy in the Kantian sense.
Why believe that someone is autonomous and the author of his life to the extent that
he is responsive to reasons? A partial answer is that this view is presupposed by most
other conceptions of autonomy that are familiar to philosophers. Consider, for exam-
ple, Harry Frankfurt’s celebrated conception of autonomy. According to Frankfurt
(1971), a person is autonomous to the extent that he identifies with his first-order
desires, where identification is explicated in terms of a second-order desire that the
first-order desire reflect his will. It is hard to see how anyone could become autono-
mous in this sense unless he is responsive to reasons. After all, he must be responsive
to reasons before a conflict between his first- and second-order desires affords him any
reason to resolve the discrepancy. In other words, we could not hope to conform our
first-order desires to our second-order desires unless we were responsive to reasons.
Whatever may be the impact of addiction on drug-taking behavior, no sensible
person should hold the extreme view that addiction destroys autonomy globally,
transforming agents into nonagents. Some metaphors – the drug addict as zombie, for
example – may suggest this extreme view, but they should not be taken seriously. If
addiction impairs autonomy, as seems plausible, it surely does not destroy the capac-
ity for agency altogether. Addicts retain their standing as moral agents and may not
be treated as mere things. A number of theorists have defended the only slightly more
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee112
2
plausible view that addiction renders the drug-taking behavior of addicts totally
nonautonomous. Perhaps this view once was commonly held by addiction theorists,
and may still be embraced by many laypersons. Presumably the point of calling
addiction a disease, as many theorists insist, is to hold that addicts are no more auton-
omous for taking drugs than for exhibiting symptoms of a disease. Nonetheless, the
drug use of addicts is not wholly lacking in reason responsiveness. No addict – or
almost no addict – passes (or fails) the test of taking drugs with a policeman at his
elbow. Furtive behavior involves reason responsiveness. Addiction at most impairs
the autonomous nature of drug-taking behavior, but hardly destroys it.
Next, consider addiction. By addiction I mean, roughly, compulsive use marked
by psychological feelings of craving and loss of control where use persists despite
negative consequences. Additional features include feelings of euphoria or pleasure,
dysphoria or withdrawal, craving, tolerance, cue dependence, belief dependence,
harm to self, crowding out, mood alterations, desire to quit, inability to quit,
denial, struggle for self-control, and relapse (Elster 1999: 59). Of the foregoing, the
subjective experience of craving is probably the most salient. I doubt that anyone
who did not crave a drug would be said to be addicted to it. In any event, despite the
enormous scholarly dispute about addiction, we need not presuppose any very
controversial views about its nature.
Some theorists narrow their topic by stipulating that they are talking about drug
addiction and not about addiction more generally. This stipulation begs too many
important questions. Among the outstanding issues to be addressed is whether
addiction to the use of drugs is fundamentally unlike so-called addictions to
gambling, Internet pornography, potato chips, cellphone texting, or even love.
Although I will focus on drug addiction, I believe this phenomenon is similar to
other alleged addictions in terms of its impact on autonomy. Any differences turn
out to be matters of degree.
We should be careful not to conceptualize the phenomenon of addiction by
generalizing from a particular drug – especially the opiates, which in several respects
are the most addictive. Many of the foregoing characteristics are shared by caffeine,
clearly the most popular drug even though it receives surprisingly little attention in
the addiction literature. Perhaps the addictiveness of caffeine is overlooked because
its sustained use is relatively harmless to oneself or to others. Or perhaps the craving
of caffeine addicts is not sufficiently severe. But caffeine should not be neglected
because its sustained use does not create significant impediments to reason respon-
siveness. Of course, this latter basis for neglecting caffeine begs questions about how
addiction affects autonomy.
In order to decide how addiction impacts autonomy, we need to investigate the
extent to which addicts are responsive to reasons. This is mostly an empirical
question. I will conclude that we really cannot say much that is definitive and general
about how addiction affects autonomy. The problem is not simply that we don’t
know enough about addictive behavior. The main (but not the only) difficulty is that
reason responsiveness varies enormously from one addict to another, from one time
3
to another, from one drug to another, from one reason to another, and from one
circumstance to another.
Philosophers can make a special contribution by showing why the reason respon-
siveness of addicts is not solely an empirical matter. First, consider why we are so inter-
ested in assessing the impact of addiction on autonomy. The primary reason is to
decide whether addicts are eligible for moral blame and/or legal punishment for their
addictive behaviors. To resolve this matter, we must identify the degree to which a given
agent must be autonomous before he becomes criminally or morally responsible and
eligible for blame and punishment. This question arises only if the conduct in question
is morally wrongful. At least three conceptual difficulties arise in answering this ques-
tion. First, it is nearly impossible to quantify degrees of autonomy. If agent A is respon-
sive to reason Γ but not to reason Δ, and agent B is responsive to reason Δ but not Γ, by
what criterion should we decide whether agent A or B is more autonomous? Second,
even if we were able to defend some criterion for making the foregoing determination
and could quantify the reason responsiveness of each addict in a common currency, we
still would need to specify how much autonomy is required before moral or criminal
responsibility could be justified. It seems unlikely that we could identify some thresh-
old T beyond which moral blame and/or criminal liability would be legitimate.
Third, whether blame or punishment should be ruled out because of a diminution
of autonomy is partly a function of how serious the wrong is for which blame or
punishment is sought. If the wrong is serious, we would require a major impairment
of autonomy before we would exempt agents from blame and/or punishment for
committing it. But if the wrong is trivial, a lesser diminution of autonomy would be
needed. Since the wrong we are talking about is that of drug use – not, say, bank
robbery – we will be unable to decide whether addicts are blameworthy or subject to
punishment for committing this wrong unless we have some general view about how
serious it is. I am inclined to believe that most acts of drug use are not wrongful at
all. If I am correct, asking whether addiction impairs autonomy for this wrong to a
sufficient degree to exempt blame and/or punishment is an incoherent inquiry.
If persons do not merit blame and/or punishment because their acts are not
wrongful, no diminution of blame is possible. In short, addiction does not preclude
blame because there is no blame to preclude.
To avoid misunderstanding, it is important to concede that particular acts of drug
use are wrongful. Suppose a person is substantially impaired by a drug and drives a
car, endangering himself or others. Clearly, his act is wrongful. What is doubtful,
however, is that its wrongfulness is affected by supposing that the driver is an alco-
holic or a drug addict. Worries about the impact of addiction on autonomy do not
arise in inquiries about the wrongfulness of dangerous acts such as drunk driving. In
any event, I repeat that drug use per se does not seem wrongful; it becomes wrongful
only in particular circumstances in which special risks are created.
No matter how wrongful we take drug use to be, however, it is noteworthy that
addiction has not been thought to impair autonomy to a sufficient degree to affect
liability. Although a handful of jurists have argued otherwise, no jurisdiction allows
addicts to qualify for a diminution of criminal responsibility. In positive law,
4
addiction is neither a total nor a partial excuse for the crime of obtaining and using
drugs. For these reasons, no amount of empirical evidence can resolve the contro-
versy about the impact of addiction on autonomy.
Despite each of these (mostly) nonempirical questions, some progress can be
made in assessing the impact of addiction on autonomy. Most theorists, I believe,
agree that we need to adopt a diachronic perspective on reason responsiveness in
order to understand how addiction impairs it. Neil Levy, among others, takes this
position. He argues that “addicts lack autonomy when they suffer regular and uncon-
trollable preference reversals, such that they find themselves, when in the grip of
their addiction, doing things that at other times they would prefer not to do” (Levy
2006: 440 n.8). The reason responsiveness of addicts varies enormously over time.
Addicts are dynamically inconsistent planners who deviate from their prior inten-
tions, lose resolve, and surrender to temptation at the moment they use drugs. Their
reason responsiveness declines as their craving increases.
Diachronic accounts almost certainly are correct. Still, I have several related
reservations. First, I dispute Levy’s strong claim that “addicts lack autonomy” when
they experience preference reversals. Even at the moment when craving peaks, a
total lack of reason responsiveness is nonexistent or rare. Second, some addicts do
not exhibit dramatic preference reversals. Levy himself adds that “addiction need
not impair autonomy. Some addicts do exactly what they prefer.” Third, it is note-
worthy that on such accounts the drug-taking behavior of addicts is not unlike that
of persons who want to lose weight but overeat and subsequently regret how much
food they have consumed. They differ only in degree. Finally, one may complain
that the effect of addiction on autonomy has not been explained as much as described.
Why does the use of given substances – drugs or otherwise – cause so many users to
“suffer regular and uncontrollable preference reversals?” What is missing from this
account is a hypothesis about why some persons but not others suffer these prefer-
ence reversals when they habitually consume particular drugs. Whatever explains
the distinction between addicts and nonaddicts – or even the distinction between
two classes of addicts – remains mysterious. If the regular consumption of heroin
leads a relatively high percentage of users to lose autonomy while the regular con-
sumption of carrots does not, something that differentiates heroin from carrots is
likely to be the culprit. As far as I can see, this “something” is wholly unexplained.
I turn finally to a few empirical findings that bear on my topic. At one time,
theorists speculated that addicts became unresponsive to reason and lost all or
most of their autonomy because the pains of withdrawal are too intense to allow
reason to function. But this view of addiction has been widely discredited (Husak
1992). First, the pains of withdrawal are not sufficiently powerful to overwhelm
our rational capacities (Kaplan 1983: 55). Second, if the pain of withdrawal were
so extreme as to seriously undermine autonomy, one wonders why so many
addicts undergo it so many times, sometimes voluntarily. Addicts typically drift in
and out of their habit, forgoing drugs for long periods of time before relapsing.
They resume using drugs long after their withdrawal has disappeared altogether.
The desire to intensify the euphoric affects of a drug by decreasing tolerance
5
through voluntary abstinence is a clear example of reason responsiveness.

Moreover, even if the pains of withdrawal were excruciating, addicts spend only a
fraction of their time in a state of withdrawal. Craving is hardly a constant that
characterizes every moment of the addict. Thus addicts are reason responsive a
good deal of the time, even if their autonomy is significantly impaired at others.
Decisions at this time to take or not to take effective steps to curb their addictive
behaviors are reason responsive.
If we are interested in the extent to which addicts generally are responsive to
reason, among the most salient facts is that the majority quit (Sobell et al. 2000).
Although we need to know more about how addicts manage to stop using the sub-
stances to which they are addicted, most do so because they respond to one or more
reasons. More often than not, these reasons do not involve anything we would
describe as treatment. The majority of smokers who quit, for example, do so without
any aid. An even greater percentage of alcoholics and heroin and cocaine addicts
quit without treatment. Adults typically have more incentives to respond to their
reasons to quit than at the time they began to use drugs. Addicts who quit on their
own typically report that they did so in order to achieve some degree of normalcy
(Heyman 2009: Ch. 4). Obviously, no one can aspire to normalcy unless he is respon-
sive to reasons. Even when they do not quit, many addicts moderate their consump-
tion in ways that exhibit an impressive degree of reason responsiveness. Few addicts
are out of control, but conform to self-imposed rules that dictate when, where, and
with whom to use drugs. Virtually all addicts conform to these rituals to some
degree, and thus exhibit a surprising amount of autonomy.
Even those addicts who quit because of coerced treatment tend to remain reason
responsive. Only a small number of treatment regimes bypass rational agency alto-
gether. One recent trend in treatment that has been widely applauded demonstrates
the reason responsiveness of addicts. We have seen a huge movement toward diver-
sion of eligible defendants into drug courts, about 2,200 of which now exist in every
jurisdiction in the United States. Evidence shows that these courts are fairly effective
relative to traditional criminal justice alternatives. The carrots and sticks that these
courts offer could not possibly be effective unless addicts were responsive to the
reasons that these rewards and penalties provide. Yet another support for the reason
responsiveness of addictive behaviors comes from economic studies. The consump-
tion of addictive drugs has long been shown to be price sensitive. In fact, addicts
often stop using drugs because they are paid to do so (Petry et al. 2005).
I turn now to what I take to be the most important reason that general conclu-
sions about the impact of addiction on autonomy are so tenuous. Each of the forego-
ing empirical results indicates that addicts as a class are somewhat but not wholly
reason responsive. What is remarkable, however, is how variable and unpredictable
the reason responsiveness of given addicts turns out to be. Some addicts respond to
some reasons, while others do not. To this point, no account of drug addiction –
social or neurobiological – is able to make reliable predictions about which addicts
will respond to which reasons and which will not. Some addicts will not quit at all;
others quit only after being unresponsive to reasons that persuade others; still others
6
quit on their first attempt. Some are amazingly influenced by small economic incen-
tives; others resist them even when they are large. Some women are notorious for
persisting in their use of drugs throughout pregnancy and motherhood, while oth-
ers give up drugs forever upon learning of their pregnancy. Some addicts moderate
their consumption after receiving a health scare; others moderate when family life is
jeopardized; others moderate in order to keep their jobs; still others do not moder-
ate at all. If we possessed fairly accurate means to predict which addicts would quit
or curb their consumption in response to which reasons for which drugs under
which conditions, the effectiveness of drug treatment would skyrocket. This objec-
tive remains the gold standard for understanding addiction. Thus far, however, our
predictive powers are meager.
Suppose, then, we wanted to describe how the autonomy of a given person – call him
Alfred – is impaired by his addiction. I have mentioned many conceptual issues that
make this determination problematic before we examine the situation of any given indi-
vidual. But when we finally turn to Alfred’s particular case, we would have to specify to
which reasons he is nonresponsive with respect to which drugs under which conditions
at which time. Without including each of the foregoing variables in our analysis, we
could not begin to represent the extent to which Alfred’s autonomy is impaired. No
device to express each of these variables on a single scale is available to us. The difficul-
ties of making this determination about Alfred are compounded hopelessly if we try to
say something meaningful and nontrivial about the impact of addiction on autonomy
generally. Attempts to generalize about the autonomy of all addicts are barely intelligible.
See also: autonomy; capabilities; free will; moral agency; reasons;

responsibility
REFERENCES
Elster, Jon 1999. Strong Feelings. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Frankfurt, Harry G. 1971. “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person,” Journal of
Heyman, Gene 2009 Addiction: A Disorder of Choice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Husak, Douglas 1992. Drugs and Rights. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kaplan, John 1983. The Hardest Drug: Heroin and Public Policy. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Levy, Neil 2006. “Autonomy and Addiction,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 36,
pp. 427–48.
Petry, N. M., J. M. Peirce, M. L. Stitzer, et al. 2005. “Effect of Prize-Based Incentives on
Outcomes in Stimulant Abusers in Outpatient Psychosocial Treatment Programs:
A National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network Study,” Archives of General
Psychiatry, vol. 62, pp. 1148–56.
Sobell, L. C., T. P. Ellingstad, and M. B. Sobell 2000. “Natural Recovery from Alcohol and
Drug Problems: Methodological Review of the Research with Suggestions for Future
Directions,” Addiction, vol. 95, pp. 749–64.
1
Palliative Care
Henk ten Have
History and Development

Palliation has always been a goal of medicine. Medical efforts are usually focused
on eliminating the causes of disease (cure) or on preventing illness. However, for
centuries, effective therapeutic interventions were rare and knowledge about the
etiology of diseases inaccurate or fragmented, so that medicine has, for most of its
history, tried to control the symptoms of the disease and to alleviate the complaints
and suffering of the patient (see suffering).
In the nineteenth century, the expansion of medical science and technology
produced a better scientific understanding of physiology and pathology. A range of
more effective interventions, curative as well as preventative, emerged. Against this
background of growing medical power, “palliative” obtained a pejorative meaning; it
is regarded as a secondary option after all curative and preventative possibilities
have been exhausted.
The term “palliation” is derived from the Latin word pallium, for “cloak.” In a
negative interpretation, this is synonymous to “hiding.” Although the goal of cure
cannot be accomplished, there is no radical or permanent solution for the malady of
the patient, but this is hidden because, in a desperate effort, interventions are tried that
are useless, superfluous, or unnecessary. In a positive interpretation, it means “cover-
ing.” The emblematic symbol of palliation is St. Martin, who shares his cloak with a
beggar in order to give him at least some care and shelter. This interpretation is also
connected to another one that relates the etymology to the Greek word for “shield”:
palliation here means that the patient is protected against interventionist and activist
medicine.
Since the 1960s, the progress in medicine’s diagnostic and therapeutic effective-
ness became increasingly an object of social debate. Resuscitation technology and
organ transplantation are early examples. These debates also brought a new focus on
death and dying, particularly through the work of psychiatrists such as Elisabeth
Kübler-Ross and historians such as Philippe Ariès (see death). Changing mortality
patterns are associating death with protracted dying, old age, and chronic illness,
rather than infectious diseases and childhood. Medical power is regarding death as
the ultimate enemy. Death is combated until the last moment so that more and more
people die in hospitals. Modern citizens are no longer in control of the process of
dying their own death.
This is the background of the emergence of modern palliative care. The
characteristic moment is the foundation of St. Christopher’s hospice in the United
Kingdom in 1967. By creating the first modern institution of specialized care for the
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee113
2
dying, Cicely Saunders launched the hospice movement. Initially reluctant to use the
word “palliative care,” Saunders speaks about “comfort care” or “hospice care.” In her
opinion, another approach, i.e., “total care,” is needed for terminally ill and dying
patients than the one usually provided in hospitals (see care ethics). The hospice
movement emerged from discomfort with mainstream medicine that neglected the
needs of the dying, since it was captivated by technology and primarily focused on
interventions and actions. Care and communication, rather than medical interven-
tion, should be given priority, and the unique person of the patient rather than
bodily mechanisms should receive attention. This type of criticism is closely related
to emerging bioethical critique of mainstream medicine around the same time (see
bioethics).
In the next decade, hospital-based palliative care services developed in North
America, where the term “palliative care” was introduced by Balfour Mount in
1975. In the 1980s, palliative care expanded in other countries: Italy (1980),
Germany (1983), Spain (1984), and Belgium (1985). The term became accepted
as a broad concept, referring not so much to a separate building (hospice) or
location of care (home care), as to a different philosophy of care, namely, the pal-
liative care approach. Terminology continues to differ according to social and
cultural settings. In the German language, for example, there is no adequate term
for “palliative care” (only “palliative medicine”). In the Italian language, the term
“palliativo” has negative meanings. In Spanish, the term “hospice” traditionally
has a very pejorative connotation, so that its use is avoided. Different concepts of
palliative care are therefore used in different countries, depending on different
socio-cultural values in regard to death, dying, suffering, and bereavement.
These values also determine the organization of palliative care. The nature of
palliative care services is very different from country to country. The focus can
be on clinical palliative care units (e.g., in Spain), on home care services (e.g.,
Belgium and Sweden), nursing homes (e.g., in the Netherlands), in-patient or
out-patient hospices (e.g., in the United Kingdom), or palliative support teams.
In the United States, a huge network of hospice organizations exists with large
populations of volunteers, but it is often not well connected to palliative care
services in hospitals.
Currently, the scope of palliative care is expanding. While it was initially
concerned with terminal cancer patients, attention is now directed to the needs of
all patients with irreversible illness, not responsive to cure and leading to death,
such as chronic pulmonary disease, end-stage renal disease, HIV/AIDS, and
Alzheimer’s disease. This expanding scope also implies that palliative care is no
longer only concerned with the terminal phase of illness, but is advocated in all
stages of diseases for which cure is no longer feasible. At the same time, this
expanding scope raises major policy issues since the provision of palliative care in
most countries is inadequate. For example, palliative care services have been set
up for children. However, the need for such services is enormous, particularly in
sub-Saharan Africa where half of global childhood deaths occur (Amery et al.
2009).
3
Definitions
Different names (comfort care, terminal care, palliative medicine, supportive
care, hospice care) are used but “palliative care” is now the family name. It has
been defined in 1990 as “the active total care of patients whose disease is not
responsive to curative treatment” (WHO 1990). A broader definition, now
commonly used, is the one proposed by WHO in 2002: “Palliative care is an
approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing
the problem associated with life-threatening illness, through the prevention
and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assess-
ment and treatment of pain and other problems, physical, psychosocial and
spiritual” (WHO 2002). The new definition demonstrates the wider scope of
palliative care: it is not only relevant for patients in the last stages of care but
for all those in the course of any chronic illness. At the same time, although pain
relief is important, there are also other needs of the patient to address.
Characteristics of Palliative Care

Palliative care is related to a specific set of moral notions, such as “quality of life,”
“human dignity,” “acceptance of human mortality,” and “total care” (Janssens et al.
2001). This is clear from the common characteristics highlighted in the definitions.
1 Palliation as a goal of health care. When the medical and technological

possibilities to cure a disease have become futile or prevention is not
possible, another type of care is required. It is a common mistake to present
palliative care as an option of abstention, “nothing can be done anymore.” In
fact, palliative care can have four different goals: (i) improvement of quality
of life; (ii) symptom control and relief of pain; (iii) accomplishment of a
good death; and (iv) prevention of euthanasia (see euthanasia). Although
there is no consensus regarding all these goals, the crucial consideration in
palliative care is: What is adequate intervention and care for this particular
patient, given that there no longer is any curative prospect? (ten Have and
Clark 2002).
2 Specific virtues (see virtue). Palliative care requires the acceptance that the
person is suffering from an incurable disease and that his or her life is coming
to an end, sooner rather than later. Dying is a natural event, a normal process
of life. Even if, for modern medicine, death is the enemy that we must combat
all the time, and for modern culture death and dying are taboos and unwanted
risks that need to be eliminated and avoided, palliative care will openly face
death. It will take death seriously, discuss it with the patient, but will also
assume an attitude of restraint. Nothing will be undertaken to prolong dying
or to hasten death.
3 Involvement of patients and relatives. Palliative care requires partnership and
shared decision-making. The patient and his relatives are at the centre of care.
4
Since the potential benefits of interventions are limited, the patient should
indicate which interventions are meaningful.
4 Total care. The patient is confronted with fundamental questions concerning
life and death. Confronted with human mortality, queries will arise about
the meaning of life and death, but there are also fears and anxieties, worries
over loved ones who stay behind, as well as spiritual and existential concerns
(see life, meaning of). Palliative care is therefore essentially holistic,
broad-spectrum care.
5 Interdisciplinary approach. In order to meet the needs of patients, team work is
inevitable – not only bringing together different professional caregivers, but also
family members, neighbors, and friends. Palliative care is building on all-round
expertise. It finally involves volunteers, also to guarantee the continuity between
different care settings: home, hospital, hospice, and nursing home.
Ethical Issues in Palliative Care

Palliative care presents itself as a new area of bioethical research and consultation.
Three moral problems are discussed, since they arise here more frequently than in
other care settings.
1. Sedation. In the practice of palliative care, sedation is used in varying ways, result-
ing in different terminology (e.g., “terminal sedation” and “deep sedation”) and vagueness
of the concept. The goal of sedation is to relieve refractory suffering by reducing con-
sciousness. It is therefore an option of last resort because the symptoms can no longer be
adequately treated, and the suffering relieved, without compromising the consciousness
of the patient. However, sedation should be guided by the notion of proportionality: the
reduction of consciousness should be just enough to relieve suffering. Otherwise it will
result in shortening the life of the patient, particularly when sedation is combined with
withholding or withdrawing of artificial food and fluids. Some opponents have, for this
reason, identified palliative sedation with “slow euthanasia.” In order to clarify the debate,
it is proposed to use the general term “palliative sedation” and to define it as: “The inten-
tional administration of sedative drugs in dosages and combinations required to reduce
the consciousness of a terminal patient as much as necessary to adequately relieve one or
more refractory symptoms” (Claessens et al. 2008). The emphasis in this definition
on goal and intention (see intention) (reflected in the proportionality) will demarcate
palliative sedation from euthanasia (when the goal is to end the life of the patient).
However, moral controversies remain. One problem is the appropriate indication
for palliative sedation. If it is justified in case of refractory physical symptoms (e.g.,
delirium, dyspnea, and pain), is it also justified in cases of existential suffering in
which it is difficult to determine when the suffering is refractory? Another problem
concerns the possible life-shortening effect of sedation. Studies suggest that such
effects are not proven (Maltoni et al. 2009). However, when the administration of
artificial fluids is withdrawn, the patient will certainly die. Whether or not to
5
combine sedation with the decision to withhold or withdraw artificial food and
fluids is still under debate. A third problem is the decision-making process. In most
cases, the decision to sedate the patient is discussed with the patient and the family,
and taken after explicit consent (see consent). At the same time, this decision is
very difficult and burdensome for caregivers and family. The prevalence of palliative
sedation varies across countries (e.g., from 2.5 percent in Denmark to 16.5 percent
in the United Kingdom), but it is unclear whether this depends on conceptual variety
or on moral, legal, and cultural determinants (Seale 2010).
2. Euthanasia. From the beginning, palliative care has been interpreted as in

opposition to euthanasia. Definitions of palliative care often claim that death will be
a considered a natural process and that nothing will be undertaken to hasten or
postpone death. It is often argued that better palliative care can prevent requests for
euthanasia. In principle, the moral distinctions between palliative care and
euthanasia are clear: (a) intention: relief of intolerable suffering (palliative care)
versus bringing about death (euthanasia); (b) procedure: use of drugs proportionate
to the severity of distress (palliative care) versus administration of lethal drugs
(euthanasia); and (c) outcome: alleviation of suffering (palliative care) versus
immediate death (euthanasia). In practice, however, distinctions are less clear, as the
debate on palliative sedation shows. It is also argued that euthanasia and palliative
care can complement each other rather than being mutually exclusive (Bernheim
et al. 2008). One of the moral justifications for euthanasia is respect for the auton-
omy (see autonomy) of the patient. What to do when a patient in a palliative care
unit does not want to be in a state of artificially induced coma since it implies loss of
the ability to interact, while at the same time having refractory and unbearable
suffering? For some, this will imply that, after all palliative possibilities are exhausted,
and the option of sedation is declined by the patient, the doctor should practice
“mercy killing.” The majority of palliative care professionals, however, argue that
there is no place for euthanasia. Palliative care is based on the value of human life
and the belief that dying is part of life, and that death can therefore have meaning. A
request for euthanasia should be regarded as a cry for better palliative care, for
“mercy dying.” The debate on the compatibility of palliative care and euthanasia
intensified recently, now that euthanasia has been legalized in some countries. Data
show that the number of euthanasia cases in the Netherlands is decreasing while at
the same time palliative sedation is increasing. It seems to indicate that patients may
actually prefer sedation at the end of life as an alternative to euthanasia (Hasselaar et
al. 2009). This finding would confirm the thesis that adequate palliative care can
prevent people from requesting euthanasia.
3. Research. Palliative care can only be improved through systematic research.

At the same time, research with severely ill and dying patients is ethically problematic.
For example, it can never be proven that sedation does not have a negative impact on
survival since randomization of patients into sedation or nonsedation categories is
out of the question; it is ethically not justifiable to deny sedation to patients with
6
catastrophic symptoms at the end of life. In general, it is argued that people with
life-threatening illness constitute a vulnerable population with which research is not
morally justifiable. While this may be true for persons in the terminal phase of
illness, people with palliative care needs are not a homogenous group. Whether or
not research is justified depends on a balance between risks and benefits. This
balance will be related to the type of trial and the impact on individual participants,
for example, the invasiveness of a trial. Another controversy concerns the question
of informed consent (see informed consent). Is it possible to make free choices, or
is the capacity to consent in people with life-threatening illness challenged, for
example, due to cognitive difficulties (due to disease, mood changes, medication,
and symptom burden) or due to overemphasis on the possible benefits of research
(Duke and Bennett 2009)?
The Future of Palliative Care

Palliative care is developing rapidly in many countries. It has also become a major
health care policy concern. And it is emerging as a new scientific discipline with
newly established university departments and chairs. The demand for palliative care
will continue to grow in future. The reasons are known: demographic development,
an increasing burden of chronic diseases, and moral concerns about the limits of
medical treatment at the end of life.
A recent study of the European Parliament (2008) has evaluated palliative care
development during the last five years in the 27 member states of the European
Union. The study proposes a global index of palliative care development in order to
compare palliative care in countries. The top five countries are Great Britain, Ireland,
Sweden, the Netherlands, and Poland. The least developed are Malta, Greece,
Portugal, Slovakia, and Estonia. This comparison demonstrates the effect of policy.
In the Netherlands, palliative care started rather late, but due to deliberate policies
for 10 years, it is now at the top of the ranking. Because population is ageing,
palliative care will be increasingly important, and thus there is need for explicit
policy-making. Such policies should aim at a more equal development of palliative
care, since, at the moment, there are huge differences in availability and quality.
Policies should also address weak dimensions such as education, quality assurance,
and research to identify evidence-based approaches.
At the moment, proactive policy approaches are advocated at national levels:
development of national plans for palliative care, improvement of information and
knowledge systems, promotion of training and education, encouragement of
certification and accreditation, promotion of trained volunteering programs, and
stimulation of national palliative care research.
However, palliative care is increasingly becoming a global concern. In developing
countries, especially in the Arab region and sub-Saharan Africa, palliative care is in
the very early stages of development. In 2006, scientific organizations launched the
“Venice Declaration” to advance a global palliative care research agenda (Declaration
of Venice 2007). Recently, palliative care was declared to be a fundamental human
7
right (Gwyther et al. 2009). An international public health strategy should be

developed to ensure universal access to services and the provision of basic
medications for symptom control and terminal care. As long as, at the global level,
only a minority of the more than one million people who die each week receive
palliative care, and as long as 80 percent of all persons suffering from pain caused by
cancer do not have access to adequate pain relief, palliative care remains a national
and international policy concern.
See also: autonomy; bioethics; care ethics; consent; death; euthanasia;

informed consent; intention; life, meaning of; suffering; virtue
REFERENCES
Amery, J. M., C. J. Rose, J. Holmes, et al. 2009. “The Beginnings of Children’s Palliative Care
in Africa: Evaluation of a Children’s Palliative Care Service in Africa,” Journal of Palliative
Medicine, vol. 12, no. 11, pp. 1015–21.
Bernheim, J. L., R. Deschepper, W. Distelmans, A. Mullie, et al. 2008. “Development of
Palliative Care and Legalisation of Euthanasia: Antagonism or Synergy?” British Medical
Journal, vol. 336, pp. 864–7.
Claessens, P., J. Menten, P. Schotsmans, and B. Broeckaert 2008. “Palliative Sedation: A Review
of the Research Literature,” Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, vol. 36, no. 3,
pp. 310–33.
Declaration of Venice 2007. “Palliative Care Research in Developing Countries,” Journal of
Pain and Palliative Care Pharmacotherapy, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 31–3.
Duke, S., and H. Bennett 2009. “A Narrative Review of the Published Ethical Debates in
Palliative Care Research and an Assessment of Their Adequacy to Inform Research
Governance,” Palliative Medicine. vol. 24, pp. 111–26.
European Parliament, Policy Department Economic, and Scientific Policy 2008. Palliative
Care in the European Union (IP/A/ENVI/ST/2007-22).
Gwyther, L., F. Brennan, and E. Harding 2009. “Advancing Palliative Care as a Human Right,”
Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, vol. 38, no. 5, pp. 767–74.
Hasselaar, J. G., S. C. Verhagen, A. P. Wolff, et al. 2009. “Changed Patterns in Dutch Palliative
Sedation Practices After the Introduction of a National Guideline,” Archives of Internal
Medicine, vol. 169, no. 5, pp. 430–7.
Janssens, R., H. ten Have, D. Clark, et al. 2001. “Palliative Care in Europe: Towards a
More Comprehensive Understanding,” European Journal of Palliative Care, vol. 8, no. 1,
pp. 20–3.
Maltoni, M., C. Pittureri, E. Scarpi, et al. 2009. “Palliative Sedation Therapy Does Not Hasten
Death: Results from a Prospective Multicenter Study,” Annals of Oncology, vol. 20,
pp. 1163–9.
Seale, C. 2010. “Continuous Deep Sedation in Medical Practice: A Descriptive Study,” Journal
of Pain and Symptom Management, vol. 39, no. 1, pp. 44–53.
ten Have, H. A. M. J., and D. Clark 2002. The Ethics of Palliative Care: European Perspectives.
Buckingham, Philadelphia: Open University Press.
World Health Organisation 1990. Cancer Relief and Palliative Care. WHO Technical Report
Series, No. 804. Geneva: WHO.
8
World Health Organisation 2002. National Cancer Control Programmes: Policies and
Managerial Guidelines, 2nd ed. Geneva: WHO. At http://www.who.int/cancer/palliative/
definition/en.
FURTHER READINGS
Clark, David, and Jane Seymour 1999. Reflections on Palliative Care. Buckingham,
Philadelphia: Open University Press.
Jennings, Bruce (ed.) 1997. Ethics in Hospice Care: Challenges to Hospice Values in a Changing
Health Care Environment. New York, London: The Haworth Press.
Purtilo, R. B., and H. A. M. J. ten Have (eds.) 2004. Ethical Foundations of Palliative Care for
Alzheimer Disease. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Randall, Fiona, and R. S. Downie 1996. Palliative Care Ethics. A Good Companion. Oxford,
New York, Melbourne, Toronto: Oxford University Press.
Saunders, Cicely 1990. Hospice and Palliative Care. An Interdisciplinary Approach. London,
Melbourne, Auckland: Edward Arnold.
ten Have, H. A. M. J., and D. Clark 2002. The Ethics of Palliative Care. European Perspectives.
Buckingham, Philadelphia: Open University Press.
Webb, Patricia 2000. Ethical Issues in Palliative Care. Reflections and Considerations.
Manchester: Hochland & Hochland Ltd.
1
Reparations
Andrew Valls
History, both recent and more remote, is replete with injustice, cruelty, and violations
of individuals’ basic rights. The issue of reparations is what ought to be done to
address those violations and their aftermath, with particular attention to how the
victim should be compensated or otherwise “made whole.” Reparations also concern
social trust and political legitimacy. In the wake of mass violence, or war, or other
systematic violations of human rights, social relations – especially between groups
associated with victims and perpetrators – and the legitimacy of the political
regime associated with the abuses, are often at a low ebb. Reparations include the
means by which a society attempts to overcome the violence and abuses of the past,
and to lay the foundation for a more just social and political order.
Reparations as an Issue of Justice

The issue of reparations should be seen as a branch of the more general topic of
justice, the branch which focuses on what ought to be done under conditions where
the requirements of justice have not been respected, and some “moral repair”
(Walker 2006) is called for (see justice). As such, reparations must be distinguished
from distributive justice, which concerns itself with the appropriate principles
governing how rights, goods, and opportunities should be allocated among
individuals under the “ideal” conditions where no prior injustice has occurred (see
idealization in ethics). Reparations must also be distinguished from retributive
justice, which focuses on punishment, since their primary concern is not to punish
wrongdoers but to repair victims and social relations.
As the branch of justice concerned with the appropriate response to violations of
moral norms, reparations have much in common with compensation, but the two
should be distinguished (see compensatory justice). First, issues of compensation
usually arise in individual-level cases, where one person or a small number of people
wrong another individual or a small set of individuals. In such cases, moral and legal
norms are fairly clear about who owes what to whom: usually, the victim is entitled
to compensation from the perpetrator(s) (see torts). Even in such straightforward
cases, of course, what kind of compensation is due, or how much, can be contested.
Yet, the large-scale context in which reparations claims are often made greatly
complicates matters. Much reasoning about reparations cases takes the form of
attempting to extrapolate norms from individual cases to large-scale ones, and much
of the debate over reparations involves whether or how this may be done.
Second, while reparations can and often do include compensation to victims,
either in the form of monetary payments or the provision of other goods intended
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee114
2
to enhance their material circumstances, compensation does not necessarily count

as reparations. Most commentators agree that, to count as reparation, compensation
must be accompanied, at a minimum, by an acknowledgement of the wrong(s)
committed. It may also include acceptance of responsibility by particular individuals
and a commitment not to repeat the offenses. Without such acknowledgement,
compensation may be seen as a mere “pay-off,” akin to a settlement in a civil suit
where no responsibility is accepted. Such a settlement generally does not address the
harm to the dignity and the denial of the equal moral worth of the victim.
In addition, while most forms of compensation involve monetary payments,
reparation need not. Reparations are often thought to include nonmonetary
responses to past injustice, such as establishing days of remembrance, museums
and monuments, apologies, and the establishment of truth commissions (see truth
commissions). These are sometimes referred to as “symbolic reparations.” Finally,
some reparations involve payments of money or provision of other resources to
whole communities rather than individuals. Hence, reparations may be either
material or symbolic, and either collective or individual. In some cases, these forms
of reparation are combined, as when material compensation is accompanied by
an apology.
Hence, while reparations and compensation are often used interchangeably, and
many of the philosophical issues raised by reparations focus on its compensatory
element, reparations is a “thicker” moral concept. It always implies a more ambitious
goal than merely compensating the victim, extending to affirming the equality and
humanity of the victim, and restoring trust between individuals, communities, or
nations (see atonement; forgiveness; reconciliation).
Dilemmas of Reparations
The issue of reparations often arises in the aftermath of such large-scale wrongs as
war, genocide, slavery, and colonialism. In some cases, the wrongs are of recent
vintage, as in the immediate aftermath of a war or during a regime transition in a
country with a history of systematic and widespread human rights abuses. In other
cases, however, the wrongs in question took place generations ago, yet their effects
extend to the present day.
In international law and ethics, reparations have received a great deal of attention
in recent decades. There is an emerging consensus among scholars and activists that
all victims of serious human rights violations are entitled to reparation (De Greiff
2006: 455), and this was affirmed in a declaration passed by the United Nations
General Assembly in 2006. Yet, at the same time, whether victims can be given
reparations depends on a number of contextual factors: the ability to identify the
victims, the ability to identify the perpetrators (or others who are liable to pay
reparations), and the ability to determine how much is owed (or, more broadly, what
kind of reparations are due). In addition, other factors must often be weighed in
evaluating reparations claims, such as possible trade-offs between paying reparations
on the one hand, and, on the other, pursuing other morally weighty goals.
3
The main precedents for reparations in the contemporary sense stem from the
post-World War II experience, and in particular the German reparations to Israel
and to individual Jewish victims of the Holocaust (see holocaust). In this case,
many Jews initially resisted the idea of reparations for the Holocaust, as they feared
that such payments would reflect disrespect for the victims by implying that
Germany’s debt could simply be paid off (Colonomos and Armstrong 2006: 396–97).
In the end, most Israelis and Jewish groups came to accept reparations, but the case
highlights some of the dilemmas of reparations: Are there some acts, such as mass
murder, that cannot be repaired? Does monetary payment trivialize the crimes? Or
does the failure to pay reparations, or to make amends through other means, reflect
a lack of contrition?
In more recent decades, the question of reparations has arisen in many con-
texts in which countries have attempted to make a transition from a regime that
violates the human rights of its citizens to one that affirms and respects those
rights. These transitions have taken place most prominently in Latin America, in
Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, and in South Africa. In these con-
texts, too, as part of a program of “transitional justice,” reparations raise some
thorny questions. For example, how should the claims to reparations be weighed
against other values at stake? Is there tension between paying reparations to indi-
vidual victims on the one hand and pursuing goals such as economic develop-
ment or the establishment of democratic institutions? More generally, is the
concern for reparations too backward-looking, focused as it is on the past, and if
so, does it detract from forward-looking concerns, such as the kind of future that
should be created for the society? Or is it the case, as some reparations advocates
argue, that achieving the forward-looking goals of a democratic transition
requires attention to the past – that failure to do so will undermine the legitimacy
of the new regime?
These kinds of complications have led some to argue against reparations. For
example, Jon Elster (1995) has argued that the wrongs that took place under the
Soviet Union and its satellites in Eastern Europe were so widespread, and involved
so much of the population, that few if any reparations should be paid. Indeed, he
suggests, many individuals were both perpetrators and victims of the regime. Who,
under these circumstances, should pay reparations, and to whom?
In the English-speaking world, debates about reparations have involved
events that took place in the more distant past, but which arguably remain
unaddressed and which continue to shape advantage and disadvantage in the
present day. Most prominent among these are issues related to slavery and the
slave trade, and colonialism – including the settlement of North America,
Australia, and New Zealand by white Europeans (see colonialism and post-
colonialism; slavery). These cases raise questions about what, if anything,
can be done by way of reparation and repair generations after the initial wrongs
took place and the principal victims and perpetrators are deceased. They raise,
in other words, issues of intergenerational justice (see intergenerational
ethics).
4
Intergenerational Reparations
Much of the philosophical debate over reparations has focused on intergenera-
tional reparations, partly because of their public salience and partly because of the
intrinsically interesting philosophical issues that they raise. When harms are per-
petrated by one large (and sometimes ill-defined) group against another, and these
harms go unrectified for several generations, it becomes more difficult to know
who, if anyone, owes what to whom (see collective responsibility; groups,
moral status of). If the perpetrators cannot be identified, or are dead, then, some
have argued, the beneficiaries of the wrongs should be liable to pay reparations.
However, this assumes that the beneficiaries can be identified. In the case of repa-
rations for slavery, for example, it is not clear who, if anyone, should pay repara-
tions. Should it be the descendants of slaveholders? All whites? All American
citizens? The fairness of each of these proposals has been called into question,
because, among other reasons, it strikes many observers as unfair to ask present-
day individuals to pay reparations for acts that they themselves did not commit. In
the case of reparations to Native Americans and other indigenous peoples, similar
uncertainties exist with respect to who, if anyone, should pay reparations. These
considerations suggest two possible conclusions, each with their defenders. The
first is that, since the appropriate present-day payers of reparations cannot be iden-
tified, no reparations can be paid. The second is that the state, representing society
as a whole, should pay reparations.
There are similar problems, in some cases, with identifying the appropriate
beneficiaries of reparations payments. For example, some have argued that it is
implausible to maintain that all African Americans should receive reparation pay-
ments for slavery (or for subsequent injustices). Some African Americans are well
off, and others are recent immigrants (or the descendants of those who immigrated
into the United States after the era of slavery, and some after the era of Jim Crow
segregation). Even if one concedes that African Americans as a group are less well
off than other citizens, and that the disadvantages that they face are causally related
to past injustices, it is not clear how reparations should be distributed at the indi-
vidual level. This line of thinking has led some to suggest that reparations for slavery
and racial injustice should take a more symbolic form, such as an apology. Yet, an
apology with no measures to combat racial inequality itself is seen by reparations
proponents as an empty gesture.
Problems also plague attempts at precisely quantifying the reparations that ought
to be paid. In the case of reparations for slavery in the United States, a number of
methods have been proposed. Some rely on the value of slaves or of slave labor, and
on compounded interest, to arrive at the present-day aggregate value of reparations
that are owed (Marketti 1972). Yet, as others point out, the conclusions reached
by this method are highly sensitive to the assumptions that are made, and in par-
ticular the sums that are reached depend heavily on the rate of interest that is utilized
(Cowen 1997). Some have suggested that, in the face of these difficulties, one should
calculate reparations payments using present-day data on racial inequality, on the
5
assumption that, in the absence of historic injustice, all racial groups would have
fared roughly equally. Others, however, argue that this assumes too much, pointing
out that many different groups in society fare differently for reasons other than past
or ongoing injustice. In any case, even if the issue of how to calculate an appropriate
aggregate payment could be settled, it would be difficult or impossible to determine
how to distribute appropriate payments to particular individuals.
The Counterfactual Argument

Two main arguments have been offered to attempt to address the problems that
intergenerational reparations claims inevitably face. The counterfactual argument
holds that individuals are entitled to reparations if, in the absence of wrongs com-
mitted against their forebears, they would have been better off than they actually are.
The most prominent version of this argument is found in the libertarian theory of
Robert Nozick (1974), who endorses (though he does not fully articulate) a principle
of rectification (see libertarianism). The principle holds that if the present-day
distribution of goods has been shaped by past violations of rights, then there is an
obligation to bring the distribution to what it would have been in the absence of
those violations. Strictly speaking, this is an impossible task because it requires
knowing, or at least being able to make reasonable estimates about, long chains of
actions and reactions involving large numbers of individuals across many genera-
tions. At the individual level, the precise consequences of past wrongs clearly cannot
be known, creating a serious epistemological problem for reparations claims.
Realizing this, Nozick proposed the use of “rules of thumb” – that is, simplifying
assumptions that allow for reasonable estimates about the impact of past wrongs on
present-day individuals. For example, being “black” in the United States could be
taken as an indication that one has likely been harmed by past racial injustice. Yet,
critics of reparations argue that the use of such rough rules of thumb risks doing
further injustice by violating individuals’ settled and reasonable expectations, and
by misdirecting reparations to some who may not deserve them.
If our knowledge of what would have occurred in the absence of past wrongs is
one problem with the counterfactual argument, it is not the only one. Another is the
nonidentity problem, which is that the present-day individuals making reparations
claims might not exist in the absence of the very injustices for which they claim
compensation (see nonidentity problem). After all, historic injustices often
involve the movement of large numbers of people, affecting who meets whom and
which combinations of men and women produce offspring. If this is the case, it
would seem to undermine the claim to reparations, since it may be more plausible to
think of the present-day individuals as having benefited from the past wrongs, rather
than having been harmed by them (on the assumption that existence is better than,
or preferred to, nonexistence). In other words, in the absence of the past wrongs,
contemporary claimants would not be better off; rather, they would not exist at all.
If present-day individuals have benefited from past injustices, it would seem they
can hardly claim compensation for those very injustices (Morris 1984).
6
A third problem that the counterfactual argument for reparations must confront
is that the events subsequent to the initial injustice may generate new legitimate
claims to the very resources or items that are claimed by would-be recipients of
reparations. This is the argument that Jeremy Waldron makes in his well-known
paper “Superseding Historic Injustice” (1992). Waldron argues that many repara-
tions claims cannot overcome the objection that intervening circumstances and
actions can undermine reparations claims because changed circumstances change
entitlements. Illegitimate possession can become legitimate over time, Waldron
suggests, through subsequent developments. The argument that reparations claims
can be “superseded” by subsequent events appears particularly relevant to the case
of claims to particular lands, because, after the initial taking, subsequent generations
may labor on those lands – arguably creating new, legitimate entitlement to them.
Now, none of these problems is necessarily insuperable; resolutions to each of
them have been proposed. For example, Simmons has argued that “historical rights
can be sensitive to changing circumstances without simply dissolving in the [face] of
change” (1995: 174). Still, the difficulties with the counterfactual argument for
reparations have led some scholars to search for an alternative.
The Inheritance Argument

The inheritance argument (see inheritance) attempts to get around the difficulties
in the counterfactual argument by suggesting that present-day descendants of past
individuals who were wronged are entitled to inherit what their forebears were owed
(Boxill 2003; Sher 2005). This argument would seem not to rest heavily on a
counterfactual claim about the circumstances that present-day individuals would
have faced in the absence of past wrongs. They make their claim on behalf of their
forebears, so the focus is on the actual wrongs that occurred to actual individuals,
rather than on comparisons to counterfactual states of affairs.
There are two problems with the inheritance argument. The first is that it rests
on a strong moral right to inherit what was owed to one’s ancestors. Yet, if there
is no such right, or if the right is limited to, say, being entitled to inherit only
enough to ensure a decent level of well-being, then it is not clear that the inherit-
ance argument can sustain strong claims to intergenerational reparations (Cohen
2009). Second, it is not clear that the inheritance argument can entirely avoid
counterfactual claims, and therefore it may be subject to some of the same prob-
lems that the counterfactual argument for reparations faces. The inheritance
argument assumes that, in the absence of the initial wrongs, or in the case that
such wrongs were rectified soon after they were committed, present-day descendants
of the victims would have inherited (much of) what their ancestors had or were
owed. The inheritance argument may avoid the nonidentity problem – the pre-
sent day claimants are, let us suppose, the descendants of the wronged parties.
However, it is not clear that it avoids the other problems with the counterfactual
argument, that we lack knowledge of what would have occurred in the absence of
the wrong (perhaps the inheritance would have been lost by other means) and
7
that competing legitimate claims may have arisen in the intervening period.
Hence, it is not clear that the inheritance argument avoids all of the problems
with the counterfactual argument.
Some of the difficulties with both the counterfactual and inheritance arguments
derive from the impossibility of knowing what would have happened, at the
individual level, in the absence of past wrongs. Yet, some issues of reparation are
misunderstood if framed in individualist terms. For example, land claims made by
indigenous peoples are often grounded in violations of treaties between the “settler”
state and the indigenous nation. In such cases, reparations claims have both a legal
as well as a moral basis, and since they are based on agreements between two
corporate entities, the claims presumably survive from one generation to another.
Similarly, in cases of international reparations, where one country owes reparations
to another, generational replacement would seem to be irrelevant.
From “Ancient” to Modern Wrongs

While there is no consensus on whether the objections to the main arguments for
intergenerational reparations are decisive, for some observers, at least, they do con-
siderably undermine the plausibility of claims to such reparations. Yet, it may be that
philosophers’ focus on the intricacies of the arguments misses the essential point
about them. Reparations are usually claimed for those who continue to suffer some
disadvantage, a disadvantage that is causally related to injustices in the past. It is this
combination of past injustice and present disadvantage which lends reparations
claims their plausibility, and this suggests that the combination of these two factors
is necessary for a compelling reparations claim. For example, in the case of African
Americans, it is not just the fact of slavery that underwrites reparations claims, but
the system of Jim Crow that segregated and oppressed African Americans in the
latter part of the nineteenth century and for much of the twentieth. And, it is not just
slavery and Jim Crow in themselves, but the fact that substantial racial inequality
persists in American society, and that current inequality is plausibly seen as causally
related to past injustice. Hence, we arguably have a case of what Jeff Spinner-Halev
(2007) has called an “enduring injustice,” one that persists through time rather than
being an isolated event in the distant past. The failure to compensate an historic
wrong may constitute an ongoing wrong, one that is perpetrated upon each new
generation that feels its effects (Boxill 2003). Indeed, many advocates of reparations
to African Americans urge that proponents focus on the wrongs that are of more
recent vintage, rather than slavery. With this focus, there is no nonidentity problem,
since some living individuals could claim compensation for harm that they
themselves have suffered.
The fact that many reparations claims are made on behalf of groups that suffer
current and ongoing disadvantage has led to a different kind of objection to repa-
rations. This objection states that, while reparations ostensibly refer to acts in the
past for which compensation is called, the real motivating force behind them is
often present-day inequality. And if this is so, then advocates are stretching the
8
concept of reparations beyond recognition, because they are attempting to use it

as a vehicle to advance a vision of equity or distributive justice, not seeking com-
pensation for past acts. This is problematic, it is argued, not only because of the
conceptual stretching that it entails, but also because it misidentifies the genuine
source of concern, which is present inequality rather than past acts. As such, some
suggest, many arguments that are framed in terms of reparations should be
couched in more forward-looking terms, utilizing not reparations but theories of
distributive and social justice.
Yet, the claims of social justice and those of reparations often converge, and hence
can be seen as complementary rather than competing. It is true that, in some cases,
the two considerations diverge or conflict, and it is plausible to argue in these
instances that forward-looking concerns with distributive justice should take
precedence over reparations. However, in many prominent cases, where there is no
conflict between the two, retaining the focus on the past lends additional support
and credence to arguments for social justice today: they may motivate action, may
supplement egalitarian arguments (and may appeal to nonegalitarians), and they
serve the important function of acknowledging the wrongs of the past, and therefore
lay the groundwork for reconciliation (Tan 2007).
This last point bears emphasis. As stated at the outset, what distinguishes
reparations from other issues of justice is their focus on acknowledgement of past
wrongs, in the hope that individuals and social relations can be repaired. Failure to
address past wrongs may undermine individual dignity, social relations, and
political legitimacy. This is so, according to reparations advocates, even if ideals of
distributive justice are pursued, since the exclusively forward-looking emphasis
of distributive justice fails to acknowledge the wrongs of the past and their role in
creating present-day inequities. Reparations, then, may be essential in fostering
justice in any society marked by past wrongs that continue to exert their influence
in the contemporary world.
See also: atonement; collective responsibility; colonialism and

postcolonialism; compensatory justice; forgiveness; groups, moral
status of; holocaust; idealization in ethics; inheritance;
intergenerational ethics; justice; libertarianism; nonidentity
problem; reconciliation; slavery; torts; truth commissions
REFERENCES
Boxill, Bernard R. 2003. “A Lockean Argument for Black Reparations,” Journal of Ethics,
vol. 7, pp. 63–91.
Cohen, Andrew I. 2009. “Compensation for Historic Injustices: Completing the Boxill and
Sher Argument,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 37, pp. 81–102.
Colonomos, Ariel, and Andrea Armstrong 2006. “German Reparations to the Jews After
World War II: A Turning Point in the History of Reparations,” in Pablo De Greiff (ed.),
The Handbook of Reparations. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 390–419.
9
Cowen, Tyler 1997. “Discounting and Restitution,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 26,
pp. 168–85.
De Greiff, Pablo 2006. “Justice and Reparations,” in Pablo De Greiff (ed.), The Handbook of
Reparations. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 451–77.
Elster, Jon 1995. “On Doing What One Can: An Argument Against Post-Communist
Restitution and Retribution,” in Neil J. Kritz (ed.), Transitional Justice: How Emerging
Democracies Reckon with Former Regimes. Washington, DC: United States Institute of
Peace Press, pp. 566–8.
Marketti, Jim 1972. “Black Equity in the Slave Trade,” Review of Black Political Economy,
vol. 2, pp. 43–66.
Morris, Christopher 1984. “Existential Limits to the Rectification of Past Wrongs,” American
Sher, George 2005. “Transgenerational Compensation,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 33,
pp. 181–200.
Simmons, A. John 1995. “Historical Rights and Fair Shares,” Law and Philosophy, vol. 14,
pp. 149–84.
Spinner-Halev, Jeff 2007. “From Historical to Enduring Injustice,” Political Theory, vol. 35,
pp. 574–97.
Tan, Kok-Chor 2007. “Colonialism, Reparations, and Global Justice,” in Jon Miller and Rahul
Kumar (eds.), Reparations: Interdisciplinary Inquiries. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
pp. 280–306.
Waldron, Jeremy 1992. “Superseding Historic Injustice,” Ethics, vol. 103, pp. 4–28.
Walker, Margaret Urban 2006. Moral Repair: Reconstructing Moral Relations after Wrongdoing.
FURTHER READINGS
America, Richard (ed.) 1972. The Wealth of Races: The Present Value of Benefits from Past
Injustices. New York: Greenwood Press.
Barkan, Elazar 2000. The Guilt of Nations: Restitution and Negotiating Historical Injustices.
New York: W. W. Norton.
Barkan, Elazar, and Alexander Karn (eds.) 2006. Taking Wrongs Seriously: Apologies and
Reconciliation. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Bittker, Boris I. 2003. The Case for Black Reparations. Boston: Beacon.
Boxill, Bernard 1972. “The Morality of Reparation,” Social Theory and Practice, vol. 2,
pp. 113–23.
Brooks, Roy L. 1999. When Sorry Isn’t Enough: The Controversy over Apologies and Reparations
for Human Injustice. New York: New York University Press.
De Greiff, Pablo (ed.) 2006. The Handbook of Reparations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gibney, Mark, Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann, Jean-Marc Coicaud, and Niklaus Steiner (eds.)
2008. The Age of Apology: Facing Up to the Past. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press.
Howard-Hassmann, Rhoda E., and Anthony P. Lombardo 2008. Reparations to Africa.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Miller, Jon, and Rahul Kumar (eds.) 2007. Reparations: Interdisciplinary Inquiries. Oxford:
10
Minow, Martha 1998. Between Vengeance and Forgiveness: Facing History after Genocide and
Mass Violence. Boston: Beacon.
Phillips, Derek L. 1979. Equality, Justice and Rectification: An Exploration in Normative
Sociology. New York: Academic Press.
Rubio-Marin, Ruth (ed.) 2009. The Gender of Reparations: Unsettling Sexual Hierarchies While
Redressing Human Rights Violations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sher, George 1997. Approximate Justice: Studies in Non-Ideal Theory. Lanham, MD:
Thompson, Janna 2002. Taking Responsibility for the Past: Reparation and Historical Justice.
Cambridge: Polity.
1
Environmental Ethics
Katie McShane
Environmental ethics is the field that investigates the question of which ethical
norms are appropriate for governing human interactions with the natural
environment. Considered a branch of practical or applied ethics, environmental
ethics has only existed as a field since the late 1970s. At that time, concern about
environmental problems was growing, and some philosophers concluded that
mainstream ethics’ focus on humans’ relationships with other humans had left it
without a useful theoretical framework for ethically evaluating the relationship
between humans and the nonhuman natural world. In response to this situation,
they suggested that a new field of inquiry was needed to investigate this matter
directly (Rolston 1975; Callicott 1979; Routley and Routley 1979; Regan 1981).
In the early days of the field, many writers argued that an environmental ethic
ought to be able to attribute intrinsic value to at least some parts of the nonhuman
natural world (Regan 1981; Callicott 1984). They claimed that the inadequacy of
mainstream ethics was mainly due to its assumption of anthropocentrism (see
anthropocentrism), the view that only humans and/or their interests matter
morally in their own right, and everything else matters only insofar as it affects
humans and/or their interests (Routley and Routley 1979). Against anthropocentrism,
early environmental ethicists advocated theories that claimed that some nonhuman
parts of the world matter morally in their own right – i.e., that they have intrinsic
value (see intrinsic value) as opposed to extrinsic or instrumental value (see
instrumental value). If this were so, these theorists argued, our moral obligations
toward parts of the natural world wouldn’t be merely derivative of our moral
obligations toward human beings. Rather, they would be free-standing and inde-
pendent obligations.
In spite of their agreement about the importance of intrinsic value, many of these
early environmental ethicists disagreed considerably about (1) how to understand
what intrinsic value is; (2) what kind of metaethical foundation, if any, claims about
intrinsic value required; and (3) what might justify the attribution of intrinsic value to
nonhuman parts of the natural world. Some theorists took intrinsic value claims to be
claims about moral standing, such that to have intrinsic value is to be an independent
source of claims on moral agents (Taylor 1980; Regan 1983). Others took them to be
primarily claims about the metaphysical status of a thing’s value-making or evaluative
properties, such that to have intrinsic value is to possess the property of value, or per-
haps the properties that value supervenes upon, intrinsically (Callicott 1985). Yet oth-
ers took intrinsic value claims to be claims about the kinds of valuing attitudes that are
appropriate to their objects, such that to have intrinsic value is to be appropriately
valued intrinsically or as an end (Lockwood 1996).
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee116
2
Also in this early literature were debates about the relevance of metaethics to nor-
mative claims about the intrinsic value of the natural world. Some argued that
theories attributing intrinsic value to those parts of the natural world that lack
subjectivity (plants, for example) are incompatible with certain metaethical claims
about the metaphysical status of value, most notably subjectivist claims (Rolston
1982, 1988). If subjectivism understands normative claims to be expressions or
descriptions of the subjective mental states of valuers, then it is unclear how these
parts of the natural world could have value in their own right (i.e., independently of
their relation to an appreciating subject). Critics argued that subjectivism could at
best locate intrinsic value in the relation between such an object and an appreciating
subject, but not in the object alone (Rolston 1988: 112–17; see metaethics;
subjectivism, ethical; value realism).
Other philosophers, however, have argued that metaethics and normative ethics
are independent of one another, and that intrinsic value claims can be made from
within any metaethical view (Elliot 1985; O’Neill 1992; Jamieson 2002). If, for
example, intrinsic value claims are understood as claims about the value-making
properties of an object (for example, as a claim that the object is valuable in virtue of
its intrinsic properties), then such claims can be made from within any metaethical
position. For example, a subjectivist could claim that the proposition “X is intrinsically
valuable” is true, and hence X has intrinsic value, just in case the speaker values X for
its intrinsic properties (O’Neill 2001; O’Neill et al. 2008: 112–24).
In addition to debates about the significance of metaethical claims to normative
claims, early intrinsic value theorists disagreed considerably about what features a
thing must have in order to possess intrinsic value. Many theorists required that
intrinsically valuable things have a good of their own, i.e., interests, since they thought
it reasonable to claim that in order for moral agents to have a duty to take a thing’s
interests into account, it first must be the kind of thing that has interests. From this
followed much discussion about what it takes for a thing to have a good of its own.
While some argued that having a good of one’s own required having a subjective point
of view on the world (Regan 1983; Singer 1990), others contended that it only required
being a living organism or even just a living system of some sort (Goodpaster 1978;
Johnson 1991); still others required in addition to meeting these requirements that an
entity not be an artifact (Callicott 1980; Taylor 1980; Rolston 1988). The positions
within these early debates served as the foundation for later views about moral stand-
ing: animal rights, biocentrism, and ecocentrism.
In the early days of environmental ethics, animal rights (see animal rights),
some versions of which were also referred to as animal welfare or animal liberation,
were considered fully compatible with – and in fact, even a part of – environmental
ethics. In arguing against anthropocentrism, many early animal rights theorists
pointed out that nonhuman animals have interests that exist independently of human
interests, and thus they rejected the view that the importance of these interests must
be thought of as dependent upon a relation to human interests. There were significant
theoretical differences among proponents of animal rights, however. Some theorists,
such as Peter Singer, wanted to understand the moral status of animals within the
3
framework of utilitarianism (see utilitarianism). Singer (1990) argued that the

suffering of nonhuman animals should be counted in the same way within our
utilitarian calculations as the suffering of humans would be counted (see sentience,
moral relevance of). Others, such as Tom Regan (1983), preferred to understand
the moral status of animals within a deontological framework (see deontology).
Regan argued that some aspects of the Kantian understanding of the moral status of
persons should be extended to any creature that is the experiencing subject of a life.
That is to say, any creature that is “a conscious creature having an individual welfare
that has importance to [it] whatever [its] usefulness to others” should be thought of
as having inherent moral worth (Regan 1985: 22). For something to have inherent
moral worth is for it to have rights, in particular the right to be treated as more than
a mere resource for others: as Kant would say, to be treated as though it had a dignity
rather than a price (see animal cognition; kant, immanuel; worth/dignity).
Within the literature on the moral status of animals, views such as Singer’s came to
be called “animal welfare” or “animal liberation” views, and they were contrasted
with deontological rights-based views such as Regan’s, which retained the name
“animal rights” (see animals, moral status of). However, while these two schools
of thought understood the moral status of animals from different theoretical
perspectives, they tended to agree in their condemnation of many common practices
involving animals, including meat-eating, hunting, animal experimentation, and
industrial agriculture (see agricultural ethics; animal experimentation;
companion animals; hunting; vegetarianism and veganism).
Other early writers contended that animal rights theorists took an overly narrow
view of interests. They argued that to have interests is just to be the sort of thing that
can be made better off or worse off, and they tended to view sentience as one way,
but not the only way, in which a thing can be benefited or harmed. Living things that
are not sentient, such as plants, can be made better or worse off by having their
biologically given aims furthered or thwarted, they argued. Proponents of this view,
called biocentrism, claim that any living organism, in virtue of having a set of
biologically given aims, has interests that are an independent source of claims on
moral agents (see biocentrism). While early versions of biocentrism tended to rely
on Aristotelian claims that living things have a telos that determines what constitutes
their flourishing (Taylor 1980), more recent versions have tried to come up with a
description of how living things differ from nonliving things that is consistent with
contemporary biology and that makes clear why the behavior of living things has
special moral importance (Rolston 1988; Varner 1998; Agar 2001; see aristotle;
life, value of).
Some environmental ethicists, however, disliked the emphasis that both animal
rights and biocentrism seemed to place on the interests of individuals. On their
view, environmental ethics should be primarily concerned with the flourishing of
ecological systems, processes, and communities, rather than with the welfare of
individual organisms. They called this view holism, which differs from individualism
in that it focuses on the welfare of the larger wholes that individual organisms make
up, such as species and ecosystems, rather than on the welfare of the individuals
4
themselves (Callicott 1980; Norton 1984; Callicott 1989; Leopold 1989; see species,
the value of). One form of holism that gained many supporters was ecocentrism,
the view that the health or well-being of ecosystems is of independent moral
importance. One challenge for ecocentrists was determining what ecosystem
well-being consisted in (see well-being) and whether ecosystem well-being is
just a matter of the well-being of the system’s individual constituent organisms
(Cahen 1988).
Holism in environmental ethics raised a number of questions about the value of
different characteristics that ecological wholes might have. For example, thinking of
whole species or ecosystems as entities with a good of their own opens up the
question of how to choose among different ways of delineating species or ecosystems.
There are a number of different species concepts, as well as a number of different
ecosystem concepts, and which one theorists use will partly determine which thing’s
well-being is the object of our moral attention (McShane 2004; Zimmer 2008).
Similar problems arise in attempting to define biodiversity as a desirable feature of
ecological communities. There are different features of communities that one might
think constitute biodiversity: species diversity, genetic diversity, functional diversity,
and so on. An adequate description and justification of the value of biodiversity
need to say something about which kinds of diversity we should care most about
and why (Sarkar 2005). Finally, holistic theories raised the question of whether
wild or “natural” ecological communities were more valuable than managed or
constructed communities and why (see nature and the natural; wilderness,
value of; ecological restoration). Many defenders of wilderness argued that
we should value not just ecological communities that are healthy and diverse, but
also ones that are wild in the sense of being unmanaged by humans. This led to a
long debate about what wildness consists in and why we should think it valuable
(Oelschlaeger 1991; Cronon 1996; Callicott and Nelson 1998). Related discussions
developed about what naturalness consists in and whether “natural” places, habitats,
organisms, relationships, etc. have a kind of value that their artificial counterparts
do not (Elliot 1997).
With the rise of holism within environmental ethics, a rift developed between
animal rights/welfare theorists and holist environmental ethicists. As a result, animal
rights/welfare was increasingly thought of as a different field from environmental
ethics altogether. Against animal rights/welfare, some prominent environmental
ethicists argued that for a view to count as an environmental ethic at all, a theory
must embrace holism (Callicott 1980; Norton 1984). Others argued that any ethic
that focuses on the interests of individuals and/or the elimination of pain would lead
to disastrous environmental policies (Callicott 1980). On the other hand, animal
rights/welfare theorists accused holists of “environmental fascism” in virtue of their
tendency to ignore individual interests for the sake of the good of larger systems
(Regan 1983: 161–2). Attempts to reconcile these divisions soon followed (Callicott
1988; Jamieson 1998a, 1998b), but while the animosity between the two camps
seems to have diminished, animal rights/welfare is still sometimes treated as a
separate field from environmental ethics.
5
Alongside these debates were larger structural critiques of the relationship

between people and nature, which argued that a much more comprehensive social
change was needed in order to accomplish environmental goals. The most prominent
of these were ecofeminism and deep ecology. Ecofeminism considered the
similarities between the social structures used to exploit and oppress women and
those used to exploit and oppress nature (see ecofeminism; feminist ethics;
exploitation; oppression). Many ecofeminists argued that sexism and
environmental degradation relied upon the same ideology in order to justify their
behavior; they called this ideology the logic of domination. The logic of domination
portrays both women and nature as dangerous and in need of the civilizing forces of
men; meanwhile, the interests of women and nature are only taken to be important
insofar as they affect the interests of men. Ecofeminists argued that for people to
have an adequate moral relationship with the natural world, the logic of domination
must be abandoned and the social structures that reinforce it must be dismantled
(Adams 1990; Gaard 1993; Mies and Shiva 1993; Plumwood 1993; Warren 1994,
1997; Salleh 1997).
Deep ecology argued along similar lines that environmental problems were in
part the result of flawed human ideologies (see deep ecology). Rather than seeing
nature as “apart” from humans, humans needed to see themselves as deeply
interconnected with the natural world. Arne Naess, the first and best-known
proponent of this view, argued that humans should consider the natural world part
of their extended “ecological self ” (Naess 1995). If they did so, Naess believed, they
wouldn’t see conflicts between their own self-interest and the interests of the natural
world, but rather they would see the interests of the natural world as part of their
own self-interest (Fox 1990). Along similar lines, deep ecologists argue that social
problems such as economic injustices between the North and South are also at the
same time environmental problems, and so they argue for the importance of just
political systems within human communities as part of the larger project of
improving human relationships with the nonhuman parts of the world (Devall and
Sessions 1985; Sessions 1995).
Discussions of justice within environmental ethics have concerned not only the
question of what just treatment of nonhuman parts of the natural world would
consist in, but also the question of what justice requires with regard to our treatment
of future generations of humans and our treatment of currently existing people (see
intergenerational ethics). Discussion of our moral obligations to future
generations has its origins in the anti-nuclear movements of the 1970s. Because the
waste generated by the production of nuclear power can remain dangerous for
millions of years, many anti-nuclear activists argued that nuclear power is unjust,
since it distributes benefits to current people while shifting all of the risks to future
people (Routley and Routley 1981). However, arguing that people who do not cur-
rently exist nonetheless have interests or even rights that we are obligated to take
into account proved philosophically complicated (Partridge 1981; Parfit 1984:
251–441; Dobson 1999). Not only are there metaphysical issues to resolve (how can
a nonexistent entity have existent rights?), but there is also the complication that the
6
choices we make now may well determine which individuals (if any) come into
existence in the future. Derek Parfit (1984: 351–79) argued that this latter fact
presents a problem for moral theories that tie wrong-doing to harm. In cases where
the same action both brings an individual or a group of individuals into existence
and causes them to suffer, standard accounts of harm (where harm involves making
an individual worse off than he or she otherwise would have been) do not allow us
to say that the action was harmful (since it is not the case that the individuals would
have existed and been better off had the action not been performed). Parfit concludes
that ethics should rely less than it does on the standard conception of harm (see
harm; nonidentity problem).
Other discussions of justice within environmental ethics have focused less on inter-
generational obligations and more on intragenerational obligations. The environmental
justice movement played an important role in emphasizing the importance of intra-
generational (and intraspecies) justice in environmental concerns. The environmental
justice movement began as a political movement, but it has had far-reaching effects on
environmental philosophy. It is primarily concerned with the equity of current distri-
butions of environmental costs and benefits, and it argues that contemporary arrange-
ments that benefit the wealthy (for example, by providing them with desirable luxury
goods) while imposing environmental costs on the poor (for example, by producing
these goods in places with lax environmental and worker-safety regulations) are unjust
arrangements. Environmental justice advocates typically argue that the distribution of
environmental benefits and burdens must conform to principles of distributive justice
and that environmental decision-making procedures must conform to principles of
procedural justice (Bullard 1994; Bryant 1995; Shrader-Frechette 2002; see global
poverty; coercive wage offers; reparations).
One area in which intergenerational and intragenerational justice considerations
come together is in the contemporary debates about the ethics of climate change (see
climate change). Any ethically acceptable solution to the problem of climate
change must involve a just distribution of the costs of the solution both globally and
intergenerationally (Attfield 1999; Gardiner 2002, 2004a, 2004b, 2006; Broome
2008; Garvey 2008). Globally, much of the debate has concerned the role that
developed vs. developing nations should play in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Many have argued that developed nations should bear more of the costs of reduction
since they are responsible for a greater proportion of both current and past emissions
as well as being economically better able to absorb the costs. Intergenerationally,
some have pointed out that inadequate reductions in greenhouse gas emissions
allow current generations to benefit but only at the expense of future generations. In
addition to raising questions about justice, climate change has revived questions
about how to understand the value of different parts of the environment.
Contemporary methods of cost–benefit analysis, which policymakers tend to rely
on as a guide to making sound decisions about which mitigation or adaptation
measures to pursue, tend to assume an anthropocentric theory of value (that all
value is ultimately a matter of the satisfaction of human interests) and tend
to discount the value of future costs/benefits compared to current costs/benefits
7
(see commodification; cost–benefit analysis; incommensurability [and

incomparability]). Both these assumptions have been widely criticized within
environmental ethics (O’Neill 1993).
Concerns about climate change have also brought debates about consumption and
human population growth back into a central place within environmental ethics (see
population). While older discussions of this issue (Ehrlich 1968; Hardin 1974) were
criticized for making faulty projections about the rate of population growth and for
misconstruing the relationships both between poverty and population and between
population and consumption (Murdoch and Oaten 1975; Sen 1994), it remains the case
that current rates of consumption and human population growth cannot continue with-
out producing very serious environmental problems. Thus the effect of various social
and economic policies on the rate of consumption and population growth is an area of
serious concern within environmental ethics and environmentalism more broadly.
The gravity of the problems related to climate change has also opened up
broader discussions about the importance of sustainability as a social value
(see sustainability). First discussed in terms of sustainable development within
development ethics, sustainability is now seen as a value that all societies must strive
to embody to avoid catastrophic environmental problems in the future. While there
are so many meanings of “sustainability” that the term itself has lost some of its original
significance, fields as diverse as urban planning, agricultural ethics, energy production,
and banking have taken sustainability to be a value that appropriately guides the
pursuit of their endeavors (World Commission on Environment and Development
1987; Shearman 1990; Jamieson 1998a, 1998b).
Theoretically, a number of developments have occurred within environmental
ethics recently that aim to move discussions past the issues of intrinsic value and
anthropocentrism that dominated the field in its early days. One such development
is the rise of a school of thought called environmental pragmatism. So named because
of a philosophical affinity with American pragmatist philosophers, environmental
pragmatists have argued that environmental ethics should (a) focus on helping to
solve practical environmental problems and only involve itself in theoretical disputes
insofar as is necessary for the solution of practical environmental problems; and
(b) adopt a pragmatist philosophical perspective, particularly in its theory of value
and epistemology (Light and Katz 1996; see pragmatic ethics).
Another recent development is the rise of environmental virtue ethics (see
environmental virtue ethics). While there are great differences among
particular virtue ethical theories, environmental virtue ethicists tend to agree that
talking about how various virtues and vices are expressed through different ways of
behaving toward the natural world is more useful for thinking about how to conduct
ourselves toward the natural world than were older discussions about intrinsic value
and moral standing (Sandler and Cafaro 2005; Sandler 2007). While virtue ethics
incorporates many claims made from within other theoretical perspectives, e.g.,
about the goodness of achieving certain consequences or the immorality of certain
acts, it takes assessments of character to be the primary focus of its analysis (see
virtue ethics). Thus environmental virtue ethicists have had much to say about the
8
particular environmental virtues that our actions should express (e.g., benevolence,
humility, temperance) and the particular environmental vices that our actions
should avoid expressing (e.g., cruelty, hubris, wastefulness).
One of the advantages that some theorists see to a virtue-ethical approach is
that it explicitly makes room for a kind of pluralism about values that some earlier
approaches seemed to rule out. Pluralism about value is the view that there are
different kinds of value, not just different amounts of value (see value plural-
ism). It is contrasted with monism about value, which claims that value only
comes in different amounts, not different kinds. A concern to incorporate value
pluralism into environmental ethical theories came from two sources. First, it
came from discussions – both within environmental ethics and normative ethics
more broadly – of the shortcomings of cost–benefit analysis, classical welfare eco-
nomics, and the classical utilitarianism which serves as their foundation. Critics
of these approaches argue that not all values can be explained in terms of their
contribution to happiness or even preference-satisfaction, and that even if they
could be, they are not subject to the kinds of relations (transitivity, commensura-
bility, etc.) that these approaches assume they are (O’Neill 1993). This concern
has led to a rethinking of the fundamental assumptions about value made by such
approaches, an issue that has been pursued not only within ethics but also within
environmental economics and ecological economics (Aldred 1994; Martinez-
Alier et al. 1998). The second source of motivation for a move toward value plu-
ralism came from frustrations within environmental ethics about the inability of
anthropocentric, sentience-based, biocentric, and ecocentric theorists to account
for values not easily explained by their own theories. For example, as a series of
Last Person arguments offered by environmental ethicists tried to demonstrate,
anthropocentrism has a difficult time accounting for the value of life continuing
after the last humans have disappeared, since the continued existence of life no
longer serves human interests (Routley 1973; see last person arguments).
Some theorists started to suspect that problems like these were caused by the
assumption that we must choose one core value and explain all other values in
terms of it. Recognizing an irreducibly plural set of values, they proposed, might
avoid this problem altogether (O’Neill et al. 2008). As a result of this work, recent
trends in environmental ethics have been toward theories that can incorporate
value pluralism. However, whether a more thoroughgoing pluralism is needed
(pluralism about ethical principles, or even theoretical pluralism) remains a con-
troversial matter (Stone 1988; Wenz 1993; Light and Katz 1996; Callicott 1999a,
1999b; Carter 2005).
The move toward pluralism about value in environmental ethics has also opened
up new avenues for collaboration between environmental ethics and aesthetics, and
has led environmental ethicists to take more seriously the insights about value
attained by those working in environmental aesthetics. Some writers in environmental
aesthetics have pointed out the strong but sometimes hidden influence that ethical
evaluation and aesthetic evaluation have on one another, and aesthetics has
9
historically been more open to pluralism about value than ethics (Carlson 2000;
Berleant 2002; Budd 2002; Brady 2003).
Motivated in part by a more urgent need to solve pressing environmental problems
such as climate change, environmental ethics is moving toward a more active
engagement with other fields. While the issues that dominated the field in its early days
such as questions about the adequacy of anthropocentrism and the justification of
intrinsic value claims still have an important place within theoretical discussions, the
field has broadened its scope considerably to include questions about how environmental
policy should be constrained by considerations of distributive and procedural justice,
questions about how environmental policies and practices affect relationships of politi-
cal power (such as domination and oppression) among social groups, questions about
what the role of science is and should be in determining and promoting environmental
values, questions about whether and how ethical considerations should constrain our
economic activities, and questions about which modes of caring and valuing are appro-
priate to which parts of the natural world. Ultimately, environmental ethics aims to find
answers to these questions that can be harmonized with one another, so that they might
guide us in our efforts to more ably care for ourselves and the world we live in.
see also: agricultural ethics; animal cognition; animal

experimentation; animal rights; animals, moral status of;
anthropocentrism; aristotle; biocentrism; climate change; coercive
wage offers; commodification; companion animals; cost–benefit
analysis; deep ecology; deontology; ecofeminism; ecological
restoration; environmental virtue ethics; exploitation; feminist ethics;
global poverty; harm; hunting; incommensurability (and
incomparability); instrumental value; intergenerational ethics;
intrinsic value; kant, immanuel; last person arguments; life, value of;
metaethics; nature and the natural; nonidentity problem; oppression;
population; pragmatic ethics; reparations; sentience, moral relevance
of; species, the value of; subjectivism, ethical; sustainability;
utilitarianism; value pluralism; value realism; vegetarianism and
veganism; virtue ethics; well-being; wilderness, value of; worth/dignity
REFERENCES
Adams, Carol J. 1990. The Sexual Politics of Meat. New York: Continuum.
Agar, Nicholas 2001. Life’s Intrinsic Value: Science, Ethics and Nature. New York: Columbia
University Press.
Aldred, Jonathan 1994. “Existence Value, Welfare and Altruism,” Environmental Values,
vol. 3, pp. 381–401.
Attfield, Robin 1999. The Ethics of the Global Environment. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
Press.
Berleant, Arnold (ed.) 2002. Environment and the Arts: Perspectives on Environmental
Aesthetics. Aldershot: Ashgate.
10
Brady, Emily 2003. Aesthetics of the Natural Environment. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama
Press.
Broome, John 2008. “Ethics of Climate Change,” Scientific American, vol. 2986, pp. 96–102.
Bryant, Bunyan (ed.) 1995. Environmental Justice: Issues, Policies, and Solutions. Washington,
DC: Island Books.
Budd, Malcolm 2002. The Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Bullard, Robert D. (ed.) 1994. Unequal Protection: Environmental Justice and Communities of
Color. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books.
Cahen, Harley 1988. “Against the Moral Considerability of Ecosystems,” Environmental
Ethics, vol. 10, pp. 195–216.
Callicott, J. Baird 1979. “Elements of an Environmental Ethic: Moral Considerability and the
Biotic Community,” Environmental Ethics, vol. 11, pp. 71–81.
Callicott, J. Baird 1980. “Animal Liberation: A Triangular Affair,” Environmental Ethics, vol. 2,
pp. 311–28.
Callicott, J. Baird 1984. “Non-Anthropocentric Value Theory and Environmental Ethics,”
American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 21, 299–309.
Callicott, J. Baird 1985. “Intrinsic Value, Quantum Theory, and Environmental Ethics,”
Callicott, J. Baird 1988. “Animal Liberation and Environmental Ethics: Back Together Again,”
Between the Species, vol. 4, pp. 163–9.
Callicott, J. Baird 1989. “The Conceptual Foundations of the Land Ethic,” in In Defense of the
Land Ethic. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Callicott, J. Baird 1999a. “The Case Against Moral Pluralism,” in Beyond the Land Ethic: More
Essays in Environmental Philosophy. Albany: State University of New York Press,
pp. 143–69.
Callicott, J. Baird 1999b. “Moral Monism in Environmental Ethics Defended,” in Beyond the
Land Ethic: More Essays in Environmental Philosophy. Albany: State University of New
York Press, pp. 171–83.
Callicott, J. Baird, and Michael P. Nelson (eds.) 1998. The Great New Wilderness Debate.
Athens: University of Georgia Press.
Carlson, Allen 2000. Aesthetics and the Natural Environment: The Appreciation of Nature, Art
and Architecture. London: Routledge.
Carter, Alan 2005. “Inegalitarian Biocentric Consequentialism, the Minimax Implication and
Multidimensional Value Theory: A Brief Proposal for a New Direction in Environmental
Ethics,” Utilitas, vol. 171, pp. 62–84.
Cronon, William (ed.) 1996. Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature.
New York: W. W. Norton.
Devall, Bill, and George Sessions 1985. Deep Ecology: Living as if Nature Mattered. Salt Lake
City: Gibbs Smith.
Dobson, Andrew (ed.) 1999. Fairness and Futurity: Essays on Environmental Sustainability
and Social Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ehrlich, Paul R. 1968. The Population Bomb. New York: Ballantine.
Elliot, Robert 1985. “Meta-Ethics and Environmental Ethics,” Metaphilosophy, vol. 16,
pp. 103–17.
Elliot, Robert 1997. Faking Nature: The Ethics of Environmental Restoration. London:
Routledge.
Fox, Warwick 1990. Toward a Transpersonal Ecology: Developing New Foundations for
Environmentalism. Boston: Shambhala.
11
Gaard, Greta (ed.) 1993. Ecofeminism: Women, Animals, Nature. Philadelphia: Temple
University Press.
Gardiner, Stephen M. 2002. “The Real Tragedy of the Commons,” Philosophy and Public
Affairs, vol. 304, pp. 387–416.
Gardiner, Stephen M. 2004a. “Ethics and Global Climate Change,” Ethics, vol. 114, pp. 555–600.
Gardiner, Stephen M. 2004b. “The Global Warming Tragedy and the Dangerous Illusion of
the Kyoto Protocol,” Ethics and International Affairs, vol. 181, pp. 23–9.
Gardiner, Stephen M. 2006. “A Perfect Moral Storm: Climate Change, Intergenerational
Ethics and the Problem of Moral Corruption,” Environmental Values, vol. 15,
pp. 397–413.
Garvey, James 2008. The Ethics of Climate Change: Right and Wrong in a Warming World.
London: Continuum.
Goodpaster, Kenneth E. 1978. “On Being Morally Considerable,” Journal of Philosophy,
vol. 75, pp. 308–25.
Hardin, Garrett 1974. “Living on a Lifeboat,” BioScience, vol. 2410, pp. 561–8.
Jamieson, Dale 1998a. “Animal Liberation Is an Environmental Ethic,” Environmental Values,
vol. 71, pp. 41–57.
Jamieson, Dale 1998b. “Sustainability and Beyond,” Ecological Economics, vol. 24, pp. 183–92.
Jamieson, Dale 2002. “Values in Nature,” in Morality’s Progress. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, pp. 225–43.
Johnson, Lawrence E. 1991. A Morally Deep World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Leopold, Aldo 1989. “The Land Ethic,” in A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and
There. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 201–26.
Light, Andrew, and Eric Katz 1996. “Introduction: Environmental Pragmatism and
Environmental Ethics as Contested Terrain,” in Environmental Pragmatism. New York:
Routledge, pp. 1–18.
Lockwood, Michael 1996. “End Value, Evaluation, and Natural Systems,” Environmental
Ethics, vol. 183, pp. 265–78.
McShane, Katie 2004. “Ecosystem Health,” Environmental Ethics, vol. 26, pp. 227–45.
Martinez-Alier, Joan, Giuseppe Munda, and John O’Neill 1998. “Weak Comparability of
Values as a Foundation for Ecological Economics,” Ecological Economics, vol. 263,
pp. 277–86.
Mies, Maria, and Vandana Shiva 1993. Ecofeminism. London: Zed Books.
Murdoch, William W., and Allan Oaten 1975. “Population and Food: Metaphors and the
Reality,” BioScience, vol. 259, pp. 561–7.
Naess, Arne 1995. “Self-Realization: An Ecological Approach to Being in the World,” in
G. Sessions (ed.), Deep Ecology for the 21st Century: Readings on the Philosophy and
Practice of the New Environmentalism. Boston: Shambhala, pp. 225–39.
Norton, Bryan G. 1984. “Environmental Ethics and Weak Anthropocentrism,” Environmental
O’Neill, John 1992. “The Varieties of Intrinsic Value,” The Monist, vol. 75, pp. 119–37.
O’Neill, John 1993. Ecology, Policy and Politics: Human Well-Being and the Natural World.
London: Routledge.
O’Neill, John 2001. “Meta-Ethics,” in D. Jamieson (ed.), A Companion to Environmental
Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 163–76.
O’Neill, John, Alan Holland, and Andrew Light 2008. Environmental Values. London:
Routledge.
12
Oelschlaeger, Max 1991. The Idea of Wilderness. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Parfit, Derek 1984. Reasons and Persons. New York: Oxford University Press.
Partridge, Ernest (ed.) 1981. Responsibilities to Future Generations. Buffalo: Prometheus
Books.
Regan, Tom 1981. “The Nature and Possibility of an Environmental Ethic,” Environmental
Regan, Tom 1985. “The Case for Animal Rights,” in P. Singer (ed.), In Defence of Animals.
Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 13–26.
Rolston, Holmes, III 1975. “Is There an Ecological Ethic?” Ethics, vol. 85, pp. 93–109.
Rolston, Holmes, III 1982. “Are Values in Nature Subjective or Objective?” Environmental
Rolston, Holmes, III 1988. Environmental Ethics. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Routley, Richard 1973. “Is There a Need for a New, an Environmental Ethic?” Proceedings of
the XV World Conference of Philosophy, vol. 1, pp. 205–10.
Routley, Richard, and Val Routley 1979. “Against the Inevitability of Human Chauvinism,” in
K. E. Goodpaster and K. M. Sayre (eds.), Ethics and Problems of the 21st Century. Notre
Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, pp. 36–59.
Routley, Richard, and Val Routley 1981. “Nuclear Energy and Obligations to the Future,” in
E. Partridge (ed.), Responsibilities to Future Generations. Buffalo: Prometheus Books,
pp. 277–301.
Salleh, Ariel 1997. Ecofeminism as Politics: Nature, Marx, and the Postmodern. London: Zed
Books.
Sandler, Ronald L. 2007. Character and Environment. New York: Columbia University Press.
Sandler, Ronald, and Philip Cafaro (eds.) 2005. Environmental Virtue Ethics. Lanham, MD:
Sarkar, Sahotra 2005. Biodiversity and Environmental Philosophy: An Introduction. Cambridge:
Sen, Amartya 1994. “Population: Delusion and Reality,” New York Review of Books, vol. 41,
pp. 62–71.
Sessions, George (ed.) 1995. Deep Ecology for the 21st Century: Readings on the Philosophy
and Practice of the New Environmentalism. Boston: Shambhala.
Shearman, Richard 1990. “The Meaning and Ethics of Sustainability,” Environmental
Management, vol. 141, pp. 1–8.
Shrader-Frechette, Kristin S. 2002. Environmental Justice: Creating Equality, Reclaiming
Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Singer, Peter 1990. Animal Liberation. New York: Avon Books.
Stone, Christopher D. 1988. “Moral Pluralism and the Course of Environmental Ethics,”
University Press.
Varner, Gary E. 1998. In Nature’s Interests? Interests, Animal Rights, and Environmental Ethics.
Warren, Karen (ed.) 1994. Ecological Feminism. New York: Routledge.
Warren, Karen 1997. Ecofeminism: Women, Culture, Nature. Bloomington: Indiana University
Press.
13
Wenz, Peter S. 1993. “Minimal, Moderate, and Extreme Moral Pluralism,” Environmental
Ethics, vol. 15, pp. 149–63.
World Commission on Environment and Development 1987. Our Common Future. Oxford:
Zimmer, Carl 2008. “What Is a Species?” Scientific American, June, pp. 72–9.
FURTHER READINGS
Attfield, Robin 1991. The Ethics of Environmental Concern. Athens: University of Georgia Press.
Attfield, Robin 1995. “Preferences, Health, Interests and Value,” Electronic Journal of Analytic
Philosophy.
Callicott, J. Baird 1989. In Defense of the Land Ethic. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Callicott, J. Baird 1999. Beyond the Land Ethic: More Essays in Environmental Philosophy.
Albany: State University of New York Press.
Dower, Nigel (ed.) 1989. Ethics and Environmental Responsibility. Brookfield, CT: Gower.
Ehrenfeld, David 1978. The Arrogance of Humanism. New York: Oxford University Press.
Evernden, Neil 1992. The Social Creation of Nature. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press.
Hargrove, Eugene C. (ed.) 1992. The Animal Rights/Environmental Ethics Debate. Albany:
Hay, Peter 2002. Main Currents in Western Environmental Thought. Indianapolis: Indiana
University Press.
Jamieson, Dale (ed.) 2001. A Companion to Environmental Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell.
Jamieson, Dale 2008. Ethics and the Environment: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Leopold, Aldo 1970. A Sand County Almanac with Essays on Conservation from Round River.
New York: Ballantine.
Light, Andrew, and Eric Katz (eds.) 1996. Environmental Pragmatism. New York: Routledge.
Nash, Roderick 1982. Wilderness and the American Mind. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Norton, Bryan G. (ed.) 1986. The Preservation of Species: The Value of Biological Diversity.
Norton, Bryan G. 1987. Why Preserve Natural Variety? Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Norton, Bryan G. 1991. Toward Unity Among Environmentalists. New York: Oxford University
Press.
Palmer, Clare 2003. “An Overview of Environmental Ethics,” in A. Light and H. Rolston III
(eds.), Environmental Ethics: An Anthology. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 15–37.
Sagoff, Mark 1988. The Economy of the Earth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sagoff, Mark 2004. Price, Principle, and the Environment. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Schmidtz, David 2008. Person, Polis, Planet. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Singer, Peter 2002. One World: The Ethics of Globalization. New Haven: Yale University Press.
1
Life, Meaning of
Iddo Landau
The phrase “meaning of life” is difficult to define. Discussions of meaningful lives

frequently deal with, among others, lives that have to them high degrees of worth,
lives focused on goals or purposes that people ought to pursue, or lives that relate to
plans and issues that are “beyond” one’s own individual self. Metz (2001) has sug-
gested that no definition (in the sense of a set of necessary and sufficient conditions)
of the phrase could be found, and that discussions of the meaning of life are united
by family resemblance. Although the phrase has come to be used only in the last two
and a half centuries, questions and considerations that we would include today
under this rubric are old, and can be found already in Ecclesiastes. Some influential
discussions of the topic, such as Tolstoy’s (1983) autobiographical essay, are not,
strictly speaking, philosophical. In philosophy, many of Schopenhauer’s pessimistic
claims (see schopenhauer, arthur) should be seen as arguments about the mean-
inglessness of life, although he too does not employ the term. And many classical
philosophical discussions about the good life, the happy life (see happiness), and
the right way to live are relevant for discussions on the meaning of life, although the
notions are distinct. Until recent decades, the meaning of life was mostly discussed
within continental philosophy, and analytic philosophers usually refrained from
dealing with it. But in the last few decades, there has been growing interest in the
topic also within analytic philosophy, and further work on it comes out every year.
This essay discusses both continental and analytic work on the subject.
Perhaps the most important dividing line in discussions about the meaning of
life is between those who think that life is meaningless and those who think it is
meaningful. While the former believe that no life is meaningful, the latter do not
think that all lives are meaningful, but take many to be so, or at least to have a poten-
tial for becoming so. The most famous and influential of the former is Schopenhauer,
who argues that life is full of suffering. One source of this suffering has to do with
instrumental activities. Whenever we struggle to achieve ends, we suffer the frustra-
tion of not having what we want and the efforts that have to be invested in acquiring
it. But shortly after we achieve our goals, we become bored with them. To escape this
boredom, we struggle to achieve some new ends that, again, would become boring
once achieved. Thus, life is like a pendulum, swinging pointlessly from boredom to
sufferings and back again (Schopenhauer 1969: 310–19). Critics point out, however,
that Schopenhauer generalizes from certain experiences to all. Many ends do not
seem to us futile or boring after they have been achieved but are rather enjoyed and
valued for a long time after. Many efforts toward achieving ends are not painful but
interesting, challenging, and pleasurable. Feeling that we temporarily lack what we
are working for may be pleasant rather than painful. Another set of Schopenhauer’s
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee117
2
arguments points to the asymmetry between experiences of pleasure and experi-

ences of pain. For example, time flies quickly when we experience pleasure but
slowly when we experience pain, so that pain has a higher subjective presence in our
life (1969: 575). Critics reply that, in some people’s lives, there is significantly more
pleasure than pain, so that even when this “advantage” of pain over pleasure is taken
into account, their lives are overall enjoyable. Moreover, sometimes difficulties
and even pain enhance the appreciation of later pleasures, so that deprivation and
suffering can make life more meaningful rather than less.
Some other important arguments for the meaninglessness of life discuss death
(Metz 2003; see death). For those who do not believe in an afterlife, death eventu-
ally obliterates all that we value into nothingness and makes us all – no matter what
we have done and how much we have achieved – the same in the end. Those who
take life to be meaningful, however, argue that there is much meaningfulness in life
even if it is limited in time. A meaningless life that is unlimited in time would not
become thereby meaningful, and a meaningful life that is limited in time does not
become thereby meaningless (Baier 2000). Meaningfulness does not have to be eter-
nal, and the fact that at a certain point a meaningful life terminates does not cancel
its meaningfulness. Interestingly, some also claim that, were they given the option of
becoming immortal, they would not opt for it. Williams (1973) explains that he
would not accept the offer because of fear of boredom. However, Fisher (1994)
argues that such boredom need not be felt. Some also argue that death even makes
life meaningful: if it were not for death, which forces us to prioritize and not to waste
our lives, if we had all the time in the world and never had to get anything done, we
would have had meaningless lives.
Between those who think that life is meaningful and those who consider it
meaningless, there are some interesting middle positions: Camus (1969) claims that
life is inherently absurd, but that while acknowledging this we should defy the
absurd and create happiness (and perhaps even meaning, although he is unclear
about that) in the absurd world (see camus, albert). Nagel (1986) distinguishes
between the subjective perspective and the objective–impersonal one. Subjectively,
our life is often meaningful. But, as far as the objective perspective is concerned,
Nagel is a pessimist: he argues that when life is considered in the third person and in
the context of all history, it is exposed as meaningless.
Another distinction is between perfectionist and nonperfectionist views of what
is required for a life to be meaningful. Perfectionists are those who believe that
meaningfulness has to show some perfection or at least a very high degree of excel-
lence. Lives that fall short of such very high standards cannot be considered mean-
ingful. Of course, the higher the standard, the fewer the lives that can be considered
meaningful, and taking all but the highest extreme to be meaningless generates
complaints about the meaninglessness of life. While Wolf (1997) and Baier (2000)
present nonperfectionist accounts of meaningfulness, Camus (1969: 10–22) takes
our aging, eventual death, and inability to know with complete certainty absolutely
everything to make life absurd. But this may set overly high standards for meaning-
fulness: under such standards perhaps only God’s existence would not be absurd.
3
Nevertheless, perfectionist standards seem intuitive to many people. Although many

perfectionists think that life is meaningless, the distinctions cut across each other:
some perfectionists take life to be meaningful, and nonperfectionists may take life
to be meaningless.
Another axis of discussion is between theists and atheists. Atheists can take life to
be either meaningful or meaningless; theists typically take life to be meaningful (Job
and Ecclesiastes being two interesting and famous exceptions), but frequently
believe it is so only for believers. Thus, Cottingham (2003) argues that one’s life can
be seen as meaningful only if one succeeds in one’s (positive) projects. But without
God, who manages reward in the afterlife and thus makes lives meaningful, this
condition cannot be fulfilled. Likewise, life is meaningful only if values are based on
absolutely reliable grounds and are absolutely universal, but only God can give such
a reliably firm and unchanging ground for values. However, as Metz (2003) argues,
it is not clear that only successful efforts are meaningful. For example, Kantian moral
theory suggests that there is much worth in acting from duty regardless of conse-
quences. Moreover, life may be overall successful even if there is no afterlife, and
afterlife may exist even if there is no God. Metz (2000) also points out problems in
theistic Divine Command theory (see divine command), and argues that there is
tension between the notion that lives are meaningful if they fulfill God’s purpose
and the notion that God is atemporal and simple.
It is also common to characterize some views concerning the meaning of life as
subjectivist and others as objectivist. Subjectivists, such as Ayer (1990), hold that peo-
ple’s beliefs about the meaningfulness of their lives determine their meaningfulness;
if one considers one’s life to be meaningful, it is indeed so, and everything one believes
to be meaningful in life is indeed meaningful to one. Objectivists hold that there
are some objective criteria of meaningfulness, and lives that do not fall within these
criteria are not meaningful. Although objectivists do not think that anything
whatsoever can be meaningful, they may well be pluralist, and accept many different
types of meaningfulness and ways of achieving it (see value pluralism). While
objectivists hold that one’s belief that one’s life is meaningful is not a sufficient
condition for making that life meaningful, some take it to be a necessary condition
for a meaningful life. Thus, Wolf (1997: 211) argues that “a meaningful life must sat-
isfy two criteria. … First, there must be active engagement, and second, it must be
engagement in … projects of worth.” So a person who did in his life everything
Gandhi did, yet was bored with it, would not have had a meaningful life. Others do
not take this subjective attitude to be even a necessary condition for a meaningful life,
arguing that subjective beliefs can affect life’s overall meaningfulness, but may be
overridden by other factors. To many, subjectivism sounds intuitively wrong. It seems
plausible that a beach bum interested in nothing except drinking, who cares for no
one and never helped anyone, may have a meaningless life even if he believes it to be
meaningful. If people can be mistaken about the moral level of their behavior or the
value of the artwork they produce, they may well be mistaken also about the mean-
ingfulness of their lives. However, objectivists find it difficult to present a set of objec-
tive criteria of meaningfulness, and to explain how these criteria could be substantiated.
4
See also: camus, albert; death; divine command; happiness;

schopenhauer, arthur; value pluralism
REFERENCES
Ayer, A. J. 1990. “The Meaning of Life,” The Meaning of Life and Other Essays. London:
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, pp. 178–97.
Baier, Kurt 2000. “The Meaning of Life,” in E. D. Klemke (ed.), The Meaning of Life, 2nd ed.
New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 101–32.
Camus, Albert 1969. “The Myth of Sisyphus,” The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays, trans.
Justin O’Brien. New York: Vintage, pp. 1–138.
Cottingham, John 2003. On the Meaning of Life. London: Routledge.
Fisher, John Martin 1994. “Why Immortality Is Not So Bad,” International Journal of
Philosophical Studies, vol. 2, pp. 257–70.
Metz, Thaddeus 2000. “Could God’s Purpose Be the Source of Life’s Meaning?” Religious
Metz, Thaddeus 2001. “The Concept of a Meaningful Life,” American Philosophical Quarterly,
vol. 38, pp. 137–53.
Metz, Thaddeus 2003. “The Immortality Requirement for Life’s Meaning,” Ratio, vol. 16,
pp. 161–77.
Nagel, Thomas 1986. “Birth, Death and the Meaning of Life,” The View from Nowhere.
Schopenhauer, Arthur 1969. The World as Will and Representation, vol. 2, trans. E. F. J. Payne.
New York: Dover.
Tolstoy, Leo 1983. Confession, trans. David Patterson. New York: Norton.
Williams, Bernard 1973. “The Makropulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality,”
Problems of the Self. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 82–100.
Wolf, Susan 1997. “Happiness and Meaning: Two Aspects of the Good Life,” Social Philosophy
FURTHER READINGS
Benatar, David (ed.) 2010. Life, Death and Meaning, 2nd ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman &
Littlefield.
Hanfling, Oswald 1987. The Quest for Meaning. Oxford: Blackwell.
Hanfling, Oswald (ed.) 1987. Life and Meaning: A Reader. Oxford: Blackwell.
Klemke, E. D., and Steven M. Cahn (eds.) 2007. The Meaning of Life: A Reader, 3rd ed.
Metz, Thaddeus 2002. “Recent Works on the Meaning of Life,” Ethics, vol. 112, no. 4,
pp. 781–814.
Metz, Thaddeus (ed.) 2005. Philosophical Papers, vol. 34, special issue on Meaning in Life.
Nozick, Robert 1981. “Philosophy and the Meaning of Life,” Philosophical Explanations.
1
Evaluative vs. Deontic Concepts

Christine Tappolet
Ethical thought is articulated around normative concepts (see normativity).

Standard examples of normative concepts are good, reason, right, ought, and
obligatory. Theorists often treat the normative as an undifferentiated domain. Even
so, it is common to distinguish between two kinds of normative concepts: evaluative
or axiological concepts (from the Latin valores or the Greek axios, both meaning
that which has worth), such as good, and deontic concepts (from the Greek deon,
meaning that which is binding), such as ought. The basic idea behind the distinction,
which is a generalization of the traditional opposition between value and duty, is
that there is a difference between terms that are used to assess the worth of things
and to express states such as approval or disapproval, on the one hand, and terms
that are used to tell us what to do and not to do, on the other.
Interest in this distinction comes from both normative ethics and metaethics (see
metaethics). A better understanding of the kind of concepts involved can be
expected to throw light on the nature of ethical reasoning, and more specifically on
how claims about what we ought to do relate to claims about the good. One question
which opposes consequentialism (see consequentialism) to deontology (see deon-
tology) is whether what we ought to do is prior to the good or whether what we
ought to do depends on the good. This question is closely related to the metaethical
debate about the nature of evaluative judgments. Standard versions of fitting-attitude
accounts of evaluative judgments (see value, fitting-attitude account of; buck-
passing accounts) claim, roughly, that something is good if and only if it is fitting to
approve of it, where fitting is usually taken to be a deontic concept. Such theories are
thus frequently seen as proposing a reduction of evaluative judgments to deontic
judgments. The reverse reduction of deontic judgments to evaluative judgments, such
as when one claims that the right can be defined in terms of the good, has been envis-
aged by G. E. Moore (see moore, g. e.). These reduction strategies are controversial.
To assess them, a better understanding of the concepts involved is necessary.
The primary question is whether or not there is a significant distinction between
evaluative and deontic concepts. This has been disputed. A uniform treatment of
normative concepts and judgments has proven especially attractive to advocates of
prescriptivism, the view according to which moral judgments’ function is to issue
prescriptions (see prescriptivism). Thus, Richard Hare considered that there were
sufficient similarities between “good,” “right,” and “ought” to count all of them as
evaluative terms, and he classified both imperatives and value judgments as
“Prescriptive Language” (1952: 3, 153). Rudolf Carnap claimed that the difference
between evaluative judgments and norms is merely one of formulation; both have in
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee118
2
fact an imperative form, so that “actually a value statement is nothing else than a
command in a misleading grammatical form” (1935: 24).
Although little systematic work has been done on this issue, a number of
philosophers have explicitly embraced the claim that there is a significant distinction
between evaluative and deontic concepts as well as the corresponding judgments
(von Wright 1963; Wiggins 1976; Heyd 1982; Mulligan 1998; Smith 2005; Thomson
2008; Ogien and Tappolet 2009). This essay surveys and assesses the main
considerations that speak in favor of the distinction.
There is no agreement on what terms are evaluative and what terms are deontic.
Given this, the best strategy is to focus on paradigmatic cases, such as good and bad
for the evaluative, and obligatory or that which we ought to do for the deontic. It is only
with an account of such cases that one can answer the question of whether concepts
such as reason or right are evaluative, deontic, or belong to some further category.
Two Conceptual Families

A first reason to contrast evaluative and deontic concepts is that they appear to form
two distinct conceptual families. On the one hand, there is the family organized around
good, and which includes bad and indifferent. On the other hand, there is the family,
composed of obligatory, permissible, and forbidden, which constitutes the main concern
of deontic logic (see deontic logic). Each of these families is connected by inferential
ties. If something is good, then it follows that it is not bad. In fact, the three more gen-
eral evaluative concepts appear to be interdependent. What is good is neither indiffer-
ent nor bad, what is indifferent is neither good nor bad, whereas what is bad is neither
indifferent nor good. Similarly, the three main deontic concepts appear to be inter-
definable. Any of the three concepts can be taken to define the two others. For instance,
if permissibility is considered to be basic, one can define what is forbidden as what is not
permissible, and what is obligatory in terms of what it is forbidden not to do.
By contrast, the relation between evaluative and deontic concepts appears looser.
There is certainly no agreement on the question of whether one can infer deontic
propositions from evaluative propositions, or vice versa, evaluative propositions
from deontic propositions. Against this, it can be argued that evaluative concepts
can be analyzed in terms of deontic concepts, or else that both evaluative and deontic
concepts can be analyzed in terms of some other, more fundamental normative
concepts. But it has to be acknowledged that the present considerations give strong
prima facie grounds for the distinction.
Variety versus Uniformity

A second set of considerations has to do with the number of items in each category. As
has been underlined, both “good” and “bad” allow for a variety of usages (Ross 1930: 65;
von Wright 1963: 8–12; see goodness, varieties of). Something can be said to be good
simpliciter, such as when we say that knowledge or pleasure is good. When we do so, we
use the term “predicatively,” as a genuine predicate, and not “attributively,” as predicate
3
modifier. “Good” also allows for attributive uses, such as when we say things or persons
are good as a kind, such as when we say that Sam is a good poet, something which does
not entail that Sam is a good cook. In such cases, the term is used attributively (Ross
1930: 65; Geach 1956: 33). Things can be good in yet other ways. We say that things are
good for something or someone, that a thing is good to do something with, that some-
one is good at something, or good with something. In each of these cases, it follows that
the thing or the person is good in a certain respect (Thomson 2008: 6).
The evaluative family also includes more specific concepts, such as desirable,
admirable, fair, generous, honest, kind, and courageous, and undesirable, contemptible,
unfair, mean, dishonest, cruel, and cowardly, to pick out a few terms central to moral
assessment. Such concepts are used to express moral praise or approval, or moral
blame or disapproval, respectively. An important point is that these concepts are
inferentially related to the more general evaluative concepts; to say that something
falls under a more specific concept commits one to saying that it falls under one of
the three general evaluative concepts, good, bad, or indifferent. One way to understand
the relation between the more specific and the more general evaluative concepts is
to claim that it is of the same kind as the relation between terms referring to specific
colors and colored, or, more generally, between determinates and determinables. In
any case, that something is admirable or courageous, for instance, entails that it is
good. More precisely, since that same thing could also have negative features, it
entails that it is good in a certain respect (Thomson 2008: 6).
There is thus a wide variety of moral evaluative concepts, ranging from the more
specific to the more general. And this variety is even greater if one takes into account
the evaluative concepts used in other domains of human interest, such as aesthetics
or epistemology. In contrast, the deontic family is much poorer. There seems to be
no specific respect in which something is obligatory, permissible, or forbidden. It
could be objected that one can distinguish between different kinds of obligations,
such as moral, legal, and prudential obligations. However, even if these are taken to
be ways of being obligatory instead of being considered as an application of the same
deontic concepts to different domains, the deontic family is nonetheless much
poorer, compared to the evaluative family.
A closely related way of contrasting the evaluative and the deontic is based on
Bernard Williams’ (1985) distinction between thin and thick concepts (see thick
and thin concepts). The idea is that evaluative concepts include both so-called
thick and thin concepts, whereas this does not seem to be the case with the deontic
concepts (Mulligan 1998: 164–5). Thick concepts, such as cruel or courageous, are
more specific than thin ones, such as good. What is distinctive about judgments
involving thick concepts is that they are both action-guiding and world-guided.
Accordingly, thick concepts have sometimes been taken to involve both descriptive
content and normative content. In any case, the ascription of thick concepts, such as
courage, appears to involve the attribution of nonnormative features, such as the
ability to face danger, pain, or opposition. Now, there are a great many thick
evaluative concepts, but there seem to be no deontic concepts that are both
action-guiding and world-guided in this way.
4
Again, enemies of the distinction could resist these considerations and argue that
evaluative concepts of all kinds can be analyzed in terms of deontic concepts, or else
in terms of some more fundamental normative notion. However, it has to be
underlined that it would nonetheless remain true that the family of evaluative
concepts is much more populated than the deontic family.
Response Dependence
A third contrast between evaluative and deontic concepts concerns their relation to
emotional, or, more generally, to affective states (see emotion). Evaluative concepts
appear to have a much closer relation to such states, compared to deontic concepts
(Mulligan 1998: 166). This is particularly obvious in the case of specific concepts such
as admirable or contemptible, which are lexically connected to emotion terms. Such
concepts wear their response dependence on their sleeves (see response-dependent
theories). In fact, all specific evaluative concepts appear closely connected to affec-
tive states. It is plausible to claim that what is courageous makes admiration appropri-
ate, while what is unjust makes indignation appropriate. Furthermore, more general
concepts also seem related to affective states, be they states such as approbation or
disapprobation, or sets of more specific states, such as positive or negative affective
states. The appeal of fitting-attitude analyses, according to which evaluative concepts
are conceptually tied to affective concepts, bears testimony to the intimacy of the rela-
tion between evaluative and affective concepts. Whatever the exact relation, it is plau-
sible that evaluative and affective concepts are intimately connected.
By contrast, it is far from obvious that deontic concepts and affective concepts are
closely related. There are no lexical connections between obligatory, permissible, and
forbidden, on the one hand, and affective concepts; more generally, there are no obvi-
ous pairings with affective states, for there appears to be no emotion kind dedicated
to what is obligatory, permissible, or forbidden. But this does not entail that no such
connections exist. One possibility is to tie deontic concepts to emotions involved in
blame or praise. Thus, it has been argued that the concept of what is wrong or forbid-
den can be reduced to the concept of what it is rational to resent or feel guilty about
(Gibbard 1990: 45). The question of whether evaluative and deontic concepts differ
with respect to their relation to affective concepts depends on whether an analysis
along these lines is feasible. But it also depends on how we understand the connec-
tion. Suppose, as is plausible, that acting impermissibly is acting in a way that makes
resentment or guilt appropriate. If so, it could be argued that it is because such action
has evaluative properties, which are correlated to blame or guilt responses, that it is
connected to affective concepts. In contrast to the evaluative case, the connection
between deontic and affective concepts would thus be indirect.
Either way, it should be noted that given the further thought that resentment and
guilt, which are typical examples of what have been called “reactive attitudes” (see
attitudes, reactive), are connected to responsibility (see responsibility), it
would follow that deontic concepts such as wrong or forbidden are related to
responsibility attributions. That would explain the intuition that, in contrast to
5
evaluative claims, deontic judgments entail the possibility of holding agents

responsible (Smith 2005: 10).
Degrees
Another striking contrast between evaluative and deontic concepts is that the former
but not the latter have comparative and superlative forms (Hare 1952: 152). Thus, we
say that something is more or less admirable, or that it is most admirable, allowing
for degrees of values. Evaluative judgment can also take the form of comparisons, as
when we say that something is more admirable than something else. By contrast,
ordinary language does not allow for comparative and superlative forms of deontic
concepts. As Hume noted, we do not say that something is more obligatory, or less
obligatory, or that some action is more prohibited compared to another (Hume
1978, III, vi: 530–1). A plausible explanation of the on/off nature of deontic concepts
is that such concepts primarily concern things that do not admit of degrees, namely,
actions (Ogien and Tappolet 2009: 64–5).
It could be objected that we allow for deontic comparison when we are faced with
practical conflicts, such as when we have the choice between either killing or lying.
If we conclude that we should lie rather than kill, it might seem that we consider that
killing is “more” prohibited than lying, and that the requirement not to kill has more
strength than the requirement not to lie. Moreover, these apparent differences in
strength manifest themselves in the terminology we use: we distinguish between
what must be done and what should be done, for instance (Hansson 2001: 131–2;
Thomson 2008: 125, 229–30). One might thus claim that deontic concepts allow for
degrees, something which ought to be recognized by a realistic system of deontic
logic (Hansson 2001: 132–3). In reply, it can be argued that it is possible to understand
differences in strength as differences in priority rather than as differences in degree.
When we say that we should lie rather than kill, we do not mean that killing is “more
forbidden” than lying; what we mean is that in the case of a conflict the requirement
not to kill overrides the requirement not to lie.
Dilemmas
This last consideration points toward a further difference between evaluative and
deontic concepts and their related judgments. In contrast to evaluative judgments,
deontic judgments can give rise to dilemmas (see dilemmas, moral), whether these
are taken to be insoluble or not. It happens all too often that our different obligations
conflict. In such cases, it seems that we ought to do one thing – save one twin – and
that we ought to do another thing – save the other twin – but doing both is impossible.
In terms of evaluative judgments, such a situation can involve two equally good
options. But it might also involve incommensurable or even incomparable
alternatives, such as when one option would be unjust, whereas the other would be
unkind. Such cases can underlie dilemmas, but as such, they do not constitute
dilemmas.
6
Logical Form
Another difference between evaluative and deontic concepts concerns the syntactical
and, arguably, the logical form of the corresponding judgments. On the face of it,
simple evaluative judgments, such as the judgment that this action is admirable,
typically have a subject–predicate form, F(x). By contrast, deontic concepts are
standardly taken to be propositional operators, so that deontic judgments are taken
to have the form O(p) (where “O” stands for obligatory). If this is right, there is an
important contrast between the two kinds of concepts.
Things are not so straightforward, however. First, evaluative terms can take the
syntactical form of propositional operators, such as when we say that it is good, or
desirable, that it rain. Moreover, it might only be on the surface that simple evaluative
judgments have a subject–predicate form. After all, there have been many attempts
to show that their structure is more complex, involving a tacit reference to someone
(see relativism, moral), or a reference to a kind of response deemed fit. Second,
deontic judgments can also take a variety of syntactic forms, such as “F-ing is for-
bidden” or “A ought to F” (where “F” stands for an action-verb and “A” for an agent).
Some, like Peter Geach (1991: 35), have argued that in fact the standard parsing of
deontic judgments is a mistake, for suggesting that such sentences are about what
ought to be obscures the fact that obligations essentially concern agents. Geach
claims that deontic terms are operators taking verbs to make verbs (1991: 36). When
we say that Sally ought to sing, what we say is that ought to sing is true of Sally. There
are other strategies to catch the agent-oriented character of deontic judgments, such
as taking deontic terms to stand for a relation between agents and actions, or else
including a reference to the agent in the proposition.
However, there nonetheless appear to be two important facts that distinguish
evaluative from deontic judgments. One is that some evaluative judgments seem to
resist transformation into judgments involving a deontic propositional operator (or
a higher-order operator). This is true not only of judgments like “This is a good
knife” or “She is courageous,” but also of sentences such as “This soup is good for
him” or “She is good at singing.” By contrast, it appears that all deontic judgments
can be transformed into judgments involving a deontic propositional operator (or a
higher-order operator). The other difference is that evaluative terms describing
actions, but not deontic terms, can be transformed into adverbs that describe how an
action is performed (Ogien and Tappolet 2009: 56). Suppose that Sally’s action was
both courageous and morally obligatory. We can say that Sally acted courageously,
thus describing how she acted; but even though in a sense she might be said to have
acted obligatorily, we do not describe how she acted if we say this. There thus appears
to be a category mistake involved in the sentence “Sally acted courageously,
energetically, and obligatorily.” Acting in the way you ought to does not appear to be
a way of acting. These two syntactic considerations suggest that in contrast to deontic
concepts, evaluative concepts correspond to properties characterizing things.
7
Domains of Application
This brings us to a last point of contrast, which concerns the domains of application
of evaluative and deontic concepts. All sorts of things, ranging from persons and
their actions to natural objects and states of affairs, can be the object of an evaluation.
This suggests that there is a difference with deontic concepts, for typical deontic
judgments concern agents and their actions (Heyd 1982: 171–2). It might thus be
thought that deontic concepts only apply to what is subject to the will. As expressed
in the principle “‘ought’ implies ‘can’” (see ought implies can), it would be only as
far as an agent can do otherwise that she can be subjected to an obligation. In fact,
the domain of deontic concepts is broader, for it includes things such as inferences,
beliefs, decisions, choices, intentions, emotions, and character traits. But insofar as
there are things an agent can do to get rid of some nasty emotional disposition or
character trait, this does not contradict the idea that there is a link to what is under
the agent’s control. It thus appears plausible to say that deontic concepts are
concerned with things that have to be at least indirectly subject to the will.
One could object that there is an important class of what appear to be bona fide
deontic judgments that falsifies this claim: judgments about what ought or ought not
to be. One strategy to deal with such cases is to allow for two quite different kinds of
deontic concepts, one of which would have nothing to do with what is directly or
indirectly subject to the will. Another strategy is to deny that ought-to-be is really a
deontic concept. In fact, given the similarities between this kind of ought and good,
when used in judgments of the form “It is good that p,” it might be thought that
ought-to-be is in fact an evaluative concept. What we mean when saying that
something ought to exist is that it is good (Moore 1993: 68). But since ought-to-be
appears different from both central evaluative and deontic concepts, it is more likely
that it constitutes a special kind of normative concept, which differs from both
standard deontic and evaluative concepts.
Conclusion
There are, it seems, good reasons to distinguish between evaluative and deontic
concepts. Evaluative and deontic concepts appear to form distinct conceptual
families. Compared to deontic concepts, evaluative concepts form a much larger
family, which includes specific and thick concepts. Evaluative concepts seem more
closely related to affective concepts. In contrast to evaluative concepts, ordinary
deontic concepts do not admit of degrees. Deontic judgments, but not evaluative
judgments, make for dilemmas. Evaluative judgments and deontic judgments appear
to differ in their logical form. And finally, the domains of application of the two
kinds of concept appear to be different, deontic concepts being concerned with what
is at least indirectly subject to the will, while evaluative concepts have no such
restriction.
8
see also: attitudes, reactive; buck-passing accounts; consequentialism;

deontic logic; deontology; dilemmas, moral; emotion; goodness,
varieties of; metaethics; moore, g. e.; normativity; ought implies can;
prescriptivism; relativism, moral; response-dependent theories;
responsibility; thick and thin concepts; value, fitting-attitude
account of
REFERENCES
Carnap, Rudolf 1935. Philosophy and Logical Syntax. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner.
Geach, Peter T. 1956. “Good and Evil,” Analysis, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 33–42.
Geach, Peter T. 1991 [1982]. “Whatever Happened to Deontic Logic?” in Peter Geach (ed.),
Logic and Ethics. Dordrecht: Kluwer, pp. 33–48.
Gibbard, Allan 1990. Wises Choices, Apt Feelings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hansson, Sven Ove 2001. The Structure of Values and Norms. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Hare, Richard M. 1952. The Language of Morals. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Heyd, David 1982. Supererogation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hume, David 1978 [1739]. A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge, rev.
P. H. Nidditch. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Moore, G. E. 1993 [1903]. Principia Ethica, ed. Thomas Baldwin, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Mulligan, Kevin 1998. “From Appropriate Emotions to Values,” The Monist, vol. 81, no. 1,
pp. 161–88.
Ogien, Ruwen, and Christine Tappolet 2009. Les Concepts de l’éthique. Faut-il être conséquen-
tialiste? Paris: Hermann.
Ross, William D. 1930. The Right and the Good. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Smith, Michael 2005. “Meta-ethics,” in Frank Jackson and Michael Smith (eds.), The Oxford
Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Thomson, Judith J. 2008. Normativity. Peru, IL: Open Court.
von Wright, Georg Henrik 1963. The Varieties of Goodness. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Wiggins, David 1976. “Truth, Invention, and the Meaning of Life,” in Needs, Values, Truth.
Williams, Bernard A. O. 1985. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. London: Fontana.
FURTHER READINGS
Cueno, Terence 2007. The Normative Web: An Argument for Moral Realism. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Dancy, Jonathan 2000. Practical Reality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Railton, Peter 2003. Facts, Values, and Norms: Essays Towards a Morality of Consequence.
Scheler, Max 1973 [1913–16]. Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values: A New
Attempt toward the Foundation of an Ethical Personalism, trans. Manfred S. Frings and
Roger L. Funk. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
9
Thomson, Judith J. 1992. “On Some Ways in Which a Thing Can Be Good,” Social Philosophy
von Wright, Georg Henrik 1963. Norm and Action. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Wedgwood, Ralph 2009. “The ‘Good’ and the ‘Right’ Revisited,” Philosophical Perspectives,
vol. 23, pp. 499–519.
1
Humanitarian Intervention
Terry Nardin
What should be done when a massacre or similar atrocity occurs in a country other
than one’s own? The thought that the governments of other countries should halt
the atrocity, using force if necessary, yields the doctrine of humanitarian interven-
tion. The moral rationale underlying that doctrine is not hard to grasp. When
human lives are threatened by violence, those who are able to rescue the victims and
to resist the violence should intervene, if they can do so without imposing dispro-
portionate costs and by morally permissible means (see violence). The rationale is
strongest when violence rises to the level of “crimes against humanity,” an expres-
sion adopted for the trial of German leaders at Nuremberg in 1945 to cover degrad-
ing, large-scale violence by a government against its own people (see crimes
against humanity). Because it is in tension with the idea of state sovereignty,
humanitarian intervention has an insecure place in international law and is prob-
lematic on practical grounds as well, but that tension has only fueled debate on the
circumstances in which forcible interference by one state in the territory of another
is justified to prevent such crimes.
The moral principle underlying humanitarian intervention is that coercion is
justified to resist unjustified coercion (see coercion). To coerce others is to use or
threaten force to get them to do something they would not otherwise choose to do.
Human beings are creatures capable of making choices and they are entitled to make
choices for themselves. Call this “independence.” One person cannot legitimately
make choices for another without the latter’s consent, except in roles such as that of
a parent or trustee. Each is therefore morally required to respect the independence
of everyone else. But if a person’s independent choice is obstructed by unjustified
coercive interference, that interference can be resisted, whether by that person
directly or indirectly by someone acting on his or her behalf. The principle can also
be stated in the language of rights (see rights). Each person has a right to
independence and other persons are forbidden to act in any manner that violates
that right. If they do, the violation may be resisted. Except when it responds to
unjustified coercive interference, coercion is forbidden because it unjustifiably
interferes with the right to independence properly claimed by every human being.
In civil society, the right to coerce is assigned to government, for government is
supposed to enact and enforce laws that protect the independence of its members.
But an individual may also justifiably resort to coercion in certain situations, even in
civil society, to resist an interference that violates his or her right to independence.
To resist violence against oneself is “self-defense” (see self-defense). To resist it on
behalf of someone else is to “intervene” in the relationship between violator and
victim. Such intervention is justified to obstruct the violator’s unjustified
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee119
2
infringement of the right to independence and so to protect the victim. Coercion is

permitted when it is used to resist violence against oneself or others. It is not
permitted when it is used to resist morally justified coercion.
The idea of humanitarian intervention extends this reasoning to relationships
between states, understood as legally organized communities. A state is presumed,
as an artificial or legal person, to have a right to independence that is analogous but
not identical to that of a natural person. That right is not what Kant would call
“innate” or natural but rather is “acquired” by a state, on its establishment, by
derivation from the innate rights of the natural persons who are its members (1996
[1797]: 393). Each state has a presumptive right to independence – in the vocabulary
of international law, to political sovereignty and territorial integrity – which means
not only that it can defend that independence (see just cause [in war]) but also
that it is obligated to respect the independence of every other state. States must
therefore refrain from coercively interfering in each other’s internal affairs (however
defined). The rule that forbids coercive interference in matters within the jurisdic-
tion of a state is called “the nonintervention rule.” Arguments for humanitarian
intervention justify it as an exception to that rule. The idea of intervention presup-
poses a rule-governed international order in which each state has a right to
independence. It acquires that right as a member of a society of states constituted
and regulated by international law. One state can “intervene” in the internal affairs
of another only if there are rules that distinguish internal affairs from those that are
external. A world without states would have no nonintervention rule to override and
therefore no possibility of intervention.
International lawyers are at odds on the legality of humanitarian intervention. On
the one hand, the United Nations Charter and many treaties explicitly prohibit coer-
cive interference by one state in the internal affairs of another. On the other, there is
evidence that the international community recognizes humanitarian intervention as
a lawful exception to the nonintervention rule in certain situations. The Constitutive
Act of the African Union, for example, permits the Union to intervene if necessary
to protect human rights in member states, and the idea that the Security Council can
authorize intervention when human rights violations constitute a threat to peace has
now become entrenched in UN resolutions and practice. In addition, some legal
scholars argue that humanitarian intervention is increasingly, if still uncertainly,
becoming part of customary international law (Stromseth 2003). To the extent that
it forbids intervention to protect human rights, international law departs from
generally accepted principles of morally permissible coercion, resulting in a tension
between morality and law.
This tension is evident when we contrast twentieth-century international law,
which is based largely on treaties and which reiterates the nonintervention rule, with
international law (though it is anachronistic to call it that) in the European sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries. That law was based on custom (ius gentium or “the law of
nations”) and moral principle (“the law of nature”), though these bodies of law were
often confused with one another. Grotius and other influential writers on
international affairs of that period argued that rulers were justified in using armed
3
force to punish wrongdoing, including crimes committed by other rulers against

their own subjects (Grotius 1925 [1646]: 504–6; Muldoon 2006). The absence of a
clear distinction between customary and natural law explains the openness of these
writers to what was later called humanitarian intervention (see natural law; just
war theory, history of). Today, international law (which includes the noninter-
vention rule) is again under pressure from morality, under the banner of human
rights, with renewed calls to enforce those rights against governments that fail to
uphold them.
Personal morality cannot simply be transferred to relations between states,
however. The “morality of states,” as it might be called, must recognize the acquired
right of governments to make and apply laws, and that means recognizing that laws
cannot precisely correspond to moral principles. In particular, the morality of states
necessarily permits states to govern themselves, as a consequence of their acquired
right of independence, and therefore recognizes a limit to intervention even when
governments violate the rights of subjects or allow those rights to be violated. That
is why intervention is usually regarded as justified only in cases of widespread and
atrocious human rights abuse: massacre, enslavement, deportation, and the like.
It is sometimes objected, against this view, that if one can intervene to prevent
large-scale atrocities, one should be able to intervene to prevent small-scale ones as
well. Wrongs are wrongs wherever they occur, and national boundaries should not
be an obstacle to dealing with them. There are two responses to this “cosmopolitan”
criticism of the morality of states (see cosmopolitanism; international
relations). The first is that intervention is impractical and disproportionate as a
way of dealing with scattered human rights abuses. Only widespread and extreme
abuse can justify military action, which imposes costs of its own. Practical consid-
erations may therefore lead one to avoid the use of force even when the moral argu-
ments for using it are otherwise strong (see proportionality [in war]). The
second is that the abuses may fall below the line dividing internal matters from mat-
ters of international concern – especially concern at a level that could justify military
action. A rule that allowed military intervention whenever wrongs were committed
in another state would be one that effectively denied political communities the right
to manage their own affairs. Humanitarian intervention in situations where the
wrongs do not rise to the level of crimes against humanity is therefore unjustified
not only on practical grounds but also in principle because it would wrongly infringe
the independence that normally, and properly, belongs to any community organized
as a state. The morally justified presumption against coercive intervention involves
tolerating some moral wrongs, though that presumption is overridden if the wrongs
are sufficiently grave. The nonintervention rule is morally justified because it
protects the acquired right of a political community to make its own choices.
Advocating intervention whenever those choices are morally objectionable is not
only impractical but denies states the independence to which within broad limits
they are morally entitled. Hence the conclusion that a state forfeits its right to
independence, and therefore its immunity to intervention, only when its infringement
of the rights of its people is extreme.
4
The adjective “humanitarian,” though routinely used to describe interventions to

obstruct violence, is unfortunate because it has connotations that can confuse the
debate. It implies that a state’s motive for intervening must be charity or benevolence.
This in turn invites the claim that interventions are never humanitarian because
states intervene only for reasons of self-interest, not out of genuine humanitarian
concern. One might respond by observing that an intervention that ends a massacre
can be morally justified, regardless of the motives (which must be various) of those
who make the decision to intervene. Humanitarian intervention is grounded not
only on beneficence but also on considerations of justice, and this means that acting
on any motive is permissible because justice is concerned with actions, not motives.
The word humanitarian also obscures the distinction between providing aid with
the consent of the receiving state, which does not involve coercive interference, and
military intervention, which does. It implies that any situation in which people need
aid is one in which other states may justifiably intervene. But, some argue, that
principle is too permissive. Although a country that is poor or has suffered a natural
disaster is one that other countries should assist, states may not intervene militarily
to provide such assistance. They cannot intervene even when a government is
tyrannical, corrupt, or undemocratic. What annuls a state’s claim to immunity from
intervention is not its character but its acts: the graver its crimes, the less it can
justifiably claim immunity under the nonintervention rule. Intervention is justified
by a government’s crimes, not its illegitimacy. The purpose of a military intervention
must be to stop an ongoing or imminent massacre or other crime against humanity.
Using military force to remove an undemocratic regime aims at revolution, not
rescue or prevention of a crime against humanity, and is not “humanitarian
intervention” in the usual sense of that term (Nardin 2005: 22).
Regime change is not an end compatible with either international law or the
moral principles on which it is based, which recognize the independence of states
and the concomitant right to organize political life in ways that differ from those of
liberal Western democracies. One must distinguish between Iraq in 2003, whose
regime was undemocratic and oppressive (but not more so than those of many other
countries), and Rwanda in 1994, in which about 20 percent of the population died in
a few months of genocidal violence (see genocide). Intervention in Rwanda was
morally justified, given the scale of the massacre and the participation of govern-
ment armed forces and government-supported militias. The war against Iraq was
different. Once the reasons advanced for invading (to end Iraq’s support of al-Qaeda
and deprive Iraq of nuclear weapons) had been discredited as mistaken, if not
disingenuous, apologists for the war sought to rationalize it as a humanitarian
intervention intended to remove a tyrant and establish a democracy. It is the regime’s
illegitimacy, not its conduct, that bears the justificatory weight in their argument.
Those who disagree with this conclusion argue that the external legitimacy of a
state should be judged according to the same criteria as its internal legitimacy. The
state has a responsibility to protect the human rights of its subjects, and the authority
of its government is justified because it is necessary for that government to dis-
charge that responsibility. If it fails to discharge it adequately, there are no moral
5
grounds on which one can object to intervention by other states to remedy the fail-
ure (Altman and Wellman 2009: 100). But this argument links internal and external
legitimacy so tightly together as to leave little room for reasonable disagreement on
the definition of human rights or the measure of adequate respect for such rights in
circumstances of religious, moral, legal, political, and economic diversity. The
debate illustrates a division in liberal thought between those who would limit coer-
cive interference to dealing with extreme human rights abuses (Walzer 1977) and
those who think that it is justified at least in principle whenever the practices of a
society diverge from the prescriptions of a liberal view of human rights (Buchanan
2004). The nonintervention rule modified by an exception for crimes against
humanity establishes a threshold that a more permissive rule would merely shift,
not erase. Disagreement over how much diversity is tolerable, and therefore where
the threshold for coercive intervention should be set, is inevitable. Even if such
disagreement could be resolved in principle, the practical problem of judging when
that threshold had been crossed in a particular case would remain.
Until recently, the debate over humanitarian intervention was focused on the
permissibility of intervention. But one can also consider the permissibility of a state’s
not intervening to prevent violence. There is such a principle governing interper-
sonal relations, or so some moralists hold: “If one person is able to save another and
does not save him, he transgresses the commandment, Neither shalt thou stand idly
by the blood of thy neighbor” (Donagan 1977: 86, quoting the medieval Jewish
theologian Maimonides, who in turn quotes Leviticus). Whatever these words might
once have meant in their various contexts, they are taken by those concerned with
humanitarian intervention to mean that when crimes against humanity occur,
governments that can rescue the victims and prevent further violence have a duty to
do so (see duty and obligation). The idea of such a duty is evident in the expres-
sion “responsibility to protect,” which has become part of international discourse in
the context of UN diplomacy (Evans 2009). As articulated in UN documents such as
the 2005 World Summit Outcome (UNGA A/60/L.1 2005) and a subsequent report
of the Secretary-General (UNGA A/63/677 2009), each state has a responsibility to
protect those it governs against crimes against humanity. If it fails to do so, that
responsibility passes to the international community, which may resort to armed
intervention if voluntary measures are ineffective. But the Security Council must
authorize such intervention; there is no provision for unilateral action outside the
framework of the UN Charter, which bars unauthorized military intervention.
The reason for insisting on authorization is to prevent abuse of a principle that
legitimizes the use of force by states. Military intervention must be authorized by the
international community acting in its collective legal capacity, which at the moment
means within the framework of international law and, specifically, Chapters V to
VIII of the UN Charter. These provisions establish the authority of the Security
Council to act when there is a threat to peace and they are now often read as apply-
ing to civil as well as international conflicts. As a legal principle, the authorization
requirement makes sense (and has long been part of just war theory), but it does not
answer the moral question of what duties or responsibilities a state might have when
6
the UN is unable to act for political or other reasons. Morally speaking, it might be
argued that if the international community as represented by the UN is unable to
act, the duty to intervene devolves upon states acting unilaterally. “Unilateral” action
in this context means acting without UN authorization; several states may act jointly
yet still be said to act unilaterally in this sense, as NATO members did when they
bombed Serbia to suppress ethnic violence in Kosovo in 1999. Since the UN did not
perform its duty to protect, NATO moved in to assume it.
It is sometimes argued that it is not clear which states have a duty to act in such
situations. The duty is “imperfect” in the sense that there is no particular agent
whose performance of the duty can be demanded as a matter of right, and against
whom a claim of wrongdoing could be brought for not performing it (see imperfect
duties). Someone should intervene but it is not clear who bears the duty to do so
(Tan 2006: 97–102). Among the proposed solutions to this problem of agency is the
suggestion that the duty falls on states that have a special relationship with the target
state or possess the requisite military capability. But there is a sense, however, in
which the agent is specified and the duty therefore perfect: the duty falls on the inter-
national community collectively and on its members individually. If the community
is not organized to make collective decisions, what is missing is not an agent but a
representative that can act on behalf of its members. Since agents are in fact identi-
fied (each state is an agent), the duty is not imperfect: all states have a duty to resist
violence, and even if they are unable to intervene in a particular case, they must, at a
minimum, work to establish a representative through which they can respond
adequately to it. If a representative exists, as is arguably the case since the founding
of the UN, they have a duty to ensure that it performs its responsibilities. If it does
not, they have a duty to act unilaterally in its absence. Just as the international com-
munity assumes the duty to protect when the government of a state fails to discharge
it, so other states have a duty to protect unilaterally when the international commu-
nity as a whole, acting through the UN, fails to perform its responsibilities.
Another point of contention is whether humanitarian intervention is a duty of
beneficence or justice. If the duty to intervene rests on beneficence, it is an imperfect
duty (even when there is a specific agent or representative) because it lacks a criterion
of satisfaction. A duty of beneficence does not prescribe a specific kind of act, as in
the case of a duty to repay a loan. It is a duty to promote the welfare of others that
allows the agent wide discretion in choosing how to perform it. If beneficence is the
ground of humanitarian intervention, states can decide how much or what kind of
assistance they will provide. But if justice is the ground, only resisting the violent can
discharge the duty. Intervening to stop a massacre differs from providing relief after
a hurricane or earthquake, where the principle of beneficence calls for action but
does not prescribe the amount of relief to be provided. The correct position is prob-
ably that humanitarian intervention rests not only on the principle of beneficence
but also, and more importantly, on the duty to coercively obstruct the wrongdoer
(Bagnoli 2006: 127–30). The latter is a duty of justice, not beneficence. If one can
prevent violence, to stand aside while it is being done is to fail to perform the duty
to resist injustice, thereby accepting the injustice as well as forsaking the victims.
7
Governments have a duty to suppress violence not only to protect the victims but
also to enforce the law and uphold the principle that violence is intolerable.
It might be objected that international law can be “enforced” only by a proper
authority, not by states acting in the absence of Security Council authorization. The
government of a state has authority over its citizens but it has no authority within the
jurisdiction of other states. But it can also be argued, against this view, that the UN
is a voluntary union of states within international society, not the embodiment of
that society. If international law exists outside the UN, states can enforce it without
UN authorization. There is also a nonlegal sense of the word “enforce” according to
which it is intelligible to say that a state that acts to end a massacre enforces respect
for human rights, in addition to protecting those whose rights have been violated.
This ordinary, nonlegal use of the word reflects the reality of an international order
in which the authority of the UN remains limited, contested, and uncertain.
A different objection is that humanitarian intervention violates the rights of
citizens of the intervening state. When a government intervenes to protect the
rights of foreigners, it expends funds it has acquired by taxing its citizens and it
exposes its soldiers to risks of injury and death. In doing so, it violates their rights
by forcing them to spend money and even their lives for the benefit of foreigners.
If a state exists to protect its members, incurring costs to protect the members of
other states violates the social contract. One might respond by arguing that inter-
vention can benefit the citizens of the intervening state, and that it is justified when
those benefits outweigh the costs. But that utilitarian response is beside the point
because the objection is framed in terms of rights. One would need to show that
the rights of citizens are not violated by policies that benefit foreigners. One way to
do this is to argue that citizens can be compelled to bear the costs of enforcing
human rights abroad as well as at home, but they cannot be compelled to bear
those costs when there is no duty on the part of their government to intervene.
Where there is such a duty, the state may tax its citizens or assign them for military
duty to perform it (Dobos 2010). If the ultimate justification for using force is not
self-defense but defense of the innocent, there is no relevant distinction on which
such an objection can rest.
Drawing out the implications of the discourse on humanitarian intervention, one
can hold that states have a duty to resist crimes against humanity. At a minimum,
they have a duty to cooperate in an authoritative regime of international law that can
effectively prevent such crimes. They also have a duty to act unilaterally when that
regime has broken down, either by intervening directly or by supporting intervention
by other states. And if the duty to resist violence is a duty of justice as well as of
beneficence, it would not be wrong for an international authority, should one
emerge, to requisition forces or levy taxes to maintain a protective force as the rep-
resentative of the members of international society. Enforcing laws that forbid
violence, or that require cooperation to prevent it, does not violate anyone’s moral
rights. If instead of viewing humanitarian intervention in relation to the victim of
violence we view it in relation to the perpetrator, it is clear that the duty to intervene
rests on a responsibility to defend civil order against the rule of violence.
8
There is disagreement about how much responsibility a state assumes when it

intervenes militarily. If a state intervenes to thwart a massacre, it must be able to
show that a massacre was under way or imminent and that the use of force was
necessary to prevent it (see preventive and preemptive war). If a state intervenes
but withdraws too soon, its intervention may fail to alter the conditions that pro-
duced the violence or to prevent its recurrence. But is it reasonable to hold that the
duty to intervene is also a duty to take responsibility for security and welfare in a
state until a just and stable order has been secured? Intervening to halt a massacre is
only one of many measures that might be necessary to restore order and prevent
further violence. Appreciating this fact, moral philosophers have followed
policymakers in moving the debate from remedial intervention to prevention. It is a
move, however, that takes us beyond the topic of humanitarian intervention to larger
questions of international and global politics.
See also: coercion; cosmopolitanism; crimes against humanity; duty

and obligation; genocide; imperfect duties; international relations;
just cause (in war); just war theory, history of; natural law; preventive
and preemptive war; proportionality (in war); rights; self-defense;
violence
REFERENCES
Altman, Andrew, and Christopher Heath Wellman 2009. A Liberal Theory of International
Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bagnoli, Carla 2006. “Humanitarian Intervention as a Perfect Duty: A Kantian Argument,” in
Terry Nardin and Melissa S. Williams (eds.), Humanitarian Intervention. New York:
New York University Press, pp. 117–40.
Buchanan, Allen 2004. Justice, Legitimacy, and Self-Determination: Moral Foundations for
Dobos, Ned 2010. “On Altruistic War and National Responsibility: Justifying Humanitarian
Intervention to Soldiers and Taxpayers,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, vol. 13, pp. 19–31.
Donagan, Alan 1977. The Theory of Morality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Evans, Gareth 2009. The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and for
All. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
Grotius, Hugo 1925 [1646]. The Law of War and Peace, trans. Francis W. Kelsey. New York:
Kant, Immanuel 1996 [1797]. The Metaphysics of Morals, in Mary J. Gregor (ed. and trans.),
Practical Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 353–603.
Muldoon, James 2006. “Francisco De Vitoria and Humanitarian Intervention,” Journal of
Military Ethics, vol. 5, pp. 128–43.
Nardin, Terry 2005. “Humanitarian Imperialism,” Ethics and International Affairs, vol. 19,
pp. 21–6.
Stromseth, Jane 2003. “Rethinking Humanitarian Intervention: The Case for Incremental
Change,” in J. L. Holzgrefe and Robert O. Keohane (eds.), Humanitarian Intervention:
Ethical, Legal, and Political Dilemmas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
pp. 232–72.
9
Tan, Kok-Chor 2006. “The Duty to Protect,” in Terry Nardin and Melissa S. Williams (eds.),
Humanitarian Intervention. New York: New York University Press, pp. 84–116.
Walzer, Michael 1977. Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations.
FURTHER READINGS
Arbour, Louise 2008. “The Responsibility to Protect as a Duty of Care in International Law
and Practice,” Review of International Studies, vol. 34, pp. 445–58.
Davidovic, Jovana 2008. “Are Humanitarian Military Interventions Obligatory?” Journal of
Applied Philosophy, vol. 25, pp. 134–44.
Gomes, Bjorn 2011. “The Duty to Oppose Violence: Humanitarian Intervention as a Question
for Political Philosophy,” Review of International Studies, vol. 37, pp. 1045–67.
Holzgrefe, J. L., and Robert O. Keohane (eds.) 2003. Humanitarian Intervention: Ethical,
Legal, and Political Dilemmas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lang, Anthony F., Jr. (ed.) 2003. Just Intervention. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Nardin, Terry 2009. “The Moral Basis of Humanitarian Intervention,” in Joel H. Rosenthal
and Christian Barry (eds.), Ethics and International Affairs: A Reader, 3rd ed. Washington,
DC: Georgetown University Press, pp. 85–101.
Nardin, Terry, and Melissa S. Williams (eds.) 2006. Humanitarian Intervention (Nomos 47).
New York: New York University Press.
Orwin, Clifford 2006. “Humanitarian Military Intervention: Wars for the End of History?”
Social Philosophy and Policy, vol. 23, pp. 196–217.
Roff, Heather M. 2010. “Kantian Provisional Duties,” Jahrbuch für Recht und Ethik/Annual
Review for Law and Ethics, vol. 18, pp. 1–30.
Roth, Kenneth 2006. “Was the Iraq War a Humanitarian Intervention?” Journal of Military
Walzer, Michael 1980. “The Moral Standing of States: A Response to Four Critics,” Philosophy
Weiss, Thomas G. 2007. Humanitarian Intervention: Ideas in Action. Cambridge: Polity.
1
Legal Ethics
W. Bradley Wendel
The ethics of the legal profession may be seen as an instance of role-differentiated

morality. People acting in professional roles remain moral agents, who must respond
appropriately to moral reasons. At the same time, a role may impose demands that
are inconsistent with the obligations of ordinary, nonprofessional morality. The role
of lawyer may, for example, require asserting a procedural defense to defeat a mor-
ally compelling claim for compensation. Lawyers may be permitted or required to
cross-examine a truthful witness to suggest to the jury that she is lying, or to put on
testimony that will similarly mislead the trier of fact. They may keep information
secret that, if disclosed, would prevent serious harm to others. Lawyers also may
take up the cause of an unworthy client, seeking to obtain some advantage that is
contrary to considerations of justice. Familiarly, criminal defense lawyers may try to
obtain the acquittal of a client who in fact committed the crime charged. In each of
these cases, lawyers believe themselves to be justifiably obligated to follow the
demands of their role, even though there appear to be good moral reasons to act to
the contrary. The discipline of philosophical legal ethics (as distinguished from what
lawyers often mean by the term, i.e., the rules of professional conduct promulgated
by courts regulating things like fees and conflicts of interest) is largely devoted to
working out the relationship between the demands of the professional role and
ordinary moral considerations. This inquiry was stated concisely in an influential
paper which asked, “Can a good lawyer be a good person?” (Fried 1976). Because of
the relationship between individual moral agency, political institutions, and the law,
legal ethics draws from moral, political, and legal philosophy.
Roles are a common, and often unobjectionable, feature of our moral life. We
generally accept that acting as a parent, neighbor, teacher, public official, and so on
involves a nexus of obligations and permissions that would not necessarily apply to
someone not occupying that role. A parent is obligated to take care of her child, and
is permitted to prefer her child’s interests to those of strangers’ children. Roles are
morally unproblematic when they carry with them heightened obligations. This is a
kind of weak role differentiation. Public officials, for example, must be impartial and
honest in ways that would not be required outside that role. Under strong role
differentiation, by contrast, obligations of role exclude or outweigh ordinary moral
considerations (Goldman 1980). The most difficult problems in legal ethics involve
strong role differentiation. Consider a case where a lawyer has learned information
that would be harmful to her client’s case if disclosed, and has been directed by the
client to keep it confidential if legally permitted to do so. Suppose also that disclos-
ing the information would permit action to be taken to save the life of the victim of
an accident in which the lawyer’s client was involved. The victim could have
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee121
2
discovered the information himself but, through a mistake by his lawyer, failed to
follow the appropriate procedure. There is no question that the governing law of
civil procedure permits the lawyer to withhold the information, and that the agency
law governing the lawyer–client relationship requires the lawyer to keep it confiden-
tial if the client insists on secrecy. (The famous American case of Spaulding v.
Zimmerman, 116 N.W.2d 704 [Minn. 1962], has roughly these facts.) Ordinary
morality includes an obligation to preserve human life, but professional morality in
this case includes a strong duty of confidentiality. The lawyer in this case would
therefore face a conflict between role obligations and ordinary morality. The disci-
pline of legal ethics aims to understand how these sources of obligations are related,
and which should take precedence in cases like this.
Lawyers are generally believed to adhere to the so-called standard conception of
legal ethics (Dare 2009: 5–12). The standard conception consists of two act
prescriptions to be followed by lawyers, and one prescription regulating the
evaluation by observers of a lawyer’s actions; they are, respectively, the principles of
(1) partisanship, (2) neutrality, and (3) nonaccountability. The principle of
partisanship states that a lawyer must act out of undivided loyalty to her client. As
lawyers like to say, they must be “zealous advocates” for their clients’ interests.
A problem with this simple slogan is that many lawyers represent clients outside the
context of litigated disputes, and the idea of advocacy fails to capture the essence of
the services performed in transactional and advising matters. It is therefore more
accurate to state the principle of partisanship in terms of competent and diligent
representation of clients. The correlative principle of neutrality states that the
lawyer’s representation should not be affected by moral considerations relating to
the client’s objectives or the means used to pursue them. If the client requests that
the lawyer do something, and it is within the “bounds of the law,” then the lawyer is
obligated to carry out her client’s instructions, notwithstanding any moral objections
she or others may have. Finally, the principle of nonaccountability expresses an
evaluation. A lawyer who provides competent and diligent representation within the
bounds of the law is not blameworthy, in moral terms, as a result of the actions taken
on behalf of clients.
The standard conception has sometimes been caricatured by nonlawyers as
permitting virtually unconstrained wrongdoing on behalf of clients. In fact, however,
the activities of lawyers, when acting in a representative capacity, are significantly
regulated by legal prohibitions on conduct such as falsifying evidence, assisting
frauds on third parties, betraying clients, needlessly harassing witnesses, aiding and
abetting crimes, and bringing frivolous lawsuits (Schneyer 1984). Granted, the
“bounds of the law” are not always easily ascertained, and lawyers may be able to
find some way for clients to evade what seems like a clear legal limitation on their
actions (Wilkins 1990). Unless one believes the law is radically indeterminate,
however, it creates at least some constraint on what lawyers may permissibly do on
behalf of clients. Many problems in legal ethics actually turn on the accurate
interpretation of the governing law, rather than on a conflict between legal and
moral obligations. There are still difficult cases in which the law, properly interpreted,
3
permits the client to do something that is unjust. Many cases in which the public
criticizes lawyers for unethical behavior, however, involve violations of legal, not
moral, obligations. In these cases, legal ethics becomes a matter of jurisprudence
and legal interpretation, not moral philosophy.
Nonlawyers also sometimes fail to appreciate the diversity of settings in which
lawyers practice. A great deal of philosophical literature about legal ethics focuses on
criminal defense representation. This is the paradigm case of the individual client
facing the vast power of the state, but for this reason ethical principles developed in
this context may not translate well into the representation of sophisticated and pow-
erful institutional clients. Moreover, ethical norms that make sense in the context of
dispute resolution – whether civil or criminal litigation – may not apply in the same
way where a lawyer is counseling a client on compliance with the law, or structuring
a transaction with reference to the law. Litigated disputes feature impartial referees
who can adjudicate between competing arguments purporting to interpret the
applicable law. While lawyers’ interpretation of the law in transactional and
counseling matters may occasionally be challenged in court, more commonly a
lawyer’s advice is the only source of guidance for clients on the meaning of the law.
Critics of the standard conception raise several objections. The first is that it is
unclear why the lawyer’s professional role should provide an excuse for what would
otherwise be morally blameworthy conduct (Wasserstrom 1975). Suppose one
person tricks another into handing over a valuable piece of property by persuading
the owner that it is worthless. How is that different, critics ask, from using forensic
trickery to persuade a jury to come in with a low damages award in a tort case, or
using deceptive negotiation tactics to get unfairly favorable terms in a deal? In
ordinary moral terms we would call this cheating, so it would appear that lawyers
are called upon by their professional role to cheat (Markovits 2009). One may
respond, of course, by pointing to features of the lawyer’s role that distinguish it
from the everyday context in which the ascription of “cheating” is warranted.
In other words, there is an institutional excuse for what would otherwise be moral
wrongdoing (Luban 2007: 57–62). As the term suggests, this excuse appeals to
features of the institution that make it morally attractive, and connects the actions
taken by the lawyer to the effective functioning of the institution. For example, one
might claim that the adversary system of justice requires partisan advocacy by
opposing lawyers. Vigorous competing presentations of the evidence and law may
contribute to the ability of the factfinder to separate truth from self-serving
contentions and thus to reliably ascertain the respective rights of the parties. Thus,
the adversary system is the best way (or at least a good way) to produce some desired
outcome, such as truth or the accurate determination of rights and liabilities, in the
long run.
Whether or not this argument is sound, the pattern of justification is important.
An institution is shown to have certain properties that we value, such as determin-
ing truth or protecting rights, and the actions by occupants of institutional roles are
shown to contribute to the capacity of the institution to achieve its ends (Luban
2007: Ch. 1). Most philosophers have serious doubts about the “adversary system
4
excuse” (a term coined by David Luban, who is critical of it; see adversarial
system of justice). For one thing, it relies on an empirical premise not currently
known to be correct, namely, that the adversary system is good at finding the truth.
Nevertheless, the adversary system is deeply rooted in the political traditions of
common law jurisdictions such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada,
Australia, and New Zealand. For this reason it may be justified, if only pragmati-
cally. Interestingly, even strong philosophical critics of the adversary system concede
that it justifies the standard conception of legal ethics in criminal defense represen-
tation. This raises the possibility that a lawyer’s role obligations might be different
in the civil and criminal litigation contexts, due to differences in the underlying
institutional structure.
One common strategy in defense of the standard conception is to assert that the
legal system is justified with reference to values specific to liberal democracies, such
as individual autonomy and the restraint on state power (Pepper 1986). If autonomy
is a moral good, then an institution that tended to increase autonomy would be a
morally attractive one. A legal system in a liberal democracy may be understood as
a way to maximize the autonomy of citizens to define and act on their own conception
of the good, without unwarranted interference from others or from the state (see
liberalism). The law increases autonomy in several ways. It restrains powerful
actors from taking advantage of weaker members of society; it demarcates prohib-
ited conduct through clear, prospective rules so citizens know when their actions are
subject to penalties and can plan accordingly; and it provides a set of tools (contracts,
wills, forms of business entities, etc.) that can be used to structure relationships with
other people in an orderly fashion. At the same time, however, the law is complex
and somewhat esoteric, and most citizens require expert assistance in order to take
advantage of the autonomy-enhancing features of the law. This observation grounds
both the principle of partisanship and the principle of neutrality. Lawyers have an
obligation to provide loyal, competent assistance to clients who are trying to act
autonomously to the fullest extent permitted by law, and lawyers must be neutral
with respect to nonlegal moral considerations, because to do otherwise would be to
substitute lawyers’ own moral values for the conceptions of the good endorsed by
their clients.
Critics of the standard conception respond that autonomy is merely one value
among many, and some autonomously chosen actions may be morally wrongful if
they unjustifiably harm others (see, e.g., Luban 1988). A client may decide without
compulsion of any kind to try to avoid paying a debt he owes to another person. The
fact that the client made this decision freely, and that the lawyer’s assistance increased
the client’s autonomy (perhaps because the lawyer made the client aware of a proce-
dural defense that could be asserted), does not alter the moral evaluation of the
underlying act. Autonomy is not a magic eraser that eliminates the wrongfulness of
freely chosen actions; some argument is needed to show that autonomous actions
should be preferred to right or good ones. Thus, a lawyer must consider whether she
is, in effect, assisting the client in committing a moral wrong by representing her in
the matter. The lawyer may respond that the morality of the conduct is for the client
5
to determine; the lawyer merely provides technical expertise to the client in carrying
out her projects. This response denies the moral agency of the lawyer, however, ren-
dering her a tool or mouthpiece of the client. Further argument would be required
to establish that it is morally permissible to render oneself a passive instrumentality
of the ends of others (see Markovits 2009).
In a different vein, communitarian critics of the standard conception point out
that an autonomy-focused theory of legal ethics is excessively individualistic, and
ignores the importance to a well-lived life of attachments to families, neighbor-
hoods, faith communities, and other associations (see communitarianism).
Lawyers may weaken these bonds by counseling clients on the basis of rights that
presuppose the primacy of individual desires, interests, and rights (Shaffer 1980).
Put another way, the standard conception relieves lawyers of their traditional
responsibility for acting in the service of justice or the public interest; it directs them
to do nothing but assist powerful clients in satisfying their desires, and to be
indifferent to the resulting inequities in access to legal services and justice (Simon
1978). This critique necessarily aims at a bigger target than legal ethics, however,
since the legal system in a liberal democracy tends to be preoccupied with individual
rights, and since it is widely assumed that the public-spirited rhetoric of profession-
alism is in fact merely a self-serving rationale to justify the prerogatives of exercising
a monopoly over providing some service (Abel 1989). Nevertheless, some scholars
have urged that lawyers accept personal responsibility for rectifying injustices, by
selecting clients whose causes are just, and by refusing to take unjust actions on
behalf of clients (Simon 1998).
These critical arguments may appear to go too far in denying that social
institutions can create genuine obligations for role occupants. The institutional
argument assumes that the value of the role is instrumental to the realization of
some other end, and so one would have to inquire into whether the act in question
furthers that end (see instrumental value). Consider a case in which a lawyer
knows secret information – say, the location of the bodies of a criminal defense
client’s murder victims (see Luban 1988: 53–4) – and is considering whether to dis-
close it to alleviate the emotional anguish of the families of the victims, who do not
know what has happened to their loved ones. Qua lawyer there is a near-absolute
duty of confidentiality in this case, but qua moral agent, if the lawyer must evaluate
the considerations in favor of and against disclosure, it would seem that she is obli-
gated to disclose. The harm to the practice of criminal defense resulting from this
one isolated disclosure is likely to be minimal, while the harm resulting from
nondisclosure, in terms of the families’ mental suffering, is substantial (Luban
1990). If the institutional argument is understood in consequentialist terms (see
consequentialism), it is hard to see how the long term benefits of a social institu-
tion can ever outweigh the short-term harms to specific third parties that result
from a lawyer’s representation of a client. Thus, the standard conception would
hardly ever be justified in consequentialist terms.
One response would therefore be to seek a deontological justification for the
obligations imposed on lawyers as a result of occupying the role (see deontology).
6
Charles Fried’s analogy between lawyers and friends is intended to invoke the moral
values associated with friendship (Fried 1976; see friendship). Good or bad
consequences are immaterial if the lawyer’s role is justified by the some good that is
internal to the lawyer–client relationship itself. Friendship is an intrinsic good (see
intrinsic value), so if representing clients can be assimilated to a kind of friendship,
perhaps the standard conception can be justified as an instance of the sorts of duties
one owes one’s friends, such as loyalty and protection. The friendship metaphor has
been widely criticized as question-begging, because it builds controversial features
of the lawyer–client relationship, such as the permission to harm others, into the
notion of friendship (Simon 1978: 108–9; Postema 1980). Loyalty is an important
duty owed to one’s friends, but it does not justify doing anything one’s friends ask.
The “special-purpose” nature of the lawyer’s friendship means only that the lawyer
has a duty to enhance the client’s autonomy. If understood this way, however, this
argument based on loyalty is vulnerable to the same criticisms that have been raised
against the standard conception when founded on the value of client autonomy.
A different kind of deontological justification of the standard conception would
build on client autonomy but see this value not as simply an ordinary moral value
but as a feature of a political system. American lawyers, for instance, often justify
their conduct with reference to entitlements contained in the Bill of Rights to the US
Constitution (see, e.g., Freedman 1975). On this view, lawyers have a duty to assist
their clients in vindicating their rights because the lawyer–client relationship itself
has constitutional significance. The guarantees of the Bill of Rights would be
meaningless unless citizens had access to the assistance of counsel. It is the nature of
rights that they sometimes act as “trumps,” requiring or permitting some action
notwithstanding the overall balance of utilities that will result (Dworkin 1977; see
rights). The standard conception would therefore be morally justified if the scheme
of political rights and obligations were itself morally justified. This raises the
connection between legal ethics and several important topics in political philosophy,
including the authority of law and political obligation (Applbaum 1999: Ch. 4).
If there is no connection between law and morality, it would not matter what rights
are guaranteed by the US Constitution or any other positive laws – lawyers would
still need a moral justification for acts undertaken on behalf of clients. On the other
hand, if a legal system is morally valuable, lawyers may be able to appeal to this value
as a justification for their role.
A promising way to understand the philosophical foundations of legal ethics
might therefore be to begin with reasons why the state has legitimate authority with
respect to citizens (see authority; political obligation). If state authority is
legitimate, then citizens have some duty with respect to the laws of the state. Perhaps
this duty is a strong one, as in the duty of obedience to the law; on the other hand, it
could be weaker, as in Rawls’ natural duty to support just institutions (Rawls 1971:
354–5). In any case, if the state and its laws are legitimate, and citizens therefore have
some moral duty in respect of those laws, the moral foundation of the lawyer’s role
may be understood with reference to considerations like legitimacy and political
obligation. For example, one might argue that, given the pluralism of ethical values,
7
it should not be surprising that reasoning on the basis of ordinary morality does not
produce consensus among citizens regarding what their rights and duties should be
with respect to each other (see value pluralism). In light of persistent disagreement
over the specification of moral obligations, one function of a legitimate legal system
would be to serve as a framework for citizens to coordinate their compliance with
the demands of morality in a community. The obligations of the lawyer’s role could
thus be understood as connected with the function of a legal system in underpinning
stable political communities (Wendel 2010).
One who defends role-differentiated obligations for lawyers must also be prepared
to specify the weight or priority of these obligations vis-à-vis other moral demands.
The strongest claim of role differentiation would treat professional obligations as
exclusionary, or at least as having lexical priority over other duties (Raz 1979: 22–3).
A slightly weaker position would deem professional duties prima facie obligatory
but subject to being overridden by other, more weighty demands (see prima facie
and pro tanto oughts). Philosophical critics of the standard conception often
consider professional duties as merely one obligation among many others, and not a
particularly weighty one at that (Luban 1988). As a result, clients may perceive that
their legal entitlements are not secure, because a lawyer may decide that her obliga-
tion to secure those rights is subordinate to another moral obligation. Proponents of
the standard conception accordingly tend to emphasize the stability of expectations
as a reason to believe that the lawyer’s duties are strongly role differentiated.
A different kind of objection to the standard conception focuses on the pressures
it creates on people who act in professional roles. By treating some obligations as
exclusionary with respect to ordinary morality, the professional role artificially
separates a person from the moral resources of daily life, communities, and ethical
traditions (Postema 1980). The result may be a cost to the lawyer’s integrity, as she
finds herself having to switch back and forth between a professional self and a
personal self, each with its own characteristic set of values and commitments (see
integrity). A lawyer may decide to live with the moral costs of acting in a
professional role, accepting a certain amount of guilt or regret as the inevitable cost
of fulfilling a valuable social role through sometimes morally disagreeable means.
Political ethics is sometimes believed to entail mutually incompatible obligations, in
virtue of ordinary morality and the responsibilities of one’s role. A good person
acting in a political role, it is said, may accept a justifiable evaluation of guilt for
having acted wrongly by harming others, while nonetheless believing herself to be
justified by considerations of the public good in causing the harm. This idea,
prominent in a tradition of political ethics from Machiavelli to Weber to modern
philosophers such as Bernard Williams, is known as the problem of dirty hands (see
dirty hands). Many political philosophers reject the idea of dirty hands as
incoherent, and contend that practical reasoning can establish what an actor ought
to do, all-things-considered. There can then be no “moral remainder” from the
alternatives that are not considered, after deliberation, as one’s duty. Somewhat less
dramatically, a lawyer may accept that her identity as a moral agent is constituted by
fidelity to commitments that are mostly compatible, but may occasionally entail
8
some unease or disharmony in her life (Dare 2009: 138–9). Neither ordinary morality
nor the professional role is a perfect fit with all of the diverse responsibilities of a life
lived as both a person and a professional.
The distance between ordinary and professional life not only imposes psychological
costs on individual lawyers, but may also systematically undermine the ability of the
legal profession to serve as custodians of social values. Representation of clients
requires the exercise of moral judgment, and judgment is a trait of character that
develops over time and through practice, critically through experience as members
of broader social communities, not just in a professional role (Kronman 1993; see
practical virtue ethics). If lawyers are isolated from these moral resources, they
may be less effective in advising clients on nonlegal aspects of their problems, such
as whether some proposed action is fair or reasonable. Not only do clients sometimes
seek nonlegal advice from lawyers, but the law (at least in common-law systems)
incorporates a great many principles of ordinary morality, such as the principle of
good faith and fair dealing in commercial law. A lawyer who was literally an amoral
actor might have difficulty making sense of the client’s rights and duties to the extent
they overlap with those of ordinary morality. In addition, to the extent we believe
lawyers have an obligation to serve as custodians of the public interest, it would be
worrisome if the responsibilities of one’s professional role required insulation from
the demands of ordinary morality. Even under fairly strong role differentiation,
however, a lawyer is not stuck in her professional role forever. If it is possible to move
back and forth between roles – prioritizing the considerations appropriate to being,
say, a lawyer, a parent, a neighbor, a friend, a member of a religious community, and
so on, as necessary – then some of these concerns about isolation from broader
moral resources can be seen as exaggerated.
Assumptions about the nature of law itself also bear on legal ethics. A legal
positivist who emphasizes the separability of law and morality might see the lawyer’s
role as having less connection with ordinary morality. Some versions of natural law
theory, on the other hand, depend on a necessary relationship between the
requirements of law and ordinary morality (see natural law). The extent of
differentiation between personal and professional roles may therefore depend on
how law itself is understood.
See also: adversarial system of justice; authority; communitarianism;

consequentialism; deontology; dirty hands; friendship; instrumental
value; integrity; intrinsic value; liberalism; natural law; political
obligation; practical virtue ethics; prima facie and pro tanto oughts;
rights; value pluralism
REFERENCES
Abel, Richard L. 1989. American Lawyers. New York: Oxford University Press.
Applbaum, Arthur 1999. Ethics for Adversaries. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Dare, Tim 2009. The Counsel of Rogues? A Defence of the Standard Conception of the Lawyer’s
Role. Farnham: Ashgate.
9
Dworkin, Ronald 1977. Taking Rights Seriously. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Freedman, Monroe 1975. Lawyers’ Ethics in an Adversary System. Indianapolis: Bobbs-
Merrill.
Fried, Charles 1976. “The Lawyer as Friend: The Moral Foundations of the Lawyer–Client
Relation,” Yale Law Journal, vol. 85, pp. 1060–89.
Goldman, Alan H. 1980. The Moral Foundations of Professional Ethics. Savage, MD: Rowman
& Littlefield.
Kronman, Anthony T. 1993. The Lost Lawyer. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Luban, David 1988. Lawyers and Justice: An Ethical Study. Princeton: Princeton University
Press.
Luban, David 1990. “Freedom and Constraint in Legal Ethics: Some Mid-Course Corrections
to Lawyers and Justice,” Maryland Law Review, vol. 49, pp. 424–62.
Luban, David 2007. Legal Ethics and Human Dignity. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Markovits, Daniel 2009. A Modern Legal Ethics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Pepper, Stephen L. 1986. “The Lawyer’s Amoral Ethical Role: A Defense, A Problem, and
Some Possibilities,” American Bar Foundation Research Journal, vol. 11, no. 4, pp. 613–35.
Postema, Gerald J. 1980. “Moral Responsibility in Professional Ethics,” NYU Law Review,
vol. 55, pp. 63–89.
Raz, Joseph 1979. The Authority of Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Schneyer, Ted 1984. “Moral Philosophy’s Standard Misconception of Legal Ethics,” Wisconsin
Law Review, pp. 1529–72.
Shaffer, Thomas L. 1980. On Being a Christian and a Lawyer. Provo: Brigham Young
University Press.
Simon, William H. 1978. “The Ideology of Advocacy: Procedural Justice and Professional
Ethics,” Wisconsin Law Review, pp. 29–144.
Simon, William H. 1998. The Practice of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wasserstrom, Richard 1975. “Lawyers as Professionals: Some Moral Issues,” Human Rights,
vol. 5, pp. 1–24.
Wendel, W. Bradley 2010. Lawyers and Fidelity to Law. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Wilkins, David B. 1990. “Legal Realism for Lawyers,” Harvard Law Review, vol. 104, pp. 468–524.
FURTHER READINGS
Glendon, Mary Ann 1994. A Nation Under Lawyers. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
Hazard, Geoffrey C., Jr. 1978. Ethics in the Practice of Law. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Luban, David (ed.) 1983. The Good Lawyer. Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Allanheld.
Lyons, David 1984. Ethics and the Rule of Law. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Rhode, Deborah L. 2000. In the Interests of Justice. New York: Oxford University Press.
1
Intrinsic Value
Ben Bradley
Intrinsic value is the central concept of axiology, or the philosophical study of value.
To say that something is intrinsically valuable is, roughly speaking, to say that it is
valuable in itself, or for its own sake – as opposed to, for example, money, which
is valuable only for the sake of something else (see instrumental value). But what
is it for something to be valuable “in itself ”? Is it the same as to be valuable for its
own sake? Is it possible for something to be valuable in such a way? If so, what things
are intrinsically valuable? More generally, what kinds of things (people, objects,
properties, facts) are intrinsically valuable? Is the intrinsic value of something deter-
mined by the values of its parts? Why should we care about intrinsic value? These
are the fundamental questions of axiology.
The Importance of Intrinsic Value

G. E. Moore placed intrinsic value at the heart of his moral theory, defining concepts
such as moral obligation and virtue in terms of it (see moore, g. e.). According to
Moore, to say that an act is morally obligatory is to say that no alternative produces
as much intrinsic value as it does (1903: 148; see consequentialism). To say that a
character trait is a virtue is to say that it is a disposition to perform intrinsic-value-
maximizing actions that are hard to perform (1903: 172). These consequentialist
accounts of obligation and virtue are not widely accepted. But even those who reject
these accounts will need a way to evaluate the intrinsic values of consequences in
order to explain, for example, what the prima facie duty of beneficence amounts to,
or why beneficence is a virtue (see ross, w. d.; prima facie and pro tanto
oughts).
Intrinsic value has also played a very different kind of role in moral theories.
Immanuel Kant bases his account of moral obligation on the idea that the good will is
the only thing good in itself (1981: 7; see kant, immanuel). Some contemporary phi-
losophers have given accounts of virtue according to which to be virtuous is to love what
is intrinsically good and to hate what is intrinsically bad (Hurka 2001; Adams 2006).
Intrinsic value has recently played a central role in debates in environmental
ethics (see environmental ethics). In particular, environmental philosophers
have been concerned with the question of whether there is intrinsic value in
nonhuman and nonsentient nature (O’Neill 1992).
A notion of intrinsic value is involved in the attempt to say what makes
someone’s life go well or badly for her (see well-being). The first distinction we
must make when we engage in this project is the distinction between things that
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee122
2
are intrinsically good for someone and things that are good for her merely as a
means. Note that to say that something is intrinsically good for someone is not
necessarily to say that it is intrinsically good simpliciter; some say that pleasure
enjoyed by an evil person is good for that person but not good simpliciter (see
good and good for).
These are just a few examples. Suffice it to say that appeals to intrinsic value are
ubiquitous in moral theories about right action, virtue, and the good life.
Skepticism about Intrinsic Value

Moore claimed that if a kind of value is intrinsic, then it must be objective (1922:
255). A subjectivist will insist that if Moore is right, then nothing can be intrinsi-
cally valuable. Subjectivism might be pushed on the grounds that objective
intrinsic value would be metaphysically “queer,” and that even if there were such
a thing, we could never know it (Mackie 1977; see mackie, j. l.; queerness,
argument from). If Moore is right, the defender of intrinsic value must respond
to these arguments. But even a subjectivist will need to make a distinction between
things that are valued for themselves and things that are valued merely as a means,
so subjectivists need intrinsic value too. Subjectivist skepticism about intrinsic
value is really just skepticism about the existence of objective moral or norma-
tive properties, not about intrinsic value per se (see subjectivism, ethical;
realism, moral).
Peter Geach argued that when we call x a good person, we cannot divide this
claim into the distinct claims “x is good” and “x is a person,” just as we cannot
divide “x is a small elephant” into “x is small” and “x is an elephant.” Like smallness,
goodness is relative to a kind; thus it is nonsensical to say that something is intrin-
sically good (Geach 1956). Similarly, Judith Thomson argues that when we say
something or someone is good, we always mean either that it is a good member of
its kind (a good knife, a good politician), or that it is good for something (good for
cutting), or that she is good at something (good at dancing). It makes no sense to
say that it is just plain good; all goodness is goodness in a way (Thomson 1997). Of
course, even if “good” is used in the ways described by Geach and Thomson, as it
surely is, it might also be used in other ways. And Thomson’s arguments seem to
be directed at the notion of “just plain goodness,” which is not the same thing
as intrinsic goodness; perhaps one way to be good is to be intrinsically good
(Zimmerman 2001: 22–7). It seems doubtful that facts about the way we use
language will show that we never use the term “good” to pick out intrinsic good-
ness. The points made by Geach and Thomson might most charitably be seen not
as providing an argument against intrinsic value, but as a challenge to defenders of
intrinsic value to give a positive characterization of intrinsic value and to say how
it is different from other, apparently less problematic sorts of value. (For more
arguments against intrinsic value, see Dewey 1981: 210–19; Beardsley 1965;
Bernstein 2001; see dewey, john.)
3
The Nature of Intrinsic Value

The nature of intrinsic value is not easy to pin down. In Principia Ethica Moore
argued, using his famous “open question” argument, that intrinsic value is simple
and undefinable (1903: 15–17; see open question argument). But he did offer a
criterion for determining whether something is intrinsically good: the “isolation
test.” To apply the isolation test is to imagine a thing existing entirely by itself (1903:
187). If it would still have value under such circumstances, then its value is intrinsic;
otherwise it is extrinsic. The isolation test seems imperfect, because it is impossible
for certain things to exist by themselves. In order to apply the isolation test to pleas-
ure, we would have to imagine pleasure existing all by itself, but surely pleasure must
have a subject. It cannot be isolated (Lemos 1994: 10–11).
Later, in “The Conception of Intrinsic Value,” Moore offered the following super-
venience principle about intrinsic value: something has intrinsic value if and only if
it has a kind of value that depends solely on its intrinsic nature (1922: 260). The
supervenience principle seems plausible; in many cases, when we wish to deny that
something has intrinsic value, we point out that the thing’s value depends entirely on
its extrinsic properties. For example, we might explain money’s lack of intrinsic
value by pointing out that whatever value money has depends on its being valued by
people. But the principle has been questioned by those who argue that there are
cases in which something is intrinsically valuable in virtue of its extrinsic properties.
For example, Shelly Kagan argues that the pen used by Abraham Lincoln to sign the
Emancipation Proclamation might have intrinsic value in virtue of its causal history,
even though it is intrinsically identical to some other pen that is intrinsically worth-
less (Kagan 1998; also see Korsgaard 1983; Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen
1999). The supervenience principle has been defended against such arguments by,
for example, Zimmerman (2001) and Bradley (2002, 2006, 2009).
While the isolation test and the supervenience principle might offer some help in
distinguishing intrinsic from extrinsic value, they do not explain or analyze intrinsic
value in terms of nonaxiological concepts. There are at least two ways we might attempt
to do this. First, we might explain intrinsic value by appeal to psychological concepts.
For example, we might say that to be intrinsically valuable is to be valued or desired by
someone for itself. This view faces the obvious objection that people often value and
desire what is bad. Instead, we might say that to be intrinsically valuable is to be the
sort of thing that someone with full factual information would desire for itself (Griffin
1986: 11–15). But we might wonder whether this solves the problem; why would hav-
ing full information ensure that one’s desires were directed towards the good?
Second, we might explain intrinsic value by appeal to deontological concepts such
as requirement. Contemporary attempts in this vein are derived from Franz Brentano,
and have been called Fitting Attitude accounts (Brentano 1902: 16; see value,
fitting-attitude account of; buck-passing accounts; brentano, franz;
ewing, a. c.). According to such accounts, to be intrinsically valuable is just to be the
sort of thing towards which one is required to have a pro-attitude for itself, or towards
4
which such an attitude is reasonable, fitting, or appropriate. Brand Blanshard rejects

the Fitting Attitude account on the grounds that it gets the order of explanation back-
wards; it is fitting to value something because it is valuable, not the other way around
(Blanshard 1961: 284–6; also see Ross 1939: 276–8; Ewing 1947: 172; Rabinowicz and
Rønnow-Rasmussen 2004: 395–6). Blanshard also argues that it may be reasonable to
care less about the suffering of distant strangers than about the suffering of one’s own
kin even though the instances of suffering are equally bad (1961: 287). Recent discus-
sion of the Fitting Attitude account has centered around the “Wrong Kind of Reasons”
problem (see wrong kind of reasons problem). The problem is that it seems that
one might be required to have a pro-attitude toward something despite the fact that it
is worthless. For example, suppose an evil demon threatens to punish you unless you
have a pro-attitude towards a saucer of mud. You have good reason to like the mud,
but that doesn’t seem to make it the case that the mud is good (Rabinowicz and
Rønnow-Rasmussen 2004).
Theories of Intrinsic Value

Having discussed attempts to analyze intrinsic value, we now must consider attempts
to say what things are intrinsically valuable, and to formulate principles that deter-
mine the intrinsic values of complex things we are interested in, such as possible
worlds and consequences of actions.
Discussions of theories of intrinsic value typically begin with hedonism
(see hedonism). According to hedonism, pleasure is the only thing that is funda-
mentally intrinsically good, and pain is the only thing that is fundamentally intrinsi-
cally bad; the intrinsic value of any complex thing is determined by adding the
intrinsic values of the pleasures and pains in it. Hedonism was a common topic of
discussion in ancient philosophy, and in modern times has been championed by
Bentham and Mill (see bentham, jeremy; mill, john stuart). It is hard to resist
the claim that pleasure is intrinsically good and that pain is intrinsically bad. But
hedonism faces objections of several sorts. First, there are some pleasures that do
not seem valuable. These might include sadistic or immoral pleasures, such as those
a psychopath might experience while torturing his victims, and “artificial” pleasures
such as those experienced by someone who spends her whole life hooked up to an
experience machine (Nozick 1974: 42–5). Second, it seems to matter how pleasures
are distributed to people; it seems better if the virtuous get pleasure and the vicious
do not than vice versa. Third, many have thought that there are things that are
intrinsically good but do not necessarily involve pleasure at all, such as virtue,
knowledge, achievement, and friendship. Fourth, some have objected to the additive
principle, arguing that the value of something cannot be determined by adding the
values of its constituents.
Fred Feldman has suggested ways for the hedonist to respond to some of these
objections with a more complex form of hedonism. To reply to the problem of pleas-
ures that seem worthless because they are sadistic or false, Feldman suggests that we
adjust the value of a pleasure depending on the truth-value and pleasureworthiness
5
of its object. To reply to the distribution problem, he suggests we adjust the value of
a pleasure depending on the worthiness of the individual receiving it (Feldman
2004).
It is sometimes thought that pleasure is good only if it is desired, and that it can be
good to receive things other than pleasure when we desire those things. This leads
us to desire fulfillment views (see desire theories of the good). According to a
simple desire fulfillment view, what is intrinsically good is a state of affairs consist-
ing of someone wanting that P and P being true. This is not to say that to be good is
to be desired, as in the analysis of value in terms of desire discussed above, but rather
that desiring something and getting it is good. Although it is a distinct view, it faces
similar problems, such as problems involving desires based on ignorance, desires for
what is bad, or other desires that seem in some way defective. Defenders of desire-
fulfillment views employ much the same array of maneuvers as defenders of hedon-
ism: either they explain away the apparent problems (Heathwood 2005) or they
place some conditions on desires, such that only those desires that meet the condi-
tions are good to satisfy (Griffin 1986: 11–26).
Neither hedonism nor a desire fulfillment view can account for the intrinsic values
of such things as achievement or knowledge. Perfectionism offers a way to account
for the intrinsic values of such things within a unified account (see perfectionism).
Perfectionism is the view that an individual’s well-being is determined by the nature
of the kind of thing it is. So, for example, what constitutes a good life for a human
depends on the nature of humanity. The most prominent recent defender of perfec-
tionism is Thomas Hurka (1993). According to Hurka, it is intrinsically good to
develop those qualities that are both (1) essential to the kind of thing one is and (2)
distinctive of living things (1993: 14–17). For humans, those qualities are practical
rationality, theoretical rationality, and certain physical abilities. The best human life
would develop these qualities to the highest degree, and so would include both intel-
lectual and physical achievement. But it seems that such a life might well contain a
great deal of misery, and it is not clear how the perfectionist can account for the
intrinsic goodness of pleasure or the intrinsic badness of pain. Furthermore, Hurka’s
claims about human nature and essence face daunting objections; for example, it is
doubtful that rationality is essential to humans (Kitcher 1999).
Since the unified, monistic theories – hedonism, desire fulfillment views, and
perfectionism – seem to leave out important values, many have found it most plausi-
ble to endorse some form of pluralism, or “objective list theory” (Parfit 1984: 493;
see value pluralism). Pluralism is the view that there is more than one kind of thing
that is intrinsically valuable. According to Moore, there are many kinds of intrinsi-
cally valuable states of affairs, but the most valuable of these consist of someone con-
sciously taking pleasure in friendship or beauty (1903: 188). Ross included four things
on his list of intrinsic goods: pleasure, virtue, knowledge, and the fit between virtue
and the receipt of pleasure and pain (1930: 140). Pluralists face the problem of saying
what the items on the list have in common, in virtue of which those things and no
others are intrinsically good. But if we were to identify some property that all the
items on the list shared, perhaps we could just call that the intrinsically valuable
6
property – in which case we would no longer have a version of pluralism. Pluralists

also face the problem of determining the relative values of the items on the list.
According to Ross, virtue is infinitely more valuable than pleasure; the least bit of
virtue is worth more than any amount of pleasure (1930: 150–1). This sort of lexical
ordering of goods seems implausible when we consider cases at the extremes; it does
not seem better that everyone be tortured than that one person be slightly less virtu-
ous. Other pluralists claim that the values of, for example, pleasure and virtue are
incommensurable. What exactly incommensurability amounts to is a matter of some
dispute (Chang 1997; see incommensurability [and incomparability]).
Whichever view we hold about what things are intrinsically valuable, there
remains the question of how to get the value of a complex whole from the values of
its parts. The simplest view says that we just add up the values of the parts. But
Moore claims this is incorrect; the value of a whole need not bear any relation to the
values of its parts (1903: 28). Some wholes are what he calls “organic unities”; they
have value just from the way their parts are put together (see organic unities).
More recently, the additive principle has been questioned by Noah Lemos, who
points out that if pleasure is intrinsically good, there could be a fantastically good
universe whose only living creatures are “O-worms,” or creatures that get a pleasant
sensation when they reproduce (and otherwise have no sensations), as long as there
are enough O-worms in it (Lemos 1994: 48–66). Since pleasure does seem to have
some intrinsic value, yet such a universe does not seem fantastically good, Lemos
suggests we abandon the additive principle (see Lemos 2010 for further arguments
against the additive principle, and see Kagan 1988 for arguments against additivity
of reasons for action).
The Logic of Intrinsic Value

Intrinsic value has a logic. For example, from the fact that x is intrinsically good, it
follows that x is not intrinsically bad. Some have attempted to define intrinsic
goodness in terms of intrinsic betterness; for example, according to von Wright, to
say that x is intrinsically good is to say that x is better than its negation (1963: 34;
see good and better).
Perhaps the most interesting dispute in the logic of intrinsic value concerns
transitivity, or the principle that from (1) x is intrinsically better than y, and (2) y is
intrinsically better than z, it follows that (3) x is intrinsically better than z. Transitivity
seems obviously true, but certain examples suggest otherwise. Suppose we have a
universe with one million extremely happy people in it (Universe A). Suppose we
add one person to that universe who is happy, but not quite as happy as the rest.
It seems the resulting universe, B, would be at least as good as A (the “mere addition”
principle). Now imagine a third universe, C, with the same 1,000,001 people who are
in universe B, and the same total well-being, but where the well-being is distributed
equally. C must be at least as good as B. Thus, by transitivity, C is at least as good as
A, though average well-being in C is ever so slightly lower than in A. If we continue
applying mere addition and transitivity, we end up concluding that a universe with
7
a trillion people whose lives are just barely worth living is at least as good as A. This
is what Parfit calls the “Repugnant Conclusion” (1984: 381–90; see repugnant con-
clusion). Many responses have been offered, but one bold solution is to reject
transitivity (Rachels 2001).
Final Value, Derivative Value, and the Bearers of Value

Christine Korsgaard makes a distinction between intrinsic value and “final” value.
Intrinsic value is a kind of value something has in virtue of its intrinsic properties; to
have final value is, she says, to be valued for its own sake (1983: 170). According to
Korsgaard, something might be valuable as an end without being intrinsically valu-
able, such as a mink coat, which could have final value as a “symbol of aspiration”
(1983: 185). So the two kinds of value come apart. Michael Zimmerman has argued
that the two do not come apart (2001: 33–46). He claims that Korsgaard’s examples
can be accounted for as cases where what is valuable in itself is a state of affairs
involving the mink coat, specifically some state of affairs involving the mink coat
having the symbolic feature that explains its value. This state of affairs has its value
in virtue of its intrinsic nature, which includes the coat and the relevant feature.
Elizabeth Anderson objects to taking states of affairs as the bearers of intrinsic
value (1993: 20, 26–30). She claims that a state of affairs involving some object or
person can be valuable only if the object or person is valuable; we wouldn’t
care about a state of affairs consisting of X getting pleasure unless we cared about
X. States of affairs derive their values from the value of concrete individuals, so
it must be the individuals rather than the states of affairs that are intrinsically
valuable.
However, from the fact that A derives its value from B, nothing follows about
whether A is intrinsically valuable. We must distinguish intrinsic value from non-
derivative value (Zimmerman 2001: 23). To illustrate the distinction, consider that
an individual’s life might consist of many instances of happiness; the value of the life
might be derived from the values of the instance of happiness; yet the life itself is
intrinsically valuable just as its parts are. The distinction between intrinsic and
extrinsic value is not the same as the distinction between derivative and nonderivative
value. (Here it is helpful to consider the distinction between basic and nonbasic
intrinsic value, as introduced in Harman 1967.)
In any case, it is unclear whether there is a substantive dispute here concerning the
bearers of value. When formulating axiological principles concerning the value of a
world or consequence, it seems best to assign intrinsic value to states of affairs or
events; it is hard to see how to state such principles by appealing only to the intrinsic
values of individuals. But of course many believe that correct principles about right
action appeal to more than just the intrinsic values of consequences; perhaps they
appeal also to the values of people and other individuals (as in Kant’s appeal to the
intrinsic value of the good will). Perhaps there are distinct notions that go by the
name “intrinsic value.” When a state of affairs has intrinsic value, it is the sort of thing
that makes the world better and that we have reason to bring about; when a person
8
has intrinsic value, it is the sort of thing that we have a duty to respect. If so, then
perhaps some of the dispute over the bearers of intrinsic value is based on termino-
logical confusion. Once the relevant concepts of intrinsic value have been properly
distinguished, some of the disputes just described seem to evaporate (Bradley 2006;
for more on the bearers of value see Rønnow-Rasmussen and Zimmerman 2005).
See also: bentham, jeremy; brentano, franz; buck-passing accounts;

consequentialism; desire theories of the good; dewey, john;
environmental ethics; ewing, a. c.; good and better; good and good for;
hedonism; incommensurability (and incomparability); instrumental
value; kant, immanuel; mackie, j. l.; mill, john stuart; moore, g. e.; open
question argument; organic unities; perfectionism; prima facie and pro
tanto oughts; queerness, argument from; realism, moral; repugnant
conclusion; ross, w. d.; subjectivism, ethical; value, fitting-attitude
account of; value pluralism; well-being; wrong kind of reasons problem
REFERENCES
Adams, Robert 2006. A Theory of Virtue: Excellence in Being for the Good. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
University Press.
Beardsley, Monroe 1965. “Intrinsic Value,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research,
vol. 26, pp. 1–17.
Bernstein, M. 2001. “Intrinsic Value,” Philosophical Studies, vol. 102, pp. 329–43.
Blanshard, Brand 1961. Reason and Goodness. London: Allen & Unwin.
Bradley, Ben 2002. “Is Intrinsic Value Conditional?” Philosophical Studies, vol. 107, pp. 23–44.
Bradley, Ben 2006. “Two Concepts of Intrinsic Value,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice,
vol. 9, pp. 111–30.
Bradley, Ben 2009. Well-Being and Death. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Brentano, Franz 1902. The Origin of Our Knowledge of Right and Wrong, trans. Cecil Hague.
London: Archibald Constable.
Chang, Ruth (ed.) 1997. Incommensurability, Incomparability, and Practical Reason.
Dewey, John 1981. The Later Works, 1929–53, vol. 13, ed. J. A. Boydston. Carbondale:
Southern Illinois University Press.
Ewing, A. C. 1947. The Definition of Good. New York: Macmillan.
Feldman, Fred 2004. Pleasure and the Good Life: Concerning the Nature, Varieties, and
Plausibility of Hedonism. New York: Oxford University Press.
Clarendon Press.
Harman, Gilbert 1967. “Toward a Theory of Intrinsic Value,” Journal of Philosophy, vol. 64,
pp. 792–804.
Heathwood, Chris 2005. “The Problem of Defective Desires,” Australasian Journal of
Hurka, Thomas 1993. Perfectionism. New York: Oxford University Press.
9
Hurka, Thomas 2001. Virtue, Vice and Value. New York: Oxford University Press.
Kagan, Shelly 1988. “The Additive Fallacy,” Ethics, vol. 99, pp. 5–31.
Kagan, Shelly 1998. “Rethinking Intrinsic Value,” Journal of Ethics, vol. 2, pp. 277–97.
Kant, Immanuel, 1981. Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. James Ellington.
Kitcher, Philip 1999. “Essence and Perfection,” Ethics, vol. 110, pp. 59–83.
Korsgaard, Christine 1983. “Two Distinctions in Goodness,” Philosophical Review, vol. 92,
pp. 169–95.
Lemos, Noah 1994. Intrinsic Value: Concept and Warrant. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Lemos, Noah 2010. “Summation, Variety, and Indeterminate Value,” Ethical Theory and
Moral Practice, vol. 13, pp. 33–44.
Moore, G. E. 1903. Principia Ethica. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Moore, G. E. 1922. Philosophical Studies. New York: Humanities Press.
Nozick, Robert 1974. Anarchy, State and Utopia. New York: Basic Books.
O’Neill, John 1992. “The Varieties of Intrinsic Value,” Monist, vol. 75, pp. 119–37.
Parfit, Derek 1984. Reasons and Persons. New York: Oxford University Press.
Rabinowicz, Wlodek, and Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen 1999. “A Distinction in Value: Intrinsic
and for Its Own Sake,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, vol. 100, pp. 33–51.
Rabinowicz, Wlodek, and Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen 2004. “The Strike of the Demon: Fitting
Pro-Attitudes and Value,” Ethics, vol. 114, pp. 391–423.
Rachels, Stuart 2001. “A Set of Solutions to Parfit’s Problems,” Nous, vol. 35, pp. 214–38.
Rønnow-Rasmussen, Toni, and Michael Zimmerman (eds.) 2005. Recent Work on Intrinsic
Value. Dordrecht: Springer.
Ross, W. D. 1930. The Right and the Good. Indianapolis: Hackett. Originally published by
Oxford University Press, repr. 1988.
Ross, W. D. 1939. Foundations of Ethics. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Thomson, Judith 1997. “The Right and the Good,” Journal of Philosophy, vol. 94,
pp. 273–98.
Von Wright, Georg Henrik 1963. The Logic of Preference. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
Press.
Zimmerman, Michael J. 2001. The Nature of Intrinsic Value. Lanham, MD: Rowman &
Littlefield.
FURTHER READINGS
Broome, John 1999. Ethics out of Economics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Chisholm, Roderick 1986. Brentano and Intrinsic Value. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Chisholm, Roderick, and Ernest Sosa 1966. “On the Logic of ‘Intrinsically Better,’ ” American
Crisp, Roger 2006. Reasons and the Good. New York: Oxford University Press.
Feldman, Fred 1998a. “Hyperventilating about Intrinsic Value,” Journal of Ethics, vol. 2,
pp. 339–54.
Feldman, Fred 1998b. Utilitarianism, Hedonism, and Desert: Essays in Moral Philosophy.
Feldman, Fred 2000. “Basic Intrinsic Value,” Philosophical Studies, vol. 99, pp. 319–45.
10
Goldstein, Irwin 1989. “Pleasure and Pain: Unconditional, Intrinsic Values,” Philosophy and
Heathwood, Chris 2008. “Fitting Attitudes and Welfare,” Oxford Studies in Metaethics, vol. 3,
pp. 47–73.
Hieronymi, Pamela 2005. “The Wrong Kind of Reason,” Journal of Philosophy, vol. 102, pp. 437–57.
Kraut, Richard 1994. “Desire and the Human Good,” Proceedings and Addresses of the
Langton, Rae 2007. “Objective and Unconditioned Value,” Philosophical Review, vol. 116,
pp. 157–85.
Lemos, Noah 2006. “Indeterminate Value, Basic Value, and Summation,” in Kris McDaniel,
Jason R. Raibley, Richard Feldman, and Michael J. Zimmerman (eds.), The Good, the
Right, Life and Death. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, pp. 71–82.
Murphy, Mark 1999. “The Simple Desire-Fulfillment Theory,” Nous, vol. 33, pp. 247–72.
Olson, Jonas 2004. “Intrinsicalism and Conditionalism about Final Value,” Ethical Theory
and Moral Practice, vol. 7, pp. 31–52.
Quinn, Warren 1974. “Theories of Intrinsic Value,” American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 11,
pp. 123–32.
Rosati, Connie 1996. “Internalism and the Good for a Person,” Ethics, vol. 106, pp. 297–326.
Scanlon, Thomas 1998. What We Owe to Each Other. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Sidgwick, Henry 1907. The Methods of Ethics, 7th ed. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Thomson, Judith 1993. “Goodness and Utilitarianism,” Proceedings and Addresses of the APA,
vol. 67, pp. 145–59.
1
Surrogacy
Cécile Fabre
Surrogacy is a practice whereby prospective (or commissioning) parents who cannot

gestate children entrust another woman with that particular task. There are many
reasons why those parents resort to a surrogate mother. Typically, the female partner
in a heterosexual couple is unable to bear children, because (for example) she had to
undergo a hysterectomy, or suffers from severe endometriosis. In other cases, gay
males who do not wish to adopt a child have no choice but to use a surrogate mother.
Surrogacy arrangements have a long history. In fact, if we are to believe the
Bible, Sarah, wife of Abraham, could not have children and gave her servant,
Hagar, to her husband, so that he could impregnate her. There is no mention of
payment in that biblical story. Indeed it is not inherent in a surrogacy arrangement
that the commissioning parents should pay the surrogate mother. Nor need such an
arrangement take the form of a contract. However, commercial contractual surrogacy
has traditionally elicited deeper worries than altruistic, informal surrogacy, and will
thus be the focus of this essay – though I shall briefly highlight some similarities and
differences between those two kinds of surrogacy.
Before outlining various arguments for and against such contracts, it is worth
distinguishing between different kinds of surrogacy. Until the advent of egg donation,
no distinction was drawn between surrogacy as a remedy to a woman’s inability to
produce eggs (traditional surrogacy), and surrogacy as a remedy to a woman’s inability
to bring a foetus to term (gestational surrogacy). Nowadays, however, at least in many
countries, a woman who cannot produce gametes but whose womb is healthy need
not resort to a surrogate mother. Accordingly, contemporary discussions focus on
gestational surrogacy, though they also differentiate between full surrogacy (whereby
the surrogate mother only provides her womb) and partial surrogacy (whereby she
provides both her womb and her egg, and is inseminated with the father’s sperm). To
complicate matters further, one can imagine a scenario where the commissioning
parents resort to an egg donor and to a (different) gestational mother – or, indeed, to
a sperm donor other than the commissioning father. As we shall see below, whether
the surrogate mother provides full or partial surrogacy is sometimes thought to have
implications for her rights over the foetus (see rights).
There are two standard arguments in favor of surrogacy. On the one hand,
some argue that individuals have full ownership rights over their own bodies,
which include the right to sell some of their body parts to others, as well as a
right to extract financial benefit from the performance of a service. Corres-
pondingly, ownership rights over one’s monetary wealth include a right to divest
oneself of part of it for the sake of acquiring a body part and/or benefiting from
the provision of a service (Nozick 1974). On that view, a surrogate mother
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee123
2
owns her gametes and her womb, and thus has the right to receive payment in
exchange for providing either a partial or a full surrogacy service. Conversely,
commissioning parents have the right to offer her a monetary reward for her
reproductive services.
The view that individuals own their body and labor, however, has proved
controversial (Cohen 1995; Pateman 1988). Another argument in favor of surrogacy
appeals not to self-ownership, but, rather, to autonomy (see autonomy). It holds
that individuals have an important interest in framing, revising, and pursuing a
conception of the good life, and in being enabled to acquire the financial wherewithal
to do so. Parenthood is, for many, an important part of what a good life is; conversely,
one way to earn money is to offer one’s labor and services to those who need them.
Surrogacy thus furthers both commissioning parents’ and surrogate mothers’
autonomy (Shalev 1989; Arneson 1992; Fabre 2006: Ch. 8).
To many, however, neither argument is robust enough against the following
objections to surrogacy – to wit, the commodification objection, the objectification
objection, the exploitation objection, and the harm-to-children objection (see com-
modification; exploitation). Interestingly, the first three are also often deployed
against both organ sales and prostitution (see prostitution). As applied to surro-
gacy and prostitution, they are usually rooted in serious concerns about gender
inequality between men and women. In fact, for some commentators, surrogacy is
morally problematic to the extent that its commodifying, exploitative, and objectify-
ing features are evidence of, and deepen, those inequalities (Satz 1992; see feminist
bioethics).
According to the commodification objection, surrogacy is wrong for two reasons:
in so far as it involves paying women for carrying a child, it wrongfully treats their
reproductive labor, which should be undertaken out of love, as up for sale; in so far
as the surrogate mother must hand over the child at birth, for which she receives
payment, it is tantamount to baby selling (Warnock 1985; Anderson 1990). Clearly,
the charge cannot be raised against altruistic surrogacy. As some commentators
have noted, however, the view that pregnancy (whether one intends to keep the
child or not) should be seen exclusively as a labor of love essentializes and idealizes
reproductive labor as inherently part of women’s identity, at the risk of discriminating
against women who do not conceive of motherhood as a sacrosanct vocation. To the
extent that human labor in general is appropriately commodified (after all, most of
us get paid to work), there is no reason to condemn gestational labor on those
grounds (Harris 1985: Ch. 7). In fact, there is every reason, at the bar of gender
equality itself, to resist the objection (Satz 1992). In addition, as others also argue,
surrogacy need not consist in selling and buying babies, since payment is owed not
for the baby itself, but for the provision of a gestational service together with the
transfer of whatever rights parents have over children (see parents’ rights and
responsibilities). Moreover, those rights are limited and are not a species of
transferrable property rights in things, which further weakens the claim that
surrogacy contracts treat babies as commodities (Wilkinson 2003: Ch. 8; Arneson
1992; Fabre 2006: Ch. 8).
3
A second objection claims that surrogacy objectifies women by treating them as

nothing but incubators, whose feelings about the prospects of relinquishing the
baby at birth, or, indeed, about whether or not to continue with the pregnancy,
have no weight at all (Dworkin 1983; Anderson 1990). Here, concerns about
gender inequality are particularly acute, since surrogacy – it seems – grants a
commissioning father considerable control over the body and life of the surrogate
mother. By contrast, and interestingly so, the surrogate mother’s feelings are at the
forefront of any moral assessment of altruistic surrogacy, since it is precisely
because giving up the child is thought to be extremely difficult that her act is
deemed altruistic, and, therefore, commendable. However, the objectification
objection illicitly assumes that surrogacy is inherently objectifying. Yet, while it is
surely true that some commissioning parents objectify surrogate mothers, not all
do. More generally, whether or not surrogacy objectifies women depends on the
extent to which the latter freely and willingly consent to the arrangement
(see consent), on commissioning parents’ attitudes, and, crucially, on the rights
of surrogate mothers. Such rights pertain to the control which they have over their
own lives while pregnant, whether or not they may terminate the pregnancy, and
whether or not they must hand over the child at birth (Harris 1985: Ch. 7; Jackson
2001: Ch. 6; Wilkinson 2003: Ch. 8; Fabre 2006: Ch. 8).
Now, although some surrogacy contracts have imposed burdensome restrictions
on surrogate mothers (such as regular medical checks, bans on smoking, drinking,
exercising, etc.), we must distinguish between legitimate restrictions under which any
responsible parent in general, and gestating mother in particular, ought to be placed,
and overly controlling restrictions. Proper regulation of surrogacy contracts, whereby
the latter would be regarded as null and void, meets the objection. Moreover, in
typical surrogacy contracts, which involve a heterosexual commissioning couple, the
surrogate mother is not the only woman involved: the commissioning mother also has
a considerable stake in the contract, and to describe the latter as embodying gender
inequality – through objectification – between commissioning parents and surrogate
mother oversimplifies the complex relationships in which all parties stand vis-à-vis
one another.
The difficulties raised by the surrogate mother’s rights (or lack thereof) to abort
the pregnancy, or to keep the child at birth, are thornier. To many, ‘a contract is a
contract,’ so much so that a surrogate mother ought not to be allowed to change her
mind: she should be forced to relinquish the baby, particularly if the latter is not
genetically hers, and she ought not to be allowed to have an abortion (see Field
1990 and Jackson 2001: Ch. 6 for useful accounts of that claim). Yet, it is worth not-
ing that, according to empirical evidence, cases where surrogate mothers refuse to
relinquish the child, or decide to abort, are very rare. Less often mentioned, but
equally noteworthy, are cases where commissioning parents refuse to take the
child, on the grounds, for example, that it is born with disabilities. In any event,
one might think that there are good reasons for permitting a surrogate mother to
change her mind, at least if she has provided not merely her womb but also her
eggs, and which outweigh the harm which commissioning parents would incur as
4
a result (Arneson 1992). After all, adoption law generally does not bind a mother
to hand over, at birth, the child she had decided to have adopted; and, in any event,
there generally is no legal requirement on contracting parties to perform the spe-
cific service (here, bring a foetus to term) which they have undertaken to provide
(Harris 1985: Ch. 7). The deeper point, here, is that familial relationships in gen-
eral, and parental relationships in particular, ought not to fall solely within the
scope of contract law, but, rather, within the scope of family law, on condition that
provisions are made, in the form of the payment of damages, aimed at compensat-
ing commissioning parents should the surrogate mother change her mind (Field
1990; Jackson 2001: Ch. 6). In other words, properly regulated surrogacy contracts
are not inherently objectifying.
Opponents are unlikely to be convinced. Thus, a third objection to surrogacy claims
that it is exploitative of surrogate mothers, because it trades on their financial need,
their emotional vulnerability, and their unthinking endorsement of patriarchal
norms, to get them to agree to carry a fetus to term (with all the risks attendant on
pregnancy and childbirth) under financial terms which they would not accept other-
wise. Here, too, the objection is often linked to concerns about gender inequality,
pitting surrogate mothers’ financial need against commissioning fathers’ wealth
(Warnock 1985; Anderson 1990). Moreover, the exploitation objection is, perhaps,
one of the most plausible which one might deploy against altruistic surrogacy,
particularly when the latter occurs within families (as when a woman carries a child
for her infertile sister), since emotional pressures are particularly likely to be applied,
or at any rate felt, within that context. And yet here, too, according to some
commentators, whether or not a surrogacy contract or arrangement is exploitative
depends on the conditions under which it is entered, and (in the commercial case)
on the remuneration offered to the surrogate mother. To deem surrogacy illegitimate
irrespective of those conditions on the grounds that surrogate mothers ought to be
protected from the consequences of their decision not only overlooks the potential
for appropriate regulations to issue in fair contracts; it is also to risk the charge of
undue paternalism towards the women one wants to protect (see paternalism).
Finally, exploitation can go both ways: the surrogate mother too could be charged
with exploiting the desperate desire for a child of commissioning parents in general
and commissioning mothers in particular. Thus, it is not clear at all that a surrogacy
contract furthers gender inequalities as a result of being exploitative (Wertheimer
1992; Wilkinson 2003: Ch. 6; Fabre 2006: Ch. 8).
The aforementioned objections focus on the relationship between contracting
parties. The fourth objection, by contrast, adverts to children and rejects surrogacy
as illegitimate (and warranting a legal ban) on the grounds that it is harmful to them.
This is because children born from a surrogacy contract are less likely to believe that
their parents, having literally paid for them, love them unconditionally – a source of
unhappiness compounded by the knowledge that their gestational mother gave
them up at birth (Anderson 1990; Brazier et al. 1998). Note that altruistic surrogacy
is not vulnerable to that particular charge, in so far as the latter targets the feelings
of rearing parents, who have not (ex hypothesi) offered payment to the surrogate
5
mother. But it may be undermined by it in so far as children’s feelings of abandonment

are at issue.
The crucial question, here, is that of the extent to which a surrogate mother
wrongs the child she is carrying when she does so with the intention of abandoning
her at birth, and (in the commercial case) of the extent to which rearing parents also
wrong the child whom they have asked her to carry for them with the intention of
paying her. That question, specific to surrogacy as it is, raises the wider issue of the
extent to which a person is harmed, and wronged, simply in virtue of the circum-
stances under which she came into being, given that she would not have existed oth-
erwise (since she is conceived, carried to term, and delivered, as a result of the
surrogacy arrangement) (Parfit 1984; Ch. 16; Archard 2004; see nonidentity prob-
lem; wrongful life). Now, there is no reliable evidence that children born from
surrogacy contracts are indeed harmed in the aforementioned ways. Suppose, how-
ever, that they are harmed. Given that the alternative, for them, would have been
non-existence, whether they are wronged depends on whether the harms which
they suffer make their life less than worth living overall. If so, then surrogacy con-
tracts are morally illegitimate and ought to be banned, since they create children
whose quality of life is so low that it would have been better for them not to exist. But
if those children nevertheless do have a life worth living, and a fortiori enjoy a good
quality of life, then it is not clear at all that surrogacy is a wrongdoing and, if it is, that
it is serious enough a wrongdoing as to warrant a legal ban (Harris 1985; Wilkinson
2003: Ch. 6; Fabre 2006: Ch. 8).
See also: abortion; autonomy; commodification; consent; exploitation;

feminist bioethics; nonidentity problem; parents’ rights and
responsibilities; paternalism; prostitution; rights; wrongful life
REFERENCES
Anderson, Elizabeth 1990. “Is Women’s Labor a Commodity?,” Philosophy and Public Affairs,
vol. 19, pp. 71–92.
Archard, David, 2004. “Wrongful Life,” Philosophy, vol. 79, pp. 403–20.
Arneson, Richard 1992. “Commodification and Commercial Surrogacy,” Philosophy and
Brazier, Margaret, Alastair Campbell, and Susan Golombok (eds.) 1998. Surrogacy: Review
for Health Ministers of Current Arrangements of Payments and Regulation. London:
Stationery Office.
Cohen, G. A. 1995. Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Dworkin, Andrea 1983. Right-Wing Women: The Politics of Domesticated Females. Toronto:
University of Toronto Press.
Fabre, Cécile 2006. Whose Body is it Anyway? Justice and the Integrity of the Person. Oxford:
Field, Martha 1990. Surrogate Motherhood: The Legal and Human Issues. Cambridge, MA:
6
Harris, John 1985. The Value of Life. London: Routledge.

Jackson, Emily 2001. Regulating Reproduction. Oxford: Hart Publishing.
Pateman, Carol 1988. The Sexual Contract. Cambridge: Polity.
Satz, Debra 1992. “Markets in Women’s Reproductive Labour,” Philosophy and Public Affairs,
vol. 21, pp. 107–31.
Shalev, Camel 1989. Birth Power: Case for Surrogacy. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Warnock, Mary 1985. A Question of Life: Warnock Report on Human Fertilisation and
Embryology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wertheimer, Alan 1992. “Two Questions about Surrogacy and Exploitation,” Philosophy and
Wilkinson, Stephen 2003. Bodies for Sale: Ethics and Exploitation in the Human Body Trade.
London: Routledge.
FURTHER READINGS
University Press.
Corea, Gena 1988. The Mother Machine – Reproductive Technologies from Artificial
Insemination to Artificial Wombs. London: Women’s Press.
Gostin, Larry (ed.) 1990. Surrogate Motherhood: Politics and Privacy, Bloomington: Indiana
University Press.
Kornegay, R. Jo 1990. “Is Commercial Surrogacy Baby-Selling?,” Journal of Applied Philosophy,
vol. 7, pp. 45–50.
Malm, Heidi 1989. “Paid Surrogacy: Arguments and Responses,” Public Affairs Quarterly,
vol. 3, pp. 279–85.
Nussbaum, Martha 1995. “Objectification,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 24, pp. 249–91.
Overall, Christine 1993. Human Reproduction: Principles, Practices, Policies. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Purdy, Laura M. 1996. Reproducing Persons – Issues in Feminist Bioethics. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press.
Radin, Margaret J. 1996. Contested Commodities: The Trouble with Trade in Sex, Children,
Body Parts and Other Things. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Rae, Scott B. 1994. The Ethics of Commercial Surrogate Motherhood: Brave New Families?
Westport, CT: Praeger.
1
Generosity
Lester H. Hunt
With few exceptions, the moral philosophers of the last several centuries have writ-
ten little about generosity. Those of the ancient, medieval, and Renaissance periods,
however, often treated it as an important subject. Though Plato ignores it, Aristotle
(1985) devotes a substantial chapter to it (see aristotle), as does Aquinas (1948).
Indeed, in Book IV of the Nicomachean Ethics (1119b–1122a) Aristotle recognizes
two different virtues that could be regarded as subspecies of generosity: eleutheria
(“freedom”) and megaloprepeia (“magnanimity”). Descartes (1989) calls generosity
“the key of all the virtues, and a general remedy for all the disorders of the passions”
in his treatise The Passions of the Soul (Art. 161). Spinoza (2005; see spinoza,
baruch) discusses it at some length in Part IV of his Ethics and treats it as intimately
connected with freedom (Propositions 37 and 50–73). After that, philosophers seem
to have lost interest in the idea of generosity, until Nietzsche (2006; see nietzsche,
friedrich), a philosophical atavist on so many matters, sings the praises of
something he calls a “gift-giving virtue” in Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Part I, Ch. 22).
Most likely, Nietzsche’s gift-giving virtue and Spinoza’s generositas are best
understood as a super-virtue, a sort of generous-mindedness, of which the trait that
we ordinarily call generosity is a natural consequence.
One of the reasons for the decline of interest in generosity is fairly obvious. In
premodern Western ethics it was typically assumed that the sort of value ethics is
concerned with is something that inheres in the individual person, namely virtue
(see virtue; virtue ethics). Virtue was typically supposed to consist of particular
traits, such as courage, temperance, or generosity. The typically modern ethical
theories – utilitarianism and Kantian deontology – are, essentially, rules for selecting
right actions (see consequentialism; deontology). Determining what is the
right thing to do is quite a different matter from seeking to understand what sort of
person is a good person. Recent decades have seen a great resurgence of interest in
“virtue ethics,” but this has typically been treated as an alternative way of doing what
Kantianism and utilitarianism do and has not led to a comparable resurgence of
interest in analyzing particular traits, such as generosity.
Another possible reason why generosity was much more highly regarded before
modernity set in is political. Moral codes and ethical ideals that place a high value
on generosity seem to be most comfortably at home in aristocratic societies. The
very adjective generosus, like Aristotle’s eleutherios (whence the derivative noun
eleutheriotes, “freedom”), meant “noble”; and the kind of “nobility” originally meant
here was one of birth or “generation” (generosus, generare, and genus are words from
the same family) – hence it was political in nature. Part of the reason for the
aristocrats’ high valuation of generosity must have been their disdain for productive
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee124
2
activities. Giving wealth away was thought to be more appropriate for an aristocrat
than productively investing it in agricultural land or capital goods. Further, the fact
that one has wealth to give away rather than consume is proof of one’s lofty status.
Generosity differs in potentially important ways from other virtues that involve
conferring benefits or detriments upon others (what is sometimes called the
“other-regarding virtues”), and some of the differences might shed light on the question
of which cultural and ethical systems tend to make generosity an important virtue and
which tend to make it less so. Take for instance justice and charity. Justice is sharply
different from generosity. Acts that are just – for instance being fair to an opponent,
keeping a promise, or giving students the grades they deserve – tend to be required
through considerations of justice. On the other hand, one thing that seems to be a
necessary condition of generosity is that the act is not required. One gives, not from
duty, but from the goodness of one’s heart. Of course, the promptings of the heart are
also what typically lies behind charitable contributions. Typically, if the benefit con-
ferred was charitable, it was not given because the giver already owed it to the recipient.
There is, however, a large difference between generosity and charity. “Charity,” at least
as the word is used in modern English, refers to attempts to remedy deficiencies, such
as poverty and disease. Generosity, on the other hand, is an attempt to confer a positive
benefit. Generosity typically takes the form of giving not alms, but gifts. Charity is a
response to evils, while generosity is a response to opportunities to do good.
The notion that justice is the cardinal other-regarding virtue would make more
sense in some worldviews than in others. The sorts of Weltanschauungen more
congenial to it would have to be ones that see the most meritorious life as one that
conforms to the relevant requirements – for instance one that gives a privileged
position to quasi-juridical concepts like “duty” and “obligation,” as well as to other
concepts that involve an agent’s being bound to do a particular act, such as “debt”
and “owes.” Such a view becomes even more congenial to a lofty valuation of justice
if we add a strong element of egalitarianism. Egalitarian ideas enable us to see as
either just or unjust many facts – for instance, the fact that one person has a larger
income than another – that might otherwise seem to be neither. An egalitarian
worldview might well be held by someone who is quite comfortable with being
citizen in a modern, regulated, and bureaucratized welfare state based on some sort
of egalitarian ideology – such as those that are characteristic of contemporary
Western Europe and of the English-speaking world. On the other hand, placing a
high value on charity is obviously congenial to orthodox Christianity, with its
emphasis on human sinfulness and frailty and on the inability of humans ultimately
to do well without powerful help (such as divine grace).
By the very same reasoning, though, generosity might be of great interest to
someone who rebels against the worldviews of modern welfare-state liberalism and
Christianity. This attitude is one of the factors that motivate the work of Hunt and
Machan on generosity. The other-regarding traits of character connect us with our
fellow human beings and thus color the quality and the very meaning of our lives.
A highly valued virtue of charity connects us with others through their suffering and
inability to help themselves. This might well seem like the wrong sort of focus for
3
such an important part of one’s life. Generosity connects us with our fellow human
beings though opportunities for advancing their positive well-being. Thus generosity,
as a cardinal virtue, can be a fundamental functioning component in a view of life in
which human beings are regarded as agents who create value and build their lives, and
not primarily as frail and sinful beings in need of help from above. Justice, if sufficiently
inflated, creates a social world in which the good we do for others is entirely prescribed,
in which everything that is not required is prohibited: a sort of highly regulated
economy of the soul. A generous act, on the other hand, is not required but chosen
freely. To the extent that one treats generosity as an important other-regarding virtue,
one’s ethical relations with others become a realm of moral freedom.
See also: aristotle; consequentialism; deontology; nietzsche,

friedrich; spinoza, baruch; virtue; virtue ethics
REFERENCES
Aquinas, Thomas 1948 [ca. 1273]. Summa theologica, trans. Fathers of the Dominican
Province. New York: Benziger Bros. (Esp. 1a 2ae: Question 117.)
Aristotle 1985. The Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Terence Irwin. Indianapolis: Hackett. (Esp.
Book IV, Ch. 1 = 1119b–1122a.)
Descartes, René 1989 [1649]. The Passions of the Soul, trans. Stephen H. Voss. Indianapolis:
Hackett. (Esp. Articles 156, 159, 161.)
Nietzsche, Friedrich 2006 [1883–5]. Thus Spoke Zarathustra, ed. Robert Pippin, trans. Adrian
del Caro. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Esp. Part I, Ch. 22: “On the
Gift-Giving Virtue.”)
Spinoza, Baruch/Benedictus de 2005 [1677]. Ethics, trans. Edwin Curley. London: Penguin
Books. (Esp. Part IV, Propositions 37 and 50–73.)
FURTHER READINGS
Hunt, Lester H. 1975. “Generosity,” American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 12, pp. 235–44.
Hunt, Lester H. 1997. “The Unity and Diversity of the Virtues: Generosity and Related
Matters,” in Lester H. Hunt, Character and Culture. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield,
pp. 55–87.
Machan, Tibor R. 1998. Generosity: Virtue in Civil Society. Washington, DC: The Cato
Institute.
Wallace, James 1978. Virtues and Vices. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. (Esp. Ch. 5:
“Benevolence.”)
1
Conservation Biology
Mark Sagoff
In an influential article published in 1985, biologist Michael Soulé announced
the emergence of a new biological science, conservation biology (hereafter “CB”),
which differed from other applied biological sciences such as forestry, fisheries,
and wildlife management. These traditional disciplines address problems
associated with individual species and the use of particular natural resources, for
example sustainable yields. In contrast, CB “tends to be holistic,” Soulé wrote,
and embraces normative postulates “that make up the basis of an ethic of appro-
priate attitudes toward other forms of life.” These postulates state: (1) “Diversity
of organisms is good”; (2) “Ecological complexity is good”; (3) “Evolution is
good”; and (4) “Biotic diversity has intrinsic value, irrespective of its instru-
mental or utilitarian value.” The mission of the Society for Conservation
Biology, founded in 1986 and now with over 10,000 members, is “To advance
the science and practice of conserving the Earth’s biological diversity” (see
evolution, ethics and).
This essay has five parts. The first presents in general terms the overall thesis of
conservation biology and describes its commitment to biodiversity as an organizing
principle. The second section discusses the reasons to consider biodiversity valuable.
The third section examines problems conservation biologists confront in maintaining
a “holistic” view of natural communities and ecosystems against skeptical arguments
and contrary evidence. The fourth section explores a debate among conservation
biologists concerning the extent to which they should espouse instrumental and
economic as contrasted with intrinsic and ethical rationales for the conservation of
biodiversity. Finally, this essay opines on the role of conservation biology at a time of
climate change.
An Overview
Before the 1980s, conservation science focused on the protection of particular
endangered species, wilderness areas, and natural resources. In contrast, “Conserva-
tion biology was born as one response of the scientific community to the current
massive environmental changes occurring on Earth. Its main tasks are to provide the
intellectual and technical tools to enable society to anticipate, prevent, and reduce
ecological damage” (Orians and Soulé 2001). According to several biologists,
“Conservation biology emerged in the mid-1980s, drawing on established disciplines
and integrating them in pursuit of a coherent goal: the protection and perpetuation
of the Earth’s biological diversity” (Meine et al. 2006).
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee125
2
What is biological diversity or biodiversity? In simplest terms, it refers to species

richness and relative species abundance. “Species richness is simply the total number
of species in a defined space at a given time, and relative species abundance refers to
their commonness or rarity” (Hubbell 2001). Even this narrow definition of
“biodiversity,” however, invites questions, for example concerning the definition of
the concept species, the importance of intraspecific variation, the ontological relation
of individual creatures to a class or kind, and how far one descends into microbiol-
ogy, all of which have inspired spirited debates among biologists and philosophers
(see environmental ethics; deep ecology).
Questions also beset the relationship between biodiversity and (1) nonnative
species (which add significantly to species richness in many places) and (2) human-
made species, i.e., those produced by breeding, genetic engineering, or synthetic
biology (which could be unlimited). Many conservationists contend that an idea of
natural history constrains the concept of biodiversity; otherwise biodiversity could
be manufactured like any commodity. Angermeier (1994) has observed: “Through
genetic engineering, species introduction, and environmental modification, we
could conceivably manufacture a world even more biologically variable and ‘diverse’
than that derived through evolutionary processes. Moreover, none of that variety
need consist of native elements or share any evolutionary history.”
In part to avoid these puzzles, conservation biologists generally define “biodiver-
sity” in terms of evolutionary history apart from human influence. Sala et al. (2000)
have written: “Our definition excludes exotic organisms that have been introduced.”
Conservation biologists also expand the concept of biodiversity well beyond species
richness and abundance to include the variety of life at all levels of organization.
A CB textbook defines biodiversity to refer to the “variation of life at all levels of
biological organization” (Gaston and Spicer 2004). The 1992 UN Convention on
Biological Diversity defines “biodiversity” as “the variability among living organisms
from all sources including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic systems
and the ecological complexes of which they are parts; this includes diversity within
species, between species and of ecosystems.” The idea of biodiversity may be
coextensive with that of the natural world, its variety in both elements and levels of
organization, insofar as it follows its spontaneous course and is unaffected by human
activity (Takacs 1996).
As Maclaurin and Sterelny (2008) pointed out, “the concept of biodiversity was
coined at the intersection of science, applied science, and politics.” Biologists are
unlikely to agree on a single method to measure biodiversity across ecosystems
because the living world is diverse in so many ways and along so many dimensions.
Sarkar (2005) argues that “biodiversity” has come to mean everything in the living
world apart from humanity and therefore that the concept cannot be distinguished
from biology in general. Biodiversity may refer to whatever in the natural world is
valued in a particular context. On the other hand, the term “biodiversity” may signal
the vast amount we do not know about other forms of life and our dependence
on them.
3
The Value of Biodiversity

If biodiversity comprises everything – or at least everything in and about the living
world – it may be odd to ask why it is valuable. One can ask, however, about the
different senses in which a particular organism or ecosystem has value. Soulé distin-
guished between intrinsic and instrumental value when he wrote, “Biotic diversity
has intrinsic value, irrespective of its instrumental or utilitarian value.” In the context
of CB, both kinds of value – intrinsic and instrumental – are understood in various
ways (see intrinsic value).
There are conservationists and ethicists – Holmes Rolston (1989) is an example –
who argue that a natural object may have value even if there is no one to value it.
Many others would agree with Immanuel Kant that only rational agents are morally
considerable in a sense that is independent of human belief, commitment, judgment,
or desire. Baird Callicott (1989) is a leading example of those who concede (1) that
human beliefs, interests, judgments, and desires may be the source of value but deny
(2) that they always are or must be the locus of value. According to this view, natural
objects have value only in relation to the rational beings who value them. These
rational beings, however, may appreciate these objects because of qualities in them
that engender and are worthy of reverence or respect.
Conservationists then may see the difference between intrinsic and instrumental
value as lying between two ways we appreciate biodiversity – (1) as an object of our
love, reverence, appreciation, and respect; (2) as a means to satisfy our preferences
or desires (see economics and ethics). The aesthetic judgment and ethical appre-
ciation of the properties of the natural world may be inherently good experiences
and may deepen or transform our lives. Instrumental value, in contrast, would
concern the uses we make of natural objects rather than the reasons we respect or
appreciate these objects “in themselves.”
What is it about biodiversity that gives it intrinsic value? One possibility is that it
has “negative” value; in other words, nature is valuable to the extent that it is
characterized by the absence of anthropogenic influence and is thus free from the
corruption, contamination, or taint associated with human beings. An area would
then have “natural” value insofar as it exemplifies nature’s spontaneous course; it
would be “damaged” insofar as it exhibits anthropogenic effects. “The ecosystem
concept typically considers human activities as external disturbances,” ecologist
R. V. O’Neill (2001) has written. If so, the mission of CB would depend on “our
ability to distinguish between natural and human-induced variability in biological
condition” (Karr and Chu 1999). Value is “accorded to ecological systems in propor-
tion to the perceived absence of anthropogenic influences” (Miller and Hobbs 2002).
Instrumental value comprises all the uses to which we may put biodiversity for
our own advantage, welfare, or security. Following classical economists in the
tradition of Adam Smith, it is customary to distinguish between “value in use” and
“value in exchange.” The former refers to the utility or benefit a good provides, the
latter to the price it commands in a competitive market. A glass of water may have
immense value in use to a thirsty person, even if he pays nothing for it; water
4
however needed and necessary may command a very small price if it is plentiful. If
nature provides certain goods or services in immense amounts, it may have infinite
value in use, but because there is no scarcity, it may have little value “at the margin”
or in exchange. To discuss the instrumental value of biodiversity, then, may be to
alternate between (1) our dependency on the rest of the living world (which is
total) and (2) the scarcity of or threat to particular aspects of it, which then must be
specified (see well-being). These two ways of construing the instrumental value
of biodiversity affect our ways of understanding “ecosystem services,” discussed
below.
Self-Organizing Ecosystems
Conservation biologists use a variety of normative concepts to refer to what they
believe is the locus of value; these concepts include sustainability, complexity,
community, ecosystem structure and function, and ecosystem integrity and health.
These terms, which convey a sense of the flourishing of natural areas, represent
conceptual constructs or theoretical objects or properties CB postulates in its role as
a new synthetic and integrated kind of biological knowledge. There is nothing
unusual about a science positing theoretical constructs – even emergent properties –
as ways to organize and advance knowledge. For CB, concepts of ecological com-
plexity, community, and organization help us to describe and understand the natural
world and also to identify what is valuable about nature or biodiversity and therefore
what is to be conserved. These emergent properties resist definition, however, and
may not be explicable or testable in strictly biological terms.
Conservation biologists often point to the organization of ecological communities
and systems as the object of value and the subject of conservation and protection.
Conservation biologists “emphasize the importance of natural ecosystems”
(Angermeier 2000). According to Kay and Schneider (1995), “We must always
remember that left alone, living systems are self-organizing; that is, they will look
after themselves. Our responsibility is not to interfere with this self-organizing
process.” Many biologists and other critics, however, question the idea that a self-
organizing process can be found in nature at any level other than the organism.
Environmental historian Donald Worster has summarized this skeptical view:
“Nature should be regarded as a landscape of patches, big and little, patches of all
textures and colors, a patchwork quilt of living things, changing continually through
time and space, responding to an unceasing barrage of perturbations. The stitches in
that quilt never hold for long” (Worster 1994; cf. Botkin 1990).
Conservation biologists espouse a “holistic” view, according to which any natural
ecosystem possesses a structure and a function that is greater than the properties of
its parts. Ecosystems are organized entities with emergent properties. The goal of CB
is to maintain “a balanced, integrated, adaptive, community of organisms having
species composition, diversity, and functional organization comparable to that of
natural habitats of the region” (Karr and Dudley 1981).
5
The “holistic” view stretches back at least to the ecologist Frederic Clements, who
early in the twentieth century argued, as ecologist Michael Barbour (1995) has
written, “that groups of species living together in a given habitat were highly
organized into natural units called communities.” Conservation biologists
Christensen and Franklin (1997) summarized, “we may liken ecosystem function-
ing to the processes that comprise physiological functioning in an organism. These
functions are the basis for sustained provision of ‘goods’ and ‘services’ upon which
humans depend” (see public goods). Conservationists may speak of the “health” of
the ecosystem. “The physician’s task is to evaluate and maintain healthy functioning
of an individual; the environmental manager’s, to evaluate and maintain healthy
functioning of an ecosystem” (De Leo and Levin 1997).
An opposing perspective in ecology stretches back at least to the American ecologist
Henry Gleason, who early in the twentieth century argued that what Clements called
communities are only collections. The “community” is a construct unrelated to reality.
According to Barbour (1995), Gleason held that what conservationists may see as
organized “associations are not real, natural units; they are merely artifacts and human
constructs or abstractions. Groups … of co-occurring species are not interdependent.
Rather, each species spreads out as an independent entity … and according to its way
of relating both to the physical environment and to other species.”
Today, controversy persists “over the extent to which communities are coevolved,
integrated complexes as opposed to simply those species found together in one place
at one time” (Simberloff 2010). Biologists in the Gleasonian tradition believe that
species are “largely thrown together by chance, history, and random dispersal.
Species come and go, their presence or absence is dictated by random dispersal and
stochastic local extinction” (Hubbell 2001). If this is true, it may not be impossible
to distinguish a system from a collection of organisms that happen to occupy a place
at a time. Many biologists believe that there are no “laws” in ecology and thus there
is no basis for understanding how – or even if – ecosystems are organized, i.e., no
consensus about the “rules” that govern them (Lawton 1999).
Much of CB can be described as research on the structure and function of
ecological communities and on the adaptive processes that maintain their health,
sustainability, and integrity. This mission presupposes the existence of ecological
communities as continuous functional wholes that “take care of themselves.”
If nature is not organized into communities, however, it may have no emergent
properties, such as “health” or “integrity,” for CB to protect or to study.
According to two ecologists, there is no empirical evidence of “an ontological
emergence of a community level of biotic organization.” Any appearance of
organization or constancy at the system or community level “is a biological epiphe-
nomenon, a statistical abstraction, a descriptive convention without true emergent
properties but only collective ones, wholly referable in its properties to those of its
constituent species, populations, and individuals” (Gilbert and Owen 1990). William
Drury (1998) in his study of forests found no emergent properties or governing
rules that unified them: “I feel that ecosystems are largely extemporaneous and that
most species (in what we often call a community) are superfluous to the operation
6
of those sets of species between which we can clearly identify important

interactions. … Once seen, most of the interactions are simple and direct. Complexity
seems to be a figment of our imaginations driven by taking the ‘holistic’ view.”
The Economic Value of Biodiversity

Conservation biologists attribute intrinsic value to ecological communities, pointing
for example to biodiversity “hotspots,” which comprise “regions with unusually high
concentrations of endemic species (species that are found nowhere else on Earth) that
also have suffered severe habitat destruction” (Kareiva and Marvier 2003). The his-
tory, variety, uniqueness, and beauty of tropical forests and other charismatic places
evoke respect and even reverence. By identifying and describing ecological “hotspots”
and other wonderful natural areas, conservation biologists have achieved many suc-
cesses in directing international funding and philanthropy toward protecting uniquely
beautiful places from irreversible loss (see environmental virtue ethics).
To stem further losses of biodiversity, conservation biologists have urged their
colleagues to emphasize the economic or instrumental values of natural ecosystems
and the species native to them. They point to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
(2005) which found that the natural world or “natural capital” provides many eco-
nomically valuable services (see cost–benefit analysis). Daily and co-authors
(2009) explain: “In theory, if we can help individuals and institutions to recognize
the value of nature, then this should greatly increase investments in conservation,
while at the same time fostering human well-being. In practice, however, we have
not yet developed the scientific basis, nor the policy and finance mechanisms, for
incorporating natural capital into resource- and land-use decisions on a large scale.”
Conservation biologists confront a number of problems in establishing economic
values, for example markets or market prices, for the ecological goods or services
nature freely provides. First, the economic usefulness of rare and wonderful species
may be overstated. For example, conservationists urged “that pharmaceutical and
other commercial applications of biodiversity should help justify its conservation”
(Reid et al. 1993). Hopes placed in “bioprospecting” were disappointed.
Pharmaceutical companies generally develop drugs based on molecules they con-
struct using new techniques such as genetic engineering and synthetic biology,
rather than by screening natural biodiversity. Experts in drug discovery caution that
“The idea of exploiting the rain forests to find wonderful drugs is, quite frankly, not
credible” (Macilwain 1998; see also Eisner 2003). Many developing countries, how-
ever, regard bioprospecting as a credible opportunity and as a result exclude ecolo-
gists from exploring wild areas. “Increasingly, scientists hoping to collect specimens
in developing countries rich in flora and fauna are being met with major bureau-
cratic barriers. Local governments are afraid that their biological riches will be sto-
len without compensation” (Russo 2003).
While ecosystem services as a general matter are essential to life, those people
who use these services – for example people who farm, fish, timber, or otherwise
depend on natural resources – generally have a good sense of the stocks or flows of
7
the natural capital on which they rely and, even when property rights are absent,
often work out successful regimes to manage them (Ostrom et al. 2010; see
intergenerational ethics). The economic value of these goods may be more like
market prices, which are sensitive to changing tastes, technologies, and many other
market conditions, than like ecological constants. If “ecosystem services” are valued
like other economic commodities, their value in exchange or competitive market
prices may be quite low, if they are plentiful relative to demand, and could constantly
change with the vagaries of market conditions.
Conservation biologists express concern that they have not been able to “deliver”
more than platitudes about the human dependence on nature’s services (Daily et al.
2009). It is true that the “value in use” of biodiversity is infinite; none of us could
survive if no other forms of life existed. For this reason, many conservationists work
with philanthropic and governmental agencies to develop market approaches to
protecting ecological goods on which we rely or which have value markets do not
recognize (see, for example, www.katoombagroup.org/).
Conservation biologists may direct their economic argument about nature’s
services not primarily at farmers, foresters, and others who know their worth, but to
policymakers who may be in a position to protect the natural world at a broader
scale. The problem that policymakers face, however, has often less to do with under-
standing how to assign economic values than with identifying and responding to
political constituencies. A group of ecological economists has wisely written that the
real test “of whether an ecosystem service will facilitate conservation is not whether
academics can valuate it, but whether someone – or some organization – is able and
willing to do what is necessary to secure it” (Kai et al. 2007).
In the literature of CB, the appeal to economic arguments has stirred a lively con-
troversy. On the one side, biologists argue that this appeal, whatever its intellectual
merits, is politically necessary. “Put bluntly, will we achieve greater conservation
success by protecting nature for its own sake or for our own sake?” these biologists
have written (Armsworth et al. 2007). On the other side, conservationists contend
that an instrumental morality leads to the destruction of the natural world. Economic
reasons, indeed, often encourage us to develop rather than to protect nature – to
dam a river, plant a field, or splice a genome. According to biologist Douglas J.
McCauley (2006), “We must act quickly to redirect much of the effort now being
devoted to the commodification of nature back towards instilling a love for nature in
more people” (see commodification).
Climate Change
In an influential book science writer Bill McKibben (1989) pronounced “the end of
Nature” in the sense of areas left free of human influence. He argued that human
interference with biospheric systems by changing the climate leaves nothing in its
natural condition. Many biologists agree. “Ecology is a discipline with a time limit,
because much of what we study,” a group of ecologists has observed, “is fast
disappearing.” They lament, “Now all field research is done in systems altered by
8
Homo sapiens, and the degree of disturbance is increasing rapidly virtually

everywhere” (Bazzaz et al. 1998).
If nothing is “natural” what do conservationists seek to protect? Consider endemic
species in tropical areas. Should conservation biologists participate in the assisted
migration of these species in anticipation of climate change (McLachlan et al. 2007)?
When the habitat of a species of butterfly, for example, no longer supports its popula-
tion, conservationists may have the option of relocating the species to a hospitable
place outside its native range. To assist the migration of a species may be to choose to
maintain biodiversity at the expense of natural history. As Alejandro Camacho has
explained, “We’re saying now that to serve biodiversity, we might want to move away
from preservation” (quoted in Marris 2008). Conservation biologists confront the
same contradiction whenever they rely on human intervention to restore species in
situ or off site in seed banks or zoological gardens. After a while, there may be little
difference between a restoration and a museum (see ecological restoration).
Conservationists must choose whether to leave natural places to take care of them-
selves and thus let them change radically under human pressure, or, by taking care of
them, turn them into laboratories or outdoor museums preserved in the amber of
scientific concepts and theories about how nature ought to be and would be but for us.
Michael Soulé (1985) summed up the normative postulates of CB by stating:
“These postulates express a preference for nature over artifice.” Conservation bio-
logists debate the extent to which human action is required to keep natural systems
functioning. If artifice is required to preserve or restore nature, how is nature differ-
ent from artifice? Soulé notes: “Long-term viability of natural communities usually
implies the persistence of diversity, with little or no help from humans.” Yet human
activity at an ever-increasing scale will be necessary to keep ecological communities
from evolving and altering in response to climate change, introduced species, and
other anthropogenic effects. Conservationists do not see themselves as curators or
as creators. The challenge for CB is to develop an ecological art that can hide or
conceal itself – an art of preserving or restoring natural areas without turning them
into carefully tended arboretums. The discipline of CB provides a rich, profound,
and exciting discussion and practice of how this may be done.
See also: commodification; cost–benefit analysis; deep ecology;

ecological restoration; economics and ethics; environmental ethics;
environmental virtue ethics; evolution, ethics and; intergenerational
ethics; intrinsic value; public goods; well-being
REFERENCES
Angermeier, P. L. 1994. “Does Biodiversity Include Artificial Diversity?” Conservation
Biology, vol. 8, pp. 600–2.
Angermeier, P. L. 2000. “Natural Imperative for Biological Conservation,” Conservation
Biology, vol. 14, pp. 373–81.
9
Armsworth, P. R. et al. 2007. “Ecosystem Service Science and the Way Forward for
Conservation,” Conservation Biology, vol. 21, no. 6, pp. 1383–4.
Barbour, Michael 1995. “Ecological Fragmentation in the Fifties,” in William Cronon (ed.),
Uncommon Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature. New York: W. W. Norton, pp. 233–55.
Bazzaz, Fakhri et al. 1998. “Ecological Science and the Human Predicament,” Science, vol. 282,
no. 5390, p. 879c.
Botkin, D. B. 1990. Discordant Harmonies: A New Ecology for the Twenty-First Century.
Callicott, J. B. 1989. In Defense of the Land Ethic: Essays in Environmental Philosophy. Albany:
Christensen, N. L., Jr., and J. F. Franklin 1997. “Ecosystem Function and Ecosystem
Management,” in R. David Simpson and Norman L. Christensen, Jr. (eds.), Ecosystem
Function and Human Activities: Reconciling Economics and Ecology. New York:
Chapman & Hall, pp. 1–24.
Daily, Gretchen et al. 2009. “Ecosystem Services in Decision-Making: Time to Deliver,”
Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 21–6.
De Leo, G. A., and S. Levin 1997. “The Multifaceted Aspects of Ecosystem Integrity.
Conservation Ecology, vol. 1, no. 1, p. 3. At http://www.consecol.org/vol1/iss1/art3/.
Drury, W. H. 1998. Chance and Change: Ecology for Conservationists. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
Eisner, Thomas 2003. “Hard Times for Chemical Prospecting,” Issues in Science and
Technology, vol. 19, no. 4, pp. 47–8.
Gaston, Kevin J., and John I. Spicer 2004. Biodiversity: An Introduction, 2nd ed. Oxford:
Blackwell.
Gilbert, F. S., and J. Owen 1990. “Size, Shape, Competition, and Community Structure in
Hoverflies,” Journal of Animal Ecology, vol. 59, pp. 21–39.
Hubbell, S. P. 2001. The Unified Neutral Theory of Biodiversity and Biogeography. Princeton:
Kai, M. A. et al. 2007. “When Agendas Collide: Human Welfare and Conservation Biology,”
Conservation Biology, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 60–8.
Kareiva, P., and M. Marvier 2003. “Conserving Biodiversity Coldspots,” American Scientist,
vol. 91, pp. 344–51.
Karr, J. R., and D. R. Dudley 1981. “Ecological Perspectives on Water Quality Goals,”
Environmental Management, vol. 5, pp. 55–68.
Karr, James, and Ellen W. Chu 1999. Restoring Life in Running Waters: Better Biological
Monitoring. Washington, DC: Island Press.
Kay, J., and E. D. Schneider 1995. “Embracing Complexity: The Challenge of the Ecosystem
Approach,” in L. Westra and J. Lemons (eds.), Perspectives on Ecological Integrity.
Dordrecht: Kluwer, pp. 49–59.
Lawton, J. H. 1999. “Are There General Laws in Ecology?” Oikos, vol. 84, pp. 177–92.
McCauley, D. J. 2006. “Selling Out on Nature,” Nature, vol. 443, pp. 27–8.
Macilwain, Colin 1998. “When Rhetoric Hits Reality in Debate on Bioprospecting,” Nature,
vol. 392, pp. 535–40.
McKibben, B. 1989. The End of Nature. New York: Random House.
McLachlan, J. S., J. J. Hellmann, and M. W. Schwartz 2007. “A Framework for Debate
of Assisted Migration in an Era of Climate Change,” Conservation Biology, vol. 21,
pp. 297–302.
10
Maclaurin, James, and Kim Sterelny 2008. What Is Biodiversity? Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Marris, E. 2008. “Moving on Assisted Migration,” Nature Reports Climate Change. At http://
www.nature.com/climate/2008/0809/full/climate.2008.86.html.
Meine, C., M. Soulé, and R. F. Noss 2006. “A ‘Mission-Driven Discipline’: The Growth of
Conservation Biology,” Conservation Biology, vol. 20, pp. 631–51.
Miller, James, and Richard Hobbs 2002. “Conservation Where People Live and Work,”
O’Neill, R. V. 2001. ‘Is It Time to Bury the Ecosystem Concept? (With Full Military Honors,
Of Course!),” Ecology, vol. 82, pp. 3275–84.
Orians, Gordon, and Michael Soulé 2001. “Whither Conservation Biology Research?”
Ostrom, Elinor, Amy R. Poteete, and Marco A. Janssen 2010. Working Together: Collective
Action, the Commons, and Multiple Methods in Practice. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Reid, W. V. et al. 1993. “A New Lease on Life,” in W. V. Reid et al. (eds.), Biodiversity Prospecting:
Using Genetic Resources for Sustainable Development. Washington, DC: World Resources
Institute, pp. 1–52.
Rolston, H. 1989. Philosophy Gone Wild. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.
Russo, Eugene 2003. “Ethics and War Challenge Biologists,” The Scientist, vol. 4, no. 1.
Sala, Osvaldo E. et al. 2000. “Global Biodiversity Scenarios for the Year 2100,” Science,
vol. 287, pp. 1770–4.
Sarkar, S. 2005. Biodiversity and Environmental Philosophy: An Introduction. New York:
Simberloff, Daniel 2010. “Invasions of Plant Communities – More of the Same, Something
Very Different, or Both?” American Midland Naturalis, vol. 163, no. 1, pp. 220–33.
Soulé, M. 1985. “What Is Conservation Biology?” BioScience, vol. 35, pp. 727–34.
Takacs, David 1996. The Idea of Biodiversity. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Worster, Donald 1994. The Wealth of Nature: Environmental History and the Ecological
Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
FURTHER READINGS
Groom, Martha, Gary Meffe, and C. Ronald Carroll 2005. Principles of Conservation Biology,
3rd ed. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates.
Soulé, M. E. 1995. “The Social Siege of Nature,” in Michael Soulé and Gary Lease (eds.),
Reinventing Nature: Responses to Postmodern Deconstruction. Washington, DC: Island
Press.
Van Dyke, Fred 2008. Conservation Biology: Foundations, Concepts, Applications. New York:
Springer.
1
Same-Sex Marriage
John Corvino
Same-sex marriage, like heterosexual marriage, can be understood at a variety of

levels: as a personal commitment between partners, as the social acknowledgment
of that commitment, as a formal legal status, as a religious sacrament, and so on.
While the different levels are related, they may vary independently: for instance, it is
possible for a marriage to be recognized by a state but not a church, or vice versa.
In recent years same-sex marriage has sparked a contentious debate, particularly
in the United States, where it rivals abortion as a morally and politically charged
issue. Part of the debate centers on alleged connections between the various levels
discussed above. For example, while virtually no one denies that same-sex partners
form committed personal relationships, some opponents argue that legally
recognizing these relationships as marriage would constitute a kind of counterfeit.
(In other words, they assert that the legal status of marriage ought to reflect an
underlying personal reality, and they disagree with advocates’ claim that same-sex
couples can achieve that reality.) More generally, the debate raises challenging
questions about the nature of family, the role of the state (and of respective levels of
government), the needs of children, the significance of religion, the public/private
distinction, and ultimately the concept of marriage itself.
Same-sex marriage advocates sometimes frame the debate as one about “marriage
equality” rather than “same-sex marriage”: the latter wording suggests the creation
of a new institution, whereas the former suggests making an existing one more
inclusive. Their opponents respond that the phrasing “marriage equality” begs the
question of whether same-sex unions are relevantly similar to heterosexual ones.
Legally, there are also disputes about whether some other marriage-like status might
be more appropriate for same-sex couples. Some US states recognize “civil unions,”
which grant many or all of the statewide (but not federal) rights and responsibilities
of marriage to same-sex partners; other jurisdictions recognize “domestic
partnerships,” “civil partnerships,” or some other status.
The discussion that follows sketches moral arguments for and against legal and
social recognition of same-sex marriages, though it may be relevant to other aspects
of the marriage debate.
Arguments in Favor
The case in favor of same-sex marriage includes both deontological and consequen-
tialist arguments (see consequentialism). The central deontological argument is
an equality argument: insofar as same-sex unions resemble heterosexual unions in
relevant ways, fairness dictates that we should treat the one like the other.
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee126
2
(The “relevant ways” include facts that are also germane to consequentialist argu-
ments: that same-sex couples form durable, committed romantic partnerships; that
they provide mutual care; that they sometimes raise children; that these partner-
ships are an important component of their flourishing; and so on.) While same-sex
partners cannot produce children without an additional biological parent, the same
is true of some heterosexual partners (e.g., the sterile) who are nevertheless allowed
to marry. Additionally, one could argue that recognizing same-sex marriage would
affirm the dignity and worth of same-sex relationships, which is of course one rea-
son why such recognition is controversial.
The consequentialist arguments for same-sex marriage aim to show that such
marriage is good for gay people, good for any children they happen to raise, and
good for society at large (Rauch 2004). Advocates claim that marriage is good for
gay people for many (if not all) of the same reasons it is good for heterosexual peo-
ple: it reflects and reinforces the relationship between the partners, thus promoting
stability; it enhances security on various levels – emotional, physical, financial, and
so on; it provides a safe harbor for sex; and it promotes personal responsibility and
mutual care. One could also put this argument in Aristotelian terms: insofar as
romantic relationships are an important constituent of human flourishing, same-sex
marriage promotes flourishing for gay and lesbian people (see aristotle).
Moreover, some homosexual individuals and couples raise children. These
children are sometimes the offspring of prior (heterosexual) relationships, sometimes
adopted, and sometimes produced by artificial insemination. Because marriage
would promote stability and security for the people raising these children, and
consequently for the children themselves, advocates argue that same-sex marriage
has some important positive consequences for children as well.
Finally, advocates argue that same-sex marriage benefits society at large. This argu-
ment partly flows from the previous two arguments: since same-sex marriage benefits
gay and lesbian people and the children they raise, and since these people are part of
society, it follows that same-sex marriage benefits society. But there is a more general
benefit as well. The positive effects of marriage redound not only to married persons
and their families but also to those around them. To put it simply: happy, stable,
productive couples make happy, stable, productive neighbors. Because of the support
they receive at home, married persons are on average more likely to make positive
contributions to the community and less likely to make demands on the public purse.
So it would seem to enhance the general welfare to promote marriage for all members
of society, including gay and lesbian members. (This argument assumes that for most
gay and lesbian persons, the realistic alternative to a same-sex relationship is not a
heterosexual relationship: the realistic alternative is remaining alone.)
Arguments Against
Like the case in favor of same-sex marriage, the case against includes both
deontological and consequentialist arguments. Some of these arguments are
premised on the claim that homosexual relationships are inherently immoral, but
3
many are not (see homosexuality). It is possible to have moral objections to

same-sex marriage without having moral objections to homosexuality per se.
The central deontological argument against same-sex marriage focuses on the
essential complementarity of male and female. (This argument also may have
consequentialist implications, insofar as that complementarity results in greater
harmony between the partners, a better environment for children, and so on.)
One important version of the complementarity argument is offered by new
natural lawyers such as John Finnis, Robert George, and others (Girgis et al. 2010;
Finnis 1994, 1997; George and Bradley, 1995; Lee 2008; see natural law). Briefly,
the idea is that marriage (understood in a pre-political sense) is a basic good with
two essential components: marital friendship (“fides”) and procreation. The pro-
creative end of marriage is realized in two-in-one flesh unions of the procreative
kind, whose natural fulfillment is found in the creation and rearing of offspring. By
“procreative kind,” the natural lawyers do not mean that procreation is intended, or
even possible, but rather that the union comprises acts of the form “normally suited
for procreation” – that is, uncontracepted penis-in-vagina sex. According to the new
natural lawyers, a central problem with recognizing same-sex marriage is that doing
so would legitimate a kind of counterfeit, damaging both the integrity of the part-
ners and the good of marriage itself. Although this latter argument has consequen-
tialist elements, it is not a hedonistic consequentialism: on this view, the good of
marriage consists not in the subjective satisfaction of the participants (or others) but
in an irreducible union between husband and wife.
Critics question whether the union described by the new natural lawyers is unique
to heterosexual couples, especially given their admission that couples can achieve
this union even where procreation is neither possible nor intended (Macedo 1995a,
1995b; Perry 1995). They also argue that, even if the marital union thus described is
unique to heterosexual couples, same-sex couples realize other goods that warrant
their marriage: romantic commitment, companionship, mutual care, and so on
(Corvino 2005, 2007).
The consequentialist arguments against same-sex marriage focus mainly on the
needs of children, although some also allege that, lacking the complementarity of the
sexes, same-sex marriages are suboptimal for the adults who engage in them (despite
the fact that such adults are generally uninterested in heterosexual relationships).
The “bad for children” argument takes a number of different forms, but the
general idea is as follows. Marriage has historically been connected with childrearing,
and thus an endorsement of same-sex marriage is tantamount to an endorsement of
same-sex parenting. But children need both mothers and fathers (ideally, their own
biological mother and father), because mothers and fathers exhibit distinctive
parenting skills. Therefore, same-sex marriage is bad for children. Some proponents
of the argument claim that same-sex couples who rear children deprive these
children of either a mother or a father. Others argue that, by dramatically severing
the link between marriage and natural (i.e., biological) parenting, same-sex marriage
would send a dangerous message to heterosexuals as well: that marriage is more
about adult needs than children’s welfare (Gallagher 2004).
4
Much of this argument centers on debates about social-science data involving

children’s well-being, the details of which would take us too far afield here. It is worth
noting, however, that the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Child Welfare League
of America, the National Association of Social Workers, and other mainstream
child-welfare organizations have rejected the argument’s central premise. Same-sex
marriage opponents counter that such rejections are more politically than scientifi-
cally motivated.
Critics of the “bad for children” argument claim that the argument makes the “best”
the enemy of the “good” – even if same-sex parenting were less good than opposite-
sex parenting, it doesn’t follow that same-sex parenting is positively bad. They also
argue that the move from “Same-sex parenting is suboptimal” to “Same-sex couples
should not be allowed to marry” involves an unjustified leap, since heterosexuals need
not show that they are optimal parents in order to be permitted to marry.
There are, additionally, arguments about the ways in which same-sex marriage
might affect religious freedom, although these are adduced by both sides of
the debate: opponents claim that legal recognition of same-sex marriage would
require individuals and organizations legally to recognize unions about which they
have serious religious objections, while advocates point out that a small but growing
number of religions recognize same-sex marriage, and that the refusal of the state to
give equal legal recognition to such marriages constitutes a kind of religious bias.
Both sides generally acknowledge that, under the US Constitution, no religion
would or should be forced to perform marriages of which it does not approve.
Another argument against same-sex marriage asserts a slippery slope to polygamy
and, sometimes, to other marital arrangements as well – as former US senator Rick
Santorum put it, “man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be” (Kurtz
2005). The slippery-slope argument can be understood as asserting either a causal
prediction or a logical connection. The causal form states that if we expand marriage
to include gay couples, other groups (such as polygamists) will soon follow;
proponents of this argument often point to the recent emergence of polygamists’
rights groups. The logical form of the argument states that accepting same-sex
marriage leaves one with no principled reason for opposing these other forms of
marriage, whether or not they actually ensue, since the reasons justifying the one
could in principle be used to justify the other (Wolfe 2007).
Critics of the slippery-slope argument respond that whether it would be good to
allow someone to marry one person of the same sex and whether it would be good
to allow someone to marry multiple persons of either sex are distinct questions
requiring distinct data; they sometimes add that, historically, (heterosexual)
marriage has been more often polygamous than monogamous, and that polygamy is
highly correlated with a variety of social ills (Corvino 2005; Donovan 2002).
On the other hand, some proponents of same-sex marriage actually embrace the
alleged connection between same-sex marriage and polygamy, or polyamory
(literally, “multiple love,” whether or not the relationships involve marriage). In a
related vein, some critics of marriage believe that the current debate provides an
opportunity to rethink the institution, particularly some of its patriarchal or
5
restrictive elements (Card 1996; Emens 2004; Ettelbrick 1989). Some of these critics
argue that the state should be no more involved in “legitimizing” particular
relationships than it should be in declaring whether children born in or out of
wedlock are “legitimate.” Defenders of marriage – from both sides of the same-sex
marriage debate – respond that it is possible to eliminate or reduce problems with
the institution of marriage without abandoning the institution altogether; they argue
that, despite its difficulties, marriage continues to be a valuable social institution.
See also: aristotle; consequentialism; deontology; homosexuality;

natural law
REFERENCES
Card, Claudia 1996. “Against Marriage and Motherhood,” Hypatia, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 1–23.
Corvino, John 2005. “Homosexuality and the PIB Argument,” Ethics, vol. 115, pp. 501–34.
Corvino, John 2007. “Homosexuality, Harm, and Moral Principles,” in Laurence Thomas
(ed.), Contemporary Debates in Social Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 79–93.
Donovan, James M. 2002. “Rock-Salting the Slippery Slope: Why Same-Sex Marriage is Not
a Commitment to Polygamous Marriage,” Northern Kentucky Law Review, vol. 29, no. 3,
pp. 521–90.
Emens, Elizabeth F. 2004. “Monogamy’s Law: Compulsory Monogamy and Polyamorous
Existence,” NYU Review of Law and Social Change, vol. 29, pp. 277–376.
Ettelbrick, Paula 1989. “Since When is Marriage a Path to Liberation?” Out/look: National
Lesbian and Gay Quarterly, vol. 6, no. 9, pp. 14–17.
Finnis, John 1994. “Law, Morality, and ‘Sexual Orientation’, ” Notre Dame Law Review, vol. 69,
pp. 1049–76.
Finnis, John 1997. “The Good of Marriage and the Morality of Sexual Relations: Some
Philosophical and Historical Observations,” American Journal of Jurisprudence, vol. 42,
pp. 97–134.
Gallagher, Maggie 2004. “How Will Gay Marriage Weaken Marriage as a Social Institution:
A Reply to Andrew Koppelman,” University of St. Thomas Law Journal, vol. 2, no. 1,
pp. 33–70.
George, Robert P., and Gerard Bradley 1995. “Marriage and the Liberal Imagination,”
Georgetown Law Journal, vol. 84, no. 2, pp. 301–20.
Girgis, Sherif, Robert P. George, and Ryan T. Anderson 2010. “What is Marriage?” Harvard
Journal of Law and Public Policy, vol. 34, no. 1, pp. 245–87.
Kurtz, Stanley 2005. “Rick Santorum Was Right: Meet the Future of Marriage in America,”
National Review Online, March 23. At http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/
1368883/posts, accessed February 8, 2012.
Lee, Patrick 2008. “Marriage, Procreation, and Same-Sex Unions,” The Monist, vol. 91,
nos. 3–4, pp. 422–38.
Macedo, Stephen 1995a. “Homosexuality and the Conservative Mind,” Georgetown Law
Review, vol. 84, pp. 261–300.
Macedo, Stephen 1995b. “Reply to Critics,” Georgetown Law Review, vol. 84, pp. 329–37.
Perry, Michael J. 1995. “The Morality of Homosexual Conduct: A Response to John Finnis,”
Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics, and Public Policy, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 41–74.
6
Rauch, Jonathan 2004. Gay Marriage: Why It is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good
for America. New York: Henry Holt.
Wolfe, Christopher 2007. “Homosexual Acts, Morality, and Public Discourse,” in Laurence
Thomas (ed.), Contemporary Debates in Social Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell,
pp. 94–110.
FURTHER READINGS
Blankenhorn, David 2007. The Future of Marriage. New York: Encounter Books.
Corvino, John, and Maggie Gallagher 2012. Debating Same-Sex Marriage. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Eskridge, William, Jr. 1996. The Case for Same-Sex Marriage. New York: Free Press.
Gallagher, Maggie 2002. “What is Marriage For? The Public Purposes of Marriage Law,”
Louisiana Law Review, vol. 62, pp. 773–91.
Gallagher, Maggie 2006. “If Marriage is Natural, Why Is Defending It So Hard?” Maria Law
Review, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 409–33.
Graff, E. J. 1999. What is Marriage For? The Strange Social History of Our Most Intimate
Institution. Boston: Beacon, pp. 251–2.
Koppelman, Andrew 2002. The Gay Rights Question in Contemporary American Law.
Mohr, Richard D. 2005. The Long Arc of Justice: Lesbian and Gay Marriage, Equality, and
Rights. New York: Columbia University Press.
Nussbaum, Martha (ed.) 1998. Sex, Preference, and Family: Essays on Law and Nature.
Sullivan, Andrew (ed.) 1997. Same-Sex Marriage: Pro and Con: A Reader. New York:
Vintage.
Wardle, Lynn D., Mark Strasser, William C. Duncan, and David Orgon Coolidge (eds.) 2003.
Marriage and Same-Sex Unions: A Debate. Westport, CT: Praeger.
Wolfson, Evan 2004. Why Marriage Matters: America, Equality, and Gay People’s Right to
Marry. New York: Simon & Schuster.
1
Sexual Morality
Igor Primoratz
Ethical discussions of sexual morality focus on two related questions. The first is
about the contents of sexual morality: what is right and wrong, morally good or bad,
in relation to sex? The second concerns the nature and standing of sexual morality:
is there a set of moral considerations that apply only to sex-related behavior, or is
such behavior to be guided by and judged in terms of moral considerations that also
apply elsewhere? Are there distinctively sexual rights and wrongs, virtues and vices?
Our answers to these questions will obviously be determined, wholly or largely, by
our views of the nature of sex and its significance in human life.
Attempts at answering these questions have produced four main views of sexual
morality. On the traditional view, sex is to be understood in terms of its natural purpose
or function, which is procreation, and to be confined to marriage. On the romantic
view, sex is, or ought to be, bound up with (erotic) love. Marxist and feminist thinkers
have argued that in a truly human society, sex would be engaged in only out of mutual
(sexual) attraction – that is, for its own sake, rather than for any ulterior purpose. Those
who take a liberal approach to moral issues tend to reject all three views, and to consider
sex as morally neutral in itself and legitimate when engaged in from a wide range of
motives, as long as it is based on mutual valid consent (and no third party is harmed).
The Traditional View

The conception of sex that came to be dominant in the West with the rise of
Christianity can, for lack of a better word, be termed the traditional view. Even
though it is no longer as widely accepted as it used to be, it is still often taken as the
point of departure in discussions of the morality of sex.
This view focuses on the connection of sex with procreation, and takes this to be
the most important fact for our understanding and moral evaluation and regulation
of sexual behavior. Its sources are, on the one hand, the Old Testament conception
of marriage as the framework for carrying out God’s commandment to “be fruitful
and multiply, and fill the earth” (Gen. 1:28), and on the other hand the mind/body,
spirit/flesh dualism of the Pythagorean and Platonic philosophical traditions. While
the former enjoins sex, the latter present it as suspect or worse. The two approaches
to sex can be combined in more than one way. One can set out with a strongly
negative stance on sex, and then grudgingly allow for it as the sole way of procreating.
This was the position of Augustine, who thought sex inseparable from lust, and
emphasized the irrational and unruly nature of lust. He wrote that “any friend of
wisdom and holy joys who lives a married life … would prefer to beget children
without lust of this kind, if such a thing were possible” (1998: 614).
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee127
2
Alternatively, one can restrict negative evaluation to sexual behavior driven solely
by lust, while accepting as wholesome sex acts that accord with the natural,
God-ordained, purpose of sex, which is procreation, and are sanctioned by the
institution of marriage. This was the position of Thomas Aquinas, which still
provides much of the philosophical foundations of Catholic sexual ethics (Thomas
Aquinas 1975: Bk. III, Pt. II). Sexual intercourse is morally proper when it is in
accord with the natural and God-ordained purpose or function of sexual organs,
which is procreation. Intercourse is consummated by the emission of semen into the
vagina. Emission of semen in a way that in itself offends against the natural teleology
of sex is contrary to human good; when deliberately brought about (e.g., in mastur-
bation or anal intercourse), it is contrary to nature and a sin. However, if procreation
cannot result “by accident” – for instance, because the woman is sterile – sexual
intercourse is neither against nature nor sinful. Furthermore, procreation is not
simply the bringing of offspring into the world; it also includes nurturing it and
bringing it up until it can live on its own. This is a task the mother cannot very well
perform on her own; therefore the father must do his part. The proper framework
for jointly carrying out this task is monogamous marriage.
This approach generates a highly restrictive sexual morality, in particular in its
most conservative, Catholic version. This morality proscribes a wide range of sexual
behavior as immoral, and much of it as immoral because unnatural. First, sex is
confined within the bounds of heterosexual, monogamous, sexually exclusive
marriage. That rules out sex between any possible partners except husband and wife,
as well as masturbation. Second, the types of sex acts allowed within these narrow
confines are also drastically restricted. Only such sex acts between husband and wife
that are intended to lead to procreation (Augustine) or, more permissively, that are
“by nature ordained” toward procreation – that is, those that under natural
circumstances could result in procreation (Thomas) – are morally proper. That
establishes heterosexual, marital, genital, non-contraceptive intercourse as the
norm, and rules out every other variety of sexual activity between spouses: petting
to orgasm, oral sex, and anal sex, as well as contraception.
An obvious objection is that this approach is much too narrow. Surely there is
more to sex and marriage than procreation and bringing up offspring? Since
hedonism is quite alien to Christian ethics, such ethics cannot be expected to value
the pleasure of sex as such (see pleasure); but it can take on board feelings, attitudes,
and relationships of companionship, love, and care. Catholic sexual ethics does so in
the encyclical “Humanae Vitae” (1968) by expressly affirming the “unitive” function
of sex within marriage – its role in expressing and enhancing mutual love and care
of the spouses – alongside its procreative function. Yet this development changes
nothing with regard to actual moral choice; for the encyclical also affirms “the
inseparable connection, willed by God and unable to be broken by man on his own
initiative, between the two meanings of the conjugal act: the unitive meaning and
the procreative meaning.” Accordingly, the unitive function of sex in marriage is not
enough to make a sex act morally wholesome; “each and every marriage act … must
remain open to the transmission of life” (Paul VI 1998: 99).
3
This account of sexual morality is open to a number of objections. When presented

as part and parcel of Christianity, or of Catholicism, those not belonging to the faith will
not find it congenial. If presented on its own, as based on the claim that procreation is
the “natural” purpose, or function, of sex, this claim may not be found compelling.
Premodern philosophy and science conceived of “Nature” as having all manner of pur-
poses, but modern world outlooks no longer do so. And procreation is certainly not the
purpose (intention) of humans with regard to sex. They sometimes have sex with this
purpose, but more often than not do so without any intention to procreate, or they use
means of birth control because they do not want to procreate. Restating the claim in
terms of function rather than purpose of sex acts, or sexual organs, does not help much.
This claim can be construed in different ways: as saying that procreation is (a) proper to
sex, or (b) unique to sex, or (c) definitive of sex; (a) is a moral, (b) an empirical, and (c)
a logical claim. Neither (b) nor (c) is true: sex is not bound up with procreation, whether
empirically or logically. Sexual intercourse often does not result in conception and pro-
creation, and – although Augustine and Thomas could not have anticipated this – pro-
creation is now possible by means of artificial insemination and in vitro fertilization.
Thus neither (b) nor (c) provides support for (a), the moral claim that procreation is the
right and proper result of sex, that sex ought to be geared toward procreation. (This
leaves aside the problems plaguing attempts to ground moral claims on purely factual
statements or conceptual truths; see is–ought gap; naturalistic fallacy.)
Traditional sexual morality need not be presented in terms of the purpose or
function of sex. The new natural law school of Catholic ethics seeks to ground it in
an account of basic human goods (see natural law). Those goods include marriage,
which is a complex good constituted by the distinct but inseparable goods of
friendship (or conjugal love) and procreation. “Marital act” is an act of genital
intercourse between husband and wife expressing and enhancing their marriage as
a unity of these two goods. This is the point of such an act and the source of its moral
value. Nonmarital sex – whether sex between spouses not in line with this definition,
or sex between persons not married to one another – cannot actualize the good of
marriage, nor any other good common to the participants. Such sex lacks moral
value; indeed, it is positively immoral.
The last claim is supported by two arguments. If partners seek to express their
love in sexual intercourse, but the intercourse is not marital in the above sense, their
attempt is illusory and personality-disintegrating. If they have sex for the pleasure of
it, no illusion need be involved, but what they do is still personality-disintegrating.
In the former case, the sex act “has nothing to do with [the partners] having
children by each other, and their reproductive organs cannot make them a biological
(and therefore personal) unit. So their sexual acts together cannot do what they may
hope and imagine” (Finnis 1994: 1066). In the latter case, “the body becomes an
instrument used and the conscious self its user” (Grisez 1993: 650). Since this is
done with the sole aim of experiencing pleasure, “the body, not being part of the
whole for whose sake the act is done, serves only as an extrinsic instrument” (Grisez
1993: 650). This amounts to alienation of the body from one’s conscious self and
disintegration of personality.
4
Both arguments are flawed. The first flies in the face of the experience of many
couples, heterosexual and homosexual, who engage in sex that is not marital in the
required sense but in the context of a loving relationship, while feeling that what they
do embodies their love. Sex need not express love, but certainly can do so. That love
is a good, and a common one, in that it is mutual, shared, and also in that it is a rela-
tionship constitutive of who each one of the lovers is. To object that their sexual union
nevertheless does not embody a common good because it has nothing to do with
their having children by each other is to beg the question. The second argument
is predicated on a dualistic view of personhood that does not reflect the ways in
which a human being relates to, and indeed is, his or her body. It is also predicated
on a disparaging view of pleasure as wholesome and morally acceptable only when
experienced as part of a larger, more complex pursuit, and never when sought for its
own sake.
The large and highly restrictive set of prescriptions and (mostly) proscriptions
that makes up the traditional view of sexual morality, then, is not backed up by
compelling arguments. With regard to specific issues, it is above all those of
contraception and homosexuality that have been vigorously debated, both for their
theoretical interest and for their great practical importance. In requiring that each
and every sex act be “open to the transmission of life,” this view rules out
contraception (see birth control); yet it allows recourse to the “safe days” (or
“rhythm”) method of birth control. The difference is said to be that in contracep-
tion the intention not to procreate is embodied in the act and determines its char-
acter, whereas in “safe days” intercourse that is only a further intention which
merely determines its timing. The same requirement prohibits homosexual sex acts
(see homosexuality); yet it is not thought to apply to sexual intercourse between
spouses who, for reasons of sterility, health, or advanced age, cannot procreate.
Here, the difference is said to be that heterosexual genital intercourse between
spouses is “the behavior which, as behavior, is suitable for generation” even if they
happen to be sterile, whereas homosexual intercourse is not. Critics have queried
the consistency of this, and the replies to these queries have not been compelling
(on contraception, see Anscombe 1981 and Teichman 1979; on homosexuality, see
Finnis 1994 and Macedo 1996).
The Romantic View

Another major view of sexual morality takes sex to be bound up with (erotic) love
(see love). The best philosophical statement of this view is Roger Scruton’s book
Sexual Desire (1986).
Scruton offers a phenomenological description of human sexuality, and uses it as
the foundation of sexual morality. The basic phenomena of human sexuality – sexual
arousal, sexual desire, and erotic love – are distinctively human phenomena. They
“belong to that realm of reciprocal response which is mediated by the concept of the
person, and which is available only to beings who possess and are motivated by that
concept” (Scruton 1986: 14). When sexually aroused by another, one does not
5
respond merely to the other’s body, but to that body as the embodiment of the
particular person the other is. Such arousal cannot be transferred to another person,
who might do just as well. Sexual desire, which grows out of arousal, has the same
“inherently individualizing intentionality”: its object is not just any other person, or
any other person of a certain type, as embodied, but the particular person in his
or her individuality.
In desiring another person, one does not simply seek sexual intercourse completed
in orgasm, as much scientific research of human sexuality seems to assume. Such
research misses the interpersonal character of human sexual experience and its
individualizing focus. Philosophical understanding of human sexuality requires that
we follow “the course of sexual desire” in its main stages. Sexual desire that emerges
from arousal does focus on the other’s body, and indeed on its sexual parts. However,
these are important only on account of their “dramatic role”: “a woman is interested
in her lover’s sexual parts because she wishes to be penetrated by him … The penis
is the avatar of his presence …” (Scruton 1986: 87). Desire aims at “union” with the
other as the particular individual he or she is. This involves mutuality of arousal and
desire. Each of the two embodied persons seeks to impress his or her embodiment
upon the other, to reach and know the other as embodied, and to see oneself as
embodied, aroused, and desiring through the eyes of the other embodied, aroused,
and desiring person.
The further stages of the “course of desire” are intimacy and love. The “project of
intimacy” – of closeness, sympathy, and concern that sets the persons involved apart
from everyone else – lurks in the first glances of desire, and naturally (but not
inevitably) evolves from it. Finally, desire naturally (but not inevitably) finds its
fulfilment in “a sense of commitment founded on the mutuality of desire” – that is,
in erotic love.
The sexual morality built on these foundations starts from the capacity for erotic
love, understood as the sexual virtue. This leads to judgments about other sexual
virtues such as chastity, modesty, and fidelity, sexual practices such as marriage or
prostitution, and sexual vices, which are habits that jeopardize the capacity for
erotic love. In this way Scruton carries out his project of grounding most of the
traditional sexual morality. He does not underwrite the traditional rejection of
non-procreative sex in general, and contraception in particular. But he does
expressly endorse the prohibitions of standard sexual perversions such as pedophilia,
necrophilia, or zoophilia, as well as of masturbation, casual sex, prostitution, and
pornography. He presents them as so many forms and degrees of depersonalization:
of “a diverting of the sexual impulse from its interpersonal goal,” “the complete or
partial failure to recognise, in and through desire, the personal existence of the
other” (1986: 343, 289).
Scruton’s phenomenology is true to much of human sexual experience; but it is
not true of all of it. He has been criticized for overstating the case for “individualizing
intentionality” of sexual arousal and desire, and making his account out of touch
with a wide range of admittedly less fulfilling, yet real and all too human varieties
of sexual behavior: sex that is not bound up with love but rather engaged in for the
6
pleasure of it, or for mercenary or other ulterior purposes (Stafford 1988: 89, 92).
Indeed, it could be argued that W. J. Earle’s critique of “the myth of personal sex”
applies to Scruton’s phenomenology of human sexuality. Earle contends that
human sexual desire is not initially and naturally personal, and subsequently cor-
rupted by depersonalization. Rather, in humans, like in animals, it is initially “part
orientated and/or act orientated,” but is often idealized in accounts such as
Scruton’s (Earle 1987).
The central objection to Scruton’s use of depersonalization as the touchstone of
immoral sex is that it trades on an equivocation. In one sense, to characterize
human sexual experience as interpersonal is to say that humans are persons, and
that this applies to sex, too. Humans typically seek sexual involvement with other
humans, rather than, say, inflatable sex dolls. And in sex, as elsewhere, we are
bound by the moral principle of respect for persons, enjoining us to recognize and
respect the fact that humans are persons, and not treat them as less than persons.
In another sense, the claim about the interpersonal character of human sexual
experience is the claim that human sexual arousal or desire does, or should, focus
on the other human being as the unique, irreplaceable individual he or she is, so
that sexual involvement with another human being that is not “interpersonal” in
this sense is tantamount to depersonalization of the other and therefore degrading
and immoral. Scruton puts forward the latter, strong and controversial, claim and
not merely the former, unobjectionable, claim. We must relate to the other’s body
as the embodiment of the unique, irreplaceable person he or she is, in a way that
naturally evolves into intimacy and love, or else “depersonalize” the other, reduce
the other to the “fleshy reality” of his or her body, and virtually relate to him or her
as a sex doll.
However, Scruton can confront us with this choice only by slipping from the
claim that in sex a human being relates, or should relate, to the other human being
as a person, to the claim that he or she relates, or should relate, to the other human
being as the particular, unique person the other is. In sex, as elsewhere, we ought
to treat the other as a person: to take into account the other’s feelings, wishes,
interests, and deal with the other on the basis of the other’s consent, rather than by
deception or coercion. But we can do that while cooperating with the other with a
view to nothing but a pleasurable sexual encounter, relating to the other as but a
sexually attractive partner, without so much as a hint of the higher stages of the
“course of desire” – that is, while relating to the other in an admittedly partial and
instrumental way. As long as we do so with the other’s valid consent, we are relat-
ing to the other as a person and complying with the principle of respect for per-
sons, although we are not engaging the other as the total, unique person he or she
is. To be sure, it is nicer to be related to in the latter way. Nevertheless, if one gives
valid consent to be engaged by another in the former way, falling short of “indi-
vidualizing intentionality,” that removes the ground for the charge of degradation
or depersonalization.
7
The Marxist-Feminist View
Marxist and radical feminist thinkers have advanced a view of sexual morality whose
central tenet is that sex is something we should engage in for its own sake, out of
mutual (sexual) attraction, rather than for any ulterior purpose.
Both Marxism and feminism adopt a thoroughly historical approach to moral,
social, and political issues, and focus on modern capitalist society. In the Marxist
account of this society’s ills, a central role is played by “prostitution.” In its primary,
narrow sense, the word means provision of sexual services for payment; in a secondary,
wider sense, it means use of one’s capacity or talent in an unworthy way. According to
Marx, the capacity to work and produce, and the need to do so, is distinctive of humans.
It is in working and producing that a human being expresses both his or her generic
humanity and his or her personality. In a society that makes it possible for human
nature to flourish, humans would work and produce in order to express themselves in
their work and its product. However, so far human societies have been organized in
ways that do not make for the flourishing of human nature. They have been marked by
deep class division and inequality. Those owning the means of production have
exploited and oppressed those who have nothing but their work to sell and no way of
supporting themselves and their families except by selling it for a wage. Thus work and
production, a distinctively human capacity that should be engaged in for its own sake,
is turned into an activity performed for an ulterior purpose, and thereby prostituted in
the wider sense of the word: “prostitution is only a particular expression of the universal
prostitution of the worker” (Marx 1975: 350; see marx, karl).
Class inequality and oppression are compounded by inequality of men and
women and oppression of women by men. This affects women’s sexuality: rather
than having sex out of (sexual) attraction to the partner, women in capitalist society
are forced to trade sex for money, or for long-term material support and social
status. In the former case, women engage in prostitution proper; that is often the fate
of working-class women. In the latter case, women enter into marriages of
convenience, an option for women belonging to the propertied class. This type of
marriage has nothing to do with personal attraction and, in the words of Friedrich
Engels, “turns often enough into the crassest prostitution – sometimes of both
partners, but far more commonly of the woman, who only differs from the ordinary
courtesan in that she does not let out her body on piecework as the wage worker, but
sells it once and for all into [marital] slavery” (1985: 102).
In a truly human society, which is possible only after capitalism has been replaced
by a classless economic and social system, sex will no longer be a service women
render to men, but rather a matter of mutual (sexual) attraction of free and equal
individuals. Its denizens will be “men who never in their lives have known what it is
to buy a woman’s surrender with money or any other social instrument of power”
and “women who have never known what it is to give themselves to a man from any
other consideration than real [erotic] love” (Engels 1985: 114).
8
Many feminist thinkers take on board much of Marxist critique of capitalist

society, but place greater emphasis on gender inequality and oppression (see
feminist ethics) which, they argue, affect the character and moral significance of
all sex in this society. For radical feminists, what passes for “normal sex” is in an
important sense of a piece with pornography, prostitution, sexual harassment, and
even rape. Sexuality is “a social construct of male power: defined by men, forced on
women, and constitutive of the meaning of gender” (MacKinnon 1989: 113). Much
too often, perhaps even typically, women have sex with men although they do not
want it: forced by violence or explicit or implicit coercion, for economic or social
reasons, under psychological pressures, or even out of love, always in circumstances
of grossly unequal odds. In such a society, as far as women are concerned, consent
cannot be the touchstone of “normal,” morally legitimate sex, as liberals would have
it. It should be dropped as the criterion of legitimate sex, and even as part of the
definition of rape, and replaced by “absence of compulsion.” “Compulsion” is not
clearly defined, but its use by radical feminist authors indicates an extremely broad
scope: whenever a woman has sex with a man she does not want for its sake, but
engages in it for any extrinsic reason whatever, she acts under compulsion, and
therefore what she and her partner do is seriously morally flawed (see, e.g.,
Muehlenhard and Schrag 1991).
Stretching the notion of compulsion to this extent, however, does not make for
discerning moral judgment. Violence, actual or threatened, and various economic,
social, or psychological pressures, or even inducements, may all lead to sex not
wanted for its own sake. But surely not every threat made or pressure exerted or
inducement offered, in an attempt to get the other to do what one wants, can be
portrayed as compulsion, wrongful restriction of the other’s freedom, and a serious
moral wrong (see coercion). In matters sexual, like in other matters, the threat or
pressure must be grave enough if it is to count as such, and inducements normally
do not count at all. There may not be a single standard of gravity applicable across
the board; rather, there may be one standard for morality and another for law (or
even one standard for criminal and another for civil law). Still, every type of
normative judgment requires some standard in order to distinguish those ways and
degrees of influencing a person’s choice that seriously undermine its voluntariness
from those that do not.
This is not to deny that gender inequality often makes it more difficult for a
woman to make her sexual choices than it is for a man. Even so, not every choice
made against the background of such inequality to engage in sex for some extrinsic
reason, with some ulterior purpose, rather than out of (sexual) attraction and desire,
is a compelled, unfree, and therefore seriously flawed choice. If this implication of
Marxist and radical feminist sexual ethics were to be accepted, we would have to say
that every extrinsic consideration that gets us to do something is tantamount to
compulsion to doing it, and that we are free only in those actions we do for their own
sake – that is, that we are all compelled in most of what we do, unfree most of the
time.
9
The Liberal View
The three views of sexual morality discussed so far differ in important respects, but
have one thing in common: all three consider sex as morally special. All three endow
sex with a distinctive moral significance, and generate claims about specifically
sexual rights and wrong, virtues and vices. The traditional view ties sex to procreation
and thereby also to marriage, and enjoins sex acts and habits that are in tune with
procreation as the moral purpose, or function, of sex, or a basic value to which every
sex act must be open. The romantic view portrays sex as part and parcel of (erotic)
love with its “individualizing intentionality,” and endorses a set of sexual prescriptions
and proscriptions that largely overlaps with those laid down by the traditional view.
In the Marxist-feminist view, the human need for sex is claimed to be so basic and
so central to our nature, that we degrade our own humanity when we engage in it for
any ulterior purpose whatsoever. It is something that humans should be able to
negotiate in conditions of full equality and radical freedom, and engage in only for
its own sake, out of genuine personal attraction to one another.
Unlike these views, the liberal position on sex is that it has no special moral
significance. This is not to say that sexual behavior is beyond morality. In sex, too,
we are liable to deceive, exploit, hurt, and harm one another, and these are things
that, morally speaking, we ought not to do. But although sexual behavior is in need
of moral regulation, this regulation need not be a set of moral rights and wrongs that
distinctively and exclusively pertain to sex. General moral rules and principles,
rights and duties, which apply in other matters, provide sufficient moral guidance to
our choices and judgments to do with sex. Sex is not morally special.
The central idea in liberal sexual morality is that of consent: a sex act to which par-
ticipants have consented is prima facie morally legitimate. In order to be legitimate,
such an act need not be geared toward any particular purpose, nor open toward any
particular basic good. It need not be performed in the context of a relationship of inti-
macy, care, and love. It need not be done for its own sake, rather than for any extrinsic
reason. Of course, it is not enough that partners to a sex act should say “I consent”; their
consent must be valid. It must be voluntary – that is, informed and free – rather than
misguided or coerced (see consent; sexual consent). Voluntariness in both its
dimensions is a matter of degree, and just what standards are appropriate in sex in gen-
eral, or with regard to specific types of sex acts, is a highly contentious question. (For a
statement of the liberal view, see Primoratz 1999, 2000; for a critique, see Morgan 2003.)
This view of sexual morality may be grounded in the “plain sex” view: the view
that sex is, basically, but a source of a certain kind of pleasure. Adherents of this view
reject attempts to bind sex, conceptually and morally, to some extraneous purpose,
function, or value. They argue that sexual desire should be understood simply as
desire for contact with another person’s body and for the pleasure such contact pro-
duces, and sexual activity as activity that tends to fulfil such desire. Thus under-
stood, sex has no special moral import; it is, in itself, morally neutral. Sex acts,
tendencies, and lifestyles can be evaluated as good or bad as sex – that is, as more or
10
less pleasurable, sexually fulfilling or frustrating, and also as morally right or wrong,
good or bad. The two types of evaluation do not map on one another although, of
course, assessments of the former type will normally be relevant to assessments of
the latter type in various ways. Assessments of the latter, moral type are made in
terms of general moral considerations that also apply elsewhere, rather than
considerations that constitute a distinctive sexual morality (Goldman 1977).
Alternatively, the liberal position on sexual morality may be adopted as enjoined
by the liberal commitment to liberty and autonomy, and perhaps also to the value of
free choice (see liberty; liberalism).
Adherents of the liberal view of sexual morality reject the other three views as
presented – that is, as laying down the moral norm of sexual behavior, determining
what is right and wrong in sex, and grounding moral condemnation of sex acts and
agents that do not comply with the norm. But they can take all three views on board,
when interpreted as ideals relating to sex. Then each can be seen as an attractive
option concerning sex: sex as an important constituent of marital companionship
and blessed with offspring, or as the embodiment of a certain kind of love, or as a
basic human need enjoyed for its own sake by persons attracted to one another,
rather than endured for an ulterior purpose. Each can be acknowledged as a
conception of the human good, of human flourishing, insofar as it relates to sex: a
portrayal of sex at its richest, most fulfilling, most human, most valuable. To be sure,
when adopted as ideals, these portrayals of sex no longer ground moral condemnation.
For while moral norms apply to us all, compliance with them is expected of everyone
as a matter of course, and non-compliance is censured, ideals are a matter of personal
choice, and failure to live up to an ideal may be regretted, but is not an occasion for
moral condemnation. A person whose act, personality trait, or lifestyle falls short of
an ideal is failing to achieve something valuable, but is not guilty of moral
wrong-doing. (For a general account of social morality with its “community of rule”
and ethical ideals in their diversity, see Strawson 1961.)
The liberal understanding of sexual morality, too, is open to objections. Whereas
other views portray sex as morally special (albeit for different reasons), the liberal
view denies sex any distinctive moral import. This may be considered a flaw
(see Benn 1999). As a result, the liberal view proves oblivious to the distinctively
sexual character of certain wrongs. For it does not condemn adultery as extramarital
sex, but only insofar as it involves breach of promise, deception, or cheating. It does
not condemn prostitution as mercenary sex, but only insofar as it involves coercion
or exploitation. Rape is not understood as sexual battery, but as sexual battery.
Another worry concerns the central tenet of this view of sexual morality: valid
consent is enough for a sexual interaction to be prima facie morally legitimate. On
one interpretation, the legal maxim volenti non fit iniuria is taken to mean “to one
who consents no harm is done.” Accordingly, consensual sex should be harmless.
However, Robin West has argued that, in modern capitalist society, consensual but
unwanted sex can cause serious harm to women: it can undermine their capacities
for self-assertion, their sense of self-possession, their sense of autonomy, and their
sense of integrity. These harms seem to be beyond the liberal’s ken (West 1995).
11
Specific Issues
This essay deals only with the fundamental questions of sexual morality: What is
the moral import of human sexuality? What moral criteria should determine what
sex acts are right or wrong, what personality traits and lifestyles to do with sex are
good or bad? Is there a distinctively sexual morality, or is sex to be judged in terms
of moral considerations that also apply elsewhere? Beyond these basics, sexual
morality takes a stand on a string of specific issues, such as homosexuality,
pedophilia, incest, adultery, prostitution, pornography, sexual harassment, and
rape. (This encyclopedia has a separate entry on each topic.) The major positions
on sexual morality, discussed above, will often lead to different conclusions regard-
ing such issues. For instance, the procreation and marriage view finds prostitution
immoral, because it involves sex outside marriage and deliberately disconnected
from procreation. The romantic view condemns it as impersonal and depersonal-
izing. The Marxist-feminist view sees it as a particularly tawdry variety of sex
engaged in for an ulterior purpose rather than for its own sake. In contrast with
these views which all condemn prostitution, albeit for different reasons, the liberal
view finds nothing morally wrong in mercenary sex as such, and in this respect
considers prostitution, when engaged in on the basis of valid consent, on a par
with other services (see prostitution). On the other hand, the major views of
sexual morality may converge in their stance on some issues. Thus all four views
tell us that rape is wrong, and gravely so. But their accounts of the wrongness of
rape and their understanding of the scope of the concept are nonetheless different
(see rape).
See also: adultery; birth control; chastity; coercion; consent; feminist

ethics; homosexuality; incest; is–ought gap; liberalism; liberty; love;
marriage; marx, karl; natural law; naturalistic fallacy; pedophilia;
pleasure; pornography and obscenity; prostitution; rape; same-sex
marriage; sexual consent; sexual harassment; sexuality in religions
REFERENCES
Anscombe, G. E. M. 1981. “You Can Have Sex without Children: Christianity and the New
Offer,” in The Collected Philosophical Papers of G. E. M. Anscombe, vol. 3: Ethics, Religion
and Politics. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 82–96.
Aquinas, St. Thomas 1975. Summa Contra Gentiles, trans. V. J. Bourke. Notre Dame: Notre
Dame University Press.
Augustine 1998. The City of God against the Pagans, ed. and trans. R. W. Dyson. Cambridge:
Benn, Piers 1999. “Is Sex Morally Special?” Journal of Applied Philosophy, vol. 16, pp. 235–45.
Earle, W. J. 1987. “Depersonalized Sex and Moral Perfection,” International Journal of Moral
and Social Studies, vol. 2, pp. 201–10.
Engels, Friedrich 1985. The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, trans. Alick
West. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin.
12
Finnis, John 1994. “Law, Morality, and ‘Sexual Orientation,’ ” Notre Dame Law Review,
vol. 69, pp. 1049–76.
Goldman, Alan H. 1977. “Plain Sex,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 6, pp. 267–87.
Grisez, Germain 1993. Living a Christian Life. Quincy, IL: The Franciscan Press.
Macedo, Stephen 1996. “Against the Old Sexual Morality of the New Natural Law,” in Robert
P. George (ed.), Natural Law, Liberalism, and Morality. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
pp. 27–48.
MacKinnon, Catharine A. 1989. Toward a Feminist Theory of the State. Cambridge, MA:
Marx, Karl 1975. Early Writings, trans. Rodney Livingstone and Gregory Benton.
Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin.
Morgan, Seiriol 2003. “Dark Desires,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, vol. 6, pp. 377–410.
Muehlenhard, Charlene L., and Jennifer L. Schrag 1991. “Nonviolent Sexual Coercion,” in
Andrea Parrot and Laurie Bechhofer (eds.), Acquaintance Rape: The Hidden Crime.
New York: John Wiley & Sons, pp. 115–28.
Paul VI 1998. “Humanae Vitae,” in Robert B. Baker, Kathleen J. Wininger, and Frederick A.
Elliston (eds.), Philosophy and Sex, 3rd ed. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, pp. 96–105.
Primoratz, Igor 1999. Ethics and Sex. London and New York: Routledge.
Primoratz, Igor 2000. “Sexual Morality: Is Consent Enough?” Ethical Theory and Moral
Scruton, Roger 1986. Sexual Desire: A Philosophical Investigation. London: Weidenfeld &
Nicolson.
Stafford, J. Martin 1988. “Love and Lust Revisited: Intentionality, Homosexuality and Moral
Education,” Journal of Applied Philosophy, vol. 5, pp. 87–100.
Strawson P. F. 1961. “Social Morality and Individual Ideal,” Philosophy, vol. 36, pp. 1–17.
Teichman, Jenny 1979. “Intention and Sex,” in Cora Diamond and Jenny Teichman (eds),
Intention and Intentionality: Essays in Honour of G. E. M. Anscombe. Brighton, UK:
Harvester Press, pp. 147–61.
West, Robin 1995. “The Harms of Consensual Sex,” American Philosophical Association
Newsletters, vol. 94, no. 2, pp. 52–5.
FURTHER READINGS
Halwani, Raja 2003. Virtuous Liaisons: Care, Love, Sex, and Virtue Ethics. Chicago: Open Court.
Kolnai, Aurel 2005. Sexual Ethics: The Meaning and Foundations of Sexual Morality, trans.
and ed. Francis Dunlop. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate.
LeMoncheck, Linda 1997. Loose Women, Lecherous Men: A Feminist Philosophy of Sex.
Moore, Gareth 2000. “Natural Sex: Germain Grisez, Sex, and Natural Law,” in Nigel Biggar
and Rufus Black (eds.), The Revival of Natural Law. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, pp. 223–41.
Nussbaum, Martha C. 1995. “Objectification,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 24, pp. 249–91.
Primoratz, Igor (ed.) 1997. Human Sexuality. The International Research Library of
Philosophy, vol. 19. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate.
Shrage, Laurie 1994. Moral Dilemmas of Feminism: Prostitution, Adultery, and Abortion.
Soble, Alan (ed.) 2006. Sex from Plato to Paglia: A Philosophical Encyclopedia, 2 vols. Westport,
CT: Greenwood Press.
13
Soble, Alan, and Nicholas Power (eds.) 2007. Philosophy of Sex: Contemporary Readings,
5th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Tuana, Nancy, and Laurie Shrage 2003. “Sexuality,” in Hugh LaFollette (ed.), The Oxford
Handbook of Practical Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 15–41.
Verene, D. P. (ed.) 1995. Sexual Love and Western Morality: A Philosophical Anthology,
2nd ed. Boston: Jones & Bartlett.
1
Confucian Ethics
Kwong-loi Shun
“Confucianism” is generally used as a translation of the Chinese expression rujia,

or the school of ru, to refer to a school of thought that started with Confucius
(sixth–fifth century bce) (see confucius) and that continues to be influential in
China, as well as in East and Southeast Asia. The character ru referred to a social
group that had existed well before Confucius’ time, a group that was well versed in
ancient rituals and that earned its living as professional ritualists and educators.
Confucius was a member of the group, but his influence was due largely to ideas he
developed in response to the social and political problems of his time.
China, though officially under the rule of the royal family of the Zhou, had been
divided into different states that defied the Zhou rule and waged wars against each
other. Influential families also strived for dominance within individual states, and
the resulting social disorder brought immense misery to the people. Confucius had
the vision of an orderly and prosperous society at the beginning of the Zhou dynasty,
and believed that the present disorder was due to the disintegration of the tradi-
tional norms and values that had earlier bound people together. The remedy to the
disorder involved restoring these norms and values, which included norms governing
human interaction within the family and the state and in other recurring social
contexts, as well as values such as respect for elders and love for parents, or being
trustworthy and being conscientious toward one’s duties. While often viewed as a
conservative because of this aspect of his teachings, Confucius also advocated
reflecting on the spirit behind these norms and values, and was to some extent
open to minor deviations from traditional norms in response to the changing
circumstances of life.
Despite his attempts to influence rulers of states, Confucius did not have much
success in bringing about the desired social and political reforms, but he had
many students who continued to spread and develop his teachings. The Analects,
containing a record of his sayings and conversations with his students, as well as his
students’ own sayings, was compiled over time by disciples and disciples of disciples.
A few generations later, Mencius (see mencius) and Xunzi (see xunzi) further
developed his ideas, though differing in their emphases and in their understanding
of the basic human constitution. Along with Confucius, they are generally regarded
as the three major classical Confucian thinkers. Confucian thought continued to
evolve along with other schools of thought, especially Daoist (see daoist ethics)
and Buddhist (see buddhist ethics) thought, and these three schools of thought
exerted mutual influence on each other.
Within the Confucian school, Mencius’ and Xunzi’s teachings competed for
influence, but largely due to the efforts of Zhu Xi in the twelfth century ce (see zhu
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee128
2
xi), Mencius eventually came to be regarded as the true transmitter of Confucius’

teachings. Zhu Xi compiled the Four Books, which include the Analects of Confucius,
the Mencius, and two short essays, Centrality and Commonality and Great Learning,
the last two being originally two chapters in the Book of Rites, probably datable to
around the second century bce. These texts came to be viewed as the canon of
the Confucian school, and Zhu Xi’s own teachings also became influential. A few
centuries later, another Confucian thinker, Wang Yangming (see wang yangming),
developed ideas that are critical of Zhu Xi’s teachings. These two versions of later
Confucian thought became influential not just in China, but also in other East and
Southeast Asian countries such as Japan and Korea.
While the different versions of Confucian thought that have evolved over time dif-
fer in significant ways, including different views of the basic human constitution and
different emphases in their understanding of moral cultivation, there are also impor-
tant commonalities that warrant our referring to them as variants of one school of
thought. The discussion below will focus on some of these common ideas, and will
seek to bring out some of the more distinctive characteristics of Confucian ethical
thought.
As mentioned earlier, Confucian thinkers uphold certain social norms and values
that pertain to ongoing social arrangements, such as the family and the state, and
to various recurring social contexts, such as the relation between host and guest
or people’s conduct on ceremonial occasions. The character li refers to the rules of
conduct involved. Though often translated as “rites” or “rituals” because of its earlier
use to refer to sacrificial rites, its scope had broadened by Confucius’ time to include
such rules as how a host should receive a guest or how to conduct a funeral, as well
as obligations that, for example, a son has toward his parents. Early Confucian thinkers
already allowed room for minor deviations from li as long as the spirit behind it
is preserved, and later Confucians thought that ancient li, with its detailed com-
plexities, was no longer fully applicable to their times, and advocated a simpler form
of li that is more practicable.
There is no close Western equivalent to the notion li, and it might seem puzzling
how the diverse range of rules just mentioned can be subsumed under a single term.
Probably, what ties them together is a certain attitude that Confucians believe
should accompany the observance of li, one that is described in the Liji (Book of
Rites) as “lowering oneself and elevating others” (Liji 1.3a). This attitude involves
one’s treating others respectfully, independently of their social positions, as if one
were treating someone in a higher social position. One should focus attention on
them, treat them with caution and seriousness, and should not allow oneself to be
unnecessarily distracted. The Confucian advocacy of such an attitude probably
has to do with a view of humans as beings who have a sense of dignity and sensitivity
to the way they are treated. Li provides a set of rules that codifies our treatment of
others in a way that acknowledges this sense of dignity; it conduces to harmony in
human relations and beautifies human interaction. Upbringing in li cultivates a
proper regard for others, and steers us away from the tempting tendency to over-
emphasize our own importance when interacting with them.
3
Another important ethical attribute for the Confucians is ren. Ren can be used
in a broader sense to refer to an all-encompassing ethical ideal that includes the
observance of li as well as other attributes, and in a more specific sense to refer to an
appropriate affective concern for others. When used in the latter sense, it is often
translated as “benevolence.” While such concern should extend to all humans, there
should be a gradation depending on the different social relations one has to others –
e.g., one’s concern for and obligations toward one’s parents should go beyond that
toward a next-door neighbor. For early Confucian thinkers, such concern might
also extend to other animals, taking such forms as being sparing in one’s use of
animals. For later Confucians, it basically extends to all things, as reflected in the
explication of ren in terms of two ideas: a ceaseless life-giving force that runs through
all things, and one’s forming one body with things.
Both ideas have early roots. Early texts present tian, a term translated usually as
“Heaven” and sometimes as “Nature,” as the source of all things. Some of these texts,
such as the Yijing (Book of Change), describe Heaven in terms of a ceaseless life-giving
force – it continuously gives birth to and nourishes everything (Yijing 7.4a). Later
Confucian thinkers take up this idea, and believe that humans should be like Heaven
in this regard, caring for and nourishing other people and things, including animals
and plants. It is as if everything forms part of one’s own body; the life-giving force in
one reaches everything just as it reaches every part of one’s own body. The idea of
forming one body is also found in early texts, some of which present both Heaven
and the ideal ruler as forming one body with all things; in addition, the ideal ruler is
presented as relating to his people in the way that parents relate to their newborn
infants. This idea reflects the view that the ruler should be caring toward his people
in the way that he would be toward his own children or toward parts of his own body.
Later Confucians take up this idea and believe that the ren person treats all people
and things as part of his body in that he would be sensitive to their well-being. To be
insensitive to the misery of others would be like being insensitive to the pain in parts
of one’s own body, which in Chinese medical texts is also described as a lack of ren.
Thus, ren emphasizes one’s being sensitive and attentive to the well-being of
others in appropriate ways. Unlike the notion li which focuses on a view of humans
as having a sense of dignity and as being sensitive to the manner in which they are
treated, ren’s focus is more on a view of humans and things as having material needs
and tangible interests that can be promoted or harmed. Like the emphasis on li, the
emphasis on ren also steers people away from a certain kind of self-centeredness.
It moves us away from the tempting tendency to put undue weight on the well-being
or interests of ourselves or those close to us, so that we may put appropriate weight
on the well-being and interests of others.
Another ethical attribute highlighted by the Confucians is yi. The character yi,
often translated as “dutifulness” or “righteousness,” has the earlier meaning of
self-regard, a refusal to be subject to disgraceful treatment. While what is disgraceful
was often viewed in early China in terms of insulting treatment of oneself as
measured against certain generally shared public standards, early Confucians
advocated a transformation in our understanding of disgrace. What is truly
4
disgraceful, on their view, is not a matter of how we are treated by others, but a mat-
ter of our own behavior, whether it falls short of certain ethical standards to which
we should be committed. How we are treated, while it does matter, pales in signifi-
cance by comparison, and as long as one is aware that one actually conforms to
such ethical standards, one can take consolation and contentment in this even in
the most adverse circumstances. This is true not just of the way we are viewed
and treated by others, but also of other adverse conditions of life over which we have
limited control, such as poverty and sickness, or death of loved ones.
This kind of attitude is conveyed in a number of ways. The firm commitment to
the ethical is conveyed through what the Confucians regard as the highest form of
courage – it involves being without fear or doubt in confronting challenging circum-
stances, based on the realization that one is in the right (Mencius 2A:2). The attitude
toward unfavorable circumstances of life is conveyed by the term ming, usually
translated as “fate,” “destiny,” or “decree.” The Confucians use the term to convey a
certain attitude of willing acceptance, directed not toward external occurrences in
general but toward specific adverse circumstances that one encounters in life. One
does not complain or blame others for what has transpired, and does not seek to
alter things through improper means. Though one might still be emotionally
affected, one does not invest one’s emotional energies dwelling on the situation, and
instead redirects them to other endeavors. At the same time, one takes contentment
in the fact that one is abiding by the ethical. Here, “contentment” is a translation of
the term le, which is often translated as “joy.” “Contentment” is probably a more
accurate translation, as the state involved is not one of excitement or arousal, but one
of flowing along at ease with things. In this case, it is the sense of ease as one flows
along with the ethical way of life, or dao, a term often translated as “the Way.”
Together, these different ways of describing the Confucian perspective on life give a
sense in which the perspective involves a certain equanimity, where “equanimity” is
understood as a state of mind in which, while one is engaged in and emotionally
responding to one’s surroundings at one level, one is at the same time emotionally
unperturbed at another level. Such equanimity, for the Confucians, has its anchor in
the commitment to the Way.
From the above discussion of the Confucian understanding of ren, li, and yi, we
can see that what the Confucians advocate is not just the maintenance of certain
social norms and values, but a total transformation of the individual to embody the
kinds of attribute just described. Such transformation is accomplished both through
proper upbringing and environmental influences, and through the self-reflective
efforts of the individual. The emphasis on self-cultivation, that is, the process of self-
reflection and self-transformation that one undertakes in adulthood, is probably
one of the most distinctive features of Confucian ethical thought. What guides this
process is xin, a character usually translated as “heart,” “mind,” or “heart/mind”; xin
refers to the organ of the heart, which is viewed as the site of what we would now
refer to as cognitive and affective activities.
Confucian thinkers have different emphases when elaborating on the process,
often based on differences in their views of the basic human constitution, and these
5
differences led to different branches of Confucian thought. For example, Mencius

believes that the human constitution prior to social influences contains certain shared
incipient ethical inclinations that, if properly nurtured, will be realized in the
Confucian ideal as characterized by ren, yi, and li (Mencius 2A:6). By contrast, Xunzi
emphasizes that the basic human constitution contains self-regarding desires that can
lead to disorder if unregulated, and regards the traditional social arrangements that
comprise li as a means of promoting order and increasing resources, thereby enhanc-
ing satisfaction of such desires. Zhu Xi and Wang Yangming, both influenced by
Mencius but developing their ideas in ways going beyond Mencius, regard humans as
in some sense already fully ethical though vulnerable to corrupting influences. The
two, in turn, disagree in their understanding of what it is to be fully ethical, holding
different views on how knowledge and action are related in ethical conduct. Without
getting into the fine details of these disagreements, we can identify several aspects of
the self-cultivation process that are given different emphases by these thinkers.
One aspect of the process already highlighted by Confucius is learning, where
“learning” is a translation of a Chinese term that has the connotation not just of
learning in the contemporary sense, but also of embodying in one’s daily life the
moral lessons that one has drawn from what one has studied (e.g., Analects 2.15,
19.6). For the early Confucians, the objects of learning include all aspects of the
cultural heritage, including not just the rules of li, but also such items as poetry,
history, music, and archery. Because of his view that the basic human constitution
contains self-regarding desires that can lead to disorder if unregulated, Xunzi in
particular emphasizes learning as a way to reshape and transform such desires. In
later Confucian thought, because the idea of a set of canonical texts has become
well established, the study of classics is particularly highlighted, though there are
differences regarding the way to approach such study and the extent to which it is
emphasized. Zhu Xi emphasizes the study of classics as a way to get at the true mean-
ing of the teachings of ancient sages, and also advocates the study of history and of
contemporary affairs so as to draw moral lessons from them. The goal is not a kind
of detached understanding, but the practice and personal experience of what one
has learnt so as to deepen one’s moral insight. Such insight is often viewed in
perceptual terms – the heart/mind can have clearer or less clear insight into ethical
standards just as the eyes and ears can perceive sensory objects more or less clearly.
Another aspect of the process, again highlighted by Confucius himself, is to
engage in a kind of inner management of oneself, constantly reflecting on and exam-
ining oneself to preempt or correct one’s own flaws. The heart/mind has oversight of
the operations of other parts of the person, including regulating and guiding one’s
desires, and it can also reflect on and reshape its own operations. It can reshape not
just its own thoughts and inclinations, but also the minute and subtle movements of
the heart/mind as soon as they emerge, so that any ethical flaw can be detected and
corrected the moment it takes shape. Later Confucians in addition highlighted a
mental posture of caution and concentration, as a way to preempt any problematic
activity of the heart/mind when one starts responding to situations one encounters.
The underlying thought is that ethical flaws have their source deep within the
6
human psychology, well before manifesting themselves in actual human activities or

in decisions and intentions that one forms, and one important ethical task is to
preempt such problems or to correct them as soon as they arise.
We noted earlier that the attributes ren and li focus on how one relates to others,
and help to steer one away from certain kinds of self-centeredness, namely, the
tendency to put undue weight on one’s own well-being and interests and on one’s
own importance. The attribute yi, by contrast, focuses on how one relates to certain
ethical standards, and involves a total subordination of oneself to such standards.
Still, yi also involves a move away from another kind of self-centeredness, one that
involves putting undue weight on the external conditions of life that affect oneself,
thereby detracting from one’s conformity to these standards. Later Confucians
stressed the point that different forms of ethical failure ultimately have their sources
in self-centeredness of some kind, and used the term si, often translated as “selfish,”
to refer to such self-centeredness. Every human is in some sense already ethical,
though when humans come into contact with the external world, self-centered
thoughts and inclinations of the heart/mind may arise and detract from this ethical
orientation. The fundamental ethical task, then, is to eliminate such self-centeredness.
Zhu Xi describes the different aspects of self-cultivation in such terms, regarding
both learning and the inner management of oneself as serving such a purpose. Wang
Yangming, who by comparison puts even greater emphasis on this kind of inner
management, highlights the idea of directly eliminating the self-centeredness that
one detects in oneself.
What have just been described are merely some examples of the different
aspects of self-cultivation considered by Confucian thinkers, but they suffice to
illustrate how this kind of self-reflective moral exercise that one undertakes in
adulthood has a central place in both early and later Confucian thought. One
should engage in this kind of exercise to ensure that one’s heart/mind is fully ori-
ented in an ethical direction. This complete ethical orientation is conveyed by the
term cheng, a term sometimes translated as “sincerity” though a more accurate
translation is probably “wholeness” or “completeness.” The term highlights a state
of the heart/mind in which it is really or fully ethical; there is no discrepancy
between the inner and the outer, nor within the heart/mind itself. Unlike the
terms ren, yi, and li, which emphasize different aspects of the ethical ideal, the
term cheng describes the heart/mind at a different level, referring to a state in
which it fully embodies all these different aspects of the ideal. When the heart/
mind attains this state, one will also have a nourishing and transformative effect
on others; this idea is continuous with the explication of ren in terms of nourish-
ing and forming one body with all things.
Yet another pair of terms, already used by Xunzi but particularly highlighted by
the later Confucians, that describe the ideal state of the heart/mind is xu, usually
translated as “vacuous” or “empty,” and jing, usually translated as “still.” For the later
Confucians, in order for the heart/mind to be completely oriented in an ethical
direction, it has to be free from psychological elements that exhibit the kind of
self-centeredness just described. Xu emphasizes the absence of such elements, while
7
jing emphasizes the absence of the disturbing effects of such elements. Some
metaphors used in connection with these two terms are that of a clear mirror and
that of still water. Eliminating the psychological elements that exhibit a problematic
form of self-centeredness is like wiping dust off a mirror. Just as the mirror will be
clear and can reflect things accurately when the dust has been removed, the heart/
mind will be able to respond appropriately to situations it confronts when free from
these psychological elements. Also, water can act like a clear mirror when still, but
can become muddied when disturbed. Similarly, the heart/mind can become unset-
tled by the problematic psychological elements, and be vulnerable to uncertainty or
be torn in different directions. One can make the heart/mind still, that is, free from
these disturbing effects, by eliminating these psychological elements.
There are several other ideas that are central to Confucian ethical thought and
that we have not yet considered. For example, zhong, a term that can be translated as
“doing one’s best,” emphasizes our whole-hearted devotion to activities that we
appropriately undertake, while xin, a term often translated as “trustworthiness,”
emphasizes the complete reliability in our representation of things, especially of our-
selves and our own actions (e.g., Analects 1.8, 9.25, 12.10). Shu, a term sometimes
translated as “reciprocity” and often compared to Western versions of the golden
rule, emphasizes our using our own likes and dislikes as a way to gauge the situation
of others (e.g., Analects 4.15). The understanding of these ideas has also evolved
over time, and later Confucian thinkers often invoked a distinction between the
“learner” and the “sage” to properly situate these ideas. For example, shu, which
Confucius explains by saying “do not impose on others what one does not desire in
oneself ” (Analects 15.24; cf. 12.2), is practiced by the learner who needs to con-
sciously use himself as a starting point to gauge the situation of others, while ren
describes the sage who cares for others spontaneously and without effort. While this
distinction between the learner and the sage is prominent especially in later
Confucian thought, and while both early and later Confucian thinkers refer to the
sage as a figure who has embodied the ethical ideal, it is likely that the idea of the
sage is more a way of indicating certain directions in which humans should set their
aspirations, rather than suggesting some kind of endpoint to the self-cultivation
process that one can attain and beyond which no further ethical effort is needed. As
the potential for deviation from the ethical is always present, the kinds of moral
exercise we have described are life-long endeavors, and efforts at self-cultivation do
not come to an end till one’s death.
From the above account, we see how Confucian thought advocates a total trans-
formation of the self that involves properly relating oneself to others and to certain
ethical standards. Such transformation affects one’s whole outlook on life, and the
total subordination to the ethical is particularly demanding as it can incur grave
personal sacrifices, including giving up one’s own life. At the same time, though
living up to this ideal might come at the expense of unwelcome circumstances of life
to which one might respond emotionally, one retains equanimity in that one stays
emotionally unperturbed at another level, taking as one’s anchor a firm commitment
to the ethical. The idea of a life-long commitment to a total transformation of the
8
self that exhibits these characteristics explains why Confucian ethical thought has
also been described as a kind of spiritual thought, where the spiritual is understood
in a way not tied to pietistic and devotional practices.
See also: buddhist ethics; confucius; daoist ethics; mencius; wang

yangming; xunzi; zhu xi
FURTHER READINGS
Creel, H. G. 1953. Chinese Thought from Confucius to Mao Tse-tung. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Cua, Antonio S. (ed.) 2003. Encyclopedia of Chinese Philosophy. New York: Routledge.
de Bary, W. Theodore, Wing-tsit Chan, and Burton Watson (trans.) 1960. Sources of Chinese
Tradition. New York: Columbia University Press.
Graham, A. C. 1989. Disputers of the Dao. LaSalle: Open Court.
Lau, D. C. (trans.) 1992. Confucius: The Analects, 2nd ed. Hong Kong: Chinese University of
Hong Kong Press.
Lau, D. C. (trans.) 2003. Mencius, rev. ed. Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong
Press.
Nivison, David S. 1996. The Ways of Confucianism. Chicago: Open Court.
Shun, Kwong-loi 1997. Mencius and Early Chinese Thought. Palo Alto: Stanford University
Press.
Watson, Burton (trans.) 1996 [1963]. Hsun Tzu: Basic Writings. New York: Columbia
University Press.
Wing-tsit Chan (trans.) 1963. Instructions for Practical Living and Other Neo-Confucian
Writings by Wang Yangming. New York: Columbia University Press.
Wing-tsit Chan (trans.) 1969. A Sourcebook in Chinese Philosophy. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
1
Mysticism and Ethics

William J. Wainwright
The relation between mysticism and ethics is contentious. Albert Schweitzer,

Arthur Danto, and others have argued that mystical consciousness and morality are
incompatible. The dominant view is expressed by Steven T. Katz, however: “it is
difficult to find any major mystical figures, or mystical traditions, that can be said
to preach moral indifference; and certainly none preach immorality” (1992: 254).
But the issue is not so straightforward.
In the first place, empirical questions should be distinguished from logical or
epistemic ones. The first concern the factual relations between mysticism and morality.
Does mysticism, in practice, reinforce moral ideals and support moral activity, or does
it instead undermine the former and inhibit the latter? The second set of questions asks
whether moral consciousness or the propositions most directly based on it provide a
backing or warrant for moral claims or, on the contrary, are inconsistent with them.
In the second, there are different modes of mystical consciousness and several
types of mystical traditions. We must therefore be alert to the possibility that some
of these modes of mystical consciousness and some mystical traditions support
morality, some undermine it, while still others have no moral implications what-
soever. Among the more important types of mystical consciousness are the following.
Cosmic consciousness is an “extrovertive” experience which takes nature as its
object, and includes a sense that all parts of it, including the mystic himself, are one
with each other and the whole. Buddhists cultivate another extrovertive experience
in which spatio-temporal reality is perceived as “empty” – a conceptually unstruc-
tured flow of “dharmas” (momentary events or states that resist further analysis) (see
buddhist ethics). The object of the Buddhist’s experience is not some permanent
substance or force underlying things but the flow of becoming itself, viewed without
attachment or any attempt to conceptualize it. Another common mystical experi-
ence is “monistic.” The mind turns inward, progressively emptying itself of percepts,
sensations, images, and concepts until nothing remains but consciousness itself –
joyous and without object. “Theistic” mystical experiences are also “introvertive.”
Like the monistic mystic, theistic mystics, too, empty their minds of percepts,
images, and all but a few of the most general and abstract concepts (such as “being,”
“presence,” or “love”). Their experience differs from that of monistic mystics,
however, in having an object and in uniting with that object in mutual love.
Mystical traditions differ from one another as well. There is no one-to-one
correspondence between mystical traditions, on the one hand, and types of mystical
consciousness, on the other. Monistic mystical consciousness, for example, is
cultivated in Advaita Vedanta, classical Yoga, and in some strands of both Islamic
and Christian spiritual traditions. The latter two traditions are theistic, however,
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee129
2
while the two former are not. Again, while both the Advaita and Yoga traditions are
comparatively pure expressions of monistic mystical consciousness, they differ
significantly from one another in metaphysics and soteriology.
With these distinctions in mind, let us begin with the empirical question. In the
first place, it is significant that mysticism’s relation to morality has often been
regarded as a problem within the mystical traditions themselves. Examples are “the
many Indic ‘right-handed’ attempts to tame, allegorize, or simply deny, the explicit
antinomianism and eroticism of ‘left handed’ Tantra” (Barnard and Kripal 2002: 16),
or the care that orthodox Christian mystics such as Ruysbroeck took to distinguish
their teachings from the alleged antinomianism of some of their contemporaries. In
the second place, the empirical evidence is much more ambiguous than Katz’s
remark suggests. Morally suspect behavior seems to be more frequently (though by
no means exclusively) associated with cosmic consciousness and traditions that
valorize a nature which embraces good and evil, the auspicious and the terrible. It
is also true that most (though not all) of the ethically suspect practices found in
conjunction with mysticism involve breaches of conventional sexual morality,
sexual exploitation, substance abuse, and abuses of power. They do not typically
include murder, theft, and the like. (See, for example, Zaehner 1974, and the essays
by Jeffrey J. Kripal, David R. Loy, Michael Stoeber, and Hugh B. Urban in Bernard
and Kripal 2002: 15–69, 265–87, 381–405, 406–40, respectively.) Even so, Kripal is
right to insist that phenomena of this “sort occur too frequently, and in connection
with too many mystical traditions, to be safely ignored,” or cavalierly dismissed as
“perversions” or “exceptions” (Barnard and Kripal 2002: 54–5).
Whether mysticism logically or epistemically undercuts or supports morality is
equally contentious, although the fact that standard attempts to show that it does
are arguably unsound suggests that there are no direct logical or epistemic links
between them.
Consider, for example, the following reconstruction of Arthur Danto’s attempt to
show that mysticism and morality are incompatible.
1 The divine (the Real, the Absolute) altogether transcends the phenomenal world
and its categories. Therefore,
2 The phenomenal world is either unreal or totally lacking in value. (From 1.)
3 Categories which only apply within the phenomenal world, and distinctions
between things within it, are infected by illusion or are of no ultimate importance.
(From 2.)
4 Moral categories only apply within the phenomenal world, and the distinction
between moral good and moral evil is a distinction between phenomenal
realities. Therefore,
5 Moral categories and distinctions are infected with illusion or are of no ultimate
importance. (From 3 and 4.)
This argument does not show that mysticism undercuts morality.

For one thing, premise (1) is based on monistic consciousness, and there are other
types of mystical experiences. For another, it is not clear that (1) and its alleged
3
entailment, (2), is adequately supported by even monistic mystical experience.

Perhaps it would be if a belief in the unreality or ultimate unimportance of all
phenomenal distinctions was built into it. It does not appear to be, however.
Monistic mystics such as Plotinus and the devotees of Samkhya Yoga believe in the
existence of real distinctions and a real space–time world. Furthermore, Plotinus
also thought that the space–time world is good insofar as it reflects the One, and
Samkhya Yoga ascribes value to it insofar as it serves the purposes of our true selves
or purushas. Considerations such as these suggest that premise (1) and its alleged
entailment express an interpretation of monistic consciousness, rather than a claim
directly warranted by it. If so, we are at most entitled to conclude that a popular
interpretation of monistic consciousness is incompatible with morality, not that
the monistic experience itself is incompatible with it.
Note, finally, that theistic mystical consciousness provides no support for the
claim that moral values are illusory or ultimately unimportant. In theistic contexts,
that x is more real than y is typically understood as “x is more valuable than y, and
y is dependent on x while x is not dependent on y.” Theistic mystical conscious-
ness is a form of theistic consciousness. Given that a sense of the dependence and
comparative worthlessness of oneself and other creatures is built into theistic
consciousness, that the world is less real than God does follow from theistic
mystical consciousness. But it does not follow that moral values are less real
than God or the Absolute since, for theistic consciousness, God is the good. The
moral values exhibited in the phenomenal world are no more than the faint
adumbrations, images, or reflections of the archetypal moral goodness in which
they are rooted.
Does mystical consciousness logically or epistemically support morality, then?
The following two arguments are typical of attempts to show that it does.
Daniel Zelinski contends that “enlightened extrovertive nondualistic mystics …
perceive others as essentially linked to themselves in the divine.” Since they regard
others as one with themselves, “prudential considerations like motivations to
enhance one’s own well-being and alleviate one’s own suffering” are transformed
into “genuinely moral ones by including the welfare of others under their scope”
(Wildberg and Zelinski 2007: 151).
Zelinski’s argument is problematic for at least two reasons. His paradigmatic
examples of enlightened extrovertive nondualistic mystics are the medieval
Christian mystic Meister Eckhart and the seminal Zen Buddhist Dogen. Mahayana
Buddhists such as Dogen deny that persons are real, however. In their view,
persons are nothing more than collections of dharmas which themselves lack ulti-
mate reality. If this is correct, then, talk of self-regard or other-regard is incoherent
since there are no selves to be objects of these attitudes. Zelinski is aware of this
objection but follows Richard H. Jones in arguing that Mahayana does not deny
the reality of other persons but merely their status as independent self-existent
beings, i.e., it only denies a certain analysis of them. “The suffering is there even
if there are no self-contained centers of suffering. There may be no ‘beings’ but
something is there toward which compassion is deemed possible and appropriate,”
namely, suffering (Jones 1993: 198). Yet, this will not do. For one thing, the
4
dharmas into which persons and their states are analyzed are also constructions or
mental fictions. In the final analysis, suffering is no more real than the persons
who are said to suffer. And, that aside, how could compassion take a feeling of pain
as its object? (When I pity Mary for her suffering, for instance, I pity Mary, I do
not pity her feelings.)
There is an additional problem with arguments such as Zelinski’s. He claims that
we value our well-being and regard our own suffering as “to be alleviated.” Caring
for ourselves and recognizing that “others” in some sense are ourselves, we regard
their suffering too “as to be alleviated.” Including others within the scope of one’s
prudential self-regard because one views others as oneself seems unattractively
egoistic, however – such as the father who loves his daughter because he sees her
as an extension of himself, or Aristotle’s friends who love each other because each
views the other as an alter ego, another self. If the highest morality is genuinely
altruistic, selflessly weighing benefits and losses without counting costs or gains
to oneself, then the “morality” of Zelinski’s enlightened extrovertive nondualistic
mystics is, if not seriously defective, at least a bit second-rate.
Another argument for the claim that mysticism justifies morality appeals to “mys-
ticisms of emptiness and the void. … Since in the final experience of nirvana, nirodh
[“stopping”] or ‘no mind’ all vestiges of ego and self are abolished … all egoism,
selfishness, and self-centeredness vanish and only altruism and love remain”
(Browning 1979: 58). Browning’s argument is this:
1 Reasons for acting are provided by one’s interests, needs, concerns, and desires.
2 These interests, needs, concerns, and desires are real only if the self is real.
3 The self is unreal. Therefore,
4 A person’s interests, needs, concerns, and desires are unreal. (From 2 and 3.) So,
5 There are no good reasons for acting egoistically. (From 1 and 4, and the
assumption that if an interest, need, concern, or desire is unreal, it cannot
provide a good reason for action.) Consequently,
6 There are good reasons for acting altruistically. (From 5.)
Three things are wrong with this argument.

First, (3) is a statement of the Buddhist no-self doctrine, and depends as much
on metaphysical analysis as on mystical experience. It cannot just be read off the
experience itself. So even if (3) does logically or epistemically support morality, it
will not follow that the experience itself does so.
Second, (5) does not entail (6): That there are no good reasons for acting
egoistically does not entail that there are good reasons against acting egoistically.
And, even if there were, it would not follow that we have good reasons for acting
altruistically. The wisest course of action might be to withdraw from society and its
concerns, and that need not be either egoistic or altruistic.
Finally, the Buddhist school which developed the doctrine of emptiness with the
most sophistication (namely, Madhyamika) distinguished between absolute truth,
the intuitive nonconceptual insight into the emptiness of reality, and conventional
5
truth. On the conventional level, the self is real, however, and, if it is, our argument
provides no reason for thinking that ordinary motives for acting self-interestedly are
suspended at that level. (3) and (4) are only true at the level of absolute truth, and so
(5), too, is only true at that level. Therefore, unless we are entitled to assert that
enlightened mystics no longer exist in the conventional world – and we are not – we
are not entitled to conclude that prudential considerations provide them with
no reason for acting self-interestedly.
The arguments we have considered, then, provide no reason for thinking that
mystical consciousness provides reasons against or for acting morally. It is probably
significant, though, that arguments such as these appeal to monistic mystical
consciousness, the emptiness experience, and other forms of nontheistic mystical
consciousness. So what about theistic mysticism? Is it, too, logically and epistemically
neutral? One way to approach the question is as follows.
Different behavioral ideals are associated with different forms of mysticism.
Christian mystics, for example, tend to idealize the “mixed life” that combines
contemplation and action.
According to Richard of St. Victor, for instance, the soul in the fourth and highest
degree of love returns from the heights of contemplation and “goes forth on God’s
behalf and descends below herself. … she goes out by compassion” (1957: 224). The
ideal of the mixed life is not peculiar to Christian spirituality, for it is also associated
with Islamic mysticism, and the theistic schools in India.
Arguably, theistic mysticism comports better with moral values and ideals than
its nontheistic competitors. That is, there seems to be less tension between theis-
tic mysticism and moral values and ideals than between those values and ideals
and monistic mysticism or the mysticism of emptiness (see Wainwright 2005:
210–31). What is not clear, however, is whether the theistic mystic’s attitudes
toward moral values are more heavily determined by her theism or by her mysti-
cal experiences. Case studies of theistic mystics are consistent with the claim that
their theism is the principal determinant, and that their spiritual experiences play
only an ancillary role by reinforcing their prior commitment to theism and its
ethical values.
See also: benevolence; buddhist ethics; comparative religious ethics;

daoist ethics; hindu ethics; jain ethics; laozi; religious saints; wang
yangming; weil, simone; zhuangzi
REFERENCES
Barnard, William G., and Jeffrey J. Kripal (eds.) 2002. Crossing Boundaries: Essays on the
Ethical Status of Mysticism. New York: Seven Bridges Press.
Browning, Don 1979. “William James’ Philosophy of Religion,” Journal of Religion, vol. 59,
pp. 56–70.
Jones, Richard H. 1993. Mysticism Examined: Philosophical Inquiries into Mysticism. Albany:
6
Katz, Steven T. 1992. “Ethics and Mysticism in Eastern Mystical Traditions,” Religious Studies,
vol. 28, pp. 253–67.
Richard of St. Victor 1957. Richard of St. Victor: Selected Writings on Contemplation, trans.
Clare Kirchberger. London: Faber & Faber.
Wainwright, William J. 2005. Religion and Morality. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Wildberg, Christian, and Daniel Zelinski (eds.) 2007. Religion, Mysticism, and Ethics: A Cross-
Traditional Anthology (Archiv fur Religionsgeschichte). Berlin: De Gruyter.
Zaehner, R. C. 1974. Our Savage God. London: William Collins Sons.
FURTHER READINGS
Danto, Arthur 1972. Mysticism and Morality: Oriental Thought and Moral Philosophy.
New York: Harper Torchbooks.
Heck, Paul L. 2006. “Mysticism as Morality: The Case of Sufism,” Journal of Religious Ethics,
vol. 34, pp. 253–86.
Proudfoot, Wayne 1976. “Mysticism, the Numinous, and the Moral,” Journal of Religious
Stace, Walter T. 1960. Mysticism and Philosophy. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott.
Wyschogrod, Edith 1990. Saints and Postmodernism: Revisioning Moral Philosophy. London:
University of Chicago Press, pp. 34–9.
Zaehner, R. C. 1970. Concordant Discord: The Interdependence of Faiths, Being the Gifford
Lectures on Natural Religion, Delivered at St Andrews in 1967–1969. Oxford: Clarendon
Press.
1
Internet Ethics
Steve Matthews
Introduction
“The World Wide Web can be a wild and unruly place.” (Sophy Silver)
In the past 60 years computer technology has revolutionized the way information is
processed, stored, distributed, and communicated. These changes have greatly
affected myriad ways of life including especially the activities of government, com-
merce, and social life broadly construed. This essay will not attempt to cover the
broad sweep of ethical issues raised by information and computer technology. It will
focus on those questions within computer ethics raised by the Internet.
Having an understanding of the nature of the Internet is important to an under-
standing of the ethical issues it raises. First, the Internet requires a procedure in order
to regulate the transmission of data. Thus a packet of information constituting part of
an individuated communication must be tagged for effective routing from source
address to destination. This is the role of something called the Internet protocol (IP).
IP ensures that packets of information find their way from a host to a destination
source across a network or networks. IP is not just a contingent aspect of the Internet,
but a central element partly constituting or defining the Internet. Second, no single
person, corporation, or government owns the Internet – it lacks a center – and this
lack of central control is fundamental to understanding the advantages and freedoms
of Internet spaces as well as the problems arising from lack of accountability. The
Internet runs the way it does because its open architecture has been designed for the
benefit of each of its participants. Third, the Internet links individual computers into
networks, as well as networks to networks. As such, it is a kind of meta-network. The
Internet is a bit more organized and controlled than this suggests, however. It has a
shape, often compared to a river system or highway. Across its center is the backbone
containing national networks with very large bandwidth; “adjacent” to this are
medium-sized region-based networks, and then smaller networks serving, for exam-
ple, universities or companies. This structure should not obscure the fact that an indi-
vidual operating at a single computer terminal may have relatively unlimited access to
much of life taking place across a large number of networks, both local and global.
Careful writers distinguish between the Internet and the World Wide Web (the
Web). The latter we might say is an artifact of the Internet. The Web expands as more
documents are linked together using something called a hypertext markup language
(HTML). These hypertext-linked documents, which we know as web pages, have spe-
cial Internet addresses – .coms, .edus, .orgs, for instance – and are accessible via search
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee130
2
engines. Combined, these features provide, with extraordinary ease, access to vast
quantities of the information, graphic content, and applications within the Web. Since
the Web has an interactive, open, and uniform architecture, it allows people and groups
with morally questionable motives and dispositions to get access to users within the
Internet community. Thus, we have a technology that links the individuals and groups
within the Web with extraordinary proficiency, providing ample means for the tech-
niques of anonymity to be exercised, and thereby the means for them to operate with
little or no accountability. The Web opens up expansive political, commercial, social,
and interpersonal worlds, utilizing an unfamiliar means of connection in a largely
unregulated realm. This gives rise to a host of thorny problems in applied ethics.
New Problems?
There has been ongoing debate in computer ethics about whether the informa-
tion revolution throws up uniquely new ethical problems, or whether it generates
mere variations on old problems (Johnson 2001; Maner 1996). There is an obvious
and uninteresting sense in which it throws up endless new problems – no one
hacked into people’s (nonexistent) websites in the 1950s, and so on – and so the
important question seems to be whether the online world provides an environ-
ment for novel ethically evaluable practices. Now although online activities fail
to give rise to new thin ethical concepts – concepts of a caliber similar to “right,”
“good,” “ought,” and so on – it looks on the face of it defensible to think a range
of normatively laden concepts have emerged (see thick and thin concepts).
So, phishing – the practice of imitating a trusted online entity in order to gain
someone’s personal information – might be such a case. Another might be the
practice of trolling – posting inflammatory, misleading, or deceptive material to
online sites such as blogs in order to bait others and disrupt their online activi-
ties. Do these practices raise new and unique ethical problems? Yes and no. Yes,
because such problems only arise within online worlds. However, the sense in
which no new ethical problem is evident is that phishing involves deception usu-
ally for monetary gain, and trolling involves the immoral delight one derives
from making a nuisance of oneself. Another way to think of it is that computer
technology does not give rise to practices whose ends are novel in any surprising
way; however, the online means to those ends are very often the result of an
imaginative new activity, and because this is the case existing legal and policy
remedies are often insufficient to keep up.
Privacy and Anonymity

Issues of privacy (see privacy) have a pedigree going back more than 100 years, yet
the rise of information technology, and in particular systems with the capacity to
integrate diverse personal data, together with the Internet and its Web 2.0 function-
ality (more on this below), have significantly heightened the concerns of moral phi-
losophers, legal scholars, and policymakers (see privacy and the internet).
3
Privacy questions normally arise on two fronts: physical access and information
availability, the latter being the central concern of computer ethicists. Regarding
data systems two main concerns arise: illegitimate aggregation of personal data, and
illegitimate distribution of data (both aggregated and non-aggregated) to third par-
ties (Nissenbaum 1998). In extreme cases, “global” losses of private information lead
to cases of so-called identity theft – that is, the theft of private information to enable
someone to impersonate another.
The problem of private information is complex since there are clear advantages to
modern societies when information about their citizens is brought together – say, for
the purposes of health research, or for security purposes, as when DNA information
may be shared between agencies to identify a person strongly suspected of multiple
heinous crimes. Thus, the privacy issue becomes one of balancing the legitimate
welfare interests of the citizenry juxtaposed against legitimate claims of autonomy
(see autonomy) and protection. Moral questions regarding privacy, then, reduce to
questions about the reasons we may have for releasing and sharing personal infor-
mation (van den Hoven 1999).
A second area of concern arises with the proliferation of social networking sites,
blogging, and other interactive aspects of the Web that have come to be known as
Web 2.0. The Internet has moved from being a place where information is dumped
for viewing, a static environment (Web 1.0), to a place that mimics the interactive
offline world, a dynamic world, where persons develop and change and reveal much
about who they are. They may publish material (blogging, wikis); they can “make
friends” and hook up online with old friends (Facebook, Myspace, etc.); they may
even engage in an alternative and dynamic social world in which a computer-
generated representation (avatar) carries on the business of “real life” (the so-called
Second Life phenomenon). In each of these cases, privacy dangers lurk because par-
ticipants are unaware that their information-sharing behavior is not as private as they
thought, and, unlike in the offline world, this information footprint is extremely dif-
ficult to erase, and interested third parties such as marketing companies are keen to
scoop up information gleaned from such sites for questionable purposes. Simple
Google searches these days can often reveal a lot of mostly useless information about
some people. This raises the real specter that future “digital dossiers” will become
available containing a great deal of very accurate, complete, filtered, and highly read-
able personal information that would be of interest to employers, insurance assessors,
marketers, and needless to say curious busybodies or criminals (Mooradian 2009).
The online environment also raises questions of anonymity, a concept close to, but
not identical with, privacy. Anonymity may best be viewed as a technique which aims,
inter alia, at securing the condition of privacy. Anonymity is typically motivated by the
desire to express a view without retribution, to avoid the stifling effects of a hostile
polity, to avoid being stigmatized, and so on. There are two main views in the literature
on anonymity. Nissenbaum (1999) says that what is at stake in anonymity is not so
much namelessness but unreachability. Anonymous online communications are made
with the intention of making one’s point untagged with an identity, so to say, and this
is accomplished when one is assured there can be no tracking back to the source of the
4
contribution. Wallace (1999) says anonymity is a form of nonidentifiability achieved

when there is “noncoordinatability of traits in a given respect.” That is to say, a person
may remain anonymous only when others are unable to bring together disparate
pieces of information which would then publicly identify who that person is. This fits
nicely with the idea of disaggregation of data as a condition of computer privacy.
We see the importance of anonymity not just in social online communication but
for online political activities as well. For example, the effectiveness of an organiza-
tion such as Wikileaks, which posts online sensitive corporate and political source
documents, depends on whistleblowers remaining anonymous in order to have the
confidence they need to supply such material.
The Internet and Moral Identity

Underpinning a number of issues regarding the possibility of online social life are
the constraints Web 2.0 functionality place on the kind of identity – professional or
personal – one is enabled to project within virtual worlds. Online identities are
constructed differently than in offline environments. In the offline world people
relate to each other in real time whereas the online environment of email, Facebook,
blogs, and so on provides users with the time needed to present their preferred
selves. Online self-presentations are constructions that exclude almost all the
nonvoluntary self-disclosures ordinarily available in the flesh-and-blood world.
Interactions offline allow in personal content that is difficult or impossible to
control, such as facial expressions, body language, auditory communication styles,
or even seemingly trivial features of communication such as the tendency to
interrupt one’s interlocutor.
These observations have given rise to both broad and specific treatments of the
effects online social interactions have on the human ability to create and maintain
certain relationships. A central debate has been over the possibility of friendship or
love online (Ben-ze’ev 2004; see friendship; love). Some argue against the possibil-
ity of online friendship because Internet communication distorts our self-
presentations and filters out those nonvoluntary self-disclosures that are normally
present in the offline case (Cocking and Matthews 2001; see Briggle 2008 for a
response). The broader questions focus on social and professional relationships
more generally, like counseling or teaching, that have hitherto relied on a concep-
tion of identity suited to the face-to-face environment.
The Internet connects people in new ways, but paradoxically it can also narrow
the focus of one’s social interests, and this in turn has undesirable effects on the con-
struction of identity. More specifically new Web-based resources enabling the devel-
opment of narrowly focused virtual social communities encourage two effects: the
reinforcement of negative, narrow, and insular beliefs that resist rational (or profes-
sional) scrutiny, and the encouragement to exacerbate an existing tendency toward
polarization of views based on stereotyping and prejudice. Both of these effects have
the tendency to mold online identities in dysfunctional ways. Mitch Parsell (2008)
has discussed these issues at some length. The first effect, he argues, is encouraged
5
in Web 2.0 contexts in which participants form communities with a narrow focus.
This can lead those participants to indulge in a delusional, pathological, or ulti-
mately destructive interest in an illness or way of life. The second effect is that web
communities, like isolated cults, reinforce each other’s attitudes and prejudices and
this leads to increased social cleavage and division. These effects, as we will see
below, have more general application when thinking about the social epistemologies
underpinning the Internet and political structures.
Online Effects on Political Activity

The rise of the Internet has generated significant interest in its effect on citizens’
abilities to engage politically. It is claimed, for example, that the Internet makes peo-
ple less subject to authority-based conventional media; numbers of easily accessible
political information sources increase; the Internet makes provision for inchoate
forums for political discussion, dissent, and organization; the Internet has the poten-
tial to break away from extant forms of political control; the Internet holds the
potential for fragmentation of traditional political divisions; and the Internet pro-
vides the opportunity to engage in political processes that promote democracy (see
democracy) in meaningful ways hitherto unavailable.
The connection between the Internet and democracy has received much atten-
tion. Cass Sunstein has been prominent here (Sunstein 2008). Sunstein emphasizes
that in well-functioning democratic states, not only should citizens be free from
factors restraining activities promoting the benefits of free and democratic institu-
tions – factors such as censorship – well-functioning democracies are constituted by
a particular kind of public sphere, one which enables sufficient access to diverse
forms of life and information, and one which thereby supports practices and institu-
tions not subject to official sanction. In this way, democratic participation can take
place free of what he calls the power of general interest intermediaries (Sunstein
2008: 109). To the extent that the Internet may facilitate these ends, Sunstein
applauds, but he sounds a note of caution as well. Insofar as the Internet dweller is
able to wall herself off from the prevailing currents of thought within the main-
stream she avoids the goods that attach to a heterogeneous society. Sunstein believes
that in a well-functioning society its members ought to be exposed to ideas and
practices they would not have chosen for themselves – we need to have unantici-
pated encounters – and he also thinks the members of a society ought to share a suf-
ficiently diverse range of common experiences. For many, qua Internet participants,
neither of these effects is very common, and indeed there is evidence to suggest
that Internet activity encourages the opposite effect given the control one has there
and the tendency of like to gravitate toward like. (This is reminiscent of the mecha-
nisms giving rise to the excesses of private control and dysfunctional identity dis-
cussed earlier.)
Sunstein also points to an interesting effect of Internet communication on
social epistemology, a point bearing directly on the question of online democratic
institutions. He begins with the familiar idea that individuals desire to be
6
favourably viewed by others within the groups they belong to. One effect of this is
that individuals will gravitate toward groups with similar interests and beliefs, and
the consequent reinforcement of these interests and beliefs will tend toward con-
solidation of group views, particularly as the members distinguish these views
from those of other opposing groups. But Sunstein adds an important addition to
this phenomenon:
[A]fter deliberating with one another, people are likely to move toward a more extreme
point in the direction to which they were previously inclined, as indicated by the median
of their predeliberation judgements. With respect to the Internet, the implication is that
groups of people, especially if they are like-minded, will end up thinking the same
thing that they thought before – but in more extreme form. (2008: 99)
Polarization of views within and between groups typically occurs in relation to hot
button political issues such as gun control, abortion, and issues of race. The central
point here is that the Internet provides a pretty good environment in which group
polarization takes hold. Time will tell, but at this point it is certainly the case that
forms of hate speech, marginal and extreme subcultures, terrorist networks, and
other forces that tend to work against democratic forms of life are receiving the oxy-
gen they need to develop and proliferate.
Online Trust
Trust (see trust) is a key value in both social and commercial environments, and its
centrality becomes evident when it breaks down or when such “social capital” runs
low. The importance of trust is typically seen in personal relationships such as
friendship, but of course it figures in a range of other personal relationships that are
part of the glue holding together a well-functioning community, or state. The online
world, it has been observed, presents special challenges to designers of systems,
online businesses, and online actors, insofar as trust is concerned. It seems, as
Weckert (2005: 95) has noticed, that online life contains both too much trust –
as when we transfer our ordinary offline trusting attitudes to the “wild and unruly”
Web – and too little trust – as when we fail to transfer our trusting attitudes online
given the lack of a set of conditions necessary to properly ground those attitudes. In
the former case, much harm can be done by hoaxers, fraudsters, and other online
criminals who take advantage of trusting participants, and, in the latter case, indi-
rect costs emerge, particularly within e-commerce, from the lack of a willingness of
economic actors to engage there, and, moreover, from the extensive transaction
costs needed to facilitate reliability, such as the hardware and software infrastructure
required to make online participation safe. Practices including monitoring, surveil-
lance, the use of encryption, authentication keys, and other security measures are
expensive and must substitute for trusted participation in order to ensure online
cooperation. The problem is particularly thorny when transactions go beyond local-
ized networks, and where the World Wide Web makes available the possibility of
7
cross-cultural business activities where few shared norms are present in which trust
might take a foothold. Weckert’s suggestion for dealing with the problem of online
trust derives from an idea of William James: the thought is that trust may emerge if
we “take a leap in the dark.” Weckert (2005: 113) writes: “Choosing to act as if I trust
can lead to trust. Trust can emerge when I choose to take risks … If then, the online
environment is such that it is conducive to people taking risks, genuine trust can
emerge. Those on-line will see others as trustworthy.”
Copyright Issues
An ethical-cum-legal issue receiving much attention is the infringement of the per-
ceived rights individuals and groups have to own and control works of various
sorts – reference works (encyclopedias, textbooks, dictionaries, atlases, recipe books,
etc.), singularly authored materials (novels, essays, academic papers, opinion pieces,
etc.), and works of entertainment (music, movies, videogames, etc.) (see intellec-
tual property). The movement from analogue reproduction of media to digital,
combined with the open architecture of the Internet, enables rapid copying and dis-
tribution of virtually any digital media product at very little cost. A practical prob-
lem for compliance monitoring is that these copyrighted products, as digital media,
are in a sense invisible, and are able to be copied in large quantities and moved
around the world in an instant. Those who download these products do not view
their activities as stealing but, more typically, as “sharing with a friend.” One ethical
question raised here concerns the level of wrong we attach to individual acts of cop-
ying, but another, more significant general question concerns the value of the works,
their cultural significance, and the effects of restricting their reproduction and
distribution.
Some argue that individual acts of copying a digital work should not be thought
the same as stealing material property. This view is perhaps the product of the fol-
lowing argument: when I steal your television set, I have a television set, and you
no longer have a television set, and so clearly I have harmed you; there is a net loss
to you, the owner of the television. However, if I copy from your optical disk the
digital information for the film contained on it, then I now have a copy of this
film, and you still have a copy of this film. There is now no net loss to you, and a
net gain to me. You are only disadvantaged in a case where my unauthorized cop-
ying activity involves loss of money you would have recouped were you to hold
some licensing control over this work; in this case you would have forgone a loss
in possible profit. This loss of a profit opportunity has to be balanced against the
fact that in copying this film its intellectual content thereby reaches further into
the culture. Legal disputes over copying typically play out as civil proceedings,
rather than criminal proceedings (the appropriate place for theft of material prod-
ucts such as television sets), and this does suggest it is somewhat hasty to conclude
that these copyright issues raise questions of stealing akin to the television case.
The problematic case considered above involved unauthorized copying. But that
of course simply presupposes we have settled the moral issue. This cannot be
8
assumed. One writer who has challenged the status quo is Richard Stallman (2002),
particularly in work done on the question of copyright over software, though he
extends his arguments to digital media more generally. His view is that these ques-
tions should be decided in the public interest, and set against a context of radical
change in the mode of publishing to what will be in the future predominantly elec-
tronic publishing. Currently, copyright laws favor corporate entities, he argues, not
the creative producers of the works in question, such as musicians who typically
receive around 4 percent of a published item.
The Future
The Internet is now video-linked and mobile (not PC-dependent), a change that has
occurred rapidly. In the future computer technology will become embedded into the
material infrastructure of our towns and cities through such technologies as radio
frequency identification and nanotechnology. Just around the corner is Web 3.0, the
so-called Semantic Web, with applications allowing more functionality that will
“understand” more sophisticated locutionary inputs in terms of meaning, gram-
matical rules, and inference rules. Bold claims are now being made that our interac-
tions with network sites will mimic an understanding and intelligence hitherto
unimagined. We will talk to the agents embedded in rooms, cars, lifts, computers,
and household appliances, and they will respond. They will “embody” these items
directly or will manifest as holographic images in order to deliver mundane func-
tional information or provide a new quality to our work and social environments.
Some of the interactive technologies embedded in these physical spaces will be invis-
ible, and so we will come to take their agential dimensions for granted – we will
irresistibly adopt the intentional stance toward such things as our washing machines,
toasters, and vacuum cleaners. Many of the web applications we now have – email,
Google, Facebook – were never planned for when in 1969 the first “rail sleepers” for
the Internet were laid down. Extrapolating, what we can confidently predict are the
many unpredictable further future applications. But we can imagine some general
trends. For example, we can imagine biomedical applications in which machine
parts merge with parts of flesh to support or even enhance function, all monitored
remotely. We can even imagine radio-enabled neurological implants that link to the
Web itself. These developments bring with them a host of new problems in applied
ethics. How should we respond ethically to the agential features of these technolo-
gies? What effects on digital democracy will we see? And what are the implications
for issues in relation to surveillance, trust, and privacy? Above all, fundamental
questions will come to be raised about the effects these technologies will have on
character and identity, of the people we will become as users and objects within these
new systems.
See also: autonomy; democracy; friendship; intellectual property; love;

privacy; privacy and the internet; thick and thin concepts; trust
9
REFERENCES
Ben-ze’ev, Aaron 2004. Love Online: Emotions on the Internet. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Briggle, Adam 2008. “Real Friends: How the Internet Can Foster Friendship,” Ethics and
Information Technology, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 71–9.
Cocking, D., and S. Matthews 2001. “Unreal Friends,” Ethics and Information Technology, vol.
2, no. 4, pp. 223–31.
Johnson, Deborah 2001. Computer Ethics, 3rd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Maner, W. 1996. “Unique Ethical Problems in Information Technology,” in T. Bynum and
S. Rogerson (eds.), Science and Engineering Ethics (special issue on global information
ethics), vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 137–54.
Mooradian, Norman 2009. “The Importance of Privacy Revisited,” Ethics and Information
Technology, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 163–74.
Nissenbaum, H. 1998. “Protecting Privacy in an Information Age: The Problem of Privacy in
Public,” Law and Philosophy, vol. 17, pp. 559–96.
Nissenbaum, H. 1999. “The Meaning of Anonymity in an Information Age,” The Information
Society, vol. 15, pp. 141–4.
Parsell, Mitch 2008. “Pernicious Virtual Communities: Identity, Polarization and the Web
2.0,” Ethics and Information Technology, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 41–56.
Stallman, Richard M. 2002. “Why Software Should Be Free,” in Free Software, Free Society:
Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman. Boston: GNU Press, pp. 121–34.
Sunstein, Cass 2008. “Democracy and the Internet,” in Jeroen van den Hoven and John
Weckert (eds.), Information Technology and Moral Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge
van den Hoven, M. J. 1999. “Privacy and the Varieties of Informational Wrongdoing,”
Australian Journal of Professional and Applied Ethics, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 30–4.
Wallace, Kathleen A. 1999. “Anonymity,” Ethics and Information Technology, vol. 1, no. 1,
pp. 23–35.
Weckert, John 2005. “Trust in Cyberspace,” in Robert J. Cavalier (ed.), The Impact of the
Internet on our Moral Lives. Albany: State University of New York Press, pp. 95–117.
FURTHER READINGS
Cavalier, R. (ed.) 2005. The Impact of the Internet on Our Moral Lives. Albany: State University
of New York Press.
Floridi, L. 1999. “Information Ethics: On the Theoretical Foundations of Computer Ethics,”
Ethics and Information Technology, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 37–56.
Floridi, L. (ed.) 2010. The Cambridge Handbook of Information and Computer Ethics.
Garson, G. David 1995. Computer Technology and Social Issues. Hershey, PA: IGI Global.
Graham, G. 1999. The Internet: A Philosophical Inquiry. London: Routledge.
Himma, Kenneth E., and Herman T. Tavani (eds.) 2008. The Handbook of Information and
Computer Ethics. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Introna, L. 1997. “Privacy and the Computer: Why We Need Privacy in the Information
Society,” Metaphilosophy, vol. 28, no. 3, pp. 259–75.
10
Moor, James H. 1985. “What Is Computer Ethics?,” Metaphilosophy, vol. 16, no. 4,
pp. 266–75.
Moor, James H., and Terrell Ward Bynum 2003. Cyberphilosophy: The Intersection of
Computing and Philosophy. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Spinello, Richard A., and Herman T. Tavani (eds.) 2004. Readings in Cyberethics. Sudbury,
MA: Jones & Bartlett.
Sunstein, Cass 2001. Republic.com. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Sunstein, Cass 2007. Republic.com 2.0. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Tavani, Herman T. 2002. “The Uniqueness Debate in Computer Ethics: What Exactly Is
at Issue and Why Does It Matter?,” Ethics and Information Technology, vol. 4, no. 1,
pp. 37–54.
Tavani, Herman, T. 2010. Ethics and Technology: Ethical Issues in an Age of Information and
Communication Technology, 3rd ed. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
van den Hoven, J., and J. Weckert (eds.) 2008. Information Technology and Moral Philosophy.
Weckert, John (ed.) 2007. Computer Ethics. Brookfield, VT: Ashgate.
1
Disagreement, Moral
Folke Tersman
Introduction
Prevailing norms and moral convictions differ widely from one historical period or
culture to another, and there are extensive differences also within many societies.
This familiar fact has provoked philosophical responses since antiquity, and it
continues to play a role in many contemporary philosophical debates.
The discussion in which moral disagreement has received most attention is
metaethical and concerns the objectivity of ethics (see metaethics). Consider a
moral opinion, such as the view that it is morally wrong to eat meat. Could such
opinions be true? If so, could they be objectively true; i.e., roughly, true indepen-
dently of whether anyone thinks that they are true? According to the theory
known as moral realism, the answer to both questions is yes. Moral realism is usu-
ally construed as the combination of two views. First, moral claims express
beliefs about the way things are, states that purport to represent objective aspects
of reality. Second, some of those beliefs are in fact true (see realism, moral). It is
often suggested that the fact that there is deep and widespread disagreement
over moral issues is difficult to reconcile with this objectivist picture of ethics, and
that the diversity is better accounted for by the competitors to realism.
One such competitor is moral relativism (see relativism, moral). Like realists,
relativists think that moral claims can be true. But relativists deny that their truth is
objective or absolute in the sense in which realists think it is. Rather, relativists hold
that the truth of a moral claim can vary, so that a given moral conviction can be
true relative to one speaker and false relative to another, depending on differences
in the traditions, convictions, and practices that characterize the cultures to which
the speakers belong. Another competitor is non-cognitivism or expressivism.
Non-cognitivists deny that moral convictions can be true or false, and insist that
moral claims are expressions of emotions or preferences rather than beliefs (see
non-cognitivism; emotivism; prescriptivism). A third competitor focuses on
the second component of realism. It holds that moral claims do express beliefs but
that the diversity indicates (together with a correct account of their contents) that
they are all false, at least insofar as they actually ascribe some moral property. The
latter position is commonly described as an “error theory” (see error theory),
and has famously been advocated by J. L. Mackie (1977). Each of these theories is
often defended with reference to moral disagreement.
Why is the fact that people disagree over moral issues supposed to undermine the
idea that moral claims can be objectively true? This may not be obvious. After all,
disagreements arise also in other areas, including the sciences. So, unless the critic
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee131
2
of moral realism wants to extend her anti-realism also to those areas (which is some-
thing moral anti-realists typically do not want to do), they must show that there is
something special about the disagreements that arise in ethics.
Several suggestions along those lines have been made. For example, it has been
held that many disagreements run so deep that the hope of a rational resolution is
remote. However, exactly what the anti-realist has to assume about the nature and
extent of the existing moral diversity depends on the details of the arguments she
pursues. In the philosophical literature one often meets the locution “the argument
from moral disagreement,” as if there is only one such argument. But there are in fact
several arguments that appeal to moral disagreement, arguments that take quite
different routes to their anti-realist conclusions. In what follows, some of these argu-
ments are reconstructed and discussed.
Mackie’s Theory of Relativity

Much of the contemporary discussion of the metaethical implications of moral
diversity has been inspired by Mackie’s “argument from relativity” (see mackie, j. l.).
He begins by citing “the well-known variation in moral codes from one society to
another and from one period to another, and also the differences in moral beliefs
between different groups and classes within a complex community” (1977: 36).
However, he stresses that there is no direct step from the existence of the variation
to his skepticism about moral truths. Thus, he acknowledges that disagreement
occurs also in the sciences without denying the existence of scientific facts. What,
then, is the difference?
The difference, according to Mackie, has to do with how the disagreement is to be
explained. In the sciences, he thinks, it is often plausible to explain disagreements as
resulting “from speculative inferences or explanatory hypotheses based on inade-
quate evidence.” In ethics, by contrast, the diversity rather reflects the fact that
people have different “ways of life” (1977: 37): “The argument from relativity has
some force simply because the actual variations in the moral codes are more readily
explained by the hypothesis that they reflect ways of life than by the hypothesis that
they express perceptions, most of them seriously inadequate and badly distorted, of
objective values.”
For example, according to Mackie, “people approve of monogamy because they
participate in a monogamous way of life” rather than the other way round (1977: 36).
What Mackie offers is, in effect, a fragment of a theory about why people accept
some moral convictions rather than others, a theory that is supposed to predict, and
therefore obtain support from, the observed variation in moral codes.
What has Mackie’s “way-of-life theory” to do with moral realism? The theories
are hardly incompatible, as realism is a thesis about the status of moral convic-
tions and not about their causal background. However, one way to bring out its
relevance is as follows. On a common view, if a hypothesis provides the best
explanation of a state of affairs whose existence can be established indepen-
dently, then this provides evidence for the hypothesis. Thus, suppose that a
3
witness identifies the suspect to a crime in a line-up. If this fact is best explained
by assuming that the suspect actually committed the crime (rather than by assum-
ing that the witness dislikes the look of the suspect), then the testimony strength-
ens the suspicion. Now, relative to moral realism, the fact that someone has a
certain moral conviction is a fact whose truth can be established independently,
as we can determine that s/he has the conviction prior to determining whether it
(or any moral conviction) is true. So, if the best explanation of our moral convic-
tions does entail that they are true, we have evidence for the realist’s claim that
such truths exist. Mackie’s way-of-life theory, however, threatens to deprive the
realist of that type of justification. For if his theory is true, then the best explana-
tion of why someone has formed a moral judgment does not have to invoke any
moral facts. It just cites facts about his/her way of life.
So construed, Mackie’s argument is congruent with a famous objection to moral
realism that has been developed by Gilbert Harman. According to Harman, we have
no reason to believe in the existence of moral truths, since such truths are never
assumed by the best explanation of anything observable, including the fact that
people make moral judgments (1977: 3–10). Unlike Mackie, however, Harman does
not primarily rely on considerations about moral disagreement. Instead, he appeals
to a kind of parsimony (do not posit an entity unless you have to!), and to the absence
of a believable account of how the truth of a moral judgment is supposed to have
causal consequences for what we observe.
Given my reconstruction of Mackie’s argument, the route from the existence of
moral diversity to moral anti-realism is quite indirect. The diversity is relevant only to
the extent that it provides support for a theory that explains our moral convictions
without assuming that they are true. Mackie’s way-of-life hypothesis is not the only
candidate for such a theory. Another is the theory of evolution. It has been argued (e.g.,
by Joyce 2006) that our moral views are, at least in part, the result of the forces of natu-
ral selection. For example, we are disposed to think that it is bad to be a free rider
because the possession of that thought helped our ancestors to cooperate more effi-
ciently. We can determine that something promoted cooperation during the Stone Age
without making a moral judgment about that thing. So the theory of evolution is
another example of a theory that indicates that our moral convictions can be satisfacto-
rily explained without assuming that they are true. However, rather than diversity, the
evolutionary story may seem to predict a considerable amount of overlap in our moral
views. So, the existence of agreement could play the exact same role in a Harmanian
challenge as the role disagreement and diversity play in Mackie’s argument.
Harman’s objection has been subjected to much criticism but I shall leave that
criticism aside (see explanations, moral). There is still plenty of room for
responses to Mackie’s argument. For example, Mackie dismisses the idea that moral
disagreement, just as disagreement in other areas, can be seen as resulting “from
speculative inferences or explanatory hypotheses based on inadequate evidence.”
But, in many cases, a diagnosis along those lines seems exactly right. Indeed, it is
commonly pointed out that many moral disagreements are rooted in disagreement
about nonmoral matters (Brink 1989: 202). Consider the debate about the legitimacy
4
of the death penalty. Judging from the way that debate is pursued, at least some of
the disagreement can be attributed to disputes about complex empirical issues, such
as questions about the extent to which the use of the death penalty deters crime or
about the prospects of designing the legal system so as to minimize the risk of inno-
cents being subjected to it. Presumably, those differences are in part due to the
absence of sufficient evidence. Accordingly, this lack of evidence also underlies the
resulting moral dispute.
The Intractability of Moral Disagreements

Mackie’s version of the argument from moral disagreement is indirect, but there are
more direct versions. According to one example, the idea is not just that the disa-
greement is best explained by a theory that is consistent with anti-realism but rather
that the best explanation implies anti-realism. For example, David Brink (who is a
moral realist) takes the central premise of the argument to be the idea that “moral
disputes are so pervasive and so intractable that the best explanation of this kind of
disagreement is that there are no moral facts” (1989: 197).
According to this version, then, it is the alleged intractability of moral disagree-
ments that creates problems for realism. The argument implicitly assumes that if
there had been moral truths then the disputes would have been easier to resolve.
Why make that assumption? Perhaps one has the general idea that if there are facts
in an area, it is possible to attain knowledge of those facts, at least in principle, and
thus also to resolve disagreements through rational argument. David Wiggins
has expressed the underlying thought as follows: “If X is true, then X will under
favourable circumstances command convergence” (1987: 147). In the case of ethics,
however, many disputes go so deep that the prospects for rational resolution are
bleak, which allegedly indicates that there are no moral facts.
The present argument assumes that moral truths, if there were any, would be
epistemologically accessible. It also assumes that many moral disputes cannot be
rationally resolved. The first assumption is not self-evident and the general idea that
facts are detectable by humans is not plausible as it stands. Though flexible, the
cognitive capacities of humans have evolved as a response to a concrete environment.
There is no reason to think that they are apt for detecting everything. Still, realists
typically accept the first assumption. In fact, some realists make the claim that moral
truths can be known part of their doctrine (Boyd 1988: 182). However, they take
issue with the second assumption.
Anti-realists who appeal to the alleged intractability of moral disputes think that
it is this feature that distinguishes moral disagreement from disputes that arise in,
for example, the sciences. One reason why they think that the latter are more tracta-
ble is that they can normally be blamed on cognitive shortcomings of some sort,
such as absence of relevant evidence, bias, inferential error, or lack of imagination.
The fact that scientists fail to achieve knowledge under conditions that are not
favorable does not show that they cannot achieve knowledge under circumstances
5
that are favorable. Thus, the existence of scientific disagreement provides no reason
to doubt that there are any scientific facts.
But realists stress that exactly the same holds in the case of many moral disagree-
ments. They can also, normally, be blamed on cognitive shortcomings. I have already
touched on one possibility. Some moral disputes are not fundamental but depend on
background disagreement about nonmoral issues. If those disagreements were
resolved, the resulting moral dispute would also wither. Perhaps not all disagree-
ments can be explained away in this way. But there are further possibilities.
An option that Mackie (1977: 37) considers is to argue that some apparent moral
disagreements are not genuine. Thus, consider the fact that polygamy is approved of
in some societies but disapproved of in others. This difference need not rule out that
the same basic moral principles are accepted in all societies. We may imagine, for
example, that they agree in thinking that social institutions are legitimate to the
extent that they serve certain human needs. Presumably, the circumstances may dif-
fer in such a way that those needs are best served by polygamy in some societies and
by monogamy in others.
In other words, convictions that appear to be in conflict may contain an implicit
reference to a particular context (“Polygamy is justified in society X”) that makes
them compatible. Notice the difference between this response and the one I dis-
cussed earlier. The first response was to say that some moral disagreements are
rooted in nonmoral disagreements. The second is to claim that what appears to be a
moral disagreement – a genuine conflict between moral judgments – is not in fact so.
The scope of this strategy is also limited. But, again, there are other possibilities.
For example, take bias, which is a shortcoming that is sometimes said to underlie
scientific disagreements. Thus, researchers may have invested so much in a theory
that they may be unable to perceive the reasonableness of crucial objections or to
seriously consider promising alternatives. Surely, the same holds in the case of many
moral debates. Indeed, it is easy to see how this factor may have an even greater
impact in the ethical case. For we typically have a psychological need to rationalize
our actions, regardless of whether they were prompted by moral concerns. Many are
therefore disposed to favor views that provide such a rationalization, to some extent
independently of their argumentative merits.
Another option is to invoke the concept of vagueness. For example, as among oth-
ers Brink (1989: 202) has pointed out, a realist may concede that as in other areas
there are borderline cases, i.e., cases where there is no fact of the matter as to whether
an action is morally right, perhaps due to the relevance of incommensurable consid-
erations. In those cases, disputes may resist a rational resolution. But that fact can
easily be reconciled with the view that, in other cases, there is an objective fact as to
who is correct. And so on. All of the strategies that are used for explaining away
nonmoral disagreement may in fact seem equally relevant in the ethical case.
Where does this leave the anti-realist? Let us say that if a moral disagreement
cannot be attributed to cognitive shortcomings, and if it cannot be explained away
in any of the other ways that I have indicated, then it is “radical.” Anti-realists
acknowledge that many disputes are not radical. But they also insist that plenty of
6
disagreements remain, cases where a similar diagnosis is less plausible. For example,
consider disagreements between philosophers who have spent their whole profes-
sional lives pondering the disputed issues and who know the ins and outs of every
available argument. Whether the features of such individuals really do ensure that
their disputes are radical can be contested, however, for example with reference to
the (slightly cynical) idea that defending a theory that evokes opposition can be a
smart career move for a professional philosopher.
It seems clear that, at the present stage, any confident conclusion about the extent
to which the existing moral diversity is radical would be premature. Determining
that issue requires more empirical research. There are studies that shed light on
some examples of moral differences (for a survey, see Doris and Stich 2005: 129–37).
But those studies do not offer an account of the cases they focus on that is suffi-
ciently detailed for determining if they are radical. Things are also complicated by
the fact that we lack a precise and comprehensive list of the factors that are to be
considered as cognitive shortcomings. Indeed, it is not always clear when something
belongs on that list. For example, what about emotional engagement? Some think
that when our emotions are involved this is going to make our verdicts less reliable
compared to when they are prompted by reason alone (Singer 2005). However, a
well-founded assessment of a moral issue presumably requires information about
which interests are at stake, and in order to gather such information it is likely to
help if one is capable of some amount of empathy. Moreover, there is research sug-
gesting that emotions play a crucial role in all our cognitive endeavors, in that they
help us to filter out irrelevant aspects (Le Doux 1996). Under what circumstances,
then, should emotional engagement be regarded as a shortcoming? Such questions
raise complex issues about the nature of knowledge and justification. Therefore, any
serious empirical investigation about the extent to which the existing moral diver-
sity is radical will require a great deal of collaboration between empirical researchers
and philosophers (see experimental ethics).
An A Priori Argument
The methodological observations I just made may seem to justify an agnostic
attitude toward arguments that rely on claims to the effect that there is radical moral
disagreement. Does that let realists off the hook, at least for now? Not necessarily.
For there are arguments that do not rely on complex empirical assumptions about
actual disagreements.
Crispin Wright (1992) has provided an interesting example. The versions of the
argument from disagreement that I have discussed so far are mainly concerned with
the second, “metaphysical,” component of realism (i.e., the claim that there are facts
in virtue of which moral claims can be true). However, Wright’s challenge focuses
instead on the first, “semantical,” component, according to which moral claims
express beliefs that purport to represent some objective aspect of reality.
Are moral convictions genuinely representational? Wright’s point of departure is
the idea that it is reasonable to regard the convictions expressed in an area as being
7
thus representational only if it is a priori that every disagreement that arises in that
area (except those that can be attributed to vagueness) involves a cognitive short-
coming of some sort, such as inferential error or ignorance of relevant evidence
(Wright 1992: 144). In support of this idea, he appeals to an analogy between our
belief-forming processes and certain other devices whose function is to produce rep-
resentations, such as cameras and fax machines. It is incontestable, he thinks, that if
two cameras function properly, and if conditions are suitable, then “they will pro-
duce divergent output if and only if presented with divergent input.” Analogously,
according to Wright, unless every instance of a “divergent output” in ethics can be
attributed to divergent input (e.g., different nonmoral beliefs), malfunction, or
unsuitable conditions (i.e., a cognitive shortcoming of some sort), moral convictions
are not the products of “a seriously representational mode of function” (1992: 94).
Is it a priori that every moral disagreement can be attributed to some cognitive
shortcoming? Wright answers this question in the negative. Even if all actual moral
disagreements happen to involve bias, ignorance of nonmoral facts, and so on, the
possibility of disputes that do not cannot be excluded. A realist could respond by
insisting that it can be excluded on the ground that at least one of the parties to every
moral disagreement is incorrect about the disputed claim. However, Wright insists
that if that is the only shortcoming a disagreement is supposed to involve, then real-
ists are committed to the view that the truth about the disputed issue “transcend[s],
even in principle, our abilities of recognition” (1996: 9). And although it might be
reasonable to think that this holds for truths in other areas, Wright is skeptical
in the case of ethics. He concludes that moral convictions are not representational in
the sense in which realists think that they are.
Wright’s argument against moral realism can accordingly be construed as a
reductio ad absurdum. That is, he argues that since it is not a priori that every moral
disagreement involves some cognitive shortcoming (i.e., that every moral disagree-
ment is nonradical), realists are committed to the idea that the truth of the disputed
claims transcends our abilities of recognition. And, as that conclusion is supposed to
be implausible, realism should be rejected. However, both the premises of the rea-
soning and the dismissal of the conclusion can be questioned.
Thus, suppose that two persons disagree over a moral claim p and that their disa-
greement is radical. Realism entails that one of the parties is in error about the truth-
value of p. So the fact that they disagree shows that a person could fail to achieve
knowledge of its truth-value even if she is not subject to any cognitive shortcomings.
However, it is unclear if the latter claim in turn implies that its truth-value cannot
possibly be known. To say that someone who is not subject to any cognitive short-
coming might fail to achieve knowledge of a moral truth is one thing. To say that the
truth cannot be known seems to be to say something much stronger. Perhaps Wright
could respond by insisting that what the weaker claim states is just what he means by
saying that a truth is transcendent. But then one might question if the claim that
moral truths are transcendent in that sense really is so unreasonable.
Moreover, as for the assumption that it is not a priori that every moral disagreement
is nonradical, it is important to note that Wright, like many other moral anti-realists,
8
does not want to extend his anti-realism to all other discourses. Therefore, he
implicitly assumes that there are discourses in which the possibility of radical
disagreement can be ruled out a priori. But how is that to be done? Unless a credible
answer to this question is offered, it is doubtful if the criterion he offers for deciding
if the convictions that are expressed within an area are genuinely representational
really serves its purpose.
Moral Disagreement and Non-Cognitivism

Wright does not deny that moral claims are expressions of states that can be true or
false, but he holds that the truth predicate that applies to moral claims is different
from that which applies to claims made in discourses that are to be construed in a
realistic way. He conceives of his position as a form of relativism. But considerations
about moral disagreement have also been invoked by non-cognitivists who do deny
that moral convictions are capable of truth and falsity.
Realists and non-cognitivists have different views about the nature of moral
disagreements. Non-cognitivists hold that to disagree about, say, the rightness of an
action is to have clashing attitudes toward it. Realists, by contrast, think that it is to
have conflicting beliefs about the action. Now, suppose that the sentence “It is good to
give to charity” is affirmed by A and rejected by B. According to some non-cognitivists,
there are considerations that exclude thinking that a dispute of this kind represents a
conflict of beliefs but that do not exclude regarding it as a genuine moral disagreement.
The problem with realism is accordingly supposed to be that it misrepresents some
genuine moral disputes as being merely apparent (for such suggestions, see Blackburn
1984: 168; Stevenson 1963: 48–51; see stevenson, c. l.).
It is a commonplace that speakers need not have conflicting beliefs just because
they give different verdicts on the same sentence. The word “green” is ambiguous.
It could refer both to the property of being inexperienced and to the property of
being of a certain color. So if “Peter is green” is affirmed by one person and rejected
by another, this might just mean that the first person believes that Peter is
inexperienced while the second denies that he is unusually colored. Similarly, in the
case of the dispute over, say, “It is good to give to charity,” some non-cognitivists
think that there are facts that show that, insofar as “good” refers at all, A and B use
it to refer to different properties. Realists will perhaps respond that it begs the ques-
tion against realism to make that assumption. However, non-cognitivists crucially
think that they can provide independent evidence for it.
For example, in a famous passage, R. M. Hare has us imagine a missionary who
lands on a “cannibal island” (see hare, r. m.). The missionary finds that the “can-
nibals” use “good,” just as he, as “the most general adjective of commendation.”
But he also finds that they apply it differently. The natives apply it to persons who
are “bold and burly and collect more scalps than the average,” while the mission-
ary applies it to those who are “meek and gentle and do not collect large quantities
of scalps” (Hare 1952: 146–9). Hare suggests that these differences are sufficient
to show that “good” has different “descriptive meanings” for the missionary and
9
the natives, respectively, and that their disputes therefore don’t represent conflicts
of beliefs. The differences do not, however, rule out that the disputes exhibit the
features that justify interpreting them as genuine moral disagreements. For exam-
ple, the parties will still feel opposed to each other, and they will in many ways act
as if they are in opposition.
Hare’s argument relies on a general view about how the reference of a term is
determined. On this view, it is determined by the speakers’ use of the term. More
specifically, the view is taken to imply that co-reference is undermined whenever
two persons apply a term systematically differently and on the basis of radically
different considerations. The point is that neither this general view nor the assump-
tions about the differences that Hare’s scenario involves beg the question against
the realist.
Realists have typically responded to this argument by questioning the underlying
view of reference. For example, Richard Boyd appeals to a causal theory according
to which, roughly, moral terms refer to the properties that causally regulate the
speakers’ uses of the terms. The fact that speakers apply a term differently does not
seem to rule out that their use is regulated by the same property. Therefore, Boyd’s
(1988) theory allows realists to deny that co-reference is undermined by differences
of the kind that Hare invokes. The debate continues, however. On the one hand,
versions of the argument have been developed that apply also to Boyd’s position
(Horgan and Timmons 1990–1). On the other hand, there are other theories of
reference to which realists may appeal (Wedgwood 2001; see semantics, moral).
Another response is to concede that, in the relevant cases, the speakers disagree
merely in the sense that they have clashing attitudes. Why would a realist have to
deny that differences in attitude sometimes could survive agreement on the facts
(Jackson and Pettit 1998)? One problem with that response has to do with how
metaethical positions should be evaluated. On one idea, they are to be tested with
reference to how well they account for certain features of our ways of relating to
moral issues and to our moral convictions, such as the fact that we defend them with
arguments and typically have some motivation to act in accordance with them
(Smith 1994: Ch. 1). Presumably, these features include facts about how we behave
and feel when debating moral claims. Thus, by accepting that, in some cases, those
facts are best explained by non-cognitivist ideas about what it is to disagree morally,
a realist concedes, in effect, that realism fails to obtain support from some of the
relevant evidence.
Concluding Remarks
The above discussion illustrates that there is no simple and comfortable route from
the straightforward fact that there is moral disagreement to a confident conclusion
about the objectivity of ethics. Any serious attempt to assess the metaethical signifi-
cance of the diversity quickly leads on to consideration of complex general philo-
sophical issues, about the nature of truth, meaning, knowledge, and so on. It also
requires reflection on the content and methodological status of metaethical theories,
10
for example concerning the kinds of evidence that are relevant in evaluating them
(see methodology in metaethics).
In fact, there are plenty of aspects that need further exploration. One such aspect
concerns the wider implications of arguments that appeal to moral disagreement.
Perhaps one can justify moral anti-realism on the basis of moral diversity without
committing oneself to anti-realism also about the sciences. But what about other
philosophical disciplines, such as epistemology and aesthetics (Shafer-Landau 2007)?
After all, those areas are also impregnated with disagreement. Indeed, what about
philosophy as a whole? In spite of more than 2,000 years of discussion, philosophers
have not been able to reach much agreement. So, if one rejects moral realism on the
basis of moral disagreement, should one perhaps embrace anti-realism also about
philosophical claims in general, including the claims made by non-cognitivists and
relativists (see companions in guilt strategy)? Maybe a threat of self-defeatingness
lurks in the vicinity? Clearly, more work needs to be done.
See also: companions in guilt strategy; emotivism; error theory;

experimental ethics; explanations, moral; hare, r. m.; mackie, j. l.;
metaethics; methodology in metaethics; non-cognitivism;
prescriptivism; realism, moral; relativism, moral; semantics, moral;
stevenson, c. l.
REFERENCES
Blackburn, Simon 1984. Spreading the Word. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Boyd, Richard 1988. “How to Be a Moral Realist,” in G. Sayre-McCord (ed.), Essays on Moral
Realism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, pp. 181–228.
University Press.
Doris, John, and Stephen Stich 2005. “As a Matter of Fact: Empirical Perspectives on Ethics,”
in F. Jackson and M. Smith (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy.
Harman, Gilbert 1977. The Nature of Morality. New York: Oxford University Press.
Horgan, Terence, and Mark Timmons 1990–1. “New Wave Moral Realism Meets Moral Twin
Jackson, Frank, and Philip Pettit 1998. “A Problem for Expressivism,” Analysis, vol. 58,
pp. 239–51.
Joyce, Richard 2006. The Evolution of Morality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Le Doux, Joseph 1996. The Emotional Brain. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Shafer-Landau, Russ 2007. “Ethics as Philosophy: A Defense of Ethical Nonnaturalism,” in
R. Shafer-Landau and T. Cuneo (eds.), Foundations of Ethics: An Anthology. Oxford:
Singer, Peter 2005. “Ethics and Intuitions,” Journal of Ethics, vol. 9, pp. 331–52.
11
Stevenson, C. L. 1963. Facts and Values. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Wedgwood, Ralph 2001. “Conceptual Role Semantics for Moral Terms,” Philosophical Review,
vol. 110, pp. 1–30.
Wiggins, David 1987. “Truth, Invention and the Meaning of Life,” in Needs, Values, Truth:
Essays in the Philosophy of Value. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 87–138.
Wright, Crispin 1996. “Truth in Ethics,” in B. Hooker (ed.), Truth in Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell,
pp. 1–18.
FURTHER READINGS
Brandt, Richard 1954. Hopi Ethics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Cook, John W. 1999. Morality and Cultural Differences. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Enoch, David 2009. “How Is Moral Disagreement a Problem for Realism?” Journal of Ethics,
vol. 13, pp. 15–50.
Gowans, Christopher W. (ed.) 1999. Moral Disagreements: Classic and Contemporary
Readings. London: Routledge.
Gowans, Christopher W. 2004. “A Priori Refutations of Disagreement Arguments Against
Moral Objectivity: Why Experience Matters,” Journal of Value Inquiry, vol. 38, pp. 141–57.
Herskovits, Melville 1955. Cultural Anthropology. New York: Knopf.
Hurley, Susan 1985. “Objectivity and Disagreement,” in T. Honderich (ed.), Morality and
Objectivity. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, pp. 54–97.
Loeb, Don 1998. “Moral Realism and the Argument from Disagreement,” Philosophical
Merli, David 2008. “Expressivism and the Limits of Moral Disagreement,” Journal of Ethics,
vol. 12, pp. 25–55.
Shafer-Landau, Russ 1994. “Ethical Disagreement, Ethical Objectivism and Moral
Indeterminacy,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, vol. 54, pp. 331–44.
Tersman, Folke 2006. Moral Disagreement. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Tolhurst, William 1987. “The Argument from Moral Disagreement,” Ethics, vol. 97,
pp. 610–21.
Westermarck, Edward 1932. Ethical Relativity. New York: Harcourt, Brace.
Wong, David 1984. Moral Relativity. Berkeley: University of California Press.
1
Nanotechnology, Ethics of
John Weckert
In 1986 Eric Drexler raised the issue of gray goo in his book Engines of Creation:
The Coming Era of Nanotechnology. Nanotechnology, he argued, would lead to the
development of self-replicating nanorobots, which if left unchecked could destroy
the world. This self-assembly would also enable desktop, or personal, factories
that could produce just about anything. Bill Joy’s article “Why the Future Doesn’t
Need Us” (2000) argued that possible developments in nanotechnology and related
technologies were so dangerous that a moratorium on research was warranted.
The gray goo debate has receded since then, with less emphasis being placed on
self-replicating machines. Discussion of personal factories continues, however,
although not so much in the mainstream nanotechnology literature, and we will
return to this later. There are still calls for moratoria on some nanotechnology
research, although more because of the potential dangers of some nanoparticles
than for the reasons that Joy advanced. The actual course of nanoethics, the study
of the ethics of nanotechnology, has been rather mundane compared with the
Drexler and Joy scenarios, and even the need for nanoethics is not generally
accepted.
In fact, almost everything about nanoethics is in dispute. There is not even
agreement about what nanotechnology is. Is there nanotechnology or are there nano-
technologies? The consensus is that there are nanotechnologies and that these are
enabling technologies; they enable developments in other technologies. The question
then is: If there are nanotechnologies, what is it that they all have in common? And is
it new or just a continuation of what scientists have been doing for decades, or longer?
The nanotechnology literature gives contradictory messages on whether or not it is
new. It has been argued, and this raises ethical questions, that this technology is fre-
quently hailed as new and exciting, but when concerns are expressed it is said to be
merely a continuation of what has been happening previously (Sparrow 2007).
Nanotechnology is most commonly explained in terms of size: nanotechnology is
concerned with matter in the 1–100 nanometer range where new properties emerge
(see Schummer 2010 for a criticism of this account). But even where this is accepted,
there is disagreement about nanoethics. Is there a branch of applied ethics, nanoethics,
that is similar to, for example, bioethics (see bioethics) or computer ethics (see
computer ethics)? It can be argued, quite plausibly, that nanotechnology does not
raise any new ethical issues; it is just more of the same. Anything that might be
considered an issue in nanoethics is an issue in some other branch of applied ethics, so
what is the point of nanoethics? This has been explored by a number of authors.
Tsjalling Swierstra and Arie Rip (2007) for example, argue that while there might not
be a nanoethics, there is an ethics of new and emerging technologies (NEST ethics)
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee132
2
and that some of the issues are nanotechnology specific. Armin Grunwald’s (2005)
position is somewhat similar. Important issues are raised by nanotechnology that
require ethical examination but, by and large, these arise with other technologies as
well, and so he resists the view that there is a separate field of nanoethics (see also
Schmid et al. 2006 for a similar argument). Marion Godman (2008) takes a stronger
line against the uniqueness of nanoethics, arguing that an emphasis on uniqueness
leads to ignoring many important questions raised by nanotechnology but not internal
to it. A more dismissive view of the debate is taken by Lin and Allhoff (2007) who
suggest that the uniqueness or otherwise of nanoethics is not particularly important.
Important ethical issues are raised by nanotechnologies and that is enough to legiti-
mize the field. In general, then, it can be said that a cluster of important ethical issues
surrounds nanotechnologies and these require examination.
Before considering some of the problems that are typically studied in nanoethics
it is worth noting two criticisms of the field. The first is that exploring the ethics of
emerging technologies runs the risk of becoming a platform for propaganda – for
promoting technologies that have not yet developed. This problem is raised by
Joachim Schummer (2008), but he also suggests solutions. One is that ethicists
involved in studying emerging technologies should be aware of “the social dynamics
of public discourses including their own role therein” in order to understand how
discussion of the ethical issues, particularly those which are not yet real issues, can
influence perceptions of new technologies. The other is that ethicists should work
closely with the scientists and engineers who are developing the new technologies in
order to understand better what is really happening and avoid some of the pitfalls of
overreliance on futuristic scenarios. This second point is supported by van de Poel
(2008) in his network account of an approach to discern important topics in
nanoethics. He extends those to be involved not only to the scientists and engineers
but to a much wider group of stakeholders who might be affected by the technology.
The second criticism also concerns the fact that many of the so-called “ethical issues
in nanotechnology” are in areas where there has as yet been little development, so
discussion of them must be based on prediction. Prediction of course is notoriously
unreliable, and this is nowhere more true than in predictions about the directions of
scientific and technological developments. Alfred Nordmann (2007) discusses this
issue critically in terms of speculation and the tendency to treat remote possibilities
as likely technological developments, something that he calls “if and then.” Instead
of concentrating on real and important issues, ethicists too often focus on “problems”
that will probably never arise, and if they do, only long in the future. It is true too
that prediction is hazardous, but it could be argued that it is also essential.
Nanotechnology is being actively promoted in many countries, because of its
predicted benefits both to the economy and to humanity. Careful prediction is dif-
ferent from wild speculation. It seems quite reasonable, for example, to speculate on
the consequences to personal privacy (see privacy) of the further miniaturization of
sensing and monitoring devices enabled by nanoelectronics. This can be based on
what we know from past developments and current research. Nanoethics, it could be
argued, should be based on careful prediction and constant reassessment of the
3
science and technology. A different approach is that of vision assessment. Visions

about technological futures can come from a variety of sources: science fiction writ-
ers, scientists, developers of technology, policymakers, and so on. These visions are
carefully assessed and outlined in three steps by Schmid et al. (2006: 427): vision
analysis, vision evaluation, and vision management.
This leads to a methodological question for nanoethics. How should it be done?
Typically in applied ethics, the problems discussed arise primarily as a result of
certain practices or the use of technologies. Ethical questions arise, for example, in
how genetic modification should be employed. This is reactive applied ethics, or
ethics last. Ethicists react to problems as they arise. In nanotechnology there are not
yet many such problems so a more proactive approach is taken. This is ethics first.
Problems are anticipated through prediction or vision assessment. Both of these
approaches have problems, highlighted in the so-called Collingridge dilemma: if the
ethics is done before the technology has impacts, it is difficult to predict what those
impacts will be, and if done after the technology has been developed it is difficult to
control the impacts. This “ethics last, ethics first” dichotomy is a false dichotomy
according to Moor and Weckert (2004), who argue that both approaches are required
and that there must be a constant revisiting of the science and technology. This way
of looking at the ethics of technology was suggested in 1960 by Norbert Wiener.
Talking about automated machines, he wrote: “To be effective in warding off disas-
trous consequences, our understanding of our man-made machines should in
general develop pari passu [in step] with the performance of the machine” (1960:
1355). For an effective nanoethics, Wiener’s advice should be heeded.
Finally, before turning to the main topics in nanoethics, what are some of the
benefits (or potential benefits) of nanotechnology? Stronger and lighter materials
will enable the production of safer and more energy efficient transport. Self-cleaning
materials are already available and more efficient solar cells for electricity generation
are being developed. Targeted drug delivery is under development and lab-on-a-chip
technology is advancing. Advances in nanoelectronics have already enormously
increased the amount of memory in computers and are expected to allow the
continuation of Moore’s law.
Of the topics commonly discussed in nanoethics, the potential toxicity of some
nanoparticles has received the most attention, particularly in the area of health.
Products currently on the market, for example sunscreens and cosmetics, contain
nanoparticles, and fears have been expressed regarding their safety (for an overview,
see Seaton et al. 2010). Concerns are also expressed about potential medical applica-
tions, particular in the form of targeted drug delivery and lab-on-a-chip technologies.
While these appear to be unmitigated goods, and are frequently mentioned as one of
the most important benefits of nanotechnology, there are concerns about the effects
of the nanoparticles in the body. In most cases the issue is not that it is known that
particular nanoparticles are health or environmental risks, but rather that not
enough is known yet to understand their effects properly. Nanoscale particles have
properties different from larger particles of the same material, due at least partly to
their greater surface area, so their effects in the body are not well understood. One
4
concern with products such as cosmetics and sunscreens that are applied to the skin
is that the nanoparticles could pass through the skin and lodge in various parts of
the body where they could cause harm. Faunce et al. (2008), for example, suggest
that the evidence so far is inconclusive as to whether or not titanium dioxide and
zinc oxide, both used in sunscreens and known to be harmful to cells, can penetrate
the skin. Another concern is that thread-like particles that can be inhaled might
have the same effects as asbestos and lead to serious lung disease (Bell n.d.).
Nanoparticles in the air are of course nothing new and by and large cause no ill
effects. The worry is that some manufactured particles of certain shapes might not
be so benign (for a detailed discussion, see Schmid et al. 2006: 344ff). While much
of the discussion has focused on legal and policy questions regarding how best to
regulate their use, underlying ethical concerns include acceptable risk (see risk) and
risk assessment more generally, application of the precautionary principle, and
labeling of products to enable informed consent by consumers (see informed
consent). This worry about certain nanoparticles is an environmental issue as well
as a health one. What will be the effect of certain types of these manufactured
nanoparticles on the environment?
The further miniaturization of monitoring and surveillance devices enabled by
nanoelectronics has raised concerns about further loss of personal privacy and
greater potential for control over our lives by both public and private authorities.
These more powerful devices of course have important uses, especially in enhancing
security and reducing the threat of terrorism. But the dangers of greater loss of
personal privacy, which impacts on an individual’s freedom, must be examined
along with the benefits of improved security.
A related topic that has received considerable attention is human enhancement, or
the improvement of human performance. Therapeutic implants, for example com-
puter chips to overcome blindness and some psychiatric conditions, will almost cer-
tainly become more sophisticated by developments in nanoelectronics and very likely
lead to implants for enhancements. Research is already proceeding on cognitive
enhancement involving memory and reasoning ability and new learning techniques,
on enhancement of our sensing abilities, and on brain-to-brain and brain-to-machine
communication. A central concern relates to the question of what it is to be human
and whether such enhancement is taking away something from our humanity. A
similar worry is raised by the blurring of the boundaries between technology and life.
Military uses of nanotechnology are likely to enable new weapons and fears have
been expressed that this could provoke a new arms race (Altmann 2006). Research is
well under way on weapons with an ability to make autonomous decisions, tiny
missiles possibly only a few millimeters in length, enhancement of soldier perfor-
mance through implants, sensors, and exoskeletons and the like, and small animals
or insects with sensor and explosive implants. Whether or not these developments
are seen as ethical concerns depends at least partly on one’s views on war generally.
However, certain weapons are almost universally proscribed, for example chemical
weapons, so it is fitting that these developments enabled by nanotechnology are
examined from an ethical perspective.
5
A perennial issue concerns distributive justice (see global distributive justice)

or the so-called “nano-divide”; the worry that the advance of nanotechnologies will
be concentrated in developed countries and will focus on products for those
countries. This will, it is feared, widen the gap between developing and developed
countries. While some see this as an opportunity for improving the lot of poorer
areas, others are more cynical. Intellectual property (see intellectual property)
is one of the concerns. Patents have been a problem for the affordability of medical
supplies in many developing countries and the same could be true of new nanotech-
nology products. Most of the discussion about distributive justice has related to
issues between countries, but justice questions are equally important between both
groups and individuals within countries. The benefits of nanotechnology, even
within developed countries, are unlikely to be evenly distributed, and these uneven
distributions require examination to understand whether or not they are justifiable.
A controversial branch of nanotechnology, molecular manufacturing, if it
proves feasible, could have dramatic consequences for society. Mike Treder and
Chris Phoenix (2007), for example, argue that “personal nanofactories” will
become available that will be able to manufacture just about anything “atom by
atom.” If this eventuates, the economic consequences would be immense. No
longer would traditional agriculture, mining, or factories be necessary, certainly
not to the extent that they are now. This topic is currently rarely discussed in the
mainstream nanoethics literature because there is considerable skepticism about
whether the technology will be available in the foreseeable future, or perhaps ever.
However, given that nanoethics needs to be proactive as well as reactive, it may
well be prudent to give it more attention.
Nanotechnologies, at least in their present incarnation, are new and still develop-
ing, and therefore much of the ethical discussion surrounding them is proactive; it
focuses on what most likely will be and not so much on what exists at the moment.
As such, it involves consideration of what ought to be researched and developed and
whether the precautionary principle (see precautionary principle) should be
applied in some areas. This in turn encourages examination or re-examination of
some basic issues in the ethics and philosophy of technology and science: What is
the purpose of technology? Can technological research and development be directed
externally, and if it can be, should it be, and by whom? What is human flourishing,
or “the good life,” and how can technology contribute to this? These questions are
larger than nanoethics, but if the ethics of nanotechnology are to be discussed
usefully they cannot be separated from those discussions. It is important that
nanoethics not be seen to be, and not be, purely negative – an enterprise to discourage
research and development. The proactive approach encourages a more positive
attitude where the ethics can help inform the future direction of nanotechnological
development.
See also: bioethics; computer ethics; global distributive justice;

informed consent; intellectual property; precautionary principle;
privacy; risk
6
REFERENCES
Altmann, Jürgen 2006. Military Nanotechnology: New Technology and Arms Control. London:
Routledge.
Bell, T. E. n.d. “Understanding Risk Assessment of Nanotechnology,” article funded by
National Nanotechnology Coordination Office. At http://toxipedia.org/download/
attachments/5998572/Understanding_nanoRisk_Assessment.pdf, accessed July 2, 2012.
Drexler, Eric 1986. Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology. New York:
Anchor-Doubleday.
Faunce, Thomas, Katherine Murray, Hitoshi Nasu, and Diana Bowman 2008. “Sunscreen
Safety: The Precautionary Principle, The Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration
and Nanoparticles in Sunscreens,” NanoEthics, vol. 2, pp. 231–40.
Godman, Marion 2008. “But Is It Unique to Nanotechnology?” Science and Engineering
Ethics, vol. 14, pp. 391–403.
Grunwald, Armin 2005. “Nanotechnology: A New Field of Ethical Inquiry?” Science and
Engineering Ethics, vol. 11, pp. 187–201.
Joy, Bill 2000. “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us,” Wired, vol. 8, no. 4.
Lin, Patrick, and Fritz Allhoff 2007. “Nanoscience and Nanoethics: Defining the Disciplines,”
in Fritz Allhoff, Patrick Lin, James Moor, and John Weckert (eds.), Nanotechnology: The
Ethical and Social Implications of Nanotechnology. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons,
Inc., pp. 3–16.
Moor, James, and John Weckert 2004. “Nanoethics: Assessing the Nanoscale from an Ethical
Point of View,” in Davis Baird, Alfred Nordmann, and Joachim Schummer (eds.), Discovering
the Nanoscale. Amsterdam: IOS, pp. 301–10.
Nordmann, Alfred 2007. “If and Then: A Critique of Speculative Nanoethics,” Nanoethics,
vol. 1, pp. 31–46.
Schmid, E., H. Ernst, A. Grunwald, et al. 2006. Nanotechnology: Assessments and Perspectives.
Berlin: Springer.
Schummer, Joachim 2008. “The Popularization of Emerging Technologies through Ethics:
From Nanotechnology to Synthetic Biology, Spontaneous Generation,” Journal for the
History and Philosophy of Science, vol. 2, pp. 56–62.
Schummer, Joachim 2010. “On the Novelty of Nanotechnology: A Philosophical Essay,” in
Anthony Mark Cutter and Bert Gordijn (eds.), In Pursuit of Nanoethics. Dordrecht: Springer.
Seaton, Anthony, Lang Tran, Robert Aitken, and Kenneth Donaldson 2010. “Nanoparticles,
Human Health Hazard and Regulation,” Journal of the Royal Society Interface, vol. 7,
pp. S119–S129.
Sparrow, Robert 2007. “Revolutionary and Familiar, Inevitable and Precarious: Rhetorical
Contradictions in Enthusiasm for Nanotechnology,” Nanoethics, vol. 1, pp. 57–68.
Swierstra, Tsjalling, and Arie Rip 2007. “Nanoethics as NEST-Ethics: Patterns of Moral
Argumentation about New and Emerging Science and Technology,” Nanoethics, vol. 1,
pp. 3–20.
Treder, M., and C. Phoenix 2007. “Challenges and Pitfalls of Exponential Manufacturing,” in
F. Allhoff, P. Lin, J. Moor, and J. Weckert (eds.), Nanoethics: The Ethical and Social
Implications of Nanotechnology. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., pp. 311–22.
Van de Poel, Ibo 2008. “How Should We Do Nanoethics? A Network Approach for Discerning
Ethical Issues in Nanotechnology,” Nanoethics, vol. 2, pp. 25–38.
Wiener, Norbert 1960. “Some Moral and Technical Consequences of Automation,” Science,
vol. 131, pp. 1355–8.
7
FURTHER READINGS
Cameron, Nigel, and M. Ellen Mitchell (eds.) 2007. Nanoscale: Issues and Perspectives for the
Nano Century. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Guston, David H. (ed.) 2010. Encyclopedia of Nanoscience and Society. Thousand Oaks,
CA: Sage.
Hunt, Geoffrey, and Michael Mehta 2006. Nanotechnology: Risk, Ethics and Law, London:
Earthscan.
O’Mathúna, Dónald P. 2009. Nanoethics: Big Ethical Issues with Small Technology. London:
Continuum.
Sandler, Ronald 2009. Nanotechnology: The Social and Ethical Issues. Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars, Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, PEN 16. At
http://www.nanotechproject.org/publications/archive/pen16/, accessed July 2, 2012.
1
Loyalty
Simon Keller
Loyalty is a part of every person’s life and a source of many everyday ethical quandaries.
Friendship, for example, involves loyalty, and in the course of a friendship you may face
questions about what your loyalty to your friend demands (Are you a bad friend if you
forget her birthday?), how its demands should be weighed against the demands of other
loyalties (Should you have dinner at your mother’s or give your friend a ride home from
the airport?), and what you should do when its demands conflict with other moral con-
siderations (Should you tell a lie to help your friend keep a secret?). Similar kinds of
questions may be produced by loyalty to a sibling or a colleague, a country or an
employer, a club or a business (see filial duties; personal relationships).
While loyalty comes in many varieties, there are some features that all loyalties
share. When you are loyal to someone, you are partial to her, which is to say that you
favor her over others. Your partiality may involve prioritizing her interests, or obeying
her commands, or treating her with a special kind of respect or reverence. Loyal par-
tiality, furthermore, must be nontrivial; if you are loyal to something, then you will
be prepared to make some personal sacrifices, or to resist some competing consid-
erations, in order to act for its sake.
Being loyal is a matter not only of how you behave, but also of how you think.
When you are loyal to someone, you take yourself to share with her a special
relationship. You will favor your children over other children, say, because they are
your children, and you will favor your country over other countries because it is your
country. Loyalty always involves, in addition, direct emotional concern for the object
of loyalty. You are not really loyal to someone if you favor her only out of self-interest
or a sense of duty; you need not be acting out of loyalty to your bank when you give
it your loan repayments. And you are not really loyal to someone if you favor her
only out of loyalty to somebody else; when you look after your friend’s cat for a few
days, you may act out of loyalty to your friend, not to his cat.
For some philosophers, that is about all there is to say about the basic nature of
loyalty, and the important further task is to distinguish and evaluate loyalties of
different kinds. According to other philosophers, however, it is only when we say
more about the basic nature of loyalty that we can bring loyalty’s moral importance
into view. Different views about the nature of loyalty tend to lead to different views
about two major questions that loyalty raises for moral philosophy: “Is loyalty a
virtue?” and “What does loyalty tell us about general theories of morality?”
Interest in that last question, about loyalty and moral theory, motivates much of
the philosophical work on loyalty. While it seems obvious that loyalty can be a good
thing, many moral theories have trouble accounting for it. Moral theories often tell
us that everyone is morally equal and that we ought ideally to be impartial. To be
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee133
2
loyal, though, is to pay attention to particular relationships, and to give some

individuals better treatment than others, even when those others are no less
important from an objective point of view. Must we then abandon loyalty, or
abandon impartial moral theory? Or is there some good strategy for placing loyalty
alongside impartiality, or for bringing one within the other?
It is helpful to distinguish a “maximalist” from a “minimalist” approach to the
nature and ethical significance of loyalty. The maximalist approach makes relatively
far-reaching claims about the nature of loyalty and its repercussions for moral
theory. The minimalist approach sees relatively little content in the bare notion of
loyalty and takes loyalty, considered just in itself, to be morally neutral. The various
elements of the maximalist and minimalist approaches are separable, though they
do tend to come together, and the approaches stand only as the poles of the debate;
there are possible views that fall between them.
The Maximalist Approach to Loyalty

In his classic 1908 book The Philosophy of Loyalty, Josiah Royce argues that loyalty,
no matter how local its immediate object, evinces a mode of thought that aspires
ultimately to reach something universal and transcendent. The purest form of loy-
alty, for Royce, is loyalty to the eternal, or to the absolute, or to loyalty itself (Royce
1995). This is a paradigmatic maximalist conception of loyalty.
More recent discussions of loyalty have found other ways to give it an ethically sig-
nificant character. On one popular view, loyalty expresses (or creates) a person’s very
identity; it is partly through our loyal commitments, runs the idea, that we are defined
as distinct individuals (Fletcher 1993: Ch. 1; Rorty 1997; Williams 1981: Ch. 1).
Another view is that loyalty always involves valuing a relationship for its own sake, so
that when you are loyal to your parents or your country, for example, you value non-
instrumentally the relationship in which you stand to your mother and your father, or
to your country and your fellow citizens (Scheffler 2001: Chs. 6–7).
You have the character trait of loyalty if you are disposed to think and act loyally
within a range of relationships. There is a natural case for regarding the character
trait of loyalty as a virtue (see virtue). Any flourishing human life will feature
healthy relationships of mutual loyalty; some forms of loyalty, like loyalty to your
own children, are morally obligatory; and loyalty is closely associated with valuable
traits like trustworthiness and the willingness to make sacrifices for others. If we
accept a view like those just described, on which loyalty by nature has an ethical
character or ethical aspirations, then we might add, for example, that the loyal person
is more likely to be committed to the good, or to understand and be true to his own
identity. It is true that loyalty can sometimes be misguided, and can sometimes be
blinding and destructive, but perhaps that does not set loyalty apart from other more
familiar virtues. Honesty, for example, can easily be misplaced, and honesty must
always be balanced against other virtues and exercised with good judgment.
Some writers go so far as to see loyalty as a foundational virtue – not just another
virtue, but one in whose terms the other virtues, and perhaps morality as a whole,
3
can be explained. Royce (1995), Fletcher (1993), and Rorty (1997) each present ver-
sions of the “ethics of loyalty,” a view that sees loyalty as a precondition of any healthy
moral sensibility. That idea is also influential within the communitarian movement
in political philosophy (see communitarianism). If impartial moral theory cannot
account for the importance of loyalty, it is suggested, then an ethics of loyalty is an
obvious alternative.
A less radical view places the demands of loyalty alongside the demands of
impartial morality. While there is truth to impartialist moral theory, runs the view,
it is not the whole truth. There exists the morality of loyalty as well. As moral agents,
perhaps, we must find ways to navigate between the respective requirements we find
from the impartial perspective, on the one hand, and the perspective we take as
participants in particular relationships, on the other (Scheffler 2001).
The Minimalist Approach to Loyalty

The minimalist approach to the ethics of loyalty begins with the differences between
loyalties. Different loyalties make different demands; the acts of a loyal friend differ
from the acts of a loyal parent, which differ again from the acts of a loyal citizen.
Different loyalties have different kinds of objects; a friend and a country are quite
different kinds of things, each different again from a political party. Loyalty may be
ironic or earnest, consuming or mild, reflective or impulsive; in different cases, it
can be natural, obligatory, pathological, or silly. Considering all the different forms
that loyalty can take, perhaps loyalty considered in itself is too indeterminate a
notion to be an appropriate object of ethical evaluation (Keller 2007).
If we are more impressed by the differences between loyalties than by their
similarities, then we are unlikely to see loyalty as a virtue. Some forms of loyalty, per-
haps, are virtuous, but they are virtuous – the minimalist will say – because of their
connections with independent values and virtues, not because they are forms of loy-
alty, or because they qualify as true or pure loyalties. Misguided and destructive loyal-
ties, on the minimalist approach, may qualify no less as genuine loyalties. They simply
illustrate some of the directions in which genuine loyalty may lead. Through our
loyalties, the minimalist will say, we are able to express the various other, independently
graspable, virtues and vices, but loyalty itself is neither a virtue nor a vice (Ewin 1992).
The relationship between loyalty and moral theory, for the minimalist, is
complicated. Having noticed that loyalties can be either virtuous or vicious, one avail-
able strategy is to say that we need some independent standard for discriminating
between better and worse loyalties, and that one such standard is an impartialist
standard. A proponent of impartialist consequentialism, for example, may say that the
desirable loyalties are those that have good overall consequences, as measured from
an impartial point of view, and that the partiality involved in loyalty can hence be
justified in impartialist terms (Railton 1984; see consequentialism). Whether
some such impartialist story could yield plausible evaluations of the various forms
of loyalty, and of the attitudes we expect loyal people to take toward each other and
their relationships, is a further question.
4
An alternative strategy is to consider the various forms of loyalty one by one,

trying to decide in each case how (and whether) a loyalty of the relevant kind could
be desirable. What thoughts and actions make for a good friend, for example, under
which conditions and in response to which external pressures? What loyalty is
desirable in an employee, and under what circumstances ought an employee to
become a whistle-blower? Perhaps progress on questions like these can allow us to
see more clearly what form a moral theory must take in order to deal satisfactorily
with loyalty in its various manifestations. We may conclude that the impartialist
approach to morality is indeed misguided or incomplete, but even if we do, we will
not construe the task for a moral theory as simply that of finding a place for loyalty.
For the minimalist, a moral theory needs to yield a critical perspective from which
to assess the various kinds of loyalty, and it should find places only for loyalties that
deserve them.
Conclusion
Questions about the ethics of loyalty have significance for some large questions
about moral philosophy, including questions about the inventory of the virtues and
the prospects of various general moral theories. How we take loyalty to bear upon
such questions depends upon what exactly we take loyalty to be, how we discriminate
between kinds of loyalty, and how we evaluate various loyalties considered in their
own rights. Philosophical approaches to loyalty often proceed schematically,
considering loyalty simply as an instance of partiality, or using just one or two
guiding examples. A more fruitful strategy may be to examine more closely the
psychology of loyalty in its many manifestations, and to try to make progress on
some of the practical quandaries – about what particular loyalties demand and how
those demands should be weighed against others – with which we began.
See also: communitarianism; consequentialism; filial duties; personal

relationships; virtue
REFERENCES
Ewin, R. E. 1992. “Loyalty and Virtues,” Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 42, pp. 403–19.
Fletcher, George P. 1993. Loyalty. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Keller, Simon 2007. The Limits of Loyalty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Railton, Peter 1984. “Alienation, Consequentialism, and the Demands of Morality,” Philosophy
Rorty, Richard 1997. “Justice As a Larger Loyalty,” Ethical Perspectives, vol. 4, pp. 139–49.
Royce, Josiah 1995. The Philosophy of Loyalty. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.
Scheffler, Samuel 2001. Boundaries and Allegiances. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Williams, Bernard 1981. Moral Luck. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
5
FURTHER READINGS
Badhwar, Neera Kapur (ed.) 1993. Friendship: A Philosophical Reader. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press.
Baron, Marcia 1984. The Moral Status of Loyalty. Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt.
Cocking, Dean, and Jeanette Kennett 2000. “Friendship and Moral Danger,” Journal of
MacIntyre, Alasdair 1984. “Is Patriotism a Virtue?” E. H. Lindley Lecture, University of
Kansas. Repr. in Igor Primoratz (ed.) 2007. Patriotism. Amherst, NY: Humanity Books,
pp. 43–58.
Nussbaum, Martha C. 2002. For Love of Country? Boston: Beacon.
Oldenquist, Andrew 1982. “Loyalties,” Journal of Philosophy, vol. 79, pp. 173–93.
Primoratz, Igor, and Aleksandar Pavkovic (eds.) 2007. Patriotism: Philosophical and Political
Perspectives. Aldershot: Ashgate.
1
Nonnaturalism, Ethical
Terence Cuneo
Ethical nonnaturalism has a distinguished pedigree. Ancient philosophers such as

Plato, moderns such as Thomas Reid, Henry Sidgwick, and G. E. Moore, and
contemporary philosophers such as Derek Parfit and David Wiggins, have all
defended it (see moore, g. e.; plato; reid, thomas; sidgwick, henry). Despite its
impressive pedigree, the view has experienced significant swings in popularity. For
roughly the first half of the twentieth century, nonnaturalism was an extremely
influential metaethical theory, arguably the dominant one. However, during
the latter half of the century, the view experienced a precipitous decline in popular-
ity, being supplanted by varieties of non-cognitivism and moral naturalism (see
non-cognitivism; naturalism, ethical). In more recent years, however,
nonnaturalism has enjoyed a modest renaissance, having received sophisticated
defenses from philosophers such as Parfit, Russ Shafer-Landau, and Ralph Wedg-
wood (see Parfit 2011; Shafer-Landau 2003; Wedgwood 2007). Given its rather
tumultuous history, one wonders: What exactly is the position that philosophers
from Plato to Parfit have championed? And what is there to be said in favor of it?
Let us begin with the first question. Stated in its most general form, ethical
nonnaturalism is the view that there are moral facts (or truths), some of which are
nonnatural. While this is a first step toward answering the question before us, it is
not terribly informative. For we need to know what a nonnatural fact or truth is.
And this question, it turns out, is extremely difficult to answer satisfactorily.
In Principia Ethica, Moore (who introduced the terminology of nonnaturalism
into the philosophical lexicon) offered a pair of suggestions for what renders a
property (and, by extension, a fact) nonnatural. According to Moore’s first
suggestion, we begin with the notion of a natural property. A natural property,
Moore suggests, is one that (so to speak) “pulls its explanatory weight” in the natu-
ral sciences. A nonnatural property, by contrast, is one that does not (Moore 1903:
sect. 25). Although embraced by some nonnaturalists (e.g., Wiggins 1993), Moore’s
suggestion is problematic – perhaps the most problematic feature of the proposal
being this.
Suppose we say that a property P pulls its explanatory weight in a science just in
case the explanations employed in that science make essential reference to P. (Think
of the explanations in question as not what is explained but the propositions that
purport to do the explaining.) Suppose, also, we were to draw up a list of the natural
sciences, including in it such disciplines as physics, biology, chemistry, and perhaps
psychology. Now consider the totality of explanations offered by the sciences on our
list. Call this totality T. It would be odd to define natural properties as all and
only those properties that pull their explanatory weight in those explanations
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee134
2
included in T. For most agree that, in their present state, the sciences are incomplete
and inaccurate. Accordingly, T would omit reference to properties that play genuine
explanatory roles but of which we are unaware. And it would include reference to
properties that, according to our present scientific theories, are explanatorily effica-
cious but in reality are not. Of course, we can modify the present criterion to avoid
this problem, claiming that natural properties are those that would pull their explan-
atory weight in an ideal science, one that is fully accurate and complete. The problem
in this case, however, is that we have little idea of what such a science would be like.
If this latter criterion were correct, to be told that natural properties are those prop-
erties that pull their explanatory weight in an ideal science would not be to be told
much of anything.
Moore’s second way of drawing the natural/nonnatural distinction is different,
appealing to the idea that natural properties are “empirical,” while nonnatural ones are
not (1903: sect. 25). The empirical/nonempirical distinction, in turn, is cashed out in
epistemic terms, the central idea being that empirical claims can only be known a
posteriori, while nonempirical claims can only be known a priori. Very roughly,
according to this approach, natural moral properties are those that can only be known
a posteriori, while nonnatural ones are those that can only be known a priori.
Some contemporary philosophers have embraced this approach. One such
philosopher, David Copp, proposes to develop Moore’s suggestion by appealing to
the notion of a strongly a priori proposition (see Copp 2003 and, relatedly, Shafer-
Landau 2003: Ch. 3). According to Copp, a proposition is strongly a priori if and
only if (a) it is a priori and (b) its warrant cannot be defeated empirically, at least
for an ideal thinker who suffers from “no psychological weaknesses … no
computational limitations” and has a “full conceptual repertoire” (2003: 190).
Copp’s suggestion, then, is that natural facts are ones that can be represented by the
propositional contents of our attitudes, but that none of these contents is warranted
in a strongly a priori way (see a priori ethical knowledge).
This suggestion also faces problems. The main problem is that it saddles nonnatu-
ralists with a position that they need not accept. For suppose we grant that, according
to nonnaturalism, some moral beliefs enjoy a priori warrant. Presumably, however,
when nonnaturalists claim this, they need not thereby commit themselves to the
claim that the warrant that these propositions enjoy is indefeasible by empirical
considerations. To the contrary, if they subscribe to the most sophisticated accounts
of the a priori, such as those developed by Laurence Bonjour and Alvin Plantinga,
they will reject such an indefeasibility requirement (see Bonjour 1998; Plantinga
1993: Ch. 6), allowing for the possibility that a priori warrant can be affected by
empirical considerations. If this is right, nonnaturalists will find Copp’s attempt to
improve upon Moore’s criterion unsatisfactory.
These two Moorean proposals do not exhaust the available criteria for what
counts as a natural property and, hence, a nonnatural fact. Still, when one surveys
the available options, the prospects of finding a satisfactory criterion appear
bleak. In light of these dim prospects, some philosophers have suggested that we
think of moral naturalism and nonnaturalism not as substantive theories that
3
offer us necessary and sufficient conditions for what counts as a natural or a non-
natural fact, but rather as research programs or (to use Bas van Frassen’s term)
stances that one can take with respect to metaethical views (see Cuneo 2007). The
basic idea behind this approach is that the term “naturalism” stands for a type of
approach to metaethical issues, one which emphasizes that our metaethical (and
first-order ethical) views should be informed by our best science and guided by
the methods used in them. Accordingly, in those cases in which our commonsen-
sical ethical views clash with our best science, it is the latter that gets the benefit
of the doubt. Hence, for example, various naturalists have held that instrumental-
ist accounts of reasons fit best with what the sciences tell us about the world, even
though ordinary morality seems committed to the existence of noninstrumental
reasons. In this debate, say naturalists, it is ordinary morality that must give way
to the deliverances of our best empirical theories.
Nonnaturalists, in contrast, deny this. In denying this, nonnaturalists do not deny
that a satisfactory metaethical view should be consistent with the deliverances of our
best science. They maintain, however, that the methods of the natural sciences gener-
ally do not shed much light on ethical matters. Moreover, nonnaturalists claim it is
implausible to believe that ethics is a type of inchoate empirical science; ethics is not
typically in the business of predicting behavior but in furnishing the resources to
justify and evaluate it. This is because the ethical realm is largely autonomous from the
empirical sciences, having its own standards of inquiry and justification. Accordingly,
say the nonnaturalists, the findings of psychology and sociology have at best indirect
bearing on the fundamental ethical questions, such as how we ought to live.
To illustrate, suppose the natural sciences were to reveal that human beings are
naturally aggressive, this being a result of our genetic programming. This discovery,
according to nonnaturalists, would not settle any ethical issues. For it leaves open
the ethical question of whether in any given situation one should act upon one’s
aggressive impulses. The discoveries of the empirical sciences have normative
significance only by way of becoming input for substantive ethical deliberation (see
FitzPatrick 2008: 173).
Does an approach that views naturalism and nonnaturalism as research programs
or stances have any implications for what those who subscribe to them should
accept? It would seem so. First, a stance can include theoretical commitments that
are constitutive of the stance itself. For example, it is arguably constitutive of the
nonnaturalist stance that, if there are moral obligations, then some are categorical
(see FitzPatrick 2008). Second, accepting a stance can commit one to certain claims
that are not, strictly speaking, essential components of that stance. For example,
suppose that being a naturalist implies that one must do one’s best to square claims
about the motivational force of moral judgments with our best empirical psychology.
And suppose that our best empirical psychology is resolutely Humean. Then moral
naturalists are committed to a Humean theory of moral motivation. Hence, while
not constitutive of naturalism, a Humean theory of motivation may be something
which a naturalist is committed to accepting at the present time, given his naturalism
(see motivation, humean theory of).
4
We have considered several ways of drawing the distinction between moral natu-
ralism, on the one hand, and nonnaturalism, on the other. None enjoys widespread
acceptance. As things stand, then, the question of how best to understand moral
nonnaturalism remains unresolved. Given this situation, it may be that the best that
can be done is to proceed in piecemeal fashion, identifying a stock of properties or
facts that is widely agreed to be natural and then asking whether among its members
are moral properties or facts. This might not be an entirely unsatisfying approach;
some philosophers have suggested that we take a similar route when faced with
other difficult terminological questions, such as how to distinguish what belongs to
the abstract rather than the nonabstract realm. At any rate, rather than tarry over
this terminological issue – important as it may be – let us now turn to our second
question, which concerns the reasons that philosophers have offered for accepting
nonnaturalism. In this case, it is not difficult to locate near philosophical unanimity,
as there is one argument that has occupied center stage in the case for moral
nonnaturalism.
The argument is, of course, Moore’s Open Question Argument (see open
question argument). While no one would deny its influence in twentieth-century
metaethics, there is substantial disagreement about how best to understand it (see
Feldman 2005; Gibbard 2003: Ch. 2; Shaver 2007). For our purposes, it will probably
do no harm to work with a reconstruction of the argument, which is often attributed
to Moore. Thus understood, the argument has two stages.
In the first stage, Moore offers a test for determining the identity and diversity of
concepts. The test consists in asking whether a proposal to identify concepts of a certain
range leaves certain questions open or dangling. Suppose, for example, I want to deter-
mine whether the phrase “being an unmarried male” expresses the same concept as the
phrase “being a bachelor.” According to Moore, I can discover this by asking:
X is an unmarried male, but is he a bachelor?
If it is evident that answering the question negatively would provoke mystification –

the sense that the person who offers such an answer lacks competence with the con-
cepts in question – then the question is closed. In this case, we have excellent reasons
to think the two phrases express the same concept. This is arguably the case in the
preceding example; “being an unmarried male” and “being a bachelor” express the
same concept. If, however, answering the question negatively would not provoke
such mystification, then the question is open. And when we’re left with an open
question, that – or so Moore suggests – is excellent reason to believe that the phrases
under consideration do not express the same concept.
Moore held that all the attempts of which he was aware to identify moral with
naturalistic concepts fail. For example, suppose someone held that the phrases
‘promoting survival value’ and ‘being morally good’ express the same concept.
According to Moore’s test, we should ask:
Xing would promote survival value, but is it morally good?

5
If we can sensibly deny that promoting survival value is invariably morally good, then
we have excellent reason to believe these two phrases do not express the same concept.
The concepts “promoting survival value” and “being morally good” are not identical.
In the second stage of the argument, Moore concerns himself with not concepts
but properties. The claim is that in those cases in which two phrases express different
concepts (and these concepts represent properties), then the concepts they express
represent different properties. Since, however, naturalistic concepts are not identical
with moral ones, it follows that natural properties are not identical with moral ones
and, hence, moral facts are not natural. On the further assumption that there are
moral facts that are constituted by things having moral properties, it follows that
moral nonnaturalism is true.
Despite enjoying considerable influence, Moore’s argument has been the subject of
much critical fire. Some philosophers hold that the argumentation in the first stage is
mistaken. The basic problem is that it is not always apparent whether two phrases
(even from the same language) express the same concept. Some concepts are, after
all, opaque. Others are vague. Others are extremely complex. Others are such that we
lack important information about their application conditions. In such cases, often it
takes substantial theoretical work to determine what the contours of a particular con-
cept are. For all we reasonably believe, the objection continues, moral concepts are
like this. Indeed, some naturalists claim this is exactly what we should expect if natu-
ralism were true, since moral concepts express natural properties whose nature is
often dark to us and learned only through protracted empirical investigation. That an
attempt to identify moral and natural concepts fails Moore’s open question test, then,
is weak evidence for nonnaturalism if the critics are correct. For, once again, such
failures would be entirely unsurprising, were moral naturalism true.
Other philosophers object to the second stage of the Open Question argument,
maintaining that Moore has helped himself to a highly controversial view regarding
the relation between concepts and properties. According to these critics,
the assumption with which Moore works is this: if two phrases express different
concepts – and the concepts they express are descriptive – then these concepts
represent different properties. However, critics object, this principle is false.
Different concepts can represent the same property. This, naturalists note, is a point
made with some regularity in the philosophical literature. To use an example often
attributed to Hilary Putnam and Saul Kripke: the concepts ‘water’ and ‘H2O’ are
not identical. Still, they represent the same thing: the property of being water
(see Gibbard 2003: 31). To this, naturalists add the point that the discovery that
these concepts represent the same thing is an empirical one.
For these and other reasons, relatively few philosophers believe that Moore’s
version of the Open Question argument succeeds (for Moore’s own reservations, see
Moore 1942). Still, many philosophers have held that the argument is on to some-
thing. Although Moore’s own formulation of the argument may be deficient, these
philosophers hold that it nonetheless contains an important insight that can be par-
layed into a case for nonnaturalism. To see why this is so, it will be helpful to step
back for a moment and consider the motivations for accepting nonnaturalism itself.
6
When nonnaturalism fell from philosophical favor with the rise of non-
cognitivism and naturalism, the view was frequently accused of trafficking in
mysteries, introducing into our ontology properties that are deeply suspicious (see
Mackie 1977: Ch. 1; Gibbard 1990: 154). At the extreme, the phrase “moral non-
naturalism” was used as a term of disapprobation – nonnatural properties being
likened to exotica such as ectoplasm and angels. In recent years, however, nonnatu-
ralists have contended that such accusations are deeply uncharitable. The deep
motivations for accepting the view have nothing to do with the love of mystery or
the supernatural. Rather, nonnaturalists claim that the position is motivated by the
recognition that, contrary to what naturalists claim, it is very difficult to establish
that moral and natural facts are identical. Given this difficulty, nonnaturalists claim
that their view should be seen not as a position to be accepted in the last resort,
but as the default option for those of a moral realist bent.
The case that nonnaturalists present for this claim can be viewed as follows. First,
in the absence of a satisfactory criterion for what counts as a natural property, we
begin by assembling a list that refers to paradigmatic examples of natural properties.
Examples might be: being painful, being a cause, being such as to promote evolution-
ary fitness, and being such as to maximize happiness.
Second, it is then claimed that naturalists must establish that moral and natural
facts are identical. To be sure, some naturalists, such as David Brink, have defended
naturalism by arguing that moral facts are simply constituted by natural ones (see
Brink 1989: Ch. 6). However, philosophers such as Shafer-Landau and Jonathan
Dancy contend that this falls far short of what naturalists need to establish (see
Shafer-Landau 2003: Ch. 3; Dancy 2004). Nonnaturalists, after all, can also claim
that moral facts are constituted by natural facts or, somewhat differently, that natural
facts account for there being moral facts. Moreover, when one looks to other contro-
versies in philosophy, such as those in mereology, it is noteworthy that appeals to
constitution (or “accounting for” relations) are made precisely when it appears that
entities of a given type are not identical, such as when we claim that the statue and
the clay that constitute it are not identical.
Third, nonnaturalists contend that the most prominent strategy for identifying
moral and natural facts fails. This strategy is defended by philosophers such as
Frank Jackson (see Jackson 1998), who claim that we should embrace the so-called
sparse view of properties. According to the sparse view, there are no distinct but
logically equivalent properties and, hence, no distinct but logically equivalent
facts. So, consider the fact that there is such a person as God or it is false that there
is such a person as God. This fact is necessarily coextensive with the fact that 2 + 3
= 5. It follows from the sparse theory that these facts are identical. This, however,
is a highly counterintuitive result. By all appearances, these facts are different.
Moreover, even if the sparse theory of properties were true, the naturalist’s claim
cannot be that, to vindicate naturalism, it is sufficient to establish that moral and
natural properties or facts are necessarily coextensive. After all, if theism were
true, then the following three properties might be necessarily coextensive: being
morally obligatory, being such as to maximize happiness, and being enjoined by God
7
(see Plantinga 2011). That is, for all we reasonably believe, it is possible that cer-
tain moral, natural, and supernatural properties are necessarily coextensive and,
hence, according to the sparse theory, identical. However, this cannot be so; no
natural property is identical with a supernatural one. To which one should add: a
naturalist could try to secure the desired identity by constructing her theory on
the assumption that theism is false. Critics complain, however, that this maneuver
would make things too easy for the naturalist. It would be like arguing for the
identity of mental states with physical ones by simply assuming that dualism is
false.
Finally, nonnaturalists worry that naturalists have misappropriated important
insights in the philosophy of language by Putnam and Kripke (see Putnam 1975;
Kripke 1980). According to naturalists such as Gibbard, Putnam and Kripke taught
us that while the concepts of ‘being water’ and ‘being H2O’ are distinct, “the property
of being water just is the property of being H2O” (Gibbard 2003: 31). Nonnaturalists
are suspicious of such claims. Their suspicion is not simply that neither Putnam nor
Kripke actually claimed this. It is also that there are good reasons to reject any such
claim about property identity. According to Parfit, for example, the property of
being water is best thought of as being a role-specifying property. Properties of this
sort are “gappy” in the sense that they are properties that specify a role that, in prin-
ciple, could be satisfied by different things. Being water, for example, is (in part) the
property that can have certain effects such as appearing to be clear, producing no
odor, and so forth. The property being H2O, by contrast, is not a role-specifying
property. Rather, it is a role-occupying property, that which actually plays the “water
role.” Role-specifying properties are not, however, identical with role-occupying
ones. Rather, role-occupying properties such as being H2O have role-specifying
properties. Being H2O, according to this view, is not identical with but has the
higher-order property of being the property that can have certain effects, such as
appearing clear, producing no odor, and so on. If this is right, when scientists dis-
covered that water is H2O, they did not thereby discover that the properties of being
water and being H2O are identical. Rather, they discovered that H2O is what actually
plays the water role.
Nonnaturalists, then, maintain that naturalists must defend the claim that moral
facts are identical with natural ones and that an adequate defense of this claim has
neither been offered nor is likely to be forthcoming. Let us call this the “nonnaturalist’s
challenge.” It will be instructive for our purposes to consider a recent attempt to
develop this challenge in more detail. In this regard, we can probably do no better
than to explore Parfit’s recent work (see Parfit 2011: Ch. 26). This is not simply
because Parfit offers what is probably the most extensive contemporary defense of
nonnaturalism. It is also because nonnaturalism’s fate has been tied to that of the
Open Question Argument and Parfit’s project is, in large measure, an attempt to
rehabilitate Moore’s argument.
Parfit’s case for nonnaturalism runs as follows. Consider a paradigmatic natural-
istic view such as naturalistic utilitarianism (see utilitarianism). Naturalistic utili-
tarians endeavor to identify the normative property being what we ought to do with
8
the natural property being such as to maximize happiness. As such, advocates of this
position embrace the following two claims:
(A) When some act would maximize happiness, this act would be what we ought
to do;
and:
(C) When some act would maximize happiness, that is the same as that act’s being
what we ought to do.
By all appearances, (A) seems to be a substantive claim that could express a positive
substantive normative fact. However, if (C) were true, (A) could not state such a fact.
(A) would be a concealed tautology, telling us only that, when some act would
maximize happiness, that act would maximize happiness. Everyone could accept
this, no matter what else they believed. On the assumption that (A) could express a
substantive claim – something beyond mere tautology – it follows that naturalism of
this variety is not true. This Parfit terms the “Triviality Objection.”
Suppose, however, naturalist utilitarians agree that (A) could state a substantive
normative fact. If so, then it follows that:
(1) When some act would maximize happiness, this act would have some other,
different normative property P.
Parfit claims it is not clear what P could be if naturalism were correct. The obvious
suggestion is that P is simply the property of being what we ought to do. By hypoth-
esis, however, this cannot be so. Nor, given the Triviality Objection, can P be identical
with the property being such as to maximize happiness. If this is right, though, then
naturalists have the task of identifying some further natural property that is plausibly
viewed as being identical with P. However, when we scan our list of paradigmatic
examples of natural properties – properties such as being such as to cause pain, being
such as to increase evolutionary fitness, being a cause, being desired, and so on, nothing
presents itself as a plausible candidate. There just seems to be too much “ontological
distance” between a moral property such as being what we ought to do and a paradig-
matic natural property such as being desired. This is what Parfit has called the “Lost
Property Objection.” In any case, Triviality Objection and Lost Property Objection
constitute what Parfit has called (with a nod to Moore) the “New Naturalistic
Fallacy.”
There are, of course, various replies to this argument for nonnaturalism. Perhaps
the most obvious one is to deny that identifying normative properties with natural
ones yields triviality. In this case, one might appeal, by analogy, to scientific discov-
eries. After all, as naturalists might point out, discovering that water is H2O did give
us important information. We learned that, necessarily, water is identical to H2O.
Similarly, it might be said, learning that being such as to maximize happiness is iden-
tical to being what we ought to do could also be informative. In much the same way
9
that we discovered the true nature of water, naturalistic utilitarianism helps us to see
the “deep structure” of morality. If so, the objection runs, the Triviality Objection
fails.
Parfit believes this response misses the mark, as the scientific and moral cases are
not relevantly similar. As we saw earlier, Parfit holds that properties such as being
water are “gappy” in the sense that they are properties that specify a role that, in
principle, could be satisfied by different things. However, paradigmatic moral
properties such as being what we ought to do or being blameworthy, Parfit claims, are
not gappy in this way. They do not appear to specify a functional or causal role that
could be satisfied by different things. Furthermore, according to Parfit, when scien-
tists discovered that water and H2O are identical, that discovery was informative
primarily because it explained how some of the previously known properties of
water, such as being wet, are related to H2O and to some of its properties, such as
having such and such molecular structure. If Parfit is right, in this case, we are
learning important information about how some stuff and its properties are related
to one or more other properties. Once we see this, however, we can see that the
scientific case is not relevantly similar to the one in which the naturalistic utilitar-
ian maintains that the properties being such as to maximize happiness and being
what we ought to do are identical. For, in the moral case, we do not learn how some
property with which we are already familiar is related to one or more other stuff and
its properties. What would be similar to the scientific case, Parfit claims, is if we
discovered something like:
(B) When some act would maximize happiness, this fact would make this act
have the different property of being what we ought to do
– since (B) states a fact about a relation between different properties – in this case,
the naturalistic property being such as to maximize happiness and the different
normative property being what we ought to do. However, once again, this is a view
that naturalistic utilitarians must deny.
Parfit’s recent defense of nonnaturalism, then, can plausibly be viewed as an
attempt to improve upon Moore’s Open Question Argument. It would, however, be
misleading to present the contemporary nonnaturalist movement as one whose
primary aim is to rehabilitate Moore, for nonnaturalists have also dedicated
themselves to two other projects worth mentioning.
First, they have sought to develop arguments for nonnaturalism that are not
simply variations of Moore’s argument. Shafer-Landau (2006), for example, has
developed a parity argument that draws upon the similarities between philosophical
and ethical inquiry. Begin, says Shafer-Landau, with the plausible claim that ethics is
a species of inquiry, concerned with questions about how we should act and what
types of people we should become. As such, ethics belongs to the same genus as
philosophy, which concerns itself with discovering various types of truths – truths
concerning the existence of universals, the nature of free choice, and so forth.
10
Philosophy, however, has two essential traits: first, the truths it endeavors to discover
should be understood in realist fashion; they do not exist relative to individuals,
communities, or conceptual schemes. Second, philosophy is not natural science. It is
not primarily concerned about making predictions about empirical matters but to
discover truths by using a priori methods. However, if there are ethical truths – and
Shafer-Landau argues elsewhere that there are (see Shafer-Landau 2003) – then they
are nonnatural. For, if Shafer-Landau is correct, the realm of the nonnatural is simply
the object of a priori inquiry.
Second, nonnaturalism has been the subject of a variety of criticisms, perhaps
the most pressing being that it has no plausible story to tell about how we could
gain reliable epistemic access to moral facts. Nonnaturalists have attempted to
address this criticism. Some, such as Colin McGinn (1992), have argued that non-
naturalists do indeed accept a mystery but there is no reason to single it out as
especially problematic. In addition to having no plausible story about how we
access moral facts, we have no idea how we could have free will, or how thoughts
could have meaning, or what the relation is between mind and body. Evolution, if
McGinn is correct, has equipped us to navigate our environment fairly well, but it
simply has not equipped us to penetrate these very difficult problems; their solu-
tions are “cognitively closed” to us.
Others have argued that nonnaturalists indeed have a mystery on their hands but
that it is no worse than that faced by other metaethical views. Non-cognitivists, for
example, have a very difficult time making any sense of moral knowledge, as they
claim either that there are no moral facts or that there are such facts, but that they
exist only in some deflationary sense (see Gibbard 2003: Ch. 9; Wright 1992: Ch. 5
on the use of deflationary views in metaethics). If non-cognitivists choose the first
option, then they are saddled with a fairly radical form of skepticism according to
which we can have no moral knowledge whatsoever. If they accept the second
option, then they can defend the claim that moral knowledge is possible, albeit the
knowledge in question must somehow be nonrepresentational – “deflated” moral
facts not being the sort of thing that can be the representational content of our moral
attitudes (see Blackburn 1999). This latter option, however, sits poorly with what is
arguably a truism about knowledge, namely, that it is essentially representational
(see Cuneo 2008). Neither option seems preferable to what nonnaturalists say about
knowledge under a worst-case scenario, namely, that we have it but can say little
about how we acquire it (see also Enoch 2009).
See also: a priori ethical knowledge; moore, g. e.; motivation, humean theory of;
naturalism, ethical; non-cognitivism; open question argument; plato; reid, thomas;
sidgwick, henry; utilitarianism
REFERENCES
Blackburn, Simon 1999. “Is Objective Moral Justification Possible on Quasi-realist
Foundations?” Inquiry, vol. 41, pp. 213–28.
11
Bonjour, Laurence 1998. In Defense of Pure Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press.
University Press.
Copp, David 2003. “Why Naturalism?” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, vol. 6,
pp. 179–200.
Cuneo, Terence 2007. “Recent Faces of Nonnaturalism,” Philosophy Compass, vol. 2, no. 6,
pp. 850–79.
Cuneo, Terence 2008. “Robust Realism, Quasi-realism, and Skepticism,” in John Greco (ed.),
The Oxford Handbook of Skepticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dancy, Jonathan 2004. “On the Importance of Making Things Right,” Ratio, vol. 17, pp. 229–37.
Enoch, David 2009. “The Epistemological Challenge to Metanormative Realism: How Best to
Understand It, and How to Cope with It.” Philosophical Studies, vol. 148, pp. 413–38.
Feldman, Fred 2005. “The Open Question Argument: What It Isn’t; and What It Is,”
Philosophical Issues, vol.15, pp. 22–43.
FitzPatrick, William 2008. “Robust Ethical Realism, Non-naturalism, and Normativity,” in
Russ Shafer-Landau (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaethics. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Gibbard, Allan 1990. Wise Choices, Apt Feelings. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Kripke, Saul 1980. Naming and Necessity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
McGinn, Colin 1992. Problems in Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell.
Moore, G. E. 1942. “A Reply to My Critics,” in Paul Arthur Schilpp (ed.), The Philosophy of
G. E. Moore, vol. 1. La Salle, IL: Open Court.
Moore, G. E. 1993 [1903]. Principia Ethica, rev. ed., with the Preface to the 2nd ed. and other
papers, ed. and with an introduction by Thomas Baldwin. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Parfit, Derek 2011. On What Matters: Volume Two. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Plantinga, Alvin 1993. Warrant and Proper Function. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Plantinga, Alvin 2011. “Naturalism, Theism, and Moral Realism,” Faith and Philosophy,
vol. 27, pp. 247–72.
Putnam, Hilary 1975. “The Meaning of Meaning,” in Keith Gunderson (ed.), Language, Mind
and Knowledge: Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science. Minneapolis: University
of Minneapolis Press.
Shafer-Landau, Russ 2006. “Ethics as Philosophy,” in Terry Horgan and Mark Timmons
(eds.), Metaethics After Moore. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Shaver, Robert 2007. “Non-naturalism,” in Susana Nuccetelli and Gary Seay (eds.), Themes
from G. E. Moore: New Essays in Epistemology and Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Wiggins, David 1993. “A Neglected Position?” in John Haldane and Crispin Wright (eds.),
Reality, Representation, and Projection. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
12
FURTHER READINGS
Dancy, Jonathan 2006. “Nonnaturalism,” in David Copp (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of
Ethical Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Enoch, David. 2007. “An Outline of an Argument for Robust Metanormative Realism,” in
Russ Shafer-Landau (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaethics. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Ewing, A. C. 1947. The Definition of Good. New York: Macmillan.
Hampton, Jean 1998. The Authority of Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
McGinn, Colin 1997. Ethics, Evil, and Fiction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nuccetelli, Susana, and Gary Seay (eds.) 2007. Themes from G. E. Moore: New Essays in
Epistemology and Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Oddie, Graham 2005. Value, Reality, and Desire. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Reid, Thomas 1788 [1969]. Essays on the Active Powers of Man, ed. Baruch Brody. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press.
Sidgwick, Henry 1981 [1907]. The Methods of Ethics. Indianapolis: Hackett.
1
Reid, Thomas
Terence Cuneo
Thomas Reid (1710–96) defended the view that there is a plurality of moral first
principles which are self-evident to the conscientious agent. Reid further claimed
that these moral principles are not part of the natural order described by science. It
is because of these commitments that Reid’s view is often described as a version of
moral intuitionism (see intuitionism, moral). While not inaccurate, this
description conceals important ways in which Reid’s view differs from that of later
intuitionists, such as W. D. Ross (see ross, w. d.). For, unlike Ross, Reid’s defense of
moral intuitionism appeals primarily to the nature of science and human agency.
Only if we have a proper understanding of both these subjects, Reid argues, can we
develop a satisfactory theory of morals.
Let us begin with what Reid says about the relation between science and morality.
Like most of his contemporaries, Reid’s worldview was Newtonian. While he was
convinced that the natural sciences should conform to Newtonian methods, Reid
held that these methods have their limitations:
There are many important branches of human knowledge, to which Sir Isaac Newton’s
rules of Philosophizing have no relation, and to which they can with no propriety be
applied. Such are Morals, Jurisprudence, Natural Theology, and the abstract Sciences
of Mathematicks and Metaphysicks; because in none of those Sciences do we investi-
gate the physical laws of Nature. There is therefore no reason to regret that these
branches of knowledge have been pursued without regard to them. (AC 1995: 186)
In this passage, Reid tells us that Newton’s rules pertain only to the physical laws of
nature and what is subsumable under them. Moral features, Reid claims, are neither
the physical laws of nature themselves nor subsumable under them (EAP 1969: 336).
It follows that Newton’s methods should not guide our theorizing about moral
features. Given the additional assumption that natural science must conform to
Newton’s rules, it also follows that morality is not the subject matter of natural
science. That this is so, Reid continues, is “no reason to regret.” It is a matter of simply
acknowledging the implications of Newton’s system – implications, Reid maintains,
that philosophers such as David Hume and Joseph Priestley, who also took them-
selves to be followers of Newton, had failed to appreciate (see hume, david).
Reid, then, viewed the attempt to use scientific methods to understand the moral
domain to be mistaken – not, once again, because he viewed science as suspect, but
because he held that science itself requires this. Why exactly did Reid believe science
to require this? And why did he hold that moral features are not themselves identical
with or figure in natural laws?
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee135
2
Reid’s answer to these questions is one that appeals to the nature of human agency.
In Reid’s view, philosophers ranging from Spinoza, Leibniz, to Kames had espoused
a particular account of human agency, which he called the “System of Necessity.” For
our purposes, we can think of the System of Necessity as being committed to the
following three claims:
1 Every human action has a sufficient cause.

2 Provided normal background conditions obtain, the sufficient cause of a
human action is its motive, which is a mental state of an agent.
3 Every human action is subsumable under a law, which specifies that for any
agent S, set of motives M, and action A at t, necessarily, if S performs A, then
there is some member of M that is S’s strongest motive, which causes S to
perform A at t. (See Cuneo 2011.)
In Reid’s view, these three claims express a unified picture of human agency, one
according to which human action is a natural phenomenon that is subsumable
under laws in much the same way that other ordinary natural events are. If one is
attracted to this broadly naturalistic position, as Reid claims that figures such as
Spinoza, Hume, Priestley, and Kames were, then these claims form a natural package
(see spinoza, baruch).
Reid, however, believed that this package of claims provides a deeply distorted
picture of human action. Why did he believe this? In large part, because he could not
see how it could account for genuinely autonomous human agency in at least two
senses of this multivalent term (see autonomy). In the first place, autonomous
actions are ones that can be properly ascribed to an agent. But if the System of
Necessity were true, Reid claimed, there is no proper sense in which actions that
appear to be performed by an agent could justly be attributed to that agent – the
human agent being simply a theater in which various drives and impulses vie for
dominance. One could, if the System of Necessity were right, attribute actions to
mental states such as desires. And this might be adequate to describe the behavior of
animals and addicts. However, Reid claims, it is not adequate to describe purposeful
human action.
Secondly, autonomous agents can exercise a certain type of control over the vari-
ous impulses that present themselves when deliberating. Suppose, for example, that
you find yourself in the early morning with a strong desire to ignore the sound of the
alarm clock that is buzzing by your ear. Must you ignore the alarm clock’s warning?
Not if you are autonomous. For genuinely autonomous agents, according to Reid,
are reflective. Any desire is such that an autonomous agent can direct his attention
not only to its object, but also to the desire itself, asking: “Should I act on it?” That
is, any such agent can ask: “Would acting on this desire contribute to my genuine
wellbeing? And is there a sufficient moral reason or an obligation for acting on or
ignoring it?” Our ability to deliberate on these two principles – what Reid calls the
principles regarding our good on the whole and duty – is, in Reid’s view, what dis-
tinguishes us from the rest of the living natural order. It is what (at least in part)
3
renders us rationally autonomous agents. It is also an element missing altogether

from the System of Necessity.
In Reid’s view, then, the System of Necessity fails to capture the nature of human
agency. What alternative account of agency did Reid propose? One that accepts the
following three claims:
1’ Every human action has a cause, which in the case of free human action is
the agent himself.
2’ Motives are not mental states but the ends for which an agent acts.
3’ Human action is nomic only to this extent: If an agent fails to exercise
autonomy when deliberating (and he is not in a state of indifference), then
his strongest desire to act in a certain way will prevail. If he exercises auton-
omy when deliberating, however, then he will act on the motive that seems
the most rationally appropriate to him.
The first statement expresses Reid’s commitment to an agent causal account of

human free action. Reid presents various arguments for this view in Essays on the
Active Powers of Man, but it is worth emphasizing that a central consideration that
Reid furnishes in its favor appeals not to common sense but to what science appears
to tell us. For, in Reid’s judgment, Newtonian science is committed to the claim that
matter is essentially inert: material things do not cause anything. On the assumption
that there is genuine causality in the world, it follows that agents, who are not
material things, in Reid’s view, are the only causes. Reid takes Newtonian science to
imply a mitigated version of occasionalism (AC 1995: 201–7).
The second statement, (2’), expresses Reid’s commitment to a broadly teleological
account of human agency, according to which autonomous human action is
explained by not the impulses that present themselves to an agent when deliberating
but the ends for which she acts (see motivation, moral). In his defense of this view,
Reid argues that, contrary to adherents of the System of Necessity, motives are not
mental states that cause us to act, for motives are not the right sort of thing to be
causes; they are not agents. In some places, in fact, Reid says that motives (as he
thinks of them) have no “real existence,” by which he means (at least) that they are
not part of the spatio-temporal manifold, but are abstracta (see EAP 1969: IV.iv).
They are not that which causes us to act but that for which we act (for complications,
see Cuneo 2011).
Finally, the third statement expresses Reid’s two-fold conviction that free human
action is not in any interesting sense nomic, and that we can assess our motives
along two dimensions. We can assess them, first, according to their psychological
strength and, second, according to their rational authority. The crucial point to note
is that, in Reid’s view, the fact that free action is not nomic precludes human agency
from being the subject of natural science. For, as Reid understands it, natural science
proceeds by identifying general laws, which unify otherwise disparate phenomena
in the physical world. If human action is not nomic, however, then it is not something
that is amenable to scientific explanation. And, if the ends for which we act are not
4
part of the causal texture of nature, then they, too, are not the subject matter of
science.
Reid holds, then, that neither human action nor the ends for which such actions
are taken are subsumable under natural laws. Still, there is a sense in which human
action is law governed. At the beginning of Essays on the Active Powers, Reid writes:
The brutes are stimulated to various actions by their instincts, by their appetites, by
their passions: but they seem to be necessarily determined by the strongest impulse,
without any capacity of self-government. … They may be trained up by discipline, but
cannot be governed by law. There is no evidence that they have the conception of a law,
or of its obligation.
Man is capable of acting from motives of a higher nature. He perceives a dignity and
worth in one course of conduct, a demerit and turpitude in another, which brutes have
not the capacity to discern.
[Men] judge what ends are most worthy to be pursued, how far every appetite and
passion may be indulged, and when it ought to be resisted. (EAP 1969: 2, 72)
Reid calls the laws or norms by which we govern our action the two “rational prin-
ciples of action” (see EAP 1969: III.iii.i). Earlier, we saw that these principles are of
two kinds: they concern our good on the whole and duty. It is by assessing various
impulses, desires, instincts, and prospective actions in light of these normative laws
that we engage in practical and, indeed, moral deliberation. Unlike rationalists such
as Clarke and Wollaston, Reid does not think of these normative laws as fittingness
relations or principles that somehow render actions “true” (see clarke, samuel;
rationalism in ethics). And, unlike figures such as Hutcheson and Kant, Reid
believes that the principle of duty is not itself a master moral principle such as the
principle of utility or the categorical imperative (see hutcheson, francis; kant,
immanuel). Rather, in Reid’s view, the term “principle of duty” is a placeholder that
stands for a variety of ethical (and metaethical) principles, which are, in Reid’s view,
both self-evident and irreducible to one another. Toward the end of Active Powers,
Reid catalogues these moral principles, dividing them into the more general and
the more specific. In so doing, however, he claims not to offer a comprehensive
system of morality. For such a system would require there to be a small set of master
ethical principles from which the various other ethical principles could be derived.
Reid, however, denies that there is any such set of master ethical principles (see
EAP 1969: V.ii).
In sum, Reid holds that neither human action nor the ends for which human
agents act are the proper subject matter of science; they are not the sort of things that
fall under Newtonian laws. Since moral principles are among the primary ends or
motives for which we act, they, too, are not the subject matter of science. This is
Reid’s rationale for embracing moral intuitionism. We have also seen that, in
one sense, Reid’s position anticipates that defended by later intuitionists, such as
W. D. Ross, who hold that there are a multitude of self-evident rational principles
that we employ in practical deliberation. For, like Ross, Reid does not offer any sort
of method for determining whether, in a given situation, a certain moral principle
5
has priority over another, claiming that such matters are for the most part evident to
the conscientious moral agent. In another sense, however, Reid’s approach resem-
bles Kant’s inasmuch as Reid stresses that human agency is possible only if the will
conforms to law, which itself functions as a standard by which we assess the various
impulses, desires, and instincts that can push us to action. Indeed, if J. B. Schneewind
is right, Reid and Kant were, among the moderns, unique in thinking of morality as
the domain of self-government (see Schneewind 1998). Although, it should be
stressed that the similarities between Reid and Kant cannot be pushed too far: unlike
Kant, Reid did not believe that particular moral duties follow from a formal principle
of the will such as the categorical imperative.
At any rate, having posited the existence of a moral realm that includes self-
evident moral principles, Reid maintains that we grasp them and other particular
moral qualities by exercising an “original” faculty that he calls the moral sense. By
employing the language of the moral sense, Reid is co-opting language from senti-
mentalists such as Hutcheson. And, in so doing, Reid is interested in achieving two
aims. On the one hand, he is concerned to distance his view from the rationalists
who come very close to characterizing moral knowledge as a species of ordinary
theoretical knowledge such as that achieved in mathematics. On the other hand,
Reid wants to correct certain deficiencies in the sentimentalist program, such as the
tendency to drive a sharp wedge between reason and “sense” and to think of the
deliverances of the moral sense as mere feelings (see sentimentalism). In Reid’s
view, the moral sense is best thought of as a dimension of practical reason – where
practical reason is a faculty by which we ascertain the ends of action, the content of
various moral ideals, and the means by which we achieve them. Moreover, Reid
emphasizes, the deliverances of the moral sense are not mere feelings but full-fledged
moral judgments replete with moral propositional content.
While Reid wishes to emphasize that the moral sense issues in bona fide moral
judgments, he also emphasizes that it issues in more than mere moral judgments.
Reid writes: “Our moral judgments are not, like those we form in speculative matters,
dry and unaffecting, but from their nature, are necessarily accompanied with
affections and feelings” (EAP 1969: 238). Reid calls the complex state that combines
moral judgment, affection, and feeling “moral approbation.”
Moral approbation, then, comprises three elements: moral judgment, affection,
and feeling. Reid is clear that the moral judgments in question are not general ones
that concern the first principles of morals, but particular judgments that concern
whether someone has behaved well or badly or exemplifies a virtue or vice. The
affections that accompany them are, in turn, dispositions “to do good or hurt to
others,” which have a de re structure since they have “persons, and not things” (i.e.,
propositions) as their immediate object (EAP 1969: 139, 140). Finally, Reid accepts
a minimalist account of the feelings that constitute moral approbation; feelings such
as pleasure and pain, in Reid’s view, have no intentional object. They are not about
anything. Rather, they are, as it were, adverbial modifiers of mental states and events:
one esteems another pleasurably or disapproves of another painfully. By distinguish-
ing approbation from feeling, Reid clearly rejects the position according to which
6
(what we today would call) desires are to be identified with feelings of one or another
sort (see desire).
It is not difficult to discern the theoretical work that this account of moral appro-
bation is supposed to do for Reid. In both the Treatise and the second Enquiry,
Hume charged moral intuitionists with having no account of why moral judgments,
which are the output of reason, should have such an intimate connection with moti-
vation. Reid’s answer to this challenge is to “go nativist”: we are so constituted that
when we judge that, say, an action is unjust, we are moved to action. That the moral
sense should yield both judgments and motivational states is built into its functional
profile or design plan. By emphasizing that this is how things go in the moral realm,
Reid takes himself to employ a strategy he has used elsewhere in his elaboration of
our perception of the external world. In the case of our perception of external objects
by touch, for example, Reid says that, given certain experiential inputs, such as the
pressure sensations evoked upon touching a table, we form judgments about the
hardness of the table. The pressure sensations function as signs of the table’s hard-
ness, which immediately evoke the judgment in question. According to this account,
there are no mental images or “ideas” from which we infer the hardness of the table.
Likewise, in the moral case, we are presented with various kinds of experiential
inputs such as the behavior and countenance of agents. These experiential inputs
function as signs, immediately evoking in us moral judgments of various sorts.
When all goes well, these judgments, in turn, yield affection and feelings of various
sorts. Once again, there are no ideas from which we infer moral judgments, and the
process of judgment formation is noninferential. By emphasizing the similarities
between these two cases, Reid takes himself to defend an account of moral perception
(see perception, moral). It is an account, in Reid’s view, which blends together the
most promising features of both the rationalist and sentimentalist traditions (see
Cuneo 2003, 2007, forthcoming).
See also: autonomy; clarke, samuel; desire; hume, david; hutcheson,

francis; intuitionism, moral; kant, immanuel; motivation, moral;
perception, moral; rationalism in ethics; ross, w. d.; sentimentalism;
spinoza, baruch
REFERENCES
Cuneo, Terence 2003. “Reidian Moral Perception,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 33,
pp. 229–58.
Cuneo, Terence 2007. “Intuition’s Burden: Thomas Reid on the Problem of Moral Motivation,”
Journal of Scottish Philosophy, vol. 6, pp. 21–44.
Cuneo, Terence forthcoming. “Hutcheson and Reid on Reason and Passion,” in James Harris
(ed.), The Oxford Handbook to 18th-Century British Moral Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Cuneo, Terence 2011. “A Puzzle Regarding Reid’s Theory of Motives,” British Journal for the
History of Philosophy, vol. 19, pp. 963–81.
7
Reid, Thomas 1969. Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind, ed. Baruch Brody.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press (abbreviated as EAP).
Reid, Thomas 1995. Thomas Reid on the Animate Creation: Papers Relating to the Life Sciences,
ed. Paul Wood. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press (abbreviated as AC).
Schneewind, J. B. 1998. The Invention of Autonomy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
FURTHER READINGS
Cuneo, Terence 2004. “Reid’s Moral Philosophy,” in Terence Cuneo and René van Woudenberg
(eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Reid. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Cuneo, Terence 2006. “Signs of Value: Reid on the Evidential Role of Feelings in Moral
Judgment,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy, vol. 14, pp. 69–91.
Cuneo, Terence 2009. “Duty, Goodness, and God in Thomas Reid’s Moral Philosophy,” in
Roeser, Sabine (ed.), Reid on Ethics. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Cuneo, Terence, and René van Woudenberg (eds.) The Cambridge Companion to Thomas
Reid. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Davis, William B. 2006. Thomas Reid’s Ethics: Moral Epistemology on Legal Foundations.
London: Continuum.
Levy, Sanford 1999. “Thomas Reid’s Defense of Conscience,” History of Philosophical
Reid, Thomas 1990. Practical Ethics, ed. Knud Haakonssen. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Roeser, Sabine (ed.) 2010. Reid on Ethics. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Rowe, William 1991. Thomas Reid on Freedom and Morality. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Yaffe, Gideon 2004. Manifest Activity: Thomas Reid’s Theory of Action. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
1
Wrong Kind of Reasons Problem

Daniel Jacobson
A reason is said to be “of the wrong kind” when, although it counts as a consideration
broadly in favor of (or against) having an attitude such as belief or desire toward
some proposition or object, it does not bear on whether the proposition is true or the
object valuable (see reasons). To say that something is a wrong kind of reason
(WKR), however, is not to say that it is a bad reason. Some WKRs seem to provide
excellent reasons to believe or desire – or to have some emotion such as amusement,
admiration, fear, and so forth. (Even this claim will prove contentious, as we shall
see, but not in a way that calls into question the goodness of certain WKRs, only
what they are good reasons for.) The central case in the recent literature concerns
what can be called a demonic incentive: A demon credibly threatens to punish you
unless you desire or admire something that, quite obviously, is not desirable or
admirable. When the incentive is compelling enough, it apparently provides
conclusive reason to believe p, desire x, or admire y, if you can; but it is not a reason
that shows p to be true, x good, or y admirable. The fact that a demon will punish
you unless you desire a cup of mud is thus the quintessential example of a wrong
kind of reason to desire the mud, since such an exogenous incentive obviously does
not make the mud desirable (Crisp 2000).
Wrong kinds of reason and the issues surrounding them have recently become the
subject of much discussion, primarily because they offer a recipe for generating
counterexamples to certain theories of value. However, a potentially deeper problem
arises from a subset of cases more realistic than Crisp’s demon and the like. In particular,
certain ethical claims – such as the suggestion that it is vicious to be amused at another’s
misfortune, however comic – appeal to subtler considerations than incentives, yet
seem similarly irrelevant to the underlying value (in this case, the funny).
Just as WKRs need not be bad reasons, neither are the reasons of the right kind
always good reasons. This point can be difficult to illustrate simply because bad
reasons have to be at least intelligible as reasons before they can be characterized as
being of the right or wrong kind. The easiest way to do this is to consider how an
eccentric but easily described agent would take some consideration that the rest of
us would not consider to be a good reason of any sort. (This is not to say that there
is no possible context in which the consideration would be a reason; merely that
without any such story, the fact does not appear to provide any reason.) An agent’s
reason – the favorable light in which he sees some action or object – need not be one
that anyone else finds compelling. Consider Joe Brown who desires all and only
brown things, and thinks mud desirable (that is, good) on account of its brownness.
The fact that the mud is brown provides a right kind of reason (RKR) for Joe, with
respect to its desirability, even though it is a substantively bad reason according to
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee136
2
the rest of us: that fact does not strike us as providing any reason to desire garden-
variety mud. Hence, the distinction between reasons of the right kind and reasons of
the wrong kind is orthogonal to the distinction between good and bad reasons.
What makes something a WKR for an agent is that, by his lights, it bears on the
question of whether to believe or value something despite not providing evidence of
its truth or goodness.
Recently, there has been a bourgeoning literature on WKRs and what has become
known as the wrong kind of reason problem. The problem, in short, is how to
distinguish reasons of the right kind from those of the wrong kind. In one sense, this
question can be answered simply. A WKR is one that does not bear on whether x is
Φ – where Φ is some term such as good, right, admirable, shameful, delicious, or
even true – despite providing reason to have (or not to have) some attitude F
(whether a belief, desire, or emotion) at x. In the original demonic incentive case, for
example, the object x is the cup of mud, the attitude F is desire, and the property Φ
is goodness. While I will usually speak only of considerations in favor of attitudes,
henceforward, for the sake of simplicity, my claims should be taken as applying to
considerations that count against these attitudes as well. The simplistic suggestion,
then, is that all and only those considerations in favor of F(x) that do in fact bear on
whether x is Φ count as RKRs with respect to the Φ. However, this is no solution to
the underlying problem, for several reasons.
First, the proposed solution defines reasons of the right kind for being ashamed
of x, for example, in terms of considerations that bear on the shameful; but such a
solution would be viciously circular in the philosophical context in which the wrong
kind of reason problem is typically discussed – that is, as a source of putative
counterexamples to certain theories of value. This aspect of the problem is well
known and much discussed, as will be explained in more detail presently. Second, if
it can be unclear whether a consideration is of the right or wrong kind – even to the
agent whose reason it is – then the question of which considerations in favor of F(x)
bear on whether x is Φ will prove difficult to answer once one moves beyond the toy
cases on which the literature has focused. No one mistakes a demonic incentive for
a reason of the right kind; indeed, the obviousness of their wrong-kindedness is the
point of such cases. However, if there are interesting as well as obvious wrong kinds
of reason, where the normative force of a consideration – specifically, what kind of
reason it provides – can be opaque even to the agent whose reason it is, then the
philosophical problems generated by the wrong kind of reason problem go well
beyond the theoretical niche identified by most of the literature.
Such interestingly wrong kind of reasons tend to be ethical considerations about
feeling F(x): about being amused by a cruel joke, for instance, or about envying your
friend (D’Arms and Jacobson 2000a). Thus, the ongoing philosophical dispute over
comic moralism – the view that cruelty and other moral defects of jokes always make
them (at least somewhat) less funny – demonstrates that it can be unclear just what
kind of a reason is offered by a given consideration (Jacobson 2008). Philosophers
disagree about whether the cruelty or offensiveness of a joke always detracts from its
funniness, or if it might merely make amusement at it ethically problematic. (Both
3
sides agree that some moral defects detract from comic value.) Unlike the obvious
cases, interestingly wrong kinds of reason are capable of confusing people on questions
of value. Specifically, they can be taken as if they were RKRs, conflated with RKRs
when they do not in fact compete with them, and offered in support of evaluative
judgments to which they are actually irrelevant. A form of specious disagreement (or
agreement) can arise from people, including philosophers, mistaking the normative
force of these interesting WKRs. Thus, the problems caused by WKRs outstrip the
wrong kind of reason problem as it has ordinarily been conceived, and the task of sort-
ing right from wrong kinds of reasons proves more difficult than sometimes supposed.
Since almost all the literature has treated the wrong kind of reason problem simply
as a source of counterexamples to fitting attitude theories, and has focused exclusively
on obvious WKRs, in what follows I will primarily consider those cases and the
proposed solutions for such theories. Nevertheless, a fully adequate solution to the
wrong kind of reason problem would identify some feature of WKRs that can be
used to differentiate them from RKRs even in hard cases. This test should apply to
all kinds of WKRs, not just to exogenous incentives such as demonic threats, and it
should work regardless of whether a given reason is substantively good or bad. It
should not even matter what metaethical stance we take towards reasons or value,
since plausible forms of anti-realism will have to capture this distinction (see
metaethics; quasi-realism; value realism).
The wrong kind of reason problem has generated a great deal of interest recently
because it seems to provide a surfeit of counterexamples to modern forms of the
fitting attitude theory of value, sometimes referred to as the buck-passing account of
value; and specifically to the most prominent forms of sentimentalism, the view that
at least certain values depend essentially on human sentimental responses (see
buck-passing accounts; value, fitting-attitude account of; sentimental-
ism). What these theories have in common is that they aim to analyze value in
terms of fitting, warranted, or appropriate evaluative responses. (While there may
be important distinctions to be drawn between these normative notions, philo-
sophical usage is as yet insufficiently univocal to mark them clearly [D’Arms and
Jacobson 2000a].) Whereas generic-fitting attitude theories aspire to give an
account of all value in terms of broad pro-attitudes such as desire or preference,
sentimentalism often focuses more narrowly on specific forms of value, such as
moral value, and familiar emotional responses (see attitudes, reactive; pro-
attitudes). For instance, a sentimentalist account of the funny will analyze it in
terms of merited amusement. The notion of a merited or fitting attitude is designed
to come apart from actual attitudes, at least in principle, so that it can make good
sense to admit that some movie caused a great deal of amusement despite its not
really being funny. (Indeed, many popular movies are like that.) Although some
versions of sentimentalism analyze value in terms of actual responses, sensibility
theories and most other recent versions of the view (sometimes referred to as
neo-sentimentalist) adopt this merit schema (see sensibility theory). The wrong
kind of reason problem arises specifically for views that attempt to cash out fitting-
ness in terms of reasons.
4
Consider a sentimentalist account of morality in terms of what merits guilt, for

example, where the fundamental normative notion of merit or fittingness is framed
in terms of reasons to feel (see normativity). Although philosophers dispute how
to understand reasons, T. M. Scanlon (1998: 17) has offered an intuitively compelling
account of reasons as “considerations in favor” of something (or against it). Now
suppose that the demon credibly threatens you with punishment if you do not feel
guilty for failing to drink a cup of mud yesterday. This seems a powerful, indeed
decisive, reason to feel guilty – at least if you can. Yet, this does not show that you
acted wrongly by failing to drink mud. If it is a reason to feel guilty, it is a reason of
the wrong kind. The problem posed by such WKRs for sentimentalist and other
fitting attitude theories should now be apparent. Although the demonic incentive
provides sufficient reason to feel guilty over failing to drink mud, this sort of reason
does not bear on the wrongness of your inaction. You had no duty to drink the mud.
In addition to such exogenous incentives, on which the literature has almost
exclusively focused, other obvious WKRs can be generated from the inherent
hedonic tone of certain feelings. The fact that guilt and regret are painful can be
offered as considerations against feeling them, but these too are WKRs: they do not
show that nothing merits guilt (is wrong) or regret (is irrational). Thus, the wrong
kind of reason problem is, in the first place, the source of indefinitely many putative
counterexamples to fitting attitude theories.
Some philosophers have suggested a way to solve the wrong kind of reason
problem on the cheap, by proposing that there are in fact no WKRs. Rather, putative
WKRs for evaluative responses are better described as reasons to do something else:
reasons to want or to try to have a response, for instance (Gibbard 1990; Parfit 2001;
Skorupski 2007; Raz 2009). According to this redescription program (RP), the fact
that you are more likely to be promoted if you admire your boss’s taste in wine is not
really a reason to admire his taste (Skorupski 2007). It counts instead as a reason to
want to admire his taste, to try to do so, or to bring it about that you do. Indeed,
according to Gibbard (1990), something similar holds of those more problematic
and interesting putative WKRs that trade on moral considerations about having an
evaluative response: they are reasons to feel guilty for feeling F(x), if you do, and
resentment toward others who have that attitude. For simplicity, I will state RP in
terms of reasons to want certain attitudes, henceforth, but these arguments can be
recast in other terms – as they would have to be in order to be adequate.
This leading thought of RP can seem peculiar, since it surely counts in favor of
admiring your boss’s taste that this will get you a promotion. After all, it is admiring
his taste, not wanting or trying to admire it, to which the benefits accrue. Why then
does the incentive not give you a reason to admire, as well as a reason to want to do
so? The broad and compelling conception of reasons proposed by Scanlon seems
incompatible with the resdescriptionist denial that WKRs are reasons to feel
(Hieronymi 2005). Nevertheless, there are two powerful considerations in support
of RP. The first is that paradigmatic WKRs seem to be about something different
from RKRs: their content concerns not the object itself but an evaluation of being in
some state directed at the object. Thus, the fact that Crisp’s demon threatens you to
5
desire mud explicitly adverts to the goodness of desiring mud, not to the value of the
mud itself. The second reason concerns the efficacy of WKRs. Typically, a WKR can
be expected to issue not in having F(x) but in wanting to have it. Crisp’s demon
would surely make you want to desire the mud, and try to bring it about, perhaps
through hypnosis or some other indirect method; but its threat would not directly
lead to your having the beneficial desire. Compare the (equally fantastic)
consideration that this particular cup of mud is delicious and healthy. These are
RKRs for desire, since they count towards the goodness of the mud; and belief in
these claims would likely bring it about, without effort, that you desire it. Moreover,
it is plausible to think that, if RP succeeds, then it solves the wrong kind of reasons
problem. According to RP, putative WKRs are not really reasons to feel F(x) at all,
but reasons to do something: most simply, to try to feel F(x). And, if there are no
WKRs, then, it seems, there can be no wrong kind of reason problem.
However, this solution is too hasty. It must be granted that if there are no wrong
kinds of reason to desire, admire, and so forth – only reasons of the right kind to
want or try to do so, and so forth – then there can be no wrong kind of reason
problem as such. However, redescription alone cannot solve any problems; it merely
exchanges one problem for another. The wrong kind of reason problem resurfaces as
the problem of how to differentiate considerations broadly in favor of desiring X that
are genuinely reasons to desire X from those that are merely reasons to want to
desire X. Again, in the cases of demonic incentives and inherent hedonic
considerations, the answer seems clear (as it did with the original problem); but any
difficult cases will not be advanced through the redescription program. Is the cruelty
of a joke merely a reason why it is contrary to virtue to be amused by it, or is it (also)
a reason why the joke is not funny? The problem of comic moralism, as with every
other substantive issue concerning the sorting of reasons into right and wrong kinds,
reemerges as a problem for how to describe these reasons.
Nevertheless, the redescription program has a significant virtue, which perhaps
can be deployed to make progress on these problems. In ordinary cases where the
rightness or wrongness of the kind of reason a consideration provides is obvious, we
can expect that a normal person will, upon coming to appreciate the reason, be
moved in just the way the redescription program suggests. For instance, if I am
convinced by Pascal’s wager, I will, initially and directly, come to want to believe in
God. Insofar as I have any ideas about how to bring this belief about, say through
hypnosis, I will try to so believe. However, unless I think there is sufficient evidence
of God’s existence, I will not yet believe; that will await successful hypnosis (or
whatever indirect form of belief acquisition I attempt). This psychological fact – that
RKRs can be “followed” to F(x) more easily than WKRs – must be granted to give
considerable force to the redescriptionist program. RP cannot solve the wrong kind
of reason problem as cheaply as some have suggested, but perhaps this “followability
test” can be pressed into the service of resdescriptionism. Even if so, RP itself will
not have solved the problem; at most, with such a solution in hand, it may indeed be
more perspicuous to redescribe WKRs as reasons of the right kind to do something
else by way of F(x).
6
The force of the empirical argument should not be exaggerated, however, as

several caveats and exceptions have to be attached to the central psychological claim.
In the first place, in order for the followability test to get off the ground, it can only
be applied to substantively good reasons. A bad RKR will not (typically) bring one
to the relevant attitude; and a bad WKR does not make one want, even a little, to
adopt the attitude. (Suppose the demon offered to give you an empty ballpoint pen
for desiring the mud.) Moreover, the followability test would have to be made
considerably more sophisticated in order to be tenable. For one thing, it would have
to accommodate the phenomenon referred to as Machiavellian emotions (Griffiths
2003). It is likely that various reasons of the wrong kind – such as that one’s date is
attractive, that the joke was told by your boss, or that getting angry at your partner
will get you out of some onerous activity – often causally affect the attitudes that we
adopt without our realizing it. Thus, WKRs can in fact be causally effective in
bringing about the relevant attitudes. The followability test must therefore be framed
in terms of what they can do directly, via deliberation. Although admiring my boss’s
taste in wine might be a good career move, and I might actually admire him for this
(explanatory) reason but without knowing it, I cannot fix on the incentive and come
directly to admiring his taste. I can want or try to admire, and perhaps, conveniently,
come to admire him because of the advantages without realizing it. Finally, in order
to serve as a test, the thesis that WKRs cannot be followed to the relevant attitudes
must be an empirical claim; one must not define what it is to follow a reason such
that the test is guaranteed to succeed.
Whether or not WKRs are redescribed as RKRs for something else, the problem
remains how to distinguish between different kinds of “consideration in favor” of
F(x). The followability test is one of the two most promising answers; the other
proposal attempts to differentiate the kind of reason provided by a given consideration
based directly on its content. The thought here is that a distinction can be drawn
between object-given and state-given reasons. Several different ways to draw this
distinction have been put forward, none of them unproblematic (Olson 2004;
Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen 2006). The basic idea is to locate in the reason
an explicit or implicit reference to some advantage of being in the state F(x). If such
a reference can be found, then the consideration is state-given and, hence, a WKR.
The most trenchant problem with this solution to the wrong kind of reason problem
is that some considerations seem to elude any way of drawing the distinction that is
subtle enough to avoid counterexample. For instance, consider the reciprocal lover:
someone who will love you if you love her. This trait makes explicit and essential
reference to your love of her, so it seems state-given on any way of drawing that
distinction; yet, it can also seem to be a genuinely lovable trait and, therefore, an
RKR – at least for some not implausible sensibilities (Hieronymi 2005; Rabinowicz
and Rønnow-Rassmussen 2006). Furthermore, some interesting WKRs – such as
the fact that a joke is offensive – make no reference, even tacit, to any state. Hence,
the attempt to solve the wrong kind of reason problem with the distinction between
object-given and state-given reasons runs into grave difficulty.
7
Although this possibility has not been adequately explored, one can imagine an
attempt to combine the object/state distinction with the followability test. Notice
that the test seems to get the right answer in the case of the reciprocal lover, even
with the additional complication about agent-relativity. Perhaps those who find the
trait loveable will actually love her, whereas those who take her love to be a benefit
of loving her will merely want or try to do so. (This is too simple, since having a
lovable trait is insufficient to bring about love; we would need to further complicate
matters by saying that, for those whose sensibilities make it an RKR, this is a
loveable-making quality, which may or may not be sufficient to produce love.)
However, an additional challenge remains. Granting that we cannot typically
respond directly to a WKR in the relevant way, how can we tell if this is merely dif-
ficult or psychologically impossible? This question is made more pressing by the
suggestion that the literature focuses on obvious cases, involving clearly specified
incentives, which might not be representative of all WKRs. In particular, the sort of
ethical considerations claimed to be interesting WKRs might be capable of being
responded to directly. At any rate, the effort necessary to bring it about that we feel
the way we think it virtuous to feel might be inculcated before the fact, in an
Aristotelian manner. If such a disposition to virtuous response could become “sec-
ond nature,” then we will respond directly to such considerations. The proponent
of this solution would be forced to say that this process of habituation – the trying
that would ordinarily have to be done after the fact – changes one’s sensibility such
that it has become an RKR for this agent. The danger is that this response might be
an ad hoc maneuver designed to save the theory from counterexample, but which
succeeds only in making what appeared to be an empirical proposition into a
necessary truth.
Finally, some philosophers have suggested that the wrong kind of reason problem,
even if it is not amenable to a noncircular solution, need not be fatal to fitting attitude
theories. It might suffice to analyze the shameful in terms of reasons of the right
kind to feel ashamed (or contemptuous), even though the only way to characterize
RKRs for shame is in terms of considerations taken to bear on the shameful
(Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rassmussen 2004). Others resist the circular account but
think that certain forms of fitting attitude theory have the resources to answer the
challenge – but only for a narrower range of values and sentiments (D’Arms and
Jacobson 2000b). The thought here is that for certain basic emotions, which are part
of the human repertoire, we can interpret their concern independently, in particular
by looking at the motivations (action tendencies) and eliciting conditions
characteristic of the specific emotion. Hence, perhaps the wrong kind of reason
does not need to be solved, in order for fitting attitude theories to remain viable; or
perhaps it can yet be solved, but only piecemeal and in a limited way.
See also: attitudes, reactive; buck-passing accounts; metaethics;

normativity; pro-attitudes; quasi-realism; reasons; sensibility theory;
sentimentalism; value, fitting-attitude account of; value realism
8
REFERENCES
Crisp, Roger 2000. “Review of Joel Kupperman, Value … and What Follows,” Philosophy,
vol. 75, pp. 458–62.
D’Arms, Justin, and Daniel Jacobson 2000a. “The Moralistic Fallacy: On the ‘Appropriateness’
of Emotions,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, vol. 61, pp. 65–90.
D’Arms, Justin, and Daniel Jacobson 2000b. “Sentiment and Value,” Ethics, vol. 110,
pp. 722–48.
Gibbard, Allan 1990. Wise Choices, Apt Feelings: A Theory of Normative Judgment. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
Griffiths, Paul 2003. “Basic Emotions, Complex Emotions, Machiavellian Emotions,” in
Anthony Hatzimoysis (ed.), Philosophy and the Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge
Hieronymi, Pamela 2005. “The Wrong Kind of Reason,” Journal of Philosophy, vol. 102,
pp. 437–57.
Jacobson, Daniel 2008. “Review of Berys Gaut, Art, Emotion and Ethics,” Notre Dame
Philosophical Reviews. At http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=12584.
Olson, Jonas 2004. “Buck-Passing and the Wrong Kind of Reason,” Philosophical Quarterly,
vol. 54, pp. 295–300.
Parfit, Derek 2001. “Rationality and Reasons,” in Dan Egonsson, Bjorn Petersson, Jonas
Josefsson, and Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen (eds.), Exploring Practical Philosophy.
Aldershot: Ashgate.
Rabinowicz, Wlodek, and Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen 2004. “The Strike of the Demon: On
Fitting Pro-Attitudes and Value,” Ethics, vol. 114, pp. 391–423.
Rabinowicz, Wlodek, and Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen 2006. “Buck-Passing and the Right Kind
of Reasons,” Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 56, pp. 114–20.
Raz, Joseph 2009. “Reasons: Practical and Adaptive,” in David Sobel and Steven Wall (eds.),
Reasons for Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 37–57.
Press.
Skorupski, John 2007. “Buck Passing About Goodness,” Homage a Wlodek: Philosophical
Papers Dedicated to Wlodek Rabinowicz. At http://www.fil.lu.se/HommageaWlodek/.
FURTHER READINGS
Darwall, Stephen 2006. The Second-Person Standpoint. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Parfit, Derek 2011. On What Matters, vol. 2. New York: Oxford University Press.
Piller, Christian 2006. “Content-Related and Attitude-Related Reasons for Preferences,”
Schroeder, Mark 2010. “Value and the Right Kind of Reason,” Oxford Studies in Metaethics,
vol. 5. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 25–55.
Stratton-Lake, Philip 2005. “How to Deal with Evil Demons,” Ethics, vol. 115, pp. 788–98.
1
Non-Cognitivism
Michael Ridge
Non-cognitivism is perhaps better understood as a philosophical tradition than as a

single unified doctrine. Moreover, the tradition is itself subtle and multifaceted, with
different branches of the tradition emphasizing different ideas. My aim in this essay
will be to give a newcomer to this tradition some idea about both the variety of the
theories falling within the tradition (and why the differences between them matter)
and a sense of what unifies these theories as constituting a coherent and philosoph-
ically important tradition.
To this end, my methodology shall be to characterize the main ideas of
non-cognitivism in a way that respects the following constraints. First, any adequate
characterization must capture what is most philosophically interesting and important
about the tradition itself. Second, any adequate characterization must classify
paradigmatic historic exemplars of non-cognitivism as such. Third, any adequate
characterization must offer a perspicuous and explanatory account of the different
species of non-cognitivism. Fourth, any adequate characterization should also
explain why the label “non-cognitivism” is at least broadly applicable. But this last
constraint is not terribly weighty, as “non-cognitivism” is by now an entrenched
term of art, and terms of art are not always chosen with careful attention to ordinary
language nuances.
Non-cognitivism obviously stands in opposition to cognitivism, but what is
cognitivism (see cognitivism)? One way of understanding cognitivism is as a
philosophical strategy which begins with the idea of a moral proposition and
then explains how we could cognize such a proposition. What we might call the
“non-cognitivist gambit” is to reject this strategy, and instead begin with the
question “what is it to make a moral judgment?” without helping ourselves to any
prior notion of a moral proposition. The idea is then to explain moral judgment
in terms of an agent’s practical stances, emotions, preferences, or other such
desire-like states of mind, or in terms of the pressure we put on others to share
such attitudes, or in terms of the practical functions of moral language. If this
gambit succeeds, then the non-cognitivist can thereby hope, on the one hand, to
explain the affective and practical nature of moral judgment more easily than the
cognitivist and, on the other hand, to avoid semantic, epistemological, and meta-
physical problems facing cognitivism. Let me explain.
Intuitively, moral judgment is in some way nonaccidentally connected with affect
and motivation. We would doubt the sincerity of someone who claims that eating meat
is immoral, but who, without any hesitation or remorse, eats hamburgers on a regular
basis. The cognitivist at least faces the challenge of explaining how the cognition of a
moral proposition could have anything more than an accidental connection to the
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee137
2
agent’s emotions and motives. Indeed, given a broadly “Humean” belief/desire model of
motivation (see motivation, humean theory of), this challenge may be impossible to
meet. If, however, moral judgment is at least partially constituted by an agent’s emotions
and motives, then it is easy enough to explain the necessity of this connection.
The other main advantages of non-cognitivism arise from the way in which it
avoids a variety of semantic, epistemological, and metaphysical problems facing
cognitivism. Just which problems the cognitivist faces depends on how moral prop-
ositions are understood. On the one hand, the cognitivist might understand the
moral proposition as G. E. Moore (see moore, g. e.) did – as being about irreducible
and nonnatural moral properties. But this commitment to irreducible and even
nonnatural moral properties (see nonnaturalism, ethical) raises epistemological
and metaphysical problems. Epistemologically, it is hard to see how we could have
knowledge of such properties, and the typical appeal to “intuition” and “self-
evidence” does not tend to reassure one on this front. Metaphysically, the very idea
of a nonnatural property does not sit well with the naturalistic picture of the world
delivered by modern science. Moreover, it is hard to see why irreducible moral prop-
erties would necessarily “supervene” on the nonmoral properties. Yet, it is incredibly
plausible that there can in some sense be no moral difference without some non-
moral difference. Finally, it is hard to see why the belief that some action has such a
nonnatural property would or rationally should motivate one to perform the action.
A cognitivist could perhaps avoid these problems by embracing an error theory
(see error theory), according to which our moral predicates purport to refer to
irreducible moral properties even though there are no such properties. J. L. Mackie
famously argued for such a view. However, the error theory itself is a radically
revisionary doctrine which we should arguably embrace only as a last resort.
Methodologically, one might reasonably suppose that a theory which convicts such
a fundamental component of any recognizable human practice of deep error should
face a very steep burden of proof.
On the other hand, the cognitivist might understand the moral proposition as
about moral properties construed as reducible to some concatenation of natural/
descriptive properties. This approach avoids the problems just sketched for anti-
reductionist forms of cognitivism, but instead faces objections from the philosophy
of language. As Moore famously argued, moral predicates do not seem to be analyz-
able in purely natural terms. Here, non-cognitivists appeal to Moore’s so-called
“Open Question Argument” (see open question argument).
The basic idea behind the Open Question Argument is that, for any naturalistic
analysis N of a moral predicate M, a competent speaker will take a question of the
form “I know that so-and-so is N, but is it M?” to be conceptually open – that is, not
such that the answer is settled by conceptual truths or the meanings of words. Moore
effectively argued that the best explanation of why competent speakers take such
questions to be conceptually open is that they are really conceptually open. He
further argued that because such questions are intelligible, which they must be to
seem conceptually open, “good” is not meaningless either. He inferred from this that
“good” denotes an irreducible nonnatural property. The non-cognitivist drew a
3
rather different lesson, and instead inferred that moral predicates are just not in the
business of referring to properties.
So non-cognitivism tries to explain the distinctive affective and motivational fea-
tures of moral judgment in a naturalistic framework that avoids the epistemological
and metaphysical extravagances of Moore’s nonnaturalism, while at the same time
incorporating what was insightful in Moore’s argument. This should give some
sense of why non-cognitivism offers a philosophically interesting and important
metaethical theory. Before trying to define the core ideas of the non-cognitivist tra-
dition more precisely, though, it will be useful to survey the history of that tradition
to see just what sorts of views have paradigmatically gone under the heading
“non-cognitivism.”
The history of non-cognitivism as a clearly defined metaethical theory begins in
the early twentieth century, but what we might call its “prehistory” goes back much
further. In particular, the non-cognitivist tradition draws inspiration from many of
the ideas of David Hume (see hume, david). Hume is often credited with the idea
that you cannot derive an “ought” from an “is,” an idea which we have seen plays an
important role in the non-cognitivist critique of cognitivist theories which analyze
normative concepts in purely descriptive terms. Indeed, Moore’s “Open Question
Argument” is itself often understood as a modern rendition of the Humean idea that
one cannot derive an “ought” from an “is.” Moreover, Hume’s philosophy famously
emphasizes the practical role of moral judgment in guiding action and the related
idea that our passions and affective nature are somehow essential to the capacity for
moral judgment. As we have seen, the non-cognitivist tradition draws very heavily
on these Humean ideas.
To be clear, none of this is to say that Hume himself was a non-cognitivist. There
is a lively and interesting scholarly debate on this point. Some scholars argue
instead that Hume embraces a subjectivist form of cognitivism (see, e.g., Sturgeon
2001; Sayre-McCord 1996). Indeed, trying to classify Hume as a cognitivist or a
non-cognitivist is arguably an anachronistic task, for the distinction between
cognitivism and non-cognitivism was not clearly drawn until the twentieth century.
One of the most influential early statements of non-cognitivism is in A. J. Ayer’s
1936 book, Language, Truth, and Logic. But Ayer was not the first advocate of non-
cognitivism. The basic idea can be found at least as far back as the work of C. K. Ogden
and I. A. Richards, who (admittedly, rather en passant) propose a version of non-
cognitivism in their The Meaning of Meaning as early as 1923. Because their early
statement of non-cognitivism does not generally get the recognition it deserves, here
is a quotation from their 1923 work:
Another use of the word is often asserted to occur … where “good” is alleged to stand
for a unique, unanalyzable concept. This concept, it is said, is the subject-matter of
Ethics. This peculiar use of “good” is, we suggest, a purely emotive use. When so used,
the word has no symbolic function. … it serves only as an emotive sign expressing our
attitude … and perhaps evoking similar attitudes in other persons, or inciting them to
actions of one kind or another. (1923: 125)
4
Those familiar with Ayer’s presentation of non-cognitivism (see ayer, a. j.) should
immediately note just how similar his view is to the one Ogden and Richards articu-
late here. In this passage, Ogden and Richards are reacting to the work of G. E. Moore’s
nonnaturalism and offering a more metaphysically innocent way of accommodating
the uses of “good” which Moore emphasized (see also Stevenson 1944).
Indeed, Ogden and Richards, and non-cognitivists more generally, can be seen as
meeting Moore halfway. They accept Moore’s idea that “good” cannot plausibly be
understood as analyzable in purely nonmoral or nonevaluative terms – which can
itself be seen as a modern version of the Humean idea that you cannot derive an
“ought” from an “is.” Neither, the non-cognitivist adds, is “good” entirely meaning-
less in the way that Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky nonsense verse is.
In spite of agreeing with Moore on these points, the non-cognitivist rejects
Moore’s positive doctrine that “good” denotes a nonnatural property, for, as Ogden
and Richards point out, there is another possibility that Moore overlooks – namely,
that “good” does not purport to denote a property at all. According to Ogden and
Richards, “good” and other moral and evaluative words have a purely emotive mean-
ing. On their account, the meaning of “good” should be understood in terms of the
way in which competent speakers use the term to express various non-cognitive
attitudes, and to influence the attitudes of others.
Other early thinkers who offered similar views include Bertrand Russell, Rudolf
Carnap, and Austin Duncan-Jones (see Russell 1935; Carnap 1937: 28–9). Duncan-
Jones did not publish his own views until his review of Stevenson (Duncan-Jones
1945), but his views were reported in an article by Broad around 1933 (Broad
1933–4). Many of these thinkers were also responding to what they took to be the
semantic insights but metaphysical excesses of Moore’s nonnaturalism. However, it
was only with A. J. Ayer and Charles Stevenson that non-cognitivism was developed
in considerable detail.
Ayer’s non-cognitivism arose in the context of logical positivism, and specifically
in the context of verificationism. Ayer’s verificationism asserts that a statement is
literally meaningful if and only if it is either analytic or empirically verifiable. The
logical positivists used verificationism as a dialectical weapon, arguing that vari-
ous high-flown metaphysical treatises traded in nothing more than meaningless
gibberish. Here too, Hume’s influence can be felt, for Hume classified our ideas as
exhaustively captured by “relations of ideas” and “matters of fact,” where the former
are roughly equivalent to analytic truths and the latter are roughly equivalent to
empirically verifiable statements. Moreover, there was a strongly anti-metaphysical
strain in Hume, who once proposed that, if ever we find a volume which contains no
abstract reasoning or empirical reasoning, we should “commit it then to the flames:
for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion” (1975: 165).
Ayer took some uses of moral predicates to pose a challenge to his verificationism,
though, for in some contexts, moral predicates are used in statements which seem
neither analytic nor empirically verifiable. Yet, even by Ayer’s maverick lights, it
would simply be too heavy-handed to consign all such statements to the flames. This
5
led Ayer to develop his own form of non-cognitivism, which is usually referred to as
“emotivism” (see emotivism).
Ayer held that while the relevant class of moral statements is not meaningful in
the sense invoked by verificationism, they are meaningful in a broader sense. In
particular, they have what Ayer called “emotive meaning.” As with Ogden and
Richards, Ayer maintained that the meaning of moral predicates should be under-
stood not in terms of denoting properties or tracking moral facts, but simply in
terms of how such predicates are used to express a speaker’s moral sentiments and
arouse similar feelings in his audience.
Ayer’s view is sometimes referred to as the “boo!/hooray! view,” since in Ayer’s
view, for example, “boo for fox hunting!” is a much more apt model for “fox hunting
is wrong” than, for example, “I disapprove of fox hunting.” The former directly
expresses a speaker’s attitudes, and is not in the business of being true or false – it is
not truth-apt. The latter expresses a belief and reports an attitude, and hence is
truth-apt. It is crucial to distinguish non-cognitivism in this way from subjectivist
forms of cognitivism (see subjectivism, ethical).
Ayer’s version of non-cognitivism is a radical doctrine. In Ayer’s view, we cannot
so much as intelligibly speak of moral truth or falsehood. Moreover, in Ayer’s view,
two people may in some sense disagree, in that they may have different feelings, but
they cannot strictly contradict one another in their moral judgments. Needless to
say, without the possibility of moral truth, there can be no moral knowledge either.
This is a lot to swallow on the strength of a thesis as controversial as verificationism.
In some respects, the history of non-cognitivism after Ayer can be seen as an
attempt to preserve what is insightful in Ayer’s revolutionary version of the view, but
without forcing us to give up huge portions of ordinary thought and discourse as
confused. Indeed, around the same time as Ayer, Charles Stevenson (see
stevenson, c. l.) developed a version of non-cognitivism which he argued could
make sense of talk of moral truth and falsity.
Stevenson’s background was in the American pragmatist tradition, rather than
logical positivism. To explain the meanings of words and sentences, pragmatists tend
to focus on the ways in which language can be used as a tool, and Stevenson was no
exception. He argued that moral language allows us to express our own feelings and
influence the attitudes of others. His original working model (a sort of rough approx-
imation) for statements of the form “this is good” was “I approve of this; do so, as well”
(see Stevenson 1944). The “do so, as well” aspect of his theory built upon the idea (also
in Ogden and Richards and Ayer) that moral language is used to influence others as
well as to express attitudes (for further discussion, see Ridge 2003). One innovation
here was the use of imperatives (such as “don’t engage in fox hunting!”), rather than
interjections (such as “boo for fox hunting!”) as a model for moral discourse.
Stevenson later came to the view that this model (“I approve of this; do so, as
well”) was flawed. On the strength of critical comments from Moore (who later in
life expressed considerable sympathy with non-cognitivism), Stevenson decided
that the first half of this model, “I approve of this,” at best blurred the distinction
6
between subjectivism and non-cognitivism, and at worst meant his original state-
ment just was a form of subjectivist cognitivism. He found this consequence intoler-
able, for it implied that the sorts of reasons one would give for a moral judgment
would be reasons for thinking that one approves or disapproves of the relevant
action. This, of course, is not how we argue, though. One does not try to convince
one’s interlocutor that fox hunting is wrong by providing evidence that one disap-
proves of it.
On the strength of these concerns, Stevenson’s more considered statement of his
view rejects the subjectivist “I approve of this” and instead relies on a more clearly
non-cognitivist model for evaluative claims. In his “Retrospective Comments” in
Facts and Values, he offers the more thoroughly imperatival model “Let us approve
of X” as a model for “X is good” (1963: 214). He quickly adds, though, that this
model is in many ways imperfect and that it primarily functions to (as he puts it) cut
through the supposition that moral sentences can express nothing but beliefs.
In addition to making use of the model of imperatives rather than interjections,
Stevenson offered a more worked out non-cognitivist account of moral disagree-
ment than Ayer (see disagreement, moral). Stevenson used a series of evocative
examples to remind his readers that, in addition to what he calls “disagreement in
belief,” where two people disagree about the facts in virtue of their beliefs, there is
also such a thing as “disagreement in attitude.” For example, if we both want to dine
together but have incompatible preferences as to where to eat, then we disagree in a
perfectly familiar sense, and Stevenson characterizes such incompatible attitudes as
constituting a disagreement in attitude. Actually, sometimes he defines disagree-
ment in attitude simply in terms of opposed/incompatible attitudes, while in other
contexts he also requires that one or the other party to the dispute has some desire
to change the attitude of the other (see Stevenson 1963: 2; 1944: 3).
In any event, Stevenson argues that while moral disagreement sometimes reflects
disagreement in belief, in cases of what we might call fundamental moral
disagreement, the disagreement is simply disagreement in attitude, however that
latter notion is best understood. Moreover, even where a moral disagreement reflects
a disagreement in belief, the two parties will on his account view the matter as
resolved only when they come, in virtue of their agreement in belief, to agree in
attitude.
Finally, Stevenson argued that his version of non-cognitivism could accommodate
the idea that moral sentences are truth-apt. Because, as a good pragmatist, he wanted
to accommodate the ways in which moral language is actually used, he was not
happy with Ayer’s conclusion that moral discourse is simply not truth-apt. Indeed,
he characterized this view as “absurd.”
To explain how his non-cognitivism could accommodate the truth-aptness of
moral sentences, Stevenson made use of what are nowadays called “deflationist” or
“minimalist” theories of truth to argue for the compatibility of non-cognitivism with
truth-aptness (for an influential contemporary discussion of minimalism about
truth, see Horwich 1990; see also minimalism about truth, ethics and). In
Stevenson’s day, such a conception of truth was pioneered by Frank Ramsey (1927).
7
Put crudely, the deflationist theory of truth holds that the truth predicate is simply a
grammatical device of generalization, which allows us to quantify over sentences
which we affirm or commit ourselves to affirming. In this view, there is no deep dif-
ference between saying “grass is green” and saying “it is true that grass is green.” The
truth predicate’s real function is that it allows us to say things like “half of what Ayer
said about ethical language is true,” but this can itself be understood in terms of a
speaker’s committing himself to not rejecting more than half of what Ayer said about
ethical language, or something along these lines.
With this deflationist conception of the truth predicate in hand, Stevenson argued
that there is no inconsistency between non-cognitivism and the truth-aptness of
moral sentences, since just as one can commit oneself to believing what someone else
says or believes, one can commit oneself to approving what someone else approves
of. So, Stevenson concluded, nothing in his non-cognitivism forces us to abandon
the talk of moral truth. This does mean that the model given by imperatives is not
exact, since imperatives are not truth-apt. However, we have seen that Stevenson
himself quite happily allowed that the model given by imperatives is anyway not a
perfect one, and he returns to this point when discussing talk of moral truth.
The next major stage in the development of non-cognitivism came with the work
of R. M. Hare (see hare, r. m.). Hare built heavily on Stevenson’s use of the model of
imperatives. At the same time, he heaped scorn on the idea that we might explain the
meanings of moral predicates in terms of their use in expressing feelings or emotions.
Nor, Hare argues, are imperatives themselves well understood in terms of expressing
such attitudes. Hare reminds us of such passionless imperatives as his memorable
“Supply and fit to door mortise dead latch and plastic knob furniture” (Hare 1952:
10). Moreover, he argues that while imperatives are indeed used to tell someone to
do something, we must distinguish telling someone to do something from trying to
get them to do it. A failure to heed this distinction, Hare argued, may give emotivist
theories such as Ayer’s and Stevenson’s more plausibility than they merit.
So while Hare is a kind of non-cognitivist, in that he shares many of the key nega-
tive views of Ayer and Stevenson et al., he is not an emotivist or indeed any sort of
expressivist, for, unlike Ayer and Stevenson, Hare does not think that the meanings
of moral sentences are well understood in terms of how they are used to express
feelings or other such desire-like states. To be clear, Hare allows that moral language
is used for such purposes in many contexts. He simply does not think that these
functions provide any part of the meaning of moral language.
Hare instead argues that value judgments in general (and hence moral valuations
in particular) are, like imperatives, a species of prescriptive discourse. Hare’s view is
therefore typically referred to as “prescriptivism” (see prescriptivism). In particular,
Hare argued that the meanings of evaluative predicates should be understood in
terms of how such predicates are used to commend objects of evaluation. To
commend something is to recommend it on the basis of certain descriptive features
such that you are thereby committed to commending anything else with exactly
those descriptive features. In this sense, evaluative judgments involve an element of
universalizability (see universalizability).
8
Hare also argued, in Moorean fashion, that evaluative predicates cannot be fully
analyzed into purely descriptive terms on pain of their being unable to perform their
characteristic function of commending options. At the same time, Hare allowed that
evaluative discourse in some sense involves both evaluative and descriptive meaning.
This, in his view, reflected the idea that we commend something on the basis of
certain of its descriptive features and thereby commit ourselves to commending
anything else which is descriptively identical. So our evaluative judgments cannot
“float free” of our descriptive judgments, and at least in this sense, evaluative lan-
guage always involves an element of descriptive meaning. The evaluative in this
sense “supervenes” (see supervenience, moral) on the descriptive, and this simply
reflects the norms governing the use of evaluative language. However, Hare argued
that the evaluative meaning of such terms is primary, in that no particular descriptive
features are built into the meaning of a “thin” evaluative predicate such as “good,”
and in that we use the evaluative meaning of such terms to change the descriptive
meaning associated with it.
Like Stevenson, Hare took a somewhat relaxed attitude in discussing moral truth
and falsity, but for rather different reasons from Stevenson’s (at least, on Stevenson’s
considered view), for Hare did not commit himself to a deflationist theory of the
truth predicate. Instead, he understood talk of truth in moral contexts to advert to a
shared descriptive meaning. He gives the example of someone who says that someone
is a good man but then learns that he spends his weekends seducing other men’s
wives. Hare allows that if such a person were discussing the matter with listeners
who share his moral standards, he might then intelligibly say that what he had been
saying about the man was false (1976: 203), thereby adverting to the falsity of the
relevant shared descriptive content. Interestingly, this seems to suggest that talk of
moral truth and falsity is, in Hare’s view, only intelligible in context of shared
standards. This contrasts with Stevenson and the deflationist approach to truth.
Stevenson’s account could make sense of talk of moral truth without making any
special assumptions about shared standards.
The next major development in the non-cognitivist tradition came in the 1980s
with the work of Simon Blackburn, who defended a broadly non-cognitivist view
which he prefers to call “quasi-realism” (Blackburn 1984, 1993, 1996, 1998; see
quasi-realism). The quasi-realist project is to “earn the right” to the realist-
sounding things that ordinary people say and think, but within a thoroughly non-
cognitivist framework. Like Stevenson, Blackburn (in his later work, anyway)
appeals to a deflationist theory of truth to accommodate the truth-aptness of moral
discourse within a non-cognitivist framework. Moreover, once we are deflationist
about truth, we can be deflationist about “facts” and other such notions.
Blackburn went further than Stevenson, and also offered non-cognitivist
accounts of talk of moral knowledge and the mind-independence of moral facts.
Blackburn’s basic strategy is to argue that questions of mind-independence are
themselves first-order questions, and that they can therefore be given first-order
answers. That is to say, such questions can be answered with sentences whose
meaning is best understood in terms of the non-cognitive attitudes they express. So,
9
for example, to say that torturing kittens would be wrong even if everyone approved
of it is to express your disapproval of torturing kittens even in worlds in which eve-
ryone (yourself included) comes to approve of it. Blackburn deployed a similar strat-
egy to make sense of moral knowledge (1996, 1998), since claims about moral
knowledge are themselves normative, and hence, in Blackburn’s view, amenable to
an expressivist treatment.
Not long after Blackburn’s work, Allan Gibbard developed his own influential
expressivist form of non-cognitivism. In his early work, Gibbard focused primar-
ily on moral thought and discourse. In Wise Choices, Apt Feelings (1990), he ana-
lyzed moral thought and discourse in terms of judgments about when it would be
rational for an agent to feel guilty about performing an action and for others to feel
angry about his having performed it. Claims about what would be rational are
then analyzed in expressivist terms. In particular, to judge that guilt would be
rational in a given context is to express your acceptance of norms which counsel
guilt in such a context. Gibbard then argues that the state of mind of “norm
acceptance” is one which has evolved to serve certain functions, most notably
social coordination.
In his early work, Gibbard sometimes characterized his view as one in which
moral sentences are not truth-apt (see, e.g., 1990: 8). In his later work, though (see
especially Gibbard 2003), he is more open to a Blackburn-style quasi-realist account
which was compatible with moral truth, moral knowledge, and the like. In his later
work, he also has turned his attention to the importance not only of social coordina-
tion between people but the contingency planning of individuals. This last transi-
tion marks a change in focus from specifically moral judgments to normative
judgments more generally.
Finally, in more recent work, Michael Ridge has defended a sort of hybrid form of
expressivist non-cognitivism, according to which normative sentences (including
moral sentences) express both beliefs and desires. Ridge calls this view “Ecumenical
Expressivism” in light of the way in which it ecumenically includes both belief and
desire in its account of normative judgment (see Ridge 2006, 2007). In a way,
Ecumenical Expressivism echoes Hare’s idea that normative judgment always
involves both evaluative and descriptive meaning, even though the evaluative
meaning is in some sense primary. Unlike Hare’s theory, though, Ecumenical
Expressivism does explain normative meaning in expressivist terms; recall Hare’s
scorn for the emotivists on this front.
One of the main attractions of Ecumenical Expressivism is its ability to
accommodate both the belief-like and desire-like features of normative thought and
discourse without abandoning a broadly Humean philosophy of mind. Interestingly,
cognitivists can “go Ecumenical” and include an element of desire in their otherwise
cognitivist account of the meanings of normative claims. Indeed, this is an
increasingly prominent trend (see, notably, Barker 2000; Boisvert 2008; Copp 2001;
Finlay 2004; Tresan 2006). However, a full discussion of the nuanced differences
between Ecumenical Expressivism and Ecumenical Cognitivism would be beyond
the scope of this essay.
10
With this rich and detailed tradition now in view, how might we define the core
ideas of non-cognitivism? In my view, we should begin with the idea that non-
cognitivism is, as the label suggests, best understood as a purely negative doctrine or
set of doctrines, for this way of understanding non-cognitivism allows us to
understand how there can be expressivist and prescriptivist species of the genus
non-cognitivism. The expressivist and the prescriptivist should be seen as adding
their own distinctive positive accounts of the meanings of moral language to the
purely negative doctrine(s) of non-cognitivism.
Indeed, it is fairly standard to define non-cognitivism as making two negative
claims, one semantic and one psychological. This approach is promising, but must
be handled with care. On one common definition, non-cognitivism is the
combination of the following two negative theses: (1) Moral sentences do not express
beliefs, and (2) Moral sentences are not truth-apt (or, at any rate, are not truth-apt
when literally construed; for discussion, see Jackson and Pettit 1998; Sayre-McCord
1988a; Smith 1994; Brink 1997). But neither of these doctrines is essential to non-
cognitivism as that doctrine is best understood.
(1) is not necessary for non-cognitivism. First, even crude early forms of non-
cognitivism allow that some moral sentences express beliefs. Ayer, for example,
would allow that the sentence “You acted wrongly in stealing that money” expresses
the belief that the speaker’s interlocutor stole the relevant money. Second, quasi-
realist versions of non-cognitivism may well “go deflationist” about belief, and
hold that moral sentences do indeed express moral beliefs, but add that moral
beliefs are actually constituted by suitable pro- and con-attitudes. Third, more
sophisticated forms of non-cognitivism, such as Hare’s presciptivism and
Ecumenical Expressivism, allow that moral sentences can involve some sort of
descriptive meaning or express beliefs even in a full-blooded and representational
sense of “belief.”
Neither is (2), which denies literal truth-aptness, a necessary part of non-
cognitivism. Clearly, many philosophers working in the non-cognitivist tradition
allow that moral sentences are truth-apt. Indeed, more or less all contemporary
defenders of non-cognitivism aspire to accommodate the truth-aptness of moral dis-
course, usually via some deflationist account of the truth predicate. Nor will it do to
insist that non-cognitivists must anyway hold that moral sentences are not truth-apt
“when literally construed” (Sayre-McCord’s favored formulation), since, given a per-
fectly general deflationist account of truth, the non-cognitivist can allow that moral
sentences can perfectly well be true or false when literally construed. Such non-cogni-
tivists do not need to appeal to metaphorical glosses of moral claims to accommodate
talk of truth.
How, then, might we define non-cognitivism in a way that avoids these pitfalls?
Perhaps the following definition captures the core idea of non-cognitivism:
Non-cognitivism: For any declarative sentence M in which a moral predicate is

used, M does not express a belief such that M is thereby guaranteed to be true if
and only if the belief expressed is true.
11
(“Belief ” in the preceding definition should be understood in the same sense as

“belief ” when used to denote purely descriptive beliefs; there may be “deflationist”
senses of “belief ” such that the non-cognitivist can consistently allow that moral
sentences express moral beliefs in that deflationist sense.)
This definition is incompatible with the views of paradigmatic cognitivists.
Cognitivists hold that there are moral beliefs, and that these represent the world as
being a certain way, morally. Moreover, since these beliefs are genuinely representa-
tional, they will not be understood as different in kind from descriptive beliefs; they
will differ only in their content.
One tricky case here is the meta-ethical theory of John McDowell, which is a kind
of response-dependence view (see response-dependent theories). McDowell
understands moral beliefs as distinctively motivating, but at the same time, as
genuinely representational (see the essays in McDowell 1998). In my sense,
McDowell sees moral beliefs as being beliefs in the same sense as descriptive beliefs,
at least in that both are at least genuinely representational; they both have a mind-
to-world “direction of fit” (see direction of fit). The fact that they differ in that the
former (but not the latter) also have a world-to-mind “direction of fit” does not
undermine the key continuity for my purposes, though this distinction is obviously
important for an appreciation of McDowell’s theory.
It is a very small step from the psychological thesis that there are genuinely repre-
sentational moral beliefs, which represent the world as being in a certain way,
morally speaking, to the semantic thesis that declarative sentences in which moral
predicates are used express the relevant moral beliefs, and moreover that, in each
case, the sentence is true if and only if the belief expressed is true. For example,
Moore presumably would allow that “pleasure is good” expresses the belief that
pleasure is good, where the content of this belief is construed in terms of nonnatu-
ralism, and would also allow that the sentence “pleasure is good” is true just in case
the belief expressed (that pleasure is good) is true.
So the definition above rules out paradigmatic cognitivists. The definition also
accommodates Moorean “Open Question” intuitions, for it preserves the idea
that no descriptive representation of the world as being a certain way conceptually
commits one to the truth of a moral judgment.
This definition also avoids the two pitfalls discussed earlier. It avoids the first
pitfall of ruling out theories which allow that moral sentences can at least sometimes
express ordinary descriptive beliefs. It avoids the second pitfall by allowing that
moral sentences might well be truth-apt, even when literally construed. The crucial
point is simply that the sentences’ truth conditions are not necessarily the same as
the truth-condition of any belief (in the same sense of “belief ” in which there are
descriptive beliefs) that the sentence expresses.
It is worth noting that this definition can be combined with suitable positive
doctrines to yield expressivist and prescriptivist forms of non-cognitivism, for the
proposed characterization of non-cognitivism itself is entirely negative, and is
compatible with the positive doctrines of each of these views. Moreover, insofar as
the proposed definition classifies all paradigmatic non-cognitivist theories as such,
12
it can capture what is philosophically important about non-cognitivism as least as

well as those paradigmatically non-cognitivist theories can. Finally, the proposed
definition is also couched in purely negative terms, and in such a way that it rejects
an idea that might aptly be called “cognitivism.” In short, the proposed definition
can also explain why the label is itself apt. So the proposed definition seems to satisfy
the methodological constraints with which this essay began.
To elucidate, my proposed characterization of non-cognitivism leaves many key
questions unanswered, but that is as it should be, for different versions of non-
cognitivism will spell out certain key notions in different ways. Perhaps most notably,
the notion of expression can itself be understood in a variety of ways, and different
non-cognitivists will understand that notion differently (for some discussion of the
range of options here, see Schroeder 2008). Nor has there here been any discussion
of how non-cognitivism might be situated in a broader philosophy of language and
philosophy of mind. That too is a very good question, but also one on which different
versions of non-cognitivism will offer very different answers.
Finally, there has here been no discussion of the many objections that have been
offered to non-cognitivism. There have been far too many objections developed
over the years to discuss all of them properly in the space available here. Moreover,
non-cognitivism is a very broadly defined genus, and different species of that genus
will be vulnerable to different objections. Going into the minutiae of all of these
different theories and objections would be beyond the scope of this essay.
No discussion of non-cognitivism would be complete, however, without some
mention of the one objection which is most often taken to be the most powerful
objection to non-cognitivism in all of its many guises. This is the “Frege–Geach”
problem (see frege–geach objection), originally pressed by Peter Geach, build-
ing on work by Frege (see Geach 1965).
The problem comes in two stages. First, take whatever positive theory of moral
semantics one couples with non-cognitivism. In order to be compatible with non-
cognitivism, and indeed with the motivations for non-cognitivism, any such the-
ory had better not help itself to the idea of a moral proposition as a given. The
standard moves here are to explain moral semantics in either expressivist or pre-
scriptivist terms. The first stage of the Frege–Geach problem is simply to point out
that, prima facie, these accounts seem plausible only for atomic moral sentences
such as “charity is good” and “torture is wrong.” These sorts of uses can perhaps be
plausibly understood in terms of either expressing approval of charity or prescrib-
ing against torture. What, though, about logically complex sentences in which
moral predicates occur in unasserted contexts? For we can also say things like “If
it helps people in need then charity is good” and “If it robs people of their self-
esteem then torture is wrong.” It looks like the non-cognitivist has no obvious way
to extend his theory to include such perfectly commonplace unasserted uses of
moral language.
The second stage adds that the non-cognitivist had better not posit an ambiguity
between uses of, for example, “good” in asserted and unasserted contexts, since, in
13
that case, patently valid arguments will come out as invalid on the non-cognitivist
account. For example, consider the following argument:
(1) Lying is wrong.

(2) If lying is wrong then getting little brother to lie is wrong.
(3) So, getting little brother to lie is wrong.
Suppose that the non-cognitivist admits that “wrong” in (2) cannot be understood
in terms of prescribing or expressing attitudes, or whatever, though (1) is to be
understood in this way. In that case, there is no reading of the argument on which it
comes out as valid. But that is absurd.
Those who press the Frege–Geach problem also typically offer a diagnosis of why
the non-cognitivist seems to have gone so badly wrong. They propose that the non-
cognitivist has confused the pragmatics of moral speech-acts with an account of the
meanings of moral words and sentences. Granted that individual utterances of
atomic moral sentences are used to express pro- and con-attitudes, this need not
undermine the idea that moral sentences also have a perfectly normal content and
truth-condition. After all, perfectly ordinary descriptive sentences can also be used
to express pro- or con-attitudes in the right context, or to prescribe certain options
over others. Someone who says “I wouldn’t do that if I were you” may be offering
advice in so saying, even though the sentence itself has a fairly obvious content and
truth condition.
The challenge is a powerful one, but non-cognitivists have developed sophisti-
cated ways of dealing with it too. Blackburn’s early work tried to meet the challenge
by analyzing logically complex moral utterances as expressing higher-order attitudes
toward relevant combinations of first-order attitudes (see Blackburn 1984). In his
more recent work, Blackburn prefers to understand logically complex sentences in
general in terms of the commitments they express, and argues that these commit-
ments can be to adopt or avoid certain non-cognitive attitudes just as well as to
adopt or avoid certain beliefs (see Blackburn 1998). Gibbard (2003) proposes a
solution similar to Blackburn’s later proposal, but with different formal machinery,
and Mark Schroeder (2008) offers yet another solution. Hybrid views, such as
Ecumenical Expressivism, instead aim to meet the Frege–Geach problem by appeal-
ing to the essential role of belief in moral judgment (see Ridge 2006). These responses
are all rather complex, though, and a proper discussion of them would, unfortu-
nately, be well beyond the scope of this essay.
See also: ayer, a. j.; cognitivism; direction of fit; disagreement, moral; emotivism;
error theory; frege–geach objection; hare, r. m.; hume, david; minimalism about
truth, ethics and; moore, g. e.; motivation, humean theory of; nonnaturalism,
ethical; open question argument; prescriptivism; quasi-realism; response-
dependent theories; stevenson, c. l.; subjectivism, ethical; supervenience, moral;
universalizability
14
REFERENCES
Ayer, A. J. 1936. Language, Truth, and Logic. New York: Dover Publications.
Barker, S. 2000. “Is Value Content a Component of Conventional Implicature,” Analysis,
vol. 60, pp. 268–79.
Blackburn, S. 1984. Spreading the Word. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Blackburn, S. 1993. Essays in Quasi-Realism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Blackburn, S. 1996. “Securing the Nots: Moral Epistemology for the Quasi-Realist,” in Walter
Sinnott-Armstrong and Mark Timmons (eds.), Moral Knowledge? New Readings in
Moral Epistemology. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 82–100.
Blackburn, S. 1998. Ruling Passions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Boisvert, D. 2008. “Expressive-Assertivism,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 89, pp. 169–203.
Brink, D. 1997. “Moral Motivation,” Ethics, vol. 108, pp. 4–32.
Broad, C. D. 1933–34. “Is Goodness the Name of a Non-Natural Quality?” Proceedings of the
Aristotelian Society, vol. 34, pp. 249–68.
Carnap, R. 1937. Philosophy and Logical Syntax. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.
Copp, D. 2001. “Realist-Expressivism: A Neglected Option for Moral Realism,” Social
Duncan-Jones, A. 1945. “Review of Ethics and Language,” Mind, vol. 54, p. 362.
Finlay, S. 2004. “The Conversational Practicality of Value Judgement,” Journal of Ethics,
vol. 8, pp. 205–23.
Gibbard, A. 1990. Wise Choices, Apt Feelings. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hare, R. M. 1952. The Language of Morals. New York: Oxford University Press.
Hare, R. M. 1976. “Some Confusions about Subjectivity,” in J. Bricke (ed.), Freedom and
Morality. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, pp. 191–208.
Horwich, P. 1990. Truth. Oxford: Blackwell.
Hume, David 1975 [1748]. Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding and Concerning
the Principles of Morals, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge and P. H. Nidditch, 3rd ed. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
Jackson, F., and P. Pettit 1998. “A Problem for Expressivists,” Analysis, vol. 58, pp. 239–51.
McDowell, J. 1998. Mind, Value and Reality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Ogden, C. K., and I. A. Richards 1923. The Meaning of Meaning. San Francisco: Harcourt
Brace Jovanovich.
Ramsey, F. P. 1927. “Facts and Propositions,” Aristotelian Society, supp. vol. 7, pp. 153–70.
Ridge, M. 2003. “Non-Cognitivist Pragmatics and Stevenson’s ‘Do so as well!,’” Canadian
Ridge, M. 2006. “Ecumenical Expressivism: Finessing Frege,” Ethics, vol. 116, pp. 302–36.
Ridge, M. 2007. “Ecumenical Expressivism: The Best of Both Worlds?” in Shafer-Landau
(ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaethics, vol. 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Russell, B. 1935. Religion and Science. New York: Oxford University Press.
Sayre-McCord, G. 1988a. “Introduction: The Many Moral Realisms,” in Geoffrey
Sayre-McCord (ed.), Essays on Moral Realism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
pp. 1–26.
Sayre-McCord, G. 1996. “Hume and the Bauhaus Theory of Ethics,” Midwest Studies in
15
Schroeder, M. 2008. Being For. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Smith, M. 1994. The Moral Problem. Oxford: Blackwell.
Stevenson, C. 1944. Ethics and Language. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Stevenson, C. 1963. Facts and Values. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Sturgeon, N. 2001. “Moral Skepticism and Moral Naturalism in Hume’s Treatise,” Hume
Tresan, J. 2006. “De Dicto Internalist Cognitivism,” Noûs, vol. 40, pp. 143–65.
FURTHER READINGS
Bar-On, D., and M. Chrisman 2009. “Ethical Neo-Expressivism,” in R. Shafer-Landau (ed.),
Oxford Studies in Metaethics, vol. 4. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 133–66.
Boyd, R. 1988. “How to Be a Moral Realist,” in G. Sayre-McCord (ed.), Essays on Moral
Realism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University. Press, pp. 181–228.
Bricke, J. (ed.) 1976. Freedom and Morality: The Lindley Lectures. Kansas: University of
Kansas Humanistic Studies.
Bykvist, K., and J. Olson 2009. “Expressivism and Moral Certitude,” Philosophical Quarterly,
vol. 59, pp. 202–15.
Cuneo, T. 2006. “Saying What We Mean: An Argument against Expressivism,” in R. Shafer-
Landau (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaethics, vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
pp. 35–71.
Dorr, C. 2002. “Non-Cognitivism and Wishful Thinking,” Noûs, vol. 36, pp. 97–103.
Dreier, J. 1996. “Expressivist Embeddings and Minimalist Truth,” Philosophical Studies,
vol. 83, pp. 29–51.
Dreier, J. 2006. “Negation for Expressivists: A Collection of Problems with a Suggestion for
Their Solution,” in R. Shafer-Landau (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaethics, vol. 1. Oxford:
Enoch, D. 2003. “How Noncognitivists Can Avoid Wishful Thinking,” Southern Journal of
Hagerstrom, A. 1955. “Axel Hagerstrom’s Inquiries into the Nature of Law and Morals,” Mind,
trans. C. D. Broad, vol. 64, pp. 421–2.
Haldane, J., and C. Wright (eds.) 1993. Reality, Representation and Projection. New York:
Hale, B. 1993. “Can There Be a Logic of Attitudes?” in John Haldane and Crispin Wright
(eds.), Reality, Representation and Projection. New York: Oxford University Press,
pp. 37–64.
Horgan, T., and M. Timmons 1992a. “Troubles for New Wave Moral Semantics: The ‘Open
Question Argument’ Revived,” Philosophical Papers, vol. XXI, pp. 153–75.
Horgan, T., and M. Timmons 1992b. “Troubles on Moral Twin Earth: Moral Queerness
Revived,” Synthese, vol. 92, pp. 224–60.
Horgan, T., and M. Timmons (eds.) 2006a. “Cognitivist Expressivism,” Metaethics after
Moore. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 255–98.
Horgan, T., and M. Timmons (eds.) 2006b. Metaethics after Moore. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Jackson, F. 1999. “Non-Cognitivism, Normativity, Belief,” Ratio, vol. 12, pp. 420–35.
Joyce, R. 2007. “Moral Anti-Realism,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. At http://plato.
stanford.edu/entries/moral-anti-realism, accessed February 29, 2012.
16
Lenman, J. 2003. “Noncognitivism and Wishfulness,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice,
vol. 6, pp. 265–74.
Miller, A. 1998. “Emotivism and the Verification Principle,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian
Society, vol. 98, pp. 103–24.
Ridge, M. 2004. “How Children Learn the Meanings of Moral Words: Expressivist Semantics
for Children,” Ethics, vol. 114, pp. 301–17.
Ridge, M. 2009. “Moral Assertion for Expressivists,” Philosophical Issues, vol. 1, pp. 182–204.
Satris, S. 1986. Ethical Emotivism. Dordecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publications.
Sayre-McCord, G. (ed.) 1988b. Essays on Moral Realism. Ithaca and London: Cornell
University Press.
Schroeder, M. 2008. “What Is the Frege-Geach Problem?” Philosophy Compass, vol. 4,
pp. 703–20.
Schroeder, M. 2010. Non-Cognitivism in Ethics. London: Routledge.
Schueler, G. F. 1988. “Modus Ponens and Moral Realism,” Ethics, vol. 98, pp. 492–500.
Shafer-Landau, R. (ed.) 2006. Oxford Studies in Metaethics, vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Shafer-Landau, R. (ed.) 2007. Oxford Studies in Metaethics, vol. 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Shafer-Landau, R. (ed.) 2009. Oxford Studies in Metaethics, vol. 4. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Sinnott-Armstrong, W. 1996. Moral Knowledge? Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Smith, M. 2001. “Some Not-Much Discussed Problems for Non-Cognitivism in Ethics,”
Ratio, vol. 14, pp. 93–115.
Smith, M. 2002. “Evaluation, Uncertainty, and Motivation,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice,
vol. 5, pp. 305–20.
Sobel, D., and S. Wall (eds.) 2009. Reasons for Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Van Roojen, M. 1996. “Expressivism and Irrationality,” Philosophical Review, vol. 105,
pp. 311–35.
Van Roojen, M. 2009. “Moral Cognitivism versus Non-Cognitivism,” Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy. At http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-cognitivism/index.html.bak,
accessed February 29, 2012.
1
Hunting
J. Claude Evans
When we inquire into the moral permissibility of hunting, it becomes important to

distinguish between different kinds of hunting. Subsistence hunting, where the
nourishment from the hunted animal’s flesh is required for a healthy diet, plays a
crucial role in some indigenous cultures and a minor role in most developed coun-
tries. It is thought to be permissible in almost all approaches to moral principles.
Commercial hunting for markets is outlawed in the United States; it is carefully
regulated in Europe; and it constitutes a serious issue in Africa (“bush meat”). Sport
hunting, or hunting for its own sake, whether this is understood in terms of amuse-
ment, pleasure, recreation, traditional cultural practice, domination, or meaningful
participation in natural ecosystems, is controversial (see Kerasote 1994; Jones 1997;
Williams 1995). Hunting is also an instrument for managing populations of wildlife.
In most traditional ethical theories, moral obligation concerns primarily other
human beings or persons; such theories are therefore human-centered (see anthro-
pocentrism). Hunting is rarely considered a moral issue there, except as a matter of
religious or personal purity. More recent animal rights and animal welfare thought is
the result of a critique of this anthropocentrism in which it is argued that the exclusive
focus on human beings is arbitrary and that ethical concern must be extended to ani-
mals. Thomas Regan (1983) offers an exemplary rights-based view; Peter Singer
(1975) offers a utilitarian “animal liberation” approach that does not focus on rights
(see rights; animal rights). For animal rights views, this development leads to a
prima facie duty not to harm other animals; only genuine subsistence hunting would
give good reason to override this obligation (see duty and obligation). Just as tradi-
tional ethical theory focuses on a moral agent’s obligations to other individual persons,
so animal rights and liberation theories tend to focus on the ethical status of individual
animals. Regan (1983) argues that the emphasis on ecosystems and species in most
environmental philosophies amounts to an “environmental fascism” in which the
rights of individual animals are violated for the purpose of protecting ecosystems or
members of endangered species. From an animal welfare perspective, certain types
and techniques of hunting may be considered cruel because they cause unnecessary
suffering (e.g., fox hunting in the United Kingdom).
Other philosophers have developed biocentric theories of environmental ethics that
are not based on an extension, to animals, of the rights and moral status traditionally
recognized for persons (for a critique of “ethics by extension,” see Rolston 1991; see
environmental ethics). Such theories can be individualist, focusing on the inherent
value of individual nonhuman organisms (Taylor 1986). They can also be holist, view-
ing environmental ethics, and thus human hunting, from the perspective of ecological
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee140
2
citizenship, within the broader community of interdependent living things (Leopold

1987; Rolston 1991; Kerasote 1994; Jones 1997; Evans 2005).
An individualist environmental ethics differs from an animal rights approach by
distinguishing between an appropriate respect for nonhuman life and a different
type of respect, appropriate for other persons. Some individualist environmental
ethicists are similar to animal rights ethicists in recognizing a prima facie duty not
to harm animals (and, in some cases, plants) as an expression of the attitude of
respect for life. As in animal rights approaches, the moral ideal here would be a life
lived without any harmful effect on nonhuman life. This is an ideal of respect that
aims to remove human beings as moral agents from the web of organic life. Since
such an ideal cannot be achieved, these individualist positions develop principles
designed to govern inevitable conflict of interest (Taylor 1986; see conflict of
interest). These principles generally allow for genuine subsistence hunting, but
they reject all commercial and sport hunting, along with any wildlife management.
Holist philosophers begin from the basic fact that all life must assimilate energy
and nutrition from its environment, always to the possible detriment, direct or indi-
rect, of other life. From this perspective, the good of an individual organism, which
is the source of its inherent value, cannot be separated from the fact that such an
organism must use other members of its ecosystem and be made use of by them:
inherent value and instrumental value are inseparable (Evans 2005). Rather than
viewing this interdependence as a morally regrettable fact, holist environmentalists
regard it as an essential part of the life that moral agents must respect, including their
own life. From this perspective, the ideal of non-participation is not only unrealistic,
it is in principle misguided. Rather than defining respect in terms of an ideal of non-
participation, holist philosophers ask how it is possible to participate respectfully in
the intertwining of life and death in all systems of organic life. Leopold (1987) asks
what it means to be a “good citizen” in a biotic community; Kerasote (1994) com-
pares the cost, to other animals, of being a “fossil fuel vegetarian” with that of being
a hunter who eats what she or he kills. Asking how it is possible to take and use ani-
mal life respectfully, such thinkers tend to allow greater latitude for ethical hunting –
though pure trophy hunting, in which the overriding goal is the acquisition of a
trophy for display, is often considered unethical (Kerasote 1994; Jones 1997). While
most hunting in developed countries is not genuine subsistence hunting, great
emphasis is laid on eating one’s kill as an integral part of the practice of hunting.
Hunters often consider eating meat from a wild animal to be morally superior to eat-
ing meat from factory farms that subject domesticated animals to cruel treatment.
Some ecofeminist philosophers tend to be individualists, viewing meat eating and
hunting as forms of patriarchal aggression (Adams 1994; Williams 1995; see
ecofeminism), while others are rather holists, allowing the possibility of ethical
forms of “relational” hunting (Warren 1990; Plumwood 2000).
There are also ethical issues that arise within hunting practices themselves.
Hunting and gathering cultures often prescribe ritualized methods of hunting and
killing animals in a respectful manner. In sport hunting, the principle of fair chase
(Posewitz 1994; Vitali 1996) plays an important role, and so-called “canned hunts”
on stocked game preserves are often considered to be unethical. An overreliance on
3
technological advantages is ethically questionable (Ortega y Gasset 1995; Kerasote

1994). Attracting animals to bait is often considered a violation of hunting ethics,
though it is an accepted practice in some places and for hunting certain species.
Another essential aspect of ethical hunting is the requirement that the hunter possess
the skill to minimize the suffering of the animal.
See also: animal rights; anthropocentrism; conflict of interest; duty

and obligation; ecofeminism; environmental ethics; rights
REFERENCES
Adams, Carol 1994. Neither Man Nor Beast: Feminism and the Defense of Animals. New York:
Continuum.
Evans, J. Claude 2005. With Respect for Nature: Living as Part of the Natural World. Albany:
Jones, Allen Morris 1997. A Quiet Place of Violence: Hunting and Ethics in the Missouri River
Breaks. Bozeman, MT: Spring Creek Publishing.
Kerasote, Ted 1994. Bloodties: Nature, Culture, and the Hunt. New York: Kodansha International.
Leopold, Aldo 1987. A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There. New York:
Ortega y Gasset, José 1995. Meditations on Hunting, trans. Howard B. Wescott. Bozeman,
MT: Wilderness Adventures Press.
Plumwood, Val 2000. “Integrating Ethical Frameworks for Animals, Humans and Nature:
A Critical Feminist Eco-Socialist Analysis,” Ethics and the Environment, vol. 5, no. 2,
pp. 285–322.
Posewitz, Jim 1994. Beyond Fair Chase: The Ethic and Tradition of Hunting. Helena and
Billings, MT: Falcon Press Publishing Company.
Regan, Tom 1983. The Case for Animal Rights. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of
California Press.
Rolston, Holmes 1991. “Environmental Ethics: Values in and Duties to the Natural World,” in
F. Herbert Bormann and Stephen R. Kellert (eds.), Ecology, Economics Ethics: The Broken
Circle. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, pp. 73–96.
Singer, Peter 1975. Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for Our Treatment of Animals. New York:
New York Review and Random House.
Taylor, Paul 1986. Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics. Princeton, NJ:
Vitali, Theodore 1996. “Why Fair Chase?” Fair Chase, Part I (Spring), pp. 20–4; Part II
(Summer), pp. 20–3.
Warren, Karen J. 1990. “The Power and Promise of Ecological Feminism,” Environmental
Ethics, vol. 12, pp. 125–46.
Williams, Joy 1995. “The Killing Game,” in Pam Houston (ed.), Women on Hunting. Hopewill,
NJ: Ecco Press, pp. 248–65.
FURTHER READINGS
Luke, Brian 1997. “A Critical Analysis of Hunters’ Ethics,” Environmental Ethics, vol. 19,
no. 1, pp. 25–44.
1
Jain Ethics
Maria Heim
Jainism is a religion in India that offers a distinctive moral vision centered on

nonviolence and asceticism. Jains regard their doctrines as eternal truths, but these
truths have not always been known to humans and they come to be periodically
discovered and taught by historical figures called Tirthankaras (“Ford-Makers,” also
called Jinas, “Conquerors”). The most recent Tirthankara was the great teacher
Mahāvīra who lived in northern India about 2,500 years ago. Mahāvīra founded a
monastic community of men and women and a larger circle of lay supporters that
have survived and flourished in India to the present day. While they constitute a
small minority of the population of India (less than 1 percent), Jains have enjoyed
influence on the intellectual and cultural life of India disproportionate to their
relatively small numbers.
Our knowledge of the earliest history and teachings of Jainism comes from its
scriptures and from early Buddhist sources which describe Jains as contemporary
rivals of their own teacher, Siddhartha Gautama. We also learn much about Jain
moral values from the development of its rich textual traditions; Jains were prolific
intellectuals throughout Indian history, and continue to produce many philosophi-
cal, literary, and religious texts up to the present day. Finally, we know about
contemporary Jain ethics from the work of prominent Jain thinkers today as well as
important ethnographic studies on Jain communities in India and in diaspora.
Early in its history, Jainism underwent an important schism into two branches,
the Digambaras and the Śvetāmbaras; this division of the community occurred
largely over the matter of whether ascetic nudity is required of monks as enjoined by
the Digambaras (so called because their monks are “sky-clad”), but rejected by the
Śvetāmbaras (whose monks are “white-clad”). This schism also resulted in a
geographical dispersion of Jains, with Digambaras forming the predominant Jain
community in the Deccan, and Śvetāmbaras concentrated in Gujarat, Rajasthan,
Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh. There are also smaller sectarian divisions
within the Śvetāmbara fold, but since these largely concern issues over the legitimacy
of temple and image worship, they fall outside of our focus on ethics.
Like Hinduism and Buddhism, Jainism assumes a worldview that involves
sam.sāra (all beings are subject to reincarnation as humans, animals, spirits, deities,
and lower life forms), and karma (which means “action” but also refers to universal
laws of causality wherein all beings reap the consequences of their moral actions
within and across lives). The religious path involves rigorous moral and spiritual
exertion of working toward liberation (moks.a) from continual reincarnation.
Jainism’s earliest scriptures describe life in sam.sāra as full of suffering and ignorance
as a result of action; since actions are driven by passion, ignorance, and violence,
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee141
2
they trap us in a world of contingency, loss, and pain. Freedom from action is
possible only in the mendicant life, wherein one renounces the desires and obligations
of household life in order to restrict one’s activity and develop higher insight into
reality. While this basic picture of the human condition is to a large degree shared
with Buddhists and certain strains of Hinduism, Jains developed interpretations and
elaborations of these doctrines that entail a moral and religious path unique to their
own tradition (see buddhist ethics; hindu ethics). For example, Jain karma the-
ory is more evolved and intricate than that offered by any other system in India;
karma is considered not solely the actions and their effects that determine our con-
dition in sam.sāra, but is also regarded as a material substance that adheres to the
soul (jīva) as it migrates through its various births. Liberation is achieved by the
literal burning off from the soul of this “sticky” karma through asceticism and by
ceasing to attract new karma. The implications of these views for moral practice
are considerable.
Also distinctive to Jain teachings is a profound awareness of life in all its
forms; not only are humans and animals subject to ethical consideration, but also
microscopic forms of life which may be harmed by our normal activity of living.
While nonviolence is also important for Buddhists and Hindus, Jains are acutely
sensitive to the ways in which even unwittingly humans are destructive to these
invisible forms of life, and they hold that even unintentional harm involves
accruing karma (see nonviolence in religions; killing; animals, moral
status of). Because of the problematic and violent nature of ordinary house-
holder activity, the monastic life – with its vows of celibacy, strict nonviolence,
and abjuring nearly all possessions but the most essential requisites – is regarded
as the only way to stop making new karma and to burn off the previous bad
karma that traps us in sa msāra.
. The Jain monastic path entails some of the most
austere strictures of all Indic renunciatory movements. For example, monks and
nuns often wear surgical masks to avoid inhaling microscopic life, use small
whisks to carefully sweep away insects from their path, and avoid the use of lights
and candles at night so as not to attract and harm insects. As we have seen,
Digambara monks are required to renounce even the wearing of clothes as
deepening their practice of nonviolence, bodily mortification, and the shedding
of all possessions and attachments.
One important consequence of the Digambara practice of ascetic nudity is that
women, whose public nakedness would not be readily accepted in Indian society,
are not permitted to become fully ordained in the Digambara sect, and are thus not
seen as capable of realizing spiritual liberation (Jaini 1991). In the larger Śvetāmbara
community, however, women’s renunciation and the possibility of female liberation
are accepted, and it appears that nuns have substantially outnumbered monks in
most periods of Jain history, including the present day. The contested issue of
women’s spiritual capacity has led to spirited debates among Jains about gender and
sexuality that are of great ethical interest (see gender and patriarchy in
religions).
3
While highly admired in the Jain community, the austerities and mortifica-
tions of mendicants are not enjoined for all Jains. Jain laypeople, who comprise
the majority of Jains, do not routinely circumscribe their activity to the same
degree as monks and nuns. All Jains are vegetarians, and many also commit
to other important dietary restrictions that minimize the harm understood
to accompany the production and consumption of even vegetable food (see
vegetarianism and veganism). The values of nonviolence (ahimsā) are
thoroughgoing in Jain life and require not just refraining from taking life wher-
ever possible but also a compassion and friendliness extended to all creatures.
Ahimsā also entails awareness of subtle forms of violence that may be committed
in verbal or mental action, and developing a moral sensibility that recoils from
violence in any form.
Beyond this general prescription of nonviolence, Jain laypeople follow other
moral practices that are either modeled on ascetic vows or are concerned with
particularly lay expressions of Jain religiosity. The earliest scriptures do not have
much to say about lay morality and are concerned almost entirely with the monastic
life. But as Jainism developed and its monastic community was recognized as
depending for its support on a committed Jain lay following, rules and practices
especially for the laity were articulated in the medieval period. Among these are the
five main vows for laypeople which are less stringent versions of similar vows taken
by mendicants, but nevertheless are difficult to achieve given the compromised
nature of ordinary human activity in the world. These are (1) nonviolence, (2)
truthfulness, (3) avoiding theft, (4) avoiding sexual misconduct, and (5) nonattach-
ment to wealth and possessions. These vows represent a moral ideal which most
Jains will fall short of fully attaining, and few laypeople commit to them formally
(Dundas 1992: 189–92). James Laidlaw argues that it is important to distinguish
between “moral codes” (the rules and obligations governing moral and social life)
and “ethics” (in Michel Foucault’s sense of both awareness of oneself as a moral
subject and the techniques for self-formation; see foucault, michel). Laidlaw sug-
gests that the lay vows function not so much as required moral obligations, but
rather as paradigmatic ethical ideals that one might not only aspire to, but also
measure oneself against (Laidlaw 1995: 391–4).
Beyond these vows lie practices that are specific to the laity and that embrace
positive action in the world, which include most centrally the virtue and practice of
giving (see generosity). As a chief means of observing (and displaying) the fifth
vow of nonattachment, giving is widely extolled as a vital expression of lay morality
and religiosity. Laypeople are expected to provide mendicants with food, shelter, and
requisites; they fund the construction and maintenance of temples, shrines, and all
religious institutions; and they participate in philanthropic and charitable works in
the larger societies in which they live. Given the premises of Jainism’s emphasis on
austerity, frugality is widely admired and the only appropriate use of excess wealth is
giving it away. Yet, giving is a multivalent religious and moral act: it can represent the
ascetic practice of nonattachment to material possessions, even while it also
4
participates in an aesthetic moral culture that affirms well-being, benevolence, and

social relations (Cort 2001).
So far, we have focused in a descriptive manner on the moral values and practices
of Jainism. But we can move beyond describing normative prescriptions and ideals
and begin to consider more pointedly places where Jains have offered critical
reflection on their moral values. While there is no single branch of philosophy in
Indian intellectual history that is devoted specifically to ethics in this sense, we do
have Jain texts that provide such reflection in the course of religious instruction.
One example is in the medieval handbooks on lay morality (Williams 1963). These
texts provide extensive exegetical discussion on social ethics, such as how to interpret
the vows of truthfulness and nontheft in the context of business ethics, or determine
the constraints of sexual morality within the householder life. These texts also offer
subtle discussions of moral psychology, exploring, for example, if and to what degree
intention matters in evaluating moral action, the right motivations for giving a gift,
and the nature of compassion, remorse, repentance, and loving-kindness (see moral
psychology).
Jain narrative literature also provides reflection on moral questions. An enormous
corpus of medieval story literature that celebrates exemplary mendicant and lay
figures provides edifying accounts of moral trial and victory (e.g., Hemacandra
1931–62); these stories have great didactic currency today and appear in the sermons
and published discourses of prominent monk and nun teachers. Since the ultimate
moral ideal that Jainism advances is, at least in some immediate way, impossible for
most Jains to realize, stories offer tangible accounts of perseverance even while they
hold up and reinforce this ideal through celebrating “great men” and supererogatory
moral heroism. Stories of Tīrthankaras and other great people provide opportunities
not only for reverence and emulation, but also for self-examination and reflection
upon one’s own morally compromised life and social milieu. In addition, many
stories promote a long perspective on time that reframes ethical action: narratives
extend over many lifetimes of a character and explore the forces of passion and
ignorance in driving action, the workings of karma and retribution across lives, the
problematics of free agency, and the possibilities for redemption. Finally, stories also
critique the moral values of the majority Hindu world encircling Jains, provide kings
with advice on statecraft, and set forth visions of an ideal society.
In the modern world, Jain moral thought has made contributions to peace studies,
animal welfare movements, and environmental ethics (see pacifism; animal
rights; environment and ecology in religions). In this latter area, Jainism’s
sensitivity to the human impact on all forms of life and its emphasis on nonattach-
ment to material wealth can provide a valuable religious perspective that supports
many of the ecological movement’s aims (Chapple 2002). At the same time, Jainism
principally offers a path for individual salvation that will require considerable
reworking to speak directly to the enormous social, economic, and technological
challenges of the environmental crisis.
5
See also: animal rights; animals, moral status of; buddhist ethics;
environment and ecology in religions; foucault, michel; gender and
patriarchy in religions; generosity; hindu ethics; killing; moral
psychology; nonviolence in religions; pacifism; vegetarianism and
veganism
REFERENCES
Chapple, Christopher Key (ed.) 2002. Jainism and Ecology: Nonviolence in the Web of Life.
Cort, John 2001. Jains in the World: Religious Values and Ideology in India. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Dundas, Paul 1992. The Jains. London: Routledge.
Hemacandra 1931–62. The Deeds of the Sixty-three Illustrious Persons, trans. H. M. Johnson.
Baroda: Gaekwad’s Oriental Series.
Jaini, Padmanabh 1991. Gender and Salvation: Jaina Debates on the Spiritual Liberation of
Women. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Laidlaw, James 1995. Riches and Renunciation: Religion, Economy, and Society among the
Jains. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Williams, R. 1963. Jaina Yoga. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
FURTHER READINGS
Bhargava, Dayanand 1968. Jaina Ethics. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
Carrithers, Michael, and Caroline Humphrey 1991. The Assembly of Listeners: Jains in Society.
Jaini, Padmanabh 1979. The Jaina Path of Purification. Berkeley, CA: University of California
Press.
Laidlaw, James 2002. “For an Anthropology of Ethics and Freedom,” Journal of the Royal
Anthropological Institute (n.s.), vol. 8, pp. 311–32.
Long, Jeffery 2009. Jainism: An Introduction. London: I. B. Tauris.
Vallely, Anne 2002. “Moral Landscapes: Ethical Discourses among Orthodox and Diaspora
Jains,” in Michael Lambek (ed.), A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion. Oxford:
1
World Hunger
Nigel Dower
The Challenge
Hunger is the lack of food needed to avoid malnutrition, and world hunger is the
aggregated version of this, with by far the most hunger located in the Third World.
Malnutrition, as the lack of some or all the nutrients necessary for health, affects
approximately one billion hungry people in the world. Almost all hunger is caused
by absolute poverty, defined as living on US$1.25 per day or less. This also affects
approximately one billon people – many children – or nearly one-fifth of the world’s
population. Even with a rising world population, the world produces enough food to
meet everyone’s nutritional needs. If the poor do not have enough, it is because, in
the absence of external intervention, they either do not produce enough from their
land or do not earn enough to buy it.
Aid, whether through nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) or programs
funded by governments of rich countries or multilateral agencies such as the United
Nations Development Program, is focused on addressing these causes. For instance,
much of it focuses on enabling farmers to grow more food on their land and on the
poor acquiring education and skills so that they can earn more, some of it on land
reform, and some, in the case of emergencies, on providing food aid for shorter or
longer periods.
A very large number of people who are either relatively or absolutely affluent –
mainly but not exclusively living in rich countries – have the resources to support
aid efforts by voluntary contributions, and to do so at levels beyond what is generally
accepted. Likewise, the governments of wealthy countries have the capacity to fund
aid programs and could do so at levels significantly higher than is practiced.
This essay addresses the question: what are the moral arguments for and against
giving aid to alleviate world hunger (see aid, ethics of; responsibility)? Does
hunger raise any special ethical issues, compared to extreme poverty generally?
Although one could be appalled by the thought of someone being hungry, and not
appalled by someone not hungry but otherwise extremely poor, this reaction would
be very unusual. Someone who, although not hungry, was wracked with disease and
insecurity and was destined to die very young would just as naturally elicit our sym-
pathy (see suffering). The normal understanding is that hunger is a manifestation
of the condition of extreme poverty which is a serious evil for all these reasons (see
global poverty). Whatever ethical basis there is for tackling hunger is equally an
ethical basis for tackling extreme poverty, and not merely because extreme poverty
is likely to be the cause of that hunger. At any rate, in the rest of this essay, I shall
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee143
2
assume that the ethical argument is about tackling extreme poverty of which hunger
is an acute manifestation, and not merely hunger itself.
I shall primarily focus on the responsibility of rich individuals living in the
“North” in respect to poverty in the “South,” since this is the context in which the
issue is usually discussed. But in fact, the discussion is, arguably, relevant to an
answer to a much broader question, since this ethical issue vis-à-vis extreme poverty
arises for the wealthy anywhere in the world – rich country, middle-income country,
or poor country – in response to the very poor anywhere in the world – rich country,
middle-income country, or poor country. There is also a parallel question: what
should countries do in response to world hunger? Do the same moral arguments
that apply to individuals apply to the governments of rich countries in their official
“overseas” aid policies? The ethical issues are in fact rather more complex than
appear at first sight. But at this point we assume that the same moral arguments do
apply at both levels.
Outline of the Rest of the Article

Since there is often resistance to accepting the positive arguments that we have a duty
to give aid, it is worth making explicit three types of resistance: (a) aid does not (or
even cannot) work, so there is no duty to do what does not work; (b) the scope of our
moral obligations to help others generally is restricted to those who live in our own
society; and (c) the sphere of morality does not include duties to help others generally.
We then consider a number of arguments given for aid which can be summarized
as: (a) extensive benevolence (maximizing); (b) significant benevolence; and
(c) requirements of justice understood as: Kantian respect for rational autonomy,
the idea of a globally just society, positive and negative rights, and the idea of correc-
tive justice based on claims about past colonial exploitation and/or current global
economic injustices.
Three Lines of Resistance

Aid does not work
The argument is based on an empirical assumption that aid never works or is
extremely unlikely to have good results and liable to have bad results, so there is no
obligation to do what produces no good results and may well be counterproductive.
This is actually a very popular line of resistance, and is often a cover for not
wanting to give aid anyway. The argument comes in various forms. First, there is a
very strong version of it (e.g., Bauer 1984) that aid never works because it cannot
work: what poor people need is empowerment, whereas aid is disempowering
because it renders poor people dependent. A common argument, focusing on the
effects of emergency aid in enabling people to live who would otherwise die, is that,
in helping to keep people alive, one is merely storing up problems in the future, since
increasing populations simply compound the problem (Hardin 1974). A third kind
3
of argument is that focusing on aid is the wrong response to extreme poverty; it is a

distraction from, and dissipates the energy for, radical social, economic, and political
change – nationally and internationally – that is needed.
These arguments all need answering if we are going to consider the ethical
arguments for aid.
First, it must be conceded that indeed a lot of aid does not work: the development
decades are littered with failed aid projects, large and small. Even if we grant that
different thinkers will have different criteria for deciding whether an aid project
works or not, on any criterion there are successes and failures (see Riddell 2008).
However, it is one thing to say that many aid projects do not work, and quite another
to say that none works or that aid cannot work. Generally speaking, people, in
helping one another, do not create dependency. If one accepts the argument that one
ought to give aid and that many forms of aid do not work, the response is not “don’t
give aid” but “find better forms of aid that do work.”
The argument that aid merely exacerbates problems for the future only makes sense
if one focuses on emergency aid alone: simply keeping people alive without creating bet-
ter prospects for the future would indeed perpetuate extreme poverty. The ethical argu-
ment for alleviating hunger makes sense in the context of long-term development
projects for very poor people through which they can escape their extreme poverty. The
positive correlation between genuine development for the poor and halting population
growth is well recognized and is often called the “demographic transition” argument.
The main way of limiting population growth is through creating access to reliable and
sustainable social/health services. This leads to smaller families since it is no longer
rational for the poor to have large numbers of children as an insurance policy. This is not
to gainsay the significance, particularly for women, of the availability of birth control
options – controversial as this option is in certain cultural traditions (see population).
The argument that we need more radical changes in the political and economic
relations between countries is an important one, but as such it is not an argument for
not giving aid. Rather, it is an argument that aid (personal or governmental) needs
to be embedded in a wide range of changes (political engagements by individuals
and institutional changes through government).
The scope of ethical obligation is limited

A common response to the argument that those in the North ought help alleviate
extreme poverty in the South is that “charity begins at home (and ends there).” Put
in a more sophisticated form, this is a communitarian reply to the cosmopolitan
assumption underlying most of the positive arguments to be considered in the
following text (see communitarianism; cosmopolitanism). According to
cosmopolitanism (literally, the idea that we are “citizens of the world”), all human
beings matter and matter equally, in the sense that the obligations each one of us has
extend in principle to any other human beings. Where their well-being is seriously
undermined, then those in a position to do something about it should do so. Accord-
ing to communitarianism, our obligations are shaped by the community or
4
communities we live in with shared traditions and relationships of reciprocity (see

Dower 2007 for contrast). One might have some concern for some others in the
world but this would be a function of what happened to be the traditions of one’s
society – not a consequence of some universal theory. This concern might be simply
seen as voluntary response “beyond the call of duty” (called supererogation) – as
contrasted to duties of benevolence or kindness accepted within one’s own society.
I have presented the contrast between cosmopolitanism and communitarianism as
two mutually exclusive alternatives, but in practice there are various positions on a
continuum, and the ethical thought of many people is a complex blend of ideas from
both approaches. What is important to note here is that one of the important ethical
issues to do with extreme poverty has to do with the relative strength of the obliga-
tions we have towards all human beings as such and toward the communities we feel
we belong to (see distance, moral relevance of). Those who press for a very strong
obligation to help alleviate world poverty (such as Singer, see the following text) may
regard communitarian arguments as unacceptable, whereas others who favor signifi-
cant but not overriding obligations may see the latter arguments as having some valid-
ity. Nevertheless, anyone who supports the ethical arguments we consider in the
following text (which all reflect a form of cosmopolitan thinking) has to address com-
munitarian arguments that deny the global dimension of responsibility altogether.
Analogous moves are made over the duties of governments: the role of government
is to protect and promote the interests of those living within the borders of their
country. Various political theories such as contract theory, political communitarian-
ism, and democratic theory all point in similar directions: there is a special relation-
ship between governments and their peoples which justifies giving priority if not
exclusive attention to their interests. Again, the general implication of cosmopolitan
theories we consider in the following text is to question these assumptions and to
argue for a new paradigm of politics and international relations, in which whatever
special obligations governments owe their citizens are nested in and limited by a
wider framework of obligations, both negative – not to harm others – and positive –
to advance the conditions of well-being of others.
Another argument against trans-boundary duty is what Pogge (2002) calls
“explanatory nationalism” – a common perception that extreme poverty is “all their
fault” because of inefficiency and corruption. This argument raises wider questions
about the causes of poverty. The reply needs to be that there are many causes of
poverty including the framework of global economic relations and international
relations generally. This framework, whether or not it violates, as Pogge argues, the
rights of the poor, certainly sets limits to Third World development, which can be
mollified by aid (and changed by global reform).
Limited types of duties

Another kind of argument that undermines the duty to give aid does not deny that
whatever obligations we have extend to everyone in the world. It denies quite
generally that we have obligations to promote the well-being of fellow human
5
beings – including tackling what undermines it – whether in one’s own society or

anywhere else. Morality functions as a way of limiting our behavior, so that we do
not harm other people. The main point of having moral rules about not telling lies,
not stealing property, not coercing people, or generally not violating their rights is
that these acts harm people. Morality, beyond special relations with particular others
such as family and friends, is not about helping others who are harmed but not by
us, or about preventing harm to others. If people do help others out of kindness,
these acts may be commendable but they are not a duty.
A modern influential view that reflects this approach is called “libertarianism”
(Nozick 1974; Cohen 2005; see libertarianism). On this view (to be distinguished
from liberalism), the key moral value is liberty – economic and otherwise – and thus
people should be free to do what they will with their wealth (and time) so long as they
do not undermine the liberty of others. This influential approach has underpinned
the global free market in recent years. It can be employed at two levels. At one level, it
is about our moral duties: it is not our duty to give aid to others generally, and any
decisions we make to help others are beyond the call of duty. At another level,
although we do morally have duties to help others, it is important that we freely
choose to do so, without social pressure or, more particularly, being forced to do so
by government policy. If some of my taxes are used to finance government aid, then
I have not chosen to give this money. Likewise, even if a government in having a clear
democratic mandate to give aid does so on the basis of the consent of the electorate,
such aid is not a duty that that country owes to other countries, but an expression of
voluntary charity.
Two kinds of response are possible for those who wish to argue against a moral
obligation to give aid (by individuals and states).
The first is to question the model of morality involved. Why should morality only
be concerned with avoiding doing harm, rather than doing things to prevent or
reduce harm? In the language of rights, it is surely concerned with not merely
respecting rights but also promoting rights and tackling what undermines rights.
In the language of liberty, why shouldn’t it be about promoting the conditions in
which liberty can both exist and be effectively exercised, and tackling what seriously
undermines it (see Sen 1999)?
The second kind of response is to take on such an approach on its own terms.
Much normal behavior, which at first sight seems to respect other people’s rights and
liberties and not undermine them, actually, on closer inspection, contributes to
harming other people in undermining the realization of their rights and the
conditions in which their liberty is effectively exercised.
Ethical Arguments for Aid

We are now in a position to examine some specific ethical arguments for aid. In fact,
almost all the arguments apply also to any other types of change – institutional,
political, legal – which are seen as appropriate to tackling world hunger.
6
Peter Singer
Peter Singer, in a well-known article (1972), offered the following principle: “If it is
in our power to prevent something very bad from happening, without sacrificing
anything of comparable moral importance, we ought to do it.” This general principle
he saw as underlying an ethical intuition he believed almost all of us would share –
that, if we saw a child drowning in a pond, we would not walk by, but would jump
in to rescue the child – even though we might get our clothes muddy and be late for
an appointment. He argued that such a principle ought to commend itself to not
only consequentialists (for whom producing the best balance of good over bad con-
sequences is the fundamental principle) (see utilitarianism) but also
nonconsequentialists, who accept other basic duties such as truth-telling or keeping
promises (see deontology) (since even if one was satisfied that one was not lying
or breaking a promise, there would still be a lot one could do). The implications of
this would be quite dramatic: we ought to go on giving our money until we are doing
as much harm (to ourselves and those around us) as we were doing good. He also
offered a more moderate principle as backing our intuition: “If it is in our power to
prevent something very bad from happening, without sacrificing anything of moral
significance, we ought to do it.” But, even with this version, he argued that the con-
sequences would be considerable and represent a radical change in the way we live.
It should be noted that the principle, as Singer initially introduced it and as it has
generally been discussed since, has been interpreted primarily in terms of how much
we are prepared to use our money to support poverty alleviation, usually through
appropriate charities. But the principle is really about any kind of action which could
prevent such evils from happening or continuing. First, even over the use of our
money, there are other forms of action – political engagement through organiza-
tions, for instance – which may be part of effective poverty reduction, at least in the
longer term. Second, what we can do is as much about the use of our time, energies,
and skills as it is about giving money. Clearly, a straightforward application of
Singer’s principle would lead to much more time and energy being spent on poverty-
reduction-related activities than most of us normally do. Writing checks – even very
generous checks – may be a few minutes’ activity, but sustained activity is another
matter altogether.
A vast number of articles and essays have been written on the nature and extent
of duties to alleviate poverty, a large proportion involving a response to Singer’s
position. We now consider several different ways of responding to this forthright
principle, by either qualifying Singer’s principle so that it loses (some of) its radical
power, or rejecting it in favor of some other ethical principle underlying aid.
Emasculation by qualifications or simple rejection of the maximizing idea

It is no objection to Singer’s principle to acknowledge that, for any individual, there
are other reasonable calls on his or her resources and time: concern for particular
others such as family and friends, the need for economic security now and into the
7
future for oneself, the importance of recreation (as the “recharging of batteries”),
and so on. The key issues are over how we interpret these kinds of considerations.
Just how much does “comparable moral importance” or “moral significance” mean
if the pursuit of one’s own good reasonably involves more than mere survival or even
comfort and “recreation”? What if it includes, for instance, projects, ambitions,
advancing careers, to which much of one’s money and, even more, one’s time and
energy are devoted? We all devote much money, time, and energy to these: selfish
people do so too much or unreasonably. Likewise, whatever reasons given for the
special relationships between parents and children, the lives of one’s children are
generally seen as justifying not merely paying a bit more attention to them than the
rest of humanity at large, but a very large amount of it. Different accounts of the
significance of these values, if one accepts Singer’s principle, lead to very different
views about how much in practice one should do for poverty reduction. Nevertheless,
anyone who honestly applied Singer’s principle, even subject to such qualifications,
would do rather more than most people actually do.
Consideration of these qualifications might lead one to conclude that it is misleading
to say that we accept the principle but subject to varying qualifications. It is more
straightforward to say that one does not accept a simple maximizing principle (“prevent
as much evil as you can”), though one does accept a significant obligation to help reduce
poverty (and other evils), and we turn next to the moral theories supporting this. One
reason for rejecting the maximizing principle is to assert, as Fishkin does, that there is a
“robust zone of moral indifference” (1986: 5). That is, there is a large area of action in
a person’s life in which what one does is neither “morally required” nor “morally forbid-
den.” Within this zone of the “morally permitted,” one can do what one is inclined to do
(for oneself or for others). Having this zone is part of what makes life valuable (and what
one wants poor people to be able to have in a valuable way). Accepting the idea of this
zone leaves open the question whether one is libertarian about it or one accepts a
significant but not overwhelming obligation to help others generally.
So let us now look at other alternative moral theories that argue for significant
obligation to alleviate world poverty. These are divided broadly into accounts based
on benevolence and accounts based on justice.
Benevolence: various accounts

Most ethical theories include an ethical principle of benevolence – the duty to help
others in need – where the others in question are not related to one by blood,
friendship, or specific prior commitment. Strictly, the duty is one of doing good –
bene-ficence – but the word “benevolence” is often used to cover the general
approach. Usually, there is an assumption that what lies behind this duty to help is
some feeling such as kindness, generosity, charity, or wishing well (literally
“bene-volence”) (see charity; generosity). Such accounts are commonly
grounded in a religious understanding of charity. Two points need to be made about
this. First, even if it is not seen as a duty of justice, it is a duty, not a matter of gener-
ous acts done “beyond the call of duty” (supererogation). It is, however, optional in
8
the sense that the time and occasion for executing the duty is a matter of choice by
the agent (called by philosophers an imperfect duty). Second, the principle of
benevolence needs to be interpreted in a cosmopolitan way. That is, if the needs
of others provide a basis for action (see needs), then it is the needs of people in
other parts of the world that count in the same way as the needs of others generally
of our own society. Since the needs of the very poor in the South are that much more
serious, this provides the basis for giving these significant attention as well as more
locally based needs.
Global justice
Part of what motivates accounts of our duty to help alleviate world poverty in
terms of a requirement of justice is the imprecision of the duty of benevolence.
But, as we will see, accounts of justice do not really solve the imprecision issue.
Kantian approach Onora O’Neill argued that since extreme poverty undermines
rational autonomy (the capacity to control one’s life), our respect for other people as
rational agents requires us to enable them to achieve effective agency (see kantian
practical ethics). There are two aspects of this. First, extreme poverty – especially
starvation and malnutrition – may prevent children from developing their full mental
powers essential to proper agency; second, even if an agent has developed full agency,
extreme poverty may undermine the capacity to exercise such agency properly. O’Neill
(1986) calls this the requirement of material justice. The duty to alleviate poverty is
based on the fact that it undermines the “good” of agency itself, rather than on disease
or hunger which are manifestations of this. It gives a good rationale for a common way
of understanding extreme poverty as disempowerment. We are morally required to
further material justice, though the issue of how much is unclear, as with benevolence.
A socially just world Charles Beitz, amongst others, uses Rawls’ approach and
principles, as presented in A Theory of Justice (Rawls 1971), to argue that we should
think of the whole world as one society in which a scheme of social justice should
apply, such that global institutional arrangements should be developed in which the
least well-off groups in the world – the very poor – are as well-off as under any other
arrangement (Beitz 1979; see difference principle; global distributive jus-
tice). This would, of course, involve a radical transformation in the world. Mean-
time, we should move towards progressively realizing this requirement of global
social justice, and the duty of the individual is to play one’s part in advancing it.
Rights At least two rather different ethical accounts can be presented based on the
idea of rights. The first account stresses the idea of rights of recipience, and the
second stresses the idea that we have duties not to violate or undermine people’s
rights (see rights).
Henry Shue has argued that amongst the basic rights we have are rights to
subsistence and security. In addition to the duty not to deprive people of these, we
9
have duties to protect people from standard threats of deprivation and to come to
the aid of those who are deprived of their rights. A key point is that our duties to
address world poverty are not premised on our being involved in causing the poverty
in the first place. As with the other theories in favor of aid we have considered so far,
the argument is forward-looking: here is the poverty, whatever its cause, and we
have the power to do something about it. Shue (1996: 19) actually says basic rights
are the minimum demand of all humanity on all humanity. How much individuals
should do is again a matter for debate.
Shue’s analysis, however, provided the basis for another kind of use of human rights
thinking. We ought not to deprive people of their rights. But what if this is in fact hap-
pening on a large scale in the world and we are, however indirectly and unconsciously,
party to it? This leads us into a cluster of theories which suggest that much world
poverty is the result of past and present unjust practices, and that therefore our duty
is to make recompense for these and/or stop them or at least our involvement in them.
Corrective justice Thomas Pogge, for instance, has argued for the thesis that cur-
rent economic and international relations systematically violate the rights of the
poor to the conditions necessary for basic human flourishing. Most of us are caus-
ally implicated in this complex array of economic relations, so we are required by
justice to respond to this. (This can take many forms – political action, pressure on
companies, opting for fair trade alternatives, financial contributions for various
things, etc.) Pogge (2002) also argues that international policies that prop up author-
itarian governments that oppress their people are also thus unjust and should be
stopped (see exploitation).
This kind of argument is premised on the idea of rights violations extended to a
range of cases not normally considered to be violations. There are other ways of
making the same general point. O’Neill (who rejects rights accounts) also argues
that much poverty is caused by the fact that powerful companies determine the life
conditions of the very poor through extensive deception and coercion which are
unjust because they are contrary to Kantian duty. More generally, any analysis of the
world situation as involving systemic practices that not merely do not help the poor
but actually contribute to harming the poor provides the basis for arguing that we
ought to stop what we are doing and take remedial action.
The arguments above are about current globally unjust practices. A related argu-
ment focuses on the past. How did the North become so rich and the South so poor?
Partly because the poverty in the South was caused by the colonial exploitation
which made the North rich. Whether or not the current economic relations between
rich and poor countries continue to be unjust, the comparative wealth of the North
is partly due to exploitation in the past. On this “backward-looking” argument, these
facts provide either the main moral basis or alternatively an additional basis for
arguing that the North ought to do a lot to help the South develop.
Two general comments are in order about these “corrective justice” arguments
(see compensatory justice). First, these arguments depend on an empirical
10
analysis about what causes world poverty which is highly controversial. For those
who accept the analysis, it provides a powerful ethical argument. Generally, we
recognize that we have stronger duties not to do harm than to do good, and this
applies to indirect harms as well as direct harms. But for those who do not accept the
analysis, this ethical argument fails, and they will find the earlier arguments that do
not rely on this premise more acceptable (see Wellman 2005 for a combination of
the two). Second, although the argument has direct relevance to the primary agents
of this injustice (business companies), the relevance for most individuals is that they
are only indirectly involved as agents of large causal chains or beneficiaries of unjust
practices (past or current). Although a theory of justice can say that an act is simply
wrong if it is a direct act of injustice, what and how much we ought to do as indirect
agents and as a small part of larger complex processes has no clear-cut answer.
A common response is to engage in “fair trade” and ethical consuming, but that is
hardly a complete answer.
Concluding Remarks
The arguments we have considered apply not merely to individuals but also to
corporate actors such as states – and indeed businesses (see global business
ethics). But governments are ethically framed by two complicating factors. First,
there is their answerability to democratic electorates (who may or may not endorse
high levels of aid) since governments are ethically meant to follow broadly the
preferences of their electorates (see democracy). Second, there are the obliga-
tions under international agreements with other countries (such as the commit-
ment to give 0.7 percent of GNP in aid in the 1970s) (see international
relations). Such factors may oblige governments to do more or do less than
what, according to the perspective of any given thinker, they ought to do. Neither
consideration is, however, ethically decisive but does need to be included.
Analogous issues arise in connection with business companies. Some may argue
that businesses may legitimately pursue profit within whatever regulatory frame-
works are imposed on them, and in response to whatever consumer demands
affect them (including the demands of “ethical consumers”). Others may say that
they are bound by basic ethical constraints anyway and need to exercise corporate
social responsibility.
Whatever ethical approach is adopted (whether weak or strong obligation,
whether with an emphasis on supporting aid agencies or on political and institutional
change), responses to world poverty have to be set in the context of other global
concerns over, for instance, human rights abuses, lack of peace, or climate change.
Cosmopolitanism has to be comprehensive, not selective. If we are concerned with
human well-being and what undermines human well-being, then there are a number
of dimensions to this. All the ethical theories for aid which we have considered are
implicitly cosmopolitan, if not explicitly, and need to say things about all these issues
as well.
11
I doubt whether there is, in almost any ethical theory, an algorithm that simply
generates a definite conclusion that we should do just so much, and in such and such
ways. Much is up to an individual’s talents and circumstances. What is not optional
is an orientation to the world in which, if anything matters globally, responding to
world hunger must certainly be a significant part of one’s concern.
See also: aid, ethics of; charity; communitarianism; compensatory

justice; cosmopolitanism; democracy; deontology; difference principle;
distance, moral relevance of; exploitation; global business ethics;
global distributive justice; global poverty; international relations;
kantian practical ethics; libertarianism; needs; population; rights;
suffering; utilitarianism
REFERENCES
Bauer, P. T. 1984. Reality and Rhetoric. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Beitz, C. R. 1979. Political Theory and International Relations. Princeton: Princeton University
Press.
Cohen, A. 2005. “Famine Relief and Human Virtue,” in A. Cohen and C. Wellman (eds.),
Contemporary Debates in Applied Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell.
Dower, N. 2007. World Ethics – the New Agenda, 2nd ed. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
Press.
Fishkin, J. 1986. “Theories of Justice and International Relations: The Limits of Liberal
Theory,” in A. Ellis (ed.), Ethics and International Relations. Manchester: Manchester
University Press.
Hardin, G. 1974. “Lifeboat Ethics – A Case Against Helping the Poor,” Bioscience, vol. 24,
no. 10, pp. 561–8.
Nozick, R. 1974. Anarchy, State and Utopia. Oxford: Blackwell.
O’Neill, O. 1986. Faces of Hunger. London: Allen & Unwin.
Pogge, Th. 2002. World Poverty and Human Rights. Cambridge: Polity.
Rawls, J. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Riddell, R. 2008. Does Foreign Aid Really Work? Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sen, A. 1999. Development as Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Shue, H. 1996. Basic Rights: Subsistence, Affluence and US Foreign Policy, 2nd ed. Princeton:
Singer, P. 1972. “Famine, Affluence and Morality,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 1, no. 1,
pp. 229–43.
Wellman, A. 2005. “Famine Relief: The Duty We Have to Others,” in A. I. Cohen and
C. H. Wellman (eds.), Contemporary Debates in Applied Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell.
FURTHER READINGS
Aiken, W., and H. LaFollette (eds.) 1996. World Hunger and Morality. Engelwood Cliffs,
NJ: Prentice Hall.
Chatterjee, D. K. (ed.) 2004. The Ethics of Assistance: Morality and the Distant Needy.
12
Crocker, D. A. 2009. Ethics of Global Development: Agency, Capability, and Deliberative

Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dower, N. 1983. World Poverty Challenge and Response. York: Ebor Press.
Gasper, D. 2003. The Ethics of Development. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
George, S. 1977. How the Other Half Dies. Montclair, NJ: Allanheld, Osmun.
Goulet, D. 1995. Development Ethics. New York: Apex Press.
Hayter, T. 1971. Aid as Imperialism. Baltimore: Pelican Books.
Lappe, F. M., and J. Collins 1977. Food First: Beyond the Myth of Scarcity. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin.
Lucas, G. R., and T. W. Ogletree 1976. Lifeboat Ethics: the Moral Dilemmas of World Hunger.
San Francisco: HarperCollins.
Moyo, D. 2009. Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How There is Another Way for Africa.
London: Allen & Unwin/Penguin.
Nussbaum, M. 2000. Women and Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pogge, Th. (ed.) 2001. Global Justice. Oxford: Blackwell.
Singer, P. 2009. The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty. New York: Random
House.
Thompson, P. B. 1992. The Ethics of Aid and Trade: US Food Policy, Foreign Competition, and
the Social Contract (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Public Policy). Cambridge:
UNDP, Human Development Reports 1990–2009.
Yunus, M., and K. Weber 2007. Creating a World without Poverty: Social Business and the
Future of Capitalism. New York: BBS Public Affairs.
1
Weil, Simone
Richard H. Bell
Simone Weil was born in Paris on February 3, 1909, and died on August 24, 1943.
Her legacy is found primarily in a number of her original political and philosophical
writings. These embody her understanding of (1) justice as compassion as found in
an individual’s love and attention toward other human beings, (2) a sense of order
in the natural world, and (3) a sense of God as shown in one’s love and compassion
for another (see attention, moral; moral point of view; responsibility). Her
intellectual work and her practical engagement with evil in the world are at the center
of her life and written corpus. Particular focus is given to individual harm-doing, the
rise of all forms of colonial oppression, and to the two World Wars’ effects on her
own beloved France. Her life and work draw the reader’s attention to unethical
behavior and to a general lack of moral sensibility in our twentieth-century culture
and continues to have relevant application in our twenty-first century.
Weil’s biographer, Simone Pétrement, said: “Simone felt that there should not
be the slightest discrepancy between one’s beliefs and one’s way of life” (1976: 440).
Although there are few discrepancies between her beliefs and her life, there are
numerous discrepancies in ways of reading and interpreting her thought and life.
One of the most contentious disputes among interpreters has to do with her
religious integrity, particularly in her understanding, or lack thereof, of her Jewish
heritage and her relationship with the Catholic Church. Was she a “self-hating” Jew
or a self-proclaimed Christian? How one reads this controversy is very important to
how one understands her meaning of compassion. Was she more of a rebel and
countercultural heroine or a mystic and a “saint”?
Regarding her death at a young age, one can ask if it was foolish or principled. The
basic facts linked to her death are that she died of malnutrition after being
hospitalized in Canterbury, Kent, England, for tuberculosis, and either being unable
to or refusing to take more nourishment than was being rationed to her compatriots
in occupied France.
In the following sections, we will discuss whether her political schemes were
utopian and naive, or whether they can inform our contemporary sense of civic
order, compassion, and moral reform.
In focusing on her “ethical” and “political” concepts, we will look at five of her
works. These serve as a starting set of critical texts. They are: The Need for Roots
(1949), Oppression and Liberty (1955), Simone Weil on Colonialism: An Ethic of the
Other (Little 2003), and two essays: “Are We Struggling for Justice?” (1953) and “The
Iliad, or The Poem of Force” (1939). Following are six topic headings drawn from
these texts.
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee144
2
Restoring Ethical Behavior Through Love and Compassion

At the center of her ethics are the concepts of “love,” “compassion,” and “attention.”
Love is found in our attention to other human beings and the compassion shown to
their needs. She refers to this compassionate life style as a kind of “mad love” – a
pursuit of justice that is obligatory to each human being. She writes the following in
“Are We Struggling for Justice?”:
The madness of love draws one to discern and cherish equally, in all human milieu
without exception, in all parts of the globe, the fragile earthly possibilities of beauty,
of happiness and of fulfillment; to want to preserve them all with an equally religious
care; and where they are absent, to want to rekindle tenderly the smallest traces of
those which have existed, the smallest seeds of those which can be born. What we
need … is for the spirit of justice to dwell within us. The spirit of justice is
nothing other than the supreme and perfect flower of the madness of love. (1987: 9)
For Weil, the work of justice and compassion go hand in hand. They form a template
for our moral behavior as do the work of justice and trust, justice and mercy, justice
and development, and justice and reconciliation. These pairings cannot be torn
asunder and retain the integrity of a meaningful concept of justice (see benevolence;
justice; reconciliation). This integrity surfaces in all of her life and writing.
In her First and Last Notebooks, Weil links human justice with compassion as
follows:
God is absent from the world, except in the existence in this world of those to whom
His love is alive. Therefore they ought to be present in the world through compassion.
Their compassion is the visible presence of God here below.
When we are lacking in compassion we make a violent separation between a creature
and God.
Through compassion we can put the created, temporal part of a creature in communi-
cation with God. …
Compassion is what spans this abyss which creation has opened between God and the
creature. Compassion is the rainbow. (1970: 103)
This quote places responsibility for compassionate behavior in how we connect

our life with a transcendent deity and then show our love to one another in our
day-to-day life.
Attention, Justice, and Ethical Behavior

In addition to “love” and “compassion” as foundational for her ethical views is the
notion of “attention.” In her final London writings, Weil says that the first duty of
education is to remind its children “ceaselessly” to be attentive “in order to be just” (see
camus, albert; sartre, jean-paul; twentieth-century continental ethics).
3
Attention is primarily an individual act attained only by practice – attending

to nature, to the oppressed, to a problem in geometry. Justice, on the other hand,
necessarily involves human relationships at various levels of order and responsibility
in a public context. Weil’s ceaseless, unrelenting reminder about attending and being
just in all circumstances of human life is central to the ethical legacy she leaves us.
Attention is one of Simone Weil’s ethical hallmarks; it manifests itself in compassion
and love, which in turn evolves toward a new virtue of justice.
But why should we care about this legacy? Because of our rapid-paced, digitized,
commercialized society, our capacity for attention has become greatly diminished.
Our desire for self-attention and recognition has turned us away from attending
to others. In our haste, we have all but lost the art of listening and attending to
one another, and justice and the quality of our civic life have become victims to
this diminishment.
The challenge of reading Simone Weil is to render her extraordinary thoughts
and language into an ordinary idiom and to connect her uncommon insights to
our common life. To do this requires being serious students of her work and atten-
tive to one’s own environment. Weil’s work is, however, as much for the skeptical
reader as for those who wish to be “better” human beings. For her, “assiduous
practice” of her way could benefit both personal and public life. Here again, her
notions of love, compassion, and attention surface to give us a human/moral direc-
tion for our life.
Spirituality and Ethics

Weil’s writings make us acutely aware of human abuse of power and the resulting
fragile nature of our civic order. Weil reminds us of the suffering and injustice that
accompany our having abandoned any spiritual roots that may have earlier informed
our moral and political thinking. Fifty years after Simone Weil’s death, Václav Havel,
writer and former president of the Czech Republic, lamented our loss of a spiritual
language in which to frame our political and moral discourse. We have all but
destroyed our ability to talk of politics and public policy in any transcendent idiom,
thought Havel. Simone Weil, along with Havel, provides us with a new, broadly
spiritual way of casting our moral and political discourse as it impinges on public
policy and our daily life. It is this reformulation of moral and political discourse
and action in a spiritual framework that distinguishes Simone Weil’s ethics from
many others’.
Both Albert Camus and André Gide referred to her as the most important
spiritual writer of the century. Camus had Simone Weil in mind as “the very
prototype of the Révoltés so vividly portrayed in The Rebel” (McLellan 1989: 269). In
the early 1960s, two successive popes, John XXIII and Paul VI, found Weil to be
among the most important influences in their intellectual development. Angelo
Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII, once exclaimed to Maurice Schumann, “O yes,
I love this soul!” (Fiori 1989: 309). Even as a schoolgirl, her reputation went ahead
of her. Simone de Beauvoir wrote of Simone Weil: “Her intelligence, her asceticism,
4
her total commitment, and her sheer courage – all these filled me with admiration;
though I knew that, had she met me, she would have been far from reciprocating my
attitude. I could not absorb her into my universe, and this seemed to constitute a
vague threat to me” (see beauvoir, simone de). Of their first meeting in 1927 (both
just 18 years old), Simone de Beauvoir wrote: “I envied her for having a heart that
could beat right across the world” (Pétrement 1976: 5). Numerous well-known liter-
ary and political figures of the twentieth century have testified to the powerful influ-
ence that Simone Weil had on their thinking and their lives. Such testimony comes
from T. S. Eliot, Flannery O’Connor, Dwight McDonald, Mary McCarthy, Susan
Sontag, Adrienne Rich, and Iris Murdoch, among others.
Regrounding Human Behavior

To understand justice as compassion is the moral core of Simone Weil’s thought; it
is what drives her political ideas and what weaves together her love of early Greek
thought with more contemporary philosophical and religious reflections. These,
along with an intense experience with the “incarnational” center of Christianity and
with “Oriental wisdom” in the latter years of her short life, led her to an understand-
ing of justice linked with what she called a spiritual way of life. Contrary to Karl
Marx and other “liberal views,” she believed that justice is in this world by virtue
of the supernatural, but that justice is not of this world (Weil 1958: 176). There is,
for her, an infinitely small, supernatural, paradoxical, secret core found “here on
earth,” which cuts across religious and cultural boundaries that lie at the root of all
meaningful conceptions of justice (1958: 174f.).
Love, Compassion, and Justice

Simone Weil painstakingly carves out the link between love, compassion, and justice
(see love). In her essays “The Iliad” and “Are We Struggling For Justice?” Weil
extends her ethical notions of “waiting” and “attending.” Waiting and attending
are identified in what she calls “that interval of hesitation, wherein lies our
consideration of our brothers in humanity” (1981: 14). From this notion arises a
greater capacity to consider our enemies, our neighbors, our brothers and sisters in
humanity. Weil says: “to the extent to which at any given time there is some madness
of love among men, to that extent there is the possibility of change in the direction
of justice: and no further” (1987: 5). In these remarks, one sees clearly the centrality
of the concept of attention or attending to another human being. This is the very
essence of love and compassion as it is linked with justice. As was noted earlier,
we can link her notions of the madness of love with justice in the way we “struggle”
for it (1987: 8). Simply put, Weil says, “Justice consists in seeing that no harm is done
to men” (1962: 30).
In perhaps her most systematic ethical writing, The Need for Roots, Weil stretches
ethical boundaries for both the individual citizen and the civic order that envelopes
them. Values and policy must be woven as one; judgment and action must go hand
5
in hand; and, in all of these, “obligations come before that of rights” (1952: 3). She
says: “The central conception of morals/ethics is justice and the obligation it imposes
towards one’s neighbor” (1952: 137). Once again, the ethics of “attending” to another
human being and “practice” surface to help fill out her ethical view.
T. S. Eliot wrote in his “Preface” to The Need for Roots: “On the one hand she was
a passionate champion of the common people and especially the oppressed … on the
other hand, she was a solitary and an individualist, with a profound horror of what
she called the collectivity … what she cared about was human souls” (Weil 1952: xi,
xii). Care for the human soul was an individual obligation. Its aim was “a transition
to a state of human society in which people will not suffer from hunger” (1952: 6).
She then goes on to catalogue and describe the needs of any/all human souls. First
among her list of needs are order, liberty, responsibility, equality, honor, and more.
These are not small needs. All these help compose the “needs” essential to a healthy
ethical life (1952: 10–39). Later, in The Need for Roots, she talks of “the growing of
roots” that requires “a passionate interest in human beings whomever they may be”
(1952: 199). Again, we see a form of her notion of “the madness of love.”
Welsh philosopher Rush Rhees, in his Discussions of Simone Weil, says the
following of her view of the relation of justice and compassion: “What is important
is that God reveals himself in the act of compassion – in a manner analogous to that
in which he is revealed in natural beauty. And insofar as the recipient does recognize
the beauty of the act of justice or compassion, he does recognize the divinity of it”
(1999: 137). Once again, the idea of attention to any human being – as attending to
God – comes forward from The Need for Roots.
“Are We Struggling for Justice?”

The question “Are we struggling for justice?” encircles the body of her life and work.
When Simone Weil asks “Are we struggling for justice?” she is in essence asking us
how “mad” are we among our fellow human beings? And she answers: to the degree
that we refuse harm-doing and prevent harm being done to other human beings;
to the degree that we resist all forms of evil and encourage conditions for the
flourishing of the good; to the degree that we are willing to “hurl” ourselves “into
risks”; to the degree that we are grateful to God and love unconditionally, we are
mad and are engaged in the struggle for justice (Bell 1998: 71). Desmond Avery
makes this observation about love and justice: “Where love rules, nothing is done by
force.” Consent is by definition free. In fact, Weil argues, “this is our only freedom:
to renounce what we have or could have. The wisdom of justice … is not reasonable”
(Avery 2008: 161).
Simone Weil’s thought can also be brought into dialogue with other philosophers
and ethical actors; with traditions, ancient and contemporary – Socrates, Antigone,
Taoism, Hinduism, contemporary feminism, Albert Camus, Václav Havel, and Paolo
Freire, among others – to show its concreteness and importance for thinking
through similar issues for ourselves. For example, Albert Camus wrote in The Rebel:
“The spirit of rebellion can exist only in a society where a theoretical equality conceals
6
great factual inequalities. The problem of rebellion, therefore, has no meaning except
within our own Western society” (Camus 1956: 20). As one approaches Simone Weil,
one meets “the spirit of rebellion” – a spirit that, in Camus’ words, understands that
the theoretical equality expressed in Western democracies “conceals great factual
inequalities.” Part of Weil’s rebellion is to seek remedies for such inequalities from
outside ourselves and from cultures other than our own. Rebellion, as she sees it, is
part of our ethical responsibility. Furthermore, Camus says, “Rebellion indefatigably
confronts evil” (1956: 303). The evil of injustice and suffering will always be with us.
With Dostoyevsky’s Ivan Karamazov, Simone Weil forces us to listen to the cry of
each suffering child, to understand justice as compassion.
In The Need for Roots, Weil encourages us to see the significance of “justice”
over “rights” and to put “work” firmly in support of justice. Thus, justice is manifested
through attention, work, love, and compassion. Justice is earned the hard way!
Finally, with reference to justice and oppression, Simone Weil’s ethics requires
human consent. Oppression is a denial of consent. She writes:
Human consent is a sacred thing. It is what man grants to God. It is what God comes
in search of when like a beggar he approaches men.
What God unceasingly begs each man to grant is the very thing that other men despise.
Rape [for example] is a terrible caricature of love from which consent is absent. After
rape, oppression is the second horror of human existence. It is a terrible caricature of
obedience. Consent is as essential to obedience as it is to love. (1987: 2f.)
Freedom from oppression and the power to consent are at the foundation of her
ethical writings. Where there is oppression, humans are silenced; they lose all
measure of consent and freedom. There is then no meaning to a civic order. The
very meaning of ethics is undermined. In Simone Weil’s life and thought, we are,
as Iris Murdoch said, “reminded of a standard” – a standard of moral purity and
austerity, intellectual integrity, and political intensity. With these high ethical
standards, Weil prods us to find ethical measures with which to analyze and
understand our current human condition, and, using them, to find a way toward a
more humane and just civic order.
See also: attention, moral; beauvoir, simone de; benevolence; camus,

albert; justice; love; moral point of view; reconciliation; responsibility;
sartre, jean-paul; twentieth-century continental ethics
REFERENCES
Simone Weil’s complete works (in French) are currently being edited and published by
Gallimard, Paris, under the direction of André A. Devaux and Florence de Lussy. It is
projected that there will be 17 volumes. About half of the volumes have been published.
7
The below list includes specific works of Weil in English translations that have been
cited in this essay.
Avery, Desmond 2008. Beyond Power: Simone Weil and the Notion of Authority. Lanham,
Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield.
Bell, Richard H. 1998. Simone Weil: The Way of Justice as Compassion. Lanham, Maryland:
Camus, Albert 1956 [1951]. The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt, trans. Anthony Bower.
New York: Vintage Books. [This could be read as a companion to Weil’s Oppression and
Liberty and The Need for Roots.]
Fiori, Gabriella 1989. Simone Weil: An Intellectual Biography, trans. Joseph R. Berrigan.
Athens and London: University of Georgia Press.
Little, J. P. 2003. Simone Weil on Colonialism: An Ethic of the Other. Oxford and Lanham,
Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield.
McLellan, David 1989. Simone Weil: Utopian Pessimist. London: Macmillan.
Pétrement, Simone 1976. Simone Weil: A Life, trans. Raymond Rosenthal. New York: Pantheon.
Rhees, Rush 1999. Discussions of Simone Weil, ed. D. Z. Phillips, assisted by Mario von der
Ruhr. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Weil, Simone 1952. Waiting for God, trans. Emma Craufurd. New York: Harper Colophon Books.
Weil, Simone 1958 [1955]. Oppression and Liberty, trans. Arthur Wills and John Petrie.
London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Weil, Simone 1962. Selected Essays 1934–1943, chosen and trans. Richard Rees. Oxford:
Weil, Simone 1970. First and Last Notebooks, trans. Richard Rees. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Weil, Simone 1971 [1949]. The Need for Roots, trans. Arthur Wills, with a preface by T. S. Eliot.
New York and London: Harper Colophon books, Harper & Row Publishers.
Weil, Simone 1977. Simone Weil Reader, ed. George A. Panichas. London and Rhode Island:
Moyer Bell Limited.
Weil, Simone 1981 [1939]. “The Iliad, or the Poem of Force,” trans. Mary McCarthy.
Wallingford, PA: Pendle Hill Pamphlet, no. 91.
Weil, Simone 1987 [1953]. “Are We Struggling for Justice?” trans. Marina Barabas,
Philosophical Investigations, vol. 53, January, pp. 1–10.
Weil, Simone 1999. Gravity and Grace, trans. Emma Crawford and Mario von der Ruhr. First
Complete English Language edition with an introduction and postscript by Gustave
Thibon. London and New York: Routledge.
FURTHER READINGS
Bell, Richard H. (ed.) 1993. Simone Weil’s Philosophy of Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
De Lussy, Florence (ed.) 2009. Simone Weil: Sagesse et grace violente. Montrouge, France:
Bayard Editions.
Doering, E. Jane 2010. Simone Weil and the Specter of Self-Perpetuating Force. Notre Dame,
Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press.
Weil, Simone 1970. Seventy Letters, trans. Richard Rees. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Winch, Peter 1989. Simone Weil: “The Just Balance.” Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
1
Exploitation
Nancy Holmstrom
What Is the Question?

Only people exploit. What they exploit and under what conditions determine
whether or not it is morally wrong. The verb “exploit” and the noun “exploitation”
have broader meanings in English than in some other languages. Thus in English (or
French) we can speak of someone exploiting an opportunity or natural resources,
which usually conveys no negative moral connotation, but we can also speak of
exploiting people (or their labor or bodies), and then it does. In German, however,
different words would be used for these kinds of cases; the term for “utilize” would
be used for the former. The focus here will be on the interpersonal use of the term
because of its (almost) invariable moral import.
Writers on exploitation in the interpersonal sense have different, albeit
overlapping, purposes: (1) simply analyzing the concept; (2) figuring out whether
exploitation is always wrong and, when it is wrong, precisely why; (3) examining
legal/political policy – determining when exploitative interactions should be
restricted legally; and (4) engaging in social/historical/political/economic analysis,
usually including a critique, of which Karl Marx’s analysis is the most famous (see
marx, karl). Those concerned with the conceptual, moral, and legal policy issues
focus almost exclusively on individuals, while radical critics focus on much larger
groups that can also be exploited. Those pursuing the first two purposes often do so
in order to decide on the third, but I will have little to say about it since it goes
beyond exploitation. Given these different legitimate purposes, analyses of
exploitation tend to diverge. It is a mistake to take one type of case to apply to all, but
an analysis applicable to every exploitation claim is unlikely to accomplish all the
specific purposes for which the concept has been used.
Varieties of Interpersonal Exploitation

In a general but interpersonal sense, one exploits a person if one takes advantage of
him/her to disproportionately benefit oneself. There are more varieties of
interpersonal exploitation than commonly realized and the details make a difference
as to whether and why they are morally wrong and whether a good case can be made
that they should be legally restricted. Oftentimes exploitation involves some kind of
force or coercion, the difference between the two being that the latter is direct, active,
and intentional force (see coercion). Such cases clearly harm the persons who are
exploited and are morally wrong. When exploitation involves deceit or duplicity, as
it often does, for example, when someone is cheated out of their money by a
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee145
2
conman, then that person is harmed and it is wrong. However, not all cases of exploi-
tation involve force, nor do they always involve deceit. And although usually exploi-
tation causes harm to the person who is exploited, this is not always the case.
An exploiter can exploit not only another person, but some characteristic of the
person or something about his/her circumstances in order to benefit himself. When
the circumstances that are taken advantage of involve a lack of power relative to the
exploiter (e.g., poverty), then the case comes close to coercive exploitation.
Controversies surrounding such cases will be explored below. Taking advantage
of someone’s characteristics to benefit oneself is not necessarily wrong, e.g., if I take
advantage of John’s height to get him to reach something of great value to me
where no great effort is required and no harm done. This approaches the impersonal
sense of exploitation as “utilize.” Both the nature of the characteristic and the results
make a difference to our evaluation. If a banker takes advantage of a customer’s
naïveté to propose a loan that is likely to cause her to lose her house, she is harmed
and it is clearly wrong. Even if it turns out that the bank does not benefit and the
customer is not harmed, it would still be wrong because the act was done with that
expectation. Some might say that there would be no exploitation in this case (even if
it is wrong) because the would-be exploiter did not gain, but one might also say that
the intention suffices to make it a case of exploitation even though it was unsuccessful.
When the characteristic taken advantage of is a virtue, the act is most likely to be
wrong. It is wrong, for example, if a person takes advantage of a partner’s good
nature to evade his own share of work. However, suppose the partner really does not
mind doing the extra work because he is so generous. If so, then he is not harmed,
and therefore he is not wronged. Nevertheless, as some have argued, such a case of
“harmless exploitation” is nonetheless wrong. Joel Feinberg calls it a “free-floating
wrong” (see feinberg, joel). If, on the other hand, the characteristic taken advantage
of is not good nor is it just a weakness, but actually morally bad, e.g., greed, then the
wrong would seem to be mitigated.
Beneficial Exploitation?
Complications arise from the fact that a person who is exploited may not only fail to
be harmed by an exploitative transaction, but he/she may actually benefit from it.
Some have seen this to be paradoxical and have argued that such alleged cases are
not actually exploitation, or if they are, such “beneficial exploitation” is not wrong.
Purported cases of beneficial exploitation often involve consent on the part of the
exploitee, another factor that causes controversy regarding the morality of the trans-
action. If it is consented to, then presumably both agents think they will gain some-
thing from the transaction and oftentimes they are correct. Some writers allow for
this unusual sort of case but contend that it could still be wrong (Feinberg 1988). It
all depends on the circumstances from which they both start and where they end up.
If a doctor takes advantage of a sick person’s desperation and lack of alternatives (no
other doctors are anywhere around) to charge such highly exorbitant fees that the
person goes bankrupt, this is morally unseemly even if the patient benefits from the
3
treatment. Given the circumstances, the doctor’s offer should count as a forcing
offer. Although the doctor did not create the patient’s vulnerability, he took advantage
of it to enrich himself. Such a case seems not only wrong, a “free-floating wrong,” but
one where the person him/herself is wronged. If, moreover, the doctor had helped to
create or to reinforce the patient’s vulnerability, then it would be a clear case of
coercive exploitation, regardless of the patient’s consent or benefit. Now all people in
the helping professions might be said to take advantage of others’ needs to benefit
themselves, but if they intend to help, do so to the best of their ability, and their
remuneration is not extravagant, then it would be misleading to describe it as “taking
advantage of ” or exploitation.
The field of labor provides numerous controversial examples of such “beneficial
exploitation” (Meyers 2004). (The family, to be discussed below, is another locus of
such examples.) Development in poor countries often takes the form of sweatshops,
which we can define as factories with working conditions and wages that violate
standards set by the International Labor Organization. Critics of sweatshops charge
that they are exploitative and violate the workers’ human rights (see human rights
and religion). Defenders argue that sweatshop owners are merely providing
options that the workers happily agree to because they benefit from them. Hence it
should not be considered exploitation or if it is, it is better than not being exploited,
so it is not wrong. The points made above support the critics. The premises are not
in dispute: a job in a sweatshop may in fact be better than the available alternatives
so the workers do prefer it and have agreed to the deal offered. Nevertheless the own-
ers are taking advantage of the workers’ desperate poverty to profit greatly. Minimum
international labor standards would benefit the workers and still allow sufficient
profit to motivate corporations to open businesses in poor countries. (The standards
would have to be international or else competitive pressures would lead corporations
to go to countries with lower standards.) So this should be seen as exploitation and
indeed it is wrongful, even if a given corporation merely takes advantage of the
people’s vulnerability. However, corporations often help create and reinforce workers’
vulnerability, e.g., by opposing unionization, supporting dictatorial governments,
and supporting trade agreements that drive small farmers off the land. In these
conditions, the cases would count as coercive exploitation. (The above examples of
exploitation of labor have been limited to cases where the pay and working conditions
are substantially below those that have become the norm in developed countries.
Hence, the standard property relations of our current economic system are taken as
the norm against which questions of exploitation are raised. Though this is common
parlance it will be challenged by more radical analyses.)
What Makes Exploitation Wrong?

Now, when exploitation is wrong, as it usually is in interpersonal cases, what
exactly makes it wrong? Many writers on the topic add “wrongful” or “unfair” to
the definition of exploitation in order to capture our judgment that it is wrong.
However, this just defers the question of why it is wrong and what constitutes (un)
4
fairness. When some kind of force is involved, this might suffice, but will not work
for a general analysis of the wrong of exploitation since it does not always involve
force. There are several competing non-Marxist analyses. Alan Wertheimer
(1996), Robert Goodin (1987), and Ruth Sample (2003) all offer accounts of what
makes exploitation in the general sense wrong that assume neither coercion nor
deception or harm. Wertheimer includes the idea of taking unfair advantage of
someone, but tries to sharpen it. Focusing his definition on the distributive out-
come of a transaction, he defines exploitation as paying a nonstandard (hypo-
thetical competitive) market price for something, paying too much for help from
a greedy rescuer or too little to third world factory workers. But is paying more or
less than a standard price necessarily morally wrong? In some cases it might not
be; it might depend on the relative needs and power of those involved in the trans-
action. Most problematically, since Wertheimer is primarily concerned with the
practical policy implications of calling particular acts exploitative, his account is
set against the background of our fundamental social institutions and therefore it
does not allow us to ask whether they might be exploitative. Thus his account lim-
its the usefulness of exploitation as a critical moral and social concept. Robert
Goodin’s account of why exploitation is wrong focuses on the process of how one
treats another (in intimate relationships as well as economic ones). In the most
general sense, he says, exploitation consists of taking “unusual” advantage of
someone or something. His account of what it is to exploit a person rests on his
contention that it is understood that we have special obligations to vulnerable oth-
ers. Thus exploitation of persons consists in a failure to follow those norms, a
more powerful person taking advantage of someone who is for some reason vul-
nerable to them. However, as Goodin acknowledges, “unusual” means both
infrequent, and also as violating prevailing standards. If the prevailing norms
allow someone to take advantage of certain vulnerable others – e.g., by allowing
slavery – then he says it would not constitute exploitation (Goodin 1987: 183).
Surely, this is very counterintuitive; if slavery is not exploitative, what is? The
problem is that his account of why exploitation is wrong is ultimately a conven-
tionalist one, like Wertheimer’s, and therefore loses the critical moral thrust
“exploitation” is correctly understood to have. In contrast, Ruth Sample attempts
to give an account of the wrongness of exploitation that can apply both to relations
between individuals and to fundamental social institutions like the family and
wage labor – and in addition, to nonhuman animals and the environment. Build-
ing on Kantian (see kant, immanuel) implications often found in discussions of
exploitation, she defines exploitation as interaction “for the sake of advantage that
degrades or fails to respect the inherent value in that being” (Sample 2003: 57).
Though awfully broad, this would be a strength if it works, and I think it does in
fact capture what people have in mind when they criticize not only certain interac-
tions between people as exploitative, but social institutions and some uses of
animals and the environment.
5
Should Exploitation Be Prohibited?

If it is wrong, it does not necessarily follow that it should be restricted legally. The
first question is what Wertheimer calls the moral weight of exploitation, the second
that of its moral force which involves both principled and practical questions. Under
certain conditions it might be worse for the people who are exploited to disallow the
exploitation. The right thing to do is to work to change the conditions, but meanwhile
the acts should be allowed. In contrast to legal moralism and paternalism, most
liberals – from J. S. Mill to Joel Feinberg – want to limit the government’s restrictions
on voluntary actions to those that cause harm to others, though some allow certain
exceptions (see paternalism; mill, john stuart). Feinberg, for one, is sympathetic
to the idea that exploitation might provide grounds for restricting actions even if
they did not cause harm to the person exploited, though he ultimately incorporates
plausible cases into the liberal framework. Since these issues are much broader than
exploitation, they will not be discussed further here.
Marx’s Theory
Accounts of exploitation by radical social critics, most famously Karl Marx, may
be compatible with some of the earlier analyses, but necessarily go beyond them,
as they are principally concerned with our fourth purpose: social/historical/polit-
ical and economic analysis combined with critique. Exploitation has received rela-
tively little discussion from mainstream ethics and political philosophy, but it was
central both to Marx’s theory of history and to his analysis and critique of different
economic systems, most importantly capitalism. The particular kind of exploita-
tion with which Marx was concerned was exploitation of labor. Though compati-
ble with the general sense of taking advantage of a person or his situation to
disproportionately benefit oneself, Marx’s analysis refers not to individuals but to
social/economic classes. Workers in class societies (slavery, feudalism, capitalism)
are held to be forced to work and to be exploited; thus it is an instance of coercive
exploitation. Interpreters disagree, however, as to whether these two charges are
independent or not. Some hold that force is neither necessary nor sufficient for
exploitation (Roemer 1988), while others (Holmstrom 1977; Reiman 1987) defend
a “force-inclusive” analysis of the specific kind of exploitation Marx charged was
essential to all class societies, indeed defining of class society. On this view, to say
workers are exploited is to say that they are forced to do unpaid surplus labor (i.e.,
labor beyond that necessary for their survival), the product of which they do not
control. Marxists believe that, as a matter of fact, (1) a particular form of coercion
and surplus extraction are connected in all class societies; (2) this is a fundamental
explanatory feature of every class society; and (3) changes in these forms of exploi-
tation are critical to understanding historical change. Marx says in Capital: “The
essential difference between the various economic forms of society, between for
instance a society based on slave labor and one based on wage labor, lies only in
the mode in which this surplus labor is in each case extracted from the actual
6
producer, the laborer” (1967 I: 217). “The specific economic form, in which unpaid
surplus labor is pumped out of direct producers determines the relationship of
rulers and ruled … its specific political form” (1967 III: 791). Exploitation occurs
because the producers lack control of their means of subsistence and hence in
order to survive they are forced, directly or indirectly, to work for others, who
appropriate the product of their labor. Since the exploiting classes of slave owners,
feudal lords, and capitalists actively work to create and sustain the conditions that
allow them to exploit the producers, this reinforces the claim that the exploitation
is coercive. Exploitation can be seen most clearly in feudalism because the labor
the serfs did for the lord (surplus labor) was, typically, separate in time and place
from the labor for their own subsistence (necessary labor). Slave labor by defini-
tion is labor that is forced by, and for the benefit of, the slave owner; it is the labor
that is not surplus, but for the slaves’ own subsistence, that needs to be inferred. In
capitalism, on the other hand, it is the surplus labor and force that are not appar-
ent; this is what Marx’s theory is supposed to uncover. While the coercion in slav-
ery and feudalism is direct and political, force can also be built into economic/
political institutions. For example, indentured servitude is forced labor for a cer-
tain period based on a contract. The force in this case is inherent in laws that allow
such contracts and in property institutions that allow such desperate poverty that
someone would agree to one. (When made by parents for children, all appearance
of voluntariness disappears.) Marx’s specific analysis of how exploitation takes
place in capitalism (often mistakenly identified as Marx’s theory of exploitation)
rests on the labor theory of value. Workers are actually paid for their capacity to
labor rather than their labor, he contends, but their labor is capable of creating
more value in a workday than they get in return as wages; the surplus value from
workers’ surplus labor is then the source of capitalist profits. Though widely
accepted by economists in Marx’s day, the labor theory of value is rejected by most
economists today, including many Marxists. Whether their critiques are valid or
not, a more general Marxist charge of exploitation can be sustained against capital-
ism (Reiman 1983; Cohen 1979). Given workers’ separation from the means of
subsistence, they “agree, i.e., are compelled by social conditions” (Marx 1967 I:
271) to work for the owners who control the product and who obviously benefit
disproportionately from workers’ labor. Though not compelled by any particular
owner, as is the case with slaves and serfs (which is one of the reasons exploitation
is not apparent in capitalism), capitalist property institutions, enforced coercively,
are sufficient.
This analysis of Marx’s theory of exploitation as forced extraction of surplus labor
shows the continuity that he claimed to exist between the systems of slavery,
feudalism, and capitalism, making clear why he referred to wage labor as “wage
slavery.” In a socialist society as Marx conceived it, that is, a society where the means
of production are under collective democratic control, the conditions for exploitation
would not exist. The producers control the product of their labor, and they get it all
back collectively. Thus Robert Nozick’s dismissal of Marx’s charge of exploitation
against capitalism on the grounds that it would apply to any society where there is
7
investment for the future and support for those unable to work (therefore including
socialism) is off the mark (Nozick 1974: 253). The fundamental issue is control of
the labor and the surplus product of the society. However, Marx’s concept of
exploitation would apply to the Soviet-style bureaucratic systems (often called “state
socialism”); workers were forced to work for the bureaucracy because the bureaucracy
controlled the means of subsistence and they controlled the surplus.
Exploitation as Marx used it is a descriptive concept, but what that objective
concept describes is clearly morally wrong in his eyes; indeed exploitation is the key
to why Marxists believe that socialism would be a historic advance over previous
societies. A commonly invoked dichotomy between Marx’s technical theory and his
normative theory is therefore misguided. However, as Marx was very critical of
abstract ethical theory, he did not discuss precisely why exploitation is morally
wrong. That it involved forced labor and deprived producers of control of their own
product would suffice to show that it is at least prima facie wrong. After all, most
people in the modern world share the view that forced labor is wrong (even if there
might be very special circumstances in which it might be justified). However, Marx’s
analysis can be taken to imply, furthermore, that exploitation is unjust, even though
Marx did not theorize it explicitly in those terms (Geras 1986). His account is also
very compatible with the analysis above holding that exploitation is wrong because
it degrades or fails to respect the inherent value in a being.
An Improved Marxian Analysis?

The past few decades have seen an influential re-theorization of exploitation in a
Marxian sense intended to put the Marxian critique on a more solid basis of
contemporary social science. Like the other theorists who call themselves analytical
Marxists, John Roemer (1988) rejects the labor theory of value and relies instead on
neoclassical economics. In contrast to Marx their approach is methodological
individualist. A surprising conclusion of Roemer’s theory is that Marxists should not
be interested in exploitation, focusing instead on inequality. Not surprisingly, critics
charge that Roemer gives up too much in pursuit of analytical rigor.
Roemer develops his theory of exploitation by relying on readers’ intuitions as to
whether hypothetical economic transactions between individuals who start out with
different resources and preferences are exploitative, and if so, whether they are
wrong. Force is not part of the account. He concludes that exploitation is morally
wrong only if an unequal distribution of assets comes about as a result of unequal
distribution, where this initial distribution came about unjustly. Hence the real focus
in his view should be on distribution of assets and whether or not they were justly
acquired. Given the actual history of how capitalism came into existence, resting on
forced enclosures of common land and brutal colonization and slavery, this
definition, like Marx’s, would entail that exploitation in capitalism is wrong. But
while Roemer acknowledges this history, he contends that the possibility of a
capitalist system that arose by a “clean” process shows that socialists do not have
a principled moral critique of capitalism, but merely a contingent one; hence the
8
need to focus on the justice of the initial distribution of assets. However, as Roemer
does not show that this possibility is more than a logical one (in fact, the transition
to capitalism from the Soviet system resembles this earlier process), it is not clear
that it has any relevance to the real world.
According to critics, Roemer’s account is significantly weaker than Marx’s, both
analytically and morally. In class societies one group has the power to force the other
to work; this comes not simply from unequal distribution but from monopoly of the
means of subsistence. Given the structure of ownership in capitalism, most workers
are forced to work for some capitalist or other though a particular capitalist may not
force anyone to work for him. Moreover, as discussed, owners as a class do not
merely take advantage of these inequities; they work to create or increase them.
Those with a monopoly of the means of subsistence are then able to control the
surplus from others’ labor, directing it to their own objectives. This allows the
society’s class differences to be reproduced as part of an ongoing process. Roemer’s
individualist account lacks these important moral and explanatory dimensions. If
we are interested in how class societies work, it does not matter whether our
intuitions tell us that there is or is not exploitation in individual hypothetical cases
because the claim of exploitation is made at the aggregate level. Indeed in real
capitalism not every individual worker meets all the conditions of exploitation.
A skilled carpenter who prefers to work for someone else is not coerced; someone
with a scarce job skill may, temporarily, command such a high wage that her
employer makes no profit from her work. But it does not matter what our intuitions
tell us in such cases – for their situations are anomalous. Most workers do not have
the skilled carpenter’s choices and capitalists get surplus labor from most of their
employees or go out of business. To ensure that they do requires control over the
labor process, and over laborers, a fact that is lost in the focus on distribution.
Feminist and Other Radical Critiques

Liberal and radical feminists tend to critique the oppression of women, rather than
their exploitation specifically (see oppression). But those feminists who use the
concept of exploitation employ the term as a strong moral critique, centered, like
the Marxist analysis, not on individual cases and not on distribution solely, but on
the power of one group to subordinate another. Extending the meaning of exploitation
in sexual directions, they charge that women’s bodies are exploited for men’s sexual
pleasure, for reproduction (“baby-making machines”), and to sell everything from
cars to toothpaste. Whether individual women benefit from the exploitation varies,
but others benefit far more and, given the sexual division of labor and attitudes, they
often have little choice. Furthermore, these uses of women’s bodies are seen as
helping to reproduce an unequal system, thereby harming women in general. The
critique of exploitation as degradation would seem particularly apt here.
Other feminists have used Marx’s theory of exploitation to understand the
oppression of women but have gone beyond it. A ready application is to show that
since women and racial minorities are generally paid less for the same work or
9
confined to the lowest-paid work in capitalism, sexism increases the rate of exploitation
in Marx’s sense. But many feminists argue that the Marxist analysis needs to be revised,
going beyond the public sphere of wage labor to the private, to include unpaid labor
done in the home, which is necessary for the reproduction of the work force, both
biologically and in the sense of getting the worker to the factory door (see family).
Hence it is not only necessary for life in general, but necessary and beneficial to
capitalism. An intense debate went on in the 1970s and 1980s regarding the relation-
ship between capitalism and women’s nonwage work (Malos 1995). Some claimed
that unpaid domestic labor actually produces surplus value, so housewives are
exploited by capital. While most others rejected this analysis, they argued that capital-
ism and the constraints it imposes are still important for understanding the persis-
tence of women’s unpaid domestic labor. The more labor done in the home for free,
the less capitalists have to pay labor. Women’s commitments in the home limit their
workforce participation, allowing for greater exploitation in wage work, which then
reinforces their role in the family. Thus sexism and capitalism reinforce one another.
Other feminists who focused on exploitation of labor rejected the above focus on
capitalism, stressing that men also benefit from women’s unpaid labor in the home
(Delphy and Leonard 1992; Hartmann 1981). Combining radical feminism and
Marxism, they theorize a domestic mode of production alongside capitalism in which
men exploit women’s labor. Even if one argued that in the long run working-class men
do not benefit from this system since it benefits capitalism, it is undeniable that men
of all classes benefit in the short run. By and large, men get a shorter workday, as well
as emotional and sexual services from women, and children if they want them. Given
the options, most women have little alternative to marriage (though this is changing
to some degree); hence they have to do this labor for their husbands whether they
want to or not. These theorists correctly see themselves as using Marx’s concept of
exploitation which, they point out, is broader than production of surplus value. Thus
according to this analysis, our current system involves (at least) two modes of exploi-
tation: patriarchal, in which men exploit women (described as two classes), as well as
capitalist, in which capitalists exploit workers. How these two systems interrelate is
complex and problematic, however, as some women exploit other women in both
capitalist terms (capitalist and employee) and familial terms (servants).
Similar arguments have been made regarding racism and exploitation (see
racism). It is easy to show in Marxist terms that people of African descent have
been especially victimized by exploitation, first as slaves and then subjected to a
higher rate of exploitation under capitalism. Slaveholders and capitalists are the
exploiters. But many anti-racist thinkers find this insufficient. For example, Charles
Mills (1997) has theorized what he calls a racial contract, a conceptual device to
clarify how, from the beginning of the modern period and continuing today, those
people classed as white dominate those classed as nonwhites and benefit both
materially and psychologically from their domination. The racial contract, agreed to
implicitly by all whites who do not resist it, has political, moral, and epistemological
dimensions, but at its heart it is an exploitation contract on both a global and
domestic level. Numerous theorists have shown that Europe’s political and economic
10
power developed through the extraction of wealth from the rest of the world,
through slavery and colonialism. (Some theorize this relationship in racial terms,
others without the racial focus.) Colonial relationships reproduced this exploitative
relationship by preventing colonies from developing (e.g., England destroyed India’s
textile industry). In the postcolonial period, the same process occurs through
global capitalist institutions dominated by the former colonial powers. Within these
countries, as a result of past and present injustices, the economic pyramid is
overwhelmingly white at the top and dark-skinned at the bottom. The gap between
rich and poor has widened both domestically and globally. The concept of exploitation
employed with respect to racial groups and nations is the same as that applied by
Marxists to classes: forced extraction and control of a surplus.
Though “exploitation” applied outside the interpersonal context does not usually
carry negative moral implications, the current level of exploitation of the environment
is increasingly understood as morally wrong. This can easily be justified in
consequentialist terms because of its disastrous effects on human beings (see
consequentialism). But if it is claimed that certain kinds of exploitation (e.g., the
destruction of a species, coral reef, or forest) are wrong even if this effect cannot
be shown, then it is likely because it is seen as degrading or failing to respect the
inherent value of those parts of our world. The same could be said of many uses of
nonhuman animals (see animals, moral status of).
see also: animals, moral status of; coercion; consequentialism; family;

feinberg, joel; global distributive justice; human rights and religion;
justice; kant, immanuel; marx, karl; mill, john stuart; normativity;
oppression; paternalism; racism
REFERENCES
Cohen, G. A. 1979. “The Labor Theory of Value and the Concept of Exploitation,” Philosophy
and Public Affairs, vol. 8, no. 4, pp. 338–60.
Delphy, Christine, and Diane Leonard 1992. Familiar Exploitation. Cambridge: Polity.
Feinberg, Joel 1988. Harmless Wrongdoing. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Geras, Norman 1986. “The Controversy about Marx and Justice,” in Literature of Revolution.
London: Verso, pp. 3–58.
Goodin, Robert 1987. “Exploiting a Situation and Exploiting a Person,” in Andrew Reeve
(ed.), Modern Theories of Exploitation. London: Sage, pp. 166–200.
Hartmann, Heidi 1981. “The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism,” in Linda
Sargent (ed.), Women and Revolution. Boston: South End Press, pp. 1–41.
Holmstrom, Nancy 1977. “Exploitation,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 353–69.
Malos, Ellen (ed.) 1995. The Politics of Housework. Cheltenham: New Clarion Press.
Marx, Karl 1967. Capital, 3 vols. New York: International Publishers.
Meyers, Chris 2004. “Wrongful Beneficence: Exploitation and Third World Sweatshops,”
Journal of Social Philosophy, vol. 35, no. 3, pp. 319–33.
Mills, Charles 1997. The Racial Contract. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Nozick, Robert 1974. Anarchy, State and Utopia. New York: Basic Books.
11
Reiman, Jeffrey 1983. “The Labor Theory of the Difference Principle,” Philosophy and Public
Affairs, vol. 12, no 2, pp. 133–59.
Reiman, Jeffrey 1987. “Exploitation, Force, and the Moral Assessment of Capitalism:
Thoughts on Roemer and Cohen,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 3–41.
Roemer, John 1988. Free to Lose. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Sample, Ruth 2003. Exploitation: What It Is and Why It’s Wrong. New York: Routledge.
Wertheimer, Alan 1996. Exploitation. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
FURTHER READINGS
America, Richard F. (ed.) 1990. The Wealth of Races: The Present Value of Benefits from Past
Injustices. New York: Greenwood Press.
Arneson, Richard 1981. “What’s Wrong With Exploitation?” Ethics, vol. 91, pp. 202–27.
Davis, Angela 1981. Women, Race and Class. New York: Vintage.
Foley, Duncan 1989. “Roemer on Marx on Exploitation,” Economics and Politics, vol. 1, no. 2,
pp. 187–99.
Gorr, Michael J. 1989. Coercion, Freedom and Exploitation. New York: Peter Lang.
Gunder Frank, Andre 1989. World Accumulation, 1492–1789. New York: Monthly Review
Press.
Holmstrom, Nancy 1981. “‘Women’s Work,’ the Family and Capitalism,” Science and Society,
vol. 45, no. 2, pp. 186–211.
Kleinig, John 1981. “The Ethics of Consent,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 11.
Nielsen, Kai, and Robert Ware (eds.) 1997. Exploitation. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities
Press International.
Reeve, Andrew (ed.) 1987. Modern Theories of Exploitation. London: Sage, pp. 166–200.
Rodney, Walter 1974. How Europe Undeveloped Africa. Washington, DC: Howard University
Press.
Tormey, Judith 1973. “Exploitation, Oppression and Self-Sacrifice,” Philosophical Forum,
vol. 5, nos. 2–3, pp. 206–21.
Walby, Sylvia 1990. Theorizing Patriarchy. Oxford: Blackwell.
Wallerstein, Immanuel 1974–88. The Modern World System, 3 vols. New York: Academic Press.
1
Violence
Vittorio Bufacchi
No other issue provokes moral debate as intensely as violence. From wars to suicide,
torture to rape, violence is at the heart of virtually all our deepest moral concerns (see
rape; torture; suicide; war; domestic violence). Moral philosophers are pri-
marily interested in the question: “Can violence be justified?” Yet, before this ques-
tion can be tackled, a preliminary inquiry needs to be undertaken: “What is violence?”
The Concept of Violence

Violence is as prevalent in human interactions as it is complex to understand and
therefore difficult to define. Our task is made even more arduous by the general
tendency to conflate violence with other terms such as “power,” “coercion,” and
“harm.” Power and violence are distinct concepts. Power is a dispositional concept,
something that people who possess it have the option to use. Violence, on the other
hand, is not something we possess or not possess; it is not a capability we either have
or not have. Instead, violence is something we do; it is an act. Violence should also
not be confused with coercion. While violence can be used to coerce, in which case
violence is a form of coercion, not all acts of violence are necessarily acts of coercion,
since it is possible for coercion to occur without violence. Coercion is also by
definition an act that undermines voluntariness, to the extent that the person being
coerced ends up doing something against their will. However, this is not always the
case with violence. There are times when violence occurs even when the victim is
partaking voluntarily in the act. Finally, violence should not be confused with harm.
“Harm” is a term we use to describe the consequences of violence, but it is not
necessarily what constitutes the act of violence in itself. In other words, the experience
of harm is a consequence or sign of violence; to define violence in terms of the harm
is to mistake the symptom for the disease.
Having distinguished the idea of violence from other similar concepts, we can
now return to the task of defining the concept of violence. The term “violence” is
derived from the Latin violentia, meaning “vehemence,” a passionate and
uncontrolled force. Yet, because acts of excessive force frequently result in the
violation of norms, rights, or rules, the meaning of violence is often conflated with
that of “violation,” from the Latin violare, meaning “infringement.” Perhaps, not
surprisingly, most attempts to define violence tend to combine the idea of an act of
physical force with a violation, although, for the sake of analytical clarity in what
follows, these two rival ways of understanding violence will be assessed separately.
C. A. J. Coady (2008) is probably right when he reminds us that the normal or
ordinary understanding of the term “violence” is in terms of interpersonal acts of
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee146
2
force usually involving the infliction of physical injury, which suggests that the
concept of violence cannot be understood independently from the concept of force.
Indeed, most definitions of violence assume that force plays a determining role. This
strong affinity between the terms “violence” and “force” would appear to be
vindicated by the Oxford English Dictionary, where violence is defined as “the
exercise of physical force so as to inflict injury on, or cause damage to, person or
property.” The idea of violence as force is also endorsed by John Dewey (2009), who
argues that violence is force gone wrong, or force that is destructive and harmful.
There is an underlying problem with any attempt to define violence in terms of
excessive force. Force (as with power) is a dispositional concept, to the extent that it
refers to an ability or potentiality. Violence, on the other hand, refers to the action
itself. Furthermore, violence is an evaluative concept, perhaps even a normative
concept, while force is not. It is perhaps the moral neutrality of the concept of force
that leads Hannah Arendt (1969) to dismiss its usefulness when searching for the
meaning of violence.
The alternative to defining violence in terms of force is to think of violence in
terms of a violation, where the verb “to violate” means to infringe, or transgress, or
to exceed some limit or norm. Newton Garver (2009) goes as far as to suggest that
the idea of violence is much more closely connected with the idea of violation than
it is with the idea of force. Following Garver, many contemporary theorists of
violence have converged on the idea of defining violence in terms of a violation,
although there seems to be some disagreement about what exactly is being violated
when an act of violence takes place.
The most popular answer to the question “violation of what?” is “violation of
rights (or human rights).” Unfortunately, the immediate appeal of this answer is
misleading. If violence is the violation of rights, then naturally one ought to say
something about the nature of rights being violated. This next step is imbued with
obvious difficulties, given the contentious nature of the concept of rights in general,
and human rights in particular. Notwithstanding the appeal of defining violence in
terms of the violation of rights, further analysis exposes at least two intrinsic
problems with this line of reasoning. First, albeit rare, there are cases of violence
occurring without any rights being violated, as in the case of violent sports such as
wrestling and boxing, or any other violent practice one consents to. Second, the
broader our definition of rights or human rights, the more pervasive and inescapable
violence becomes. Almost any act can be said to violate someone’s rights, making
violence ubiquitous and therefore meaningless.
So far, two different ways of approaching the idea of violence have been
investigated: violence as excessive force and violence as a violation. The first
approach leads to a narrow conception of violence, while the second approach leads
to a broader one. Defining violence in terms of excessive or destructive force has the
important advantage of delineating clear boundaries around what constitutes an act
of violence, avoiding therefore the tendency to use the term “violence” as synonymous
for everything that is evil or morally wrong. Definitions of violence that emphasize
3
the notion of physical force deliberately used to cause suffering or injury will be
referred to as the Minimalist Conception of Violence (MCV).
There is much to be said for precise, tight definitions of key concepts; therefore,
from a purely analytical point of view, the MCV is to be welcomed. The problem
with the MCV is that, by restricting acts of violence to intentional, direct, physical
acts against other persons, the MCV misses out on too many other important
dimensions of the phenomenon of violence. For example, in his influential and
still-powerful definition of violence, Robert Audi (2009) reminds us that an act of
violence can be physical or psychological, aimed at persons, animals, or property.
One of the major virtues of Audi’s definition is the acknowledgment that violence
has a psychological dimension. This has particular resonance within the growing
literature on family violence, where the psychological impairment that comes
from living under constant threat and fear of violence is recognized as being part
of what constitutes domestic violence. Similarly, the growing literature of
testimonies from genocide or torture survivors also suggests that psychological
violence may be the worst aspect of an act of violence, even worse than
physical violence.
Another problem with the MCV is that it seems to be oblivious to the most
pervasive and destructive form of violence: structural or institutional violence. In
his ground-breaking article on violence, peace, and peace research, Johan Galtung
(2009) distinguishes between “direct violence,” where the instigator of an act of
violence can be traced to a person or persons, and “structural violence,” where there
may not be any person who directly harms another person. In structural violence,
the violence is built into the structure, and shows up as unequal power and
consequently as unequal life chances. Galtung reminds us that structural violence is
more deadly and destructive than direct violence.
The attempt to broaden our understanding of violence, either along Audi’s or
Galtung’s lines, may be referred to as the Comprehensive Conception of Violence
(CCV). There are some notable advantages with going beyond the MCV, yet there
are also serious problems with the CCV that must be confronted. For example, by
introducing a psychological component, Audi would appear to offer only a more
obscure and less precise definition of violence. It is true that according to Audi not
all psychological abuses are acts of violence, but only “vigorous” psychological
abuses, yet as Audi himself recognizes, the term “vigorous” is inherently vague, and
perhaps even subjective. A problem of an analogous nature also troubles Galtung’s
notion of structural violence, which can be criticized for being much too broad,
inclusive, and therefore inherently vague.
The current state of play in the literature on violence reflects a disquieting schism
between these two rival positions, with one faction defining violence narrowly
around the notion of excessive force (MCV), while the other defines violence more
broadly around the notion of a violation of rights (CCV). The lack of concurrence at
this most basic level in defining the concept of violence is not only awkward, but also
dangerous. In particular, there is a growing risk that the idea of violence becomes
4
associated with the growing list of concepts carrying the warning sign of being
“essentially contested” (de Haan 2008).
Violence as Violation of Integrity

There is perhaps a way out of this impasse, an alternative to the two positions
analyzed thus far. This third way suggests that violence is defined as a violation of
integrity. This approach requires further scrutiny. In particular, the notion of
“integrity” needs closer analysis. In defining violence as the violation of integrity, the
term “integrity” here simply refers to something that has not been broken, or that
has not lost its original form. This is integrity as wholeness or completeness (Bufacchi
2007; MacCallum 2009).
The notion of “integrity” in the idea of violence as violation of integrity is
fundamentally different from the way this term is commonly used in moral
philosophy. The moral connotation of integrity is perhaps captured by the notion of
“honesty.” This makes “integrity” a term of art in moral philosophy, holding a place
of honor in virtue ethics. In moral philosophy, integrity refers to the quality of a
person’s moral character, denoting the attribute of incorruptibility and perhaps even
purity. However, integrity can be stripped of its moral coating, whereby the amoral
definition of integrity simply points to the notion of “unity,” or to the quality or state
of being complete or undivided. It is the latter idea of integrity as wholeness that is
crucial for an accurate definition of violence.
Violence can be defined as a violation of integrity to the extent that violence
damages or destroys a pre-existing unity. It may be easier to see this violation of
unity in terms of violence against an inanimate object, although the same violation
also applies to people: when a person becomes the victim of an act of violence, it is
his or her integrity as a person that is being infringed, since, in the process of being
violated, he or she is reduced to a lesser being, in physical and/or psychological
terms (Brison 2002).
On the basis of this account of integrity and its violation, violence can be
defined as follows: An act of violence occurs when the integrity or unity of a subject
(person or animal) or object (property) is intentionally or unintentionally violated,
as a result of an action or an omission. The violation may occur at the physical or
psychological level, through physical or psychological means. A violation of integrity
will usually result in the subject being harmed or injured, or the object being
destroyed or damaged.
The preceding definition of violence leaves two issues open. First, whether an act
of violence is intentional or nonintentional. Second, whether the act of violence is a
direct action or an omission. A violation of integrity can be either intended, or it
can be foreseen even if nonintended. Intentional acts of violence are so abundant
that there is no need to elaborate on them: street crimes, sexual violence, the bomb-
ing of a city, are all valid examples of this disturbing reality. Yet, the harm caused by
the violation of integrity can take place without the harm being intended, a fact that
may seem counterintuitive. There are three general types of nonintentional harmful
5
acts. First, action A was not intended to harm anyone, but it unintentionally
(although foreseeably) harmed B. Second, action A may have been intended to
harm B, but unintentionally (although foreseeably) it also harmed C. Finally, action
A may have been intended to harm B only to a certain degree, but unintentionally
(although foreseeably) it ended up harming B to a much greater degree. The point
here is that instead of thinking of violence strictly in terms of what the perpetrator
intended to do, we should also think in terms of the foreseen consequences of the
same act.
Apart from its intentionality or nonintentionality, the nature of the act in question
also demands closer scrutiny. That the violation of integrity caused by the act of
violence is the result of an action is trivially true. The violence reported in our
newspapers on a daily basis is a chronicle of such actions. Yet, integrity can be
violated by an omission as much as by a direct action. Leaving the question of moral
responsibility aside, if an omission is causally equivalent to the direct action of
harming someone, it must also be considered an act of violence (Harris 2000; Glover
1977; Honderich 1989; see omissions).
This suggests that there are at least four faces or dimensions of violence:
(1) intentional violation of integrity via direct actions; (2) intentional violation of
integrity via omissions; (3) nonintentional violation of integrity via direct actions;
(4) nonintentional violation of integrity via omissions (Bufacchi 2007).
The Justification of Violence

It is tempting to take a hard line on violence and defend the uncompromising position
that violence can never be justified, under any circumstances, not even for the sake of
justice. The view that there is always an alternative to violence, namely nonviolence, is
a powerful paradigm, which has been voiced by many distinguished thinkers over the
centuries, including Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King (see nonviolence in
religions). This position may be attractive, but unsustainable. Of course, violence is
bad and prima facie wrong, yet there are times when, at least in principle, violence can
and ought to be justified (Bufacchi 2004). Although the overwhelming majority of acts
of violence are prohibited by public reason and thus completely unjustified, it would be
wrong to deny that violence is sometimes required by public reason (Gert 2009). What
we need to do is identify the public reasons that could, in principle, justify violence.
Our duties to promote justice or to prevent evil stand out as primary candidates.
To justify violence is to justify an evil. After all, if violence were not an evil, the
question of justifying it would not even arise. In order to justify violence, the evil
produced by an act of violence must somehow be accounted for, and arguments
suggesting how such evils are compensated by greater goods must be put forward.
Two separate ways of justifying violence stand out: the Identity Argument and the
Consequentialist Argument.
One way of justifying violence is to argue that violence is not entirely bad; instead,
violence is both good and bad, and violence can be justified in terms of its goodness.
The claim that violence can be good is counterintuitive, and needs to be explained.
6
First of all, good for whom? Certainly not for the victims of violence, even though
Nietzsche would beg to differ. Perhaps violence is good for the perpetrator of
violence, because of the way violence makes the perpetrator of violence feel about
himself or herself. This begs the question: how could violence, or violating the
integrity of another person, make someone feel good about themselves? The Identity
Argument provides us with an answer.
The Identity Argument can be stated as follows: Violence is good if, through an act
of violence, the perpetrator is able to reestablish his or her own identity as a person of
equal moral value, deserving the respect of others. The most famous statement along
these lines can be found in Frantz Fanon’s (1970) powerful account of violence
against colonial powers (see colonialism and postcolonialism).
The essence of Fanon’s argument, which could almost be described as therapeutic,
is the belief that colonization constitutes a special type of violence, which can be
overturned only if it is countered with violence. The violence of colonization is
special in the sense that it has both physical and psychological components. The
physical component is the overt aspect of any colonization, namely the act of taking
away by force what rightfully belongs to those being colonized. However, apart from
the overt physical violence, colonization also entails a covert psychological violence.
It is the latter that is the focus of Fanon’s reflections on violence.
According to Fanon, colonization represents a power relation between the
colonizers and the colonized, where the former are in a position of superiority, and
the latter are made to feel inferior. It is this sense of inferiority which comes with
being colonized that Fanon is most concerned with. Colonization is humiliating on
a very personal level, undermining the sense of identity and self-respect of those
being colonized. This is why the violence of colonization calls for the violence of
decolonization, where decolonization stands for the process of reversing these
power relationships. It is through acts of violence that the colonized reestablish their
moral identity and regain their self-respect; in the struggle against colonization,
violence is not merely an option but a necessity.
The Identity Argument suggests that violence can (in part) be good, since
through the act of violence those who have been humiliated by violence are able to
reclaim their own identity. The appeal of the Identity Argument cannot be denied,
which in part explains why Fanon’s original argument, which focused on the
humiliation and search of identity of the victims of colonization, has been applied
in many other contexts. Yet, the appeal of the Identity Argument can too easily be
romanticized, and violence glorified. There is a thin line between using the Identity
Argument to justify violence, and using the Identity Argument as an excuse for
violence. The stakes are too high to risk confusing one for the other. It is important
to stress that when Fanon was writing about violence, he was thinking exclusively
within the context of colonization. However, the reality today is that the Identity
Argument can and has been used to justify the most brutal atrocities, even when
colonization is not an issue. To put it bluntly, the Identity Argument per se makes it
too easy to justify violence. One must be careful not to give unjustified violence the
semblance of validity.
7
Finally, with the Identity Argument, the justification of violence takes the form of
two negatives making a positive. There seems to be a dialectic of negation at work
here, whereby violence is necessary as an act of negation of the original violence. Yet,
this logic does not apply to ethics, or to violence. In ethics, the good cannot be
constructed from two evils. Similarly, with violence, we are faced with a scenario
where two evils make an even bigger evil, and therefore the dialectic of negation is
not a valid justification for the evils of violence.
Unlike for the Identity Argument, the Consequentialist Argument has no qualms
on the evil of violence. Yet, we are told that violence can still be justified, as long as
the violence is a necessary evil. The Consequentialist Argument can be stated as
follows: Violence is justified when it is a necessary evil, an indispensable means
toward preventing an even greater evil and/or promoting a greater good (see
consequentialism).
The logic of this argument, based on a calculus of suffering, is arguably still the
most common line of reasoning used to justify the use of violence. Contemplated as
a strategy for achieving social reform, particularly where the reform envisaged is
regarded as the rectification of grave moral wrongs, violence can be justified only for
the sake of maximizing the proportion of happiness to suffering, giving priority to the
reduction of suffering over the increase of happiness. The evil being prevented must
be significantly greater than the evil caused. Furthermore, one must be in a position to
calculate the consequences of one’s actions: we would need to weigh carefully what
would be the probable consequences of resorting to violence. If, on the one hand,
only more suffering all around would result, then resort to such violence is wrong;
but if, on the other hand, such acts of violence are likely to lessen the sum total of
human suffering, then the violence is justified (Audi 2009; Gert 2009; Nielsen 2009).
Some of the problems we encountered with the Identity Argument are replicated
in the Consequentialist Argument. In particular, there are two issues that expose the
dangers of justifying violence according to a calculus of suffering: the slippery-slope
argument, and the cycle-of-violence argument. The slippery-slope argument occurs
when the occurrence of one event makes another event more likely to occur. Let us
assume that A, B denote two distinct events. If A occurs, then the chances increase
that B will also occur. When applied to the context of violence, the (justified) act of
violence A triggers a process that increases the chances of (unjustified) act of
violence B also occurring. The fact that A increases the chances of B does not mean
that B will inevitably occur when A occurs. Nevertheless, the fact that A increases
the chances of B occurring is sufficient to consider this a potentially insurmountable
problem for the Consequentialist Argument.
The second issue against justifying violence according to a calculus of suffering is
that, whenever violence is used, even justifiably, there is the risk of triggering a cycle-
of-violence: when A uses legitimate violence to counter B’s illegitimate violence, B
may respond with more violence against A, which will in turn lead to A using even
more violence against B, and so on ad infinitum. The cyclical nature of violence is well
documented. When an act of violence occurs, it is usually not an isolated event
unconnected to other instances of violence; instead, more times than not, an act of
8
violence is part of an ongoing process linking many acts of violence. In justifying a

certain act of violence, a theory of violence must not only justify the harm that will be
inflicted on the recipient of such an act, but also the foreseeable potential consequences
of the act, which includes the spiral of retaliation that is being triggered.
Conclusion
We can perhaps start to draw some tentative conclusions regarding the best way to
approach the topic of violence. If there is a core to the concept of violence, this is
to be found in the idea of violence as disintegration, or the breaking down of unity.
There are many different ways of violating someone’s integrity, directly or
indirectly, at the physical level or at the psychological level. The violation of
integrity is often done intentionally, but nonintentional harm can also amount
to violence. Finally, while violence is prima facie wrong, it may still be justified.
However, to justify violence is to justify a great evil, and it is not a decision that can
be taken lightly (see evil). As Norman Geras (1990: 49) rightly points out, it is
imperative to start from the assumption that individual rights against being killed
or violated are all but absolute: “they may be overridden if and only if doing so is
the sole means of averting imminent and certain disaster. I repeat: the sole means;
and disaster which is otherwise imminent and certain. This is a proviso of
impending moral catastrophe.”
See also: colonialism and postcolonialism; consequentialism; domestic

violence; evil; nonviolence in religions; omissions; rape; suicide;
torture; war
REFERENCES
Arendt, H. 1969. On Violence. New York: Harcourt Brace.
Audi, R. 2009. “On the Meaning and Justification of Violence,” in V. Bufacchi (ed.), Violence:
A Philosophical Anthology. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Brison, S. 2002. Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of a Self. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Bufacchi, V. 2004. “Why is Violence Bad?,” American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 41, no. 2.
Bufacchi, V. 2007. Violence and Social Justice. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Coady, C. A. J. 2008. Morality and Political Violence. Cambridge University Press.
de Haan, W. 2008. “Violence as an Essentially Contested Concept,” in S. Body-Gendrot
and P. Spierenburg (eds.), Violence in Europe: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives.
New York: Springer.
Dewey, J. 2009. “Force, Violence and Law” and “Force and Coercion,” in V. Bufacchi (ed.),
Violence: A Philosophical Anthology. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Fanon, F. 1970. The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press.
Galtung, J. 2009. “Violence, Peace and Peace Research,” in V. Bufacchi (ed.), Violence:
9
Garver, N. 2009. “What Violence Is,” in V. Bufacchi (ed.), Violence: A Philosophical Anthology.
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Geras, N. 1990. “Our Morals,” in N. Geras (ed.), Discourses of Extremity. London: Verso.
Gert, B. 2009. “Justifying Violence,” in V. Bufacchi (ed.), Violence: A Philosophical Anthology.
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Glover, J. 1977. Causing Death and Saving Lives. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Harris, J. 1980. Violence and Responsibility. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Honderich, T. 1989. Violence for Equality. London: Routledge.
MacCallum, G. 2009. “What is Wrong with Violence,” in V. Bufacchi (ed.), Violence:
Nielsen, K. 2009. “On Justifying Violence,” in V. Bufacchi (ed.), Violence: A Philosophical
Anthology. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
FURTHER READINGS
Apter, D. E. (ed.) 1997. The Legitimization of Violence. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Brady, J., and Garver, N. (eds.) 1991. Justice, Law and Violence. Philadelphia: Temple
University Press.
Bufacchi, V. (ed.) 2009a. Violence: A Philosophical Anthology. Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Bufacchi, V. (ed.) 2009b. Rethinking Violence. Special Issue of Global Crime, vol. 10, no. 1–2.
Coady, C. A. J. 2008. Morality and Political Violence. Cambridge University Press.
Curtin, D., and Litke, R. (eds.) 1999. Institutional Violence. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Frappat, H. (ed.) 2000. La Violence. Paris: Flammarion.
Keane, J. 1996. Reflections on Violence. London: Verso.
O’Murchadha, F. (ed.). Understanding Violence: Philosophical Approaches to an Ubiquitous
Phenomenon. London: Pluto.
Scheper-Hughes, N., and Bourgois, S. P. (eds.) 2004. Violence in War and Peace: An
Anthology. Oxford: Blackwell.
Shaffer, J. A. (ed.) 1971. Violence. New York: David McKay Company.
Sorel, G. 1961. Reflections on Violence. New York: Huebsch.
Steger, M., and Lind, N. (eds.) 1999. Violence and Its Alternatives: An Interdisciplinary Reader.
New York: St. Martin’s Press.
1
Privacy and the Internet

Norman E. Bowie
When thinking about privacy and the Internet, one faces a paradox. There is both
too much privacy and too little. Moreover, while some are deeply concerned about
loss of privacy on the Internet, many Internet users do not seem to value privacy
much. Any authoritative discussion on privacy needs to take into account these
conflicting considerations.
There has been much debate among philosophers on the proper definition of privacy
(see privacy). There seems to be considerable consensus around the notion that one has
privacy when one has at least some control over the information that others have about
one. Thus privacy seems necessary for the development of autonomy, especially for the
autonomy to define our relationships (see autonomy). As Deborah Johnson (2001)
says, “We control relationships by controlling the information that others have about us.
When we lose control over information, we lose significant control over how others
perceive and treat us.” Of course, how much control a person should have, and over what
information, is contested. In addition, most privacy advocates believe there is a right to
privacy although the grounds and status of the right are controversial (see rights).
In discussing privacy on the Internet one needs to deal with the fact that people
seem willing to give up control over almost all information about them. Some people
have anonymous identities on the Internet. I am not referring to them. Rather, I am
referring to people who provide their real names and often their pictures as well.
People post videos of themselves doing all kinds of stupid or boring things on
YouTube or Facebook. Rather than valuing privacy, many of these people seem to be
exhibitionists. Recently the phenomenon of sexting has developed where teenagers
send nude pictures of themselves to others by cell phone sometimes at the request of
others and sometimes without the request. All this behavior has bad consequences.
Sexting can bring one afoul of child pornography laws. Even excessive partying or
other inane behavior can be accessed by potential employers and cost one a job.
Such promiscuity regarding personal information undermines one of the great
benefits of privacy. As Rachels (1975) has argued, privacy is necessary to distinguish
one’s friends and lovers from others. By providing intimate details for all the world
to see, people blur the distinction between their intimate relationships and casual
relationships. You can see this when people on Facebook have hundreds of “friends.”
Too Much Privacy

Even admitting that many individuals seem unconcerned about their privacy as Inter-
net users, one could also argue that there is too much privacy on the Internet. As the
Internet has developed, the service providers have allowed its users to have
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee147
2
many different identities. Many people on the Internet use fictitious names and develop
fictitious identities. Chat rooms are ubiquitous on the Internet. Chat rooms give like-
minded people the opportunity to communicate with one another. Members of a sup-
port group can thus communicate with one another without providing their real
identities. This anonymity can be much more problematic when one is trying to date or
make friends through the Internet. Thus 14-year-old Jane Smith might really be 40-year-
old married John Smith. Young teenage girls in the chat room have no idea with whom
they are communicating. This anonymity has caused great concern to parents.
The anonymity issue goes beyond deception and the dangers of sexual predators.
As partisan politics has reached a fever pitch in the United States, there have been
outrageous attacks on politicians by anonymous persons. Not only is it difficult to
identify the actual person who wrote the attack pieces, but it is also difficult to deter-
mine the real source of the attacks. Partisans have been known to follow their political
enemies on the campaign trail and to record every sentence or reference that may
reflect unfavorably on the candidate. This image is then broadcast on the Internet.
Indeed, with advances in digital photography and the manipulation of images it is
even possible to manufacture a situation where a politician appears to do something
wrong, but in fact was never even present. The digital image was made up by pasting
diverse images together. This actually occurred during the 2004 presidential election
campaign when a photo appeared showing Jane Fonda and John Kerry speaking
together at an anti-Vietnam war rally. In fact they never spoke together at any anti-
Vietnam war rally.
Laws against deception and slander are ineffective in dealing with these kinds of
incidents. Libel and slander in cyberspace are almost impossible to regulate. In 1996
Congress passed regulation that immunizes websites against the speech of individu-
als (see speech, freedom of). The rationale: companies should not be held respon-
sible for the actions of individual users. But even if the speech were not protected by
law it would be hard to do anything about slander and libel. After all, the identities
of the perpetrators are hidden.
In addition to libel and slander is the issue of cyberbullying. There are numerous
anonymous message boards. One of the more insidious is /b/, which is part of
4chan.org, a group of message boards that draws almost 200 million viewers a
month. Sites like /b/ are used by Internet “trolls” who use the annonymity provided
to harrass, humiliate, and torment strangers (Schwartz 2008). One may recall the
case of 13-year-old Megan Meier who hanged herself after receiving cruel messages
from what she thought was a virtual boyfriend. The real author of the messages was
the mother of one of Megan’s girl friends. Cyberbullying is an egregious case of a
lack of computer ethics (see computer ethics).
Too Little Privacy

Although the use of anonymous identities may provide too much privacy, there are
lots of cases where there is too little privacy. Early in the history of the Internet, service
providers were able to access personal information about people and provide it to
3
third parties. Later, either the service providers or the third parties were able to obtain
information about an individual on the Internet through cookies or various kinds of
spyware. As a result of criticism about these practices, some service providers or
destination sites gave individual users the right to opt out of any arrangement that
provided data about them to third parties. Similar opt-out provisions were offered to
those who received unrequested email commercials advertising various products and
services. Somewhat surprisingly, even when given the opportunity to opt out from
receiving certain emails or having an email business send their personal data to other
email businesses, many do not choose to do so. To the extent that this is a problem, the
problem is less severe in the European Union, because the European Union has laws
that require that you opt in if personal information is to be shared among businesses.
The first thing to realize is how much information about any individual is
available on the Internet. After Justice Scalia made some disparaging remarks
about privacy and the Internet in 2009, students in a law class at Fordham University
were able to use the Internet to compile a 15-page dossier on Scalia including the
Justice’s home address, home phone number, his wife’s personal email address, and
the TV shows and food he prefers (Cohen 2009).
For those concerned about privacy, it is possible instruct your computer to disable
cookies. However, most sites, including ones you really want to use, will not func-
tion well, or at all, if the cookies are disabled. Cookies that track your journeys on
the Internet and provide invaluable knowledge to marketers are just a part of using
the Internet. In using the Internet you lose control over information about your site
preferences and this loss of control often occurs without your knowledge. After all,
the cookies do not announce their presence. Loss of control of information about
you without your knowledge is a paradigm case of a loss of privacy.
The theft of private information by hacking into computers is a serious issue. In
2005, 40 million MasterCard and Visa card account numbers were stolen (Keen
2007). Identity theft often occurs by illegitimately obtaining information, especially
social security numbers from data files stored on computers or by deceiving Internet
users to provide these social security numbers. Our privacy can only be protected if
there is adequate security.
The protection of privacy raises special security issues and thus issues of busi-
ness ethics for firms like Google, Yahoo, and AOL (see business ethics). Keen
(2007) points out that in 2005 Google and Yahoo performed 2.7 and 1.8 billion
unique searches respectively. These search engines have no legal obligation to
upgrade information and to delete old files. For some time Google allowed the
Chinese to censor material coming into China but in March 2010, after successful
attempts had been made to hack into Google’s files to obtain the names of dissi-
dents among other details, Google relocated its Chinese operation to Hong Kong.
This move did little to protect Chinese Internet users since Baidu has no intention
of leaving China.
To illustrate this point further consider Mary Kalin-Casey and her cat. She
complained to Google about Google’s map service. When she found her street, she
also could see her cat sitting in her apartment window. She believed she had lost
4
control of information about her. One might argue that if people walking by her
window could see her cat, what is the difference if anyone on Google Earth could
see her cat? First, who would be interested and, second, if information about her
cat is not private to those walking by why should it be private to those using
Google Earth?
However, there are far more serious moral issues at stake here. Technology
provides Internet users with plenty of opportunity to post material such as pic-
tures that invade privacy. On Halloween Day 2006, an 18-year-old Californian girl
was killed in a car accident. The accident was so gruesome that the coroner would
not allow her parents to identify the body. Yet within a short time there were nine
photos on the Internet – one showing her nearly decapitated head drooping out
the shattered window of her father’s Porsche. The photos had been leaked by two
California Highway Patrol dispatchers. Once they were on the Internet, various
websites picked them up including some pornographic sites that specialize in
death. The girl’s parents tried to get the websites to take them down but they had
no legal authority to make them comply. The parents sued the California Highway
Patrol but their suit was dismissed. The judged described the dispatchers’ behavior
as “utterly reprehensible” but concluded that it did not violate any law (Bennett
2009). That decision was overruled in appeal but it has in turn been appealed to
the California Supreme Court. This case illustrates many of the issues regarding
lack of privacy on the Internet. The parents lost control of highly intimate infor-
mation about a family member. In addition, once the information was lost, it was
used for evil ends. Finally, the family as yet has no legal or practical means for
ending the abuse.
Current Regulations and Possible Solutions

Although regulation is not sufficient, there are some laws in effect that do protect
privacy on the Internet. The most extensive regulations protecting privacy are the
standards of the European Union. The United States could enact regulations that
bring it up to the European Union standards. Note that one US “law” sometimes
cited as the Internet Privacy Act allegedly signed by President Clinton in 1995 does
not exist. Computer professionals can take more seriously the Code of Professional
Conduct of the Association for Computing Machinery that specifies, “It is the
responsibility of professionals to maintain the privacy and integrity of data describ-
ing individuals” (Johnson 2001). Regulations that require more disclosure to Inter-
net users regarding the collection, amount, and disposition of personal information
collected would be very useful. Finally, more must be done to educate Internet users
about the value of privacy and the means for protecting it. It should be noted, how-
ever, that privacy on the Internet was a concern from the beginning of the Internet
and approximately 40 years later this issue is more serious than ever.
See also: autonomy; business ethics; computer ethics; privacy; rights; speech,
freedom of
5
REFERENCES
Bennett, Jessica 2009. “A Tragedy that Won’t Fade Away,” Newsweek, May 4.
Cohen, Noam 2009. “Law Students Teach Scalia about Privacy and the Web,” New York Times,
May 18.
Johnson, Deborah 2001. Computer Ethics, 3rd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, Ch. 5.
Keen, Andrew 2007. The Cult of the Amateur. New York: Doubleday.
Rachels, James 1975. “Why Privacy is Important,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 4, pp. 323–33.
Schwartz, Mattathias 2008. “Inside the World of Trolls Who Use the Internet to Harass,
Humiliate, and Torment Strangers,” New York Times Magazine, August 3, pp. 24–9.
FURTHER READINGS
De George, Richard T. 2003. The Ethics of Information Technology and Business. Malden, MA:
Blackwell.
Kupfer, Joseph 1987. “Privacy, Autonomy, and Self-Concept,” American Philosophical
Lessig, Lawrence 1999. Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace. New York: Basic Books.
Reiman, Jeffrey H. 1995. “Driving to the Panopticon: A Philosophical Exploration of the
Risks to Privacy Posed by the Highway Technology of the Future,” Computer and High
Technology Law Journal, vol. 11, pp. 27–44.
Zittrain, Jonathan 2008. The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It. New Haven: Yale
University Press.
1
Allocating Scarce Medical Resources

Terrance McConnell
When discussing the allocation of medical resources, it is common to distinguish

between macroallocation and microallocation. The former refers to an entire system
of healthcare; it determines who gets access to what healthcare and on the basis of
what criteria (see healthcare resources, distribution of). Here the focus is on
microallocation. Within any system of healthcare, particular resources will
(sometimes) be scarce. When that occurs, decisions must be made (see justice).
Anticipating the kind of situations that are apt to arise and thinking about them in
advance is likely to make any decisions more ethically sound.
Examples
There are multiple examples of issues that involve the allocation of scarce medical
resources. First, consider situations of triage. Natural disasters, such as earthquakes,
hurricanes, and tsunamis, can create situations in which many people need help. But
when there is a limited number of trained personnel and materials necessary for
helping the victims, only some can be assisted. Human-made disasters, too, can
create circumstances in which medical resources are scarce. Examples include the
bombing of a building and an act of arson. In situations of triage, many need help
but not all can be helped because of a shortage of time and trained workers.
Organs for transplantation provide a second example (see organ transplanta-
tion). In all countries that perform organ transplantations, the number of people in
need of organs exceeds the supply available. In the United States alone, the waiting
list is over 100,000 persons (see the website of the United Network for Organ Sharing
at www.unos.org.). Thus when a kidney, a heart, a pancreas, or some other life-
sustaining organ becomes available, more than one person could benefit from
receiving it. Each person who needs the organ can have his or her life extended, but
only one of the many can be benefited (see life, value of).
Access to a spot in a research protocol can be a third example of a scarce medical
resource (see research ethics). If an individual has a serious medical condition for
which there is no effective treatment and if there is an extant protocol testing an
intervention that may be helpful for this problem, then many afflicted with that mal-
ady will want to participate in the research. In all likelihood, however, there will be
more people who have the disorder than there are slots in the protocol. This issue
most commonly arises when the medical condition is fatal. We saw this in the 1980s
and 1990s with HIV and AIDS. Planning for and dealing with a pandemic provides
a fourth example where medical resources are scarce. An outbreak of a severe strain
of influenza will create stress on the healthcare system in multiple ways. If there is a
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee148
2
vaccine for this particular strain, society will have to decide who gets it first, and if
the supply is short who gets it at all (see vaccination policies). When an outbreak
commences, hospital beds, ventilators, and the like are apt to be in great demand.
This explains why nations and organizations engage in advance planning for such
catastrophes.
Competing Values
Allocating scarce medical resources was one of the first topics debated during the
advent of modern bioethics (see bioethics). To begin, it is worth noting why this
issue is both painful to face and difficult to resolve. At the practical level, physicians
who must allocate scarce resources can no longer focus only on the interests of the
individual patient. In some sense, the interests of their patients are in competition.
This creates angst because the usual norms governing medicine cannot be followed.
This issue is difficult to resolve at the social level because several well-known posi-
tions were established early in the debate and fundamental values underlie each of
these positions (see value pluralism).
Keeping the above examples in mind, here we shall mention just four variables
that may influence what we think is the proper decision in a particular case. First,
the loss to those not selected (or the gain of the recipients) may differ from candidate
to candidate (see cost–benefit analysis). In situations of triage, for example, some
may be facing imminent death unless treatment is administered. Others may face
loss of limb, and still others may simply have to deal with pain. It is clearly valuable
to save lives, valuable to save limbs, and valuable to alleviate pain. But in some situ-
ations, we must choose some of these at the expense of others.
Even if we think only of saving lives, a second variable is the life expectancy of
those in need. Perhaps without treatment, each will likely die soon. But even with
treatment, some may have a much shorter life expectancy than others. So if the pri-
mary goal is to save lives, some will think that maximizing that value – life years
saved – dictates favoring those potential recipients who are likely to live longer with
treatment.
Related to this is a third variable – balancing immediate need versus long-term
prospects. Consider two people, each of whom needs a liver transplant in order to
live. One may be in dire straits, judged by her physician to have no longer than one
week to live without the transplant. The other may not yet have such an immediate
need, but were he to receive a liver transplant now, his prospects for living a long and
healthy life will be much better than those of the woman facing imminent death. In
discussions of organ transplantation, giving priority to those whose demise is
imminent is called the “rescue rule.” But an alternative view, one with more of a
utilitarian bent, advocates selecting recipients with an eye toward maximizing
healthy life years (see utilitarianism).
A fourth way in which situations involving the allocation of scarce medical
resources are different concerns whether the end sought is the same for all. In some
cases, it is. When persons with a fatal illness seek access to an experimental protocol,
3
each is hoping for a cure or at least an extension of life. And all of those waiting for
a liver transplant hope to ward off death. By contrast, those vying for treatment in an
emergency may have very different needs, ranging from relief of pain to prevention
of death. This variable suggests that it may be neither necessary nor desirable to use
the same criteria for the allocation of scarce medical resources in all cases. Different
types of situations may appropriately call for different criteria.
With this many variables, it is not surprising that people might disagree about
what criteria should be employed in making decisions. One important question is
whether the potentially conflicting values are commensurable. It might be easy to
say that the value of saving one person’s life is greater than preventing another from
suffering for ten minutes. But how do we compare one person’s losing mobility with
20 people each suffering intensely for hours? At some point reasonable people will
disagree about how best to adjudicate such conflicts.
A Historical Case
What is probably the best-known case of allocating scarce medical resources is the
one that arguably initiated the modern era of bioethics (Winslow 1982: 11–22; Jonsen
1998: 211–17). In 1960, Dr. Belding Scribner developed a shunt that allowed patients
with kidney disease to undergo hemodialysis on an outpatient basis many times with-
out having to undergo repeated surgeries. This technology enabled Scribner to keep
patients alive indefinitely who otherwise would have died of kidney failure. But as
with most new medical interventions, dialysis was available only to relatively few peo-
ple. Cost and an absence of trained personnel were two factors that made this resource
scarce. Scribner was part of a group that established a kidney center at the Swedish
Hospital in Seattle. He and his colleagues knew that demand for dialysis would greatly
exceed the supply. As a result, they set up the Admissions and Policy Committee,
made up of laypersons and some physicians, to formulate criteria for selecting patients
to whom dialysis would be offered. Before any criteria were developed, the demand
was such that only 1 of every 50 candidates could be selected. But some criteria of
exclusion quickly narrowed the field. The Committee decided to accept only resi-
dents of Washington State because taxpayers’ money had been used to support the
research. In addition, children and persons over 45 years old were excluded on
grounds that others would better be able to tolerate the rigors of dialysis. Even after
this, only about 1 in 4 candidates could be accepted. How were these choices made?
The Committee considered letting luck alone determine who received access to
dialysis. This was the option of “casting lots.” In the end, they rejected that and
instead attempted to determine each patient’s “social worth.” Those granted access
were persons judged to be the most worthy. Among the factors that the Committee
believed were relevant in determining social worth were age, sex, marital status,
occupation, education, number of dependents, income, and past contributions to
society. The work of this Committee was brought to the attention of the public in
an article published in the popular Life (Alexander 1962). This prompted a public
discussion of two questions: Who should decide? And by what criteria?
4
By the late 1960s, the vast majority of the 87 renal centers in the United States
allowed physicians to choose who would get dialysis; only eight facilities had lay
committees (Winslow 1982: 16–17). This was in line with the still-dominant medi-
cal paternalism of the time. It was not always clear what standards were used for
selection, but the majority of those picked were white, married, middle-aged men.
The problem of making these decisions remained until, in 1972, the passage of the
End-Stage Renal Disease Amendment to the Social Security Act. This guaranteed
federal funds for any renal patients who lacked private insurance; in effect, it was
universal care for one medical condition.
Competing Views
This historical episode provides a nice illustration of competing positions on the
issue of allocating scarce medical resources. This issue is felt most acutely when
those not selected likely will die soon. Initially a sharp divide occurs between those
who say that humans should not make decisions like this and those who hold that
only deliberate decisions are responsible. The former usually favor what is called the
“lottery method.” Patients who get access to lifesaving resources should be
determined by luck alone. This can be accomplished either by implementing a literal
lottery or by adopting a policy of “first come, first served.” When the issue is con-
tinuous and ongoing – such as allocating organs for transplantation – “first come,
first served” is the most feasible version of the lottery method. When the issue is
episodic – such as access to a research protocol for a fatal disease – a literal lottery
may be possible. But either way, luck is the determinate. The latter – choosing
deliberately – requires that explicit criteria be developed. The criteria, of course,
indicate what values should be promoted by the distribution of the resource. The
Committee at the Swedish Hospital selected recipients based on what it perceived as
“social worth.” The idea was to determine what each of the various candidates
contributes to society and to select those who contribute the most.
Each of these competing views usually stipulates that there must be some sort of
medical screening to determine who can even be considered as a candidate. Thus, in
order to be eligible to receive a liver transplant, an individual must have a disease of
that organ and must be judged as someone for whom a transplant would be
restorative.
What has become the classic defense of the lottery method was advanced by James
Childress (1970). Childress argues that the lottery method comports with important
values endorsed by most, and that any version of the social-worth view conflicts
with these values. In particular, the lottery method dramatically expresses society’s
belief in the equality of people (see equality), promotes trust between patients and
healthcare providers, and results in better attitudes among those not chosen to
receive the resource (see impartiality). Objections to the lottery method have
focused on two main areas. First, in some situations the goal of saving as many
people as possible can best be achieved only if selected individuals are given priority.
Those planning for influenza epidemics often stipulate that healthcare providers be
5
among the first to receive inoculation. This is not because they are judged to be
better than others; rather, they have the expertise to help others, and if they contract
the disease they will spread it to many others. Second, some object that selected
individuals should be excluded as potential recipients of a scarce resource. For
example, if an individual has been convicted of a crime and is serving a prison sen-
tence, critics contend that he should not be eligible for an organ transplant. Similarly,
some say that if we can plausibly hold that an individual is responsible for her own
medical condition, then she should not be eligible for the scarce resource.
While there can be many versions of the social-worth view, the best-known one
has been articulated by Nicolas Rescher (1969). Rescher is indirectly defending the
approach to allocating scarce medical resources that was taken by the Committee at
the Swedish Hospital. He suggests that when the demand for the resource greatly
outstrips the supply, the decision procedure should be in two stages. The first stage
is designed to narrow the field to a workable number; at the second stage, additional
criteria are used to select recipients from those candidates remaining. Standards
used in the first stage are called criteria of inclusion. Rescher defends three criteria
of inclusion: the constituency factor (giving preference to the natural clientele of the
institution distributing the resource), the prospect-of-success factor (giving
preference to those who have a greater chance of recovery), and the progress-in-
science factor (giving preference to those whose inclusion will likely yield medical
knowledge that will better inform future decisions). The first of these criteria of
inclusion (indirectly) promotes the value of benefiting as many people as possible;
the latter two criteria advance (directly or indirectly) the value of life years gained
(McConnell 1997: 219–20). In allocating scarce medical resources, it is not only
proper, but mandatory, for society to attempt to maximize the number of citizens
helped and the number of life years extended.
Standards employed at the second stage are called criteria of comparison; they are
used to make fine-grained comparisons among the remaining candidates to select
the recipients. The relative-likelihood-of-success factor asks who, among those who
have the same condition, is more likely to recover fully if given the resource. The
life-expectancy factor takes into account considerations in addition to the medical
condition to determine who is likely to live longer. Age, the presence of other
illnesses, and lifestyle are among the things that affect life expectancy. Utilizing these
two criteria of comparison promotes life years gained. A candidate’s family role
(especially number of dependents), potential future contributions, and actual past
contributions are additional criteria of comparison endorsed by Rescher. Their
employment will maximize the number of people benefited by the resource
(McConnell 1997: 220–1). Defenders of this sort of social-worth view are committed
to the claims that society ought to benefit as many people as possible, that society
ought to maximize the number of life years gained, and that it is justifiable to make
deliberate decisions among patients in order to achieve these ends. Rescher is aware
that these two criteria can conflict. In such a case, there need not be a uniquely
correct solution; each society may decide for itself.
6
Messy Reality
Anticipating an outbreak of the swine flu during 2009–10, the Advisory Committee
on Immunization Practices (of the Center for Disease Control in the United States)
recommended that pregnant women, healthcare workers, children 6 months through
4 years of age, and children 5 and older with chronic medical conditions be the first
to have access to vaccinations for the expected strain of flu (H1N1). Healthcare
workers are included because they will be interacting constantly with the sick and
vulnerable; pregnant women and children are at the top because of their own vul-
nerability. Even though older individuals may have compromised immune systems,
it is likely that they have immunity based on prior exposure to the virus. There is no
indication that importance to society was ever considered for preference. Other than
healthcare providers on the front line, there is no way to know who is most likely to
be exposed to the virus. Favoring the vulnerable thus maximizes the likelihood of
saving lives.
In situations of triage, patients are typically put into one of three categories: those
who cannot be saved regardless of effort, those whose lives can be saved but only if
treatment is administered immediately, and those who can be saved even if treat-
ment is delayed for a significant period of time. Those judged to be in the first
category are given neither the time of healthcare practitioners nor any medical
interventions; individuals in the second category are treated first; persons in the
third category are assisted only after all of those in the second have been assisted.
Situations of triage are likely to be chaotic and providers’ knowledge of the victims
is apt to be scant. So even if appealing to the social worth of the candidates were
tempting, it is not feasible in these situations.
For someone with a fatal disease for which there is no treatment, access to a
research protocol searching for such a cure may be seen as a valuable resource. But
for those conducting the research, the view is different. Even with a phase III rand-
omized clinical trial, it is not treatment that is being offered to the participants. To
begin, in most cases half of the subjects will be randomized to the control group
where they will receive the current (nonoptimal) treatment or a placebo. Even those
randomized to the experimental group, however, are receiving something not yet
known to be effective or completely safe. Since the first goal of these trials is to
produce knowledge, researchers may select as participants those who will best facil-
itate that end. Not only will those selected have to be diagnosed with the condition
in question, but presumably in some cases those who are otherwise healthy will be
better for measuring the real efficacy of the treatment. Here too there is no appeal to
social worth, for it has no relevance to the main purpose of the trials. People are
selected who will best enable researchers to test adequately the new drug or treat-
ment. But if more fit this description than there are slots available, researchers can
recognize that candidates covet such spots and can strive to allocate them fairly. This
would likely result in implementing something like a “first come, first served” policy.
Of our four examples, appealing to the worth of the candidates is probably most
tempting in the case of allocating organs for transplantation. The practicalities of
7
these cases are different from the previous three. Persons in need of a kidney, liver,
heart, pancreas, or some other life-sustaining organ will be diagnosed, tested, and
then placed on a waiting list. There is in principle time for various kinds of evalua-
tions of the candidates and their lives. Even within the past two years (as this is
written), scholars have debated whether alcoholics should be denied equal access to
liver transplantations because they are responsible for their own condition (Ho
2008; Thornton 2009). While we cannot hope to resolve this dispute here, we will
mention one historically important criticism of appealing to candidates’ worth.
First performed more than a century ago, George Bernard Shaw’s The Doctor’s
Dilemma portrays Dr. Colenso Ridgeon dealing with the issue of allocating scarce
medical resources. Ridgeon believes that he has developed an inoculation for tuber-
culosis. But at the beginning of the twentieth century, the setting of this play, the
demand for this resource was much greater than the supply. Ridgeon says that ini-
tially he had to choose 10 recipients from a group of 50 candidates. He makes it clear
that he utilized two specific criteria in selecting the 10. “In every one of those ten
cases I have had to consider, not only whether the man could be saved, but whether
he was worth saving” (Shaw 1957: 118). Ridgeon’s first criterion is an up or down
standard. If the candidate can be saved, he is still in the running; if he cannot be
saved, he is eliminated. The second criterion – that of worth – allows for degrees.
As the play develops, Ridgeon encounters two more candidates for the inoculation:
one, a struggling young artist, Louis Dubedat; the other, an aging general practitioner,
Dr. Blenkinsop. Ridgeon called on several of his fellow physicians to help resolve
whom to choose. All were enamored with Louis Dubedat’s art and charm. But as they
pooled their knowledge, they discovered that he had tried to borrow money from
several of them, in each case telling a different tale. He also had lied, had made anti-
Semitic remarks, and had stolen a gold cigarette case. By contrast, Blenkinsop was an
upright and honest man; but Ridgeon and his pretentious friends thought little of his
work because he served principally indigent patients. One of Ridgeon’s friends stated
the new dilemma starkly: “Well, Mr. Savior of Lives: Which is it to be? That honest
decent man Blenkinsop, or that rotten blackguard of an artist, eh?” (Shaw 1957: 135).
It takes Ridgeon until the end of Act II to realize that his second criterion is ambigu-
ous. “Worth” can be understood to refer to one’s contributions to society, or it may
indicate that one has a good moral character. These two do not always coincide.
One can read Shaw’s play as a criticism of the social-worth theory. Using Ridgeon
and his friends as representative of humanity, Shaw shows audiences that people are
morally, epistemically, and logically too flawed to distribute lifesaving resources
according to worth (McConnell 2008: 95–100). Others have made more theoretical
criticisms of this view. Paul Ramsey argues that because all human lives are of equal
value, any attempt to save some because of superior worthiness is unethical (Ramsey
1970: 252–6). John Rawls (see rawls, john) rejects allocating resources based on
social contributions because no one deserves her natural endowments (1971: 103–4).
Rawls similarly rejects appeals to moral desert on grounds that this notion is
secondary to and derived from the more fundamental concepts of right and justice
(1971: 310–11). The American Medical Association also rejects the social-worth
8
account (American Medical Association 2008). It says that in distributing limited

medical resources, it is only appropriate to consider criteria related to medical need,
such as “likelihood of benefit, urgency of need, change in quality of life, duration of
benefit, and, in some cases, the amount of resources required for successful treat-
ment.” Specifically factors that should not be considered include “ability to pay, age,
social worth, perceived obstacles to treatment, patient contribution to illness, or past
use of resources.” If, when considering medical need, there are no substantial differ-
ences among potential recipients, then allocation should be based on “first come,
first served” or some other equal-opportunity mechanism.
Conclusion
It seems that all agree that medical suitability is necessary before one is eligible for a
scarce medical resource; this merely means that one can benefit from the resource.
Most also agree that in most circumstances, neither social contributions nor moral
worth can feasibly be employed to select recipients. The one case where there is
disagreement about this is in the allocation of organs for transplantation. But that
still leaves multiple goods that may be promoted. In situations of triage, with the
inherent limitations, it is hard to put any value ahead of “number of lives saved.” In
preparing for an epidemic, protecting the most vulnerable and those who can help
others seems compelling. There is less agreement about access to organs for trans-
plantation; perhaps this is because more options seem feasible and the question at
issue is so basic.
See also: bioethics; cost–benefit analysis; equality; healthcare

resources, distribution of; impartiality; justice; life, value of; organ
transplantation; rawls, john; research ethics; utilitarianism;
vaccination policies; value pluralism
REFERENCES
Alexander, Shana 1962. “They Decide Who Lives, Who Dies,” Life, vol. 53, pp. 102–25.
American Medical Association 2008. “Allocation of Limited Medical Resources,” in Code of
Medical Ethics of the American Medical Association. Chicago: American Medical
Association, pp. 9–10.
Childress, James 1970. “Who Shall Live When Not All Can Live?” Soundings, vol. 43,
pp. 339–55.
Ho, Dien 2008. “When Good Organs Go to Bad People,” Bioethics, vol. 22, pp. 77–83.
Jonsen, Albert 1998. The Birth of Bioethics. New York: Oxford University Press.
McConnell, Terrance 1997. Moral Issues in Health Care, 2nd ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
McConnell, Terrance 2008. “Allocating Scarce Medical Resources by Worth: Shaw’s Critique
in The Doctor’s Dilemma,” Journal of Value Inquiry, vol. 42, pp. 91–103.
Ramsey, Paul 1970. The Patient as Person. New Haven: Yale University Press.
9
Rescher, Nicolas 1969. “The Allocation of Exotic Lifesaving Medical Therapy,” Ethics, vol. 79,
pp. 173–86.
Shaw, George Bernard 1957 [1911]. The Doctor’s Dilemma. London: Penguin.
Thornton, V. 2009. “Who Gets the Liver Transplant? The Use of Responsibility as the Tie
Breaker,” Journal of Medical Ethics, vol. 35, pp. 739–42.
Winslow, Gerald 1982. Triage and Justice. Berkeley: University of California Press.
FURTHER READINGS
Beauchamp, Tom, and James Childress 2008. Principles of Biomedical Ethics. New York:
Daniels, Norman, and James Sabin 2008. Setting Limits Fairly. New York: Oxford University
Press.
Dresser, Rebecca 2001. When Science Offers Salvation. New York: Oxford University Press.
Kilner, John 1990. Who Lives? Who Dies? New Haven: Yale University Press.
Ubel, Peter 2000. Price of Life: Why It’s Time for Health Care Rationing. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press.
Veatch, Robert 2000. Transplantation Ethics. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Veatch, Robert 2005. “Disaster Preparedness and Triage: Justice and the Common Good,”
Mount Sinai Journal of Medicine, vol. 72, pp. 236–41.
Veatch, Robert, Amy Haddad, and Dan English 2010. Case Studies in Biomedical Ethics.
1
Imperatives, Logic of
Peter B. M. Vranas
Suppose that a sign at the entrance of a restaurant reads: “Do not enter these prem-
ises unless you have a reservation and you are properly attired.” You see someone
who is properly attired and is about to enter, and you tell her: “Don’t enter these
premises if you don’t have a reservation.” She asks why, and you reply: “It follows
from what the sign says.” It seems that you made a valid inference from an impera-
tive premise to an imperative conclusion. But it also seems that imperatives cannot
be true or false; so in what sense is your inference valid? Its validity cannot consist
in the truth of its premise guaranteeing the truth of its conclusion. One is thus faced
with “Jørgensen’s dilemma” (Ross 1941: 55–6): apparently imperative logic cannot
exist, because logic deals only with entities that, unlike imperatives, can be true or
false; but apparently imperative logic must exist. It must exist not only because
inferences with imperatives can be valid, but also because imperatives (like “Enter”
and “Don’t enter”) can be inconsistent with each other, and because one can apply
logical operations to imperatives: “Don’t enter” is the negation of “Enter,” and “Sing
or dance” is the disjunction of “Sing” and “Dance.” A standard reaction to this
dilemma consists in basing imperative logic on analogues of truth and falsity. For
example, the imperative “Don’t enter” is satisfied if you don’t enter and is violated if
you enter, and one might say that an inference from an imperative premise to an
imperative conclusion is valid exactly if the satisfaction (rather than the truth) of the
premise guarantees the satisfaction of the conclusion. Imperative logic may matter
for metaethics (see metaethics): if one understands moral claims as disguised
imperatives (see prescriptivism) and thus as lacking truth values (see non-
cognitivism), then imperative logic may help explain how inferences involving
moral claims can be valid (see frege–geach objection). But before getting into the
details of imperative logic, more needs to be said about what exactly imperatives are.
The Nature of Imperatives

The word “statement” is arguably ambiguous between designating a declarative
sentence and designating what (an utterance of) such a sentence typically expresses,
namely a proposition. Similarly, the word “imperative” is arguably ambiguous between
designating an imperative sentence and designating what (an utterance of) such a sen-
tence typically expresses, namely a prescription. Some people deny that propositions
exist; similarly, some people may deny that prescriptions exist. But if one accepts that
propositions and prescriptions exist, the following is natural to say. A proposition can
be expressed by performing the speech acts of asserting, conjecturing, admitting,
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee149
2
predicting, and so on. Similarly, a prescription can be expressed by performing the

speech acts of commanding, advising, requesting, suggesting, and so on. Distinct
imperative sentences, for example the English sentence “Enter” and the French sen-
tence “Entrez,” can express the same prescription. A prescription can be expressed by
a declarative sentence (for example, “You will now leave”), and a proposition can be
expressed by an imperative sentence (for example, “Marry in haste and repent at lei-
sure”). Propositions are the primary – and declarative sentences are secondary – bearers
of the semantic values of truth and falsity; similarly, prescriptions are the primary –
and imperative sentences are secondary – bearers of whatever semantic values they
have. Now three questions arise. (1) What are the semantic values of prescriptions? (2)
What kinds of prescriptions are there? (3) How are prescriptions to be modeled for the
purposes of logic? The rest of this section considers these three questions in order.
The semantic values of prescriptions

There is widespread – though not universal – agreement that prescriptions cannot
be true or false (for references, see Vranas 2008: 552). Two main analogues of truth
have been proposed for prescriptions (and for imperative sentences): bindingness
and satisfaction. The prescription expressed by (addressing to you the imperative
sentence) “Go” is – all things considered – binding exactly if there is some – undefeated –
reason for you to go; it is satisfied exactly if you go, and violated exactly if you
don’t go. The prescription expressed by “If it rains, run” is satisfied if it rains and you
run, is violated if it rains and you don’t run, and is avoided (neither satisfied nor
violated) if it doesn’t rain. (Some people deny that prescriptions can ever be avoided,
and they would say that the prescription expressed by “If it rains, run” is satisfied if
it doesn’t rain [see Dummett 1959: 150–1].) One might want to distinguish satisfac-
tion from obedience (that is, intentional satisfaction) by saying for example that, if
you get out not because I ordered you to get out (suppose you did not hear me) but
rather because you wanted to get out anyway, then my order is satisfied but not
obeyed. But the imperative sentence “Get out” might express a prescription that is
satisfied exactly if you get out, no matter for what reason (and thus is satisfied in
the above example); and the sentence might also express a prescription that is satis-
fied exactly if you get out because I order you to do so (and thus is not satisfied in
the above example). So there is no need to invoke a distinction between satisfaction
and obedience in response to the above example; one can instead invoke a distinc-
tion between two prescriptions that the imperative sentence “Get out” might express
(see Vranas 2008: 534).
Kinds of prescriptions
Call a prescription (or an imperative sentence) personal exactly if its satisfaction
requires the performance of an action, and call it impersonal otherwise. For example,
the prescription expressed by “Someone turn off the light” is personal – it is satisfied
only if someone performs the action of turning off the light; but the prescription
3
expressed by “Let there be no light in the room” is impersonal – it is satisfied even if

no one performs any action but the room goes dark due to a power failure. (Personal
imperative sentences are also known as directives, and impersonal imperative
sentences are also known as fiats [see Hofstadter and McKinsey 1939: 446]. Some
people deny that fiats exist.) Unlike “Someone turn off the light,” some personal
prescriptions are satisfied only if a particular agent or group of agents performs an
action; for example, “Max, turn off the light.” Some people (for references, see Vranas
2008: 555) deny the existence of unsatisfiable prescriptions (“Disprove the Pythago-
rean theorem”), of unviolable prescriptions (“Don’t disprove the Pythagorean
theorem”), or of prescriptions about the past (“Open the door yesterday”).
Models of prescriptions
Some people propose identifying prescriptions with propositions (or imperative
sentences with declarative ones), but such proposals are subject to numerous objec-
tions (Hamblin 1987: 97–136). For example, one reason why “Run” cannot be iden-
tified with the deontic proposition (or sentence) “You must run” – and thus one
reason why imperative logic differs from deontic logic – is that “You must run,”
unlike “Run,” entails that there is a (normative) reason for you to run (see deontic
logic). (This is not to say that whenever someone – or the law – says “You must
run” there is a reason for you to run; it is rather to say that, necessarily, if it is true
that you must run, then there is a reason for you to run. Still, some people deny the
entailment.)
Other people propose modeling prescriptions (or imperative sentences) in terms
of two factors: a factor – sometimes called a mood indicator – indicating that some-
thing is being prescribed, and a factor – sometimes called a sentence radical –
indicating what is being prescribed (see Hare 1952; Stenius 1967). An objection to
such proposals is that they do not adequately model conditional prescriptions: it
seems that “If it rains, run” should be modeled in terms of two “sentence radicals,”
one corresponding to “It rains” and one corresponding to “Run.” (This is because the
prescription “If it rains, run” is avoided if it doesn’t rain, but a prescription modeled
in terms of a single sentence radical is never avoided: it is satisfied or violated,
depending on whether the sentence radical is true or false.)
Vranas (2008) models a prescription as an ordered pair of logically incompatible
propositions, namely the satisfaction proposition and the violation proposition of the
prescription; he defines the context of a prescription as the disjunction of those two
propositions, and the avoidance proposition as the negation of the context. Vranas
also defines a prescription as being unconditional exactly if its avoidance proposition
is (logically) impossible (equivalently, its violation proposition is the negation of its
satisfaction proposition), and as being conditional exactly if it is not unconditional.
For example, the prescription expressed by “Run” is unconditional and the prescrip-
tion expressed by “If it rains, run” is conditional; the satisfaction proposition of the
latter prescription is the proposition that it rains and you run, the violation proposi-
tion is the proposition that it rains and you don’t run, the context is the proposition
4
that it rains, and the avoidance proposition is the proposition that it doesn’t rain.
Vranas’s account would be rejected by those who deny that prescriptions can ever be
avoided.
Logical Operators and Inconsistency

This section considers (1) negations, (2) conjunctions and disjunctions, (3) condi-
tionals and biconditionals, and (4) inconsistency.
Negations
It is natural to say that the negation of the unconditional prescription expressed by
“Dance” is the unconditional prescription expressed by “Don’t dance,” and that the
negation of the conditional prescription expressed by “If you sing, dance” is the
conditional prescription expressed by “If you sing, don’t dance.” (One might suggest
that the negation of “If you sing, dance” is “Don’t both sing and dance,” but this is the
negation of “Sing and dance.”) These examples motivate defining the negation of a
prescription I as the prescription that is satisfied exactly if I is violated and is violated
exactly if I is satisfied – and thus is avoided exactly if I is avoided (Storer 1946: 31).
(Assume that specifying satisfaction and violation conditions – and thus also avoidance
conditions – uniquely specifies a prescription.) This definition has the consequence
that the negation of the negation of a prescription I is just I. If, following Vranas
(2008), one models I as the ordered pair <S, V> of its satisfaction proposition S and
of its violation proposition V, then the negation of I is modeled as <V, S>.
Conjunctions and disjunctions

It is natural to say that the conjunction of the unconditional prescriptions expressed
by “Sing” and by “Dance” is the unconditional prescription expressed by “Sing and
dance.” This example suggests defining the conjunction of two prescriptions as the
prescription that is satisfied exactly if both conjuncts are satisfied and is violated
otherwise (see Hofstadter and McKinsey 1939: 448). Although this common defini-
tion works when both conjuncts are unconditional, it does not always work: it is
natural to say that the conjunction of the conditional prescriptions expressed by “If
you sing, dance” and by “If you don’t sing, dance” is the unconditional prescription
expressed by “Dance (whether or not you sing),” or just by “Dance,” and this
conjunction is satisfied even in some cases in which not both conjuncts are satisfied
(for example, if “If you sing, dance” is satisfied – in other words, you sing and you
dance – but “If you don’t sing, dance” is avoided – in other words, you sing). To avoid
such counterexamples, Vranas (2008: 538–41) proposes the following definition: the
conjunction of two prescriptions is the prescription that is avoided exactly if both
conjuncts are avoided and is violated exactly if at least one conjunct is violated (and,
as for every prescription, is satisfied exactly if it is neither violated nor avoided). For
example, on this definition the conjunction of “If you sing, dance” and “If you don’t
sing, dance” is “Dance,” because “Dance” is avoided exactly if both conjuncts are
5
avoided (that is, exactly if you both don’t sing and sing, so never) and is violated
exactly if at least one conjunct is violated (that is, exactly if you sing and you don’t
dance or you don’t sing and you don’t dance, so exactly if you don’t dance). (Vranas
[2008: 559] notes that this definition differs from usual definitions of conjunction in
three-valued logic.) Having defined conjunction and negation, one can define the
disjunction of two prescriptions so that analogues of de Morgan’s laws hold, namely
as the negation of the conjunction of the negations of the disjuncts (Vranas 2008:
541–3).
Conditionals and biconditionals

The conditional prescription expressed by “If you are happy, smile” can be thought
of as a conditional whose antecedent is the proposition expressed by “You are happy”
and whose consequent is the prescription expressed by “Smile.” This example moti-
vates defining the conditional whose antecedent is a proposition P and whose conse-
quent is a prescription I as the prescription that is satisfied exactly if both P is true
and I is satisfied and is violated exactly if both P is true and I is violated (Storer 1946:
31). Following Castañeda (1970: 441–3), one can then define biconditionals by
noting that, for example, the prescription expressed by “Smile if and only if you are
happy” is the conjunction of the prescriptions expressed by “Smile if you are happy”
and by “Smile only if you are happy,” and these two prescriptions are the conditionals
that can be expressed respectively by “If you are happy, smile” and by “If you are not
happy, don’t smile.”
Inconsistency
A common suggestion is that two prescriptions are inconsistent (with each other)
exactly if they are mutually satisfaction-exclusive; in other words, necessarily, they
are not both satisfied. Although this suggestion works when both prescriptions are
unconditional (say, “Dance” and “Don’t dance”), it does not always work. The con-
ditional prescriptions expressed by “If you sing, dance” and by “If you don’t sing,
don’t dance” are mutually satisfaction-exclusive – necessarily, it is not the case that
both (1) you sing and you dance and (2) you don’t sing and you don’t dance – but
they are clearly not inconsistent (Castañeda 1970: 443). To avoid this problem,
Vranas (2008: 545–6) suggests that two prescriptions are inconsistent exactly if they
are mutually nonviolation-exclusive; in other words, necessarily, they are not both
nonviolated (equivalently: necessarily, at least one of them is violated). (Mutual
nonviolation-exclusion entails mutual satisfaction-exclusion and, for unconditional
prescriptions, it is entailed by it.) On this suggestion, the prescriptions expressed by
“If you sing, dance” and by “If you don’t sing, don’t dance” are not inconsistent: if you
sing and you dance, then neither prescription is violated. Similarly, however, on this
suggestion the prescriptions expressed by “If you sing, dance” and by “If you sing,
don’t dance” are not inconsistent, although the one is the negation of the other.
Vranas (2008: 547) suggests that this result is correct because one can “comply” with
both prescriptions by not singing. Still, there is a tension between the
6
two prescriptions, and this can be captured by saying that they are conditionally
inconsistent: some (logically) possible proposition (say, the proposition that you
sing) entails that at least one of the two prescriptions is violated.
Imperative Arguments and Imperative Inferences

Distinguish imperative arguments from imperative inferences
An argument can be defined as an ordered pair whose first coordinate is a non-
empty set of propositions or prescriptions or both (the premises of the argu-
ment) and whose second coordinate is either a proposition or a prescription (the
conclusion of the argument). (Alternatively, an argument can be defined in terms
of declarative and imperative sentences.) Say that an argument is declarative
exactly if its conclusion is a proposition, and that it is imperative exactly if its
conclusion is a prescription. Say that an argument is pure exactly if its premises
and its conclusion are either all propositions or all prescriptions, and that it is
mixed otherwise.
An (endorsing) inference can be defined as a (token) process of reasoning (carried
out by a given agent) that starts by endorsing certain propositions or prescriptions
or both (the premises of the inference) and ends by endorsing either a proposition
or a prescription (the conclusion of the inference). (Say that to endorse a proposition
is to believe that it is true, and that to endorse a prescription is to believe that it is –
all things considered – binding. One can similarly define a hypothetical inference
by specifying that the premises and the conclusion are not endorsed but are rather
entertained only hypothetically.) To any given inference corresponds the argument
whose premises and conclusion are the premises and the conclusion of the given
inference. Say that an inference is declarative or imperative and pure or mixed
exactly if its corresponding argument is. Given these definitions, the rest of this
section considers (1) the validity of pure imperative arguments, (2) the validity
of mixed arguments, and (3) attacks on the possibility and the usefulness of
imperative inferences.
The validity of pure imperative arguments

A reasonable requirement for a definition of validity for pure arguments is that a mul-
tiple-premise pure argument A be valid exactly if the corresponding single-premise
pure argument is valid whose single premise is the conjunction of the premises of A
and whose conclusion is the conclusion of A: one should be able to combine multiple
premises by conjunction into a single premise and to split a single premise into
conjuncts without affecting validity. So in what follows only single-premise pure
imperative arguments are considered.
By analogy with the standard definition of validity for pure declarative arguments,
one might suggest that a pure imperative argument is valid exactly if some appropri-
ate property is “transmitted” from its premise to its conclusion. The appropriate
7
property cannot be truth (which is “transmitted” in valid pure declarative arguments),

but it can be (i) satisfaction, (ii) nonviolation, or (iii) bindingness. So, say that a pure
imperative argument is satisfaction-valid exactly if, necessarily, its conclusion is
satisfied if its premise is (Hofstadter and McKinsey 1939: 452); and define nonviolation-
valid and bindingness-valid similarly. (i) Against satisfaction validity, it can be shown
that the argument from “If your Graduate Record Examination (GRE) score is at
least 600, apply” to “If your GRE score is at least 700, apply” (which is intuitively
valid: think about instructions on a graduate admissions website) is not satisfaction-
valid, and that the argument from “If your GRE score is at least 600, apply” to “If
your GRE score is at least 500, apply” (which is intuitively invalid) is satisfaction-
valid. (ii) Against nonviolation validity, it can be shown that the arguments from
“Apply” to “If you don’t apply, kill yourself ” and from “If you have a perfect score,
apply” to “If you don’t apply, don’t have a perfect score” (which are arguably intui-
tively invalid) are nonviolation-valid. (iii) Against bindingness validity, note that, in
the absence of a formal account of bindingness, it is unclear how to find out whether
any given pure imperative argument is bindingness-valid.
Vranas (2011) defines when a reason “weakly” or “strongly” supports a prescription
(see reasons), and he defines a pure imperative argument as being weakly valid
exactly if, necessarily, every reason that weakly supports the premise also weakly supports
the conclusion (he defines strongly valid similarly). Vranas argues that there is an
unresolvable conflict of intuitions about the validity of the argument (which
corresponds to “Ross’s paradox”; see Ross 1941: 62) from “Post the letter” to “Post the
letter or burn it,” and that this conflict is largely explained by a divergence between
strong and weak validity: the argument is weakly but not strongly valid. Against weak
validity, it can be shown that the argument from “Apply” to “If you don’t apply, kill
yourself ” (which is arguably intuitively invalid) is weakly valid.
For further definitions of validity for pure imperative arguments, see Hare (1952:
25; see hare, r. m.), Rescher (1966: 82–91), Sosa (1966: 232), and Makinson and
van der Torre (2000).
The validity of mixed arguments

Concerning mixed declarative arguments (namely arguments whose conclusion is a
proposition and whose premises include a prescription), it is natural to adopt the
principle that a mixed declarative argument is valid if and only if its conclusion follows
from its declarative premises alone. (The “only if ” part of this principle corresponds
to “Hare’s Thesis”; see Rescher 1966: 73.) This principle has the consequences that
(i) if a pure declarative argument is valid, then the argument that one gets by “adding”
any imperative premises is also valid, and (ii) no argument from only prescriptions
to a (non-necessary) proposition is valid. Against (ii), one might claim that the argu-
ments from “Kiss Paul’s sister” to “Paul has a sister” (see Rescher 1966: 92–7) and
from “If smoking is permitted, smoke” and “Don’t smoke” to “Smoking is not
permitted” (see Geach 1958: 52) are valid. In reply, one might claim that “Kiss Paul’s
sister” presupposes (but does not entail) “Paul has a sister,” and that the conjunction
8
of “If smoking is permitted, smoke” and “Don’t smoke” – which on Vranas’s definition
of conjunction (see above) is “Let it be the case that smoking is not permitted and
that you don’t smoke” – entails “Let it be the case that smoking is not permitted,” not
“Smoking is not permitted.”
Concerning mixed imperative arguments with only declarative premises, namely
arguments from only propositions to a prescription, it is natural to adopt the princi-
ple (which corresponds to “Poincaré’s Principle”: Rescher 1966: 74) that no such
argument is valid (except perhaps trivially, if its conclusion is vacuous – namely
necessarily satisfied, like “Run or don’t run” – or if its premises are inconsistent).
This principle is similar to – but different from – the is/ought thesis attributed to
Hume (see is–ought gap; hume, david). Against this principle, one might claim
that the argument from “Jupiter is the largest planet” to “Either go to Jupiter or don’t
go to the largest planet” is valid (Geach 1958: 52–6).
Finally, concerning mixed imperative arguments with both declarative and imper-
ative premises, no satisfactory definition of validity exists in the literature. One
might suggest that such an argument is valid exactly if, necessarily, if its declarative
premises are true and its imperative premises are satisfied, then its (imperative) con-
clusion is satisfied; but this suggestion has the implausible consequence that the
argument from “Smile” and “You will run” to “Run” is valid. (For further suggestions
concerning the validity of such arguments, see Clarke 1970 and Sosa 1970.)
Attacks on imperative inference

Although imperative logic deals with imperative arguments rather than with
imperative inferences, if imperative inferences were impossible, then what would
be the point of imperative logic? Contesting the possibility of imperative infer-
ences, Bernard Williams (1963; see williams, bernard) gives an argument that
can be reconstructed as follows: distinct prescriptions have conflicting permissive
presuppositions (e.g., “Sing” does not permit dancing without singing, but “Sing or
dance” does permit this); thus successively endorsing the premises and the conclu-
sion of a pure imperative argument (e.g., the argument from “Sing” to “Sing or
dance”) amounts to changing one’s mind and cannot amount to carrying out an
inference. Williams’s reasoning is widely discussed in the literature (for references,
see Vranas 2010: 66) and is subject to several objections. For example, Vranas
(2010: 67) argues that one can carry out an inference even if while doing so one
changes one’s mind, as illustrated by an examiner who says “Answer exactly two out
of the three questions – any two questions, at your choice” and a minute later says
“I changed my mind. Don’t answer both the first and the last question. Therefore,
answer either the first two or the last two questions (not both), at your choice.”
Even if one grants that imperative inferences are possible, one might argue that
they are useless because they can always be replaced with declarative inferences, in
the sense that the validity of an imperative argument always amounts to the validity
of a corresponding declarative argument (see Harrison 1991: 116); for example, the
validity of the imperative argument from “Sing” to “Sing or dance” amounts to the
9
validity of the declarative argument from “You will sing” to “You will sing or dance.”
Vranas (2010: 69) replies with an analogy: even if geometric reasoning can always be
replaced with algebraic reasoning (by using Cartesian coordinates), geometric
reasoning is often useful, because it is often more straightforward than corresponding
algebraic reasoning. Similarly, Vranas argues that imperative reasoning is often more
straightforward than corresponding declarative reasoning.
For further attacks on imperative inference, see Wedeking (1970), Harrison
(1991), and Hansen (2008); for replies, see Castañeda (1971) and Vranas (2010).
See also: deontic logic; frege–geach objection; hare, r. m.; hume, david;
is–ought gap; metaethics; non-cognitivism; prescriptivism; reasons;
williams, bernard
REFERENCES
Castañeda, Hector-Neri 1970. “Review of Nicholas Rescher, The Logic of Commands,” The
Philosophical Review, vol. 79, pp. 439–46.
Castañeda, Hector-Neri 1971. “There Are Command Sh-Inferences,” Analysis, vol. 32,
pp. 13–19.
Clarke, David S., Jr. 1970. “Mood Constancy in Mixed Inferences,” Analysis, vol. 30, pp. 100–3.
Dummett, Michael A. E. 1959. “Truth,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, vol. 59, pp. 141–62.
Geach, Peter T. 1958. “Imperative and Deontic Logic,” Analysis, vol. 18, pp. 49–56.
Hamblin, Charles L. 1987. Imperatives. Oxford: Blackwell.
Hansen, Jörg 2008. “Imperatives and Deontic Logic: On the Semantic Foundations of Deontic
Logic.” Doctoral dissertation, University of Leipzig, Germany.
Hare, Richard M. 1952. The Language of Morals. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Harrison, Jonathan 1991. “Deontic Logic and Imperative Logic,” in P. T. Geach (ed.), Logic
and Ethics. Dordrecht: Kluwer, pp. 79–129.
Hofstadter, Albert, and John C. C. McKinsey 1939. “On the Logic of Imperatives,” Philosophy
of Science, vol. 6, pp. 446–57.
Makinson, David, and Leendert W. N. van der Torre 2000. “Input/Output Logics,” Journal of
Philosophical Logic, vol. 29, pp. 383–408.
Rescher, Nicholas 1966. The Logic of Commands. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Ross, Alf 1941. “Imperatives and Logic,” Theoria, vol. 7, pp. 53–71.
Sosa, Ernest 1966. “The Logic of Imperatives,” Theoria, vol. 32, pp. 224–35.
Sosa, Ernest 1970. “On Practical Inference, with an Excursus on Theoretical Inference,”
Logique et Analyse, vol. 13, pp. 215–30.
Stenius, Erik 1967. “Mood and Language-Game,” Synthese, vol. 17, pp. 254–74.
Storer, Thomas 1946. “The Logic of Value Imperatives,” Philosophy of Science, vol. 13,
pp. 25–40.
Vranas, Peter B. M. 2008. “New Foundations for Imperative Logic I: Logical Connectives,
Consistency, and Quantifiers,” Noûs, vol. 42, pp. 529–72.
Vranas, Peter B. M. 2010. “In Defense of Imperative Inference,” Journal of Philosophical Logic,
vol. 39, pp. 59–71.
Vranas, Peter B. M. 2011. “New Foundations for Imperative Logic: Pure Imperative Inference,”
Mind, vol. 120, pp. 369–446.
10
Wedeking, Gary A. 1970. “Are There Command Arguments?” Analysis, vol. 30, pp. 161–6.
Williams, Bernard A. O. 1963. “Imperative Inference,” Analysis, suppl. vol. 23, pp. 30–6.
FURTHER READINGS
Chellas, Brian F. 1971. “Imperatives,” Theoria, vol. 37, pp. 114–29.
Clarke, David S., Jr., and Richard Behling 1998. Deductive Logic: An Introduction to
Evaluation Techniques and Logical Theory, 2nd ed. Lanham, MD: University Press of
America.
Gensler, Harry J. 1996. Formal Ethics. New York: Routledge.
Hare, Richard M. 1967. “Some Alleged Differences between Imperatives and Indicatives,”
Mind, vol. 76, pp. 309–26.
Jørgensen, Jørgen 1938. “Imperatives and Logic,” Erkenntnis, vol. 7, pp. 288–96.
Kenny, Anthony J. P. 1966. “Practical Inference,” Analysis, vol. 26, pp. 65–75.
Lemmon, Edward J. 1965. “Deontic Logic and the Logic of Imperatives,” Logique et Analyse,
vol. 8, pp. 39–71.
MacKay, Alfred F. 1969. “Inferential Validity and Imperative Inference Rules,” Analysis, vol. 29,
pp. 145–56.
Rescher, Nicholas, and John Robison 1964. “Can One Infer Commands from Commands?”
Segerberg, Krister 1990. “Validity and Satisfaction in Imperative Logic,” Notre Dame Journal
of Formal Logic, vol. 31, pp. 203–21.
Stalley, R. F. 1972. “Intentions, Beliefs, and Imperative Logic,” Mind, vol. 81, pp. 18–28.
Warnock, Geoffrey 1976. “Imperatives and Meaning,” in H. D. Lewis (ed.), Contemporary
British Philosophy: Personal Statements, 4th series. London: Allen & Unwin, pp. 292–304.
Williams, Bernard A. O. 1966. “Consistency and Realism,” The Aristotelian Society, suppl.
vol. 40, pp. 1–22.
1
Normativity
Ralph Wedgwood
As the term is typically used in ethics today, normative thinking is the kind of
thinking that is concerned with what people ought to think or do, or have reason to
think or do. The first two sections of this essay will clarify what exactly the domain
of the “normative” includes and what it does not. The rest of the essay surveys the
philosophical issues that surround normativity.
Senses of “Normative”
According to the dictionaries, what is “normative” is what constitutes or involves a
“norm.” So, to understand the word “normative,” we may start by looking at the
meaning of “norm” (for some illuminating comments on the history of the word
“norm,” see Railton 1999: 321).
Among philosophers, there are three main senses in which the word “norm” is
used. In the first sense, the word “norm” refers to a pattern that in some way serves
as a model or standard – that is, serves to guide people’s thinking or behavior. Some
philosophers who are influenced by cognitive science, such as John Pollock and
Joseph Cruz (1999: 124), use the term “epistemic norms” in this sense, to refer to the
procedures that we follow when forming and revising our beliefs in a competent way.
In the second sense, the word “norm” refers to what are often called social norms.
The notion of a social norm has been usefully defined by Philip Pettit (1990): a social
norm is some regularity in the behavior of the members of a population that nearly
everyone in that population conforms to – where this conformity is explained at least
in part by the fact that nearly everyone in the population approves of conforming to
the regularity and disapproves of deviating from the regularity. This second sense of
the term “norm” is of particular importance in the branches of philosophy that study
and evaluate social institutions, such as the philosophy of law. For example, the social
“rules of obligation” that play a central role in the legal theory of H. L. A. Hart (1961:
85f.) seem to be examples of such social norms.
Within ethics, however, a third sense of the term “norm” has become standard.
When the term “norm” is used in this third sense, it refers to a general principle
about how people ought to think or act (see ought). One of the earliest occurrences
of this third sense in philosophical English is in the work of Henry Sidgwick (1907:
398). It seems that this sense of “norm” emerged from the first, since at least some-
times, general principles about how we ought to think or act can be used to guide
our thinking or behavior.
We can see the emergence of this third meaning of the word where Kant (1903:
390) speaks of the “guideline and supreme norm for making correct judgments
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee150
2
about morals.” Here Kant is using the term “norm” as a near-synonym for “guide-
line,” and so here “norm” seems to have the first of the three meanings that we dis-
tinguished above. But even though Kant uses the term with this meaning, he is
applying it to the moral law – which is also a norm in the third sense as well, since
the moral law is presumably a general principle about how we ought to act.
In this third sense, then, “normative concepts” are the concepts distinctive of
“norms” – in effect, the concepts of the same kind as those expressed by the relevant
uses of terms like “ought.” The discussion that follows will concentrate on the philo-
sophical questions that arise about these normative concepts.
Normative Concepts
Paradigmatically normative concepts
As we have seen, normative concepts are concepts of the same kind as those
expressed by “the relevant uses of terms like ‘ought.’ ” But which uses of “ought”
are relevant here? Many philosophers believe that the term “ought” has nonnor-
mative uses as well as normative uses. For example, consider what is often called
“the ‘ought’ of expectation,” as in “The solution ought to turn blue” – which seems
simply to mean that it is highly probable that the solution will turn blue. Many
philosophers would maintain that this kind of “ought” does not express a norma-
tive concept.
The case is even clearer with the word “should,” which in many contexts can
express many of the same concepts as “ought.” Consider the first line of Rupert
Brooke’s sonnet “The Soldier”:
If I should die, think only this of me …
It would be generally agreed among philosophers that this occurrence of “should”

does not express a normative concept. (One reason for thinking this is that this
occurrence of “should” cannot be replaced by “ought to” without radically changing
the meaning.) So which concepts are the genuinely normative concepts?
The best approach is probably just to stipulate that certain uses of “ought” express
paradigmatically normative concepts. Then we can say that the normative concepts
are those concepts that are of fundamentally the same kind as these paradigmatically
normative concepts. Specifically, we may stipulate that the most paradigmatically
normative concepts are the concepts expressed by what will here be called the
“all-things-considered ‘ought.’ ”
We should not assume that this all-things-considered “ought” is the same as any
distinctively moral “ought.” If there is a distinctively moral “ought,” judgments
involving this moral “ought” would be normative or evaluative judgments of a spe-
cial kind – judgments based on considerations such as rights and duties, the impor-
tance of being fair and helpful toward others, and so on. But not every judgment
about what one “ought” to do is a judgment of this kind. For example, if I judge that
3
I ought to buy a new pair of shoes, this need not be a moral judgment. I need not be
violating anyone’s rights, or neglecting any of my duties, or failing to be sufficiently
fair or helpful toward others, if I didn’t buy a new pair of shoes. Perhaps no one else
would be entitled to blame me if I didn’t. But it can still be true that I ought to buy a
new pair of shoes.
In the mid-twentieth century, H. A. Prichard (2002: 126) claimed that the word
“ought” has at least two “totally different meanings, the one moral and the other not” –
where to say in this nonmoral meaning that a person “ought” to perform an action is to
say that the action is “the act which will lead to the realization of his purpose.” Even if
this claim is true, there seems to be at least one further sense of “ought” that is neither
narrowly moral nor narrowly “instrumental” in this way. One of the clearest arguments
for this point is due to Garrett Cullity and Berys Gaut (1997: 1). Consider a case where
you know that you are morally required to do X and not Y, while the act that will lead
to the realization of your purpose is not to do X but to do Y instead. In this case, you
might well ask yourself, “Ought I to do what I am morally required to do, X? Or ought
I to do what will realize my purpose, Y?” Neither of these questions seems equivalent to
the trivial question, “Ought I to do what I ought to do?” So, it seems that “ought” cannot
occur here in a narrowly moral sense, or in a narrowly instrumental sense; it must be
occurring in a more general normative sense.
In general, a statement of the form “A ought to ϕ” need not mean either that A is
morally required to ϕ, or that it would best serve A’s interests or purposes for A to ϕ;
it can mean that A ought to ϕ all things considered – i.e., given all relevant consid-
erations (which might include both moral and nonmoral considerations), A ought
to ϕ. When understood in this way, a statement of the form “A ought to ϕ” seems
equivalent to a certain interpretation of the corresponding statement “There is con-
clusive reason for A to ϕ.” So the paradigmatic normative concepts are the concepts
expressed by an “all-things-considered ‘ought’ ” of this kind, and also by this way of
talking about what there is “conclusive reason” for one to do.
When the term “reason” is used in this way, it refers to what philosophers often
call a “normative reason” (or “justifying reason”) – not to an “explanatory reason” or
“motivating reason” (see reasons, motivating and normative). Examples of
purely explanatory reasons include the reason why the solution turned blue or the
reason why the bridge collapsed. A purely explanatory reason for a fact F is simply a
fact that can be correctly cited as the explanation of F.
Motivating reasons include both motivating reasons for action and motivating
reasons for attitudes (like decisions or beliefs). An example of a motivating reason
for action might be Martin’s reason for flying to Ireland; examples of motivating
reasons for attitudes might include Helen’s reason for deciding to leave her husband,
or the detective’s reason for believing that the Professor was the murderer. There can
also be motivating reasons for inclinations, like Sam’s reason for being inclined not to
attend the meeting.
It seems that motivating reasons are facts that play a certain explanatory role,
making an agent’s actions, attitudes, or inclinations intelligible. The question “What
was Martin’s reason for flying to Ireland?” is a way of asking why Martin flew to
4
Ireland. By answering the question, and saying what Martin’s reason for flying to
Ireland was, we can make it intelligible why he performed the action of flying to
Ireland.
By contrast, a normative reason for an agent to perform a certain action, or to
have a certain attitude, need not explain or make it intelligible why the agent per-
formed that action or had that attitude. Instead, it counts in favor of that action or
attitude. A normative reason for action is something that provides a justification
for that action, but it need not actually motivate the agent to perform the action
at all.
A good starting point for investigating normative concepts, then, is to assume
that the concepts expressed by the all-things-considered “ought” and by the termi-
nology of “normative reasons” are the paradigmatically normative concepts.
This assumption is compatible with allowing that there is more than one concept
expressed by the all-things-considered “ought.” Some philosophers – for example,
Thomson (2008: 199) – believe that there is just one kind of normative “ought.”
Other philosophers disagree, distinguishing between several different kinds of nor-
mative “ought”: for example, Wedgwood (2007: 118) draws a distinction between
“objective” and more “information-relative” kinds of “ought,” in much the same way
as Sidgwick (1907: 207) distinguished between “objective” and “subjective” senses of
the terms “right” and “wrong.” Similarly, there may be more than one concept
expressed by the terminology of “normative reasons”; the idiom of “normative rea-
sons” may not be completely univocal.
The key assumption is just that, however many concepts are expressed by this
kind of “ought,” and by the terminology of “normative reasons,” these are paradig-
matically normative concepts, and any concept that is of fundamentally the same
kind as these paradigmatic concepts is also a normative concept.
Theories of normative concepts

What is the nature of these paradigmatically normative concepts? Different philoso-
phers have defended different theories about this. Several philosophers believe that
there is one basic normative concept in terms of which all other normative concepts
can be defined. So for these philosophers, the crucial question is: What is the nature
of this basic normative concept?
According to T. M. Scanlon (1998), the basic normative concept is the concept of
a normative reason – the concept of a consideration that counts in favor of some
action or attitude. According to Scanlon, this concept is utterly primitive: it cannot
be defined by means of any other concepts, and it is a mistake to aim for any illumi-
nating account of the nature of the concept (see quietism).
Other philosophers, like Allan Gibbard (2003), offer an expressivist account of
this concept. According to such an expressivist account, the meaning of statements
that seem to express thoughts involving this basic concept is to be explained purely
in terms of the special kind of mental state that these statements express; and this
special kind of mental state, at least in the final analysis, does not consist in an
5
attitude toward a proposition that contains any normative concept that represents or
refers to any corresponding property or relation (see non-cognitivism).
Other philosophers might attempt to give a reductive conceptual analysis of this
basic normative concept. For example, one reductive analysis of this kind might be
inspired by some of the claims that Bernard Williams (1995: 35) made about the con-
cept of a normative reason for action (see reasons, internal and external).
According to this Williams-inspired analysis, the proposition that there is a reason for
you to ϕ is equivalent to the proposition that there is a “sound deliberative route” –
that is, a possible process of reasoning that (1) is based on an adequate understanding
of the facts of your situation, and (2) meets various conditions of procedural rational-
ity – that leads from your current “subjective motivational set” to your being moti-
vated to ϕ. If the relevant notion of a “sound deliberative route” from your current
“motivational set” is not itself a normative notion, this claim could be taken as a
reductive conceptual analysis of the concept of a normative reason.
Another kind of account of normative concepts is based on the idea that even
though expressivism is false, and normative concepts do represent or refer to corre-
sponding properties or relations, the nature of each concept is fundamentally given
by its essential conceptual role in thinking (Brandom 1994). This approach makes it
plausible that no normative concept is more basic than any other; the normative
concepts form a large family of concepts, unified by certain fundamental similarities
between their essential conceptual roles (Wedgwood 2009). Fundamentally, the idea
is that the essential conceptual role of normative concepts consists precisely in the
way in which judgments involving them – normative judgments – are in various
ways action-guiding or reasoning-guiding (see internalism, motivational).
Other normative concepts

Above, it was suggested that the normative concepts include all concepts that are
“of fundamentally the same kind” as certain paradigmatically normative con-
cepts. But how should we judge whether one concept is “of fundamentally the
same kind” as another? This may depend on the particular theory of concepts
that is being assumed. However, if the correct theory of concepts makes room for
analytically valid entailments – that is, entailments that hold in virtue of the
nature of the concepts involved – then presumably a concept C will count as a
normative concept whenever there is a general analytically valid entailment link-
ing thoughts involving C with thoughts that involve one of the paradigmatically
normative concepts.
By this test, for example, it is plausible that the concepts expressed by ordinary uses
of the terms “right” and “wrong,” “permissible” and “impermissible” are normative
concepts, since it is plausible that the thought that it is wrong for an agent x to ϕ
analytically entails that the agent x ought not to ϕ.
Other concepts that seem sufficiently closely related to “ought” and “reason” so that
they also count as normative concepts include those that are expressed by most uses of
terms like “reasonable” and “unreasonable,” “rational” and irrational,” “justified” and
6
“unjustified.” The very terms “reasonable” and “unreasonable” are obviously cognate
with “reason,” and there are many uses of phrases like “reasonable belief ” (or “reasonable
choice”) that seem to be equivalent to some uses of “rational belief ” (or “rational choice”)
and “justified belief ” (or “justified choice”). So some philosophers have claimed that at
least in certain common uses of these terms, “reasonable,” “rational,” and “justified” all
express normative concepts (see rationality).
We have already seen that the terms “right” and “wrong” can express normative
concepts: the statement “The right thing for you to do is to buy a new pair of shoes”
can express a paradigmatically normative judgment, just like the statement “You ought
all-things-considered to buy a new pair of shoes.” But “right” and “wrong” can also be
used in a narrower and more specific way. For example, J. S. Mill (1991: 246) claims:
“We do not call anything wrong, unless we mean to imply that a person ought to be
punished in some way or other for doing it; if not by law, by the opinion of his fellow
creatures; if not by opinion, by the reproaches of his own conscience.” The kind of
wrongness that Mill has in mind here is what is often called moral wrongness. If Mill’s
claim about the concept of moral wrongness is correct, the thought that an act is mor-
ally wrong analytically entails that the agent “ought” to be punished in some way for
doing it; so, on this view, the concept of moral wrongness is a normative concept.
It is also a common view that certain evaluative concepts have an intimate con-
nection to normative concepts (see value, fitting-attitude account of). For
example, according to this view, it is a conceptual truth that something counts as
admirable if and only if it ought to be admired; that something counts as desirable
if and only if it ought to be desired; that one thing counts as better than or prefer-
able to a second if and only if the first thing ought to be preferred over the second;
and so on. One much-discussed version of this view is the “buck-passing account”
of value proposed by Scanlon (1998: Ch. 2; see buck-passing accounts). If this
view is correct, then it is a conceptual truth that these evaluative concepts are
equivalent to concepts that are defined by means of paradigmatically normative
concepts like “ought” and “reasons”; and this would imply that these evaluative
concepts are also normative concepts.
In general, several different views could be taken of how evaluative concepts (like
“good”) are related to the paradigmatically normative concepts (like “ought”). One
possible view is that they are two radically different kinds of concepts; a second possible
view is that one of these two kinds of concept is definitionally prior to the other
(concepts of one kind can be defined in terms of concepts of the second kind, but not
vice versa); a third possible view – suggested by the “conceptual role” approach dis-
cussed above – is that they are two closely intertwined families of concepts, but neither
family is in any way more fundamental than the other.
Finally, it may be that the so-called “thick” moral concepts have a similar connec-
tion to normative concepts (see thick and thin concepts). For example, it may be
a conceptual truth that if an act is courageous, then there is a normative reason to do
it (or at least to admire it), while if an act is brutal or callous, there is a normative
reason not to do it (or to disapprove of it). On this view, the thick moral concepts
would also count as normative in the same way.
7
Normativity and Morality

Normativity and metaethics
As we have seen, many philosophers believe that moral concepts are normative.
According to these philosophers, it is a conceptual truth that if you are morally
required to pay me $20, then there is a normative reason for you to pay me $20, and
unless you have some excuse, there will also be a normative reason for people to
blame you if you do not pay me $20.
The idea that there is this intimate link between moral concepts and normative
concepts explains a striking feature of recent philosophical debates. Although the
use of the terms “norm” and “normative” in philosophy goes back to the nine-
teenth century, they have only recently begun to play a central role in philosophi-
cal discussions. (In the Philosopher’s Index, there are no items published before
1980 that include “Normativity” in the list of subjects; by contrast, there are 492
items published between 2000 and 2009 that have “Normativity” listed as a sub-
ject.) The reason for this is that many of the issues now associated with normative
concepts and normative judgments used to be associated with moral concepts and
judgments. In more recent years, philosophers have come to believe that these
issues do not fundamentally concern moral concepts, but normative concepts in
general.
The reason for this is that many of the issues in metaethics arise from the idea that
there is something essentially practical or essentially action-guiding about moral judg-
ments. In fact, however, if this is true, it seems to be a feature of all normative judgments
in general (not just of moral judgments), since it seems that normative judgments com-
monly play the role of guiding our actions or reasoning. If moral judgments have this
feature too, it is because they are a special case of normative judgments. This is why
practically all of the major debates within metaethics can be reformulated as
“metanormative” debates – that is, as debates about the nature of normative judgments
(as opposed to merely moral judgments).
When we explored the different views of the nature of normative concepts above,
we saw that there are, in effect, “metanormative” analogues of all the semantic
issues of metaethics (that is, the philosophical issues about the meaning of moral
terms, and about the nature of the concepts that are expressed by these terms) (see
semantics, moral).
With both moral concepts and normative concepts, there is the same range of
rival semantic theories, including the four kinds of theory that were briefly canvassed
above: (1) the primitivist theory, according to which these concepts are primitive
and so cannot be given any illuminating explanation at all; (2) the expressivist the-
ory, according to which the meaning of the statements that seem to express thoughts
involving these concepts consists in the kind of mental state that these statements
express – where in the fundamental analysis, this kind of mental state does not
involve any moral or normative concepts’ representing or referring to any corre-
sponding properties or relations; (3) the theory that the nature of these concepts can
be explained by means of a traditional “conceptual analysis”; and (4) the conceptual
8
role theory, according to which the nature of each of these concepts is given by its
distinctive conceptual role in thinking and reasoning.
Similarly, there are “metanormative” analogues of the metaphysical issues of metae-
thics. The philosophers who embrace an “expressivist semantics” for normative con-
cepts (of the kind that we have just described) typically believe that expressivism
prevents these metaphysical questions from arising in the first place. But for philoso-
phers who reject expressivism, there is a range of metaphysical issues. Thus, some phi-
losophers defend a metaphysically realist view of normative thought, according to
which some normative thoughts are straightforwardly true, and when they are true,
correspond to normative facts that are irreducible parts of reality (see realism, moral).
Other philosophers reject this metaphysically realist view that there are such irre-
ducible normative facts. Some of these anti-realists advocate the error theory, accord-
ing to which ordinary normative thought is committed to the existence of irreducible
normative facts, and so is committed to a fundamental metaphysical error (see error
theory). Other opponents of this sort of realism embrace a reductionist view, accord-
ing to which normative facts exist, but can be reduced to the unproblematic sort of
facts that are the subject matter of the natural sciences (see reductionism in eth-
ics). Finally, some philosophers believe that there is a “constructivist” alternative to
all these metaphysical views – a view according to which expressivism, realism, error
theory, and reductionism are all mistaken, and in some way the right answers to nor-
mative questions are “constructed” by our reasoning procedures rather than having
any existence independently of those procedures (see constructivism, moral).
The epistemological issues about normative thought are also precisely parallel
to the issues on the epistemological side of metaethics (see epistemology,
moral). Here the central questions are: How can we achieve knowledge, or even
justified belief, of normative propositions? Is our justification for normative
propositions fundamentally a priori or empirical? Do our normative beliefs rest
fundamentally on “intuitions,” and if so, what is the nature of these intuitions?
(see intuitions, moral).
The normativity of morality

Another set of philosophical issues that reflects this connection between moral con-
cepts and normative concepts concerns the question: What reason is there for us to
comply with the requirements of morality (see reasons for action, morality and;
why be moral)? Here the goal is to give an account of reasons for action and of the
requirements of morality that provides an explanation of the relations between them.
This debate about the normativity of morality raises some of the differences between
various conceptions of reasons for action in a particularly illuminating way. One con-
ception is what Derek Parfit (1984: Pt. 2) calls self-interest theory, according to which
one has a reason to perform an action if and only if that action in some way promotes
one’s self-interest. Another conception is the present-desire theory, like the view of Mark
Schroeder (2007), according to which one has a reason to perform an action if and only
if that action in some way promotes the satisfaction of some desire that one has.
9
A third conception is a procedural conception, like the reductive Williams-

inspired theory that was considered above, according to which one has a reason to
perform an action if and only if there is a possible process of rational practical rea-
soning – a “sound deliberative route” – that could lead from one’s present state of
mind to one’s being motivated to perform the action. This third conception can take
quite different forms, depending on how exactly it interprets the idea of a “process
of rational practical reasoning” (or a “sound deliberative route”). For example,
Christine Korsgaard (1996) would give a Kantian interpretation, according to which
a process of practical reasoning counts as rational only if it involves following the
Kantian Categorical Imperative, whereas David Gauthier (1986) would give a
decision-theoretic interpretation, according to which a process of practical reason-
ing counts as rational only if it conforms to the axioms of decision theory.
Finally, there is also a fourth conception, according to which there is a reason for
you to perform an action just in case there is something valuable about that action
(Raz 1999). (This fourth conception could also take several different forms depend-
ing on how it interprets the notion of an action’s being “valuable.”)
The project of either vindicating or debunking the normativity of morality will
take quite different forms depending on which of these conceptions of reasons for
action is assumed. In particular, it seems that the value-based conception of reasons
may make it significantly easier to vindicate the normativity of morality than the
self-interest theory and the present-desire theory, which are both more likely to sup-
port a debunking view of the normativity of morality.
Normativity and Rationality

There are at least two branches of philosophy that are especially concerned with
rationality: epistemology is concerned with rational beliefs; and decision theory –
the theory of practical reason – is concerned with rational decisions or choices. As
was suggested above, it is widely believed that the concepts “rational” and
“irrational” are normative concepts. It follows that these two branches of philosophy
are concerned with normative questions. In effect, epistemology is concerned with
the normative questions “What should we believe?,” “How should we form and
revise our beliefs?” Decision theory is concerned with the normative questions
“What should we decide to do?,” “How should we form and revise our plans or
intentions?”
If the notion of rationality is indeed a normative concept, then it is plausible that
the statement “It is irrational for you to believe p” entails that you (in some sense)
ought not to believe p, or at least that there is a reason for you not to believe p. This
entailment might hold because reasons can be defined in terms of rationality, along
the lines of the Williams-inspired theory discussed above; or it might hold because
rationality can be defined as “responding appropriately to reasons” (Raz 1999); or
there might be an alternative explanation of why the entailment holds – such as an
explanation that appeals not to the “definition” of these concepts, but to their funda-
mental “conceptual role” instead.
10
However, some philosophers doubt that “rationality” is a normative concept at all.

For example, some philosophers point out that our beliefs do not seem to be subject
to the will or to direct voluntary control, and argue that this counts against the idea
that we can talk about what one “should” or “ought to” believe. This argument can
be countered by pointing out that it seems indisputable that we ought to make cer-
tain choices; yet we cannot usually make a choice by first making and then executing
a choice to make that choice, and in that sense our choices are also not under our
direct “voluntary control” – even though they are in a sense the manifestations of the
will, they are not directly subject to the will. So it does not seem necessary for beliefs
to be subject to our direct voluntary control in order for there to be truths about
which beliefs we ought (or ought not) to hold.
Other philosophers – such as Niko Kolodny (2005) – argue that it is doubtful
whether we “should” or “ought to” make rational decisions or hold rational beliefs,
since rational beliefs can be disastrously false and rational decisions can turn out
disastrously badly. But this argument can be countered with the point that terms like
“ought” and “should” are capable of expressing different concepts in different con-
texts, and so even if one of your rational choices turns out disastrously badly, there
is still some sense in which, in making the choice in the rational way in which you
did, you were reasoning in the way in which you ought to.
If epistemology and decision theory really are concerned with normative
questions, we might wonder whether these branches of philosophy give rise to
any questions that are analogous to the “Why be moral?” question of moral phi-
losophy. What about the question “Why be rational?”?
The question “Why be F?” seems equivalent to the question “Why should one
be F?” or “What reason is there for one to be F?” So there are only certain sorts of
notions about which we can sensibly ask a question of the form “Why be F?” We can
ask “Why be moral?” But we cannot sensibly ask “Why should one believe what one
should believe?” If there is some proposition that one should believe, one should
believe it – that is a trivial logical truth, not something that requires any special
explanation.
So, to answer the question “Why should one be rational?” we would have to ana-
lyze exactly what kind of “should” occurs in this question. Then, we would have to
give an account of what it is to be “rational” in the relevant sense, in order to explain
whether it is true that one (in this sense) “should” always be “rational,” and if so, why
it is true. These questions have not yet been directly studied in much depth, but they
could prove to be important for our understanding of normativity, as well as of
epistemology and the theory of rational decision.
Constitutive Normativity?
Normative concepts are not only important for branches of philosophy (like ethics,
epistemology, and the theory of rational choice) that are explicitly focused on ques-
tions that involve arguably normative concepts. They may also be important for
other branches of philosophy, if it turns out that the most plausible answers to
11
certain other philosophical questions also involve normative concepts. This has
been claimed to be true of both the philosophy of language and the philosophy of
mind.
In the philosophy of language, it is sometimes claimed that meaning is normative –
that is, that for every possible meaning that a word can have, any adequate account of
what it is for a word to have that meaning in a given language must make use of norma-
tive terms. For example, as Kripke (1982: 37) put it, “the relation of meaning … to future
action is normative, not descriptive.” Kripke illustrates the point by imagining that he is
confronted with the problem “68 + 57,” pointing out: “The point is not that, if I meant
addition by ‘+,’ I will answer ‘125’ but that … I should answer ‘125.’ ”
Similar claims are made in the philosophy of mind about the nature of the kind of
mental states – such as beliefs and intentions and the like – that are about something
or other, or as philosophers often say, have “intentional content.” An example of a
mental state of this kind is the belief that snow is white, where the intentional content
of this belief is the thought or proposition that snow is white. It is sometimes claimed
that any adequate account of any particular mental state of this kind must make use
of normative terms. For example, perhaps one cannot give an account of what it is
for a state to be the belief that snow is white without saying something about the
conditions under which it is “right” or “correct” (or “rational” or “warranted”) to be
in this state, or about the further mental states that this state “justifies” or “commits”
us to (compare Brandom 1994).
This thesis – that normativity is constitutive of meaning, or of the kind of men-
tal states that have intentional content – remains highly controversial in the phi-
losophy of language and the philosophy of mind. However, it is sometimes thought
that if this thesis is true, it would help to answer the questions about the normativ-
ity of rationality that were considered in the previous section. Consider the nor-
mative question “Why should one conform to the requirements of rationality?” It
might seem that it would be a particularly convincing response to this question if
one could reply, “It is constitutive of one’s being an intelligent agent at all that one
must conform to the requirements of rationality, that’s why” (cf Korsgaard 1996:
Lecture 3).
It is unclear how effective this sort of response to the “normative question” really
is. What we need to explain is a normative fact – the fact that one (in the relevant
sense, whatever exactly it is) should or ought to conform to certain requirements.
One version of this sort of response attempts to explain this normative fact by
appealing to the constitutive thesis that this fact is constitutive of being an intelligent
agent at all. But then it seems that this constitutive thesis itself presupposes this nor-
mative fact; so it is not clear that it can really be explanation of this fact. A different
version of this sort of response attempts to explain the normative fact that one ought
to conform to the relevant requirements by arguing that some disposition to con-
form to these requirements is constitutive of being an intelligent agent at all. But
then, as David Enoch (2006) has objected, it is not clear how the fact that one must
have a disposition to conform to these requirements if one is to be an intelligent
agent at all helps to explain why one ought to conform to these requirements. (The
12
disposition may be constitutive of being an intelligent agent, but perhaps one should
sometimes resist this disposition?)
The constitutive thesis may play a more modest role in addressing these ques-
tions. If the normative fact that one ought to conform to a certain requirement is
indeed constitutive of being an intelligent agent at all, then this may make it plausi-
ble that it is an utterly fundamental fact, for which no further explanation is possible.
In this way, the idea that normativity is constitutive of meaning or of mental content
may be relevant to these normative questions, as well as to questions about the
nature of language and of the mind.
Conclusion
Normative concepts play a central role in human thought, and give rise to many
fundamental questions that cover all of the core branches of philosophy. We have
only briefly surveyed these questions here.
See also: buck-passing accounts; cognitivism; constructivism, moral;

epistemology, moral; error theory; internalism, motivational; intuitions,
moral; non-cognitivism; ought; quietism; rationality; realism, moral;
reasons for action, morality and; reasons, internal and external; reasons,
motivating and normative; reductionism in ethics; semantics, moral; thick
and thin concepts; value, fitting-attitude account of; why be moral
REFERENCES
Brandom, Robert 1994. Making It Explicit. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Cullity, Garrett, and Berys Gaut 1997. “Introduction,” in G. Cullity and B. Gaut (eds.), Ethics
and Practical Reason. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Enoch, David 2006. “Agency, Shmagency: Why Normativity Won’t Come from What is
Constitutive of Action,” Philosophical Review, vol. 115, pp. 169–98.
Gauthier, David 1986. Morals by Agreement. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Hart, H. L. A. 1961. The Concept of Law. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Kant, Immanuel 1903 [1785]. Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten (Groundwork of the
Metaphysics of Morals), in Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences (ed.), Gesammelte
Schriften, vol. 4. Berlin: Reimer, pp. 385–464.
Kolodny, Niko 2005. “Why Be Rational?” Mind, vol. 114, pp. 509–63.
Korsgaard, Christine M. 1996. The Sources of Normativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Kripke, Saul 1982. Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Mill, J. S. 1991 [1871]. Utilitarianism, 4th ed., in J. M. Robson (ed.), Collected Works of John
Stuart Mill, vol. 10. London: Routledge, pp. 203–59.
Pettit, Philip 1990. “Virtus Normativa: Rational Choice Perspectives,” Ethics, vol. 100, pp. 725–55.
13
Pollock, John, and Joseph Cruz 1999. Contemporary Theories of Knowledge, 2nd ed. Totowa,
NJ: Rowman & Littlefield.
Prichard, H. A. 2002. Moral Writings, ed. J. MacAdam. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Railton, Peter 1999. “Normative Force and Normative Freedom: Hume and Kant, but Not
Hume versus Kant,” Ratio, vol. 12, pp. 320–53.
Raz, Joseph 1999. Engaging Reason. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Schroeder, Mark 2007. Slaves of the Passions. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Thomson, Judith Jarvis 2008. Normativity. Chicago: Open Court.
Wedgwood, Ralph 2007. The Nature of Normativity. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Wedgwood, Ralph 2009. “The ‘Right’ and the ‘Good’ Revisited,” Philosophical Perspectives,
vol. 23, pp. 499–519.
Williams, Bernard 1995. Making Sense of Humanity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
FURTHER READINGS
Blackburn, Simon 1988. Ruling Passions. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Broome, John 2004. “Reasons,” in R. J. Wallace, Michael Smith, Samuel Scheffler, and Philip
Pettit (eds.), Reason and Value: Essays on the Moral Philosophy of Joseph Raz. Oxford:
Davidson, Donald 1984. “Radical Interpretation,” in Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation.
Foot, Philippa 1972. “Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives,” Philosophical Review,
vol. 81, pp. 305–16.
Harman, Gilbert, and Judith Jarvis Thomson 1995. Moral Relativism and Moral Objectivity.
Oxford: Blackwell.
Hume, David 2000 [1739–40]. Treatise of Human Nature, ed. David Fate Norton and Mary J.
Norton. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Korsgaard, Christine M. 1986. “Skepticism about Practical Reason,” Journal of Philosophy,
vol. 83, pp. 5–25.
Raz, Joseph 1999. Practical Reason and Norms, 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Shafer-Landau, Russ 2003. Moral Realism: A Defence. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Velleman, J. David 2009. How We Get Along. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
von Wright, G. H. 1963. Norm and Action. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
1
Shaftesbury, Third Earl of

Abraham Anderson
Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury (1671–1713), is commonly

regarded as the founder of the “moral sense school,” whose best-known representative
is Francis Hutcheson (see hutcheson, francis). He is important in the history of
ethics in part because he offers a basis for ethics which does not depend on
theological dogma (Gill 2006: 77–132; Schneewind 1998: 295–309). The starting
point of Shaftesbury’s thought was a problem posed by Pierre Bayle in his Various
Thoughts on the Occasion of a Comet (1682): does moral virtue depend on belief in
correct religious doctrine, and does social order require the maintenance of a
religious orthodoxy (Klein 1994: 52; Jaffro 1998: 180–1; see religion and politics)?
Bayle had argued that neither is the case. In his “Inquiry Concerning Virtue and
Merit,” first published in 1699, Shaftesbury agrees with Bayle. In defending this
position he asserts that human beings are endowed with a moral sense connected
with a natural sociability. The doctrine of natural sociability, which has roots in Stoic
thought (see stoicism), offers an interesting anticipation of modern views on ethical
emotion in sociobiology and evolutionary psychology (Filonowicz 2008; see
evolution, ethics and).
Bayle had argued that not only was the pursuit of religious orthodoxy not
indispensable to virtue, but it could in fact be quite harmful to virtue, because it
could foster superstition, fanaticism, and the cruelties of persecution. Shaftesbury
agrees (2001 II: 19, 26–42, 56), and he is very much interested in the psychological
roots of superstition and fanaticism in human nature. In the “Inquiry,” he offers
a typology of different sorts of religious belief, including varieties of polytheism,
theism or monotheism, and daemonism, and discusses their emotional sources and
likely influence on the moral disposition. But though he holds that religious belief is
not indispensable to moral virtue, he argues that the right sort of religious belief can
offer support to moral virtue (Gill 2006: 84). Such belief rests not on an obligatory
doctrine, but on a sense of the purposiveness and goodness of the cosmos.
Shaftesbury’s irony about Christianity makes it quite clear that he was not a
Christian philosopher. Nevertheless, he was favorably inclined toward the
“latitudinarian” or broad-Church school of theology, and his first publication (1698)
was a collection of the sermons of Benjamin Whichcote, one of its representatives,
with a preface. Shaftesbury’s next major work after the “Inquiry” was “The Sociable
Enthusiast” (a few copies were privately printed in 1703), which he was later to revise
and publish as “The Moralists” (1709). In this work, Shaftesbury continued
the investigation of the emotional roots and consequences of religious belief which
he had begun in the “Inquiry.” “The Moralists” is framed as a dialogue between
Philocles, a skeptic, and his friend Palemon, about whether the world is ruled by
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee151
2
divine justice – what Leibniz was to call the problem of “theodicy.” Theocles’ poetic
praise of the goodness of the cosmos, which has roots in the religious rhetoric of the
ancient Stoics, anticipates the poetry of Wordsworth and other Romantics, and the
notion of the genius as a moral teacher. By presenting the doctrine of the “Inquiry”
within the framework of a fictional dialogue, “The Moralists” both makes room for
skeptical questioning and highlights the role of rhetoric in moral thought and
teaching. As Michael Gill points out, Theocles offers two arguments for morality:
a teleological one, and one grounded in the felt satisfaction in virtue. Gill argues that
the two groundings of virtue are not altogether compatible (2006: 118–32).
Shaftesbury’s next publication was “A Letter Concerning Enthusiasm” (1708).
The occasion for the letter was the appearance in London of exiled Protestants from
the Cevennes, whose public preaching and speaking in tongues earned them the
title of the “French prophets.” The prophets were parodied in a puppet show at
St. Bartholomew’s fair. Shaftesbury praised the puppet show, and more generally the
application of ridicule to religious fanaticism, as a way of tempering such fanaticism.
The use of ridicule, Shaftesbury argued, was far preferable to the attempt to control
religious belief through persecution and enforced orthodoxy. This, he suggested,
was the way of the ancients, which was preferable to the modern enforcement of
theological orthodoxy. Persecution merely deepened the gloom and melancholy
which were the natural soil of fanatical “enthusiasm” (see toleration; religion,
freedom of).
In the seventeenth century, the Platonic term “enthusiasm” had been used chiefly
to mock the claim of religious dissenters to possess divine inspiration. In the “Letter,”
Shaftesbury, though he does not abandon this mocking connotation of the term,
defends enthusiasm by proposing that it is both essential to human nature and the
source of everything noble in us. Shaftesbury’s advocacy of the ridicule of religion
stirred considerable controversy, and Shaftesbury defended his recommendation in
“Sensus Communis; an Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour” (1709). Here,
Shaftesbury argues that humor is a means to defending “sensus communis,” by
which he means not just common sense as opposed to folly and fanaticism, but also
the sense of the common good (see common good). Christianity, Shaftesbury
proposes, has rejected the common good (embodied in the classical virtues of
patriotism and friendship) in favor of a merely private pursuit of salvation.
In “Soliloquy, or Advice to an Author” (1710) Shaftesbury offers a sketch of his
own moral teaching. This rests on a practice of what, alluding to Shakespeare’s
Hamlet and other plays, he calls “soliloquy.” “Soliloquy,” as Shaftesbury understands
it, is a practice of becoming aware of one’s own passions, whose language is obscure,
by voicing them in private and meditating on them. The model he has in mind here
is clearly the private Meditations of the Stoic emperor Marcus Aurelius, and
Shaftesbury himself kept similar private notebooks (1999).
It is difficult, Shaftesbury holds, to learn how to practice soliloquy, and he
proposed that certain sorts of writing could be of great help toward this end: in
particular, the poetry of Homer and the Socratic writings of Plato and Xenophon.
In reading the dialogues of the Socratics, the reader learns to divide him or herself
3
in two: a wiser or critical part modeled on Socrates, and a lesser part based on his or
her own undisciplined passions. Homer’s study of character – both that of gods and
that of human beings – is a subtle tragicomedy which can work, in the same way as
Socratic dialogue, to teach us to attend to ourselves. Such poetry is far superior, as a
means of awakening self-knowledge, to the magisterial sermonizing of Christian
preachers; these may bully us into submission, but they will never teach us the way
to a free conversation with ourselves. Poetry of this sort, along with Socratic dialogue,
is also far superior, as a means of philosophical education, to the systematic style of
the philosophical treatise; for philosophical education, which includes education in
virtue, cannot be separated from the achievement of self-knowledge.
Shaftesbury collected and published these writings in Characteristicks of Men,
Manners, Opinions, Times, first in 1711, then in a carefully prepared second edition
with symbolic engravings (1714), which appeared after his death. In the
Characteristicks, the “Letter,” “Sensus Communis,” and “Soliloquy” make up the
first volume. The second volume consists in a revised version of the “Inquiry” and
in “The Moralists,” and the third volume of “Philosophical Miscellanies,” a
commentary on all five of the preceding treatises and on the work as a whole. In the
“Miscellanies,” Shaftesbury mocks the “Inquiry” for its systematic cast, and mocks
the rhetoric of Theocles in “The Moralists” as a mixture of poetry and the style of
Christian preaching. He excuses it, however, on the grounds that the taste of the
author’s contemporaries makes them unable to digest philosophy if presented to
them directly.
Central to the Characteristicks is the view that morals can only be understood by
reflecting on manners, opinions, and times: that is, that morals are rooted in customs
and the sense of the beautiful as well as in the beliefs, particularly about the gods,
characteristic of different times. Shaftesbury uses the term “manners” to refer to
customs understood as expressions of a moral taste – which customs, in his view,
always are – and the full title of the Characteristicks is meant to indicate that the
“characteristics” of “opinions” and “men” must be studied in relation to “manners”
and “times.” This does not mean that there is no single human nature; on the
contrary, there is such a nature, but it can only be uncovered if we attend to the
distortions imposed on it by Christianity, which is characterized by its hostility to
human nature as sinful and to “the world” as the devil’s.
The Christian distortion of human nature, Shaftesbury recognizes, has been
resisted by some moderns, like Hobbes. But Shaftesbury regards many of the modern
philosophers themselves, and Hobbes and Descartes in particular, as “projectors,”
who react to the Christian rejection of nature not by defending nature against
Christianity, but by seeking to master and transform it. Shaftesbury rejected the
view of Christian voluntarists, who thought that morality was based on divine
command, on the grounds that this deprived it of a basis in human nature. He found
the same view in Hobbes, despite Hobbes’ opposition to the authority of the Church
in Christian politics. As Michael Gill points out, however, Shaftesbury thought that
the most dangerous propagator of the view that human nature is founded in
convention was John Locke, a protégé of his grandfather, who had supervised
4
Shaftesbury’s education, though Shaftesbury avoided making his opposition to

Locke public (Gill 2006: 80–2). Shaftesbury’s argument for the naturalness of
virtue was vigorously opposed by Bernard Mandeville (see mandeville, bernard),
a disciple of Bayle, and Mandeville’s disagreement with Shaftesbury informed later
debates on the relation of morality to human nature.
A full understanding of Shaftesbury requires that we attend to his affiliations with
English republicans and radicals like John Toland, who was a protégé of his, as well
as with Continental thinkers like Bayle, who was a close friend of Shaftesbury’s.
Shaftesbury’s grandfather, the First Earl, was the founder of the Whig party, and
Shaftesbury himself served in parliament as a Whig.
Shaftesbury was extremely influential in the eighteenth century, not just among phi-
losophers (see hume, david; smith, adam) but among novelists, essayists, and critics.
Authors influenced by him include Diderot, Fielding (see Butler 1985), Mendelssohn,
Lessing, Wieland, Herder, Goethe, and Jane Austen (see Clarke 2002); he was strongly
criticized by Mary Astell, Berkeley, and John Brown. Shaftesbury’s emphasis on the
importance of taste for morals, and on the importance of the study of taste for the study
of the human soul, had a considerable influence on the development of aesthetics in the
eighteenth century, and indeed Shaftesbury may be said to be one of the founders of
that discipline. In the nineteenth century, his influence declined, probably because his
essayistic manner of writing caused him to be taken less seriously than he had been in
his own day. Recently, however, there has been a revival of interest in Shaftesbury, not
just in the English-speaking world but also on the Continent.
See also: common good; evolution, ethics and; hume, david; hutcheson,
francis; mandeville, bernard; religion and politics; religion, freedom
of; smith, adam; stoicism; toleration
REFERENCES
Bayle, Pierre 2000 [1682]. Various Thoughts on the Occasion of a Comet, trans. with notes and
an interpretive essay by Robert C. Bartlett. Albany: State University of New York Press.
(Translation of Pensées diverses sur le comète, ed. A. Prat, Pierre Rétat. Paris: Société des
Textes Français Modernes, 1994; 1st ed., 1682).
Butler, Lance St. John 1985. “Fielding and Shaftesbury Reconsidered: The Case of Tom Jones,”
in K. G. Simpson (ed.), Henry Fielding: Justice Observed. London and Totowa, NJ: Vision
Press/Barnes & Noble, pp. 56–74.
Clark, Lorrie 2002. “Shaftesbury’s Art of ‘Soliloquy’ in Mansfield Park,” Persuasions: The Jane
Austen Journal, vol. 24, pp. 59–70.
Filonowicz, Joseph Duke 2008. Fellow-Feeling and the Moral Life. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Jaffro, Laurent 1998. Éthique de la communication et art d’écrire: Shaftesbury et les Lumières
anglaises. Paris: Presses universitaires de France.
5
Klein, Lawrence E. 1994. Shaftesbury and the Culture of Politeness: Moral Discourse and Cultural
Politics in Early Eighteenth-century England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schneewind, J. B. 1998. The Invention of Autonomy: A History of Modern Moral Philosophy.
Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of 1999. Characteristicks of Men, Manners,
Opinions, Times, ed. Philip Ayres. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Shaftesbury, Anthony, Third Earl of 2001. Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times,
ed. Douglas Den Uyl. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.
FURTHER READINGS
Aldridge, A. O. 1951. “Shaftesbury and the Deist Manifesto,” Transactions of the American
Philosophical Society, vol. 41, pp. 297–385.
Beiser, Frederick C. 1996. The Sovereignty of Reason: The Defense of Rationality in the Early
English Enlightenment. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Darwall, Stephen 1995. British Moralists and the Internal “Ought.” Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Rivers, Isabel 2000. Reason, Grace, and Sentiment: A Study of the Language of Religion and
Ethics in England, 1660–1780, vol. 2: Shaftesbury to Hume. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of 1981–. Cooper, Anthony Ashley, Third
Earl of Shaftesbury, Standard Edition: Complete Works, Selected Letters and Posthumous
Writings, in English with German Translation, ed. W. Benda, G. Hemmerich, W. Lottes,
et al. Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog.
Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of 2000. Characteristics of Men, Manners,
Opinions, Times, ed. Lawrence E. Klein. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Voitle, Robert 1984. The Third Earl of Shaftesbury, 1671–1713. Baton Rouge: University of
Louisiana Press.
Zanardi, Paola 2001. Filosofi e repubblicani al origine del illuminismo: Shaftesbury e il suo
circulo. Padua: Sapere.
1
Immigration
Jonathan Seglow
Introduction
The movement of people across the world is as old as human history, but immigration –
leaving one’s state and entering another – is a more modern phenomenon. Large-scale
migrations began in the mid-nineteenth century; more recent ones occurred in the years
after World War II. Immigration has only recently received much attention from moral
and political philosophers, however, and in the past few years there has been a modest
but steady stream of scholarly work on this “normatively complex phenomenon”
(Bauböck 2009: 28) – a stream that may well grow in size. Here I aim to provide an over-
view of this recent work.
The journey migrants make is marked by several stages. First, migrants enter the
territory of a new state. So too do tourists or businesspeople, but migrants tend to
remain in their new state longer than them; and also, unlike other visitors, they often
acquire some of the rights and entitlements of citizens (Carens 2008; see citizen-
ship). They may have rights to reside, to work, or to receive various forms of welfare,
for example. Even migrants working illegally have some rights; arguably they have
the right to have their position regularized if they have been making an economic
contribution for some time. The entitlement criterion seems more important than
the temporal criterion, because temporary migrants (seasonal workers for example)
may only stay a short time, and because it is immigrants’ acquisition of certain rights
and duties, not their mere location in a new territory, that raises the more pressing
moral problems. Some migrants reach a further stage of the journey, which is their
acquisition of full citizenship: that is naturalization (Seglow 2009; Miller 2008).
Immigration and naturalization are distinct phenomena, though they bear on each
other in normatively interesting ways. There may be good moral reasons for fairly
open borders only if citizenship is made relatively hard to obtain – perhaps resident
non-citizen migrants being entitled to few of the privileges of citizenship (Pevnik
2008). Conversely, a state might put high barriers to entry but encourage naturaliza-
tion and make it something fairly straightforward to obtain. Michael Walzer (1983)
defends the latter position in his classic defense of immigration restrictions. For
reasons of space, I shall pass over the claims of resident migrants and the ethics of
naturalization here.
A cursory look at the philosophical literature on immigrant entry might suggest
that opinion is divided between champions of open borders and supporters of closed
ones. I shall call the latter “sovereign borders,” as the phrase refers to a state’s right to
close – or open – its borders as it wishes. In fact several authors defend distinct posi-
tions that are not assimilable to either policy. Just borders (see justice) says that
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee153
2
principles of justice should determine what migrants should be permitted to move

to what states under what circumstances. Democratic borders (see democracy)
claims that abstract philosophizing cannot or should not determine on its own how
porous the borders should be. Like just borders, it sees a role for normative princi-
ples; but according to democratic borders these principles should be merely proce-
dural ones, which set out the moral parameters for the deliberations of those affected
by immigration decisions on the ground. Since few advocates of just borders would
likely hold that substantive principles of justice can, on their own, determine with
any precision all admissions decisions, and hence that there must be some role for
political decision-making, the distinction between just and democratic borders is
not a sharp one; rather they form a continuum. Leaving this complication aside,
I shall structure what follows through the fourfold categorization introduced here,
and at the end I shall consider immigration in our own world of sovereign borders.
Open Borders
Two main arguments have been advanced for open (or more open) borders; one
based on the value of freedom, the other on global justice. I shall examine these
in turn.
The generic freedom argument starts from the assumption that individuals should
be free; it claims that the concept of sovereign borders defeats that assumption only
in morally irrelevant ways; and it concludes that borders should therefore be
normally open. (I say “normally” because borders that are largely open need not
be completely open. If states excluded known terrorists, or even closed their borders
temporarily to prevent welfare overload, that would be consistent with their having
fairly open borders [see terrorism].) On a quasi-Millian version of the freedom
argument, for example, one could argue that individuals should be free to migrate
unless they harm others and that, since immigration only rarely harm others,
borders should generally be open (see mill, john stuart; harm principle). On a
libertarian version, one could argue that borders should be open, since individuals
should not be prevented by states from associating with one another if they wish
(Steiner 1992; Miller 2007: 210–12; Wellman 2008: 130–7). It seems to me unlikely
that these arguments could be successful, and this is because of the importance of
third-party interests. To substantiate this claim, let us consider the most developed
version of the individual freedom argument, one based on freedom of movement.
For Joseph Carens, freedom of movement within the state is a vital human interest,
an interest that does not disappear when we consider the freedom to move across
borders.
Carens famously presented a version of this argument through defending a global
version of Rawls’s original position (Carens 1987; see rawls, john). The parties to
this original position, reasoning behind the veil of ignorance, would adopt freedom
of international movement as a basic liberty, Carens suggests, for the same sorts of
reasons they would adopt other basic liberties: when the veil is lifted, it might
turn out that it was vital to their plan of life (there might be a significant person,
3
job, or religious practice waiting for them on the other side of a border). To assess
this argument, we need to ask whether free movement is an intrinsic interest or
merely an instrumental one (see Bauböck 2009: 7). If freedom of movement were
only instrumentally valuable, for achieving other interests, then the critic could
argue that if, ex hypothesi, those interests could be met within the borders of one’s
own state, there could be no fundamental interest in migrating elsewhere. This is
David Miller’s view (2007: 204–8). Miller asserts that liberal democratic states
already provide their members with a range of options sufficient to meet their
various interests. If one’s society already offers this range of options, there can be no
interest in migrating (and in the case of illiberal, undemocratic states Miller asserts
that it is primarily their own citizens’ responsibility to reform them). Suppose, then,
that we have an intrinsic interest in freedom of movement. The problem for Carens
here is that there are also valid considerations, which the parties to a global original
position would likely entertain, that count against adopting freedom of international
movement as a basic liberty. For example, in order to advance his plan of life, a
person might have interests in culture or community that could only be met by
limiting free movement at the global level (Kymlicka 2001: 267; Brock 2009: 191).
These considerations remain valid whether or not we reason within the framework
of a Rawlsian global original position. Moreover, even if individuals do have the
liberty to move across borders, this does not by itself establish that they should also
have rights to residency, work, or welfare. All these involve the migrants’ acquisition
of certain entitlements; they would possess some subset of the full membership
rights enjoyed by citizens. Reasoning this way takes us toward conceptualizing
immigrants as joiners of an association, something I explore below.
In our world, marked as it is by severe economic injustices across state borders
(see global distributive justice), it may seem that there is something wrong
with better-off states fencing in their own privileges by exercising coercive control
over their own borders. In his 1987 article, Carens famously likened the borders of
the liberal democratic state to a feudal order insofar as they used coercive force to
exclude would-be entrants solely on the basis of a characteristic – their nationality –
which, like social rank in medieval Europe, is morally arbitrary and unable to bear
the scrutiny of justice (1987: 230, 249). This second argument requires better-off
states to open their borders so as to enable the world’s poorer peoples to enjoy the
opportunities on offer there; anything less is morally illegitimate (Carens 1992:
34–6; cf. Cole 2000: 198–202; Harris 2002).
If more affluent states’ borders were opened and more poor people emigrated,
the volume of remittances they sent back home – already a significant fraction of
gross domestic product (GDP) in many developing states – would no doubt increase
substantially. This would do little, however, to improve the prospects for most of
the world’s poorest people, who cannot afford to migrate. Increased migration from
poor states to rich ones could also have costs for the former. The emigration of
skilled workers already significantly impedes the ability of many poorer states to
meet their own welfare needs, and this brain drain would only increase (Brock
2009: 198–204; Ypi 2008: 402). Second, the substantial remittances that migrants
4
return tend to finance private consumption, not public and infrastructural goods
that benefit all. Further, remittances can also help to sustain a dependency culture
and to erode the incentives for states to introduce necessary economic reforms
(Brock 2009: 204–8). These problems could perhaps be addressed to some degree.
It is not inconsistent with (more) open borders for skilled workers or for the states
that recruit them to pay compensation to the states these workers have left. And
perhaps some remittance money could be compulsorily redirected in more publicly
beneficial ways?
Few if any writers, however, endorse open borders as the sole means to achieve
global justice. Political philosophers and practitioners concerned with ameliorating
global poverty have tended to focus on institutional reform, fair trade, good govern-
ance, development aid, and private investment. How far these have been and could
be successful are complex questions, and different regions of the world yield differ-
ent answers. Better-off states opening their borders is one policy we can consider
alongside these other measures, but its relationship with them is itself likely to be
complex. Citizens would have less incentive to improve the governance of their own
state, for example, if many of them could simply leave. Opening borders, completely
or to some degree, is therefore something we would need to assess instrumentally
and locally, on global justice grounds. Its instrumental status implies that (if the
freedom argument is rejected) a world that did enjoy global justice could be one
with fairly closed borders (see Ypi 2008).
Sovereign Borders
The concept of sovereign borders has been defended (1) through the value of free-
dom of association (see association, freedom of); (2) by appeal to the value of
national self-determination (see nationalism and patriotism); (3) on the grounds
that the state has a right to control the territory under its dominion; and (4) by
pointing to the asymmetry between insiders and outsiders.
1. I noted above that freedom of association can ground a conditional liberty to

cross borders: if A and B wish to associate with one another, then the presumption
must be against C, who would prefer that they do not do so. However, if A and B
already enjoy an association and wish to exclude C who wants to join them, then the
presumption must surely lie with A and B, since forced association is prima facie a
wrong. Such is the kernel of Christopher Heath Wellman’s (2008) argument in favor
of sovereign borders. Freedom of association, suggests Wellman, protects a privi-
leged domain of individual choice. Though he concedes that the presumption against
forced association is weaker in the case of citizens of a state than it is in the case of
an intimate association like marriage, Wellman nonetheless contends that this
presumption overrides considerations of global distributive justice. Two objections,
however, may be leveled at Wellman’s position (Fine 2010). First, the freedom to
associate does not logically imply the freedom not to associate; it only offers norma-
tive support for it. Thus I might choose to work for my boss, who offered me a job;
5
but my boss and I still have to work with another person in the organization – a
person whom neither of us chose to employ. How far does this devalue our associa-
tion with each other? Not much, it seems – in which case it is hard to see how
citizens’ civic relations are significantly devalued by the admission of at least some
migrants (see Miller 2007: 211; Blake and Risse 2007: 172–4). Second, associations
within the state are formed within a framework where individuals must nonetheless
meet the duties to others that their common citizenship entails. It would be illegiti-
mate to form a club that required members to make a financial contribution at the
expense of their duties to pay taxes, for example. At the global level, richer citizens
owe weighty duties to poorer strangers, duties that at present we lack much of the
institutional framework to discharge. If that is the case, however, then it’s not clear
whether it is legitimate to maintain states that, by analogy with the club example
above, effectively shelter their members from meeting their global justice duties.
Arguably one can only form legitimate associations in just conditions; conditions
that international society currently lacks. This does not imply that better-off states
must admit needy strangers, because their citizens may be able to discharge their
duties in other ways; but it does imply that they might.
2. Communitarian writers who have defended sovereign borders have appealed
“to the value of self-determination, to the importance to a political community of being
able to determine its future shape” (Miller 2007: 223; and see communitarianism). In
an often quoted passage, Walzer writes:
At stake here is the shape of the community that acts in the world, exercises sovereignty
and so on. Admission and exclusion are at the core of communal self-independence.
They suggest the deepest meaning of self-determination. Without them, there could
not be communities of character, historically stable, ongoing associations of men and
women with some special commitment to each other and some special sense of their
common life. (1983: 61–2)
Admission is especially important for self-determination because, in admitting people,

a state, if it allows them to acquire voting rights, gives these new entrants a say in
self-determination itself (see Wellman 2008: 114–15). Walzer’s other claims in this
passage, however, seem a little overstated. While the character of a political
community could change irrevocably under a regime of open borders, it need not do
so under a regime of just and/or democratic borders where immigration flows are
reduced and managed. Why citizens are entitled to rank their own interests over
those of migrants (and their compatriots) requires an argument; and it is not implau-
sible to argue that they may be permitted to do so in some areas but not in every area –
and in particular not with respect to global justice, where the needs of strangers
arguably take priority over special civic commitments.
David Miller’s version of the communitarian argument connects the idea of
national self-determination to “existing national values” as well as to the “legitimate
concerns of public policy” (Miller 2007: 222, 223). That nations embody values – as
opposed to identities – that are truly valuable, require preservation, and are damaged
by immigration flows (even moderate ones?) seems to me quite a contentious claim.
6
Even if they do embody such values, it’s worth noting that national values and shared
cultures tend to change over time in ways that are beyond members’ conscious
control. Still, we should control what we can control, Miller might say; and immigra-
tion is certainly a legitimate concern of public policy.
3. Beside entering the association that is the state and the community that is the
nation, immigrants also occupy a particular territory, which – so some have argued –
a state or nation has some sort of collective right over. Rawls (1999: 8–9, 38–9) for
example maintains that a state’s territory is its collective asset. Pressure to emigrate
means, according to Rawls, that a state has not taken sufficient care of its asset, since,
with the exception of “burdened societies,” a state’s territory should be able to support
its population in perpetuity. This implies that, even if there is a right to leave one’s
state, there is no right to emigrate to another one. The question of whether we might
assist burdened societies by allowing at least some of their members to immigrate
takes us back to the global justice argument. Leaving that aside, the more obvious
territorial argument is that a state’s dominion over a territory also extends to the
right to exclude outsiders from entering it (Miller 2007: 214–21). However, one can
also argue that states have simply the duty to establish justice, the right to enforce it,
and, within those limits, the right to do as they wish within their territory, where
these rights and duties fall short of excluding outsiders. Moreover, even if territorial
rights do involve exclusion, we need an account of how one state, or one people, can
acquire those rights. For example, they may, through their productive efforts, have
added value to a territory, or they may have occupied it for a sufficient length of time
and/or acquired a symbolic connection with it. Naturally, only some peoples have
satisfied these criteria, so not every territorial claim made by states is a justified one.
4. In his Philosophies of Exclusion, Phillip Cole (2000) argues that liberals who
believe in the moral equality of persons should seek to construct a social order where
arbitrary differences between people are accorded no political significance. Cole
maintains, like Carens, that one’s country of birth is one such arbitrary difference.
This ideal of moral symmetry (see impartiality) is in conflict with Walzer, who
places much weight on the distinction between insiders and outsiders. Walzer argues
that the very idea of distributive justice presupposes a bounded political community,
of which some people are members and others are not (1983: 31). The prior ques-
tion, of acquiring membership of a political community, “is not pervasively subject
to the constraints of justice” (1983: 61). Along similar lines, though this time only
attacking open borders, Michael Blake (2008) argues that it is only citizens who are
subject to the coercive authority of their own state. For that authority to be justified,
claims Blake, the state must make certain guarantees to those residing within its
borders. This amounts to a charter of citizens’ rights, of which freedom of movement
is one. While those outside the state remain moral equals, they do not enjoy the same
schedule of rights. However, Blake’s assumption that coercion requires some special
justification implies that individuals are free and equal, which in turn strongly
supports the view that they have certain rights to freedom. Arguably, freedom of
movement is one of those rights. My intuition, at least, is that freedom of movement
is a right enjoyed in the state of nature. Thomas Christiano has argued, against Blake,
7
that the social contract that authorizes coercion can only create special rights and
duties, not fundamental ones (Christiano 2008: 940; see social contract).
Just Borders
Just borders is my label for a family of views, all of which submit the ethics of
migration to principles of justice and conclude that such principles defend the lib-
erty of some migrants to move to some states in some circumstances. I shall briefly
consider four just borders arguments: (1) utilitarianism (see utilitarianism);
(2) reparations (see compensatory justice); (3) natural resource use; and (4) the
need to preserve liberal democratic states.
1. Utilitarian philosophers have rarely if ever explicitly addressed the ethics of

immigration. However, some economistic approaches might be characterized as
quasi-utilitarian, since they argue that opening the world’s borders, and thus
allowing the free movement of labor as well as that of goods and capital, would pro-
mote aggregate global utility more effectively than the current regime of fairly
closed borders does (Harris 2002). This argument bears similarities to the global
justice argument. I call it “quasi-utilitarian” because economists tend to measure
utility in a narrow monetary way and to overlook other sources of utility, such as the
desire to start a new life abroad – or indeed the disutility that can come from the
clash of cultures that immigration prompts. Whether utility is measured in broader
or narrower terms, utilitarianism would surely not support open borders for every
migrant seeking entry into every state. The problems associated with the brain drain
and remittance money discussed earlier both count against that. The consistent
utilitarian position would seem to support more open borders between some
states – that is, just borders (depending in part on whether the exercise of sover-
eignty is allowed to count as a source of utility).
2. A number of writers have argued that better-off states should open their bor-
ders to at least some migrants from poorer states whose populations they have in the
past harmed in some way (Wilcox 2007; Cole 2000; Gibney 1986: 79–108). According
to Shelley Wilcox, for example, “harm consists in a human rights deficit” (2007: 279;
see harm). Her global harm principle “requires societies to admit individuals seek-
ing to escape from human rights deficits for which those societies are collectively
accountable … if it’s not possible to offer them fair compensation in their home
country” (2007: 286–7). She mentions as examples American military intervention
in Vietnam and, more recently, Iraq. This is a clear just borders view, since it does
not call for open borders when no harm has occurred or when compensation in the
migrants’ country of origin is the better response. It might be noted against Wilcox’s
account that the resettlement of peoples in states that have harmed their compatriots
may be costly for them, as well as unwanted.
3. Michael Blake and Mathias Risse (2007) have developed an interesting argu-
ment, which begins from the premise that the earth’s territory and natural resources
were originally owned in common by all humankind. This means that each
8
inhabitant of the earth today is a co-owner of all of its resources. Blake and Risse
suggest that we use market prices to calculate the monetary value of the resources
currently within the territory of any state. Given that we know states’ populations,
this means that we can also calculate, for any state on earth, whether it is under using
or overusing the resource bundle under its command. Blake and Risse suggest that,
in virtue of their common ownership, individuals have a claim to immigrate to any
state that is relatively underusing its resources, but no claim to immigrate to a state
that is not. This is, however, only a pro tanto claim. It may be acceptable, they sug-
gest, for a state to restrict immigration if it pays compensation (whose value their
model enables us to calculate) to those who are kept out.
4. Thomas Christiano (2008) and Will Kymlicka (2001), while sympathetic to the
claims of poorer people seeking to migrate to richer states, have each suggested that
liberal democracies can legitimately limit immigration in order to preserve their
distinctive valuable features. For Christiano, it is vital to maintain the proper function-
ing of the liberal democratic state – not just because its institutions are valuable in
themselves, but also because it is only through the activities of such states that we will
ever construct a just global order (2008: 956). If richer liberal democratic states were to
allow the mass entry of poorer migrants, the short-term gain of the latter would only
mean a longer-term loss for everybody, as the chances of achieving global justice are
jeopardized. Some advocates of cosmopolitan justice, however, seek to dismantle – or
at least circumvent – the contemporary state. Kymlicka argues that there are limits on
how many migrants liberal democracies can absorb, given the need for solidarity that
undergirds the welfare state, and the preservation of a common national culture and a
shared language for democratic deliberation (though immigrants can of course learn
this; see multiculturalism). He suggests, further, that, if liberal democracies do meet
their obligations of global justice, then “it is permissible for them to regulate admissions
so as preserve [sic] a distinct national community” (2001: 271). These considerations
have resonances with the communitarian arguments of the last section.
Democratic Borders
The final family of arguments, democratic borders, says that admissions decisions
should be made by those parties that would be affected by them, the philosopher
only setting out the moral parameters of their deliberations. It is the latter that give
legitimacy to admissions decisions. Democratic deliberations by affected parties
may end up with a consensus that a particular border should be open, closed, or
somewhere in between. This is a more contextualized view than the other three,
because different borders will be resolved in different ways, depending on the
affected parties’ circumstances and interests. If, as seems reasonable, considerations
of global distributive justice too are on the agenda of the democratic conversation, it
is also a rather more complex view. For example, in some circumstances citizens of
poor state B might agree that rich state A’s border is closed to them, but only if A
offers substantial economic aid to B; while in other circumstances A and B might
agree that the border is partly or wholly open.
9
Arash Abizadeh (2008) argues for democratic borders in the context of a powerful
critique of sovereign borders. Against the communitarian view, Abizadeh maintains
that there is no such thing as a pre-political community: demarcating a state’s borders
and then enforcing them against outsiders is a political act. In fact, he argues, border
control is necessarily coercive: whether or not an outsider actually wishes to enter
another state, its enforcement of its borders is a coercive threat against her. State con-
trol of borders coerces outsiders because it interferes with one of the conditions of
autonomy: it makes each person’s will dependent on another agent (see autonomy).
(In a similar way, all laws coerce those who are subject to them, including those who
would never countenance breaking the law.) Abizadeh adopts a distinctively demo-
cratic view of political justification. Coercively maintained state borders must be
defended through processes of dialogue in which potential migrants as well as insiders
participate. It is not enough that borders are morally justified to outsiders: they must
be actually justified to them. Against this, Miller (2010; see also Abizadeh 2010) argues
that Abizadeh fails to distinguish between coercion and prevention. If a state prevents
an individual from entering its borders but that person still retains a sufficient range of
life options to choose from, her independence has not been compromised and her
autonomy remains intact. Moreover, according to Miller prevention does not require
a distinctively democratic justification, even if it requires some justification.
Seyla Benhabib has defended democratic borders on the assumption that in a
globalized political and economic order, peoples are “radically and not merely
intermittently interdependent” (2004: 97; see globalization). This interdepend-
ence has important distributive consequences. The poor states from which many
people seek to leave are poor in large measure because of the activities of richer
states and of the global institutions under their control. Allied to this empirical
assumption, Benhabib takes a Kantian cosmopolitan view that says that, insofar as
we can affect the freedom and well-being of others, we have obligations of justice
toward them (2004: 104; see kant, immanuel; cosmopolitanism). On her view,
“[s]ocio-economic justice and criteria to measure it by cannot be identified
independently of practices of democratic freedom and self-determination (2004:
110–11). This means that the nature of citizens’ global justice duties – on borders,
institutional reform, and redistribution of goods – must be determined by citizens
themselves, in political dialogues that reflect on the norms at issue.
Immigration in a Non-Ideal World

Political morality needs to be a guide to action in our own far from just world of sov-
ereign borders. Even under the constraint that what ought to happen, in non-ideal
circumstances, should not be so far removed from what could feasibly happen, there
is still something we can say short of embracing just, democratic, or open borders in
their entirety (Carens 1996). In particular, we can consider which categories of would-
be migrants have the most urgent claim to admission, given that only a few of them
will be admitted. Top of most people’s list would be refugees, though there is discus-
sion over who should count as a refugee, and also how far they can legitimately be
10
given safe haven in refugee camps rather than seek membership of another state (see
refugees). Another group with a strong claim are those who want to rejoin their
families. As Carens points out, family reunification is as much about insiders, citizens
or residents who want to exercise their right to live with their family, as it is about
outsiders seeking the same (2003: 96–9). There are moral and cultural questions here
about who counts as a close family member. Even where state decisions on admissions
are discretionary, as under sovereign borders, there is still a strong norm of non-
discrimination. It would be wrong for a state only to admit people who shared its
dominant ethnicity or religion, for example, but not necessarily wrong, at least if states
are discharging their obligations of global distributive justice, to prefer migrants who
can make some substantial economic contribution, for example who possess skills in
short supply (Carens 2003: 106–10; cf. Wellman 2008: 137–41).
Conclusion
I have expressed some skepticism toward both open and sovereign borders, since both
of them, it seems to me, overlook valid moral considerations that count against the
absolutist position on immigrant entry which, in opposite ways, they both adopt. Just
borders and democratic borders are more defensible philosophical positions on
immigration, in part because the complexity of global migration militates against an
absolutist approach and in part because, notwithstanding that complexity, the inequal-
ities of wealth and opportunity across the world strongly suggest that any defensible
normative view on migration should be part of a more comprehensive theory of global
distributive justice. The choice between just borders and democratic borders, however,
raises large moral and political questions well beyond the scope of this essay.
See also: association, freedom of; autonomy; citizenship;

communitarianism; compensatory justice; cosmopolitanism; democracy;
global distributive justice; globalization; harm; harm principle;
impartiality; justice; kant, immanuel; mill, john stuart;
multiculturalism; nationalism and patriotism; rawls, john; refugees;
social contract; terrorism; utilitarianism
REFERENCES
Abizadeh, Arash 2008. “Democratic Theory and Border Coercion: No Right to Unilaterally
Control Your Own Borders,” Political Theory, vol. 36, no. 1, pp. 37–65.
Abizadeh, Arash 2010. “Democratic Legitimacy and State Coercion: A Reply to David Miller,”
Political Theory, vol. 38, no. 1, pp. 121–30.
Bauböck, Rainer 2009. “Global Justice, Freedom of Movement and Democratic Citizenship,”
European Journal of Sociology, vol. 50, no. 1, pp. 1–31.
Benhabib, Seyla 2004. The Rights of Others: Aliens, Residents and Citizens. Cambridge:
Blake, Michael 2008. “Immigration and Political Equality,” San Diego Law Review, vol. 45,
no. 4, pp. 963–79.
11
Blake, Michael, and Mathias Risse 2007. “Migration, Territoriality and Culture,” in Jesper
Ryberg, Thomas S. Petersen, and Clark Wolf (eds.), New Waves in Applied Ethics.
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 153–81.
Brock, Gillian 2009. Global Justice: A Cosmopolitan Account. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Carens, Joseph 1987. “Aliens and Citizens: The Case for Open Borders,” Review of Politics,
vol. 49, no. 2, pp. 250–73.
Carens, Joseph 1992. “Migration and Morality: A Liberal Egalitarian Perspective,” in Brian
Barry and Robert Goodin (eds.), Free Movement: Ethical Issues in the Transnational
Movement of People and Money. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, pp. 25–47.
Carens, Joseph 1996. “Realistic and Idealistic Approaches to the Ethics of Migration,”
International Migration Review, vol. 30, no. 1, pp. 156–70.
Carens, Joseph 2003. “Who Should Get In? The Ethics of Immigrant Admissions,” Ethics and
International Affairs, vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 95–110.
Carens, Joseph 2008. “Live-in Domestics, Seasonal Workers, and Others Hard to Locate on
the Map of Democracy,” Journal of Political Philosophy, vol. 16, no. 4, pp. 419–45.
Christiano, Thomas 2008. “Immigration, Political Community and Cosmopolitanism,” San
Diego Law Review, vol. 45, no. 4, pp. 933–61.
Cole, Phillip 2000. Philosophies of Exclusion: Liberal Political Theory and Immigration.
Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Fine, Sarah 2010. “Freedom of Association Is Not the Answer,” Ethics, vol. 120, no. 1, pp. 338–56.
Gibney, Mark 1986. Strangers or Friends: Principles for a New Alien Admissions Policy.
Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Harris, Nigel 2002. Thinking the Unthinkable: The Immigration Myth Exposed. London:
I. B. Taurus.
Kymlicka, Will 2001. “Territorial Boundaries: A Liberal Egalitarian Perspective,” in David
Miller and Sohail Hashmi (eds.), Boundaries and Justice: Diverse Ethical Perspectives.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 249–75.
Miller, David 2007. National Responsibility and Global Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Miller, David 2008. “Immigrants, Nations, and Citizenship,” Journal of Political Philosophy,
vol. 16, no. 4, pp. 371–90.
Miller, David 2010. “Why Immigration Controls Are Not Coercive: A Reply to Arash
Abizadeh,” Political Theory, vol. 38, no. 1, pp. 111–20.
Pevnik, Ryan 2008. “Social Trust and the Ethics of Immigration Policy,” Journal of Political
Seglow, Jonathan 2009. “Arguments for Naturalisation,” Political Studies, vol. 57, no. 4,
pp. 788–804.
Steiner, Hillel 1992. “Libertarianism and the Transnational Migration of People,” in Brian
Barry and Robert Goodin (eds.), Free Movement: Ethical Issues in the Transnational
Movement of People and Money. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, pp. 87–94.
Walzer, Michael 1983. Spheres of Justice. Oxford: Blackwell.
Wellman, Christopher Heath 2008. “Immigration and Freedom of Association,” Ethics,
vol. 119, no. 1, pp. 109–41.
Wilcox, Shelley 2007. “Immigrant Admissions and Global Relations of Harm,” Journal of
Social Philosophy, 38, no. 2, pp. 274–91.
Ypi, Lea 2008. “Justice in Migration: A Closed Borders Utopia?” Journal of Political Philosophy,
vol. 16, no. 4, pp. 391–418.
12
FURTHER READINGS
Bader, Veit 2005. “The Ethics of Immigration,” Constellations, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 332–61.
Castles, Stephen, and Mark J. Miller 2009. The Age of Migration, 4th ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Cavallero, Eric 2006. “An Immigration-Pressure Model of Global Distributive Justice,”
Politics, Philosophy, Economics, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 97–127.
Dummett, Michael 2001. On Immigration and Refugees. London: Routledge.
Goodin, Robert E. 2007. “Enfranchising All Affected Interests, and Its Alternatives,”
Johnston, Kevin R. 2003. “Open Borders?” UCLA Law Review, vol. 51, pp. 193–265.
Lægaard, Sune 2009. “Liberal Nationalism on Immigration,” in Nils Holtug, Kasper Lippert-
Rasmussen, and Sune Lægaard (eds.), Nationalism and Multiculturalism in a World of
Immigration. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 1–20.
Meisels, Tamar 2009. Territorial Rights, 2nd ed. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Seglow, Jonathan 2005. “The Ethics of Immigration,” Political Studies Review, vol. 3, no. 3,
pp. 3–21.
Van Parijs, Philippe 1993. “Marxism and Migration,” in Philippe Van Parijs, Marxism
Recycled. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 140–52.
Simmons, A. John 2001. “On the Territorial Rights of States,” Philosophical Issues, vol. 11,
pp. 300–26.
1
Wisdom
Valerie Tiberius
The kind of wisdom that is of concern in ethics is practical wisdom. Practical

wisdom is the virtue that enables a person to deliberate and choose well. It is
distinguished from theoretical wisdom (a virtue that might be credited to a good
scientist), which has to do with knowledge of the world. Practical wisdom includes
knowledge or understanding of the right goals (or “ends”) in human life and the
reasoning abilities that allow the wise person to apply this knowledge to come to
a decision about what to do (see practical reasoning). On most views it also
requires having appropriate emotional responses and possessing the capacity to
conform one’s actions to the results of reasoning. It is, therefore, a very demand-
ing and wide-ranging virtue. Practical wisdom (henceforth “wisdom”) is closely
associated with a good life; the wise person is supposed to make choices that
promote her flourishing (see eudaimonism; happiness). The fact that wise peo-
ple are wise about living is what makes wisdom so difficult to find and also what
makes it so sought after in advisors, leaders, and friends.
Most of the work that has been done on practical wisdom in philosophy has been
done by virtue ethicists working in the Aristotelian tradition (see aristotle; vir-
tue ethics; neo-aristotelian ethical naturalism). Because of this influence,
this essay will focus largely on the Aristotelian view, first discussing wisdom in
general and its role in the moral life, then turning to a discussion of the components
of wisdom. It should be noted that there is a strong tradition of thinking about wis-
dom in the Catholic tradition that emphasizes the importance of humility, which is
not covered in this essay.
Wisdom and Its Role in the Moral Life

According to Aristotle, the main defining feature of practical wisdom (phronesis,
sometimes translated “practical intelligence”) is good deliberation about human
concerns. Good deliberation, for Aristotle, is practical both in its subject matter and
in its function: it makes good action possible. The wise person “is the one whose aim
expresses rational calculation in pursuit of the best good for a human being that is
achievable in action” (Aristotle 1999: 1141b10–15). Wisdom requires understand-
ing what is good for human beings in general (the “universal”) and also under-
standing of the particulars of a situation. Understanding of the second
kind – understanding how the claims about what is good apply in a specific situa-
tion – is acquired through experience, which is why (according to Aristotle) young
people are not wise (1999: 1142a14). There is some debate about whether Aristotle
thought wise deliberation (or, indeed, any deliberation) could be about ends, or
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee155
2
whether we deliberate only about means to ends. He does say “We deliberate not
about ends, but about what promotes ends” (1999: 1112b30). However, many schol-
ars think that a reasonable interpretation of Aristotle on this point is that we can
deliberate about ends in the sense that we can specify what constitutes the end of
human happiness (e.g., Richardson 1997).
There is general agreement that in some sense wisdom is a sort of master virtue
that helps to determine which considerations – among the many that each individ-
ual virtue highlights – are relevant in a particular situation. This fact about wisdom
has made it an appealing virtue for virtue epistemologists who worry about the
possibility of conflict between the various intellectual virtues (see epistemology,
moral). Linda Zagzebski, for instance, identifies practical wisdom by reference to
the role it is needed to fill in a virtue theory. Practical wisdom, she argues, is the
virtue that mediates between the various moral and intellectual virtues and coordi-
nates “the various virtues into a single line of action or line of thought leading up to
an act … or a belief ” (1996: 224).
Some philosophers think that wisdom is a master virtue in a stronger sense.
According to Aristotle, practical wisdom is an extremely important virtue because it
is required by all the other virtues. The fully virtuous person feels anger, pity, and
other feelings “at the right times, about the right things, towards the right people, for
the right end, and in the right way” (Aristotle 1999: 1106b21ff), and the standard of
rightness cannot be discerned without wisdom. So it is for all the virtues, hence the
special importance of the virtue of practical wisdom. Aristotle thought that practical
wisdom requires virtue (1999: 1144b30) and that as soon as someone has practical
wisdom, “which is a single state, he has all the virtues as well” (1999: 1145a2). He
held the thesis of the “unity of the virtues,” a thesis that has been a major concern of
contemporary virtue ethicists. The attraction of this thesis is that full virtue seems to
require a grasp of the reasons for one’s actions (as opposed to merely acting as one
has been taught) and the reasons for one’s actions bring all the virtues together. For
example, the decision about whether to loan money to a friend in need may invoke
reasons of justice, compassion, helpfulness, and temperance. To understand what to
do, the practically wise person needs to understand the demands of all the virtues,
not just one. Moreover, once a person has all this understanding (and the motivation
that goes along with it, according to Aristotle), she will act rightly in any situation no
matter what virtue is required. This appears not to be a conceptual point, for
Aristotle, but a point about normal development: the virtues of character develop
together in normal human beings as increasing independence forces a person to
think through situations herself, and proper understanding and appropriate feeling
come to accompany good habits (Kraut 2010).
Nevertheless, the idea that if you have one virtue you have them all is counterin-
tuitive. We run across people all the time who seem to be, for example, kind yet
cowardly, fair but mean, kind toward some but not others, or courageous in some
types of situations but not others. To accommodate this fact of life, some prominent
virtue ethicists claim only a limited unity for virtues. Rosalind Hursthouse argues
that the best way to think about Aristotle’s view of the virtues is that “anyone who
3
possessed one virtue will have all the others to some degree, albeit, in some cases, a
pretty limited one” (1999: 156). On this interpretation, a person with true courage
may not have much kindness or generosity, but she must have some. Without any of
the other virtues, we would doubt that she had any practical wisdom and, therefore,
her claim to courage would also be undermined.
Neera Badhwar (1996) argues for an even more limited sense of the unity of the
virtues, though she does not argue for her view as an interpretation of Aristotle.
According to Badhwar, the virtues are united within domains, but not globally; one
can possess full virtue in one domain of life without possessing it in others. What
this means is that a person “may be kind towards her friends and colleagues without
being kind (or virtuous in any other way) towards acquaintances or strangers, or she
may be kind towards those who have been unlucky in their careers without being
kind towards those who have been unlucky in their personal relationships” (Badhwar
1996: 308). Badhwar also argues that the limited unity of the virtues is more compat-
ible with our understanding of human psychology according to which compartmen-
talization is a commonplace occurrence. Badhwar’s argument, therefore, suggests a
way for virtue ethics to respond to the critique that the virtues are not psychologi-
cally realizable for most human beings (Doris 2002; for another way to respond to
the empirical challenge that invokes achievement in practical reasoning, see
Kamtekar 2004) (see moral psychology).
The Components of Wisdom

The other central question that arises in the context of contemporary work in Aris-
totelian virtue ethics is: “What skills or habits does wisdom involve?” The view that
has set the stage for the contemporary debate is John McDowell’s “perception model”
of wisdom. The perception model highlights the way in which wisdom is akin to
visual perception: the wise person sees the salient considerations in a given set of
circumstances and these considerations present themselves as reasons for action.
Moreover, the knowledge that the wise person possesses is not passive or inert.
The sensitivity to what the situation requires that is constitutive of wisdom results in
the fully virtuous person seeing a course of action as “the thing to do” and this is
sufficient for her to do it. According to McDowell, “nothing over and above the
unclouded deliverances of the sensitivity is needed to explain the actions that
manifest virtue” (1998: 54).
There are three important features to notice in this picture. First, McDowell is
positing a kind of mental state that has qualities of both belief and desire – it is a state
with two directions of fit (see direction of fit). Wisdom is both cognitive (it is a
kind of knowledge about the world) and conative (it motivates action). This view
(though controversial) would help to explain how wisdom can be a single psycho-
logical state that plays two different roles. Second, McDowell holds that contraven-
ing considerations in a particular situation are not overridden but silenced. What
this means is that when a wise person comes to a decision about what to do, she is
not conflicted. The person who feels the pull of self-interest, but decides that the
4
reasons to act kindly (for example) outweigh reasons of self-interest is merely conti-
nent, not fully virtuous (see weakness of will). Third, according to McDowell, the
knowledge that constitutes wisdom is not codifiable. The knowledge of the fully
virtuous person cannot be formulated in general principles about right action or the
nature of a good life for a person (see particularism).
The claim that the knowledge of the wise cannot be codified is a common theme
in virtue ethics and one emphasized by many interpreters of Aristotle on wisdom.
Sarah Broadie (1991), for instance, argues against what she calls the “Grand End”
picture of practical wisdom, according to which wise deliberation consists in
applying one’s general conception of a good life (the grand end) to the circumstances
in order to derive a conclusion about what to do. According to Broadie, this is incor-
rect as an interpretation of Aristotle and also false to experience. She argues that we
cannot describe the end of human life in general terms independently of practical
wisdom, and that the kind of reasoning with which we are familiar does not attempt
to deduce conclusions about actions from general principles about good human life
(Broadie 1991: 200).
One apparent exception to the general acceptance of “uncodifiability” is John
Kekes, whose account of moral wisdom emphasizes reflection on a conception of a
good life both for human beings in general and for the individual (1995: 23).
According to Kekes, “moral wisdom combines knowledge of good and evil, the
motivation to evaluate moral situations in the light of that knowledge, and good
judgment connecting the general knowledge to particular situations” (1995: 30).
Kekes also claims that the knowledge that comprises moral wisdom includes “both
the necessary first principles and the contingent aspects of good lives” (1995: 17).
In this respect, Kekes’ view is similar to the Stoic view of wisdom, according to
which wisdom requires global theoretical knowledge that can be put into practice
(Inwood and Gerson 1997: 201; see stoicism). McDowell, at least, is suspicious of
there being any ethical knowledge at all that would take the form of necessary first
principles. This difference between Kekes and the Stoics on the one hand and
McDowell on the other draws attention to some difficult questions about wisdom
that have yet to be answered in any detail: How are particular decisions made if not
by appeal to general principles? How is knowledge of universals (general knowl-
edge of human nature) used by the wise? How does a wise person conceptualize the
good life?
The uncodifiability of wisdom, then, is a point of agreement between McDowell
and many (though not all) neo-Aristotelians, and no one thinks that the knowledge
of the wise is codifiable in the sense of there being a decision procedure for wise
decisions. Indeed, Julia Annas (2004) argues that it is an essential feature of virtue
ethics in general that it does not provide a decision procedure for right action; rather,
virtue ethics instructs us on how to improve our practical reasoning so that we can
develop the wisdom required to decide what to do for ourselves. Despite this much
agreement, some followers of Aristotle have complained that McDowell’s perceptual
model ignores some important elements of wisdom. Rosalind Hursthouse (2006)
argues that in addition to a well-tuned receptiveness to relevant considerations,
5
Aristotle’s conception of wisdom involves skills of correct discernment, good com-

prehension, and good deliberation. These skills are acquired through experience
and by paying attention to the exceptions to general rules about virtues and vices
(Hursthouse 2006: 290). For example, Hursthouse suggests that attending to a case
in which “the action of someone you respect surprises you until she explains why
she did it” can help us to arrive at a more sophisticated understanding of what virtue
requires.
Hursthouse also revives Aristotle’s point that good deliberation – and hence
practical wisdom – requires cleverness, which may also be possessed by the vicious.
According to Aristotle: “There is a capacity, called cleverness, which is such as to be
able to do the actions that tend to promote whatever goal is assumed and to achieve
it. If, then, the goal is fine, cleverness is praiseworthy, and if the goal is base, clever-
ness is unscrupulousness; hence both intelligent [practically wise] and unscrupulous
people are called clever” (1999: 1144b24). Hursthouse (2006: 296) argues that we
shouldn’t worry about this feature of Aristotle’s view (that cleverness can be pos-
sessed by the virtuous and vicious alike) because insofar as we who aim at virtue try
to become more clever “we will not be trying to acquire exactly the same version [of
cleverness], and we won’t wind up in the same place” as the vicious. According to
Hursthouse, the skills we learn take a different shape if we have virtue, because vir-
tue changes how we interpret our experiences. The vicious person’s cleverness will
be twisted by her having the wrong ends as she learns from experience which actions
bring about which ends.
Karen Stohr (2006) agrees with Hursthouse about the importance of skills and
cleverness. She emphasizes the skills required to know how to act in the circum-
stances in a way that expresses the right attitudes and commitments: wisdom
“demands a kind of cleverness about the means necessary to achieve the ends already
established as good, expressed in an agent’s ability to say or do what is proper in a
given circumstance” (2006: 380). According to Stohr, a fundamental skill here is a
kind of imaginative identification with others that enables genuine empathy (on the
importance of moral imagination, see also Kekes 1995).
Self-knowledge is another component of wisdom that has been emphasized by
some authors. Kekes argues that increasing self-knowledge helps to improve our
judgment and control “by strengthening the motivational force of our conception
of a goof life and by weakening the internal obstacles in our character to living
according to that conception”; it is through self-knowledge that “we learn what the
internal obstacles are and what we can do to cope with them” (1995: 159). Valerie
Tiberius (2008) discusses what she calls the virtue of self-awareness, which she
defines as a set of skills that aims to acquire enough self-knowledge to help one live
in accordance with one’s values but not so much that all of one’s mild and helpful
positive illusions are shattered. For example, moderate positive illusions about one’s
marriage partner are correlated with happier marriages. As long as one is not
deluded about something that could have dire consequences (for example, a part-
ner’s drug problem or abusiveness), according to Tiberius, such illusions are com-
patible with wisdom.
6
Finally, it is worth mentioning some recent work on practical wisdom that does
not fall neatly within the Aristotelian tradition. Tiberius (2008) argues for a concep-
tion of “reflective wisdom,” which is the kind of wisdom required to live a life that
bears one’s own reflective scrutiny. Tiberius’s account of wisdom is, therefore, more
subjective than the Aristotelian conception and it emphasizes perspective,
self-awareness, and the development of stable, emotionally appropriate values.
There is also some interesting work on wisdom and on the folk concept of “wisdom”
done by psychologists. (For an overview, see Baltes et al. 2002; see also Sternberg and
Jordan 2005.) Philosophers interested in working on practical wisdom who are also
concerned about recent criticisms of virtue ethics’ empirical assumptions might find
this work a good resource.
See also: aristotle; direction of fit; epistemology, moral; eudaimonism;

happiness; moral psychology; neo-aristotelian ethical naturalism;
particularism; practical reasoning; stoicism; virtue ethics; weakness
of will
REFERENCES
Annas, Julia 2004. “Being Virtuous and Doing the Right Thing,” Proceedings and Addresses of
the American Philosophical Association, vol. 78, no. 2, pp. 61–75.
Aristotle 1999. Nicomachean Ethics, 2nd ed., trans. Terence Irwin. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Badhwar, Neera 1996. “The Limited Unity of the Virtues,” Nous, vol. 30, no. 3, pp. 306–29.
Baltes, Paul, Judith Glueck, and Ute Kunzmann 2002. “Wisdom: Its Structure and Function
in Regulating Successful Life Span Development,” in C. Snyder and S. Lopez (eds.),
Handbook of Positive Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 327–47.
Broadie, Sarah 1991. Ethics With Aristotle. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Doris, John 2002. Lack of Character: Personality and Moral Behavior. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Hursthouse, Rosalind 2006. “Practical Wisdom: A Mundane Account,” Proceedings of the
Aristotelian Society, vol. 106, no. 3, pp. 283–307.
Inwood, Brad, and L. P. Gerson 1997. Hellenistic Philosophy: Introductory Readings, 2nd ed.
Kamtekar, Rachana 2004. “Situationism and Virtue Ethics on the Content of Our Character,”
Ethics, vol. 114, pp. 458–91.
Kekes, John 1995. Moral Wisdom and Good Lives. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Kraut, Richard 2010. “Aristotle’s Ethics,” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. At http://
plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-ethics/.
McDowell, J. 1998. “Virtue and Reason,” in Mind, Value and Reality. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, pp. 50–73.
Richardson, Henry 1997. Practical Reasoning about Final Ends. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Sternberg, Robert, and Jennifer Jordan 2005. A Handbook of Wisdom: Psychological
Perspectives. New York: Cambridge University Press.
7
Stohr, Karen 2006. “Practical Wisdom and Moral Imagination in Sense and Sensibility,”
Philosophy and Literature, vol. 30, pp. 378–94.
Tiberius, Valerie 2008. The Reflective Life: Living Wisely With Our Limits. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Zagzebski, Linda 1996. Virtues of the Mind: An Inquiry into the Nature of Virtue and the
Ethical Foundations of Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
1
Animals, Moral Status of

Oscar Horta
It is now widely assumed that all and only human beings merit full moral consideration,
that human interests count for more than similar interests of other creatures. Thus, if
a human being feels exactly the same pain as a nonhuman animal, then barring some
other morally relevant consideration, ending the human’s pain is morally more
important. However, even many who claim that human interests take moral priority
think that (at least some) nonhuman animals have some interests that we should con-
sider morally, even if they also think these interests are relatively minor.
Given the widespread acceptance of this view, it is not surprising that we rou-
tinely use nonhuman animals in multiple ways. We use them for fur, leather, and
other clothing materials. We use them to entertain us: we watch them fight, race,
and perform at circuses, we keep them in zoos, and we employ them as objects of
sport in some forms of hunting and fishing. We train them to assist disabled
humans. We use them to educate our children in school experiments. We test drugs
and other consumer products on them; we use them as experimental research sub-
jects (see animal experimentation). Although these uses consume millions of
animals worldwide each year, by far our most substantial use of animals is for food,
whether in commercial fishing, farming (see vegetarianism and veganism), or
in some private hunting and fishing.
Critics claim that these uses of nonhuman animals reflect an unjustified bias in
favor of our own species, what has been called “speciesism.” This gives us a way to
frame the central issues of this essay. Is the claim that human interests morally count
for more than similar nonhuman animal interests justified? Even if human interests
do morally count for more, should we nonetheless morally consider nonhuman
animals’ interests? If we should consider their interests, even a bit, how does that
alter how we should treat them? Finally, there are two subsidiary moral issues: are
we justified in favoring some nonhuman animals over others, and how do we resolve
conflicts between the interests of nonhuman animals and the environment?
The Common View: Anthropocentrism

What is anthropocentrism?
Several terms have been used to name the common view that human interests take
precedence over those of other creatures, the most common being “human exception-
alism,” “homocentrism,” and “anthropocentrism.” Although I think this latter term is
preferable, it is sometimes misleading. Occasionally, “anthropocentrism” names rather
different views; for instance, the view that only humans have value or that value exists
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee156
2
in the world only inasmuch as humans recognize it. Often those who use the term in
these latter ways work in environmental ethics. This use may be especially confusing
since, as I explain later, the concerns of environmentalist theorists are at least distinct
from, and often opposed to, those interested in animal ethics. Hence, it is important to
remember that in the current essay the term “anthropocentrism” denotes the idea that
human interests are morally weightier than those of nonhuman animals.
A view of animals may be anthropocentric in at least two distinct ways. Some people
may think that the only criterion (or criteria) for moral considerability is (are) satisfied
only by humans. Others may claim that there are multiple criteria for moral considera-
bility, at least one of which is satisfied only by humans. On the first view, human inter-
ests will automatically prevail over any competing interest. On the second, although
nonhuman interests sometimes count morally, there is often reason to favor human
interests. The latter embodies the common ideal that although nonhuman animals have
interests we should respect, those interests count for less than human interests.
The former view is simple anthropocentrism, while the latter is combined anthro-
pocentrism, since it also accepts other moral principles. According to simple anthro-
pocentric views, any use of nonhumans will be acceptable, while on the combined
anthropocentric view this may or may not be true, depending on the other premises
it accepts.
Defenses of anthropocentrism
Some people take anthropocentrism to be so obvious as to not require defense. We
may call this view definitional anthropocentrism. Other anthropocentrists do defend
this view; their arguments can be classified into two groups, depending on the kind
of criterion they consider morally relevant:
1 Arguments appealing to individual traits. On this common view, only creatures

with certain intrinsic features are due full moral consideration. The features
most commonly cited are cognitive or linguistic abilities, moral agency, a prom-
inent ontological status, or a soul (Carruthers 1992). Anthropocentrists further
believe that all and only humans possess the requisite features. If both these
claims are true, then anthropocentrism is justified.
2 Arguments appealing to special relations. The other major strain of anthropocen-
trism holds that only creatures with certain special relations are due full moral
consideration. The relations most commonly cited are solidarity, emotional
bonds (Callicott 1980), or reciprocal respect. Anthropocentrists further believe
that all and only humans have these relations. If both these claims are true, then
anthropocentrism is justified.
These two arguments can be embraced separately, or they can be combined in one
of two ways.
First, someone may claim that only creatures with certain capacities and who
have certain relations are fully morally considerable. Second, someone may claim that
3
to be fully morally considered one must satisfy one of the aforementioned criteria, yet
specify this criterion in such a way that it necessarily appeals to another criterion. For
instance, someone may claim that to be fully morally considerable one must be engaged
in a certain special relation with creatures with certain morally relevant capacities; for
example, a creature should be fully respected only if she has ties of solidarity with crea-
tures with certain intellectual abilities. Others may claim that only creatures with the
capacity to engage in certain relations merit full moral consideration.
The Critique of Anthropocentrism

Critics of anthropocentrism reject all these views. Their objections standardly
employ some combination of the following three arguments.
Species overlap
The first argument rejects anthropocentrists’ claim that all humans satisfy any
plausible criteria for moral considerability. For instance, suppose an anthropocen-
trist claims that humans have intrinsic features nonhuman animals lack, such as
intellectual, linguistic, or moral capacities. Critics such as Singer (2002), Clark
(1984), Regan (2004), Pluhar (1995), or McMahan (2002), among others, note that
a number of humans, such as newborns, lack these capacities, while other humans,
say, older infants and mentally challenged adults, may have them but to a lesser
degree that some nonhuman animals. It thus appears that anthropocentric argu-
ments based on intrinsic traits would establish that some humans lack full moral
considerability.
Some defenders of anthropocentrism respond that these human beings should
be granted “honorary status” (Carruthers 1992). For instance, very young infants
should be morally respected, not because of their interests, but because of the
interests of humans emotionally attached to them – humans who have such
capacities.
Nonanthropocentrists claim there are two problems with this argument. One, the
argument is plausible only if possession of certain capacities is not the only criterion
for moral considerability; in short, its plausibility would undermine a common
argument for anthropocentrism (De Grazia 1996). Two, the argument also raises
doubts about defenses of anthropocentrism based on relations. Since many humans
do not have anyone who cares for them, then this criterion would exclude not only
nonhumans but many humans as well.
Beneath this response lies a general argument against all defenses of anthropo-
centrism – save one – based on specific and verifiable intrinsic properties or rela-
tions. The only criteria that could not be challenged by similar arguments are those
such as “being a member of the species Homo sapiens” or “being a member of the
same species to which Homo sapiens belong.” However, these arguments are mere
reformulations of a definitional view. Any other capacity or relation is one that some
humans lack, or at least have to a lesser degree that some nonhuman animals.
4
A number of theorists dub this “the argument from marginal cases.” Other animal
ethicists, however, now prefer calling it “the argument from species overlap.” They
think it more accurately describes the objection. It better captures the idea that any
plausible proffered criteria for moral considerability will not be applicable to at least
some humans (without considering them “marginal”) and may be applicable to
some nonhuman animals.
Begging the question
The argument from species overlap does not work against the claim that all humans
have a soul, a special relationship with a divine entity, or some other special ontologi-
cal status. Critics of anthropocentrism respond that while we can verify whether crea-
tures are sentient, sapient, or have certain kinds of relations, there is no uncontroversial
way of verifying that humans have a soul or a relation to a divine creator. Further-
more, such views, along with definitional anthropocentrism, are question begging.
The conclusion (that human interests are morally more significant) is presupposed in
their assumed premises. In effect, these forms of anthropocentrism claim that humans
count for more because they are humans. What supposedly makes humans unique is
some property that we cannot establish in any nonquestion-begging way. If this char-
acterization is accurate, then these defenses of anthropocentrism are inadequate.
Relevance
The general argument
Another common argument against anthropocentrism is based on the idea of what
is morally relevant (Singer 2002). According to this argument, although the stand-
ard features cited as making a creature morally considerable are sometimes relevant
for determining precisely how that creature should be treated, they do not deter-
mine whether that creature merits moral consideration. Intelligent creatures and
creatures with relationships can be harmed in particular ways: they can anticipate
future harms and suffer when someone they love dies. However, since these are not
the only ways they can be harmed or benefited, the possession of these particular
capacities or relations does not determine whether they are morally considerable.
The general trait underlying these more particular traits is whether the creatures can
have positive and negative experiences – whether the creature is sentient. Thus, sen-
tience is the central feature for determining if a creature is morally considerable (see
sentience, moral relevance of).
This argument will be characterized differently depending on the particular ethi-
cal theory one embraces. Following are the main ways philosophers have employed
variations of the argument from relevance.
Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism states that we should consider the interests of all individuals, regard-
less of their identity (see utilitarianism). Given the uncontroversial claim that
many nonhuman animals can suffer and experience pleasure, utilitarianism is thus
5
incompatible with strong forms of anthropocentrism. A utilitarian could not coun-

tenance a view that does not consider the interests of nonhuman animals, although
some utilitarians believe that the interests of nonhuman animals are commonly less
significant than those of most humans (e.g., Frey 1980).
Deontology
Several theorists, such as Regan (2004), Korsgaard (2005), Pluhar (1995), and Frank-
lin (2005), have argued that nonhuman animals are morally considerable; some hold
that they are rights holders (see deontology). Korsgaard and Franklin argue that
the Kantian categorical imperative applies to nonhuman animals since they, like
humans, are sentient. Regan defends the claim that nonhuman animals have rights
since, although they lack some capabilities that are more or less unique to humans,
they are still “subjects of a life.”
Rowlands (1998) also endorses the claim that they have rights, but he defends
this conclusion by employing a Rawlsian (see rawls, john) contractualism.
Suppose, he argues, that all creatures are in an “original position” in which we must
choose moral principles we must all accept. While behind the “veil of ignorance,”
we must exclude from consideration knowledge of our natural abilities or traits –
knowledge that might affect our choice of principles. In these conditions, we must
also ignore species membership and intellectual capacities. In such an environ-
ment, Rowlands claims, there would be no reason to exclude the interests of non-
human animals.
Other contractualists have reached exactly the opposite conclusion. Carruthers
(1992), for example, argues that since nonhuman animals are incapable of deliberat-
ing in the original position, then they would automatically be excluded from moral
consideration.
Aristotelian approaches
Several contemporary philosophers, such as Clark (1984) and Nussbaum (2006),
use a neo-Aristotelian perspective to argue that nonhuman animals merit moral
consideration. On these views, we should all seek to become virtuous agents. That
requires, among other things, respecting other creatures’ fulfillment. Since non-
human animals, as well as human, have a nature that is good for them to realize,
since they are capable of flourishing and realizing their natures, we should consider
their interests morally. That is incompatible with any view that holds that nonhuman
animals do not count at all.
Care ethics
Some people assume that a care ethic will not be friendly to the interests of animals
(see care ethics). Care ethicists claims that we morally consider the interests of
others inasmuch as we care about and are emotionally related to them. This might
seem to exclude most nonhuman animals from consideration since most non-
human animals lack significant relations with humans. However, theorists such as
Adams and Donovan (2007) reject this inference. They claim that if we really are
6
caring agents, then we should not restrict our attention to those immediately around
us or to those with whom we feel some particular affinity. We should be especially
concerned with them, but we should also develop empathy for any other sentient
creature.
Egalitarianism
Egalitarians think that improving the situation of the worse off is more important
than benefiting the ones who are better off (see egalitarianism). Due to this,
egalitarianism is concerned with all those whose life can go well or ill.
Accordingly, since nonhuman animals are sentient, egalitarians would have to
take their interests into account. Moreover, because their situation is often worse
than that of humans, concern for them would be a key issue for egalitarians
(Gompertz 1997).
The Weight of the Interests of Nonhuman Animals

As I noted earlier, some anthropocentrists think that the interests of nonhuman
animals do count, just not as much as the corresponding interests of humans. Advo-
cates of this view think there are good nonspeciesist reasons to give greater moral
weight to the interests of human beings. Even so, there are moral limits on what we
can do to nonhuman animals. The variations of the view are legion, so much so that
there is no way to do justice to even a couple of them. Still, I can give a glimpse of
the ways these views might be developed. Most of these attenuated forms of anthro-
pocentrism claim that humans have significant interests that animals lack, and
these differences affect precisely how we can – and cannot – treat nonhuman ani-
mals. For instance, some utilitarians maintain that humans have richer lives than
those of nonhumans. Thus, the very same action may cause humans greater harm.
This would permit at least some uses of nonhuman animals since the benefits to
humans outweigh the costs to animals (Frey 1980). Then some deontologists might
claim that human agents’ autonomy has a special moral significance that must be
respected, and this moral requirement supersedes the respect due to suffering ani-
mals. Still other theorists claim that although nonhuman animals have an interest
in not suffering, they do not have an interest in living. Therefore, although we
should not cause them needless pain, there are no moral reasons against killing
them for our purposes.
These more attenuated anthropocentric views help circumscribe the debate
between animal welfarists and animal liberationists.
Using nonhuman animals: animal liberation vs. animal welfare

Both animal welfarists and animal liberationists think that a number of ways we cur-
rently treat animals are morally impermissible. However, they differ in their diagno-
sis of the problem and in their proposals for treating it.
7
Animal liberation
The animal liberation view rejects all uses of animals for human purposes, unless,
perhaps, we are willing to use humans for those same purposes. Thus, we should
defend veganism (see vegetarianism and veganism), and eschew the use of ani-
mals for clothing, entertainment, and in laboratory experiments of any form. In some
version, nonhuman animals should have legal rights protecting them from such uses.
Anthropocentric liberationism
Some anthropocentrists also reject most uses of nonhuman animals, and thus maybe
could be called forms of animal liberation. Zamir (2005) explicitly embraces
speciesism and asserts that human interests do count for more than nonhumans’, yet
claims that since these human interests are not trumps, we are not justified in sig-
nificantly harming them to promote our own minor purposes, for example to eat
them. At any rate, animal liberation appears to imply veganism.
Animal welfare
Animal welfarists generally approve of many uses of nonhuman animals, although they
believe that, in using them, we should minimize their harm (Francione 2008). This
view is usually associated with some combined form of anthropocentrism. It could also
be held by someone who thinks human interests do not automatically count for more
than those of other animals, at least if that person adopts one of the aforementioned
views about the nature of nonhuman animals’ interests. For example, if someone thinks
humans are capable of experiencing suffering and well-being in ways other animals
don’t, then they might conclude that this justifies humans in using animals. Or, if
someone thinks only humans have unique, significant interest in living, then we might
be justified in killing other animals for our benefit, at least if we kill them painlessly.
Therefore, to fully evaluate the welfarists’ option, we should assess these two views.
Human and nonhuman suffering and pleasure

Carruthers (1992) has argued that human interests are weightier than those of non-
human animals because, he says, only humans have the capacity to have positive and
negative experiences. As you might imagine, nonanthropocentrists reject this claim.
Rollin (1989), for instance, argues from behavior, evolutionary theory, and physiol-
ogy that many animals are conscious and are capable of positive or negative experi-
ences. However, some anthropocentrists would likely respond that even though
nonhuman animals can suffer and experience pleasure, the degree to which they can
do so is less than that of most humans. After all, they claim, most humans possess
capacities for richer experiences, and this means, among other things, that they can
vividly recall past negative experiences and can experience anguish and fear. Rollin
counters that although such capacities may heighten some negative experiences, in
other circumstances, they may diminish suffering – e.g., humans may have the men-
tal capacity to constrain or cope with suffering. By understanding our situation, we
may control unwarranted fear or anguish.
8
Finally, even if it is true that humans are capable of more psychological enjoyment
and suffering, we must decide if these are more intense than physical suffering and
enjoyment. If so, then that would be a reason to morally favor humans; if not, that
would be a reason to morally count their experiences equally.
The harm of death

Most people think that death harms (at least most) humans in most circumstances.
That is why most people think it is wrong to deprive a human of life, at least if that
person wishes to continue living. However, if death does not harm nonhumans, then
killing them painlessly seems to be acceptable. To decide if death does harm non-
human animals, we need to first determine why death is generally thought to be a
harm (see life, value of; death).
One popular view holds that death is harmful because it deprives the creature of
possible future good experiences. On this view, death can be a harm for any being
capable of positive experiences. That would seem to include at least some number of
nonhuman animals.
Another view emphasizes not the potential experiences of a creature, but the
nature of that creature’s mental states. As McMahan (2002) argues, creatures with
more complex mental contents are more concerned about and have greater connec-
tions with their futures, and therefore have a stronger interest in living. Relatedly,
Singer (2002) maintains that those who can see themselves as having a life continu-
ing through time (which includes most humans and many nonhumans) have a spe-
cial interest in living which others should consider.
On all these views, the lives of some nonhuman animals have higher value than
the lives of some humans (say, neonates), since they would have richer experiences,
an interest in the future, and a sense of themselves as existing over time.
Still others argue that there is simply no way to compare the value of lives. Since
for each individual her life is all she has, all lives are equally valuable (Dunayer 2004).
In some ways this is counterintuitive since most people believe that human lives
have higher value than those of other animals. Nonetheless, this view appears to be
akin to the common view that no human life is more valuable than any other human
life, even if their capacities are significantly different. However, if arguments against
anthropocentrism are correct, these two common ideas are incompatible.
Thus far we have discussed the most basic issues concerning the moral considera-
tion of nonhuman animals. Now we must clarify two related problems.
Speciesism and Extended Anthropocentrism

The discussion until now has focused on whether humans should be favored over
nonhuman animals. A related issue concerns whether we should favor nonhuman
animals of certain species over members of other species. If there are nonhuman
animals that are favored for a morally irrelevant reason, then that, too, would be a
form of speciesism. For instance, although pigs are confined and killed for food in
9
many countries, pandas are not. Is there a reason for this differential treatment? Pigs
have similar mental lives and are likely as capable of feeling pain. If these are the
morally relevant factors, then pigs are treated worse for no good reason. This appears
of be a form of speciesism (Dunayer 2004).
Animals Liberation vs. Environmental Ethics

We tend to think of nonhuman animals as a part of nature. It is thus not surprising
that many people think that animal ethics might be a key concern of environmental
ethics. However, the interests of nonhuman animals – like the interests of humans –
may clash with concern for nonconscious entities (mountains, streams, etc.).
Biocentrists think that all living things are morally considerable; hence, plants and
other living beings, like animals, count morally. According to holist positions, entire
ecosystems – and not just individuals – count morally. This view arguably implies
that (a) individuals can be sacrificed to preserve ecosystems, and that (b) wild ani-
mals should be treated differently than domestic ones, because only they are truly
part of natural ecosystems (Callicott 1980).
So described, these views clash with a core idea of animal liberationists, that sen-
tience is both a sufficient and necessary criterion for moral consideration. On this
view, only sentient individuals are morally considerable. Since ecosystems as such
are not sentient, they are not morally considerable.
Likewise, while environmental ethicists think that species have some special moral
status, it is unclear how that can be squared with standard forms of animal liberation.
The liberationist appears to hold that the interests of an individual member of a popu-
lous species counts as much as those of a member of an endangered species. Of course,
in many cases the conservation of species requires protecting its members; in other
cases, though, it may actually be against members’ interests, for instance, when ani-
mals are kept in captivity for the sake of the conservation of their species.
Moreover, environmentalists may endorse or at least permit the killing of some non-
human animals to protect endangered species or preserve ecological balance. For
instance, they may support the killing of herbivores to save a rare plant species.
Generally, those who defend the moral consideration of individual animals will reject
such measures. In fact, they need not only be concerned with the way in which nonhu-
mans are harmed by humans, but also with the well-being of nonhuman animals living
in the wild. Liberationists may worry that the suffering of animals in the wild might
outweigh the positive experiences of living (Ng 1995). Therefore, they may promote
intervention in (or even alteration of) ecosystems and trophic chains to reduce the suf-
fering or deaths of nonhuman animals in nature (Sapontzis 1987; Nussbaum 2006).
See also: animal cognition; animal experimentation; animal rights;

anthropocentrism; care ethics; companion animals; death; deontology;
egalitarianism; hunting; life, value of; rawls, john; sentience, moral
relevance of; utilitarianism; vegetarianism and veganism; veterinary
ethics
10
REFERENCES
Adams, Carol, and Josephine Donovan (eds.) 2007. The Feminist Care Tradition in Animal
Ethics: A Reader. New York: Columbia University Press.
Callicott, John Baird 1980. “Animal Liberation: A Triangular Affair,” Environmental Ethics,
vol. 2, pp. 311–38.
Carruthers, Peter 1992. The Animal Issue: Moral Theory in Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Clark, Stephen R. L. 1984 [1977]. The Moral Status of Animals. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
De Grazia, David 1996. Taking Animals Seriously: Mental Life and Moral Status. Cambridge:
Dunayer, Joan 2004. Speciesism. Derwood: Ryce.
Francione, Gary L. 2008. Animals as Persons: Essays on the Abolition of Animal Exploitation.
New York: Columbia University Press.
Franklin, Julian H. 2005. Animal Rights and Moral Philosophy. New York: Columbia University
Press.
Frey, Raymond G. 1980. Interests and Rights: The Case Against Animals. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Gompertz, Lewis 1997 [1824]. Moral Inquiries on the Situation of Man and of Brutes. Lewiston:
Edwin Mellen Press.
Korsgaard, Christine 2005. “Fellow Creatures: Kantian Ethics and Our Duties to Animals,”
The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, 25–6, pp. 77–110.
McMahan, Jeff 2002. The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Ng, Yew-Kwang 1995. “Towards Welfare Biology: Evolutionary Economics of Animal
Consciousness and Suffering,” Biology and Philosophy, vol. 10, pp. 255–85.
Pluhar, Evelyn 1995. Beyond Prejudice: The Moral Significance of Human and Nonhuman
Animals. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Regan, Tom 2004 [1983]. The Case for Animal Rights. Los Angeles: University of California
Press.
Rollin, Bernard 1989. The Unheeded Cry: Animal Consciousness, Animal Pain and Science.
Rowlands, Mark 1998. Animal Rights: A Philosophical Defence. London: Macmillan.
Sapontzis, Steve F. 1987. Morals, Reason, and Animals. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Singer, Peter 2002 [1975]. Animal Liberation. New York: HarperCollins.
Zamir, Tzachi 2005. Ethics and the Beast. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
FURTHER READINGS
Armstrong, Susan J., and Richard G. Botzler (eds.) 2003. The Animal Ethics Reader. London:
Routledge.
Bekoff, Mark, and Carron A. Meaney (eds.) 1998. Encyclopedia of Animal Rights and Animal
Welfare. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn.
11
Cavalieri, Paola 2001. The Animal Question: Why Nonhuman Animals Deserve Human Rights.
Dombrowski, Daniel 1997. Babies and Beasts: The Argument from Marginal Cases. Chicago:
University of Illinois Press.
Midgley, Mary 1983. Animals and Why They Matter. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.
Rachels, James 1990. Created from Animals: The Moral Implications of Darwinism. Oxford:
Regan, Tom, and Peter Singer (eds.) 1989. Animal Rights and Human Obligations. Englewood
Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.
Ryder, Richard D. 2000. Animal Revolution: Changing Attitudes Towards Speciesism. Oxford:
Blackwell.
Scruton, Roger 1996. Animal Rights and Wrongs. London: Metro.
1
Faith
Robert C. Roberts
Not many decades ago, ethics was thought to be about the class of actions that are
subject to adjudication in terms of duty: obligatory, proscribed, or permitted but
not obligatory. The 1970s and 1980s began to allow ethics also to be about virtues
and vices that might have little to do with obligation: courage and cowardice,
generosity, stinginess, and profligacy, and so forth. Today ethics may also treat of
personal relationships: friendship, marriage, parenthood, civic bonds (see civic
friendship; family; fatherhood; filial duties; friendship; marriage;
motherhood). The concepts of such relationships naturally suggest an ethical
ideality: the idea of an excellent friendship, marriage, and so on – and ethicists
explore the lineaments of such idealities. Faith is an excellent personal relation-
ship with God.
Philosophical discussions of faith have usually been exercises in epistemology –
about the relation of faith to “reason,” or the justification for belief in God
(Swinburne 1981; Plantinga 1983; 2000; Wolterstorff 1983). But even philosophers
who focus on epistemological questions often point out that faith as understood
and practiced by the most representative members of theistic traditions (the
“saints”) is far richer and more personal than justified belief that God exists and has
such-and-such attributes.
In all three of the religions treated here (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) faith
involves believing particular propositions about God; the more interesting aspects of
faith would not emerge without such beliefs. “Faith implies assent of the intellect to
what is believed” (Aquinas 1981: 2a2æ Q.1, art. 4). Yet in Kierkegaard’s Philosophical
Fragments faith is characterized as a personal relationship between the disciple and “the
God,” in a way strongly reminiscent of friendship (see Roberts 1997: 73). To be sure,
faith is a peculiar kind of friendship, deviating in significant respects from Aristotle’s
account of the latter in Books 8 and 9 of the Nicomachean Ethics (Aristotle 2000) – most
notably on the points concerning equality of the parties and perfect reciprocity of favor.
For believers, the important element in faith is not the doctrine assented to, but
a certain disposition to affect and action. In all three religions the patriarch
Abraham paradigmatically exemplifies faith, and all three designate him as “the
friend of God” (in the Hebrew Bible, at 2 Chronicles 20:7 and Isaiah 41:8; in the
New Testament, at James 2:22–3; in the Qur’an, at Surah 4:125). Taking friendship
as the model of faith, we will look at it primarily from the human side of the
relationship. In what follows I will focus on two salient dimensions of the relationship
as viewed from the human side: trust and devotion. I’ll begin with some general
comments on the structure of trust and devotion, and then I’ll discuss what seems
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee157
2
to be distinctive about the concept of faith according to each of the Abrahamic

religions, taking them in historical order.
Trust has the grammatical structure A trusts B (or trusts in B) for x, where x is
something that A regards as good (for example, A’s safety or B’s continuing good will
towards A), A’s having x depends in some way on B, and A has little or no anxiety
about depending on B for x (see trust). Swinburne thinks that, in addition, A has to
have some reason for thinking that B will let A down (1981: 111–115), but this does
not seem to me a necessary condition of trust (perhaps Swinburne is thinking of
heroic trust). Devotion has the structure A is devoted (or devotes him-/herself) to B
[for y] and implies A’s steady reliability for the maintenance of B or for obedience to
B’s will (y is what the reliability is for).
Trust and devotion are dimensions of one side of a bonding practical relationship.
A is always an intentional agent such as the follower of a leader, but B can be either
an agent or an instrument. As examples of the latter, one could trust one’s climbing
equipment and be devoted to it in the sense that one maintains it vigilantly, or one
could trust one’s horse and be devoted to keeping it healthy and happy. Somewhat
differently, some speak of faith in humanity, meaning a certain level of trust that,
after all, humanity will not completely destroy itself or its environment. But the case
in which B is a particular person, such as a leader or God, is more paradigmatic for
trust and devotion; hence trust and devotion are dimensions of an interpersonal
relationship. Where A is an individual human being or a people and B is God, the
practical relationship consisting of trust and devotion on the part of A is the appro-
priate human side of what the Bible calls a covenant relationship. This relationship is
not entirely symmetrical. For example, God’s trust in the faithful is not a salient
feature of his relationship to them, but God does exhibit something analogous to
devotion, namely a steadfast love and commitment to his people, as expressed in
the covenant with Abraham (Genesis 12:1–3; see Psalm 136, with its refrain “his
steadfast love endures forever”).
The basis of Abraham’s reputation for faith is found at Genesis 11:26–25:11. At
Abraham’s home in Haran (in modern Iraq), God calls him to go “to the land that
I will show you” (12:1), where he will become “a great nation” by which “all the
families of the earth shall bless themselves” (12:2, 3). Abraham goes to the land of
Canaan (roughly, modern Israel), where God renews his promise (12:7). Abraham’s
wife Sarah is barren and wavers in her faith in God’s promise: she enjoins Abraham
to impregnate Hagar, her servant girl, who bears him Ishmael, from whom the Arab
peoples descend. But Abraham continues to trust God’s promise, and God renews
the covenant twice more (15:4–6, 18–21; 17:1–21). In their old age Sarah finally
bears Abraham a son, Isaac, who is destined to be the way God’s promise is fulfilled;
but God tests Abraham’s faith (22:1–19) by commanding him to offer Isaac as a
burnt sacrifice. Once God sees that he intends to do it, he stays Abraham’s hand, and,
as the subsequent centuries unfold, God’s promise to create from Abraham a great
people is fulfilled.
Menachem Kellner (1992) notes that Philo breaks with the Greek tradition
when he calls faith a virtue (on the basis of Genesis 15:6: “And he [Abraham] believed
3
the Lord; and he reckoned it to him as righteousness”), and Maimonides (see

maimonides, moses) follows Philo in this. Kellner shows that Maimonides, using
an Aristotelian distinction between the moral and the intellectual parts of the soul,
takes the “righteousness” of Abraham’s faith as deriving from its moral element of
trust rather than from its intellectual element of correct theological belief. One
might speculate, however, that the Jewish understanding of the nature of God
justified personal trust and devotion – in contrast with most of the sophisticated
Greek theologies, which did not allow for God’s entering into covenants with
individuals and nations. Thus the intellectual (here, the particular understanding of
God) is a basis for the moral, and not something entirely separate (though admit-
tedly an individual can appear to understand the nature of God pretty well without
thereby properly trusting and loving God).
Like most of the philosophers in the Christian tradition, Aquinas (see aquinas,
saint thomas) stresses, in his Summa, the doxastic aspect of faith, locating this
virtue entirely in the intellect (see 1981: 2a2æ Q.1, reply to objection 1), as the
disposition of assent to truths about God (like knowledge, faith implies truth). So,
for Aquinas, faith itself is not what we would call a personal relationship with God,
as it is in the religious traditions. But this is only a technical point, because Aquinas
distinguishes the virtue of faith from “living faith” or “formed faith.” Charity (love
of God) is the proper “form” of faith, as “the act [exemplification] of faith is per-
fected and formed by charity” (2a2æ Q1, reply). “When living faith becomes life-
less, faith is not changed, but its subject, the soul [is changed], which at one time
has faith without charity, and at another time, with charity” (2a2æ Q1, art. 4, reply
to objection 4). Living faith is a personal relationship with God, involving trust and
heartfelt obedience.
Aquinas’ discussion of faith doesn’t capture what distinguishes the Christian
conception of faith from the Jewish and from the Islamic, at least not if we take
the apostle Paul as an authority. Both in the letter to the Romans (chapter 4) and
in the letter to the Galatians (chapter 3), Paul argues, from the paradigm of
Abraham’s faith, that the justification of the sinner is through faith rather than
through actions that conform to the precepts of Mosaic law. But the faith of
which Paul writes has a different (or a clearer) object and rationale than
Abraham’s. The one whom Paul’s faith trusts and adores is Jesus of Nazareth,
whom Paul takes to be the Jewish Messiah, himself a member of the Godhead:
Jesus’ death at the hands of sinners is a sacrifice that works reconciliation
between humankind and God, as is attested by the fact that, after Jesus was exe-
cuted, God raised him from the dead. Faith bonds the believer to this Jesus, who
is God and savior.
The trinitarian theology that is essential to Christian faith looks like idolatry to
the Muslim (as well as to the Jew). Indeed, the core doctrine of Islamic faith is the
unity of God – or perhaps we should say the absolute singularity of God, if we are to
bring out its difference from Christianity, which also insists on the unity of God.
Exhortations to trust God are found at many places in the Qur’an. “You should
rely on God if you are believers” (5:23). “Those whom people have told: ‘Some
4
people have gathered to [oppose] you, so be on your guard against them!’; yet it
increased them in faith and they said: ‘God is our Reckoning, and how splendid is
such an Administrator!’” (3:173). “On God [alone] should the reliant rely” (14:12).
“God suffices for anyone who relies on him” (65:2).
Abū Hāmid Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazālī (1058–1111) explains
Islamic faith (2001: Part One) by using a rather elaborate argument to the effect that
God is the only agent. All human actions (and all actions of any other putative finite
agents) can be explained in terms of a regressive series of sufficient causal attribu-
tions terminating in a first cause, which is God. As the only uncaused cause, God is
a free agent – and the only one. Thus everything that happens must be attributed
to God’s agency, and all other putative agents are mere mediators of the effects of
God’s choices. Al-Ghazālī allows that human beings are agents in a sense, but this is
something akin to the sense in which kerosene is a cleaning agent. Add to this
schema the premise that God is benevolent, and you get the conclusion that the
actual world is perfectly all right just as it is, however it may be. There is literally
nothing to be anxious about.
Human agency, like agency of any other kind, has its peculiar modus operandi;
in particular, it operates through the agent’s rational planning and understanding
of the working of nature, e.g. the planting and cultivation of crops. Islamic faith
does not imply quietism or reckless behavior such as venturing across the desert
without supplies (2001: 76), but it does imply a radically different consciousness of
the means of living, including the movements of one’s own mind and body.
Al-Ghazālī illustrates this consciousness with the image of a corpse that is being
washed for burial: imagine that the corpse is conscious of being completely dead to
its own agency, all its movements being due entirely to the person who is washing
it (2001: 61).
According to al-Ghazālī, perfected Islamic faith is the affective and behavioral
consequence of a full moral–psychological appropriation of this understanding of
the world. It is a state in which the believer actually sees everything that happens as
a generous action of God, to the extent that the particular features of finite events
become dim and the Agent behind them alone is lit up for the believer. At a stage just
below this perfection of faith, the believer perceives the finite events clearly but
construes them as emanating from the benevolent Agent.
See also: aquinas, saint thomas; civic friendship; family; fatherhood;

filial duties; friendship; maimonides, moses; marriage; motherhood;
trust
REFERENCES
Al-Ghazali 2001. Faith in Divine Unity and Trust in Divine Providence, trans. David B. Burrell
(with introduction and notes). Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae.
5
Aquinas, Thomas 1981. Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province,
vols. 1–5. Westminster, MD: Christian Classics. (Reprint of the revised edition of 1920;
originally published 1911, London.)
Aristotle 2000. Nicomachean Ethics, ed. and trans. Roger Crisp. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Kellner, Menachem 1992. “The Virtue of Faith,” in Lenn E. Goodman (ed.), Neo-Platonism
and Jewish Thought. Albany: State University of New York Press, pp. 195–205.
Kierkegaard, Søren 1985. Philosophical Fragments, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and
Edna H. Hong. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Plantinga, Alvin 1983. “Reason and Belief in God,” in Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas
Wolterstorff (eds.), Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God. Notre Dame,
IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
Plantinga, Alvin 2000. Warranted Christian Belief. New York: Oxford University Press.
Roberts, Robert 1997. “Dialectical Emotions and the Virtue of Faith,” in Robert L. Perkins
(ed.), International Kierkegaard Commentary: Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Macon,
GA: Mercer University Press, pp. 73–93.
Swinburne, Richard 1981. Faith and Reason. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
The Noble Qur’an 1992. Trans. Thomas R. Irving. Brattleboro: Amana Books.
The Oxford Annotated Bible, 1973. Revised Standard Version, ed. by Herbert G. May and
Bruce M. Metzger. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973.
Wolterstorff, Nicholas 1983. “Can Belief in God Be Rational If It Has No Foundations?” in
Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff (eds.), Faith and Rationality: Reason and
Belief in God. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, pp. 135–86.
FURTHER READINGS
Adams, Robert M. (1987). “The Virtue of Faith,” in Robert M. Adams, The Virtue of Faith.
Adams, Robert M. (1999). “Devotion,” in Robert M. Adams, Finite and Infinite Goods.
New York: Oxford University Press, Ch. 7.
Plantinga, Alvin, and Wolterstorff, Nicholas (eds.) 1983. Faith and Rationality: Reason and
Belief in God. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
1
Duty and Obligation

Michael J. Zimmerman
The concept of duty or obligation is fundamental to ethics. In everyday discourse,

the term “duty” tends to be reserved for those obligations that one has in virtue of
holding some official position. (Consider the sworn duties of a police officer or
politician.) Another term often used in this context is “responsibility” (see
responsibility) – understood in the prospective sense of what one has a
responsibility to see to in the future, as opposed to the retrospective sense of the
responsibility one bears for something that has happened in the past – although this
term tends to be used somewhat more broadly than “duty” to refer to obligations
that one has in virtue of filling some role, whether official or not. (Consider the
responsibilities of a parent or friend.) In philosophical discourse, however, there is a
tendency not to use “duty” and “responsibility” so restrictively but rather to use
them interchangeably with the term “obligation” to refer to obligations that one has
irrespective of whether they arise from the fact that one fills some particular role.
(Consider the obligation not to cause gratuitous harm to another person, which is
something that applies to people generally, regardless of office or station or role.
Philosophers typically do not shrink from talking of a duty not to cause such harm.)
In keeping with this liberal practice, this essay will treat the terms “duty,” “obliga-
tion,” and “responsibility” (understood in its prospective sense) as synonymous.
It is generally accepted that to say that one has an obligation, or is obligated, to do
something is to say that it would be wrong of one not to do it. So, too, to say that one
is obligated not to do something is to say that it would be wrong of one to do it.
Instead of “obligated,” philosophers often use the term “ought” (see ought). It is
important to recognize, however, that “ought” is also used differently, by philosophers
and nonphilosophers alike, to express what is merely recommended rather than what
is strictly required. If a friend were to say to you, “You ought to give all that you can
to charity,” you might be inclined to retort, “I don’t have to do any such thing. There’s
nothing wrong with my indulging in a few personal luxuries.” To this your friend
might respond that, on the contrary, it would indeed be wrong of you not to give all
that you can to charity. In so saying, he would be indicating two things: first, that he
is using “ought” to express what it is you are obligated or required to do, and, second,
that he subscribes to a very demanding code of ethics. On the other hand, your friend
might reply that you had misunderstood him, and that what he meant was not that
you have an obligation to give all that you can to charity, but only that it would be
very good of you to do so. In this case, he would be indicating that he subscribes to
the more usual, less demanding view that giving all that one can to charity is not
obligatory but rather goes above and beyond the call of duty (see supererogation).
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee158
2
The discussion that follows is divided into two main sections. The first section
deals with some conceptual issues, focusing on certain key distinctions that are to be
drawn under the general heading of “duty” or “obligation.” The second section
addresses certain normative and metaethical issues that concern the general conditions
under which the concept of duty or obligation finds application (see metaethics).
There will be no discussion of theories, such as utilitarianism, Kantianism, virtue eth-
ics, and the like, that purport to account for what it is that renders obligatory those
acts that are obligatory, since these theories are treated fully elsewhere in this encyclo-
pedia (see utilitarianism; kant, immanuel; virtue ethics).
Conceptual Issues
Let us now attend to some conceptual matters.
Moral duties and nonmoral duties

Suppose that you work for The Daily Rag. Your official title is that of “Senior
Reporter,” but that is misleading, since your chief duty is not to uncover news but
rather to invent outrageous, wholly unsubstantiated stories about public figures and
present them as the unvarnished truth. You attribute your “information” to well-
placed sources who wish to remain anonymous, but of course they, too, are mere
figments of your imagination. If one of your victims should sue the newspaper for
libel, the company’s formidable phalanx of lawyers strives to have the suit summarily
dismissed. Usually, they succeed. On those rare occasions on which they fail, a set-
tlement is routinely reached out of court, the terms of which are kept confidential. It
is a highly profitable business.
No one would mistake your duty to concoct brazen falsehoods out of whole cloth
for a moral duty, but a duty it nonetheless is. Some duties are moral, others nonmoral.
Would it be accurate to say that you are obligated to concoct these falsehoods? This
might seem somewhat strained but, as long as it is recognized that the obligation is not
a moral one, it seems innocuous to say so. (Some obligations are clearly nonmoral.
The country in which you live may impose a legal obligation on you that is morally
abhorrent. For example, the law may require you to spy on your neighbors.) Would it
be accurate to say that you would do wrong if for some reason (laziness, say, or a
belated pang of conscience) you failed to fulfill your duty? This might seem even more
strained but, again, as long as it is acknowledged that the failure does not constitute a
form of moral wrong-doing, it seems innocuous to say so. In any case, whatever ter-
minology we choose to employ, we must recognize that not all duties are moral duties.
Henceforth, this essay will be exclusively concerned with moral duties.
All-things-considered duties and prima facie duties

In 1930, W. D. Ross wrote the following words (see ross, w. d.): “If I have promised
to meet a friend at a particular time for some trivial purpose, I should certainly
think myself justified in breaking my engagement if by doing so I could prevent a
serious accident” (1930: 18).
3
By means of this and other examples, Ross introduced a distinction between two
types of moral duties or obligations. He used a variety of terms to mark this
distinction. On the one hand, there is what he called “absolute obligation,” “actual
obligation,” “duty proper,” or “duty sans phrase.” On the other hand, there is what he
called “prima facie obligation,” “prima facie duty,” “conditional duty,” “duty ceteris
paribus,” or “what tends to be one’s duty.” None of these terms is particularly felicitous,
as Ross himself acknowledged, for each has misleading connotations. More
appropriate, and more common these days, is to talk of “overall obligation” or
“obligation all things considered” for what Ross meant by “absolute duty.” It would
also be more appropriate to talk of “obligation some things considered” (or “in some
respects”) or of “partial” or “pro tanto” obligation for what Ross meant by “prima
facie obligation”; even so, the term “prima facie obligation” is still commonly used
(see prima facie and pro tanto oughts).
Whatever terminology we choose to adopt, the distinction with which Ross was
concerned is a familiar one. As illustrated in his example, you can find yourself in a
situation in which a number of moral considerations pertain. What you ought to do
insofar as some of these considerations are concerned may conflict with what you
ought to do insofar as others are concerned. What you ought to do on balance or
overall, then, will be some function of these various “insofar as” “oughts.” That is,
what your all-things-considered obligation is will be some function of the various
prima facie obligations you have. In the case that Ross gives, he clearly holds that,
although he has both a prima facie obligation to meet his friend and a prima facie
obligation to prevent a serious accident, the latter outweighs or overrides the former,
so that his all-things-considered obligation is to prevent the accident and not meet
his friend. Another way to put his point is this. Ross has both some reason, morally,
to meet his friend and also some reason to prevent the accident, but what he has
most reason to do is the latter and not the former (see reasons; reasons for
action, morality and).
Associative duties and nonassociative duties

Some writers maintain that there is a correlation between moral duties or obligations,
on the one hand, and moral rights, on the other, such that there can be no right
without a corresponding duty and no duty without a corresponding right (see
rights). As a general thesis, this would seem implausible, for counterexamples
appear easy to find. For example, I have a right (I am “within my rights”) to purchase
the last copy of today’s edition of The Daily Rag, but it is hard to find a duty that
corresponds to this right. I am certainly not obligated to buy the paper. Nor is the
shopkeeper obligated to sell it to me, since he would be within his rights to close up
shop before I got there. Nor are you obligated to let me buy the paper, since you
would be within your rights to buy it first. (Of course, you are obligated not to tackle
me bodily in order to prevent me from buying the paper, but this duty corresponds
to my right not to be assaulted and not to my right to purchase the paper.) So, too, in
the “opposite direction”: even if you do not have an obligation to give all that you can
to charity, you may well have an obligation to give at least something, but it is hard
4
to find a right that corresponds to this duty. Certainly, it would seem mistaken to say
that the beneficiary of your charity has a right to that charity, since you could have
fulfilled your obligation by conferring your charity elsewhere.
Even if the general correlativity thesis is false, however, a more restrictive thesis
seems very plausible. This more restrictive thesis concerns only those rights that are
held against other people, often called claim-rights, and only those duties or obliga-
tions that are owed to other people, for which there is no common name but which
are sometimes called associative duties (see associative duties). The thesis in
question is this: one person has a right against another that the latter do (or refrain
from doing) something if, and only if, the latter has a duty to the former to do (or
refrain from doing) that thing. If this thesis is correct, it helps to some extent to illu-
minate the nature of both rights and duties. If the duty in question is merely prima
facie, then the corresponding right is something that can in principle be justifiably
infringed. If, however, the duty in question is an all-things-considered duty, then the
corresponding right cannot be justifiably infringed.
Self-regarding duties and other-regarding duties

Suppose that I make a promise to meet you. In typical circumstances, my doing so
will give rise to a duty on my part that concerns you in two ways. First, the content
of my duty concerns you, in that it is you I am obligated to meet. Second, my duty is
directed toward you, in that it is to you that I owe it. (If the more restrictive correla-
tivity thesis just discussed is correct, we may infer that you have a right against me
that I meet you.) Notice that the content and the direction of a duty can sometimes
diverge. If I promise you that I will make a donation to Oxfam, then I owe it to you
to do so, but the content of my duty concerns Oxfam, not you.
Most moral duties concern other people. Some philosophers hold, however, that
some moral duties are self- rather than other-regarding, in that they concern the
agent who bears the duty rather than someone else, in one or both of the ways just
mentioned. Immanuel Kant, for example, maintained that we have a duty not to
commit suicide and also a duty to develop our talents (1964: 89–90). He said, more-
over, that these are moral duties and that we owe it to ourselves to fulfill them.
Positive duties and negative duties

There is a sense in which the duty not to commit suicide (if it exists) is a negative duty,
an obvious fact signaled by the word “not.” So, too, there is a sense in which the duty
to develop one’s talents (if it exists) is a positive duty. Some philosophers contend that
the distinction between positive and negative duties is important, in that the latter
tend to have greater weight or strength than the former. Consider, for example, the
distinction between killing and letting die. Many people believe that in general we all
bear a duty not to kill other people and that this duty is a very strong one, whereas, if
we have a duty at all to save other people from death, it is a duty the violation of which
is a far less serious matter. It is commonly held, for instance, that, if I can keep someone
5
alive by making a donation to Oxfam but decline to do so, thereby allowing him to
die, then, if I behave wrongly at all, my behavior is far less seriously wrong than it
would be were I actually to kill the person in question (see doing and allowing).
A number of points are to be noted here. First, the distinction between positive
and negative duties is not as straightforward as the foregoing example may seem to
suggest. The positive-sounding duty to save someone from starvation could, after
all, be recast as the duty not to let that person starve. Likewise, the negative-sounding
duty not to kill someone might be recast as the duty to protect that person from one’s
own lethal propensities.
Second, the related distinction between action and omission is also not
straightforward (see action; omissions). The paradigm of action is behavior that
causes some outcome by virtue of one’s “putting hands on” some person or object.
The corresponding paradigm of omission is behavior that fails to prevent some
outcome by virtue of one’s “keeping hands off.” But there are cases in which these
paradigms seem to falter. Consider, for instance, the distinction between “active”
and “passive” euthanasia that is often drawn by those who debate the issue (see
euthanasia). This distinction is supposed to correspond to the distinction between
killing and letting die; yet the most commonly cited example of passive euthanasia
is that of “pulling the plug” on a respirator, behavior that clearly involves the activity
of withdrawing support rather than the mere inactivity of withholding it.
Third, even if the distinctions between positive and negative duties and between
action and omission can be given a satisfactory account, the question remains why
they should be thought to be morally significant. Granted, the common attitude is
that killing, for example, is in general a far more serious matter than letting die, but,
given that death is the result in either case, it is puzzling why this attitude should be
thought justified.
Perfect duties and imperfect duties

Consider again the examples of the (alleged) self-regarding duty not to commit
suicide and the (alleged) self-regarding duty to develop one’s talents. Kant called the
former a “perfect” duty and the latter an “imperfect” duty (1964: 89; see imperfect
duties). He also applied this distinction to certain (alleged) other-regarding duties.
He said that there is a perfect duty not to make false promises to others and an
imperfect duty to act charitably toward others (1964: 89–91).
There is no general consensus regarding just how to construe Kant’s distinction
between perfect and imperfect duties. Some commentators align it with the
distinction, just discussed, between negative and positive duties, respectively. Others
say that a perfect duty is supposed to be one the fulfillment of which leaves nothing
to the agent’s discretion, whereas an imperfect duty is one that can be satisfied in a
variety of ways and it is up to the agent who has the duty just how to go about
satisfying it. Another way to interpret the distinction is to understand perfect duties
as being associative duties – duties that are owed to some person or persons –
whereas imperfect duties are not associative. (This is how John Stuart Mill [1957: 61]
6
construes the distinction; see mill, john stuart.) Still another interpretation is that
perfect duties are duties to act in some way, whereas imperfect duties are duties to
adopt some policy of action (or some “maxim,” in Kant’s preferred terminology).
Finally, it is sometimes held that a perfect duty is one that requires satisfaction at all
times, whereas an imperfect duty only requires satisfaction at some times.
Obligation and responsibility

It was noted at the outset that the term “responsibility” has both a prospective and a
retrospective sense. For example, a lifeguard may have a responsibility to see to it
that the swimmers under his care are safe. Here “responsibility” is used in its
prospective sense. But this same lifeguard may bear responsibility for the deaths of
some swimmers who were in his care. Here “responsibility” is used in its retrospective
sense. What precisely is the relation between these two senses of “responsibility”?
The example of the lifeguard may suggest the following straightforward thesis: one
bears (retrospective) responsibility for having done something just in case one had
a (prospective) responsibility not to do that thing but did it nonetheless. On
reflection, however, it becomes clear that this thesis is false.
One problem with the thesis is that it confuses retrospective responsibility in
general with blameworthiness or culpability in particular (see blame); it overlooks
the fact that such responsibility may take the form of praiseworthiness or laudability.
Whereas it may seem plausible to say that one is to blame if one has failed to fulfill
some moral duty or obligation, there is no plausibility at all in tying praiseworthi-
ness to unfulfilled duties in this way.
A second problem with the thesis is that, even when it is restricted to blame-
worthiness, it overlooks the distinction between all-things-considered duties and
prima facie duties. Surely one is not to blame for failing to fulfill some prima facie
duty if, in so doing, one satisfies an all-things-considered obligation.
A third problem with the thesis is that, even when it is restricted both to
blameworthiness and to all-things-considered obligation, it overlooks the possibility
of excuses. One is not to blame for failing to do what one had an all-things-considered
moral obligation to do, if one had an excuse for this failure. Of course, it is
controversial just what condition or conditions might furnish an excuse for wrong-
doing, but that excuses are in principle possible is widely accepted.
A final possible problem with the thesis is that it fails to accommodate the idea
that one can be to blame even if one has done nothing wrong, that is, even if one has
not failed to fulfill an all-things-considered obligation. Few philosophers have even
entertained this idea, let alone accepted it, but it is puzzling why this should be. The
commonly accepted possibility of excuses indicates that, even if one’s behavior is to
be evaluated negatively in moral terms, it may be that one oneself is not to be. Once
this possibility is recognized, however, it is hard to see why the converse could not
also be the case – why, that is, it could not happen that, although one oneself is to be
evaluated negatively, one’s behavior is not. It is plausible to maintain, for example,
that how one is to be evaluated morally depends on what one’s motive or intention
7
is when behaving in a certain way (see intention), rather on the behavior that
happens to arise from one’s motive or intention. This is why it is often said that, if
one does the wrong thing but does it for the right reason, one is not to blame for
one’s behavior. If so, however, then by the same token it would seem that, if one does
the right thing but does it for the wrong reason, one is to blame for one’s behavior. If
this is correct, then despite the common terminology, prospective and retrospective
responsibility would appear to be wholly independent of one another.
Normative and Metaethical Issues

Let us now turn to some matters having to do with the general conditions under
which the concept of duty or obligation finds application.
The right and the good

Moral philosophers are divided on the question of what the relation is between what
is right, wrong, or obligatory, on the one hand, and what is good or bad, on the other
(see evaluative vs. deontic concepts). Some, often called consequentialists or
teleologists, hold that the former is wholly a function of the latter; others, often
called nonconsequentialists or deontologists, deny this (see consequentialism;
deontology). Nonconsequentialists may be divided into further groups. Some
hold that what is right is partly but not wholly a function of what is good, others that
rightness and goodness are independent of one another, and still others that what is
good is partly or even wholly a function of what is right.
To see what is at issue here, consider what is perhaps the first clear presentation
of consequentialism in its purest form, that provided in Moore (1912; see moore,
g. e.). Moore drew a distinction between that which is good intrinsically, or for its
own sake, and that which is good instrumentally, that is, good for the sake of that
which it helps bring about (see intrinsic value; instrumental value; goodness,
varieties of). For example, like many philosophers, Moore claimed that pleasure
is intrinsically good, in that it is something to be valued for what it is, in its own
right, regardless of context or consequences. If that is so, however, then whatever
helps bring about pleasure is, to that extent, also to be valued, not necessarily for
what it is but at least for the sake of the pleasure in question. Moore also claimed
that pain or displeasure is intrinsically bad and thus that whatever helps bring
about pain or displeasure is, to that extent, instrumentally bad. Now, suppose that
an agent has a choice between three options, A, B, and C; that option A would bring
about 10 units of pleasure and 5 units of pain; that B would bring about 5 units of
pleasure and 5 units of pain; and that C would bring about 0 units of pleasure and
5 units of pain. Suppose also, for the sake of simplicity, that each unit of pleasure is
worth one positive unit of value, that each unit of pain is worth one negative unit
of value, and that positive and negative units of value can be summed. Suppose,
finally, that nothing else of intrinsic value or disvalue would occur if any of these
options were chosen. Then the overall intrinsic value of the consequences of A, were
8
it to be chosen, would be (10–5 =) 5, that of the consequences of B would be (5–5 =) 0,

and that of the consequences of C would be (0–5 =) –5. This being the case, A would
itself be instrumentally better than B, which in turn would itself be instrumentally
better than C. The pure form of consequentialism endorsed by Moore then implies
that the agent is all-things-considered obligated to choose A and thus that it would
be all-things-considered wrong for the agent to choose either B or C. This is
because, according to this form of consequentialism, one is in general all-things-
considered obligated to perform that action which would be instrumentally best
(or, if there is a tie, to choose one from among those options that are in “top place”
in terms of instrumental value, any of which would be right though none would
itself be obligatory) and is thus all-things-considered obligated not to perform any
action that would not be instrumentally best. It is of course because the
obligatoriness, rightness, or wrongness of an action is, on this view, wholly
dependent on the intrinsic value of its consequences, relative to the intrinsic values
of the consequences of its alternatives, that the view has come to be called a type of
consequentialism.
Moore claimed that the form of consequentialism just described was self-evidently
true (1912: 93–4), but it is a view that has been widely criticized. Some criticisms
are internal, in that they contend that the version of consequentialism endorsed
by Moore is not true to the basic insight that underlies consequentialism. Others
are external, in that they contend that consequentialism’s basic “insight” is in fact
misguided.
One of the internal criticisms against the version of consequentialism just laid
out came to be accepted by Moore himself. The objection is this. The basic insight
underlying consequentialism is that one ought to do the best one can, in the sense
that, on all occasions on which one has a choice about what to do, one is all-things-
considered obligated so to act that there is as much intrinsic value in the world as
possible. If so, however, it is a mistake to focus only on the intrinsic values of the
consequences of one’s options; for one’s options may bear their own intrinsic value,
as may the motives with which or intentions from which they are chosen. For
example, suppose that, in addition to pleasure, courage too is intrinsically good,
and that, in addition to pain, cowardice is intrinsically bad. Suppose further that, if
the agent in the previous illustration were to choose option A, his doing so would
manifest cowardice with an intrinsic value of –3, whereas, if he were to choose
option B, his doing so would manifest courage with an intrinsic value of +3. Then,
even though his doing A would still have the best consequences, nonetheless the
world (which includes not only the consequences of acts but also acts themselves,
together with their motives and intentions) would be better if he did B rather than
A. For the total intrinsic value associated with the performance of A would now be
(10–5–3 =) 2, whereas that associated with the performance of B would be
(5–5+3 =) 3. If so, the basic insight underlying consequentialism would surely
favor the agent’s doing B rather than A. That being the case, consequentialism
should be recast as follows (although the label “consequentialism” is no longer par-
ticularly apt): one is in general all-things-considered obligated to perform that
9
action, the performance of which is such that the world would be better than it
would be were any alternative action performed.
A second internal criticism has recently been the focus of much discussion, and
that is that even the revised thesis just given fails to do justice to the basic insight in
question. The matter concerns the relevance of one’s own future misbehavior to
one’s present obligations. Suppose that you have been invited to a memorial service
for a highly regarded colleague of whom you have always been envious. The best
thing you could do would be to accept the invitation and behave with all due
decorum at the service. The worst thing you could do would be to accept the
invitation and then misbehave at the service; better would be to decline the invitation
and not show up at all. Suppose that, if you were to accept the invitation, your envy,
though you could resist succumbing to it, would get the better of you and you would
misbehave at the ceremony. Under these circumstances, ought you to accept the
invitation or decline it? Moore’s view, even when revised in the manner just indicated,
implies that you ought to decline it; for the world would be better if you did so than
if you did not, since otherwise you would show up at the service and misbehave.
This so-called “actualist” view has been challenged by so-called “possibilists” who
claim that you ought to accept the invitation, on the grounds that your declining it
would be inconsistent with your doing the best you could, namely, accepting it and
then behaving yourself with all due decorum.
The most common external criticism of the version of consequentialism
advocated by Moore (however exactly that version is in the end to be formulated) is
that it endorses the view that the end always justifies the means – the view, that is,
that as long as the outcome of an action is better than that of each of its alternatives,
it does not matter by what means that outcome is achieved. Very many people
oppose this idea, holding that there are limits to how one may behave in the pursuit
of some goal, no matter how good the goal might be (see agent-centered restric-
tions). For example, killing one person in order to save five others is typically
thought to be morally unacceptable, even if it would be better on balance for the
one to die and the five to live than for the one to live and the five to die. (The matter
is controversial, however, and far from straightforward; see trolley problem.)
As indicated in the last section, one way to argue for this common view is to say
that, whereas people in general have a right not to be killed, they do not in general
have a right to be saved from death, and, like all claim-rights, the right not to
be killed places limits on how we may act, regardless of how good the outcome of
killing might be.
If this external criticism of Moore’s version of consequentialism is sound, then of
course this version – often called act consequentialism – must be rejected. But that
leaves open the possibility that some other version of consequentialism is to be
accepted, for there are many other versions that have been proposed. Perhaps the most
commonly discussed alternative version is rule consequentialism, which states,
roughly, that whether an act is all-things-considered obligatory, right, or wrong
depends, not on whether its consequences would be better than those of any of
its alternatives, but on whether it conforms to some rule of behavior, the general
10
adherence to which would have better consequences than the general adherence to
any alternative rule. Of course, this version has itself faced criticisms, both internal
and external.
Objective obligation and subjective obligation

Despite the differences between act consequentialism, rule consequentialism, other
types of consequentialism, and nonconsequentialism, there is, it might seem, a
sense in which all theories of obligation are committed to saying that one ought to
do the best one can; for all such theories will declare an act that is obligatory to be
superior in some significant way to any of its alternatives. Consider, for example, a
theory that says that we are always all-things-considered obligated to respect peo-
ple’s rights, irrespective of how good, intrinsically, the outcome of disrespecting
rights might sometimes be. Even such a patently nonconsequentialist view will hold
that whatever it is obligatory to do will be superior, in terms of respecting people’s
rights, to its alternatives. Even if the obligatory act in question is not instrumentally
better than its alternatives, still it will be, as we might put it, “rights-better” than its
alternatives.
Notwithstanding the accuracy of this observation, there remains an important
way in which theories of moral obligation, whether consequentialist or nonconse-
quentialist, can and do differ from one another in terms of doing what is “best.”
Moore’s theory and the sort of rights theory just mentioned are both views accord-
ing to which moral obligation is in some sense objective, in that they are both views
according to which one is all-things-considered obligated to do that which is actually
best (whether instrumentally best or rights-best). Such a view is to be contrasted
with a view that declares obligation to be subjective (see subjectivism, ethical).
On one kind of subjectivist view, one is obligated to do what one believes to be best
(again, whether instrumentally best, or rights-best, or best in some other way). On
another kind of subjectivist view, one is obligated to do what one’s evidence indicates
is actually best. And still other views are possible.
Moore himself considered the question whether moral obligation is objective or
subjective. He recognized that there is some pressure to say that what one ought to
do is a matter not of producing the best results that happen to be available, but rather
of producing, or maybe just aiming at, the best results that are either foreseeable or,
perhaps, simply foreseen. His response was that, if one has done what was either
foreseeably best or foreseen to be best, one may well not be to blame for one’s
behavior; nonetheless if, in so doing, one failed to do what was actually best, one will
indeed have done wrong (Moore 1912: 99–100). This response has seemed persuasive
to some, but others have found it wanting. Ross (1930), for example, initially accepted
it but then, under the influence of Prichard (1949), converted to subjectivism (Ross
1939; see prichard, h. a.). Indeed, many philosophers have contended that behavior
that is unduly risky but that luckily results in the relevant risk not being realized is
not, or is not simply, behavior for which the agent is to blame but is behavior that is
itself all-things-considered morally wrong (see risk; moral luck).
11
Supererogation
The idea that one is all-things-considered morally obligated to do what is in some
sense best is in tension with the common view that some acts are supererogatory, that
is, above and beyond the call of duty. Doing what goes beyond the call of duty would
seem better than merely doing one’s duty, yet how can anything be better than what
is best? The only possible solution to this puzzle is to distinguish the sense, if any, in
which obligatory acts are best from the sense in which supererogatory acts are better.
Conflicts of obligation
Return to Ross’s illustration, in which his prima facie obligation to meet his friend
conflicted with his prima facie obligation to prevent a serious accident. Conflicts of
this sort are commonplace. When they occur, one must try to determine what one is
all-things-considered obligated to do. Doing so will be easy, if it is clear which of the
competing obligations is strongest; otherwise it will not be so easy.
What if no prima facie obligation is stronger than all others? An agent in such a
situation is sometimes said (e.g., Sinnott-Armstrong 1988) to be in a moral dilemma
(see dilemmas, moral). This is not a term that Ross himself used to describe such
a situation; he simply said that, in such a case, the agent would be all-things-
considered justified in satisfying any of those competing prima facie obligations that
are such that none is stronger.
The term “moral dilemma” is often used differently, however, to refer to a situa-
tion in which an agent cannot help but fail to satisfy an all-things-considered obliga-
tion – that is, the agent cannot avoid overall moral wrong-doing. This is not a
possibility countenanced by Ross’s own theory, and some philosophers (e.g.,
McConnell 1978) have argued that dilemmas, so defined, cannot arise. Others,
pointing to excruciating cases of the sort depicted in Sophie’s Choice (Styron 1979),
in which a mother is forced to choose between saving her son and saving her
daughter from being sent to a Nazi crematorium, hold that denying the possibility of
moral dilemmas flies in the face of actual experience. There continues to be a lively
debate on this issue.
Cognitivism and noncognitivism

There is a fundamental division among philosophers regarding whether moral
claims, including claims about one’s moral obligations, purport to convey moral
facts. Those who hold that they do are called cognitivists; those who hold that they
do not are called non-cognitivists (see cognitivism; non-cognitivism). Consider
again, for instance, the claim that you ought to give all that you can to charity.
Whether construed in terms of what you are obligated to do or merely in terms of
what it would be good of you to do, this claim is taken by a cognitivist to be one that
purports to convey some fact and is, therefore, either true or false, just as the claim
that it rained in New York on January 1, 2010, is either true or false. Non-cognitivists
construe such a claim differently. Some (e.g., Ayer 1936; Stevenson 1944) hold that
12
it gives expression to some emotion on the part of the speaker, in much the same
way as saying “Up with charity!” would do (see ayer, a. j.; stevenson, c. l.; emo-
tivism). Others (e.g., Kant 1964; Hare 1952) hold that it gives expression to some
sort of command or prescription, in much the same way as “Give to charity!” would
do (see hare, r. m.; prescriptivism). Still others (e.g., Blackburn 1984; Gibbard
1990) hold that such a claim plays yet some other nondeclarative role (see projec-
tivism; quasi-realism).
Non-cognitivists are opposed to moral realism, but not all cognitivists are realists
(see realism, moral). All realists hold that some moral claims are indeed true,
whereas some cognitivists who subscribe to a so-called error theory hold that all
moral claims are false (this characterization of error theory of course presupposes
that purely negative claims such as “Nothing is morally obligatory” do not qualify as
moral claims) (see error theory). Realists are sometimes also said to be commit-
ted to the rejection of subjectivism, whereas some cognitivists are subjectivists. For
example, someone who holds that “You ought to give all that you can to charity”
means something like “I approve of your giving all that you can to charity” sub-
scribes both to cognitivism (since, on his view, his claim will be true if he does in fact
approve of your giving all that you can to charity, and false otherwise) and to a type
of subjectivism. Indeed, such a person also subscribes to a type of relativism, since it
is plain that the truth of a claim of the form “I approve of such-and-such” is relative
to the person who utters it (see relativism, moral). Non-cognitivists, of course,
can also subscribe to some type of subjectivism or relativism or both. For example,
someone who holds that “You ought to give all that you can to charity” means some-
thing like “Up with charity!” is thereby giving expression to his own approval of
charity but not to anyone else’s approval of it.
See also: action; agent-centered restrictions; associative duties;

ayer, a. j.; blame; cognitivism; consequentialism; deontology; dilemmas,
moral; doing and allowing; emotivism; error theory; euthanasia;
evaluative vs. deontic concepts; goodness, varieties of; hare, r. m.;
imperfect duties; instrumental value; intention; intrinsic value; kant,
immanuel; metaethics; mill, john stuart; moore, g. e.; moral luck;
non-cognitivism; omissions; ought; prescriptivism; prichard, h. a.; prima
facie and pro tanto oughts; projectivism; quasi-realism; realism, moral;
reasons; reasons for action, morality and; relativism, moral;
responsibility; rights; risk; ross, w. d.; stevenson, c. l.; subjectivism,
ethical; supererogation; trolley problem; utilitarianism; virtue ethics
REFERENCES
Ayer, A. J. 1936. Language, Truth, and Logic. London: Gollancz.
13
Kant, Immanuel 1964 [1785]. Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, trans. H. J. Paton.
New York: Harper.
McConnell, Terrance C. 1978. “Moral Dilemmas and Consistency in Ethics,” Canadian
Mill, John Stuart 1957 [1861]. Utilitarianism. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.
Moore, G. E. 1912. Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Prichard, H. A. 1949. Moral Obligation. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Ross, W. D. 1939. Foundations of Ethics. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Stevenson, Charles L. 1944. Ethics and Language. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Styron, William 1979. Sophie’s Choice. New York: Random House.
FURTHER READINGS
Aristotle 2000. Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Roger Crisp. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Bentham, Jeremy 1907 [1789]. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation.
Bradley, F. H. 1962 [1876]. Ethical Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Broad, C. D. 1985. Ethics. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff.
Donagan, Alan 1977. The Theory of Morality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Feinberg, Joel 1980. Rights, Justice, and the Bounds of Liberty. Princeton: Princeton University
Press.
Feldman, Fred 1986. Doing the Best We Can. Dordrecht: Reidel.
Fried, Charles 1978. Right and Wrong. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Gert, Bernard 2006. Morality: Its Nature and Justification. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gowans, Christopher (ed.) 1987. Moral Dilemmas. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Heyd, David 1982. Supererogation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hohfeld, Wesley Newcomb 1919. Fundamental Legal Conceptions. New Haven: Yale
University Press.
Hooker, Brad 2000. Ideal Code, Real World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hume, David 1975 [1740]. Treatise of Human Nature. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Jackson, Frank, and Robert Pargetter 1986. “Oughts, Options, and Actualism,” Philosophical
Review, vol. 95, pp. 233–55.
Kagan, Shelly 1989. The Limits of Morality. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Kant, Immanuel 1997 [1788]. Critique of Practical Reason, trans. Mary Gregor. Cambridge:
Lyons, David 1965. Forms and Limits of Utilitarianism. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Lyons, David (ed.) 1979. Rights. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Regan, Donald H. 1980. Utilitarianism and Co-operation. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Scheffler, Samuel 1984. The Rejection of Consequentialism. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Sidgwick, Henry 1907 [1874]. The Methods of Ethics. London: Macmillan.
Slote, Michael 1989. Beyond Optimizing. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Slote, Michael 2001. Morals from Motives. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
14
Smart, J. J. C., and Bernard Williams 1973. Utilitarianism: For and Against. Cambridge:
Thomson, Judith Jarvis 1986. Rights, Restitution, and Risk. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Thomson, Judith Jarvis 1990. The Realm of Rights. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
University Press.
Zimmerman, Michael J. 1996. The Concept of Moral Obligation. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
1
Free Will
Alfred Mele
The familiar claim that free will is a necessary condition for moral responsibility (see
moral agency; responsibility) links free will to ethics. Whether the claim is true
depends on what “free will” means. If one defines free will as the power or ability to
act freely (Mele 2006: 16–17), one should ask what acting freely amounts to. There
are readings of “freely” that render the following sentence true: “While Ann was
traveling the world, mice ran freely about her house.” These readings hold no special
interest for most philosophers who have written about free will. A major interest of
such philosophers is what might be called “moral responsibility-level free action” –
roughly, free action of such a kind that, if all the freedom-independent conditions
for moral responsibility for a particular action were satisfied without that sufficing
for the agent’s being morally responsible for it, the addition of the action’s being free
to this set of conditions would entail that the agent is morally responsible for it. This
essay is about free action of this kind.
Compatibilism, Incompatibilism, and Determinism

Traditional philosophical answers to the question what “free action” means fall into
two groups: compatibilist and incompatibilist. Compatibilism and incompatibilism
are theses about the conceptual relationship between free action and determinism.
Determinism, according to a standard definition, is the thesis that a complete
statement of the laws of nature, together with a complete description of the entire
universe at any point in time, logically entails a complete description of the entire
universe at any other point in time. (You, dear reader, are a part of the universe, and
a description of what you are doing right now is part of a complete description of
the universe at this point in time.) Compatibilism is the thesis that free action is
compatible with the truth of determinism. Owing to their acquaintance with con-
temporary physics, the great majority of contemporary compatibilists do not believe
that determinism is true; but they do believe that, even if it were true, that would
not preclude our acting freely. Incompatibilism is the thesis that free action is
incompatible with the truth of determinism. In the incompatibilist group, most
answers to the question what it is to act freely come from libertarians. Libertarian-
ism is the conjunction of incompatibilism and the thesis that some people sometimes
act freely. Some incompatibilists argue that no one acts freely (Pereboom 2001;
Strawson 1986). They argue that even the falsity of determinism creates no place for
free action.
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee159
2
Compatibilist Theories
Compatbilism often seems strange to nonspecialists. In ordinary speech, the
expressions “free will” and “determinism” seem to be defined in opposition to each
other. This is one reason why it is useful to think of free will as the power to act freely
and to regard acting freely as the more basic notion – that is, as a notion in terms of
which free will is to be defined. Consider the following conversation between two
firefighters who have a stingy friend named Sting. Alice: “Sting gave $10 to a
homeless woman today.” Bill: “Why? Did she hold a gun to Sting’s head?” Alice: “No,
Sting freely gave her the money.” These firefighters do not need to have an opinion
about whether determinism (as defined above) is true to have this conversation. If
what Alice says is true – that is, if Sting freely gave away $10 – then, if free will is the
power to act freely, Sting has free will (or had it at that time). Even if “free will” is
typically opposed to “determinism” in ordinary speech, “he freely did it” seems not
to be. And even if “he freely did it” were typically opposed to determinism in ordi-
nary speech, that would settle nothing. After all, in ordinary speech, deductive rea-
soning seems to be defined as reasoning from the general to the particular, and that
certainly would only jokingly be said to constitute an objection to a logician’s
definition of deduction (according to which “Alice is a firefighter; Bill is a fire-
fighter; therefore Alice and Bill are firefighters” is a valid deductive argument).
Just as “deduction” is a technical term in logic, “determinism” is a technical term
in philosophy.
Compatibilist theories of free action distinguish deterministic causation from
compulsion. If determinism is true, then my eating a turkey sandwich for lunch
today and my driving to work today were deterministically caused; and so were a
certain compulsive hand-washer’s washing his hands dozens of times today, a certain
delusional person’s hunting for Martians, a certain crack addict’s using the drug
while in the grip of an irresistible urge to do so, and a certain person’s handing over
money to gunmen who threatened to kill her. But there is an apparent difference.
I am sane and free from addiction, and I received no death threats today. The basic
compatibilist idea is (roughly) that, when mentally healthy people act intentionally
and rationally in the absence of compulsion and coercion, they act freely, and an
action’s being deterministically caused does not suffice for its being compelled or
coerced (see coercion; insanity defense; rationality).
Many compatibilists have tried to accommodate the idea that, for example, if I
freely spent the day working, I could have done something else instead. They grant
that, if determinism is true, then there is a sense in which people could never have
done otherwise than they did: they could not have done otherwise in the sense that
their doing otherwise is incompatible with the combination of the past and the laws
of nature. But, these compatibilists say, the fact that a person never could have done
otherwise in that sense is irrelevant to free action. What matters is that people who
act freely are exercising a rational capacity of such a kind that, if their situation had
been different in any one of a variety of important ways, they would have responded
to the difference with a different and suitable action. For example, although I spent
3
the day working, I would have spent the day relaxing if someone had bet me $500
that I would not relax all day. This truth is compatible with determinism. (Notice
that, if someone had made this bet with me, the past would have been different from
what it actually was.) And this truth reinforces the distinction between determinis-
tic causation and compulsion. Offer a compulsive hand-washer $500 not to wash his
hands all day and see what happens.
Some compatibilists are semicompatibilists (Fischer 1994). John Fischer describes
his semicompatibilism as the view that “moral responsibility is compatible with
causal determinism, even if causal determinism is incompatible with freedom to do
otherwise” (1994: 180). His semicompatibilism is also a view about free action.
Fischer asserts that “guidance control is the freedom-relevant condition necessary
and sufficient for moral responsibility” (1994: 168), and he reports that his “account of
guidance control (and moral responsibility) … yields ‘semicompatibilism’” (1994:
180). So his semicompatibilism should be taken to encompass the thesis that free
action is compatible with determinism (as traditional compatibilists assert), even if
“determinism is incompatible with freedom to do otherwise” (which traditional
compatibilists deny).
Semicompatibilism is motivated partly by Frankfurt-style thought experiments
(Frankfurt 1969). These thought experiments are controversial, but many
philosophers have been persuaded by some of them that an agent who could not
have done otherwise than A may nevertheless be morally responsible for A-ing and
may A freely. In a relatively simple Frankfurt-style story, a neurosurgeon has tinkered
with Ann’s brain in such a way that, if she had not decided on her own, at a time t, to
have a second shot of whiskey then, a certain unconscious brain process B would
have resulted in her deciding, at t, to drink another whiskey then. Process B did not
in any way interfere with Ann’s reasoning, with her decision-making, or with her
experiences; and the only thing that could have preempted B, given that Ann was
capable of making a decision at t, was her deciding on her own, then, to have a
second whiskey then. Readers are invited to imagine that Ann made her decision in
a way they think free decisions are made. Because Ann’s decision was to have a
second whiskey then, there was not much time for her to change her decision after
making it. But B also was such that, if Ann were to waver, it would prevent her from
changing her decision. Since Ann did not waver, B was idle in this connection too.
Now imagine a counterpart story that differs from the preceding one only in that
there is no monkey business. If that story is about an agent who decides and acts
freely and who is morally responsible for her decision and for having a second shot
of whiskey, and if the Frankfurt-style story I described is coherent, then Ann seems
to decide and act freely in the Frankfurt-style story too, and to be morally responsible
for her decision and for her drinking – even though she could not have done
otherwise than decide on the second whiskey and drink it. After all, B was idle with
respect to Ann’s decision to drink and with respect to her drinking. It played no role
at all in producing her decision.
If some Frankfurt-style stories are successful, they show that an agent can A freely
and be morally responsible for A-ing even if that agent could not have done otherwise
4
than A. However, this is not enough to show that compatibilism is true. Some
incompatibilists who thought, before reflecting on Frankfurt-style stories, that the
problem with determinism was simply that it entails, for example, that no one who
has a second shot of whiskey could have done otherwise (on some preferred
incompatibilist reading of “could have done otherwise”) might have misidentified
what actually bothered them about determinism. What bothered them might have
been the entailment at issue in conjunction with the entailment that the causal
sequence or sequences that actually issue in the agent’s decision (as opposed to an
unrealized, Frankfurt-style sequence) are such that he could not have done otherwise.
An incompatibilist may see an agent’s indeterministically initiating some actions of
his as crucial to his being a free, morally responsible agent; and, although determinism
precludes indeterministic initiation, typical Frankfurt-style stories do not.
Libertarian Theories
Like compatibilists (including semicompatibilists), libertarians tend to assert that, when
mentally healthy people act intentionally and rationally in the absence of compulsion
and coercion, they act freely; but libertarians insist that determinism is incompatible
with free action. (Recall that libertarians believe that determinism is false.) Libertarians
have the option of endorsing either restrictive nonhistorical requirements on free action
or less restrictive historical requirements. For example, they can claim that an agent
freely A-ed at a particular time only if, at that very time, he could have done otherwise
than A; or they can claim instead that an agent who could not have done otherwise
than A at a given time may nevertheless freely A at that time, provided that he earlier
performed some relevant free action or actions, at a time or times at which he could
have done otherwise than perform those actions. Any free A-ings that occur at times at
which the past (up to those times) and the laws of nature are consistent with the agent’s
not A-ing then may be termed “basically free actions.” In principle, libertarians can hold
that an agent’s basically free actions that are suitably related to his subsequent A-ing
confer freedom on his A-ing even though he could not have done otherwise than A
then. It is open to libertarians to accept or reject the thesis that the only free actions are
basically free actions. These issues are set aside in this essay; and, when libertarianism is
at issue, “free action” is shorthand for “basically free action.”
Libertarian views of free action may be divided into three broad kinds: event-causal,
agent-causal, and noncausal. According to typical event-causal libertarian views, the
proximate causes of free actions cause them indeterministically. This is a consequence
of the typical event-causal libertarian ideas that free actions have proximate causes
and that, if an agent freely A-s at a time t, then, in some possible hypothetical scenario
in which the entire past up to t and the laws of nature are the same, he does not A at t.
Now, the proximate causes of actions, including actions that are decisions, are internal
to agents. Even a driver’s sudden decision to hit his brakes in an emergency situation
is not proximately caused by events in the external world. Perception of whatever the
source of the emergency happens to be – for example, a raccoon darting into traffic –
is causally involved. And how the driver decides to react to what he sees depends,
5
among other things, on his driving skills and habits, on whether or not he is aware of
what is happening directly behind him, and on his preferences. A driver who likes
driving over raccoons and relishes opportunities to do that would probably react very
differently from a normal person. In light of the general point about the proximate
causation of actions, typical event-causal libertarianism encompasses a commitment
to what may be termed “agent-internal indeterminism.”
Whereas the laws of nature that apply to deterministic causation are exceptionless,
those that apply most directly to indeterministic causation are instead probabilistic.
So, if the occurrence of x (at time t1) indeterministically causes the occurrence of y
(at t2), then a complete description of the universe at (and before) t1, together with a
complete statement of the laws of nature, does not entail that y occurs at t2. There
was, at most, a high probability that the occurrence of x at t1 would cause the
occurrence of y at t2. Typically, events like deciding to give a homeless person some
money – as distinct from the physical actions involved in actually giving the person
the money – are counted as mental actions. Suppose that Sting’s decision to give a
homeless woman $10 is indeterministically caused by (among other things) his
thinking that he should do this. Because the causation is indeterministic, given
exactly the same internal and external conditions, he might not have decided to
make a donation. In this way some libertarians seek to secure the possibility of doing
otherwise, which they require for free action.
What libertarians require for free action that determinism precludes is not merely
that agents sometimes have, open to them, more than one future that is compatible
with the combination of the past and the laws of nature, but also that, on some
occasions, it is, in some sense and to some degree, up to the agents which possible
future becomes actual. Event-causal libertarians require something that entails that
people themselves are indeterministic in some suitable way – that some relevant
things that happen under the skin are indeterministically caused by other such
things. The focus is on mental events (or their neural correlates), as opposed, for
example, to indeterministically caused tics – and, more specifically, on mental events
that have a significant bearing on action (or the neural correlates of these events).
Quantum mechanics, according to leading interpretations, is indeterministic. But
indeterminism at that level does not ensure that any human brains sometimes
operate indeterministically in ways appropriate for free action. One possibility, as
David Hodgson reports, is that, “in systems as hot, wet, and massive as neurons of
the brain, quantum mechanical indeterminacies quickly cancel out, so that for all
practical purposes determinism rules in the brain” (2002: 86). Another possibility is
that any indeterminism in the human brain itself is simply irrelevant to the
production of actions. Empirical discoveries that either of these possibilities is an
actuality would show that we do not have free will – on some familiar libertarian
conceptions of it.
Agent-causal libertarianism features agent causation – the causing of an effect by
an agent or person, as opposed to the causing of an effect by states or events of any
kind, including a person’s motivational and representational states. Think of
causation as a relation between cause and effect. In ordinary event causation – for
6
example, a gust of wind causing a kite to jerk – both cause and effect are events.
These events are connected through the relation causation. In agent causation, an
agent is connected to an effect through the relation causation. Whereas most
agent-causal libertarians prefer their agent causation straight (Chisholm 1966;
O’Connor 2000; Taylor 1966), some mix it with event causation, in a theory about
the production of free actions (Clarke 2003).
Some noncausal libertarian views assert that only uncaused actions can be free
(Goetz 2002). Others simply leave it open that free actions are uncaused (Ginet
2002). (For an instructive discussion of noncausal libertarian accounts of free action,
see Clarke 2003: Ch. 2.)
A Disjunctive Theory
It is possible to believe that some people sometimes act freely without taking a stand
on whether compatibilism or incompatibilism is true (Mele 2006). A philosopher
who is officially agnostic about compatibilism may develop and defend both a
compatibilist account of conceptually sufficient conditions for free action and an
incompatibilist account of this and then assess arguments for and against two
different claims: the claim that the conditions offered are in fact conceptually
sufficient for free action; and the claim that some of our actions satisfy one or the
other set of conditions. A philosopher who takes this tack may argue that the
following disjunctive thesis is more credible than the thesis that no one ever acts
freely: either compatibilism is false and people sometimes act freely or compatibilism
is true and people sometimes act freely.
Resistance to Compatibilist and Libertarian Theories

Each of the theories described above has its critics. Critics of compatibilism view
determinism as precluding a kind of flexibility that they take to be required for free
action and therefore reject all compatibilist theories about what “free action” means
(Chisholm 1966; Kane 1996; Pereboom 2001; Inwagen 1983). Even if they accept the
compatibilist distinction between deterministic causation and compulsion, they
contend that each one precludes the required flexibility in its own way.
The consequence argument has been used to support this criticism of
compatibilism. A short version of the argument reads as follows: “If determinism
is true, then our acts are the consequences of the laws of nature and events in the
remote past. But it is not up to us what went on before we were born, and neither
is it up to us what the laws of nature are. Therefore, the consequences of these
things (including our present acts) are not up to us” (Inwagen 1983: 16). If this
argument is to yield the conclusion that determinism is incompatible with free
action, it needs a premise along the following lines: If our acts are not up to
us, we do not perform them freely.
The added premise has an intuitive ring, but how is the expression “up to us” to
be understood? If an action’s being up to its agent entails that the agent could have
7
done otherwise than perform that action, then some Frankfurt-style cases challenge
the added premise. And if there is no such entailment, perhaps some actions can be
up to their agents even if determinism is true.
It is sometimes claimed that agents do not control anything if determinism is true,
and therefore they lack free will. That claim is false. When Joe drives his car (under
normal conditions), he controls the turns it makes, even if his universe is
deterministic. He obviously controls his car’s motions in a way that pedestrians and
his passengers do not. For example, he turns the steering wheel and they do not. The
same sort of thing is true of Joe’s body. He turns the steering wheel to the right by
rotating his hands to the right while holding the wheel, and he controls the motions
of his arms, hands, and fingers in a way that his passengers and others do not. Joe
does not control what went on before he was born, nor does he control what the laws
of nature are. But the combination of these two truths with the supposed truth of
determinism does not entail that Joe controls nothing at all.
Some critics of event-causal libertarianism maintain that although it introduces a
chance of acting otherwise that is absent in deterministic universes, it does not give
agents the sort of control over their actions that free action requires (Clarke 2003;
O’Connor 2000; Pereboom 2001). They argue, for example, that event-causal
libertarianism has the undesirable result that it is just a matter of chance or luck that
an agent decides on a particular course of action at a given moment rather than
deciding on an alternative course of action then (see moral luck). After all, in a
possible scenario in which absolutely everything is the same until the decision is
made, the agent decides to do something else. There is nothing to account for the
difference between what actually happens and what happens in this alternative
scenario: the difference seems to be a matter of chance or luck. Some philosophers
raise a similar objection to agent-causal libertarianism (Mele 2006: Ch. 3).
It might be argued that, if the difference between an agent’s making the
decision he actually makes at time t and his not making that decision, in a pos-
sible scenario in which everything is the same up to t, is just a matter of chance
or luck, then the agent is not morally responsible for deciding as he does. Chance
or luck at the very time of action – “present luck,” for short – may be claimed to
preclude moral responsibility; and it may be argued that present luck precludes
moral responsibility precisely because it is incompatible with the decision’s being
made freely.
Should libertarians agree? Typical libertarians hold, in effect, that what is here
being called present luck is necessary for deciding freely. If it were both necessary for
deciding freely and sufficient for deciding unfreely, libertarianism would be sunk. But
libertarians can try to explain why this sufficiency thesis is false. One explanation that
may be explored features the construction of a libertarian theory about how, in an
indeterministic universe, we may develop from neonates who do not act intentionally
into mature agents who sometimes decide freely. If present luck is required for free
decisions, perhaps a part of an attractive answer to the developmental question would
appeal to capacities that human beings have to reduce the probability of present bad
luck. With internally indeterministic agents, learning how to delay gratification and
8
how to be self-controlled more generally, as most people eventually do to some degree,

may include learning from bad decisions indeterministically caused. Agents may
reflect on the consequences of those decisions, deliberate about potential strategies for
making better decisions, and make resolutions for future conduct on the basis of their
deliberation (see moral development; moral psychology). Theoretical and sci-
entific work on self-control has a lot to say about dealing with temptations to act
contrary to one’s better judgment and improving one’s success rate at resisting tempta-
tion over time. Libertarians may, in principle, have something useful to say about
dealing with one’s own indeterministic decision-producing processes and minimizing
the occurrence of unlucky bad decisions over time (see Mele 2006: Ch. 5).
Thomas Nagel claims that agent-causal libertarians simply give “a name to a mystery”
(1986: 115; see also Inwagen 1983: 152). The name, of course, is “agent causation.” Derk
Pereboom does not find agent causation hopelessly mysterious, but he argues, on
empirical grounds, that it is extremely unlikely that anyone has agent-causal power
(2001: Ch. 3). Randolph Clarke, who has done as much as anyone to defend agent
causation against objections, judges that relevant arguments collectively “incline the
balance against the possibility of substance causation in general and agent causation
in particular” (2003: 209). However, he maintains that, in light of difficulties involved
in understanding causation, “we cannot have a great deal of confidence” in this judg-
ment (2003: 209–10). Clarke also maintains that there is no evidence for the existence
of agent causation (2003: 206–7). If this is true, agent-causal libertarianism is in dire
straits. How is one to defend the claim that human beings sometimes engage in a kind
of free action that requires the existence of a species of causation for which there is no
evidence? A persuasive argument that agent causation is required for free action can
quickly lead to the conclusion that it is very unlikely that anyone has ever acted freely.
An important challenge to noncausal libertarianism has less to do with free will
than with the nature of actions. Some philosophers have argued that uncaused
actions are conceptually impossible (see action). A challenge for noncausal
libertarians is to explain how actions can be uncaused.
Obviously, proof that both compatibilism and libertarianism are false would
undermine the disjunctive theory. As long as both compatibilism and libertarianism
are in the running, so is the disjunctive theory. If libertarianism – or, alternatively,
compatibilist belief in free will – were shown to be true, there would be no need for
the disjunctive theory.
Do We Ever Act Freely?

Are there free actions? That depends on what “free action” means. If a typical
compatibilist theory about the meaning of this expression is correct, it is very likely
that people often perform free actions. After all, there are many mentally healthy
people, and it is difficult to deny that they often act intentionally and rationally in
the absence of compulsion and coercion. And, of course, if free will is simply the
power to perform free actions, anyone who performs free actions has free will (at
least on some occasions). If any of the libertarian theories about what “free action”
9
means is correct, it is easier to doubt that people are capable of performing free
actions. If there are no uncaused actions, then no theory about the meaning of “free
action” that requires free actions to be uncaused permits us to perform free actions.
If the brain, in fact, does not work indeterministically in ways required for free
action by event-causal libertarian theories about the meaning of “free action,” then,
if those theories are correct, it turns out that no one performs free actions. And if
there is no agent causation in the real world (or if agent causation is impossible),
agent-causal libertarianism has the same upshot.
Moral Responsibility
Often theorists who disagree about what “free action” means attempt to find support
for their view in the sphere of moral responsibility. A common claim about the
ability to perform free actions – that is, about free will – is that it is a necessary
condition for being morally responsible for the actions one performs, where moral
responsibility is understood as a necessary condition for such things as deserved
punishment, deserved moral blame, and deserved moral praise or credit (see blame;
desert; guilt; punishment). The various theories about the meaning of
“free action” described here have readily recognizable counterparts in the sphere
of moral responsibility.
This essay’s opening sentence linked free will to ethics by reporting the popular
claim that free will is a necessary condition for moral responsibility. How should this
popular claim be understood?
Consider the following assertion. Necessarily, an agent is morally responsible for
A-ing only if that agent A-s freely. This assertion apparently is falsified by mundane
cases. In an ordinary scenario, a drunk driver who is too drunk even to see the
pedestrian whom he runs over and kills is generally regarded as being morally
responsible for killing that pedestrian, even though he does not kill the victim freely
(see negligence). If, while he was driving, the driver had been force-fed alcohol
until he was too drunk to know what he was doing, we would not regard him as
morally responsible for the killing. This suggests that, in the ordinary scenario, we
see the driver’s moral responsibility for the killing as deriving partly from some
earlier free action or actions of his – for example, from his drinking alcohol freely.
The following assertion is not threatened by examples of this kind: Necessarily, an
agent who never acts freely is not morally responsible for any action of his. The
conjunction of this assertion and the claim that free will is the ability to act freely
implies that being morally responsible for any actions that one performs requires
having free will at some time or other. If this claim about moral responsibility is true,
any successful arguments for the claim that free will is an illusion would imply that
moral responsibility, too, is an illusion.
See also: action; blame; coercion; desert; guilt; insanity defense; moral
agency; moral development; moral luck; moral psychology; negligence;
punishment; rationality; responsibility
10
REFERENCES
Chisholm, Roderick 1966. “Freedom and Action,” in Keith Lehrer (ed.), Freedom and
Determinism. New York: Random House, pp. 11–44.
Clarke, Randolph 2003. Libertarian Accounts of Free Will. New York: Oxford University Press.
Fischer, John 1994. The Metaphysics of Free Will. Oxford: Blackwell.
Frankfurt, Harry 1969. “Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility,” Journal of
Ginet, Carl 2002. “Reasons Explanations of Action: Causalist versus Noncausalist Accounts,”
in Robert Kane (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Free Will. New York: Oxford University
Press, pp. 386–405.
Goetz, Stewart 2002. “Alternative Frankfurt-Style Counterexamples to the Principle of
Alternative Possibilities,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 83, pp. 131–47.
Hodgson, David 2002. “Quantum Physics, Consciousness, and Free Will,” in Robert Kane
(ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Free Will. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 85–110.
Inwagen, Peter van 1983. An Essay on Free Will. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Kane, Robert 1996. The Significance of Free Will. New York: Oxford University Press.
Mele, Alfred 2006. Free Will and Luck. New York: Oxford University Press.
Nagel, Thomas 1986. The View From Nowhere. New York: Oxford University Press.
O’Connor, Timothy 2000. Persons and Causes. New York: Oxford University Press.
Pereboom, Derk 2001. Living Without Free Will. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Strawson, Galen 1986. Freedom and Belief. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Taylor, Richard 1966. Action and Purpose. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
FURTHER READINGS
Double, Richard 1991. The Non-Reality of Free Will. New York: Oxford University Press.
Ekstrom, Laura 2000. Free Will. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Fischer, John 2006. My Way: Essays on Moral Responsibility. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fischer, John, and Mark Ravizza 1998. Responsibility and Control: A Theory of Moral
Responsibility. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Frankfurt, Harry 1988. The Importance of What We Care About. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Haji, Ishtiyaque 2009. Incompatibilism’s Allure. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press.
Kane, Robert (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Free Will. New York: Oxford University Press.
McCann, Hugh 1998. The Works of Agency. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
McKenna, Michael, and David Widerker (eds.) 2003. Moral Responsibility and Alternative
Possibilities. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Mele, Alfred 1995. Autonomous Agents: From Self-Control to Autonomy. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Mele, Alfred 2009. Effective Intentions: The Power of Conscious Will. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Smith, Michael 2003. “Rational Capacities, or: How to Distinguish Recklessness, Weakness,
and Compulsion.” In Sarah Stroud and Christine Tappolet (eds.), Weakness of Will and
Practical Irrationality. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 17–38.
11
Strawson, Peter 1962. “Freedom and Resentment,” Proceedings of the British Academy, vol. 48,
pp. 1–25.
Watson, Gary 2004. Agency and Answerability. New York: Oxford University Press.
Wolf, Susan 1990. Freedom Within Reason. New York: Oxford University Press.
1
Bloch, Ernst
Vincent Geoghegan
The German philosopher and social critic Ernst Bloch (1885–1977) held chairs in
philosophy at the universities of Leipzig (1949–61) and Tübingen (1961–77). Before
this, after studying in Munich, Würzberg, Berlin, and Heidelberg, he had begun a
wandering life as a freelance intellectual and journalist, publishing a number of books
in which he began to lay the basis for his later philosophical system. With Hitler’s
accession to power in 1933, Bloch, as a Marxist and a Jew, went into exile, first in
Central Europe and France, and then in the United States (1938–49). He first came to
prominence with his 1918 book The Spirit of Utopia. Its title proclaimed the central
theme of his life’s work: the development of a positive and greatly expanded concept
of the “utopian,” grounded in the category of hope. In what many consider his greatest
work, The Principle of Hope (written between 1938 and 1947), he provided, in three
volumes, an encyclopedic account of the many manifestations of hope in history and
contemporary life, from simple daydreams to complex visions of perfection. Unsur-
prisingly, in this exploration of the better and the best, his works return time and
again to the subject matter of ethics, and in 1961 he produced his most sustained
discussion of ethical traditions in Natural Law and Human Dignity. As a Marxist,
however, he had to do all of this in a tradition of thought that tended to use the word
“utopian” as a term of abuse, and which was famously inhospitable to the use of moral
critique and exhortation. The result was a distinctly unorthodox Marxism, one pos-
sessed of a richness and vigor that has continued to speak to readers far beyond that
tradition.
Bloch’s philosophical project was highly ambitious – nothing less than the
elaboration of a new metaphysics, a system in which all the forms of being would
be comprehended. This was to be an “open” metaphysics because the universe was
a work in progress; it was, to use Bloch’s central concept, “not-yet,” and an active
humanity had to play an important role in its further development. There is a clear
connection here to German Idealist philosophy – notably Hegel (see hegel, georg
wilhelm friedrich) and Schelling (see schelling, friedrich) – and to the
radical transformation of this tradition in the work of Marx (see marx, karl);
more ancient roots include various strands of Aristotelianism (see aristotle). A
materialist, Bloch considered matter to be not inert, but rather, in nature and
humanity, capable of movement and development: “matter … is not the mechani-
cal lump. … [It] is Being which has not yet been delivered; it is the soil and the
substance in which our future, which is also its future, is delivered” (1986b: 1371).
From a human perspective, the open-endedness of reality is both an opportunity
and a limitation; the possibility of choice coexists with the hazards of uncertainty.
Human history is thus experimental, with the purpose of the experiment being the
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee160
2
creation of an environment conducive to both human and natural flourishing.

This concern with creating a better future is at the heart of Bloch’s self-conscious
utopianism, and its various forms – extensively anatomized by Bloch – are a vital
component in the forward development of humanity. So the utopian has to be dis-
tinguished from merely one of its forms, the literary utopia: “the utopian coincides
so little with the novel of the ideal state that the whole totality of philosophy
becomes necessary … to do justice to the content of that designated by utopia”
(1986b: 15).
Bloch shares the Marxist wish to view morality as an historical creation
generated by varied contexts and deeply enmeshed in the power relations of its
respective societies, with an attendant skepticism towards many of its claims to
universality. Thus, much of Natural Law and Human Dignity consists of an
attempt to situate conceptions of natural law (see natural law) from the Sophists
and Stoics (see ancient ethics) onwards in their specific socio economic
frameworks. Bloch, however, wants to resist what he considers to be a
vulgar-Marxist position, namely that cultural products such as moral codes are
necessarily exhausted by their respective ages. Rather, he maintains that certain
cultural forms generate what he terms a “cultural surplus,” which endures beyond
the period of its genesis. This surplus consists of intimations of a fuller existence
which are “not-yet”; they are beguiling and persisting reminders of what is lack-
ing in the present, work still to be done, a possible future; they point beyond exist-
ing patterns of domination and exploitation. In the case of morality, this means
that one can identify an element of universality in certain ethical forms, an his-
torically embedded universality, an inheritance passed on, transmitted, and trans-
muted across time.
There is a political dimension to Bloch’s concern with engaging with a cultural
heritage. His experience of the rise of fascism in Weimar Germany convinced him
of the dangers of progressive forces so neglecting the meaningful cultural experience
of varying social groups that the Nazis were left unopposed to appropriate and
restructure this experience. Bloch developed the concept of “non-contemporaneity”
to argue that although people inhabit the same time in one sense (they are physical
contemporaries), they inhabit, for a variety of socio economic reasons, a wide range
of different times in terms of their consciousness: “Despite the radio and newspapers,
couples live in the village for whom Egypt is still the land where the princess dragged
the boy Moses out of the river, not the land of the pyramids or the Suez Canal”
(1991: 100). In a text of this period, Heritage of Our Times (1935), he identifies the
way a hyper-rationalist German Left refused to have anything to do with “irrational”
residues such as the religious consciousness of sections of the population. Thus,
whereas the Reformation rebel leader Thomas Münzer had harnessed the religious
hopes of the people to the revolutionary cause, the contemporary Left had abandoned
this terrain, and “the Nazis steamed into the vacated, originally Münzerian regions”
(1991: 140). For Bloch, cultural engagement and contestation are at the heart of a
successful politics.
3
The natural law tradition is deemed by Bloch to be a particularly rich depository

of cultural surplus. His historical periodization is explicitly Marxist, where the
watershed is the gathering pace of the bourgeois assault on feudalism from
the seventeenth century onwards; from this point, natural law is drawn into the
fierce social, economic, and political battles of modernity. In earlier times, Bloch
singles out for praise the Stoics with their assertion of equal rights grounded in a
common humanity, and the prophets of Israel who are deemed to have articulated
similar sentiments. Stirrings of the modern are seen in the Reformation and
Counter-Reformation, as both Calvinists and Jesuits confront states hostile to their
own beliefs, engendering notions of popular sovereignty and rights of resistance.
The high point for what he terms “bourgeois natural law” was the period of the
French Revolution, where the revolutionary slogan of liberty, equality, and frater-
nity, although replete with ambiguities and evasions, nonetheless contains a heritage
which legitimately links with socialism and points “far beyond the horizon of the
bourgeois world” (1986a: 174).
On a number of occasions, Bloch compares and contrasts the inheritance of
natural law with that of social utopianism (the accounts of the good society to be
found in More, Bacon, and so forth). This is to establish both their similarities and
differences, and to make a critical point about the Marxist tradition. They share
important commonalities: “both belong to the noble power of anticipation of some-
thing ‘better’ than that which has ‘become’,” and thus “both issue from the empire of
hope” (1986a: 208), but there is a fundamental difference as regards their ultimate
objectives. Social utopias are principally concerned with happiness, whereas natural
law primarily deals with dignity; the former’s critical edge is therefore directed
against human suffering, while the latter’s is deployed against human degradation:
“there are men who toil and are burdened, those are the exploited. But in addition
there are also men who are degraded and offended. Of course the exploited are also
degraded and offended, but a distinction must be made between these two aspects”
(quoted in Landmann 1975: 171). Bloch is at pains to make this distinction because
he believed that Marxism, although strong on exploitation, was weak on degradation.
In time, he extends this critique to Marx himself who, while deemed to be appreciative
of the social utopianism of his utopian socialist predecessors, Owen, Saint-Simon,
and Fourier, is considered to have an insufficient insight into the strengths of the
discourse on freedom in classical liberalism. Although Bloch highlights a further
distinction between natural law and social utopias – that the latter deals with
quasi-literary stories and images, while the former is concerned with precise
principles – when it comes to articulating the gold-bearing seam of natural law,
Bloch perennially uses an image: that of the “upright carriage” or “upright gait.” This
is both a goal and the means to that goal. Uprightness is the appropriate stance for
humanity, and the first step on the road to achieving it, for “the very word uprising
means that one makes one’s way out of one’s horizontal, dejected, or kneeling posi-
tion into an upright one” (quoted in Bloch, Jan Robert 1988: 10). Marxism’s neglect
of the natural law tradition has eased the way for authoritarian socialism to neglect
the “orthopedia of the upright carriage” (1986a: 174).
4
For Bloch, the imperative was to recognize and work with the complementary
nature of natural law and social utopianism. Historically sundered, with natural
law fuelling political projects concerned with autonomy, and social utopianism
feeding those promoting well-being, the inter-relatedness of their differing
objectives had to be grasped, for human dignity is directly threatened by poverty,
as is happiness by degrading treatment – witness liberal capitalism and authori-
tarian socialism. This informed his take on Marx’s conception of a classless
society or communism. Here was to be the realm where the twin legacies of natu-
ral law and social utopianism were to be the most fully integrated and embodied
to date. Before this, he also follows Marx in positing a socialist stage between the
demise of capitalism and the emergence of communism, a period where positive
law, like its institutional guarantor, the state, begins to wither away, leaving
“the first polis,” first “because it is without politeia” (1986a: 228), namely a self-
governing free community without the constitutional and governmental trappings
of the period of states.
If natural law and social utopias contain an important heritage for Bloch, the
same can be said of a third phenomenon on which he lavished a good deal of
attention – religion. The renewed interest in religion as a philosophical and polit-
ical issue – witnessed in the work of the later Rawls (see rawls, john) and
Habermas who look for ways in which the values of liberal democracy can be
validated by members of faith communities – has stimulated renewed interest in
Bloch’s work on religion. Although an atheist, Bloch called on humanity “to
inherit those features of religion which do not perish with the death of God”
(2009: 250). In this respect, he is closer to the project of Feuerbach than that of
Marx. This is presented not as an extraneous, atheist reconstruction of
Christianity, but as the development of the internal logic of Christianity itself.
Atheism, in this sense, is the truth of the Bible: “long before God as an existent
object of being had been overthrown by the Enlightenment, Christianity put
man, or more precisely the son of man and his representative mystery, into the
Lord of Heaven of former days” (1986b: 1284). In Atheism in Christianity, he provides
a reading of the Bible that stresses both the elements of ethical contestation in, for
example, the serpent in Eden, and Job’s complaints to Jehovah, and its utopian
storehouse of the most uncompromising elements of the astonishing and the
awesome, the ineffable and the mysterious. He feeds therefore into the current
“postsecular” debates about how the Enlightenment pattern of the religious and
the secular is to be reconfigured.
See also: ancient ethics; aristotle; hegel, georg wilhelm friedrich;

marx, karl; natural law; rawls, john; schelling, friedrich
REFERENCES
Bloch, Ernst 1986a [1961]. Natural Law and Human Dignity, trans. Dennis J. Schmidt.
5
Bloch, Ernst 1986b [1959]. The Principle of Hope, trans. Neville Plaice, Stephen Plaice, and
Paul Knight. Oxford: Blackwell.
Bloch, Ernst 1991 [1939]. Heritage of Our Times, trans. Neville Plaice and Stephen Plaice.
Oxford: Polity.
Bloch, Ernst 2000 [1918]. The Spirit of Utopia, trans. Anthony A. Nassar. Stanford: Stanford
University Press.
Bloch, Ernst 2009 [1968]. Atheism in Christianity, trans. J. T. Swann. London and New York:
Verso.
Bloch, Jan Robert 1988. “How Can We Understand the Bends in the Upright Gait?” New
German Critique, vol. 45, pp. 9–39.
Landmann, Michael 1975. “Talking with Ernst Bloch: Korcula, 1968,” Telos, vol. 25, pp. 165–85.
FURTHER READINGS
Daniel, Jamie Owen, and Tom Moylan (eds.) 1997. Not Yet: Reconsidering Ernst Bloch.
London and New York: Verso.
Geoghegan, Vincent 1996. Ernst Bloch. London: Routledge.
Geoghegan, Vincent 2004. “Religion and Communism: Feuerbach, Marx and Bloch,”
European Legacy, vol. 9, no. 5, pp. 585–95.
Hudson, Wayne 1982. The Marxist Philosophy of Ernst Bloch. London: Macmillan.
Levitas, Ruth 1990. “Utopian Hope: Ernst Bloch and Reclaiming the Future,” The Concept of
Utopia. Hemel Hempstead: Philip Allan, pp. 83–105.
1
Paradox of Deontology
Paul Hurley
Consider a case in which, if some person A1 injures, lies to, kills, or in some other
way violates another person P1, she will set in motion a chain of events that will
prevent two other persons, A2 and A3, from similarly violating two other persons
P2 and P3. Intuitively, it is wrong in such a case for A1 to violate P1: A1 has an
obligation not to violate others just as A2 and A3 do, and prevention of their
violations of P2 and P3 does not justify A1 in violating her obligation to P1. Rights,
for example, are commonly understood as generating such obligations not to violate
even in certain cases in which such a violation can prevent more such violations
from happening (see rights). Many moral theories, including deontological theories
(see deontology), attempt to provide rationales for such intuitive moral restrictions.
Yet, even defenders of such restrictions typically allow that A1’s violation is not a
worse thing to happen, even by A1’s own lights, than A2’s or A3’s, and that two such
violations are a worse thing to happen than one. Such “deontological” restrictions
are thus prohibitions against performing actions that will prevent worse overall
states of affairs from happening. Because such restrictions prohibit the promotion
of states of affairs evaluated as best from a standpoint that is “neutral” among
agents, they are also characterized as “agent-relative” restrictions (see agent-
relative vs. agent-neutral). The claim that deontology is paradoxical is the
claim that such moral restrictions are paradoxical, their initial intuitive appeal
notwithstanding. If lying, for example, is bad, shouldn’t a plausible moral theory at
least permit someone to lie when doing so will prevent more such equally damaging
lies from being told? In general, how can it be wrong to do something bad if this
prevents something worse from happening? Without a plausible response to such
challenges, deontological restrictions come to be surrounded by an air of paradox.
A classic presentation of the paradoxicality challenge is offered by Robert Nozick:
How can a concern for … nonviolation … lead to the refusal to violate … even when
this would prevent other more extensive violations? What is the rationale for placing …
nonviolation … as a … constraint upon action instead of including it solely as a goal of
one’s actions? (1974: 30)
Nozick’s presentation of the charge of paradox showcases two common features. First,
it points out that maximizing good outcomes and minimizing bad outcomes are goals
that provide reasons for action, and it demands a rationale for any allegedly decisive
moral reasons not to pursue such goals. Second, it suggests that any value, including
rights, can plausibly be incorporated into such goals. If rights are intrinsically valuable,
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee161
2
isn’t it a better outcome upon which fewer rights are violated? How, then, can it be
morally wrong for one who values rights to minimize their violation?
Nozick believes that a rationale for such restrictions, and hence for dissipating the
air of paradox that surrounds them, is provided by the Kantian principle that
individuals are ends and not means only. However, Samuel Scheffler suggests that
Nozick has inadvertently undermined any such rationale. Nozick appeals to the
inviolability of persons, but Scheffler points out that, in the cases in question,
“someone … is going to be violated”:
Either A1 will harm P1 or five other agents will identically harm P2 … P6. Either
way … some inviolable person is violated. Why isn’t it at least permissible to prevent
the violation of five people by violating one? (1982: 88)
Scheffler suggests that Nozick’s defense of deontological restrictions appeals to

“the disvalue of certain features of violations of constraints,” but he argues that in the
cases in question “a greater number of equally weighty violations … will ensue” if the
agent does not commit the violation (1982: 88). The rationale for avoiding such
violations in standard cases, for example, the disvalue of rights violations happening,
would appear to be a rationale for violating in cases of deontological restrictions.
The obvious value-based reason not to violate (e.g., to lie) in standard cases is a rea-
son to violate in these cases, but the deontologist persists in prohibiting such viola-
tions. To avoid the charge that such moral restrictions are paradoxical, they must be
provided with a plausible rationale. However, what reasons are there not to violate
that can decisively outweigh the reasons to violate that are grounded in appeal to the
value of resulting states of affairs?
The charge that deontology is paradoxical is thus a charge against any theory that
includes fundamental restrictions upon promoting the best thing that can happen,
whether deontological or not. Standard consequentialist moral theories (see
consequentialism) avoid this charge of paradox because they deny that there are
such restrictions. Consequentialists hold that agents are always morally required to
perform the action that promotes the best overall state of affairs, and hence that they
require the agent to lie, all other things being equal, when this will prevent more
equally damaging lies from being told. However, one need not endorse
consequentialism to generate such a paradox: anyone who adopts what T. M. Scanlon
has characterized as a teleological theory of value, upon which “the primary bearers
of value are states of affairs” (1998: 79), will find such restrictions paradoxical.
Advocates of such a teleological theory can (and often do) deny the consequentialist
claim that all morally relevant considerations are based in the overall value of states
of affairs, maintaining that the evaluation of states of affairs as better or worse for me
can also be a source of reasons. It can be better for me if the typhoon misses my boat
and heads towards the populated island, but it is better overall if it veers towards me
instead. Considerations of what is better or worse for me certainly seem to provide
me with reasons. If these reasons are morally relevant, then it seems plausible that,
in cases in which they have sufficient weight, we will not be morally required to
3
bring about the best overall state of affairs. However, deontological restrictions will
still be paradoxical on such approaches, at least at the foundational level, because
they are restrictions both upon doing what is best for me and upon doing what is
best overall, for example, against lying to benefit myself as well as against lying to
prevent other lies from being told. Deontological restrictions purport to be based
upon impartial considerations, but their impartiality cannot be based in the impartial
evaluation of states of affairs – they are impartial restrictions upon acting to promote
states of affairs that are (partially) best for me, and (impartially) best overall.
Typical arguments for the paradoxicality of deontological restrictions demonstrate
that no plausible rationale for such restrictions can be provided through appeal to
the value of states of affairs, and conclude that no plausible rationale can be provided.
Yet, if the case for paradox is a product of accepting and deploying such a teleological
theory of value, rejection of such a theory of value may well dissolve the paradox.
Recent defenses of deontological restrictions thus often proceed by rejecting the
teleological theory’s assumption that the impartial evaluation of actions as right or
wrong is based entirely in the evaluation of states of affairs as better or worse. Such
defenders maintain that although evaluations of states of affairs, for example, as
better or worse for me or better or worse overall, may well play a role in the evaluation
of actions, the reasons articulated through appeal to such evaluations are merely
some morally relevant impartial reasons among others. In cases in which these other
nonteleological reasons are decisive, defenders follow Thomas Nagel in maintaining
that “although in some sense things will be better, what happens will be better …
I will have done something worse” (1986: 180).
Such defenders of deontological restrictions readily grant that they come to seem
paradoxical within the context of a teleological theory of value. However, they
argue that this appearance of paradoxicality reflects negatively not upon restric-
tions themselves, but upon the teleological theory of value. They need not deny that
it is always right to do what is best; they can maintain that it is always right to do
what it is best to do, the action supported by decisively good reasons. However, they
deny that what it is best to do is always what promotes the best overall thing that
can happen. Thus, the defender of restrictions may recognize that we have both
impartial moral reasons to keep promises and impartial moral reasons to prevent
promises from being broken. However, in cases in which the moral reasons to keep
promises are decisive, the best thing to do will be to keep my promise even though
others will then break their own. No paradox results if, as our initial intuitions sug-
gest, only some of the reasons that are relevant to the determination of what it is
best to do are provided by appeal to overall evaluations of states of affairs. For such
a defender of deontological restrictions, the appearance of paradox results from
interpreting the platitude that it is always right to do what is best through appeal to
an implausible theory of value upon which “best” is interpreted as the best overall
state of affairs rather than the best overall action, the action supported by the deci-
sively good reasons.
A complete response to the charge of paradox requires an alternative to the
teleological theory of value, a theory of value upon which not all fundamental
4
reasons are based in the value of states of affairs. Barbara Herman (1993) and others
have argued that Kant (see kant, immanuel) is properly read as providing just such
an alternative theory of value. Scanlon has offered his “buck passing” account as an
alternative to the teleological theory of value (1998: 95–107), and Stephen Darwall
(2006) has articulated yet another such alternative theory of value through
developing an account of second-personal reasons (Darwall 2006). Though some
such account is a necessary component of any complete response to the charge of
paradox, it is noteworthy that the case for the paradoxicality of restrictions sometimes
inadvertently appears to presuppose the legitimacy of just such an alternative theory
of value. Such a case, recall, maintains that if rights are intrinsically valuable, we
should minimize the number of rights that are violated overall. However, to recognize
rights as intrinsically valuable is to recognize that agents have nonteleological moral
reasons not to violate other agents, reasons that conflict with whatever reasons an
agent might have to promote the best overall state of affairs. It becomes unclear why
an air of paradox does not cling to such a critic of restrictions, who recognizes rights
as intrinsically valuable restrictions upon promoting the best overall state of affairs,
but insists at the same time upon treating the moral relevance of such rights as
exhausted by the appeal to the best overall state of affairs.
The key to dissipating the air of paradox surrounding nonderivative deontological
restrictions is the rejection of a teleological theory of value, yet there are many
considerations that appear to support such a theory of value. For example, the
standard account of desires, as attitudes towards contents that are properly captured
by “that-clauses” (e.g., “I desire that I have an apple”), appears to fit better with the
teleological theory than with restriction-friendly alternatives (see desire). If the
objects of desires are states of affairs captured by that-clauses, then it seems natural
to expect reasons to desire to be provided by appeal to the value of the states of
affairs that are the objects of such desires. Moreover, even though the teleological
theory cannot support deontological restrictions at the foundational level, strategies
have been offered for deriving some form of deontological restriction from
teleological foundations. It nonetheless seems clear that it is within the context of
the teleological theory that deontological restrictions come to be surrounded by an
air of paradox, their original intuitive appeal notwithstanding. It also seems clear
that to provide grounds for rejecting such a teleological theory would at the same
time be to dissipate the air of paradox surrounding deontological restrictions.
See also: agent-relative vs. agent-neutral; consequentialism;

deontology; desire; kant, immanuel; rights
REFERENCES
Darwall, Stephen 2006. The Second-Person Standpoint. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Herman, Barbara 1993. The Practice of Moral Judgment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
5
Nagel, Thomas 1986. The View From Nowhere. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Press.
Scheffler, Samuel 1982. The Rejection of Consequentialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
FURTHER READINGS
Brand-Ballard, Jeffrey 2004. “Contractualism and Deontic Restrictions,” Ethics, vol. 114,
pp. 269– 300.
Foot, Philippa 1988. “Utilitarianism and the Virtues,” in Samuel Scheffler (ed.),
Consequentialism and Its Critics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 224–42.
Hurley, Paul 2009. Beyond Consequentialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kagan, Shelly 1989. The Limits of Morality. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
LeBar, Mark 2009. “Virtue Ethics and Deontic Constraints,” Ethics, vol. 119, pp. 642–71.
McMahon, Christopher 1991. “The Paradox of Deontology,” Philosophy and Public Affairs,
vol. 20, pp. 350–77.
Schroeder, Mark 2007. “Teleology, Agent-Relative Value, and ‘Good’,” Ethics, vol. 117,
pp. 265–95.
1
Scheler, Max
Eugene Kelly
Life and Development

Max Ferdinand Scheler (1874–1928) was born in Munich. He made significant
contributions to philosophical anthropology; to ethics, including an important
critique of Kantian deontology (see deontology); to epistemology, especially the
sociology of knowledge; to metaphysics; and to philosophy of religion. He entered
university at Jena, but transferred to Berlin to study medicine. There he came under
the influence of Wilhelm Dilthey (see dilthey, wilhelm), who turned him to the
study of philosophy. He returned to Jena, where he studied with Rudolf Eucken
(1846–1926), a philosopher with ties to German Idealism. He received under Eucken
both his doctorate in 1897 and his habilitation in 1899. He began as a lecturer in Jena
after 1900 and moved to Munich as a Privatdozent in 1906. In 1902, he became
familiar with the work of Edmund Husserl (see husserl, edmund) and the concept
of phenomenology. After 1913, he worked with Husserl and others as an editor of
the chief organ of the phenomenological movement, Jahrbuch für Phänomenologie
und philosophische Forschung. He converted to Catholicism in 1899, and, until his
denial of theism in or about 1921, he was an influential Catholic thinker.
Scheler and phenomenology

The extent to which one may properly call Scheler a Husserlian phenomenologist
is disputed. He was at times dependent upon Husserl for professional advance-
ment, and that may have contributed to his acceptance of Husserl’s nomenclature.
He produced but did not publish two essays, “The Theory of the Three Facts” and
“Phenomenology and Theory of Cognition,” in the spirit of Husserl’s Logical
Investigations, volume 2 (1901), although they are less systematic than Husserl’s
work. For Scheler, phenomenology is an attitude of reverence and receptivity
toward what is immediately given in our lived experience. It requires a willing-
ness to let things give themselves to us as they are, without prejudice about what
they and the world must be. He writes in this spirit, “A phenomenologically
grounded philosophy must have as its basic character the most living, most
intense, and unmediated experiential contact with the world itself, that is, with
the things that are in question.” The phenomenological philosopher, “thirsty for
the beings given in reflective experience, seeks to drink from the ‘sources’
themselves in which the content of the world opens up” (Schriften aus dem
Nachlaß, Gesammelte Werke, vol. 10: 380). Phenomenology has no urgent need
for Husserl’s “phenomenological reduction”: or the method of “variation,” in
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee162
2
which mental techniques for arriving at the phenomenologically given are exercised.
“A method,” he notes, “is a unified consciousness of a process in research that is a
generalization based upon concrete work in some area of research” (Gesammelte
Werke, vol. 10: 380).
Yet Scheler insists, like Husserl, upon the intentionality of consciousness and
the necessity of arriving at a clear vision of the “phenomena themselves,” without
mediation by symbols or representations. Certain irreducible essential or eidetic
phenomena, which he calls “pure facts” of both a logical and valuational nature,
are the primordial constituents of all human cognition on both natural and the
scientific standpoints. The receptive mind is formed by these phenomena; higher-
order phenomena are “founded” in them. The material they contain is a priori or
given prior to all other cognitive acts (see cognitivism). He disagreed with
Husserl concerning the celebrated doctrine of the transcendental ego in which
phenomena are constituted, which appeared in Husserl’s Ideas, volume 1 (1913).
This disagreement affected their concept of the given itself. For Scheler the eidetic
phenomena are independent of the mind. “The understanding creates nothing,
makes nothing forms nothing” (Gesammelte Werke, vol. 10: 415). We discover the
existential objectivity of the world – its Da-sein, or real being – in the experience
of resistance to our will (or, in Scheler’s later metaphysics, to the drives). This
phenomenon of existence appears when objects, states of affairs, and other persons
resist our efforts to control them. The phenomena given to the phenomenological
ray of consciousness are the So-sein or “being-thus” of things: that is, their
meaning, values, and qualities that are given in reflection, feeling, and perception.
Such awareness of the thusness of the given can be shared with other persons in
acts of genuine sympathy (see sympathy). Husserl’s transcendental ego, Scheler
believed, leaves little room for the phenomena of intersubjectivity (see intersub-
jectivity), hence also for community and for moral and religious experience, all
of which, Scheler believed, can properly become objects of phenomenological
scrutiny and are central to the moral aims of all genuine philosophy (see
phenomenology, moral).
The later work

After 1923, Scheler began to develop two initiatives, which he thought central to
philosophy: philosophical anthropology, which he first conceived as a question of
humankind’s place in the cosmos, and speculative metaphysics. Both must base
themselves on the givens of human experience, as presented by science and by a
descriptive phenomenology of essence, while going beyond them to the best
possible system of beliefs. The dynamic center of both absolute being (the Ens
a se) and the human being lies in the opposition of two interpenetrating phenom-
ena, Spirit and Life. The “macrocosmic” divinity and the “microcosmic” human
being are both determined by “real” factors, or the impulses of life, and by “ideal”
factors, or the values of the spirit. Only the human being and the divinity possess
spirit; in humankind spirit allows us to transcend our environment. That is
3
humankind’s special place in the cosmos. Yet all activity of spirit is dependent
upon the energy supplied by the drives. Central to Scheler’s later ethics is his inter-
pretation of the moral destiny of man the microcosm. It is our task to resolve the
tensions between spirit and life to permit the increasing spiritualization of man
and the coming-to-be of the Ens a se as Spirit and hence as divine. Scheler believed
that one could see the progress of this metaphysical reconciliation in the historical
developments of his own times, which were tending toward a reducing of tension
between the nations of Europe, between East and West, male and female, capitalist
and worker. Husserl’s concept of phenomenology comes under a final criticism:
the only way of assuring the primacy of spirit, the revelation of the eidetic struc-
tures of objects in the world, and grasping in its fullness their being-thus, is not a
reflective technique, but a spiritual process similar to that of Buddhism: we must
overcome the life-impulses – the “real” factors in evolution – that tie us to our
environment.
Public reception
His biographer, Wilhelm Mader (1980), reports that Scheler’s contemporaries saw
in him the power of genius. He philosophized like a force of nature, turning his
attention everywhere, improvising lectures, speaking on philosophy with friends
in cafés, with German generals, with scientists, with statesmen. Yet his own life
was full of tensions, of missed opportunities, and of a sadness that is palpable in
some of his letters. He had many unpleasant contretemps with colleagues and
associates, notably with Dietrich von Hildebrand, Helmut Plessner, and, to a
lesser extent, with Nicolai Hartmann (see hartmann, nicolai). He was married
three times, the first in 1899 to Amélie Wollman, who was subject to psychiatric
events. Their first child died in infancy, and a second child never found his way
in life. Scheler was separated from Amélie in 1908. His sister died a suicide at age
16. In 1910, Scheler was forced to step down from his position in Munich due to
a scandal concerning a presumed extramarital affair. He then established himself
as a private lecturer in Göttingen, where he met with members of the phenome-
nological circle that had gathered there under Husserl. He accepted an appoint-
ment in the German Foreign Service during World War I, having initially
supported the German war effort. In 1918–19, he was offered a professorship at
Cologne, where he flourished. His second marriage, to Maerit Furtwängler, also
ended in divorce. In 1919, he met the student Maria Scheu, who became first his
research assistant and then in 1924 his third wife. Scheler died of heart disease in
1928, shortly after having accepted a professorship in Frankfurt. His influence on
his own and the following generation was considerable. He touched in different
ways the work of Helmut Plessner, Martin Heidegger (see heidegger, martin),
Edith Stein, and, especially, Nicolai Hartmann. His work did not play a significant
role in German philosophy after World War II, possibly because of its value-real-
ism (see realism, moral) and the rejection of the notion of givenness by
post-modernism.
4
Foundations of Ethics
All philosophy aims at the perfection of the human being. “The most essential and
important proposition that this work wishes to substantiate and communicate is
that the final meaning and final values of this whole universe must in the end be
measured exclusively on the pure being (not on the achievement) and on the most
perfect being-good, on the richest fullness and the complete development, on the
purest beauty and the inner harmony, of persons, to which the powers of the world
all concentrate themselves and to which they rise upward” (Gesammelte Werke,
vol. 2: 16). We will trace Scheler’s efforts to render this proposition evident along the
following pathway: (1) the critique of Kant; (2) the nature of values and their
givenness; (3) the stratification of the emotional life; (4) the order of values; (5) the
foundation of obligation; (6) virtue; (7) ethical personalism.
The critique of Kant

Kant held that moral knowledge must be a priori and founded in a formal rational
structure of moral law that he called the categorical imperative (see kant, immanuel;
a priori ethical knowledge; categorical imperative). Goods are things we
come to value because of our natural inclinations and disinclinations, hence are a
posteriori. Thus, we may be inclined to steal a desired good, but as far as we are
rational agents, we know our behavior comes under a formal law of duty; we must
treat all other persons as ends in themselves, and never merely as a means. To steal
would be to treat the owner of the desired good merely as a means to our end.
Scheler’s response to this radical separation between what we are obligated to do
and what we are inclined to do are the claims that Kant’s concept of the a priori is
erroneous, and that it is too narrow. Kant erroneously attaches the distinction
between a priori and a posteriori to the distinctions between the rational and the
sensible, the “formal” and the “material,” the order of reason and the disorder of
the senses, including human desire. All efforts to base ethics upon the outcomes of
actions, he thought, will lead inevitably to hedonism and relativism, for people
desire their own advantage, and the interpretation of one’s own advantage varies
from person to person. This is not so, Scheler argues: there can be an a priori
material ethics of value.
The source of Kant’s error was misrepresenting moral knowledge as entirely
separate from feeling and from love and hate, and placing it in the sphere of reason
alone. For what persons love and hate, what they are inclined or disinclined to do is
neither disordered nor random nor irrational. There is an “order of the heart,” an ordo
amoris. A primordial orientation of a person’s loves and hates conditions his inclina-
tions to pursue and to avoid goods of specific kinds. This original order of the heart
is an orientation of the person not toward objects, but toward values themselves
as objects of contemplation. They are given to us in specific kinds of intentional
acts of feeling. These feelings can be corrected and perfected by phenomenology.
Corresponding to this structure of the heart is an objective, ordered realm of values.
Since Kant conceived the a priori as narrowly formal, he did not realize that what is
5
given in emotional acts are not logical structures alone, but meanings and values that
condition a priori our feelings and perceptions on the natural standpoint. The mind
is capable of apprehending the eidetic structures “carried by” the things we perceive
and the values we feel. These a priori structures are, to use Kant’s language, the tran-
scendental condition of our living in a world of meanings and values.
The nature of values and their givenness

A given value is a material quality apprehended by the emotions, as the physical
color blue and the peculiar aroma of roses are experienced directly via the functions
of sight and smell respectively. Like those physical qualities, the content of values
cannot be defined adequately, but can only be “exhibited” or “pointed to.” We experi-
ence, say, love or murder as values directly via the emotions; they are qualities
possessing a specific “matter” that can be felt. The hypothesis that beauty exists in
the eye of the beholder alone, Scheler claims, puts the cart before the horse. For we
could not recognize the thing as beautiful unless we came to it with the material
value of beauty fixed, however vaguely, in our minds. Any attempt to derive the idea
of beauty from perceived objects always presupposes what it seeks to discover and
describe. Since values are a priori, material value-ethics still has the foundational
virtue Kant had demanded of ethics: values, and the virtues and norms derived from
them, provide an absolute and objective foundation for moral judgment.
The stratification of the emotional life

A phenomenology of values must also exhibit the feelings that intend values. The
emotional life of humankind is stratified, and each stratum opens us to the realm of
values in a way that corresponds to the a priori order of values. Attention to our feel-
ings thus gives us genuine insight into the order of preferability of values and the
goods they inform. Nicolai Hartmann (1926) went so far as to surmise that for each
value there corresponds a unique cognitive feeling in which it is given. Scheler writes
in a similar vein,
The facts designated in such a finely differentiated language as German by “bliss,”

“blissfulness” [Glückseligkeit], “being happy,” … “cheerfulness,” “joyfulness,” “sense of
well-being,” physical pleasure, and comfort are not always the same kinds of emotional
facts which differ only in terms of their intensities, or which are merely connected
with different sensations and different objective correlates. Rather, these terms
(like their antonyms, “despair,” “misery,” “unhappiness,” “mournfulness,” “suffering,”
“joylessness,” “unpleasant”) designate sharply delineated differentiations among relative
positive and negative feelings. (Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2: 332–3)
The phenomenology of the differentiations within the emotional life confines

itself in Scheler to the identification of four levels of feeling that correlate with the
“depth” of the values intended. They are, on the level of least depth, the sensible
feelings, or feeling of sensations. These are not the feeling-states themselves – that is,
6
twinges, pains, tickling sensations – but rather the feelings that intend the values
carried by visceral feeling-states or sensations. Sensations such as the pleasant
feeling-state caused by sugar on the tongue are distinct from the agreeableness of
sugar, which is a value “carried” by the sugar and cognized by the intentional feeling.
Second are the feelings of the organic body: feelings that intend states of health,
weariness, illness, or strength, such as the sensation of having or lacking control over
one’s body and its environment. These feelings have an intentional character, and
they may intend the same values when they are directed at our own feeling-states or
those perceived upon the expressions of other persons; they are a system of signs for
evaluating the changing states of life processes. Higher still are psychic feelings, or
feelings of the ego, such as pride or shame, on which values such as one’s self-worth
are discerned. Such emotional states of the ego as “sadness” or “joyfulness” do not
have to pass through the living body to arrive at the ego, for they pertain to the ego
originally. They can stand, however, at various distances from the ego, as the
expressions “I feel sad,” “I feel sadness,” “I am sad” bear witness to deepening states
of sadness. Finally, there are spiritual feelings, or what Scheler calls “feelings of the
personality” (Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2: 334), in which we discern values that bear
upon our spiritual selfhood: the values of justice, beauty, truth, and the sacred.
Blessedness and despair appear to be the correlates of the moral value of our personal
being (343).
The order of values

A phenomenology of the emotional acts of preference and rejection, through which
the relative worth of values is given, reveals the following values in the order of their
relative worth. Pleasure and pain are the lowest values; the noble and the base and
the healthy and the unhealthy are on the second level; the good, the true, and the
beautiful and their opposites, the evil, the false, and the ugly, are on the third; and
the values of the sacred and of the profane are on the highest level. These are given
in the order of their increasing intrinsic normative superiority (or inferiority). The
most general values have the least specifiable material content. It is not possible,
Scheler believes, to understand this order of the heart, and to deny the validity of
this order of values, any more than it is possible to understand the number system
and yet deny that 2 + 2 = 4. Apart from the direct cognition of values in feeling and
preferring, there is no “criterion” of their presence on any given item of perception.
Values are sui generis, and can only be perceived. Nonetheless, Scheler provides us
with a set of criteria for judging the relative height of values in their relationship to
things. This list is intended as nothing more than a kind of guide that the individual
may use in attempting to re-experience the feeling of values toward which Scheler is
pointing. He tells us that values are higher (1) the more they endure; (2) the less they
partake in extension and divisibility; (3) the less they are founded through other
values; (4) the more deep is the satisfaction they provide; (5) the more the feeling of
them is relative to the positing of a specific bearer of “feeling” and “preferring”
(Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2: 107–17).
7
The foundation of obligation

Obligation is a derivative concept – that is, it is not an unfounded essence, as
the values themselves are, but is founded upon them. Knowledge of values is a
necessary condition of grasping why some action is obligatory. The concept of
obligation simply makes no sense unless (1) the obligation is aimed at producing
a value higher than what presently exists, or at the destruction of a value lower
than what presently exists; (2) its assertion is intended to produce action in the
direction of the value where no desire to do so is present. An action (see action)
can be obligatory for a person only if he can perceive the value in what he is
obligated to do and to achieve. Ideal obligation is first felt when we sense the
tension between the realms of nature and of value. Our discernment of value
enables us to see that the world about us is not the way that it ought to be. Values
that should be are not; disvalues that should not be are. Thus, the phenomenon
of obligation does not initially arise as a command to duty but as an ideal value-
possibility that ought to be realized. It is directed toward establishing real goods,
yet the person is not yet conceived as a possible agent in their realization: for
example, “there ought to be a hell for evildoers.”
Moral obligation emerges from the ideal ought as an ought-to-do directed at the
will. Every person ought to be honest, straightforward, and trustworthy. This
judgment has the form of duty, but the ought is founded upon the value-qualities of
honesty, straightforwardness, and trustworthiness, which exist ideally. Our will is
not aroused in all cases where valuable goods and actions ought to exist, but do not.
In the phenomenon of duty moral insight functions, as it were, as a command to the
will to act. The moral obligation to be an honest person is realized indirectly, by
realizing the value of truth in some situation. Duty is superfluous when the agent
perceives fully the value of the good his action will realize. A person is rightly
commanded only when he lacks the insight into values that is sufficient to determine
his will in the way duty commands. (See duty and obligation.)
Virtue
Scheler observes that we experience virtue as a measure of our felt power to achieve
the highest good that our situation permits (see virtue ethics). He writes as follows:
It is from the situation in which something is given as an (ideal) ought and, at the
same time, as something that “can” be done, that the concept of virtue springs. Virtue
is the immediately experienced power to do what (ideally) ought to be done. The
concept of vice emerges in the case of an immediately grasped conflict between what
(ideally) ought to be done and what can be done, or in the immediate grasping of an
incapacity or impotence with respect to a thing given as ideally obligatory. (Gesammelte
Werke, vol. 2: 213)
Virtue requires the awareness of a capacity for right action – knowing that one can
do what one ought to do. A necessary condition of virtue is the adequate knowledge
8
of the obligation that is founded upon the values inherent in a situation. The
possession of such (knowledge) is sufficient for the moral merit that appears on the
good will, but it is not sufficient for virtue. One also needs the thrust of capacity
(Können) that is founded on physical ability, of course, but also upon a rightly
disposed personhood. Virtue is not for Scheler, as for Socrates (see socrates), a
condition of happiness, but rather happiness is a condition of right action. The good
person is good because he is happy. As Scheler writes,
The most central feeling that accompanies the value of the person is the “source” of
willing and the direction of his moral tenor. Only the blissful person can have a good
will, and only the despairing person must be evil in his willing and actions. All good
volitional directions have their source in a surplus of positive feelings at the deepest
stratum; all “better” comportment has its source in a surplus of positive feelings at a
comparatively deeper stratum. (Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2: 348–9)
Ethical personalism
Each person has a value-essence, which can be understood at least in part by those
who love us. This value-essence, Scheler holds, is equivalent in its entirety to the idea
God has of a person, and it points the way to his salvation. In this doctrine we see a
hint of the Aristotelian (see aristotle) idea of the gap between man as a potency
and man as a process of achievement. The normative value of personalism lies in its
positing of a moral good for each of us that love knows of and that conscience urges
us to achieve and constrains us from neglecting. This moral goal is unique in each of
us: for that reason my salvation, or the virtue that is possible to me alone, must tran-
scend both the Aristotelian idea of perfect virtue and the Kantian idea of the good
consisting solely in the adherence to universal moral laws. Scheler writes,
There is also the possibility of evident insight into a good that bears in its objective
essence and value-content and in the Ought that belongs to it a reference to an
individual person, and therefore this good comes to this person and to him alone as a
“call,” no matter if this “call” is addressed to others or not. Thereby I catch sight of the
value-essence of my person – in religious terms, of the value-picture that God’s love
has of me and insofar as that love is directed upon me it draws out and bears that image
before me. [This is] the evident knowledge of a “good-in-itself ” but precisely a good-
in-itself-for-me. (Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2: 482)
The aim of a personalist ethics as bearing upon conduct is therefore the creation of
conditions that will enable persons to fulfill the Christian injunction to love one
another. Only when such conditions exist does it become possible to know and to
foster mutually the unique value-personhood of each person, the achievement of
which constitutes the salvation of each. Universal moral laws are “trumped” by the
value-essence of a person as he stands before a unique situation that calls him to
realize a value that is given with complete adequacy only to him, revealed through
his knowledge of what is obligatory for him, and perhaps for him alone. No doubt
9
this position makes possible genuine moral dilemmas of a tragic sort. It allows that
one may feel the weight of the moral law even as one senses a “call” directed at
oneself alone, obligating one to realize a personal good incompatible, in this
situation, with universal law. Aristotle wonders about such conflicts, while consider-
ing that a good man will be free of moral conflict; Kant declared genuine moral
conflict to be impossible. For Scheler, moral conflict is inevitable.
See also: a priori ethical knowledge; action; aristotle; categorical

imperative; cognitivism; deontology; dilthey, wilhelm; duty and
obligation; hartmann, nicolai; heidegger, martin; husserl, edmund;
intersubjectivity; kant, immanuel; phenomenology, moral; realism,
moral; socrates; sympathy; virtue ethics
REFERENCES
All references to texts in Scheler are taken from the Gesammelte Werke, in 15 volumes,
brought out since 1954 by Maria Scheler, and since 1969 by Manfred S. Frings.
Hartmann, Nicolai 1949 [1926]. Ethik, 3rd ed. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Husserl, Edmund 1970 [1913]. Logical Investigations, 2 vols., trans. J. N. Findlay. London:
Routledge. (1st ed., 1900–1; 2nd revised ed., 1913.)
Husserl, Edmund 1982 [1913]. Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology, vol. 1, trans.
F. Kersten. The Hague: Nijhoff.
Mader, Wilhelm 1980. Max Scheler. Reinbeck bei Hamburg: Rowohlt.
MAJOR WORKS BY SCHELER IN ENGLISH

Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values. A New Attempt toward the Foundation
of Ethical Personalism. 1973. Trans. Manfred S. Frings and Roger Funk. Evanston, IL:
Northwestern University Press.
Knowledge and Work. In press. Trans. Zachary Davis. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University
Press.
On Feeling, Knowing, and Valuing: Selected Writings by Max Scheler. 1992. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.
On the Eternal in Man. 1960. Trans. Bernard Noble. London: Student Christian Movement
Press.
On the Human Place in the Cosmos. 2009. Trans. Manfred S. Frings, with an introduction by
Eugene Kelly. Chicago: Northwestern University Press.
On the Rehabilitation of Virtue, by Max Scheler. 2005. Trans. Eugene Kelly. American Catholic
Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 79, no. 1.
Person and Self-Value: Three Essays. 1987. Trans. Manfred S. Frings. The Hague: Nijhoff.
Philosophical Perspectives. 1958. Trans. Oscar Haac. Boston: Beacon.
Problems of Sociology of Knowledge. 1980. Trans. Manfred S. Frings, ed. Kenneth W. Stikkers.
London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Ressentiment. 1961. Trans. William Holdheim, ed. Lewis A. Coser. New York: Free Press of
Glencoe.
10
Selected Philosophical Essays, 1973. Trans. Manfred S. Frings and Roger Funk. Evanston, IL:
The Nature of Sympathy. 1954. Trans. Peter Heath. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
BOOKS ON SCHELER IN ENGLISH

Blosser, Philip 1995. Scheler’s Critique of Kant’s Ethics. Series in Continental Thought. Athens,
OH: University of Ohio Press.
Deeken, Alfons 1974. Process and Permanence in Ethics: Max Scheler’s Moral Philosophy.
New York: Paulist Press.
Frings, Manfred S. 1965. Max Scheler: A Concise Introduction into the World of a Great
Thinker. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press.
Frings, Manfred S. 1977. The Mind of Max Scheler. Milwaukee: Marquette.
Frings, Manfred S. 2003. Life/Time. Max Scheler’s Philosophy of Time. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Frisby, David 1983. The Alienated Mind: The Sociology of Knowledge in Germany, 1918–1933.
Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press.
Haring, Bernhard 1968. Fulfillment in Modern Society: The Christian Existentialist: The
Philosophy and Theology of Self. New York: New York University Press.
Kelly, Eugene 1977. Max Scheler. Boston: Twayne.
Kelly, Eugene 1997. Structure and Diversity. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Koehle, Eckhard Joseph 1941. Personality: A Study According to the Philosophies of Value and
Spirit of Max Scheler and Nicolai Hartmann. Newton, NJ: Catholic Protectory Press.
Nota, John H. 1983. Max Scheler: The Man and His Work. Chicago: Chicago Franciscan
Herald.
Perrin, Ron 1991. Max Scheler’s Concept of the Person: An Ethics of Humanism. New York:
St. Martin’s Press.
Ranly, Ernest W. 1966. Scheler’s Phenomenology of Community. The Hague: Nijhoff.
Sadler, William Alan, Jr., 1969. Existence and Love: A New Approach in Existential
Phenomenology. New York: Scribner’s.
Schneck, Stephen Frederick 1987. Person and Polis: Max Scheler’s Personalism as Political
Theory. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Spader, Peter 2002. Max Scheler’s Ethical Personalism. New York: Fordham University
Press.
Spiegelberg, Herbert 1962. The Phenomenological Movement: A Historical Introduction.
New York: Heinemann.
Stark, Werner 1958. The Sociology of Knowledge: An Essay in Aid of a Deeper Understanding
of the History of Ideas. London: Free Press.
Staude, John Raphael 1967. Max Scheler, 1874–1928: An Intellectual Portrait. London: Collier-
Macmillan.
Strasser, Stephan 1977. Phenomenology of Feeling: An Essay on the Phenomena of the Heart.
Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press.
Sugarman, Richard Ira 1980. Rancor Against Time: The Phenomenology of “Ressentiment.”
Hamburg: Meiner.
Werkmeister, W. H. 1970. Historical Spectrum of Value Theories, vol. 1: The German-Language
Group. Lincoln, NE: Johnsen.
Wojtyła, Karl (Pope John Paul II) 1979. The Acting Person. Dordrecht: Reidel.
1
Buddhist Ethics
Damien Keown
Buddhism is well known for its belief in karma and rebirth and its teachings
on nonviolence (ahiṃsā) (see nonviolence in religions) and compassion
(karuṇā). However, there has been little critical or systematic study of its ethics,
and scholarship in this field is still at an early stage. A few scholars have proposed
tentative theoretical models adapted from Western typologies in an attempt to
classify Buddhist ethics but so far none commands universal assent. Other
scholars doubt whether Western classifications are appropriate for an Asian
tradition and fear that imposing them too rigidly may produce a distorted picture
of Buddhist teachings. This essay has three main objectives. The first is to inform
the reader about the major Buddhist moral teachings; the second is to offer some
preliminary reflections in terms of ethical theory; and the third is to give a brief
introduction to contemporary Buddhist activism. The first section, therefore, is
mainly descriptive and summarizes the teachings found in Buddhist scriptures. It
makes reference to foundational concepts such as dharma and karma, the most
important precepts, and the key virtues Buddhists seek to cultivate. The second
section is more analytical, and examines Buddhist moral teachings from a Western
perspective drawing on the concepts, categories, and terminology familiar to
students of Western ethics. The third describes the contemporary phenomenon
of “engaged Buddhism” as a force for social change. It should be borne in mind that
Buddhism is a diverse tradition encompassing many schools and geographical
regions, and that while this essay endeavors to focus on common elements,
students will almost certainly encounter variations in interpretation, belief, and
practice at a local level.
Buddhist Morality
Dharma
The ultimate foundation for Buddhist ethics is dharma. Dharma has many
meanings, but the underlying notion is of a universal law which governs both the
physical and moral order of the universe. Dharma can best be translated as “natu-
ral law” (see natural law), a term which captures both its main senses – namely,
as the principle of order and regularity seen in the behavior of natural phenomena
– and also the idea of a universal moral law whose requirements have been revealed
by enlightened teachers such as the Buddha (note that the Buddha claimed only to
have discovered dharma, not to have invented it). In the moral order, dharma is
manifest in the law of karma, which, as we shall see, governs the way moral deeds
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee163
2
affect individuals in present and future lives. Living in accordance with dharma
and implementing its requirements is thought to lead to happiness and fulfillment;
neglecting or transgressing it is said to lead to endless suffering in the endless
cycle of rebirth (saṃsāra). In his first sermon, the Buddha (ca. 490–410 bce) was
said to have “turned the wheel of the dharma” and given doctrinal expression to
the truth about how things are in reality. It was in this discourse that he set out the
Four Noble Truths, the last of which is the Noble Eightfold Path which leads to
nirvana. The path has three divisions – Morality (śīla), Meditation (samādhi), and
Wisdom (prajñā) – from which it can be seen that morality is an integral compo-
nent of the path to nirvana (for a short summary of Buddhist teachings see
Keown 2000).
Karma
The doctrine of karma is concerned with the ethical implications of dharma, in
particular those relating to the consequences of moral behavior. Karma is not a
system of rewards and punishments meted out by God but a kind of natural law akin
to the law of gravity. In popular usage in the West, karma is thought of simply as the
good and bad things that happen to a person, a little like good and bad luck. How-
ever, this oversimplifies what for Buddhists is a complex of interrelated ideas which
embraces both ethics and belief in rebirth. The literal meaning of the Sanskrit word
karma is “action,” but karma as a religious concept is concerned not with just any
actions but with actions of a particular kind. Karmic actions are morally significant
actions, and in an early canonical text in the Aṅguttara Nikāya (A.iii.415), the
Buddha defined karma by reference to moral choices and the acts consequent upon
them. He stated: “It is intention (cetanā), O monks, that I call karma; having willed
one acts through body, speech, or mind.”
The process of creating karma may be likened to the work of a potter who moulds
the clay into a finished shape: the soft clay is one’s character, and when we make
moral choices we hold ourselves in our hands and shape our natures for good or ill.
It is not hard to see how even within the course of a single lifetime particular patterns
of behavior lead inexorably to certain results. The remote effects of karmic choices
are referred to as the “maturation” (vipāka) or “fruit” (phala) of the karmic act. The
metaphor is an agricultural one: performing good and bad deeds is like planting
seeds that will fruit at a later date. Great works of literature reveal how the fate that
befalls the protagonists is due not to chance but to a character flaw that leads to a
tragic series of events. In the plays of Shakespeare, Othello’s jealousy, Macbeth’s
ruthless ambition, and Hamlet’s hesitation and self-doubt would all be explained by
Buddhists as karmic seeds, and the tragic outcome in each case would be the
inevitable “fruit” (phala) of the choices these character traits predisposed the
individual to make. Individuals are thus to a large extent the authors of their good
and bad fortune.
3
Not all the consequences of what a person does are experienced in the lifetime in
which the deeds are performed. Karma that has been accumulated but not yet
experienced is carried forward to the next life, or even many lifetimes ahead. Certain
key aspects of a person’s next rebirth are thought of as karmically determined. These
include the family into which one is born, one’s social status, physical appearance, and,
of course, one’s character and personality, since these are simply carried over from the
previous life. The doctrine of karma, however, does not claim that everything that
happens to a person is karmically determined. Many of the things that happen in life –
like winning the lottery or catching a cold – may simply be random events. Karma
does not determine precisely what will happen or how anyone will react to what
happens, and individuals are always free to resist previous conditioning and establish
new patterns of behavior. (For further discussion of karma see Reichenbach 1990).
What, then, makes an action good or bad? From the Buddha’s definition above it
can be seen to be largely a matter of intention and choice. The psychological springs
of motivation are described in Buddhism as “roots,” and there are said to be three
good roots and three bad roots. Actions motivated by greed (rāga), hatred (dveṣa),
and delusion (moha) are bad (akuśala), while actions motivated by their opposites –
nonattachment, benevolence, and understanding – are good (kuśala). Making
progress to enlightenment, however, is not simply a matter of having good intentions:
good intentions must find expression in right actions, and right actions are basically
those which are wholesome and do no harm to either oneself or others. The kinds of
actions which fail these requirements are prohibited in various sets of precepts,
about which more will be said below.
Precepts
In common with Indian tradition as a whole, Buddhism expresses its ethical
requirements in the form of duties (see duty and obligation). These duties are
thought of as implicit requirements of dharma. The most general moral duties are
those found in the Five Precepts, such as the duty to refrain from evil acts such as
killing and stealing. On becoming a Buddhist one formally “takes” (or accepts) the
precepts in a ritual context known as “going for refuge,” and the form of words used
acknowledges the free and voluntary nature of the duty assumed. In some traditions
fewer than five precepts may be taken initially then added to later. The Five Precepts
are the most widely known list of precepts in Buddhism, comparable in influence to
the Ten Commandments of Christianity, and are as follows:
1 I undertake the precept to refrain from harming living creatures.

2 I undertake the precept to refrain from taking what has not been given.
3 I undertake the precept to refrain from sexual immorality.
4 I undertake the precept to refrain from speaking falsely.
5 I undertake the precept to refrain from taking intoxicants.
4
Precepts like these which apply to the laity are comparatively few in number
compared to those observed by monks and nuns, which number over 200. (For a
fuller summary of lay and monastic precepts see Saddhatissa 1970; Wijayaratne,
1990.)
Virtues
Although the precepts, whether lay or monastic, are of great importance there is
more to the Buddhist moral life than following rules. Rules must not only be
followed, but followed for the right reasons and with the correct motivation. It is
here that the role of the virtues (see virtue) becomes important, and Buddhist
morality as a whole may be likened to a coin with two faces: on one side are the
precepts and on the other are the virtues. The precepts, in fact, may be thought of
simply as a list of things which a virtuous person will never do.
Early sources emphasize the importance of cultivating correct dispositions and
habits so that moral conduct becomes the natural and spontaneous manifestation of
internalized and properly integrated beliefs and values, rather than simple conformity
to external rules. The task of the virtues is to counteract negative dispositions called
kleśas (known in the West as vices). The lengthy lists of virtues and vices which
appear in Buddhist commentarial literature are extrapolated from the cluster of
three root (or cardinal) virtues mentioned above, namely nonattachment (arāga),
benevolence (adveṣa), and understanding (amoha).
These are the opposites of the three roots of evil (or three poisons) – namely,
greed (rāga), hatred (dveṣa), and delusion (moha). Nonattachment means the
absence of that selfish desire which taints behavior by allocating a privileged status
to one’s own needs. Benevolence means an attitude of goodwill to all living creatures,
and understanding means knowledge of Buddhist teachings such as the Four Noble
Truths. While these are the three most basic Buddhist virtues, there are many others,
three of the most important of which are non-harming or noninjury (ahiṃsā),
compassion (karuṇā), and generosity (dāna).
Mahāyāna morality
The Mahāyāna was a major movement in the history of Buddhism embracing many
schools in a sweeping reinterpretation of fundamental religious ideals, beliefs, and
values coinciding roughly with the beginning of the Christian era. In the Mahāyāna,
the bodhisattva who devotes himself to the service of others becomes the new
paradigm for religious practice, as opposed to the arhat, or saint in the early tradition,
who is now criticized for leading a cloistered life devoted to the self-interested
pursuit of liberation. In the Mahāyāna great emphasis is placed on the twin values of
compassion (karuṇā) and wisdom (prajñā), and the bodhisattva practices six special
virtues known as the Six Perfections (pāramitā) – namely, generosity (dāna),
morality (śīla), patience (kṣānti), perseverance (vīrya), meditation (samādhi), and
wisdom (prajñā) (Wright 2009).
5
Buddhist Ethics
Development of the discipline
It is only since Buddhism arrived in the West that a nascent discipline of Buddhist
ethics has developed. Its beginnings can conveniently be dated to 1964 when
Winston King, lamenting “the almost total lack of contemporary material on
Buddhist ethics in English” (1964: 5), specified an interest in six aspects of Theravāda
ethics and raised general questions about the role of ethics in Buddhism. In the
1970s a number of Sri Lankan scholars, notably Jayatilleke (1970) and Premasiri
(1975), began to pose more explicit theoretical questions, as we shall see below. The
focus on Theravāda ethics continued with the publication in 1970 of the Venerable
Hammalawa Saddhatissa’s descriptive work Buddhist Ethics, which has remained in
print for the best part of half a century. In 1994 Damien Keown and Charles S.
Prebish founded the online Journal of Buddhist Ethics, but up to the year 2000 only a
small number of books had appeared, despite an explosion of Western interest in
Buddhism and a flood of publications on other aspects of Buddhist thought. Happily,
the first decade of the new millennium saw an increase in the number of publications,
the most important of which are listed in the Further Readings section at the end of
this essay.
The neglect of Buddhist ethics seems in large part due to an absence of philo-
sophical interest in the subject on the part of the tradition itself. The great doctors of
Buddhism left no legacy in the form of treatises on ethics. There is not even a word
for ethics in the early Indian texts – the closest approximation to it is śīla, often
translated as “morality,” but closer in meaning to disciplined behavior or self-restraint.
In the course of Buddhist history there never arose a branch of learning concerned
with the philosophical analysis of moral norms. If we go back to the time of the
founder, while the Buddha has a lot to say about normative conduct, on very few
occasions do we see him moving to a discussion of theoretical questions or
responding to ethical and political conundrums of the kind put to Jesus by the
Pharisees, such as whether it was right to pay taxes to the Romans (Matt 22:17). One
of the few early texts to explore moral dilemmas is Milinda’s Questions, and it is
interesting that although the bulk of the work was compiled in Sri Lanka, the debate
recorded in this text took place in a Greek-influenced part of northwest India
between a Buddhist monk (Nāgasena) and a Greek king (Milinda). In this text we
see the possible beginnings of a line of ethical inquiry similar to the Socratic
paradoxes in Plato’s early dialogues. As an example of these, in the Euthyphro,
Socrates asks whether certain things are good because the gods command them, or
whether the gods command them because they are good (see euthyphro dilemma).
A Buddhist version of this problem might ask whether certain acts are bad because
they are punished by karma, or whether they are punished by karma because they
are bad. Surprisingly, this question appears never to have occurred to Buddhist
thinkers, and unfortunately was not one of the paradoxes posed by King Milinda in
his discussion with Nāgasena. By comparison, if we look at Western literature of
6
roughly the same period as the Pāli Canon, we find authors like Plato and Aristotle
not only exploring such dilemmas but also composing major treatises on ethics and
politics. As everyone knows, the Greeks invented democracy, and the discipline of
political science arose to develop constitutions founded on ethical principles such as
justice. Classical thinkers such as Aristotle saw politics and ethics as inextricably
linked and understood that a just and fair society had to be founded on secure and
philosophically well-grounded moral foundations. The concept of justice (see jus-
tice), however, is seldom – if ever – mentioned in Buddhist literature. Perhaps this
is because Buddhism grew up under a system which the Greeks would have regarded
as despotism. Republican tribes, like the Ṡakya to which the Buddha belonged, were
rapidly being conquered and annexed by powerful monarchies, of which one – the
kingdom of Magadha – eventually became supreme. This provided the political
foundations for the Mauryan Empire which the famous Buddhist ruler Aśoka would
inherit a few centuries later. Where power resides with despots rather than with
citizens, the sciences of politics and ethics are largely redundant. Since throughout
its long history Buddhism has lived predominantly under nondemocratic political
systems, perhaps it is not surprising that we do not find ethics and politics enjoying
a prestigious place in its curriculum.
Theories of ethics
Three of the most influential theories of ethics in the West have been deontology,
utilitarianism, and virtue ethics. Immanuel Kant (1724–1804; see kant, immanuel)
was one of the leading exponents of deontological ethics, an approach which empha-
sizes notions of duty and obligation and is characterized by looking backwards for
justification (see deontology). Deontological systems of ethics typically emphasize
rules, commandments, and precepts, which impose obligations we have a duty to
fulfill. By contrast, utilitarianism (see utilitarianism) – a theory closely associated
with Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832; see bentham, jeremy) and John Stuart Mill
(1806–73; see mill, john stuart) – seeks justification in the future through the
good consequences that are expected to flow from the performance of an act.
Virtue ethics (see virtue ethics) offers something of a middle way between the
other two and tends to look both to the past and to the future for justification.
According to virtue ethics, of which Aristotle (384–322 bce) was a leading exponent,
what is of primary importance are neither preexisting obligations nor pleasant
outcomes, but the development of character so that a person becomes habitually and
spontaneously good. Virtue ethics seeks a transformation of the personality through
the development of correct habits over the course of time so that negative patterns
of behavior are gradually replaced with positive and beneficial ones. The way to act
rightly, according to virtue ethics, is not simply to follow certain kinds of rules, nor
to seek pleasant consequences, but first and foremost to be or become a certain kind
of person. Aristotle called the state of well-being which results from living rightly
eudaimonia, a term often translated as “happiness” but which really means something
like thriving, flourishing, self-realization (see eudaimonism). Virtue ethics thus
7
proposes a path of self-transformation in which a person comes gradually to emulate

certain ideal standards of behavior disclosed in the conduct of teachers or sages who
have already progressed further than us toward the goal of human fulfillment.
Comparative ethics
Can any of the theories just outlined help us understand the nature of Buddhist
ethics? Before making comparisons we must pause to reflect on the methodological
problems which such comparisons raise (see comparative religious ethics). Is it
legitimate simply to compare Western ethics with Eastern ethics in a straightforward
way, or are there cultural, historical, and conceptual differences which might distort
or invalidate such a comparison? It may be that the assumptions and presupposi-
tions of Western thought are not compatible with those of Buddhism, and an
insufficiently sensitive or nuanced comparison may simply force Buddhism into a
Procrustean bed resulting in the neglect of important aspects of its teachings. One
might wonder, for example, whether Buddhism fits the Western category of a
religion, and, if not, how it should be classified. Problems of this kind have exercised
the minds of scholars working in the nascent field of comparative ethics in the past
few decades, but as yet there is no agreed methodology for undertaking a comparative
study (see Little and Twiss 1978). Despite the possible pitfalls in drawing comparisons
between East and West it seems important to make the attempt in order to gain
some theoretical understanding of the structure of Buddhist ethics. It can be noted
that scholars working in other branches of Buddhist philosophy have not hesitated
to draw comparisons between Buddhist and Western thinkers and concepts. One
difference is that in studying these branches of Buddhist thought, Western scholars
were joining in a conversation among Buddhists themselves which had begun
centuries ago. Where ethics is concerned, however, there is no ongoing discussion in
which to participate and the conversation is only just beginning.
Classification of Buddhist ethics

My own view, as set out in my book The Nature of Buddhist Ethics (2001), is that
Buddhist ethics bears a greater resemblance to virtue ethics than any other
Western theory (a similar conclusion is reached by Cooper and James 2005).
There are sufficient points in common to speak at least of a family resemblance
between the two systems. This is because Buddhism is first and foremost a path of
self-transformation which seeks the elimination of negative states (vices) and
their replacement by positive or wholesome ones (virtues). This is the way one
becomes a Buddha. The transformation of the “man in the street” (pṛthagjana)
into a Buddha comes about through the cultivation of particular virtues
(paradigmatically wisdom and compassion) leading step by step to the goal of
complete self-realization known as nirvana. There are differences too: virtue
ethics as developed in the West does not involve a belief in reincarnation or
rebirth. It may, however, be thought to teach a “naturalized” theory of karma in
which the good consequences of moral action become manifest in the present as
8
opposed to future lives. Virtue, as Aristotle said, is its own reward, and the virtuous
person (in the virtue ethics tradition this means a morally authentic and
psychologically integrated agent, not someone who is merely sanctimonious or
pious) can expect to lead a more fulfilled and rewarding life, thus reaping the
good consequences of their virtue, so to speak, in real time.
Not all scholars would agree with the identification just made, and alternative
theoretical classifications of Buddhism have also been proposed. Some com-
mentators have noted that the Buddhist belief in karma, according to which moral
deeds always entail good and bad future consequences, gives Buddhism something
of a utilitarian flavor and have drawn parallels between Buddhism and one or other
of the variants of utilitarianism (see Goodman 2009). One argument runs that since
Buddhism’s ultimate aim is release from suffering (duhkha), and since according to
belief in karma the performance of good deeds leads to the avoidance of painful
consequences, Buddhism should be classified as a form of negative utilitarianism.
Some scholars also prefer to see the development of a virtuous character, clearly a
central part of Buddhist teachings, as itself part of the overall consequences of the
performance of good deeds. For this reason they believe that Buddhism is most
appropriately classified as character consequentialism (see consequentialism).
The Mahāyāna doctrine of Skilful Means, which allows bodhisattvas considerable
moral leeway, also has a utilitarian aspect since it seems to prioritize successful out-
comes over respect for the precepts. When coupled with an emphasis on compas-
sion it may be thought to resemble the Christian utilitarianism hybrid known as
situation ethics promoted by Joseph Fletcher (1905–91) in which the maximization
of love in the world is taken as the only standard of right and wrong (Fletcher 1966).
We could add that Buddhism also possesses features associated with deonto-
logical ethics, such as the emphasis placed on the Five Precepts as moral rules that
should never be infringed. The no harm principle (ahiṃsā) in Buddhism appears to
be a near-absolute constraint on action, and we encounter in the texts statements to
the effect that the enlightened are incapable of breaking the precepts (e.g., D.iii.235),
that the Buddha always speaks the truth (DA.i.914), and stories of pious individuals
who were cruelly put to death while remaining incapable of feeling anger towards
their executioners (e.g., the story of Kṣāntivādin in the Jātākamāla). Evidence of this
kind suggests there is room for a deontological construction of Buddhist ethics,
perhaps drawing on Kant’s notion of the categorical imperative to explain absolutist
features of the kind mentioned (for an attempt in this direction see Olson 1993).
Finally, some scholars favour a no theory view of Buddhist ethics, in terms of
which none of the available Western candidates adequately does justice to the
complexity of the subject matter. All of the possible Western readings appear to have
limitations when applied to Buddhism, and some scholars (such as Hallisey 1996
and Garfield n.d.) believe that the search for an overarching Western template is
misconceived, and that Buddhist ethics is best described as a form of ethical
particularism, in terms of which moral judgments are made by drawing on different
elements of Buddhist teachings as the situation requires.
9
Theoretical questions
Pinning on a Western label is just the beginning of the inquiry, and more detailed
theoretical questions remain. The Sri Lankan scholars mentioned earlier were the
first to raise them and to adopt Western terminology in their interrogation of
Buddhist ethics. Jayatilleke, for example, asked: “Is it egotistic or altruistic? Is it rela-
tivistic or absolutistic? Is it objective or subjective? Is it deontological or teleological?
Is it naturalistic or non-naturalistic?” (1970: 194; see egoism; relativism, moral;
subjectivism, ethical; naturalism, ethical).
Different scholars will give different answers to these questions, but my
response would be that Buddhism is both egotistic and altruistic in the sense that
it sees moral conduct as leading simultaneously to the good of oneself and others.
It is relativistic in the sense that it includes scope for flexibility where appropriate,
but not in the sense of holding that moral norms (as distinct from customs and
etiquette) are merely a function of local cultural and historical circumstances. It
is absolutistic in holding that certain attitudes or dispositions are always immoral
(e.g., greed and hatred) and that certain things are always right (e.g., compassion
and nonviolence). On the question of objectivity, Buddhist teachings are thought
to be objectively true and in accordance with natural law (the dharma). One
problem here is the Buddhist belief that dharma denotes both what is and what
ought to be, which appears to involve what ethicists in the West call the naturalistic
fallacy (see naturalistic fallacy) of deriving moral conclusions from a purely
factual description of the world. Nevertheless, if dharma exists as an objective
reality in the way Buddhism understands it, it suggests that through the use of
reason individuals can ensure that the choices they make are objectively valid –
that is to say that they reach the same conclusion as would an enlightened
reasoner. We can add that in maintaining that the truth about right and wrong is
objective and can be known through the proper use of intellectual faculties such
as wisdom (prajñā), Buddhism would appear to be a cognitive ethical philosophy
(see cognitivism). This means it holds that moral truth can be discerned through
reason, and that moral judgments are not merely subjective or a matter of personal
taste, like a preference for red wine over white wine. Finally, we could say that
Buddhist ethics is naturalist (naturalist theories of ethics hold that an account can
be given of moral conduct at the level of natural science). Buddhism holds
that there is a close connection between ethics and psychology, which is seen in
the way moral conduct leads gradually to a transformation in the nature of the
individual as little by little the virtuous person evolves into a saint (bodhisattva)
or a Buddha.
Engaged Buddhism
More or less coinciding with the birth of Buddhist ethics was the appearance of a
related movement known as engaged Buddhism. While Buddhist ethics is concerned
with questions of the kind discussed in the previous section, engaged Buddhism
10
focuses on larger questions of public policy such as social and economic justice,
poverty, violence, gender, and the environment (see Queen 2000; King 2005).
Clearly there is a connection between the two disciplines, and they interface at a
number of points: for example, on questions concerning human rights. It can hardly
be a coincidence that both these disciplines have arisen at roughly the same time as
Buddhism encounters the West. Perhaps we can see Buddhist ethics and engaged
Buddhism as corresponding to two of the major branches of Western thought –
ethics and political science – which for one reason or another never attained an
autonomous status in the canon of Buddhist learning.
The promotion of engaged Buddhism owes much to the Vietnamese monk
Thich Nhat Hanh, now mainly resident at Plum Village near Bordeaux in France.
Thich Nhat Hanh coined the phrase “socially engaged Buddhism” as a label for three
Vietnamese ideas emphasizing (1) awareness in daily life, (2) social service, and
(3) social activism. This threefold emphasis not only establishes a connection with
social, political, economic, and ecological issues, but also gives a sense of involving
the ordinary lives of families, communities, and their interrelationship. In other
words, while engaged Buddhism addresses global issues such as anti-violence and
environmental concerns, it does so by engaging the interest of individual Buddhists
living “in the world.” This does not mean to say that Buddhism had never been
socially active in its early history, but rather that it is often perceived to be individual
and passive in its approach to human social problems. This viewpoint may have been
the one promoted by the earliest Western students of Buddhism who, in the nine-
teenth century, tended to focus on Buddhist texts which seemed world-rejecting. By
contrast, more than a century later, and utilizing not only Buddhist values, but also
American and European forms of social protest and active social involvement,
socially engaged Buddhists have employed boycotts, protest marches, letter-writing
campaigns, and a host of other techniques to actively project Buddhist values into the
contemporary debate about the global issues which concern everyone on the planet.
Conclusion
The first part of this essay gave a descriptive account of Buddhist moral teachings as
we find them set out by the tradition. They differ from their Western counterparts
due to the distinctive belief in rebirth and karma, but the precepts and virtues they set
forth are not very different to those we find in other religions. Buddhism, however,
does not believe in a creator god, and does not seek a theological foundation for its
ethics, preferring to ground them instead in the concept of dharma or natural law. In
the second part we adopted a more analytical approach and sought to classify
Buddhist ethics in terms of Western ethical categories. This is a recent undertaking
and it is too soon to say how successful it will be. Some scholars think that Buddhist
ethics is sui generis and cannot be reduced to Western classifications; others have
proposed various candidates based on one or other permutations of Western
theoretical systems. At the present time the jury is still out as to which of these
approaches will gain the most support. Finally, we considered how Buddhist values
11
have interacted with modern political activism in the movement known as engaged
Buddhism, which has had considerable success in adapting traditional ethical
teachings to the needs of the modern world.
See also: aristotle; bentham, jeremy; cognitivism; comparative religious

ethics; consequentialism; deontology; duty and obligation; egoism;
eudaimonism; euthyphro dilemma; kant, immanuel; mill, john stuart;
natural law; naturalism, ethical; naturalistic fallacy; nonviolence in
religions; relativism, moral; subjectivism, ethical; utilitarianism;
virtue; virtue ethics
REFERENCES
Aṅguttara Nikāya 1995. The Book of the Gradual Sayings, trans. F. L.Woodward. Oxford: Pali
Text Society.
Cooper, David E., and Simon P. James 2005. Buddhism, Virtue and Environment. Aldershot,
UK: Ashgate.
Fletcher, Joseph 1966. Situation Ethics. London: SCM Press.
Garfield, Jay F. (n.d.). “Buddhist Ethics.” At http://www.smith.edu/philosophy/documents/
BMT.pdf, accessed July 23, 2010.
Goodman, Charles 2009. Consequences of Compassion: An Interpretation and Defense of
Buddhist Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hallisey, Charles 1996. “Ethical Particularism in Theravāda Buddhism,” Journal of Buddhist
Jayatilleke, K. 1970. “The Ethical Theory of Buddhism,” The Mahabodhi, vol. 78, pp. 192–7.
Keown, Damien 2000. Buddhism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Keown, Damien 2001. The Nature of Buddhist Ethics. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
King, Sallie B. 2005. Being Benevolence: The Social Ethics of Engaged Buddhism. Honolulu:
University of Hawaii Press.
King, Winston L. 1964. In the Hope of Nibbana. LaSalle: Open Court.
Little, David, and Summer B. Twiss 1978. Comparative Religious Ethics. San Francisco: Harper
& Row.
Milinda’s Questions 1963. Trans. I. B. Horner. London: Pali Text Society.
Olson, Phillip 1993. The Discipline of Freedom: A Kantian View of the Role of Moral Precepts
in Zen Practice. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Premasiri, P. D. 1975. “Moral Evaluation in Early Buddhism,” Sri Lanka Journal of the
Humanities, vol. 1, pp. 63–74.
Queen, Christopher S. 2000. Engaged Buddhism in the West. Boston: Wisdom Publications.
Reichenbach, Bruce R. 1990. The Law of Karma: A Philosophical Study. Honolulu: University
of Hawaii Press.
Saddhatissa, H. 1970. Buddhist Ethics. London: George Allen & Unwin.
Wright, Dale S. 2009. The Six Perfections: Buddhism and the Cultivation of Character.
12
FURTHER READINGS
Clayton, Barbra R. 2006. Moral Theory in Santideva’s Siksasamuccaya: Cultivating the Fruits
of Virtue. London and New York: Routledge.
Goodman, Charles 2010. “Ethics in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism,” Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy. At http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-indian-buddhism/, accessed
July 23, 2010.
Harvey, Peter 2000. An Introduction to Buddhist Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Keown, Damien 2000. Contemporary Buddhist Ethics. London: Curzon Press.
Keown, Damien 2001. Buddhism and Bioethics. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Keown, Damien 2005. Buddhist Ethics: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Keown, Damien, John Powers, and Charles S. Prebish 2010. Destroying Mara Forever:
Buddhist Ethics Essays in Honor of Damien Keown. Ithaca: Snow Lion.
Mrozik, Susanne 2007. Virtuous Bodies: The Physical Dimensions of Morality in Buddhist
Ethics. New York: Oxford University Press.
1
Toleration
Andrew Jason Cohen
Introduction
Contemporary philosophical debates surrounding toleration have revolved around
three issues: what is toleration? Should we tolerate and, if so, why? What should be
tolerated? These questions are of central importance to social and political thought.
While I cannot also do justice here to the history of toleration, its pedigree should be
noted.
The most important historical thinkers to discuss toleration are Saint Augustine,
Baruch Spinoza, Pierre Bayle, John Locke, and John Stuart Mill (see augustine,
saint; spinoza, baruch; locke, john; mill, john stuart). Augustine provides the
first significant defense of religious toleration – on the grounds that one cannot force
genuine religious belief since individuals do not choose at will what they believe.
Later thinkers – Bayle and Locke, in particular – sought to improve upon and supple-
ment Augustine’s argument for toleration.
It is through Locke’s work that toleration becomes central to liberal theory
(see liberalism). It is Mill, though, who gives the most powerful explication and
defense of the extent of toleration. His harm principle (see harm principle), which
echoes Locke’s view, is the most famous normative principle of toleration.
What Toleration Is
Toleration clearly involves noninterference. We do not tolerate P if we stop P from
acting or if we make P’s action more difficult. (Some early modern thinkers deny the
latter, allowing that religious toleration is consistent with taxing groups differen-
tially, for example. They thus ask a fourth distinct question – “what does toleration
require?”) Noninterference is the point of toleration; that is, an act is only an act of
toleration if noninterference is its intent. About this, most readily agree. However,
with further thought, people generally realize that “intentional noninterference” is
not a satisfactory definition.
We would not say lovers of Brahms tolerate his music. Enjoying something makes
it conceptually impossible to tolerate it. One can tolerate X only if one has some
objection to X. Some insist that moral disapproval and not mere dislike must be
present; others insist the latter is sufficient. Philosophers agree, though, that some
element of opposition must be present.
Some argue that in at least one sense, one can “tolerate” what one approves of. For
these thinkers, a society that truly tolerates differences cherishes those differences
and (raising that fourth question) may seek to sustain them. While a philosopher
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee164
2
might approve of the substantive political commitment that view entails, she would
call it “multiculturalism” rather than “toleration” (see multiculturalism). I assume
the philosophical view here.
The philosophical view faces a quandary: if we dislike or morally disapprove of
X, why tolerate it? This indicates another necessary element: a principled reason
for the noninterference. If one refrains from interfering without some principled
reason – perhaps out of laziness or fear – one is not tolerating. If one refrains
from interfering for an unprincipled reason – perhaps with the hope that
something worse will befall the other – one is not tolerating. There is, though,
debate about what reasons count as principled. Some insist toleration is grounded
in individual autonomy, rights, or respect (see autonomy; rights; respect).
Others take a broader view, allowing that other values may undergird the princi-
pled noninterference.
Thus, there are three primary elements of toleration: for P to tolerate X, P must
intentionally refrain from interfering with X, P must dislike or disapprove of X,
and P’s noninterference must be for a principled reason. These are widely agreed
to be necessary for toleration. Others suggest additional elements (see Cohen
2004).
Importantly, the reason one refrains from interfering when one genuinely
tolerates can differ from the reason toleration is morally valuable (a topic
discussed below). In the first case, the reason (along with opposition) makes the
intentional noninterference toleration; in the second case, it may make the
toleration morally valuable. That these can differ makes possible genuine but
morally mistaken toleration. For example, autonomy is often the reason
noninterference is toleration. (Some claim only autonomy plays this role.) If one
mistakenly believes noninterference in a particular case is required in order to
respect another’s autonomy, one has a principled, though mistaken, reason for
noninterference; such noninterference would therefore be toleration. However,
given the factual mistake, the toleration may not be morally valuable. If the two
reasons were necessarily the same, every instance of genuine toleration would be
morally valuable, but surely we can tolerate wrongly. Hence, while there is an
essentially normative element of toleration, recognition of that element does not
settle the normative question “Should we tolerate?”
Toleration and Tolerance

Although we often use the terms “toleration” and “tolerance” synonymously, we also
use the latter in a very different way: to refer to an attitude or virtue rather than a
type of behavior. It is helpful to reserve “tolerance” for the former and “toleration”
for the latter.
People can exhibit tolerance, be tolerant, and act tolerantly. Being tolerant is a
matter of having a particular sort of attitude. It may also be a virtue (see Newey
1999: 85–120). As a virtue, it would involve a disposition to refrain from interfer-
ing. Importantly, that disposition need not be directed only toward things opposed.
3
A person is tolerant of things she approves of or is indifferent to. Lovers of Brahms,

to use that example again, likely have a high tolerance for his music. Clearly, toler-
ance may be present without toleration. So too, acts of toleration are not necessarily
tolerant. One might continue to seethe at the thought of R doing X – exhibiting
intolerance – while tolerating it.
A tolerant person or act may not be a tolerating person or act. Since one must
oppose what one tolerates, someone who is so tolerant that they oppose nothing,
cannot tolerate. Tolerance and toleration – while related – are not co-extensive.
Defending Toleration
There are many arguments for toleration, including arguments that attempt to show
that it is conceptually connected to other goods such as autonomy, rationality, self-
respect, equal respect, rights, increased societal knowledge, peace, good living,
societal advancement, and religious salvation (see rationality; self-respect
and self-esteem).
Perhaps most famous is Augustine’s argument from the nature of genuine religious
belief: since faith cannot be forced, individuals must be tolerated so they might
attain salvation. Credere non potest nisi volens – belief has no power (to help us attain
salvation) if it is not free. Augustine assumes we cannot just will to believe some-
thing (doxastic voluntarism is false). Empirical evidence about belief acquisition,
though, may render that assumption irrelevant. Indeed, Augustine came to reject his
own argument when he saw persecuted Donatist heretics accept orthodoxy. He did
not think this required doxastic voluntarism; he simply realized that people can be
forced into situations in which they gradually come freely to believe. Over time,
force – lack of toleration – can indirectly change beliefs even if individuals cannot
just will to believe. Forcing someone to listen to an argument might make her more
likely to accept its conclusion, if only because having heard the argument, she
becomes accustomed to her once-rejected view. (Of course, without toleration, some
‘heretics’ are likely killed or isolated so that others never get to hear their view,
directly contributing to its disappearance.) The argument’s success is thus limited.
Later thinkers improve on it by arguing that genuine belief requires an individual’s
reasoned assent. Bayle’s argument for toleration (arguably the best of these) is based
on respect for that use of reason, which is on firmer epistemological ground than
faith (see Spinoza 2001: Ch. 15; Bayle 2005: 74; Locke 1824 [1685]: 68 and esp. 299;
Forst 2008: 96–106).
Mill offers a related argument that Joel Feinberg calls the “moral muscles”
argument: since the faculty of reason is of paramount value – without it, one is not
a moral being, not a person – we must allow and even encourage its development,
and the best way to do this is to tolerate differences so people must sort through
them (1986: 384 n. 5; see feinberg, joel). Individuals develop and/or maintain
(depending on how the argument is fleshed out) their rational capacities –
their moral muscles – as they consider views in contrast with (often opposing)
their own.
4
Other related arguments from Mill concern truth acquisition and justification of
belief. Mill claims that if we do not allow dissent, we will prohibit the hearing of
possibly true propositions. If they are true and successfully prohibited, Mill believes
that truth is essentially stolen from those who would otherwise hear it. If they are
false, he believes, there would be theft – not of the truth, but of opportunities to
clarify the truth (of allowed beliefs) and to develop sincere commitment rather than
mere acquiescence (to those beliefs). Since acquiescence leaves one without
justification, this entails a loss of knowledge – true justified belief. On Mill’s view,
justification requires scrutinizing beliefs before accepting them and toleration
promotes this since it requires allowing dissent, and that encourages listeners to
consider alternatives (see speech, freedom of).
Consider, finally, Mill’s argument for societal progress, which begins by noting
that tolerating individuals’ non-standard behaviors (consider the Wright brothers’
first flight, which many thought crazy) allows them to develop better ways of
performing daily tasks (typically while engaging in a project they think valuable)
and, thus, to develop better ways of life. Since such innovations can benefit everyone
and since we cannot know who will develop them, the argument continues, we
should have extensive toleration of differences so that society can improve. (Those
committed to traditional ways of life may find this threatening.)
I cannot discuss other arguments for toleration here (see Forst 2003), except to
note that we must not think of toleration as only about others. It is too easy, when
thinking about whether someone else should be tolerated, to conclude that tolera-
tion is not warranted. Toleration is important to each of us because someone else
might think our way of life should not be tolerated. If we want our ways of life to
be tolerated, we should be prepared to defend toleration in general. Of course,
there are limits.
The Limits of Toleration and the Paradox of Liberalism

Toleration is a good but there must be limits. We simply do not, should not, and
indeed, cannot, tolerate murder or rape, for example. But what are the proper limits
of toleration? What should we, as individuals and as societies, tolerate? This debate
is not solely academic. Polities often face this question. Should minority religious
practices be tolerated? Should homosexuality? Marijuana? Ad infinitum. (There is
debate about whether governments have intentions and whether such intentions
have moral weight; this matters since toleration requires intentional noninterference.
Here, I suggest only that toleration at the state level is a matter of policy – in some
sense, intentional – allowing activity that might be opposed by some part of the
citizenry, though not necessarily by those enforcing the policy.)
If we are to answer the normative question for states, we have to recognize that
what it is conceptually possible for a particular state to tolerate will be determined
by what is opposed therein. What I can tolerate depends on what I oppose; similarly,
what a state can tolerate depends on what is opposed within it. When a state – or
those within it – opposes an activity, it can make a law against the activity or decide
5
that such a law is unjustified and that toleration of the activity is required. Importantly,
which of those things that can be tolerated in the polity will be tolerated will depend
on the publicly recognized reasons to tolerate. Imagine, for example, a Christian
country wherein it is commonly believed that religious practices of Jews and Muslims
must be tolerated, though those of Mormon polygamists must not. Though all are
opposed, the first two are thought worthy of toleration and the last is not. Of course,
that a particular practice would not be tolerated is not to say that it should not be
tolerated.
Historically, it was liberals that were most committed to extensive toleration. It
was they that argued for toleration of competing religions and, later, competing cul-
tures (see religion, freedom of). That liberals would tolerate more than others
does not, in the minds of non-liberals, tell us what ought to be tolerated. So how do
we make progress on this question? Or must we admit, with critics of liberalism, that
toleration is a false ideal and that different polities simply have competing visions of
what must be tolerated?
This problem is sometimes called the “paradox of liberalism.” (This is different
from the “paradox of toleration,” which is concerned with the necessity of tolerating
acts of non-toleration.) The paradox might be framed as follows. Persons living in a
liberal state who are militantly anti-liberal should either be tolerated or not. If toler-
ated, non-liberalism – which limits toleration – seems to be allowed. If not tolerated,
the state is non-liberal. Liberalism thus seems defeated since it is a commitment to
toleration, which is curtailed either way (this would hold even if, as I suspect, the
liberal will tolerate non-harmful anti-liberal activity like speech acts but not harmful
activity). Liberals are committed to the broadest range of liberty and toleration
possible and so the narrowest range of morally permissible interferences but, the
paradox supposedly shows, this is not all that extensive.
Put bluntly, the question is: can a liberal state outlaw those seeking to end its rule?
More generally, can a regime force compliance with its principles and remain
committed to those principles? This is supposedly paradoxical for liberalism because
forcing compliance means not tolerating and a liberal regime is a regime of toleration,
so forcing compliance undermines the regime. (Hence, we should call this “the para-
dox of regimes of toleration.”) It is, then, the commitment to a principle of toleration
(which indicates narrow limits of permissible interference) that raises the paradox.
The principle may be a Rawlsian principle of political legitimacy such that “the basic
structure [of society] and its public policies are to be justifiable to all citizens” (Rawls
1993: 224) or something like Mill’s harm principle (see next section), which indicates
that harm to others is the only reason to end toleration. The paradox may seem espe-
cially potent against the latter: endorsement of the harm principle seems tantamount
to an endorsement of a conception of the good – or at least a claim that no other
conception of the good is sufficient to warrant interference.
Imagine a religious group R, a central belief of which is that having all act in
accord with the tenets of R is required for anyone to lead a good life. Adherents of
R will reject the harm principle. Interfering with their (perhaps forceful) proselyt-
izing seems to require rejecting R’s claim about the good life. It also suggests a
6
commitment to the good life defined as including freedom of choice. The Rawlsian
principle, though apparently only procedural, actually fares no better. It too
requires rejecting R’s claim about the good life and suggests a commitment to the
good life as including freedom – freedom to live under a regime that one could
reasonably endorse. There are, after all, “limits to what public reason can accom-
plish” (Rawls 1999b: 614).
Importantly, all regimes can be characterized as regimes of toleration. They
simply specify the limits of toleration differently – according to different principles
of toleration. But the response to the paradox is clear. The Christian regime dis-
cussed above, wherein Jews and Moslems were tolerated and Mormon polygamists
were not, forces compliance with its principles and remains committed to them.
Polygamists lose out in such a regime because they violate the regime’s principles.
This does not make the regime less Christian. In a liberal regime, there is extensive
toleration, but some lose out nonetheless – because they violate the regime’s
principles. For a liberal committed to the harm principle, those claiming the right
to harm others will lose out. For a liberal committed to Rawls’ principle of political
legitimacy, those claiming a right to impose laws on others that would reject them
lose out. In neither case does this make the regime less liberal. Liberals – those
defending extensive toleration – will not tolerate those seeking to end liberalism. If
this is a paradox, it is worth noting that paradoxes are not contradictions and can
be lived with. Liberals can live with the paradox of liberalism because of the
objective value of toleration. (They need not insist everyone recognize that
objective value.)
What Should Be Tolerated

The treatment, above, of the paradox of liberalism may not convince everyone. Some
will think the discussion shows that the value of toleration cannot be defended. This
is not, in itself, worrisome. Toleration, after all, is generally considered a dependent
value. It depends on some other value, namely whatever value(s) provides the princi-
pled basis for non-interference, whether it be autonomy, peace, or something else. It
would thus be surprising if toleration could be defended on its own. Moreover, as we
have seen, everyone agrees that toleration has limits. Indeed, in the contemporary
Western context, arguing that toleration in general is good seems decidedly odd
since no one disputes it. Those that think interference in a particular case is permis-
sible simply think the normative limits of toleration have been transgressed. Hence,
in this context, what matters is not defending toleration per se, but defending a
specific view about what should be tolerated. Once we defend such a view, we should
uphold its principles – though they may require that we remain open to further
debate and the possibility that a strong countervailing argument will emerge.
The question “what should be tolerated?” is a central question of social and polit-
ical philosophy. Importantly, we can tolerate good behavior (perhaps we dislike
when family members give charity, for example) as well as bad (though telling lies
may be bad, some must be tolerated). It may be that we must, if we oppose them,
7
tolerate prostitution, pornography, homosexuality, and same-sex marriage (see pros-

titution; pornography and obscenity; homosexuality; same-sex marriage).
Regarding some of these, indifference may be better than toleration, but unattaina-
ble. We need principles that indicate when toleration is required, should there be
opposition.
Normative jurisprudence is largely a search for principles indicating what the
state should tolerate. Feinberg (1990: xix–xx) enumerates nine such principles. The
first is Mill’s famous harm principle:
The sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfer-
ing with the liberty of action of any of their number is self-protection … the only
purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized
community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. (1978: 9)
The idea is that harm (see harm) – understood as wrongful setbacks to interests
(see Feinberg 1984: 36) – is always a good reason to permit interference, whether to
prevent its otherwise imminent occurrence, to penalize those who cause it, or to
rectify its damage. (Some deny, but most think, prohibiting activity statistically
likely to cause harm is permitted on a Millian scheme.)
It is important that Mill’s principle is about harm to others. It does not permit
interference – including failures to tolerate – to prevent harm to self. Indeed, harm
to self might seem conceptually impossible. When a boxer is punched in the ring, we
do not think there is a reason for interference. This is because the boxer is presumed
to have consented to the match and so to have no claim against his opponent (so long
as his opponent abides by the rules). Volenti non fit injuria – what one welcomes
(or consents to) cannot be injurious (though it can hurt, it cannot be wrongful).
“Harm to self ” thus seems oxymoronic: what one does, one consents to, so when one
hurts oneself, one does not wrong oneself and so cannot harm oneself, no matter how
much the hurt. However, ignorance, deception, and mental defect can render a per-
son unable to consent even to his own actions. Where these are present, volenti is
thus irrelevant (see consent; informed consent).
Mill talks about combining spheres of action. Just as one’s consent to one’s own
actions means they cannot be harmful, one’s consent to another’s actions means they
cannot be harmful. Hence, the boxer. When two or more people act upon one
another with full consent, they are not to be interfered with if we adopt the harm
principle as the sole normative principle of toleration.
The harm principle indicates that only harm justifies interference. While all
believe that harm at least often justifies interference, many believe interference can
be justified in some cases where there is no harm. Feinberg (1988), for example,
believes offense can also sometimes justify interference. Others suggest offense only
justifies interference when it is so severe that it causes harm. Nazis marching in
Skokie, Illinois, for example, not only seem offensive to the Holocaust survivors who
live there, but also seem likely to wrongly set back the psychological interests of
those survivors (harming them). While physical pains (and thus physical harms)
8
may be easier to assess, there is no principled reason to deny there are psychological
harms or that the harm principle allows for interference to prevent (or rectify) them.
Mill makes another distinction that deserves consideration. He claims “definite
damage, or a definite risk of damage” places an act in the province of morality or law
but “merely contingent” injuries do not (1978: 80). The latter are injuries an indi-
vidual may, but need not, suffer. For example, some claim to be harmed by merely
knowing there are people that engage in homosexual activity. Such activity, though,
need not affect others “unless they like” (1978: 73–4). According to Mill, such acts
do not merit interference. (We might think volenti renders them non-harms.)
Libertarian-minded liberals favor the harm principle as the only normative
principle of toleration (see libertarianism). Feinberg prefers to include the
offense principle. Many liberals endorse further principles, especially a benefit-to-
others principle, according to which the provision of some significant benefit
(perhaps determined by need) can justify interference. Presumably with limits,
such a principle would provide justification for redistributive interferences to help
individuals, perhaps in the name of need or equality.
Less likely to be endorsed today are two principles that are important, historically
and in contemporary politics. These are legal paternalism and legal moralism
(see paternalism). According to the first, interference is sometimes justified to
prevent individuals from causing themselves undue harm. According to the latter,
interference is sometimes justified to prevent immoralities, even where these cause
no individual harm.
We’ve already seen that paternalism’s concern with an individual harming herself
is conceptually problematic – but only when she is fully rational. Hence, many
advocate soft paternalism (also called soft anti-paternalism). On this view, interfer-
ence may be justified to ensure that when an individual acts in such a way that will
cause hurt only to herself, she does so rationally and fully cognizant of the likely
consequences. Few reject this; many reject hard paternalism – the view that interfer-
ence may be permitted to prevent an individual from harming herself even when she
rationally endorses her action. Perhaps she wishes to ingest cocaine, fully aware of
the risks.
Various writers advocate moralism. They might argue that homosexuality, for
example, should remain illegal because immoral. Some argue that such immoralities
tear at the fabric of society, thus resulting in harm – to society as a whole or
the individuals therein. Others seem to believe that some “free-floating evils” are
sufficient to justify interference, though they involve no harm at all (see Feinberg
1990: 3–38, 124–75; Hart 1963: 48–52; see hart, h. l. a.).
Before ending, it is worth discussing the Rawlsian alternative approach men-
tioned in the previous section, according to which laws must be justified by reasons
acceptable to all reasonable citizens (see rawls, john; public reason). On this
view, we must tolerate anything that cannot be legislated against without violating
that rule. Interference is warranted only where legislation permitting it cannot be
reasonably rejected (see Rawls 1999b: 573–615, esp. 578–9). This approach purports
to avoid appealing to any particular conception(s) of the human good; it claims,
9
instead, to offer a freestanding conception of liberalism that is the subject of a con-

sensus among all reasonable doctrines within the society (see, e.g., Rawls 1999a: 144,
176). It thus claims to be maximally tolerating since it does not favor any particular
groups. By contrast, it is suggested, views that seek independent normative princi-
ples of toleration like those just discussed favor groups that promote autonomy or
some other good.
Advocates of the Rawlsian view recognize that what the overlapping consensus
includes can only be determined through argument. We cannot consider that here,
but I suggest that in some form the first principle discussed above would be part of
the overlapping consensus in any just society. More importantly, though, any indi-
vidual or group that fails to endorse the principles of the overlapping consensus
would be deemed unreasonable and thus not respected (see Scalet 2010). It would
seem, then, to reject certain conceptions of the good, even if it does not endorse a
specific conception of the good itself. (It seems to endorse a thin conception of the
good that requires commitment to reasonableness.)
While some do insist on promoting autonomy (Mill sometimes seems to), endors-
ing the harm principle – and some of the other principles discussed above – does
not. An advocate of that principle can admit that some groups limit their members’
liberty (or autonomy) and allow that such must be tolerated – provided no one in
that group is forced into it and no one in the group harms anyone outside the group.
While that provision may burden some groups, it can rightly be claimed that this is
simply a result of fair and equal treatment of all and that the differential burden of a
particular group given that treatment is not enough to show unfairness (see Barry
2001: 24–40, 118–31).
To be clear, the requirement that force not be used on individuals against their
will is not a requirement to promote autonomy. A concern with harm is not
essentially a concern with autonomy. Individuals can be harmed by having their
autonomy wrongly set back, but they can also be harmed by having their interest
in conforming to a group and giving up autonomy wrongly set back. Some may
reasonably choose to have their autonomy curtailed; the harm principle would
thus require toleration of such, even though it would require not tolerating the
forced removal of autonomy. We can assume no one has the right to coerce others
against their will without assuming all individuals have autonomy interests.
Thus, we express our “recognition of the worth all citizens attach to their way of
life” (Rawls 1993: 319).
Conclusion
Toleration requires both opposition and principled reason to refrain from inter-
fering. Conceptually, then, there are people and things that are liked and that thus
cannot be tolerated (though we can be tolerant of them) and people and things that
are disliked and thus can be tolerated. While some of the latter should be tolerated,
some should not. A full account of toleration would indicate clearly how to draw
these lines. Such an account would include a clear conceptual analysis of toleration,
10
a precise and detailed indication of why it is a value, and comprehensive guidelines

that explain when it is and is not required. It need not be grounded in a particular
conception of the good life.
See also: augustine, saint; autonomy; consent; feinberg, joel; harm; harm
principle; hart, h. l. a.; homosexuality; informed consent; liberalism;
libertarianism; locke, john; mill, john stuart; multiculturalism;
paternalism; pornography and obscenity; prostitution; public reason;
rationality; rawls, john; religion, freedom of; respect; rights; same-sex
marriage; self-respect and self-esteem; speech, freedom of; spinoza, baruch
REFERENCES
Barry, Brian 2001. Culture and Equality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Bayle, Pierre 2005 [1688]. A Philosophical Commentary on These Words of the Gospel, Luke
14:23, “Compel Them to Come In, That My House May Be Full.” Indianapolis: Liberty
Fund.
Cohen, Andrew Jason 2004. “What Toleration Is,” Ethics, vol. 115, pp. 68–95.
Feinberg, Joel 1984. Harm to Others. New York: Oxford University Press.
Feinberg, Joel 1986. Harm to Self. New York: Oxford University Press.
Feinberg, Joel 1988. Offense to Others. New York: Oxford University Press.
Feinberg, Joel 1990. Harmless Wrongdoing. New York: Oxford University Press.
Forst, Rainer 2003. Toleranz im Konflikt: Geschichte, Gehalt, und Gegenwart eines umstrit-
tenen Begriffs. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
Forst, Rainer 2008. “Pierre Bayle’s Reflexive Theory of Toleration,” in Melissa Williams and
Jeremy Waldron (eds.), Nomos XLVIII: Toleration and Its Limits. New York: New York
University Press.
Hart, H. L. A. 1963. Law, Liberty and Morality. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Locke, John 1824 [1685]. The Works of John Locke in Nine Volumes. Vol. 5: Four Letters
Concerning Toleration. London: Rivington.
Mill, John Stuart 1978 [1859]. On Liberty. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Newey, Glen 1999. Virtue, Reason and Toleration: The Place of Toleration in Ethical and
Political Philosophy. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Rawls, John. 1993. Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.
Rawls, John. 1999a. The Law of Peoples. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Rawls, John. 1999b. Collected Papers. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Scalet, Steven 2010. “Legitimacy, Confrontation Respect, and the Bind of Freestanding
Liberalism,” Journal of Social Philosophy, vol. 41, no. 1, pp. 92–111.
Spinoza, Baruch 1670. Theological-Political Treatise, trans. Samuel Shirley, 2nd ed.
Indianapolis: Hackett, 2001.
FURTHER READINGS
Budziszewski, J. 1992. True Tolerance: Liberalism and the Necessity of Judgment. New
Brunswick: Transaction.
11
Cohen, Andrew 2007. “What the Liberal State Should Tolerate within Its Borders,” Canadian
Devlin, Patrick 1968. The Enforcement of Morals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dworkin, Gerald 1972. “Paternalism,” The Monist, vol. 56, pp. 64–84.
Fotion, Nick, and Gerard Elfstrom 1992. Toleration. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama
Press.
Galeotti, Anna Elisabetta 2002. Toleration as Recognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Heyd, David (ed.) 1996. Toleration: An Elusive Virtue. Princeton: Princeton University
Press.
Horton, John (ed.) 1993. Liberalism, Multiculturalism and Toleration. New York: St. Martin’s.
Horton, John, and Susan Mendus (eds.) 1985. Aspects of Toleration: Philosophical Studies.
London: Methuen.
Kilcullen, John 1988. Sincerity and Truth: Essays on Arnauld, Bayle, and Toleration. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
King, Preston 1976. Toleration. New York: St. Martin’s.
Mendus, Susan (ed.) 1988. Justifying Toleration: Conceptual and Historical Perspectives.
Mendus, Susan 1989. Toleration and the Limits of Liberalism. Atlantic Highlands, NJ:
Humanities.
Mendus, Susan, and David Edwards (eds.) 1987. On Toleration. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Oberdiek, Hans 2001. Tolerance: Between Forbearance and Acceptance. Lanham: Rowman &
Littlefield.
Razavi, Mehdi Amin, and David Ambuel (eds.) 1997. Philosophy, Religion, and the Question
of Intolerance. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Walzer, Michael 1997. On Toleration. New Haven: Yale University Press.
1
Minimalism about Truth, Ethics and

Alexander Miller
Issues concerning minimalism about truth are relevant to important matters in

metaethics (see metaethics): specifically, to questions about the plausibility of
expressivist (or non-cognitivist) accounts of moral judgment (see non-cognitivism).
Historically, expressivists and non-cognitivists rely on minimalist views of truth
to respond to certain criticisms of their view. Recently, however, a number of philoso-
phers have argued that minimalism about truth actually undermines expressivism
and non-cognitivism. In this essay, after brief introductions to ethical expressivism
and minimalism about truth, we distinguish between minimalism about truth and
minimalism about truth-aptitude, and explain why it is the latter that is crucial to
expressivism’s plausibility. We then explain why some philosophers have claimed
that minimalism about truth-aptitude undermines expressivism, while others have
claimed that ethical expressivism can wholeheartedly embrace minimalism about
truth-aptitude (see truth in ethics).
Ethical Expressivism
Ethical expressivism is a view about the meaning of moral sentences, sentences like
“Torture is wrong.” It claims that moral sentences don’t have a propositional logical
form or fact-stating semantics: they don’t have the function of expressing proposi-
tions describing reality, but rather a non-propositional logical form and a non-fact-
stating semantic function. Unlike sentences designed to state facts – like “Birmingham
is larger than Chester” – moral sentences aren’t apt to be assessed in terms of truth
and falsity. They aren’t truth-apt. Historically, expressivism is associated with ethical
non-cognitivism, the view that moral judgments – like the judgment that torture is
wrong – don’t express beliefs or mental states apt to be assessed in terms of truth and
falsity. Rather, moral judgments express desires, or mental states that by their nature
are incapable of being true or false. Expressivism and non-cognitivism can also be
characterized as holding that sincere utterances of moral sentences do not serve to
make genuine assertions, but are conventionally used to perform different kinds of
speech-act. It is common nowadays to distinguish between expressivism and
non-cognitivism, but in this essay we won’t do so and will speak simply of
expressivism. Expressivist views of various forms have been advocated by A. J. Ayer,
Charles Stevenson, R. M. Hare, Simon Blackburn, and Allan Gibbard. (For an
introductory survey, see Schroeder 2010.) (See ayer, a. j.; stevenson, c. l.;
hare, r. m.; non-cognitivism.)
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee165
2
Minimalism about Truth

Minimalist views of truth are contrasted with robust theories of truth. According to
robust theories of truth, “is true” stands for a genuine property (where a genuine
property is roughly a property that can be the proper object of empirical or philo-
sophical investigation). Thus, “is true” stands for a property in much the same way
as “is blue” or “is ductile,” and one of the tasks of metaphysics is the investigation of
the nature of the property “is true” denotes. Examples of robust theories might be
correspondence theories, that view the nature of truth as bound up with correspondence
to reality, and coherence theories, that view the nature of truth as bound up with
the coherence exhibited by a special set of statements or beliefs.
There are various forms of minimalism about truth, but for our present purposes
we will work with the following characterization: “is true” doesn’t stand for a property
that can be the proper object of empirical or philosophical investigation, but is sim-
ply a linguistic device allowing us, say, to make compendious or indirect (endorse-
ments of) assertions. For example, if I wanted to endorse every assertion made by
Pascal, I could in principle do it as follows: Pascal says that snow is white, and snow
is white; Pascal says that copper is ductile, and copper is ductile; Pascal says that it is
sunny outside, and it is sunny outside; and so on. However, using the truth predicate,
I can achieve this much more easily by simply saying “Everything that Pascal says is
true.” Likewise, if I know that Pascal is very reliable but I don’t quite hear what he just
said to Penelope, I may wish to endorse his assertion. I can do this by saying “What
Pascal said just now is true,” but since I don’t know the content of his utterance, I
wouldn’t be able to endorse it if I had no recourse to the truth predicate. According
to minimalism, “is true” has the function of serving these linguistic or logical needs
rather than the function of denoting a genuine property. Minimalist views of one
sort of another have been advocated by A. J. Ayer, Peter Strawson, W. V. O. Quine,
Paul Horwich, and Crispin Wright. (For a brief survey and references, see
Boghossian 2008: §1. For a fuller presentation, see Horwich 1998.)
Ethical Expressivists Embrace Minimalism about Truth

A famous example of an expressivist view is Ayer’s emotivist theory (see emotivism).
Ayer argues that moral judgments express sentiments or feelings of approval and
disapproval:
If I say to someone, “You acted wrongly in stealing that money,” I am not stating
anything more than if I had simply said, “You stole that money.” In adding that this
action is wrong, I am not making any further statement about it. I am simply evincing
my moral disapproval about it. It is as if I had said, “You stole that money,” in a peculiar
tone of horror, or written with the addition of some special exclamation marks. The
tone, or the exclamation marks, adds nothing to the literal meaning of the sentence. It
merely serves to show that the expression of it is attended by certain feelings in the
speaker. (1946: 107)
3
So moral sentences are not apt to be assessed in terms of truth and falsity: “If I now
generalise my previous statement and say, ‘Stealing money is wrong,’ I produce a
sentence which has no factual meaning – that is, expresses no proposition that can
be either true or false” (1946: 107).
Ayer also advocates a form of minimalism about truth, as follows: To say that p is
simply a way of asserting p; there is no problem of truth as ordinarily conceived. In his
view, the traditional conception of truth as a “real quality” or a “real relation” is due
(like most philosophical mistakes) to a failure to analyze sentences correctly. Ayer
asserts that there are sentences in which the word “truth” seems to stand for something
real, but the word “truth” does not stand for anything (1946: 89). Typically, expressiv-
ists use minimalism about truth to defend their view against a certain sort of objection,
which runs: we ordinarily say things like “ ‘Torture is wrong’ is true,” so this shows
immediately that our ordinary practice with moral language is at odds with the expres-
sivist claim that moral sentences are not truth-apt. Expressivists reply to this by using
minimalism about truth: according to minimalism, to say “ ‘Torture is wrong’ is true”
is to do no more and no less than to say, “Torture is wrong.” Thus, sincerely to utter,
“ ‘Torture is wrong’ is true” is simply to express the sentiment that would be expressed
by a sincere utterance of the sentence “Torture is wrong” itself. The expressivist thus
uses minimalism about truth to deflate use of “is true” as applied to moral sentences:
showing, in other words, that expressivism can easily accommodate the relevant facts
about our ordinary linguistic usage. (For a canonical statement of this line of thought,
see Blackburn 1998: 75–80.) Note that according to contemporary forms of expressiv-
ism like Blackburn’s quasi-realism, the distinctive claim of expressivism is not that
moral sentences are not true or false, but rather that there is no plausible explanation
of moral judgment that starts out by assuming that they are (see quasi-realism; also
see the final two sections below on how minimalism affects quasi-realism).
Is Minimalism about Truth a Problem for Expressivism?

So, minimalism about truth is apparently a useful tool for the expressivist, one that
can make his view more plausible. Recently, however, a number of philosophers
have argued that there is actually a tension between expressivism and minimalism
about truth. For example, Paul Boghossian asks, “What … certifies a sentence as
truth-conditional on a deflationary [minimal] construal of truth?” (2008: 55). He
suggests that since the minimalist holds that to assert that a sentence is true is to do
no more and no less than to assert the sentence itself, “the requirements on truth
predication must include whatever requirements attend candidacy for assertion
itself ” (2008: 56), from which it follows that a necessary and sufficient condition on
a sentence’s being truth-conditional is that it be a significant, declarative sentence.
(A sentence is declarative if it possesses what Boghossian calls “the appropriate
syntactic potentialities”: it can be negated, embedded within the scope of proposi-
tional attitude operators, and so on.) However, moral sentences like “Torture is
wrong” are both significant and declarative: “It is not the case that torture is wrong,”
“Bob believes that torture is wrong,” and so on, are syntactically well formed. So it
4
follows from minimalism about truth that moral sentences like “Torture is wrong”
have truth-conditions and are therefore truth-apt: which is precisely what the
expressivist denies.
The suggestion that minimalism about truth straightforwardly undermines
expressivism in the manner envisaged by Boghossian has been criticized by Frank
Jackson, Graeme Oppy, and Michael Smith (Jackson et al. 2004). The fact that assert-
ing “ ‘S’ is true” can be viewed as simply asserting “S” may yield the result that “S” is
truth-conditional: but only on the assumption that “S” is a genuine candidate for
assertion. Since the expressivist denies that moral sentences like “Torture is wrong”
are genuine candidates for assertion, minimalism about truth doesn’t by itself yield
the result that moral sentences are truth-conditional. (Jackson, Oppy and Smith
actually criticize a version of the anti-expressivist argument that appears in Horwich
[1998], but the criticism transposes to Boghossian’s version.)
Minimalism about Truth and Minimalism about Truth-Aptitude

Jackson, Oppy and Smith suggest that arguments like Boghossian’s fail to pay due
heed to the distinction between minimalism about truth and minimalism about
truth-aptitude:
There are … two quite separate questions. One is whether truth is, in some sense,
minimal. The other is whether, as some minimalists about truth also hold, truth-
aptness is. One question is what makes for truth among the truth-apt, what divides the
true from the false among the items that are apt for truth and falsity; the other question
is what makes for truth-aptness among the whole range of linguistic items, only some
of which are truth-apt. (Jackson et al. 2004: 237)
Given this, they conclude that there is no threat to expressivism from minimalism
about truth per se, and that any genuine threat to expressivism would have to come
from minimalism about truth-aptitude.
Disciplined Syntacticism
Put on one side the question whether minimalism about truth does or doesn’t entail
minimalism about truth-aptitude, and focus instead on the question whether there
is any defensible form of minimalism about truth-aptitude that is capable of
undercutting expressivism. Michael Smith, in both a singly authored paper (1994a)
and the joint paper with Jackson and Oppy cited above, argues that there is no plau-
sible form of minimalism about truth-aptitude that can undermine expressivism.
He argues that the forms of minimalism that would damage expressivism are
implausible and when they are amended so as to be plausible, they can actually be
embraced by the expressivist.
Smith takes as his stalking horse the conception of truth-aptitude proffered by
Crispin Wright in Truth and Objectivity (1992). Wright’s conception of truth-aptitude
5
is intended to flow from his variety of minimalism about truth. According to this,
“it is necessary and sufficient, in order for a predicate to count as a truth predicate,
that it satisfy each of a basic set of platitudes about truth: that to assert is to present
as true, that statements which are apt for truth have negations which are likewise,
that truth is one thing, justification another, and so on” (Wright 2003: 52). Wright
suggests that a suitable predicate – satisfying the relevant platitudes – will be defin-
able for a discourse, so long as it satisfies two basic conditions: “its ingredient sen-
tences are subject to certain minimal constraints of syntax – embeddability within
negation, the conditional, contexts of propositional attitude, and so on – and disci-
pline: their use must be governed by agreed standards of warrant” (2003: 52).
The minimalist conception of truth-aptitude favored by Wright can be called
“Disciplined Syntacticism” (DS). Moral discourse satisfies both the syntax condition
and the discipline condition. Participants in moral discourse do for example assent
to and dissent from moral sentences in response to changes in the information at
their disposal (hence the discipline condition is satisfied). Moreover, “If torture is
wrong then it will be outlawed,” “It is not the case that torture is wrong,” and “Bob
wonders whether torture is wrong” are (as noted above) syntactically well-formed
(hence the syntax condition is satisfied). So DS implies that moral sentences are
truth-apt, thus undermining expressivism.
Expressivists Should Love Minimalism about Truth-Aptitude

If DS is plausible, therefore, expressivism appears to be ruled out of court. But is DS
plausible? Smith (1994a) argues that it is implausible, because it leaves out of account
some of the platitudes that Wright himself views as governing the notion of truth:
the platitudes that “to assert a statement is to present it as true” (2003: 4) and that “if
someone makes an assertion, and is supposed sincere, it follows that she has a belief
whose content can be captured by means of the sentence used” (1992: 14). Call these
the “assertion–truth–belief ” platitudes. Smith argues that when DS is properly
enriched by explicitly including the assertion–truth–belief platitudes, the expressivist
can actually use the resulting conception of truth-aptitude (call it “true minimalism”)
to argue for the expressivist claim that moral sentences are not truth-apt.
Smith notes that expressivists and non-cognitivists have often argued that moral
judgments don’t express beliefs on the basis of a combination of motivational inter-
nalism and a Humean theory of motivation, where these can be expressed as follows:
Motivational Internalism (MI): It is a conceptually necessary truth that: if an

agent S makes a moral judgment, then, if S is practically rational, S will be moti-
vated to act in accord with the moral judgment.
Humean Theory of Motivation (HTM): Motivation is always a matter of having

both beliefs and desires, where beliefs and desires are “distinct existences” (i.e.,
such that there is no necessary connection between having a particular belief and
having a particular desire).
6
Expressivists typically take the conjunction of MI and HTM to be inconsistent with

cognitivism, the view that moral judgments express beliefs. Suppose that Helen, a
practically rational agent, makes a moral judgment. Assuming cognitivism for
reductio, Helen’s judgment expresses a moral belief. By MI it follows as a matter of
conceptual necessity that Helen is motivated to act in accord with her moral belief.
By HTM, Helen, since she is motivated to act, must have a desire that meshes with
the belief to result in motivation. The connection between that desire and her moral
belief is conceptually necessary, since there is a conceptually necessary relation
between the moral judgment that expresses the belief and the motivational state that
contains the desire. This contradicts HTM’s assertion that beliefs and desires
are “distinct existences” (see internalism, motivational; moral psychology;
motivation, humean theory of).
The conclusion of this argument is that moral judgments are not apt for the
expression of beliefs. From the assertion–truth–belief platitudes that are part of
“true minimalism,” if the sincere utterance of a sentence is an utterance of a truth-apt
sentence, then it is apt to express a belief whose content is captured by that sentence.
So, it follows that moral sentences are not truth-apt and not apt for the making of
assertions.
Thus, according to Smith, the expressivist can actually use the “true minimalist”
conception of truth-aptitude, together with MI and HTM, to derive his distinctive
claim that moral sentences are not truth-apt. Moreover, Smith argues, this way of
deriving the characteristic expressivist conclusion serves to further highlight
the importance of Blackburn’s quasi-realist version of expressivism. How can it be
that sentences belonging to a discourse that satisfies the conditions on discipline and
syntax nevertheless fail of truth-aptitude? How can sentences, sincere utterances
of which express non-cognitive attitudes rather than beliefs, have the sorts of
syntactic potentialities they do have, and be subject to the sort of discipline to which
they are actually subject? According to Smith, “true minimalism,” which adds the
assertion–truth–belief platitudes to DS, by highlighting these questions helps to
motivate the quasi-realist project of earning the right to the propositional surface of
moral discourse from a non-cognitive basis. As Smith might put it, ethical
expressivists should love (true) minimalism about truth-aptitude.
Ethical Expressivists Should Not Love Minimalism

about Truth-Aptitude
Against Smith, John Divers and Alex Miller argue that the line of argument outlined
above depends on “a notion of belief which is far more robust than that which is
constrained by the minimalist’s platitudes about truth” (1994: 16). In effect, they
suggest that if a discourse satisfies Wright’s two conditions on discipline and syntax,
so that its sentences are truth-apt by the lights of DS, then a notion of minimal belief
will be carried in train, so that utterances that are minimally truth-apt by the lights of
DS can be viewed as expressions of minimal beliefs, whose content can be given by
the minimally truth-apt sentences in question. In effect, this would show that there is
7
in fact no distinction of the sort between DS and “true minimalism” that allows Smith
to run his argument for the compatibility of expressivism and minimalism: DS would
itself have sufficient resources to capture the assertion–truth–belief platitudes.
Smith (1994b) and Jackson, Oppy and Smith (2004) argue in return that the
notion of “minimal belief ” is in fact not a notion of genuine belief at all: “Minimal
belief is no more belief than a decoy duck is a duck” (Jackson et al. 2004: 246). Divers
and Miller (1995) reply that minimal beliefs, as generated by DS, are genuine beliefs,
since DS has the resources to show that minimal beliefs satisfy the various platitudes
Jackson, Oppy, and Smith take to govern our conception of belief. Whereas minimal
beliefs satisfy these platitudes, decoy ducks don’t satisfy the platitudes governing our
conception of ducks (decoy ducks aren’t waterbirds).
See also: ayer, a. j.; emotivism; hare, r. m.; internalism, motivational;

metaethics; moral psychology; non-cognitivism; quasi-realism;
stevenson, c. l.; truth in ethics
REFERENCES
Ayer, A. J. 1946. Language, Truth and Logic. New York: Dover Press.
Blackburn, Simon. 1998. Ruling Passions. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Boghossian, Paul 2008. “The Status of Content,” in Content and Justification: Philosophical
Papers. Oxford: Clarendon Press. (Originally pub. in Philosophical Review, vol. 99
(1990), pp. 157–84.)
Divers, John, and Alexander Miller 1994. “Why Expressivists about Value Should Not Love
Minimalism about Truth,”Analysis, vol. 54, pp. 12–19. (Repr. in Fisher and Kirchin 2006.)
Divers, John, and Alexander Miller 1995. “Platitudes and Attitudes: A Minimalist Conception
of Belief,” Analysis, vol. 55, pp. 37–44.
Fisher, Andrew and Simon Kirchin (eds.) 2006. Arguing About Metaethics. London:
Routledge, 2006.
Horwich, Paul 1998. Truth, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jackson, Frank, Graeme Oppy, and Michael Smith 2004 [1995]. “Minimalism and Truth-
Aptness,” Mind, Morality and Explanation. Oxford: Clarendon Press. (Originally pub. in
Mind, vol. 103, pp. 287–302.)
Schroeder, Mark 2010. Noncognitivism in Ethics. New York: Routledge.
Smith, Michael 1994a. “Why Expressivists about Value Should Love Minimalism about
Truth,” Analysis, vol. 54: pp. 1–11. (Repr. in Fisher and Kirchin 2006.)
Smith, Michael. 1994b. “Minimalism, Truth-Aptitude and Belief,” Analysis, vol. 54, pp. 21–6.
Wright, Crispin 2003. Saving the Differences: Essays on Themes from “Truth and Objectivity.”
FURTHER READINGS
Blackburn, Simon 1998. “Wittgenstein, Wright, Rorty and Minimalism,” Mind, vol. 107,
pp. 157–81.
8
Dreier, James 1996. “Expressivist Embeddings and Minimalist Truth,” Philosophical Studies,
vol. 83, pp. 29–51.
Dreier, James 2004. “Meta-ethics and the Problem of Creeping Minimalism,” Philosophical
Perspectives, vol. 18, pp. 23–44.
Holton, Richard 2000. “Minimalism and Truth-Value Gaps,” Philosophical Studies, vol. 97,
pp. 137–68.
Horwich, Paul 1993. “Gibbard’s Theory of Norms,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 22,
pp. 67–78.
Horwich, Paul 1994. “The Essence of Expressivism,” Analysis, vol. 54, pp. 19–20.
Lenman, James 2003. “Disciplined Syntacticism and Moral Expressivism,” Philosophy and
O’Leary-Hawthorne, John and Huw Price 1996. “How to Stand Up for Non-Cognitivists,”
Sinclair, Neil 2008. “Propositional Clothing and Belief,” Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 57,
pp. 342–62.
Stoljar, Daniel 1993. “Emotivism and Truth Conditions,” Philosophical Studies, vol. 70,
pp. 81–101.
Wright, C. 1996. “Truth in Ethics,” in B. Hooker (ed.), Truth in Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell,
pp. 1–18.
Wright, C. 1998. “Comrades Against Quietism,” Mind, vol. 107, pp. 183–203.
1
Marion, Jean-Luc
Christina M. Gschwandtner
Jean-Luc Marion (born 1946) is one of France’s leading Descartes scholars and
phenomenologists. He teaches at the Sorbonne and the University of Chicago and is
a member of the Académie française. While his early work focuses primarily on
Descartes, he has also written extensively in theology and phenomenology (see
phenomenology, moral). Ethics is not one of his central concerns; in fact, he
thinks that ethics in the traditional sense is no longer possible today. This essay will
briefly present Marion’s overall philosophical work, then explicate the few explicit
remarks he makes about ethics, and finally give some suggestions about what type of
ethics might still be possible within the parameters of his phenomenology.
Marion’s earliest work examines Descartes’ metaphysics. He argues that for
Descartes ontology becomes dependent upon epistemology: beings are as they are
perceived by the ego cogito. Marion employs Heidegger’s definition of metaphysics
as onto-theo-logy (the claim that metaphysics relies on a doctrine of being which is
grounded in a supreme being, but leaves the question of Being as such unexamined –
it forgets the difference between “beings” and “Being”) and asserts that Descartes’
metaphysical system can indeed be seen as relying on such onto-theo-logical
foundations: all beings ground their being on a supreme being (first the ego cogito,
later God as the infinite who grounds even the being of the cogito). Marion also
shows that Descartes’ work has important theological implications, although he
himself does not engage in theology per se. Descartes refuses to make God subject to
human logic and argues that “eternal truths,” such as mathematical principles and
logic, are created by and depend on God. Descartes rejects all univocal ways of
talking about God, but also no longer has access to medieval ways of analogy (which
establish a relation between divine and human instead of identifying or separating
them entirely). Finally, Marion examines Descartes’ proofs for God’s existence,
especially that of the causa sui, which Marion argues Descartes is the first to embrace
in a (failed) attempt to speak of God analogically.
Similar concerns drive Marion’s more phenomenological project. Marion relies
on but also criticizes Husserlian and Heideggerian phenomenology. Phenomenology
examines the way phenomena appear to our consciousness. In Husserl especially
(see husserl, edmund), this assumes an interplay of “intuition” (how phenomena
are apprehended or give themselves) and “intention” (how consciousness receives or
perceives these phenomena). Consciousness is essentially “intentional” in that it is
directed toward phenomena. Heidegger (see heidegger, martin) carried this
project further by focusing not only on the appearance or apprehension of objects,
but examining moods and other rich human experiences. In Reduction and Givenness
(1998) Marion criticizes both thinkers for their emphases on a phenomenology
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee166
2
of objects (Husserl) or of being (Heidegger), which ultimately come to limit the
self-showing of the phenomenon. Instead he argues for the radical givenness of the
phenomenon to intuition and thus for a phenomenology of givenness where the
phenomenon can truly give itself as itself without any restrictions by the intentionality
of consciousness. This phenomenology of givenness is laid out in Being Given
(Marion 2002b). Even the phenomenological horizon and the receptive I (constituting
the phenomenality of phenomena) must be set aside for some particularly excessive,
or saturated, phenomena. Saturated phenomena are those which provide more intu-
ition than intention. They cannot be defined or controlled by consciousness because
they are so overwhelming that they blind us. Instead their phenomenality is experi-
enced as the excess which strikes us and which we have to make visible by receiving
it and responding to it. Saturated phenomena come in four kinds (as announced
in Being Given but explored in much more detail in In Excess [Marion 2002a] and in
several essays in The Visible and the Revealed [Marion 2008]). They can be saturated
in terms of quantity (giving too much) as the historical or cultural event, by their
dazzling quality as the idol or the painting/work of art, as utterly immediate
in relation as the human flesh, or in terms of modality as the icon or the face of
the other.
Marion had already employed the language of idol and icon earlier in three
primarily theological works, Idol and Distance (2001), God Without Being (1991),
and The Crossing of the Visible (2004), where the idol stands for a way to approach
the divine with a controlling gaze which stops at the idol and is reflected back on the
self as an invisible mirror. The icon, conversely, preserves distance and connotes an
opening of the gaze to be envisaged by the other, by the gaze that comes through the
icon toward the viewer. This language shifts somewhat as it is taken up in his
phenomenology of givenness, where idol stands for paintings or works of art more
generally and icon for an encounter with the human other. His concern with the
divine also finds a place in his phenomenology. In God Without Being he had argued
for an approach to God that does not limit the divine to the language of being, but
instead employed the language of the good or of love. Ontological language is
ultimately idolatrous because it reduces the divine to “a being” where being is used
univocally of humans and the divine. Instead God always comes from an infinite
distance and far exceeds any concepts. In his phenomenology Marion explores the
notion of a phenomenon of revelation, a possibility phenomenology can explore,
even if philosophy cannot say anything about whether such phenomena do actually
occur (a task left to theology). A phenomenon of revelation would be one that is
saturated in all four respects: quantity, quality, relation, and modality. Such a
phenomenon would explode all our parameters for apprehending it.
More recently, Marion (2007) has explored the topic of love (see love) in more
detail in six studies focused on the “erotic phenomenon.” He argues that a phenom-
enology of eros shows love to be outside metaphysical parameters. The self is
radically redefined as the lover who is completely open to and given over to the
beloved, loves without any reciprocity (see reciprocity). He continues this
argument in another recent work, In the Self ’s Place (2012), which in the form of an
3
analysis of Augustine’s Confessions (see augustine, saint) explores the role of the
self. Here also love is the supreme relation to the other and the self is only received
as a gift of the love of the (divine) other. This culminates in Certitudes négatives
(2010) in an examination of self, other, God, and gift as phenomena that cannot be
defined and thus give rise to a kind of “negative certainty” – we know precisely that
such phenomena are unknowable and defy metaphysical certainty which is
concerned with objectivity.
Marion has written very little explicitly on the topic of ethics. At times he has been
criticized for his lack of interest in ethics and politics. Gerald McKenny argues that
while Marion does not replace ethics with love as may seem to be the case at first
glance, the two remain in an ambivalent relationship in Marion’s work. While love
seems to assume an ethical stance, it also subsumes and ultimately replaces it.
McKenny especially criticizes the fact that love is primarily about knowledge of the
other rather than about deeds (McKenny 2007). Marion gives two reasons for his
lack of engagement with the topic of ethics. In an early article he associates ethics as
a philosophical discipline with metaphysics. As most of his project is concerned to
speak after the death of metaphysics, it thus also speaks after the demise of ethics:
“We venture to say here that, as a correlate to the end of metaphysics, modernity also
witnesses the thorough undoing of ethics” (Marion 2002c: 31). Second, Marion
points to Emmanuel Levinas (see levinas, emmanuel) as having already accom-
plished what is most important to say on this subject. In fact, Marion criticizes
Levinas for being so exclusively concerned with ethics. I will briefly examine both of
these claims: first, his claim that the “death of God” makes traditional notions of
ethics unconvincing, then his reliance on Levinas’ critique of ethics.
Marion’s only explicit discussion of ethics is found in a very early article (written
in 1988) which thus must be treated with some caution and not be regarded as his
definitive word on the subject. In this essay, “The Freedom to Be Free” (2002c:
31–52), he leans primarily on Kant (see kant, immanuel) for a traditional meta-
physical paradigm for ethics which is no longer possible today. Ethics has found its
end in modernity. Universal moral norms are no longer convincing, but have
become the tools of totalitarian regimes which try to bring about the universal
through violent means. The critique of reason has also emptied any transcendental
injunction of respect. Technology and ideology have wedded us to the particular,
individual, and hypothetical. The will to power (see nietzsche, friedrich) has
eliminated all free will to choose the moral norm. Instead, Marion suggests that we
must now engage in the supreme moral risk: to act as if a cause or action were moral,
to commit oneself to it entirely while knowing full well that it might be questionable
or even immoral: “Moral is the act that remains so, despite the risk of not being so.
Moral is the act that accepts losing itself in the sole hope, rather than the assurance,
that this loss is moral” (2002c: 44). Morality thus becomes a personal act of commit-
ment in the face of uncertainty and even absurdity. Marion posits this as a “reversal
of the relations between freedom and rationality” (2002c: 47). No longer does ration-
ality determine ethics via concepts, but freedom exercises itself in the face of ration-
ality, possibly opposed to it. Marion compares this to the absurdity of love where I
4
cannot control the other’s response, but must act as if I were loved and in the hope
that the other will return my love. (He returns to this argument about love in The
Erotic Phenomenon [2007].) Ethics can thus be thought of only in the radical experi-
ence of freedom as supreme possibility in which we always already find ourselves
and as supreme risk because unconditional and not at our disposal. Freedom antici-
pates me and eludes me (Marion 2002c: 50). This freedom of morality is “pure pos-
sibility” (2002c: 52). While Marion speaks of possibility and love in other places, he
never returns to the topic of ethics per se. Yet it may well be argued that this position
of openness and risk also characterizes the response to the saturated phenomenon
more generally (see below).
Marion makes some further statements on ethics in an article on painting.
Although ethics is not the concern of this piece, he implies that painting has ethical
implications and makes ethical statements (2002a: 75–81). He contrasts the violence
toward the human face he perceives in Picasso and Cézanne with the reluctance to
portray the human figure (and especially the face) in Rothko. The human face
cannot enter into (flat) visibility, because that would mean to destroy and violate it,
thus to act immorally. Rothko’s refusal to do so is “a truly ethical decision” (Marion
2002a: 76). The human cannot be portrayed but can only be encountered in the
invisibility of the gaze in which the other addresses me. Recalling Levinas, Marion
says: “The face does not appear; it manifests itself by the responsibility it inspires in
me” (2002a: 78). The inability to portray the face of another person pictorially is “a
properly ethical prohibition” (2002a: 79). Here Marion assumes a Levinassian posi-
tion about what constitutes a moral stance.
This is also true more generally. When Marion briefly refers to ethics in other
contexts, he usually relies on Levinas for his statements. Thus, a second reason for
his own silence on the topic may well be the profound influence of Levinas’
philosophy on French philosophy in general and Marion’s in particular. Marion
clearly thinks that Levinas has provided an ethics for postmodernity and indeed
outlined the only way in which ethics is still possible after metaphysics (see
twentieth-century continental ethics). Marion throughout assumes Levinas’
thought and credits him with important phenomenological insights. And some
Levinassian ethical connotations can still be detected in Marion’s exposition of the
phenomenological recipient, although he does not make them explicit. Marion
conceives of the phenomenological self as a recipient or a witness (see especially his
discussion in Being Given [2002b: 248–319]). The new self is constituted by the
incoming phenomenon and by the response to it, not by any kind of mastery or
control. The self receives the phenomenon; it does not determine it. Hence there is
a certain moral dimension to this saturated phenomenality. It assumes a position of
response and responsibility (see responsibility). The recipient is to receive the
phenomenon as it gives itself, to phenomenalize it as it comes without imposing
conditions upon it, passively to witness to it (interloqué – the term Marion uses at
first – can mean questioned, cross-examined, or called to judgment). In fact, the
recipient or witness becomes devoted to the phenomenon, given over to it, obsessed
with it as the artist with a creative vision, even addicted to it (the later term adonné
5
has all these connotations). There is thus a certain moral dimension to the receptivity
of all rich phenomena in Marion.
Yet Marion also stresses that this response to the call is not merely ethical. He
criticizes Levinas for his exclusive emphasis on ethics. While he considers Levinas to
have formulated the moral response to the saturated phenomenon of the face and
credits him with first elaborating the notion of counter-intentionality in which the
call constitutes and calls forth the response phenomenologically, Marion broadens
the response to the appeal to include any type of saturated phenomenon, not merely
the ethical call of the human face (2002b: 267). While Kantian respect (see respect)
serves as a convenient example for the superabundance of the saturated phenome-
non and the overwhelmed response it evokes (Marion 2002b: 279–82), many other
responses are possible. The response manifests and identifies the call (Marion 2002b:
288–90). Again, a certain type of risk (e.g., of inadequacy or misrecognition) is
involved. Immense responsibility accompanies my response to the call. Yet, this
responsibility is not solely ethical: “Responsibility cannot be restricted to just one of
the paradoxes – the icon, however privileged it might be – nor confined to just one
horizon, be this the ethical. Responsibility belongs officially to all phenomenality
that is deployed according to givenness” (Marion 2002b: 293). The call thus remains
anonymous and is identified only by the response of the one devoted to it who hears
its summons. In a later discussion of the face, Marion similarly insists that Levinas
restricts the call of the saturated phenomenon to the ethical call, but that contra
Levinas the call is much wider (2002a: 117–27).
In a somewhat later text which considers the face directly as the saturated
phenomenon of the icon (Marion 2002b: 104–27), Marion explicitly returns to
Levinas for his analysis of the face. The face speaks to me (“Thou shalt not kill!”)
and evokes my respect for its moral injunction. I must submit myself to the face of
the other. Killing it (even metaphorically) means to have already reduced its infi-
nite saturation, not to have recognized it as a face, that is, as the saturated phenom-
enon of the icon. Yet, here Marion also criticizes Levinas for focusing too exclusively
on ethics. The icon or the face directs an appeal to me to which I am to respond.
But this appeal need not be a moral one, it could also be the call of Being or a
divine summons. The moral call to responsibility as outlined by Levinas is one
instance of the saturated phenomenon of the other, yet not the only or primary
one. Near the end of the article Marion envisions the possibility of a moral holiness
which is based on the freedom necessary for being faithful to the memory of the
other (2002a: 126–7).
Marion carries this furthest in the first chapter of Certitudes négatives, where he is
concerned with what it means to be human (2010: 21–86). He shows that any
determination or definition of the human reduces it to an object. My true self escapes
my reduction to a medical, economic, or political object. Marion engages in brief
reflections on issues surrounding the beginning and end of life, the reduction of
humans to objects within the processes of consumption and exchange, and the status
of refugees (see refugees) and stateless persons. He suggests that all the debates
about the beginning and end of life, for example, ultimately are about medical
6
“objects” and thus no longer about a human person. A “good death” is one where I
(as a “flesh”) am still fully alive and not an object (or “body”) artificially kept breath-
ing by machines. Similarly, it is not the dead piece of paper (the passport) that turns
someone into a human being. We treat refugees or immigrants as if they were not
fully human. Marion suggests that any racism, ethnic cleansing, and similar murder-
ous atrocities presuppose a nihilistic attitude to the person: I have to define others as
less than human in order to subjugate or eliminate them. Here Marion presents his
phenomenology of givenness more generally as an attempt to combat the danger of
nihilism that reduces to objectivity or scientific certainty all that is truly meaningful:
God, self, other, history, and culture.
Thus Marion’s position on ethics might be summarized as follows. First, it implies
a critique of ethics as linked to a eudaimonic (see eudaimonism) or utilitarian (see
utilitarianism) metaphysics or indeed anything that tries to provide a clear defini-
tion or determination of the human. The pursuit of happiness, self-fulfillment, or
desire for pleasure is consistently rejected by Marion’s phenomenology. The self after
the subjectivity of modernity is a displaced, unstable, receptive self that finds itself
confronted by the primacy and priority of the other in the widest sense. Morality
thus speaks more generally of the open position toward phenomena that characterizes
our receptivity toward the givenness of all experience. It is moral to receive the
phenomenon in complete openness, as it gives itself, without imposing any
conditions upon it and without any expectation of reciprocity. Any definition or
objectification of the human leads to nihilism. Yet, such a stance is not merely moral,
but culminates in love: in devotion to the phenomenon, care for it, complete aban-
donment of self to it. Ethics, then, is essentially sacrificial in character, even as it is
only one such self-emptying response among other possible ones. Were Marion to
continue the early analysis of ethics as the radical stance of “as if ” more explicitly, he
would most likely depict ethics in terms of our responsibility to the self-givenness of
the phenomenon, a responsibility that always includes an evacuation of the self and
limitless sacrificial love for the other.
See also: augustine, saint; eudaimonism; heidegger, martin; husserl,

edmund; kant, immanuel; levinas, emmanuel; love; nietzsche, friedrich;
phenomenology, moral; reciprocity; refugees; respect; responsibility;
twentieth-century continental ethics; utilitarianism
REFERENCES
McKenny, Gerald 2007. “(Re)placing Ethics: Jean-Luc Marion and the Horizon of Modern
Morality,” in Kevin Hart (ed.), Counter-Experiences: Reading Jean-Luc Marion. Notre
Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, pp. 339–55.
Marion, Jean-Luc 1991. God Without Being, trans. Thomas A. Carlson. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.
Marion, Jean-Luc 1998. Reduction and Givenness, trans. Thomas A. Carlson. Evanston, IL:
7
Marion, Jean-Luc 2001. The Idol and Distance: Five Studies, trans. Thomas A. Carlson. New
York: Fordham University Press.
Marion, Jean-Luc 2002a. In Excess: Studies of Saturated Phenomena, trans. Robyn Horner and
Vincent Berraud. New York: Fordham University Press.
Marion, Jean-Luc 2002b. Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness, trans. Jeffrey
L. Kosky. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Marion, Jean-Luc 2002c. Prolegomena to Charity, trans. Stephen E. Lewis. New York:
Fordham University Press.
Marion, Jean-Luc 2004. The Crossing of the Visible, trans. James K. A. Smith. Stanford:
Stanford University Press.
Marion, Jean-Luc 2007. The Erotic Phenomenon, trans. Stephen E. Lewis. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.
Marion, Jean-Luc 2008. The Visible and the Revealed. New York: Fordham University
Press.
Marion, Jean-Luc 2010. Certitudes négatives. Paris: Grasset.
Marion, Jean-Luc 2012. In the Self ’s Place: The Approach of Saint Augustine, trans. Jeffrey L.
Kosky. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
FURTHER READINGS
Benson, Bruce Ellis, and Norman Wirzba (eds.) 2010. Words of Life: New Theological Turns in
French Phenomenology. New York: Fordham University Press.
Caputo, John D., and Michael J. Scanlon (eds.) 1998. God, the Gift, and Postmodernism. Notre
Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press.
Gschwandtner, Christina M. 2007. Reading Jean-Luc Marion: Exceeding Metaphysics.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Hart, Kevin (ed.) 2007. Counter-Experiences: Reading Jean-Luc Marion. Notre Dame, IN:
Notre Dame University Press.
Horner, Robyn 2001. Rethinking God as Gift: Derrida, Marion, and the Limits of Phenome-
nology. New York: Fordham University Press.
Horner, Robyn 2005. Jean-Luc Marion: A Theo-Logical Introduction. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Janicaud, Dominique 2005. Phenomenology “Wide Open”: After the French Debate, trans.
Charles N. Cabral. New York: Fordham University Press.
Janicaud, Dominique, Jean-François Courtine, Jean-Louis Chrétien, et al. 2000. Phenomenology
and the “Theological Turn”: The French Debate. New York: Fordham University Press.
Jones, Tamsin 2011. A Genealogy of Marion’s Philosophy of Religion: Apparent Darkness.
Leask, Ian, and Eoin Cassidy (eds.) 2005. Givenness and God: Questions of Jean-Luc Marion.
New York: Fordham University Press.
Mackinlay, Shane 2009. Interpreting Excess: Jean-Luc Marion, Saturated Phenomenon, and
Hermeneutics. New York: Fordham University Press.
1
Deterrence
Anthony Ellis
To deter is to discourage an action, or inaction, by threatening, or warning of,

retaliation in the event of noncompliance – as in, say, “Trespassers will be prosecuted.”
Deterrence should be distinguished from prevention, since a deterrent threat
typically does not actually prevent the agent from carrying out the action. (However,
deterrence is often listed as one of the ways in which punishment contributes to
“crime prevention.”) Deterrence is often said to work by instilling fear, but this is
true in only the most general sense; one may wish to avoid a disbenefit without, in
the strict sense, fearing it. It is therefore multiply inaccurate to say “Deterrence is the
straightforward, commonsense notion that if you do something wrong, you will
be punished, and the punishment will prevent you from doing that wrong thing
again. According to this notion, fear of a future punishment dictates the actions
people choose” (Levinson 2002: 512). The words “prevent,” “fear,” and “dictate” are
quite misleading, as are the ideas that punishment, as opposed to the threat of
punishment, can deter and that it can work only after one has first been punished.
The simplest type of deterrent threat is the uttering of a threat of specified
retaliation in the event of a specified action’s being performed. Here, in principle, the
one who is threatened knows exactly what the cost of noncompliance will be and
the threatener retains a relatively firm hold of the situation. A less firm hold of the
situation is yielded by more or less automatic deterrent systems, such as electronic
fences with suitable warnings posted. The threatened retaliation may also be more
indeterminate, as may also be the uttering of the threat. For instance, random acts of
violence carried out by gangs may be intended to carry an implicit, though vague,
deterrent threat to those who witness them or hear about them.
Most people think that the use of deterrent threats is, in itself, morally neutral.
They can certainly be used for wrongful purposes, as when an offender, about to be
arrested, threatens the policeman with retaliation, or threatens jurors with retaliation
should he be convicted. Again, they can be used by dictators or mobsters to terrorize
a population. But they can also be used in justifiable self-defense, as when a potential
aggressor is threatened with legitimate retaliation if he actually aggresses. When the
purpose of a deterrent threat is wrongful, no moral dilemma arises, since the threat
is simply wrong. But when it is legitimate, two related moral problems arise.
One is whether it is legitimate to carry out the threatened retaliation if the threat
does not deter. If the only purpose of the threat was to deter, and it has failed to do
that, actual retaliation may then seem pointless. Retaliation could then perhaps be
justified if, for example, it served to strengthen the credibility of future threats and
so deter others, or to make the aggressor himself more deterrable; but these sugges-
tions, as we shall see, raise problems of their own. It might also be held that since an
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee167
2
aggressor puts himself in the wrong, he has no rights that can be violated by carrying
out the retaliation. But probably few people would agree with this. It could also be
justified by appealing to some further end, such as retribution or revenge, but then
we have left deterrence behind.
The second problem concerns what level of retaliation it is justified to threaten.
This will depend upon such competing considerations as how likely it is that the
potential aggression would take place without the deterrent threat, how serious it
would be if it did take place, how likely it is that the threat will deter, and other
effects on the aggressor and on the uninvolved. There would presumably be no
objection to posting notices around one’s apple orchard announcing that trespassers
would be prosecuted in order to deter children from stealing one’s apples; but
erecting a high-voltage electrical fence, even with adequate warnings posted, would
be quite another matter; it would strike most people as unacceptably dangerous to
innocent passersby as well as out of proportion to the loss of a few apples. However,
unless one adopts something like straightforward utilitarianism, which requires one
to perform, of those actions that it is possible to perform, the one that yields the
greatest benefit to all concerned, it is difficult to know how the competing consid-
erations just mentioned should be compared.
Perhaps the two most familiar, and most controversial, uses of deterrence are in
the theory of punishment and in international affairs.
Nuclear Deterrence
Deterrence has been widely used in international affairs, expressed in the idea that
the point of armies is not to fight wars but to prevent them. It probably became most
controversial in the age of “nuclear deterrence” when a number of countries, begin-
ning with the United States, deployed large-scale nuclear weapons as a deterrent
threat (see nuclear weapons). This reached its height in the doctrine of MAD –
Mutually Assured Destruction – in which the US and the USSR faced each other
with a large number of nuclear weapons, the system set to deliver nuclear retaliation
more or less automatically at the first sign of an attack and thus deliver widespread
destruction on a hitherto unimaginable scale.
This gave rise to complex moral problems. Large-scale nuclear weapons, begin-
ning with the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, have been deliberately aimed at
civilian populations, and so any civilian deaths and sufferings that a nuclear war
would have involved could not have been justified by the doctrine of double effect –
the idea that these deaths were not intended either as a means or an end, but were
simply acceptable “collateral damage,” a foreseen, and proportional, side effect of
acceptable military action (see doctrine of double effect; collateral
damage). There was some attempt to justify the deployment of nuclear weapons by
this argument, but, given the scale of their destructiveness, such an argument
seemed implausible. It has thus seemed to many that those civilians were being used
as merely a means, in contravention of a well-known moral maxim that one should
never treat another person merely as a means, but also as an end in himself – roughly,
3
that is to say that one should always respect his capacity for rational autonomy (Kant
1997; see kant, immanuel). And it is now widely accepted, even by those who
approve of it, that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was indeed intended to
kill large numbers of civilians in order to bring pressure to bear on the Japanese
government. Nuclear deterrence was thus likened by many to a form of terrorism,
though the analogy is, at best, a rough one. There has, however, been considerable
doubt about what this Kantian principle actually involves and whether it is correct.
We shall return to this.
Even if we put these Kantian considerations aside, there remains the scale of
destruction that nuclear war might have caused. Many thought that, given what they
took to be the small risk of a nuclear exchange, and the massive benefit of avoiding
a large-scale nonnuclear war, nuclear deterrence was a reasonable strategy. But,
given the scale of the possible destruction, many were reluctant to reason in this
way; some thought that nothing at all could justify the risk of such destruction.
To what extent the system of nuclear deterrence actually worked is still a matter of
controversy. After 1945 there was no major war between the USSR and NATO, or
between major European countries; and some attribute this to the effect of nuclear
deterrence. NATO and the USSR, however, probably came close to nuclear war in
1962 in the so-called “Cuban missile crisis” (though the precise situation remains
the subject of dispute). And proxies of the USSR and the US fought many smaller
wars during this period. It is unclear whether the threat of nuclear destruction
prevented these smaller wars from escalating, though it is hard to believe that it
had no effect.
Punishment
The second major application of the notion of deterrence is in the theory of punishment.
Deterrence has probably always been held to be one of the aims of punishment. It
is hard not to believe that the brutal punishments threatened in the Code of
Hammurabi (ca. 1790 bce) and other early Mesopotamian law codes did not have
deterrence at least partly in mind; with a few exceptions, they were certainly not
based on the Lex Talionis as is often claimed. The third-century bce writer Diogenes
Laertius clearly attributes the theory to Pittacus, a seventh-century bce Greek
statesman. And it was accepted as one of the purposes of punishment by, for instance,
Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Grotius, Hobbes, Locke, Beccaria, and Bentham (see
plato; aristotle; aquinas, saint thomas; grotius, hugo; hobbes, thomas;
locke, john; bentham, jeremy).
Deterrence in punishment is often divided into special deterrence (the effect of
punishment on the actual offender) and general deterrence (the effect on the general
population). But making the distinction in these terms is misleading: “particular
deterrence” is not really a form of deterrence at all, because actual punishment, in
itself, has no deterrent value; only the threat of future punishment can have that. So
if actual punishment makes the offender less likely to commit future crimes, it can
do so only by making him more deterrable, and this is really a matter of reform; only
4
threats of more punishment can deter him, but that is just “general deterrence” again
because his future self is now subsumed in the general population. And in the way
that actual punishment may make actual offenders more deterrable, it can, given
suitable publicity, make potential offenders more deterrable too – though leaving it
to threats of future punishment to deter them. Punishment, and the threat of
punishment, then, work in exactly the same way for both actual offenders and
potential offenders, and so there is little work for the distinction to do.
The idea that the threat of punishment must act as a deterrent is based on what
seems like a simple theory of rational action. Humans are rational agents. Rational
agents wish, within certain limits anyway, to maximize their utility: roughly, they
will want to ensure that the ratio of benefits to costs of a proposed action is at least
as favorable as for any alternative action they could perform. The threat of punish-
ment increases expected costs as a function of its severity and its probability. So a
sufficiently serious punishment threatened with sufficient credibility must deter any
crime that is targeted. (Of course, not all human beings are rational; there are small
children, the insane, psychopaths perhaps, but the general run of offenders do not
fall into these classes.)
Though it is widely accepted that rational people do not act so as to maximize
their utility in some special circumstances, the general principle, at least for most
cases, seems plausible. Unsurprisingly, then, the econometric work finds that
punishment has a significant deterrent effect (see the classic work by Becker
1968). The evidence tends to show, however, that the probability of punishment
is a more important component of deterrence than is the severity of the punishment
threatened.
There is, of course, considerable controversy among economists and others about
the econometric method in this area. However, there is a general consensus among
penologists that punishment, either directly or indirectly, acts as a deterrent
(Walker 1991: 15; Nagin 2000: 346). Certainly, short-term effects seem to have been
convincingly demonstrated, as in the case of “highly publicized enforcement cam-
paigns” on drunken driving, for example (Ross 1984: 103). But it has been hard to
find substantial evidence of the long-term deterrent effect of punishment on the
population at large or on recidivist offenders. This, however, might simply be a
reflection of the complexity of the problem and the attendant inadequacy of the
research methods.
The difficulty of the research is well known (Zimring and Hawkins 1973). The
long-term effects of the threat of punishment on the population in general can
obviously be discovered only by extensive, long-term studies, and these are expensive
and difficult. And it may be that the threat of legal punishment works not only as a
direct deterrent, but also indirectly by helping to inculcate desired attitudes in
citizens, by stigmatizing undesired behavior, and so on. And for the effects of actual
punishments on those who have already offended, we are forced to rely on such
things as self-reporting, and police and court records, to discover which offenders
reoffended; both sources are notoriously unreliable. And even when offenders
5
clearly do not reoffend it may be hard to disentangle the effects of punishment from
other causes of their behavior.
Even if we could establish that citizens in general were adequately deterred by the
threat of punishment, it would not follow that the types of offender that (rightly or
wrongly) cause most public concern are also adequately deterred. There may be
numerous reasons for this. Offenders may often have impulsive characters that
overcome their generally rational thought. They may be more likely to drink alcohol
or take drugs, which may impair their rational thought or make them more
aggressive. They may be particularly ill-informed about the severity of threatened
punishments, or about the general likelihood of detection. They may have a tendency
to overestimate their particular chances of evading detection. Young males are vastly
overrepresented in the population of offenders; there may be characteristics (imma-
turity, aggression, for instance) which make them more likely to offend. And in
some subpopulations the deterrent effect of punishment may be offset by its having
become, to some extent, a rite de passage for young males.
The general deterrent effect has often been criticized on the ground that it contra-
venes the Kantian moral principle mentioned earlier. Punishing offenders in order
to make future threats more credible and thereby influence the behavior of others
seems to be using offenders merely as a tool. It may also be thought that the use of
threats in itself does not respect the rational autonomy of those to whom they are
addressed (Duff 1983: 179f.), though few hold this view. The interpretation and
correctness of the Kantian principle has been the subject of much discussion. But
I think we can assume that, prima facie at least, the principle is contravened when
one is (a) doing something unpleasant to someone, (b) without their consent, and
(c) in order to affect the behavior of others. General deterrent punishment seems to
satisfy these conditions.
Perhaps the most obvious way of surmounting this objection to deterrent
punishment is simply to deny the Kantian principle, and hold that using someone
merely as a means is not wrong. This is the position of utilitarians for whom the
value of persons reduces entirely to their capacity to experience happiness; they
are thus inevitably used merely as a means. But most people are unwilling to deny
the principle outright, since it seems to be the best explanation of many of our
ordinary moral views (such as that we should not lie to someone even if the overall
benefit of lying is somewhat greater than the overall benefit of telling the truth). The
alternative path, then, is to accept some version of the Kantian principle but hold
that deterrent punishment does not violate it.
One could hold, for instance, that the principle, though valid in itself, is not
the whole of morality; it holds only up to a certain threshold and then gives way
to the need to avoid particularly bad consequences, and that punishment has
sufficient deterrent effect that to give it up would be calamitous. This perhaps
reflects the structure of ordinary moral thought, but invites the difficult
question of just how bad the consequences of adhering to the principle need to
be before it is right to abandon it.
6
Another way to avoid the problem would be to hold that the principle not only
imposes a duty (see duty and obligation), but also bestows a right (see rights),
the right not to be used merely as a means; and it might then be held that offenders
have forfeited this right just as they forfeit other rights. But this is problematic: at
least for Kant, the right is bestowed simply in virtue of possessing the capacity for
rational autonomy, and most offenders surely continue to have that capacity.
A fourth solution might be to hold that offenders freely consent to their punish-
ment. A limited version of this would hold that whenever offenders take advantage
of the resources created by society they consent to abide by the rules that make this
possible (Grotius 1901: Ch. xx: 1; ii; 4); a slightly less limited version would hold that
one consents to all of the known consequences of one’s free actions (Nino 1983). But
the first principle depends on the notion that, in return for the benefits bestowed by
society, one “tacitly consents” to the burdens imposed, and many think that the sim-
ple receipt of benefits, especially benefits which one cannot reasonably avoid, does
not signify consent. And both principles seem to have the consequence that any
punishment, however disproportionate to the crime, would be justified by this
“tacit” consent, and this seems wrong. In addition, voluntarily accepting a risk, as
offenders do, is not equivalent to consenting to the harm risked (drivers voluntarily
expose themselves to risks imposed by other, reckless, drivers, but they cannot be
said to consent to any harm that ensues).
A fifth solution would be to hold that offenders are not in fact punished to deter
others, as the traditional understanding of the deterrence theory suggests. Particular
offenders are punished simply because they broke the law, and the institution of
punishment requires that they be punished, whether this will deter others or not; so
actual, individual punishments do not violate the Kantian principle. The penal insti-
tution, with its threat of retaliation against offenders, is certainly intended to deter the
potential offenders to whom it is addressed; but it is not intended to deter them by
punishing actual offenders – the whole of the deterrent force is carried by the threat
alone. So the institution in turn does not violate the Kantian principle (Ellis 2003).
See also: aquinas, saint thomas; aristotle; bentham, jeremy; collateral

damage; doctrine of double effect; duty and obligation; grotius, hugo;
hobbes, thomas; kant, immanuel; locke, john; nuclear weapons; plato;
rights
REFERENCES
Becker, Gary S. 1968. “Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach,” Journal of Political
Economy, vol. 76, pp. 169–217.
Duff, Antony 1983. Trials and Punishments. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ellis, Anthony 2003. “A Deterrence Theory of Punishment,” Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 53,
pp. 338–51.
Grotius, H. 1901 [1625]. The Rights of War and Peace, trans. A. C. Campbell. New York:
M. Walter Dunne.
7
Kant, I. 1997 [1785]. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Mary Gregor.
Levinson, D. (ed.) 2002. The Encyclopedia of Crime and Punishment, vol. 1. London: Sage.
Nagin, Daniel S. 2000. “Deterrence and Incapacitation,” in Michael Tonry (ed.), The Handbook
of Crime and Punishment. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 345–68.
Nino, C. S. 1983. “A Consensual Theory of Punishment,” Philosophy and Public Affairs,
vol. 12, pp. 289–306.
Ross, H. Laurence 1984. Deterring the Drinking Driver. Lexington, MA: Heath.
Walker, Nigel 1991. Why Punish. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Zimring, Franklin E., and Gordon J. Hawkins 1973. Deterrence. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
FURTHER READINGS
Acton, H. B. (ed.) 1969. The Philosophy of Punishment: A Collection of Papers. London:
Macmillan.
Davis, Michael 1992. To Make the Punishment Fit the Crime: Essays in the Theory of Criminal
Justice. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Duff, Antony 2001. Punishment: Communication, and Community. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Duff, Antony, and David Garland (eds.) 1994. A Reader on Punishment. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Farrell, Daniel M. 1995. “Deterrence and the Just Distribution of Harm,” Social Philosophy
Freedman, Lawrence 2004. Deterrence. Cambridge: Polity.
Hart, H. L. A. 1968. Punishment and Responsibility: Essays in the Philosophy of Law. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
Hill, Thomas E., Jr. 1992. “Humanity as an End in Itself,” in Dignity and Practical Reason in
Kant’s Moral Theory. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Quinn, Warren 1985. “The Right to Threaten and the Right to Punish,” Philosophy and Public
von Hirsch, Andrew 1993. Censure and Sanctions. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
1
Authority
David McCabe
Authority
The idea of authority allows broader and narrower construals. Broadly, it denotes the
condition wherein an individual ought to conform to some standard outside himself
(e.g., canons of reasoning, moral norms, human ideals) irrespective of his own pref-
erence or judgment in the matter. It is in this sense that a Nietzschean superhero
might deny ordinary moral norms any authority. But authority also, and more com-
monly, takes a narrower interpretation, specifying a normative relation between
persons. This essay concentrates on authority in this narrower, interpersonal sense.
In that sense authority captures the idea that the pronouncement of one person
(or group: assume this qualification from here on) ought by itself to command the
assent of another without regard to the latter’s own judgment of the issue at hand.
Authority thus stands distinct from both force and persuasion: the former bypasses
the subject’s assent, while the latter seeks it by appeal to the subject’s own assessment
of the relevant reasons (Arendt 1961). Authority, in contrast, seeks assent just by
virtue of the superior’s say-so.
Within authority so construed, theorists distinguish theoretical from practical
authority. In cases of theoretical authority the less knowledgeable person ought to
form a belief aligning with the authority’s pronouncement. Practical authority is
marked by the giving of commands to which the appropriate response is not forming
a belief but acting as the authority commands. This distinction correlates with that
between someone who is an authority (by virtue of special knowledge) and one who
is in authority (perhaps by virtue of possessing powers accompanying some posi-
tion within a recognized system of rules) (Friedman 1973). Few theorists are
troubled by either the notion of theoretical authority or what might justify it.
Practical authority, with its idea that the mere command of one person creates a
reason for another to act, has seemed both more puzzling in itself and to stand in
greater need of justification.
Claims to practical authority arise in a variety of contexts – between church offi-
cials and their members, parents and children, employers and employees, to name a
few. But it is authority in the political domain, i.e., the authority of the state over its
citizens, that has most deeply engaged the attention of moral theorists. Several rea-
sons explain this emphasis. First, the state claims supreme authority, and one way of
taking that idea is that the state claims authority over all other authority-claimers.
This alone makes political authority especially important. In addition, the state
claims authority over adults in apparent disregard of their will, and this too seems to
distinguish it from other contexts (compare church, family, and workplace). Finally,
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee168
2
the state is seen both as having the central responsibility to protect especially vital
interests (life, liberty, and property) and as being uniquely permitted to compel
obedience (Green 1988: Ch. 3). Here again its claim to authority merits special
attention.
To inquire into political authority is to ask two fundamental questions. What is it?
What conditions, if any, justify it? Much political philosophy addresses the second,
but the first is surely the place to begin.
The Idea of Political Authority

The understanding of political authority is helped by two distinctions. The first is
between power and authority. A gang of mobsters has the power to compel my wal-
let but lacks authority to do so. Authority is something besides power, whose pres-
ence legitimizes power and absence makes it illegitimate. Some theorists argue for a
connection between power and authority, claiming that one has authority only if one
also possesses substantial power, but however one sees that issue the distinction
between mere power to compel and authority to command remains intact
(see power).
The second distinction is between de facto and de jure authority. De facto author-
ity exists when states are thought to possess authority; de jure authority exists when
they really have it. As with power, some have argued that one of the conditions for
really having authority is that subjects see one as having it, but here again that ques-
tion does not touch the conceptual distinction. Investigations into the conditions
creating de facto authority fall within the domain of sociology or social psychology.
For moral theorists, de jure authority is the key concept.
States that possess de jure authority are also described as having legitimacy, and in
the literature on authority one often finds theorists moving back and forth between
authority and legitimacy without taking great pains to distinguish them. It can be
argued that legitimacy is the broader concept, since authority seems to entail
legitimacy but not vice versa. Green (1988), for example, notes that states may legiti-
mately do many things (establish commissions, dispense awards, create research
programs) that do not involve commands regulating citizens’ behavior and so are not
instances of political authority. Still, since questions about legitimacy are most raised
in connection with such commands, no great mistake is made in describing states
that really have authority as legitimate, and states who do not as illegitimate.
Put most simply, political authority refers to the right of the state to rule its
subjects, i.e., to issue commands that subjects ought to follow and to compel adher-
ence to those commands. This idea, however, can be given two importantly different
interpretations. On the dominant interpretation, the right to rule is a normative
power to create in subjects duties to follow commands (see political obligation).
Even if that duty is only prima facie (as many theorists construe such commands),
authority’s distinctive feature, viz., that the mere command of the state creates new
reasons for subjects to act, remains in place (see reasons for action, morality
and). An authority’s commands are widely seen to have two especially significant
3
features. They intend both (1) to determine what citizens ought to do regardless of
the particular action commanded, and (2) to replace citizens’ deliberations in the
matter. Regarding the first, if the state has authority to determine tax rates, then
whatever rate it commands is what citizens ought to pay. Since the action-guiding
force of the command does not depend on its content, this first feature is often called
content-independence. As for the second, an authoritative command does not func-
tion as a further reason for action, to be added to a subject’s own action-guiding
deliberations, but instead is meant to displace those other reasons. This aspect of
authoritative commands has been captured in the idea that they constitute peremp-
tory or preemptive reasons for action (Hart 1982; Raz 1986).
An alternative interpretation of political authority construes it not as a normative
power but as a justification right (see rights). On this account the state’s right to
issue commands and insist they are followed does not correlate with any corre-
sponding duty on citizens. Instead, political authority exists when the state is justi-
fied in issuing commands and compelling citizens to obey them. Here it is the
credible threat of sanctions that creates a reason for subjects to do what the authority
has justifiably commanded, not the fact of having been commanded, of itself.
Since it abandons the odd-sounding idea that we can have reasons to act simply
because another says so, the justification-right account promises to simplify the task
of rationally justifying authority. But as various theorists have noted, it radically
redescribes the notion of authority. Though there is nothing incoherent in the idea
of a state issuing commands to its citizens without claiming a duty of obedience, this
is simply not the idea of authority that is in play when citizens, theorists, and officers
of the state reflect on the nature and justification of political authority (Raz 1986).
The prevalent conception of political authority is one in which the state’s commands
create in citizens, simply by virtue of being authoritative, duties to act in certain
ways. The question naturally arises what could justify such a relation.
Justifying Political Authority

Throughout history a range of accounts have been offered to justify political
authority. Premodern accounts begin by assuming some fundamental inequality
between authorities and subjects that is both prior to and explanatory of political
authority. Hampton (1997) mentions as prominent candidates the ideas of persons’
unequal relation to God (the rulers might claim either to be God-like or to have
been deputized by God), their differing capacities for rational self-direction, and
their unequal insight into the good.
Modern accounts reject that starting point, denying either that substantial natural
inequalities exist across human beings or that such inequalities ground one person’s
right to rule another. But the modern assumption that no mature human being is
naturally subject to another’s jurisdiction poses a forceful question to political
authority: How is moral equality compatible with the idea that the mere fact of the
state’s command, without regard to its content, creates in subjects a duty to do some-
thing they did not have before?
4
The anarchist answers that the two are simply incompatible. Robert Paul Wolff ’s
(1970) defense of this position has been especially influential. Wolff accepts that
political authority implies correlative duties in subjects. But he argues that as auton-
omous agents, persons have an inviolable moral responsibility to determine for
themselves what their duties are. Since political authority necessarily conflicts with
that responsibility, it follows as a matter of moral logic that political authority cannot
be justified.
Wolff ’s argument can be criticized from several directions (e.g., Why think our
central obligation is to be autonomous as opposed to doing the right thing? To whom
is that duty owed?), but it continues to receive serious attention because it identifies
a profound tension between the very idea of authority and our conception of what
rational agency requires. The tension is this. Rational agents are committed to assess-
ing the reasons for available actions and acting as those reasons warrant. Imagine
now that the state commands citizens to ϕ. If citizens believe the balance of reasons
recommends ϕ-ing, then they ought to ϕ because of those reasons (and not because
the state commanded it). But where they do not believe the balance of reasons estab-
lishes that they ought to ϕ, then rational agents cannot believe that they ought to ϕ.
The state’s commands, then, cannot be both authoritative and rationally justified.
The justification-right account of authority resolves this paradox by simply deny-
ing that authoritative commands in themselves create reasons to act. But the prob-
lems with that account argue against resolving the paradox in this way. Within the
dominant conception of authority there are two main routes to a solution.
Instrumental accounts
Instrumental accounts aim to show that authority best enables subjects to achieve
some good they value. “Authority arises from the necessity of a task,” asserts Ans-
combe (1990: 147). Where the task is sufficiently important, connected to an end
subjects seek, and best carried out under relations of authority, the case for authority
follows directly.
One clear application of this approach involves problems of collective action.
Imagine that many citizens believe there exist good reasons (relating to
spatiotemporal awareness, say) that all should drive on one particular side of the
road but disagree as to which side. Despite their judgments, all have as their
strongest reason that all citizens drive on the same side of the road, whatever it is.
In this case each should take as determining his or her will the state’s command
on the matter, and this gives us both content-independence and preemptiveness.
The general strategy here can be deployed to similar problems including
assurance games, free riders, and public goods (see game theory and
rational choice).
In his highly influential account, Joseph Raz (1986) has argued that such cases
establish a general point that dissolves the alleged paradox of rationally justified
authority. The paradox stems, Raz suggests, from an inadequate and simplistic
5
conception of reasons for acting, one which assumes that rational agents must act on
the basis of the verdicts they reach by directly assessing reasons for and against some
action. Against this, Raz points out that persons often have good reasons not to act
on those verdicts. Even when it appears that reasons favor one course of action over
another, I might have most reason not to act on that judgment; perhaps I have
second-order reasons to doubt my first-order conclusions (I’m tired, angry, and so
not thinking clearly). Along similar lines, I might have most reason to follow the
command of someone whose ability to assess the first-order reasons applying to me
is better than mine. The paradox dissolves, then, when we realize that in treating
another’s commands as both preemptive and content-independent one need not be
abandoning the goal of acting according to right reason.
Raz provides an elegant and powerful justification of authority. But it establishes
political authority, as Raz realizes, within a potentially narrow ambit, since the com-
mands of the state may fail to meet the conditions that justify authority on Raz’s
account. For example, where officers of the state are either not motivated by the goal
that citizens act in accordance with the relevant reasons that apply to them (and are
instead driven by their desire for reelection, personal gain, and so on), or not better
positioned to assess the reasons that apply to subjects than the subjects themselves,
the case for authority is undercut. The latter concern has as well the odd implication
that a state’s commands, though universal in address, might have authority over
some citizens but not others.
The instrumental approach is also less likely to succeed where the authority’s
commands concern outcomes that subjects see as having intrinsic moral impor-
tance. Consider the task of identifying stable principles governing property rights.
While all citizens have reason to favor some solution over none, each also has
substantive views about the correct principles given her ideas about natural rights,
equal opportunity, desert claims, and so on (Gaus 2000: Ch. 10). The more the
authority’s solution falls outside what citizens think basic justice requires, the weaker
are their reasons to accept it; they don’t want this task solved in just any way. One
challenge for the instrumental approach is to explain this dynamic while still
preserving content-independence and preeemptiveness.
A final limitation to instrumental accounts lies in the fact that even where
authority makes it more likely that citizens will follow right reason, they also have
reasons, reflecting the intrinsic value of practical agency, to try to solve important
decisions on their own. These agency reasons retain their weight even when citizens
will make a decision that is less well grounded (in terms of non-agency-relevant
reasons) than the decision an authority would make. Different theories give different
weight to such reasons, and their relative importance varies across different contexts
in which authorities might command. But with respect to commands touching on
important aspects of human personality (as driving on one side of the road does not)
the instrumental case for authority will correspondingly face a greater hurdle. Some
theorists, of course, will regard this as a welcome constraint on the justification of
state authority.
6
Noninstrumental accounts
Noninstrumental accounts justify authority by pointing to morally salient features
characterizing the intrinsic relation between state and citizen. One strength of such
accounts is that in abandoning the instrumental approach they remove one consid-
eration that could otherwise undermine the case for authority, viz., the citizen’s
conclusion that following the state’s command is not instrumentally valuable in
achieving the goal in question. If authority is not grounded in conduciveness to any
such goal, that judgment is irrelevant to its justification.
The most direct noninstrumental account justifies authority by reference to
citizens’ freely given consent. This approach models political authority in terms of
the authority a promisee acquires as a result of a promise, which can be seen as a
paradigmatic case of acceptable authority: if I’ve promised to help you clean up
your house, for instance, then once I arrive I ought simply to do what you say. For
most advocates of this approach, consent creates justified authority only when the
state meets certain conditions of moral acceptability, in this respect again parallel-
ing the general case of promising: just as no one is bound to fulfill a promise to
murder, so no one is properly subject to a fundamentally unjust state (see consent;
social contract).
The problems facing consent theories are legion. Locke’s argument in the Second
Treatise has served as the locus classicus for such objections, and it remains useful for
illuminating those worries. Invoking a distinction drawn by Thomas Hobbes, Locke
sharply distinguishes express consent, where persons explicitly declare their con-
sent, from tacit consent, where consent can reasonably be inferred from other signs
(Locke 1980 [1690]: §§119–22). But as Hume pointed out in a highly influential
critique, both notions are problematic. Few if any existing political societies were
created by express consent, and few citizens today express their consent to the state.
Arguments that voting amounts to express consent are notoriously weak, and in any
case would not justify authority over those who do not vote. Nor can tacit consent
repair the gap. Familiar cases of tacit consent (e.g., a meeting where the Chair asks if
there are objections to a proposal) not only assume relations of authority but are
marked by clear signs that consent is being solicited and that failure to demur is
tantamount to consent, both of which are absent from the political realm. In addi-
tion, noted Hume, since consent is fundamentally “an act of the mind,” where citi-
zens are not aware that they’ve consented to authority it is a logical truth that they
have not. Finally, against any version of consent theory, Hume (1960 [1748]) argued
that given the great costs of emigration, continued residence in one’s state cannot be
taken as a freely given sign of consent (see locke, john; hume, david).
Such problems help explain the appeal of hypothetical consent models, which aim
to show that persons would, under certain conditions and with certain motivations,
consent to the creation of political authority (see contractualism). Hypothetical
consent accounts incorporate aspects of instrumental and noninstrumental
approaches. Hobbes (1992 [1651]), for example, which is sometimes read as advanc-
ing a hypothetical consent argument, imagines stateless persons consenting to
7
political authority to solve an important collective-action problem that he believes

can be solved in no other way (see hobbes, thomas). But Hobbes also stresses the
importance of actual consent, and the appeal to consent in hypothetical accounts is
not nugatory. In such arguments the claim that appropriately situated and reasona-
ble persons would agree to it does important work in establishing the contours of
political authority. In such accounts, we might say, the argumentative burden is
distributed across both instrumental considerations and the legitimizing power of
the consent of reasonable subjects.
A major objection against the hypothetical consent approach is that it does not
take seriously enough the presumption of equal freedom (see liberty). Sometimes
it can seem that the approach is being used to determine the principles to which
political authority ought to conform, an approach that can objectionably seem to
assume from the outset the validity of political authority. Critics who stress that we
must take seriously the presumption of equal freedom will insist that persons can be
subordinated to others only through their own actual decisions, not by appeal to an
argument relying on a potentially controversial conception of reasonableness that
claims to show what such persons differently construed would agree to. A natural
reply to this worry is that the natural right to freedom is bound by certain duties (not
to kill the innocent, for example) that hold regardless of our consent, so perhaps the
duty to recognize authority is another.
Other noninstrumental approaches seek to justify state authority in considera-
tions other than consent. Some appeal to a general principle of fairness, according to
which receipt of benefits made possible by the sacrifice of others imposes a duty to
make similar sacrifices. (This may have been the intuitive idea behind Locke’s appeal
to tacit consent.) Here again some discern a threat to the ideal of equal freedom,
since authority results from citizens’ having received benefits which they may not
have realized carried the allegedly correlative duties and over whose receipt they
may have had no choice. And even if the receipt of benefits does create obligations
of fairness, we require a further argument to show that the obligations so created
involve a duty to recognize the state’s authority as opposed to running directly to our
fellow citizens in some other way.
Other noninstrumental approaches that bypass consent ground authority in
claims for an especially close relationship between citizens and state. Ronald
Dworkin (1986) justifies authority by analogy with the duties that arise among
friends or family members. In both relationships participants may come to have
duties they did not voluntarily assume, and Dworkin argues that the features of
those relationships that give rise to such duties can also mark political communities,
at least where they qualify as communities of principle. Of this approach it can again
be asked why the relevant duties include the duty to recognize the authority of the
state. More fundamentally, critics have wondered about the degree to which citizens
share the commitment to common principles needed to justify Dworkin’s description
(see associative duties).
A second such approach appeals to a constitutive connection between citizens
and their political community. On this approach, whose modern point of origin lies
8
in Hegel, to ask why free persons are subject to state authority verges on incoher-
ence: the autonomous subject on whose behalf we ask such a question comes about
only by participating in that community itself (Taylor 1985; see hegel, georg
wilhelm friedrich). Even if we grant this connection between autonomous agents
and political community, the line of argument here is still uncertain, since it does
not seem incoherent to imagine someone produced through a particular process
asking for a justification of that process. But in any case, it’s not clear we should grant
the connection. Some critics claim that it fails to distinguish the social practices and
relations needed to create free agents from the particular claim of state authority.
If communities can do such work without relations of political authority, then the
argument for authority from the constitutive thesis has not been shown.
Whither Authority?
Collectively, the challenges facing attempts to justify political authority may explain
why some regard the very idea of authority as irretrievable (witness Arendt’s [1961]
suggestion that the question to be asked is not what authority is but what it was). But
however much the idea of authority resists neat accounting, it remains “the funda-
mental question in political theory” (Anscombe 1990: 150), and one cannot get very
far discussing substantial issues in political morality without the issue rearing its
head. Sometimes the direct impetus is contingent, as when nascent political com-
munities emerge and question the claims of their rulers, or cultural communities
object to state efforts to constrain their traditional practices. Conceptually, too, we
can explain why authority cannot in principle be subsumed by other concerns: the
reason is that an argument for the appropriateness of some policy, principle, or out-
come (on grounds that it promotes justice, human flourishing, and so on) represents
one set of issues within political morality, the state’s authority to act on such judg-
ments quite another (Simmons 1999). So while explicit attention to the idea of
authority may wax and wane in the self-conscious projects of political theorists, few
of their conclusions can properly inform political morality without coming to grips
with this elusive concept.
See also: associative duties; consent; contractualism; game theory and

rational choice; hegel, georg wilhelm friedrich; hobbes, thomas; hume,
david; liberty; locke, john; political obligation; power; reasons for
action, morality and; rights; social contract
REFERENCES
Anscombe, G. E. M. 1990. “On the Source of the Authority of the State,” in Joseph Raz (ed.),
Authority. New York: New York University Press, pp. 142–73.
Arendt, Hannah 1961. “What Is Authority?” in Between Past and Future. New York: Penguin,
pp. 91–142.
Dworkin, Ronald 1986. Law’s Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
9
Friedman, R. B. 1973. “On the Concept of Authority in Political Philosophy,” in Richard E.

Flathman (ed.), Concepts in Social and Political Philosophy. New York: Macmillan,
pp. 121–45.
Gaus, Gerald F. 2000. Political Concepts and Political Theories. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Green, Leslie 1988. The Authority of the State. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Hampton, Jean 1997. Political Philosophy. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Hart, H. L. A. 1982. “Commands and Authoritative Legal Reasons,” in Essays on Bentham.
Hobbes, Thomas 1992 [1651]. Leviathan. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Hume, David 1960 [1748]. “Of the Original Contract,” in Ernest Barker (ed.), Social Contract:
Locke, Hume, Rousseau. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 145–66.
Locke, John 1980 [1690]. Second Treatise of Government. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Raz, Joseph 1986. The Morality of Freedom. Oxford, Clarendon Press.
Simmons, John 1999. “Justification and Legitimacy,” Ethics, vol. 109, pp. 739–71.
Taylor, Charles 1985. “Atomism,” in Philosophy and the Human Sciences. New York: Cambridge
Wolff, Robert Paul 1970. In Defense of Anarchism. New York: Harper & Row.
FURTHER READINGS
De George, Richard 1985. The Nature and Limits of Authority. Lawrence: University Press of
Kansas.
Edmundson, William A. 1998. Three Anarchical Fallacies: An Essay on Political Authority.
Estlund, David 2008. Democratic Authority: A Philosophical Framework. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Flathman, Richard E. 1980. The Practice of Political Authority. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Friedrich, Carl 1958. “Authority, Reason, and Discretion,” in Carl Friedrich (ed.), Authority.
Godwin, William 1985 [1793]. Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, ed. I. Kramnick.
Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Hurd, Heidi 1999. Moral Combat. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Ladenson, Robert 1980. “In Defense of a Hobbesian Conception of Law,” Philosophy and
Morris, Christopher W. 1998. An Essay on the Modern State. New York: Cambridge University
Press.
Oakeshott, Michael 1993. “The Authority of the State,” in Timothy Fuller (ed.), Religion,
Politics, and the Moral Life. New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 74–90.
Raz, J. (ed.) 1990. Authority. Oxford: Blackwell.
Shapiro, Scott 2004. “Authority,” in Jules Coleman and Scott Shapiro (eds.), The Oxford
Handbook of Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law. New York: Oxford University Press,
pp. 382–439.
Simmons, A. John 1979. Moral Principles and Political Obligations. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
1
Evil
Laurence Thomas
Evil behavior is morally wrong behavior that is particularly egregious. The following
observation readily brings out this point. A person who never committed a single
morally wrong act, no matter how small, would alas be a morally perfect human being.
By contrast, an individual need not be morally perfect at all, and yet it can be true that
the person goes through life without ever committing a single evil act. Indeed, it is
reasonable to assume that most people go through life without committing any evil
acts. Morally wrong behavior admits of a continuum with evil acts at one end and
minor wrongs at the other end. For instance, stealing an ordinary dime (as opposed to
a dime that one knows to be a rare coin) is a moral wrong. No one should so behave.
Yet, doing so surely counts as a minor wrong. A less minor wrong, which nonetheless
stops short of being evil, would be that of merely breaking the window of an empty car
for the fun of it. Though clearly worse than stealing an ordinary dime, the fact is that
this wrong can be wholly repaired. By contrast, to kill an individual by slowly inflicting
burns upon the person would count as a paradigm example of evil behavior.
In the typical case, evil behavior does not just harm or make a person worse off.
Countless are the wrongful acts that make a person worse off, but which fall consid-
erably short of being evil acts. Rather, evil behavior reveals a moral depravity on the
part of the persons who are committing the evil behavior.
Human beings can commit acts of evil against animals as well as human beings (see
animal rights; animals, moral status of). This essay, however, shall be limited to
the evil that is committed against human beings. In the first section, a characterization
of the notion of depravity is presented. This is followed by a discussion of the idea that
evil is deliberate. The essay then turns to the issue of how it is that people become evil.
Now, a quite important truth about the evil that is often committed is that there
are many who know about the evil but who do or say nothing at all to prevent the
evil from taking place. This can be thought of as cooperative silence and is very
much in keeping with the very profound idea of the banality of evil that was articu-
lated by Hannah Arendt (see arendt, hannah). This is discussed further below.
Characterizing Moral Depravity

Suppose, for instance, that two masked individuals burglarize a home of $700. This
is obviously wrong. It is wrong even if the family is quite well off economically. So
far, though, we do not have an evil act. Now, let us suppose further that in addition
to committing the robbery, the two burglars commit the act of murdering the three
children of the mother and father while forcing the parents to watch their children
being killed. This act of murder and, in particular, the way in which it was
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee169
2
committed, namely before the very eyes of the parents, qualifies as an evil act; for
being forced to watch the murder of their children easily stands as the most horrific
thing that parents can be made to do; and the fact that the two burglars could mur-
der the children in that manner bespeaks a callousness on the part of the burglars
that simply defies description. If the burglars had taken either the parents or the
children to a different room that would have already been a tremendously consider-
ate thing to do even as they were still committing the horrific deed of murdering the
children.
The preceding example is most instructive. By all accounts, burglarizing a home
constitutes a serious moral wrong. However, it is rather rare for merely robbing a home
to be countenanced as an act of evil. This is because the more immediate concern that
people generally have pertains to their own well-being; and in that respect burglars can
be most considerate. They need not even occasion a sense of terror over and above hav-
ing broken into the home. That, to be sure, is bad enough. Yet, it falls considerably short
of the terror that they could cause. There are numerous things that burglars can do in
order to tip the moral scales unequivocally to the side of evil. In the example of the
preceding paragraph, suppose that instead of murdering the children before the very
eyes of their parents, the burglars choose instead to rape both parents in front of the
children (see rape). Clearly, the burglars exhibit a horrendous degree of moral deprav-
ity. Significantly, this example makes it unequivocally clear that we can have the moral
depravity that bespeaks evil without bringing about the wrongful death of another.
A defining aspect of moral depravity on the part of an individual is that the indi-
vidual is committed to causing excessive harm the only aim of which is to have the
effect of either being inescapably humiliating for each victim to an extraordinary
degree or severely diminishing of each victim’s sense of humanity (Lundberg 1994).
Indeed, the war crime of gang rape (see war crimes) is a paradigm example of mor-
ally depraved behavior where the aim is not at all the death of the victims(s) but the
humiliation of the person(s).
The idea behind moral depravity is twofold. One is that there are certain moral
sensibilities that all human beings have simply in virtue of being psychologically
healthy (see moral psychology). The morally depraved person is unmoved in just
about all of the ways that we think that a psychologically healthy person should be
moved by the innocence of another person being harmed or outright destroyed (see
sentiments, moral). The other is that the expressions of great joy and happiness,
on the one hand, and of sheer moral and psychological pain, on the other, take
essentially the same form across all human beings. Thus, not only is it impossible to
mistake painfully crying for sheer laughter, it is also the case that no psychologically
healthy human being would laugh rather than cry when she or he is being subject to
great physical or psychological pain. For example, the idea of anyone (regardless of
gender or ethnicity) laughing rather than crying while being raped or watching her
or his children being murdered is entirely incomprehensible.
The last point of the preceding paragraph again underscores the idea that while
the killing of another may reveal moral depravity, that act of killing is not the para-
digm instance of morally depraved behavior. Indeed, even wrongful killings need
3
not be an instance of moral depravity. For example, imagine a parent who in a rage
kills the person who has just murdered her child. The parent’s behavior is wrong
even if understandable. Yet, the parent’s behavior is not an instance of moral deprav-
ity. When we contrast the behavior of the mother with the behavior of the burglars
who raped the parents in front of their children, surely the more brazen disregard
(by far) for the humanity of the victims is shown by the burglars.
The Deliberateness of Evil Acts

The discussions thus far point to the very profound and immutable truth that a per-
son cannot fail to grasp that she or he is committing an act of evil, which is not to
deny that people can be self-deceived about the matter. Self-deception about a mat-
ter, though, entails that one actually recognizes the matter at some level (see self-
deception). And in the typical case, the self-deception is not about the pain that is
being caused, but the good that causing such pain is supposed to serve or the view
that the pain caused is somehow deserved.
As noted earlier, expressions of fear along with pain and anguish take the same
form across all of humanity (Card 2002); accordingly, no one could fail to know that
she or he is having this effect upon another. Thus, to continue behaving in a way that
thus affects another is to do so ever so willfully. Hence, an evil act is not the sort of
act that one commits by mistake. The exception here, of course, is when an evil out-
come is an unforeseen consequence of behavior that is itself evil. So in the example
above where the burglars force the parents to watch their children being killed, sup-
pose that the mother’s rage and pain is so great that using brute force she breaks
loose of the ropes and then savagely kills her rope-bound husband because she has
become so delusional that her criticism of him is that he did not free himself and
stop the murder of their children. Clearly, the burglars did not intend this. Equally
clear, though, is that the evil behavior of the burglars figures prominently in the
explanation for why the mother killed her husband and the father of their children.
Evil behavior generally takes the form of brute force with the intent of subduing
the victim or extraordinary deception that results in the victim letting her or his
guard down. Or, of course, there may be some combination thereof. Much of the evil
of American slavery involved brute force to entrap blacks. The same holds for the
subsequent practice of lynching blacks. By contrast, the evil of the Holocaust
involved both brute force and enormous deception. When the trains deporting Jews
arrived in the Nazi camps, there would often be trucks bearing the Red Cross logo at
the disembarking points in the camps. Jews, thinking that these trucks were a refuge,
would clamor to get into the trucks, precisely as the Nazis had intended. The
Holocaust and American slavery count as what we call institutional evils. Needless
to say, whether only brute force is used or both brute force and deception are used,
we do not thereby have a difference in degrees of evil.
Now, the point that evil typically involves brute force or masterful deception of
the other holds even if we are talking about evil on a one-to-one basis. This should
come as no surprise, as no psychologically healthy person merely volunteers to be
4
the object of evil behavior. The serial killer or rapist stands as a paradigm example of
someone who uses brute force or masterful deception in order to subdue his victims.
The deception involving betrayal can surely be evil although no physical harm is
done. The betrayal of marital vows involving years of deception causes horrendous
psychological pain from which it is very difficult to recover.
There is a striking exception to the claim that evil requires brute force or masterful
deception. This is when the psychological development of a person makes it impos-
sible for the victim to comprehend what is being required of her or him. Or, the vic-
tim’s physical state is such that she or he is incapable of putting up any defense
whatsoever. Child sexual abuse is an evil that exploits the fact that children lack the
psychological wherewithal to comprehend fully what is being asked of them as
well as the physical state to put up an adequate defense (see pedophilia). The sexual
abuse of patients with mental difficulties is very much analogous to child sexual abuse,
except that the sexual abuse of hospital patients is typically tied to the fact that the
patients are unable to put up an adequate defense. Sexual abuse in all of these instances
is wrong. Yet, the sexual abuse of children reveals a particularly depraved mind if for
no other reason than that such abuse tarnishes the most morally innocent of human
beings, who would not be susceptible to such a thing were it not for their deep and
abiding need for adult affirmation. In general, child sexual abusers exploit this very
reality (Berry 1992). And there is no parallel in life to the innocence of a child.
Evil People
If it is obvious that evil people commit evil acts, what is not at all obvious is how it
is that people become evil (Kekes 2005). After all, it is preposterous to suppose that
anyone is born evil. Indeed, it is simply not possible to attribute to infants the psy-
chological structure that is characteristic of an evil mindset. Part of what makes evil
so incomprehensible in the first place is the assumption that human beings are quite
rational and autonomous creatures (see rationality; autonomy), where part of
what it means to be rational is to give appropriate weight to the considerations and
evidence that are available to one and part of what it means to be autonomous is to
have the wherewithal to act in accordance with what one has good reason to believe
is the right thing to do. Alas, one thing that the history of humanity makes abun-
dantly clear is that human beings make lots and lots of judgments that are entirely
without warrant given the evidence readily available. We have examples of this
ranging from the horrendous negative attitudes on the part of men with regard to
women, to the vicious privileging of one ethnic group above another, to religious
groups (of the very same basic religious category, such as Christianity) battling one
another.
Now, Aristotle observed that human beings are born neither morally good nor
morally bad and that the moral training which human beings undergo while they
are being raised as children plays a decisive role in the moral character that they
come to have as adults (see aristotle). While there is surely much to be said for
Aristotle’s line of thought, it seems rather unlikely that the only explanation for the
5
existence of evil people is bad parental upbringing. Indeed, an incontrovertible truth

is that in some instances bad parental upbringing is not at all the explanation for the
fact that an individual has turned out to be an evil person.
In order to have some grasp of how evil behavior occurs, two basic facts about
human beings should be mentioned. One is that human beings are quintessential
social creatures. Accordingly, human beings are very much in need of social
affirmation and, moreover, the behavior in which they engage is often enormously
influenced by the social ties that human beings have formed. To a very large extent
human beings are motivated to fit in. The other is that human beings are capable of
considerable self-deception, where this means that at some level they know the truth
of the matter. We all know cases where an individual holds on to a belief despite
overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Denying the reality of an unfaithful
romantic partner, despite overwhelming evidence to that effect, is no doubt a classic
example of self-deception. In modern times, an excellent example of fitting in that is
rather morally neutral would be that of teenage males wearing jeans that are so
loose-fitting that they must constantly attend to keeping the pants from falling
down. Although the inconvenience is patently obvious, so is the benefit, namely that
of adhering to a style of dress that bespeaks a certain image of teenage male
masculinity. This latter benefit for males far outweighs the inconvenience of their
having to be constantly concerned with keeping their jeans from falling down.
A more morally significant example of fitting in is the following. Although nowa-
days just about everyone claims that ethnic differences are quite inconsequential by
comparison to our common humanity, it nonetheless remains a fact that most mar-
riages still take place along ethnic lines. Without a doubt, a most relevant factor here
is the very deep and subtle expectations, on either side of the ethnic divide in ques-
tion, from both friends and, especially, family members.
Needless to say, the deep desire on the part of human beings to fit in and the
considerable capacity of human beings for self-deception make for a rather com-
bustible combination with respect to evil behavior should a human being find her-
self or himself in a morally wrong environment. There are three basic reasons why
this is so.
To begin with, there is the simple issue of being excluded and scorned. A related
issue, of course, is that sometimes refusing to join in can make either oneself or one’s
family members the object of physical aggression. Finally, while we all know that the
claim that “everybody does it” most certainly does not count as a genuine moral
excuse, the fact of the matter is that such a reality often stands as a considerable
psychological explanation that people invoke to excuse their behavior. For if every-
body does it, then it might be unreasonable to expect anyone to refrain from such
behavior although such behavior is morally wrong – or so the person can reason to
herself or himself. Indeed, the aforementioned excuse becomes all the moral palpa-
ble if there is real worry for one’s well-being or the well-being of a family member.
Human beings are remarkably good at rationalizing, which in the typical case is a
way of individuals telling a story to themselves that permits them to do what they
know to be wrong.
6
From the Zimbardo (2007) prison experiment involving students at Stanford to

the Milgram (1974) experiments at Yale concerning obedience involving members
of the local community, what we learn is that, given the social backdrop of group
pressure or respectable authority, it is far too easy for otherwise decent people to
convince themselves that it is acceptable for them to harm others. What makes these
two experiments particularly telling is that the individuals involved in the experi-
ments committed the harm in question, or thought they were doing so, although
they could have walked away from the situation without in any way jeopardizing
their own well-being or the well-being of a loved-one or friend. The Zimbardo
prison experiment had to be called off because the student “prisoners” were actually
being treated far more harshly than was expected by the student “guards.” The
Stanford prison experiment is particularly riveting because there was complete class
and ethnic homogeneity between the “prisoners” and “guards.”
With the Yale experiment, the participants were asked to administer electric
shocks. No one was actually shocked. However, those participating in the experi-
ment did not know that. Yet, in the name of science, far too many participants were
willing to increase the electric shock even though they fully believed that they
were thereby increasing the pain that the so-called patient received. What the Yale
experiment brought out is the power of social affirmation. People who otherwise
would never had have any affiliation with an Ivy League school were willing to take
part in an experiment that provided them with that prestigious social affirmation.
Not everyone, of course. But the very point is that enough did what no one should
have done.
In both cases, the individuals who misbehaved were decent individuals without a
suspect moral background. No one involved could be characterized as having a pro-
pensity to mistreat others. Notice that we have a parallel with the success of sorority
and fraternity houses in getting those pledging to do horrendous acts, known as
hazing, in order to receive the perceived social affirmation that these houses bestow
upon those pledging (Nuwer 2001).
The preceding paragraphs highlight the moral and social reality occasioned by
John Bradford’s poignant remark “But for the Grace of God go I.” For as Margaret
Walker and Thomas Nagel, among others, have noted, most of us would have com-
mitted the very evil of which we so vehemently disapprove were we to have been
similarly situated; and we would have done so owing to some combination of the
reasons articulated in the preceding paragraph. Most of us would like to think that
we would have been and most certainly would be the exception to the rule. Alas, the
evidence for this is just not there. There are very few cases of people standing up to
evil on their own when everyone around them is participating in it. Clearly, if most
people would stand up to evil in the way that, for instance, Raoul Wallenberg single-
handedly did with respect to saving Jews, then evil would have much less of a chance,
if any, of taking hold.
Notice a very trenchant line of reasoning that underwrites the cogency of
Bradford’s remark. Although it was true that in the Zimbardo and Milgram experi-
ments everyone could have walked away without loss, that is not what happened.
7
So, if in general people cannot be counted upon to refrain from harming others
when they can walk away at little if any cost to themselves, then it is even more likely
that they cannot be counted upon to do so when, as is typically the case, walking
away comes at a very steep price.
Cooperative Silence
A most interesting aspect of evil committed by several members of a group is what
I shall refer to as cooperative silence. No one talks about the evil behavior that
everyone knows about – neither the participants in the evil nor those who know
about them. More precisely, everyone counts on no one talking about the evil done.
Thus, we have trust, generally considered be an excellence (see trust), serving the
ends of evil.
Sometimes, of course, participants in evil and those who know about them are
one and the same, as with a street gang of individuals who prey upon the elderly.
Every member of the gang is an active participant in the evil. Arguably, part of what
contributes to the cooperative silence on the part of each member is just the fact that
each is equally culpable. Here we have active-participant cooperative silence.
With evil on a large scale (Vetlesen 2006), however, as when the members of an
entire religious or ethnic group are targeted by a society, it is typically not the case
that everyone is an active participant in the evil. In fact that might prove to be rather
inefficient. What is more, even people who support the evil being committed may
not have the wherewithal to engage in such behavior themselves. Furthermore,
those who engage in nonparticipant cooperative silence can often be counted upon
to keep the active participants informed of the presence of anyone in the area who
would present a problem for the wrongful behavior envisaged.
Now, it is possible that instead of nonparticipant cooperative silence what we have
is nonparticipant coerced silence. We have the latter when the nonparticipant popula-
tion is sufficiently small or we have a military that will use excessive force indis-
criminately as a way of dealing with those who should speak out. Regrettably, where
we have nonparticipant silence, it is generally cooperative rather than coerced silence.
Now, it is generally acknowledged that if one is fully informed as to what is going
on and yet one does not utter a word against it, though one could do so at little or no
risk, then one has thereby approved of what is being done. This is known as tacit
approval. And the tacit approval of the vast majority of citizens of the specific actions
that a substantially smaller group of folks are taking makes for what can be described
as a moral climate of approval of the actions of the smaller group. And this is yet
another way in which those who are directly responsible for the evil that is being
done can tell themselves that what they are doing cannot be so morally objectionable
after all or, at any rate, it is a necessary evil that is justified in order to achieve a much
greater good.
Needless to say, cooperative silence need not be used for evil ends, as when a com-
munity is silent about a tragedy in order not to cause any more psychological pain to
the family of a victim.
8
Conclusion: Some Reflective Questions

The aim of this essay has been to give a general characterization of what counts as
evil behavior. There are many aspects of evil that have not been addressed. One of
the most obvious of these is the question of the proper response to evil behavior.
Another is how far are human beings justified in going in order to prevent evil
behavior from occurring. Related to these questions is the issue of punishment.
Consider the example of the burglars who raped the parents in front of their chil-
dren. Should their punishment reflect the fact that the rape took place in front of the
children? Or from a juridical point of view should that be irrelevant? And, of course,
a most relevant question here pertains to forgiveness. Under what conditions, if any,
does a person merit forgiveness (see forgiveness)?
Another question that has not been addressed has to do with the conditions, if any,
under which a person can be morally excused for committing an act of evil. A deep
principle in moral philosophy is that no one is morally obligated to risk her or his life
in order to save the life of another (see supererogation). Well, with cooperative
silence, it is certainly plausible to assume that some individuals remain silent in order
to protect their families, especially their children. If that is indeed the case, is their
silence morally excusable as a corollary, if you will, to the principle just articulated?
Finally, we can ask about the psychological wherewithal of those who commit
evil. We have already noted that a psychologically healthy person naturally finds it
repulsive to see the innocent suffer. Does this supposition cast sufficient doubt upon
the psychological health of those who commit evil that we must consider whether
they can be held morally responsible for their actions (see responsibility)? Or does
it suffice that they know that they are causing harm and that they have the where-
withal to refrain from doing so?
In many respects, all of the above questions flow from the following question:
Given the paradigmatic truth that surely no innocent person deserves to be treated
evilly, how do those who commit acts of evil deserve to be treated?
see also: animal rights; animals, moral status of; arendt, hannah;
aristotle; autonomy; forgiveness; moral psychology; pedophilia; rape;
rationality; responsibility; self-deception; sentiments, moral;
supererogation; trust; war crimes
REFERENCES
Arendt, Hannah 2008 [1963]. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil.
New York: Penguin.
Berry, Jason 1992. Lead Us Not Into Temptation. New York: Doubleday.
Card, Claudia 2002. The Atrocity Paradigm: A Theory of Evil. New York: Oxford University
Press.
Kekes, John 2005. The Roots of Evil. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
9
Lundberg, Ferdinand 1994. The Natural Depravity of Mankind: Observations on the Human
Condition. Fort Lee, NJ: Barricade Books.
Milgram, Stanley 1974. Obedience to Authority. New York: Harper & Row.
Nuwer, Hank 2001. Wrongs of Passage: Fraternities, Sororities, Hazing, and Binge Drinking.
Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Vetlesen, Arne 2006. Evil and Human Agency: Understanding Collective Evildoing. New York:
Zimbardo, Philip 2007. The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil.
New York: Random House.
FURTHER READINGS
Card, Claudia 2010. Confronting Evil: Terrorism, Torture, Genocide. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Glover, Jonathan 1999. Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century. New Haven:
Yale University Press.
Lifton, Robert Jay 1986. The Nazi Doctors. New York: Basic Books.
May, Larry 2007. War Crimes and Just War. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Moutin, Pierre, and Marc Schweitzer 1994. Les crimes contre l’humanité. Grenoble: Presse
Universitaire de Grenoble.
Ricoeur, Paul 2004. Le mal: un défi à la philosophie et à la theologie. Paris: Labor et Fide.
Rosenthal, Abigail 1987. A Good Look at Evil. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Scarre, Geoffrey 2004. After Evil: Responding to Wrongdoing. Williston, VT: Ashgate.
Strawson, Peter F. 1974. “Freedom and Resentment,” in Freedom and Resentment and Other
Essays. London: Methuen.
Thomas, Laurence 1993. Vessels of Evil: American Slavery and the Holocaust. Philadelphia:
Temple University Press.
1
Zhuangzi
Kim-Chong Chong
Zhuangzi (ca. 369–286 bce), along with Laozi, is a seminal figure in philosophical
Daoism (see laozi; daoist ethics). The 33-chapter text of the Zhuangzi is a result
of extensive editing by the fourth-century commentator Guo Xiang (see guo
xiang) and it is widely believed that the first seven (“Inner”) chapters were either
written by the historical Zhuangzi or best represent his thought (Graham 1979;
Liu 1994). However, some central themes can be discerned throughout the text.
These are encapsulated in the remark by Xunzi (see xunzi) that Zhuangzi was
blinded by heaven and did not pay attention to human beings (Knoblock 1994:
102). We may analyze this statement to bring out the main features of Zhuangzi’s
philosophical ethics.
For Zhuangzi, “heaven” (tian) is synonymous with “nature” (as manifested in
the cycle of the four seasons, the phenomena of life, growth, death) and has no moral
will. In this regard, he differs from Confucius and Mencius (see confucius;
mencius). Although sometimes ambiguous about this, both these Confucians
believed in a heaven which either rewarded moral behavior or provided humans
with innate moral seeds. Xunzi, less than a century after Zhuangzi, shared his
conception of heaven but remained true to Confucian moral concern in advocating
the construction of ritual rules and laws. To the Confucians, the establishment of
social and political order was especially urgent given the chaotic times, known in the
history of China as the “Warring States” period.
Zhuangzi thought that this attempt to bring about social and political order
was ineffectual given the power struggles among rulers and officials of the various
states. The system of ritual rules was part of the problem. Ritual morality entailed
hierarchical distinctions of class, rank, position, power, fame, and wealth, and
encouraged ambitions of gain among the people. Worse, ethicists like Confucius and
his disciples were either self-deceived about their virtuous motives in espousing
reform and seeking office or hypocritical – their self-righteousness was motivated
by ambitions for honor and fame. Besides, the Confucian “solution” was merely one
of a number on offer. Another prominent school, for example, was the Mohist
(see mozi). There were fierce debates between these schools, and their followers
contended for the favor of the rulers.
The last chapter of the Zhuangzi, “The World,” summarizes prevailing philosoph-
ical and ethical positions and says that Zhuangzi “believed that the world was
drowned in turbidness and that it was impossible to address it in sober language”
(Watson 1968: 373). Indeed, the text is a collection of fables, stories, fictional
dialogues, and metaphorical tropes. One example of the last is “goblet words,”
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee170
2
being likened to a wine vessel that is “upright when empty and overturns when full,
thus illustrating the value of emptiness” (Lin 1994: 64). This means that some of his
sentences have a playful, rambling character which “empty” or negate themselves.
For instance: “There is a beginning. There is a not yet beginning to be a beginning.
There is a not yet beginning to be a not yet beginning to be a beginning …” (Watson
1968: 43). This seems to have been a strategy consistent with a “heavenly” or “natural”
perspective in which he tried to avoid being trapped by distinctions such as right and
wrong, good and bad, noble and ignoble, beautiful and ugly, and so on. Some of his
stories, too, have this character when contemplated together. For example, someone
may suggest that certain things or persons – or even Zhuangzi’s own words – are use-
less. We are then told stories about a gnarled tree or deformed person that survive
precisely because they are “useless.” But just when we begin to appreciate this we are
told of a goose that is picked for dinner because it could not cackle to warn its owner
of intruders (Watson 1968: 209). Zhuangzi is not making a point about survival per
se in turbulent times. His stories and metaphors intimate a range of perspectives
which are not limited to the human. Delightful and highly imaginative examples
abound about insects and birds, animals and plants – in effect the endless perspec-
tives of nature as opposed to human constructs and ideas constraining behavior.
There are a few targets here. One is the bonds of ritual convention and behavior.
Confucius is parodied in a conversation with an old fisherman who tells him that
“[r]ites are something created by the vulgar men of the world; the Truth is that
which is received from Heaven” (Watson 1968: 350). “Truth” is the translation of
zhen which in this context refers to the genuine and spontaneous expression of
feelings. Another target is the conventional attitude toward death (see death).
One story is of Zhuangzi singing and drumming at his wife’s funeral (Watson 1968:
192). His friend Hui Shi is shocked. Zhuangzi says that at first he felt grief but later
it seemed to him that his wife’s transformations from birth to death were just like
the progression of the four seasons and he no longer saw any reason to grieve. In
other words, grief and mourning are based on the evaluative belief that death is a
loss. However, reflection shows that this is a mistake and once this is realized, grief
no longer has a hold. There is a similarity here with Stoicism and it raises issues
about the “extirpation” (Nussbaum 1994: 359–401) of the emotions (see stoicism;
emotion). But it is unclear whether Zhuangzi does in fact call for the extirpation of
the emotions as a whole (Chong 2010).
A third target is the autonomous self assumed by the Confucians, Mohists, and
others who are said to “cling to their position as though they had sworn before
the gods, sure that they are holding on to victory” (Watson 1968: 37). They are in the
grip of emotions and other affective states which Zhuangzi likens to the springing
up of mushrooms from nowhere. In other words, the agent’s affects arise uncon-
sciously. Referring to these, Zhuangzi says: “Without them we would not exist;
without us they would have nothing to take hold of … But I do not know what
makes them the way they are. It would seem as though they have some True Master,
and yet I find no trace of him” (Watson 1968: 38). This suggests that there is no
self which is independent and in control of the emotional and affective states (Chong
3
2011). Zhuangzi develops this while parodying the Confucian practice of persuad-
ing rulers to rule benevolently. In a fictitious dialogue (Watson 1968: 54–8)
Confucius dissuades his disciple Yan Hui from such a mission, showing him that his
seemingly moral self may be less than transparent and his motives may change in
the course of his interaction with the ruler. Here, we find a concept that plays an
important role in Zhuangzi’s moral psychology (see moral psychology): the xin,
often translated as the “mind” but also as “heart-mind” which connotes that there is
no clear cognitive and affective divide. In doubting whether there is a “True Master,”
Zhuangzi personifies the relations between the heart-mind and other organs of the
body – which is master, which servant, or do they take turns being master and
servant? This may be compared with Nietzsche’s thesis (see nietzsche, friedrich)
that “the self is merely the arena in which the struggle of drives plays itself out …”
(Leiter 2002: 103). Xunzi may have reacted against Zhuangzi to reassert the
Confucian position of an autonomous self when he argued that the xin is “the lord
of the body” and is “its own authority” such that it will accept what is right and
reject what is wrong (Knoblock 1994: 105).
If Zhuangzi can be said to have any ethical goal, it is the stilling of the heart-
mind. Thus, the goal is not the achievement of knowledge, but the attainment of
equanimity. This is described metaphorically as a mirror “going after nothing, wel-
coming nothing, responding but not storing,” as undisturbed still water, and as an
“emptying” or a “fasting” of the heart-mind (Watson 1968: 97, 142, 58). Someone
whose heart-mind is in such an empty state (xu) is referred to as a “true” person
(zhen ren) who is unharmed no matter what happens. Some (Roth 2003; Yang
2003) take this to represent the achievement of a mystical and powerful experience
of the dao – an ultimate ontological source with which the true person is attuned or
unified through “self-cultivationist” practices of meditation. However, a nonmysti-
cal reading would take the dao (a path or road and by extension a way, means, or
method, and so on) to refer to the way or ways in which one lives in accord with
nature. There are some difficulties concerning what this might consist in and how
such accord would lead to equanimity. Some chapters (9, 17) of the Zhuangzi seem
to extol a radically primitive lifestyle in which all forms of craft and artifice –
including the domestication of animals and farming implements – are frowned
upon. This perhaps illustrates a naïve view of what constitutes nature and the natu-
ral (see nature and the natural). But Zhuangzi (in the sixth “Inner chapter”)
more subtly states that the distinction between nature and artifice is not self-
evident: “How … can I know what I call Heaven is not really man, and what I call
man is not really Heaven?” (Watson 1968: 77). Thus, what constitutes the dao or the
way of nature is open-ended. It could be instantiated in carefree roaming or in con-
centration upon a craft as we see from the many stories of amazingly skilled crafts-
men. What these signify and have in common, however, is a lack (of consciousness)
of the self with thoughts of benefit or harm, reward or punishment, praise or blame,
and so on. In this sense, lack of self is compatible with, and helps somewhat to
explain, equanimity. However, more will have to be done to expand on this if it is
not to remain just a metaphor.
4
We conclude with where and how to place Zhuangzi in the spectrum of ethical
thought. Given the ethical goal of equanimity, he may not have been a relativist
(Hansen 1983). Perhaps we may more accurately label him as a “perspectivist” or
even a skeptic in some sense (Raphals 1996). Even so, it may not necessarily imply
that he is a relativist, though in some places he may have adopted a moral skeptical
tone (see skepticism, moral; relativism, moral). It is difficult to pin any fixed
or overall position on Zhuangzi given his metaphorical style. However, it would be
more fruitful if we explore particular ideas in the text. For instance, we have
described some affinities with certain moral psychological ideas of the Stoics and
Nietzsche. These concern the nature of the emotions, the goal of equanimity, and the
nature of the self as not independent of the affects. These particular ideas in the
Zhuangzi remain to be developed. Ultimately, though, we should place Zhuangzi
back in the social and historical context. His metaphors and stories provide a
multiplicity of perspectives which deconstruct the hierarchical structures and
distinctions of the Confucians. In this respect, he is egalitarian (see egalitarianism),
though this extends beyond the human realm and it is not surprising that
environmentalists have enlisted him in their cause (Girardot et al. 2001). The text
has a liberating effect and has inspired highly imaginative and idiosyncratic
expressions in Chinese culture, art, and literature. And unlike the Laozi, whose
paradoxical advocacy of “nonaction” may have lent itself to some manipulative art
of rulership, the Zhuangzi is anti-authoritarian. There is a wonderful story which
captures this and also some of the themes discussed above. Zhuangzi is approached
by two officials while fishing. They convey an offer of a position in the court. With
his back to them, he mentions a sacred tortoise kept in the ancestral temple of
the king and asks: “Now would this tortoise rather be dead and have its bones left
behind and honored? Or would it rather be alive and dragging its tail in the mud?”
The officials reply that the tortoise would prefer the latter. Zhuangzi says: “Go away!
I’ll drag my tail in the mud!” (Watson 1968: 187–8).
See also: confucian ethics; confucius; daoist ethics; death;

egalitarianism; emotion; guo xiang; laozi; mencius; moral psychology;
mozi; nature and the natural; nietzsche, friedrich; relativism, moral;
skepticism, moral; stoicism; xunzi
REFERENCES
Chong, Kim-Chong 2010. “Zhuangzi and Hui Shi on Qing,” Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese
Chong, Kim-Chong 2011. “Zhuangzi’s Cheng Xin and its Implications for Virtue and
Perspectives,” Dao – A Journal of Comparative Philosophy, vol. 10, pp. 427–43.
Girardot, N. J., James Miller, and Liu Xiaogan (eds.) 2001. Daoism and Ecology: Ways within
a Cosmic Landscape. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Center for the Study of World
Religions.
Graham, A. C. 1979. “How Much of Chuang-tzŭ did Chuang-tzŭ Write?,” Journal of the
American Academy of Religion, vol. 47, pp. 459–502.
5
Hansen, Chad 1983. “A Tao of Tao in Chuang-tzu,” in Victor H. Mair (ed.), Experimental
Essays on Chuang-tzu. Center for Asian and Pacific Studies, University of Hawaii:
University of Hawaii Press, pp. 24–55.
Knoblock, John 1994. Xunzi: A Translation and Study of the Complete Works, vol. 3. Stanford:
Stanford University Press.
Leiter, Brian 2002. Nietzsche on Morality. New York: Routledge.
Lin, Shuen-Fu 1994. “The Language of the ‘Inner Chapters’ of the Chuang Tzu,” in Willard.
J. Peterson, Andrew H. Plaks, and Ying-Shih Yü (eds.), The Power of Culture: Studies in
Chinese Cultural History. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, pp. 47–69.
Liu, Xiaogan 1994. Classifying the Zhuangzi Chapters. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press.
Nussbaum, Martha C. 1994. The Therapy of Desire – Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics.
Raphals, Lisa 1996. “Skeptical Strategies in the Zhuangzi and Theaetetus,” in Paul Kjellberg
and Philip J. Ivanhoe (eds.), Essays on Skepticism, Relativism, and Ethics in the Zhuangzi.
Albany: State University of New York Press, pp. 26–49.
Roth, Harold D. 2003. “Bimodal Mystical Experience in the ‘Qiwulun’ Chapter of the
Zhuangzi,” in Scott Cook (ed.), Hiding the World in the World: Uneven Discourses on the
Zhuangzi. Albany: State University of New York Press, pp. 15–32.
Watson, Burton 1968. The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu. New York: Columbia University
Press.
Yang, Rur-Bin 2003. “From ‘Merging the Body with the Mind’ to ‘Wandering in Unitary Qi,’ ”
in Scott Cook (ed.), Hiding the World in the World: Uneven Discourses on the Zhuangzi.
FURTHER READINGS
Allinson, Robert 1989. Chuang-Tzu for Spiritual Transformation: An Analysis of the Inner
Chapters. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Chong, Kim-Chong 2006. “Zhuangzi and the Nature of Metaphor,” Philosophy East and West,
vol. 56, pp. 370–91.
Chong, Kim-Chong 2011. “The Concept of Zhen in the Zhuangzi,” Philosophy East and West,
vol. 61, pp. 324–46.
Graham, A. C. 1981. Chuang-tzŭ: The Seven Inner Chapters and Other Writings from the Book
Chuang-tzŭ. London: Allen & Unwin.
Ivanhoe, Philip J. 1996. “Was Zhuangzi a Relativist?,” in Paul Kjellberg and Philip J. Ivanhoe
(eds.), Essays on Skepticism, Relativism, and Ethics in the Zhuangzi. Albany: State
University of New York Press, pp. 196–214.
Mair, Victor H. 1994. Wandering on the Way: Early Taoist Tales and Parables of Chuang Tzu.
Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Oshima, Harold H. 1983. “A Metaphorical Analysis of the Concept of Mind in the Chuang-
tzu,” in Victor H. Mair (ed.), Experimental Essays on Chuang-tzu. Center for Asian and
Pacific Studies, University of Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press, pp. 63–84.
Yearley, Lee 1996. “Zhuangzi’s Understanding of Skillfulness and the Ultimate Spiritual State,”
in Paul Kjellberg and Philip J. Ivanhoe (eds.), Essays on Skepticism, Relativism, and Ethics
in the Zhuangzi. Albany: State University of New York Press, pp. 152–82.
Ziporyn, Brook 2009. Zhuangzi: The Essential Writings with Selections from Traditional
Commentaries. Indianapolis: Hackett.
1
Blame
Angela M. Smith
Blame – for better or worse – is a pervasive feature of our moral experience. In both
moral and nonmoral contexts, we are often concerned to determine who or what is
the appropriate target of blame, and most of us will go to great lengths to avoid being
seen as such a target. Yet it is surprisingly difficult to say what, exactly, blame is (Sher
2006: vi; Scanlon 2008: 122). While some regard blame as simply a negative (moral)
evaluation, others insist that blame involves additional emotional and/or behavioral
responses that go beyond such cognitive assessments. My aim in this essay is to
survey some of the most prominent philosophical accounts of the nature of blame,
and to explain how blame is connected to several other important philosophical
concepts, including moral agency (see moral agency), responsibility (see respon-
sibility), and free will (see free will).
Before beginning, however, we should distinguish two importantly different uses
of the concept of blame. We sometimes use the concept of blame merely to attribute
causality to something, as when we blame an accident on the faulty breaks, or blame
the rain for ruining our picnic. In this usage, we are merely picking out these things
or events as the most salient causal contributors to an unfortunate outcome. By
contrast, when we blame a person for some untoward action, omission, attitude, or
outcome, we generally mean to say more than that she was causally involved in some
way in the unfortunate happening; we mean to imply that she is open to certain dis-
tinctively critical responses in virtue of the role she played in these events (Wolf
1990: 41). It is these “distinctively critical responses” that are at issue in debates over
the nature and justification of blame.
Responsibility, Blameworthiness, and Blame

Since it is widely accepted that there are close connections between the concepts of
blame, blameworthiness, and (moral) responsibility, it might be helpful to begin by
clarifying, in a very general way, the relations between these concepts. The precise
nature of the connection between these concepts is the subject of much scholarly
debate in the literature, and more detailed information about these debates can be
found in the essays on Moral Agency, Responsibility, Free Will, and Ought Implies
Can (see ought implies can). But there is broad agreement that in order for a person
to be an appropriate target of blame for something, at least four conditions must be
met. First, the person in question must meet certain very general conditions of respon-
sible moral agency. For example, the person must not be insane, hypnotized, asleep, or
otherwise cognitively or affectively disabled. These are quite general “agency condi-
tions” that must be met in order for an individual to count as a suitable target of the
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee171
2
distinctively critical responses that are constitutive of blame, and there is much debate
over what these agency conditions involve. Some philosophers believe we must possess
a form of free will that is inconsistent with the truth of causal determinism, for exam-
ple, while others believe that we need only possess certain rational capacities that are
consistent with the truth of causal determinism. Second, the person must be responsi-
ble for the thing for which she is being blamed. Again, there is deep disagreement over
what is required in order for someone to count as responsible for something. Accord-
ing to most philosophers, the agent must exercise some kind of control over the thing
in question, but there is disagreement over what form this control must take (in par-
ticular, whether the control in question is voluntary control or rational control). But at
an intuitive level it seems correct that it would be inappropriate to blame someone for
something to which she clearly has no volitional or rational connection. For example,
it would be inappropriate for me to blame the weatherman for the fact that it is raining,
though it may be appropriate for me to blame him for his mistaken weather forecast.
The weatherman is, intuitively, responsible for his weather forecasts in a way that he
does not seem to be responsible for the weather itself. The mere fact that someone is
responsible for something, however, is not sufficient to make her an appropriate target
of blame for that thing. In addition, and this is the third condition, the thing in ques-
tion must be wrong, untoward, or objectionable in some way. Though the weatherman
is, presumably, responsible for all of his weather forecasts, he is an appropriate target
of blame only when he gets these forecasts wrong. But even this is not yet sufficient to
ensure that blame is warranted, since the weatherman might have a legitimate excuse
or justification for his mistaken forecast. For example, he may have been sent incorrect
data from the National Weather Service, or he may have been forced at gunpoint to
issue a forecast he knew to be incorrect. The fourth condition of warranted blame,
then, is that the agent must not have a valid excuse or justification for the objectionable
thing for which he is responsible (see guilt).
Together, these four conditions appear to capture what it takes for someone to be
blameworthy for something (Cohen 1977: 150–1; Smith 2007: 476–7). To judge that
a moral agent, A, is blameworthy for X is to judge that A is responsible for X, that X
is wrong, objectionable, or untoward in some way, and that A has no valid excuse or
justification for X. Now, one might say that to judge someone blameworthy for
something just is to blame her for it. A judgment of fault is, after all, a kind of
negative evaluation; it indicates that the agent has violated, without valid excuse,
certain requirements or expectations to which she is legitimately subject. Yet there
seems to be more to blame than this sort of fault-finding appraisal. After all, it seems
perfectly legitimate to say things like, “I know he is blameworthy for doing X, but I
just can’t bring myself to blame him for it,” suggesting that blame involves something
that goes beyond the simple judgment of blameworthiness. And when we forgive
someone (see forgiveness), it seems that we retain our judgment of blameworthi-
ness, but disavow certain critical responses that we would ordinarily be justified in
taking toward the agent on the basis of her objectionable conduct. But what, exactly,
are these “critical responses,” and how do they go beyond the judgment of
blameworthiness? It is to this question that we now turn.
3
The Nature of Blame: Assessment, Reactive Attitude, or Sanction?

As noted in the introduction, blame of the sort we are concerned with is character-
istically a response to a person on the basis of some wrongful, objectionable, or
untoward conduct on her part. Unlike the sort of “blame” we might attribute to
malfunctioning artifacts or disruptive weather patterns, blame of persons is thought
to have a characteristic “force” or “depth” that goes beyond a mere description of
causal responsibility for a bad result (Wolf 1990; Hieronymi 2004). But how should
we understand this characteristic “force” or “depth”?
Traditionally, there have been three broad approaches to answering this question
in the philosophical literature. According to what I will call the “Sanction View,” to
blame a person is essentially to engage in certain punitive activities toward a person
in response to her misconduct. According to what I will call the “Assessment View,”
to blame a person is essentially to arrive at a negative assessment of that person’s
character (see character) on the basis of her misconduct. And according to what
I will call the “Reactive Attitude View” (see attitudes, reactive) to blame a person
is essentially to have a negative emotional reaction to a person in response to her
misconduct. I will briefly describe each of these approaches and then in the next
section I will consider three more recent accounts of the nature of blame that do not
fit neatly into any of these three traditional categories.
The sanction view

Though there is much disagreement over what, exactly, blame is, it is generally
agreed that blame is unpleasant and therefore something to be avoided, if at all
possible. This has suggested to many philosophers that blame should be understood
as a kind of sanction, or a mild form of punishment. To blame someone, on this
view, is simply to engage in negative overt behavior (such as scolding or rebuking)
in response to someone’s objectionable conduct. According to many utilitarian
philosophers writing in the first half of the twentieth century, the very function of
moral blame is to express moral disapproval to a wrong-doer in a way that is likely
to lead to socially beneficial outcomes; and blame is justified, on this view, so long as
it is possible to influence a person’s future conduct or character through such
sanctioning activities (Schlick 1939; Smart 1961).
Regardless of whether we accept this utilitarian justification for blame, this
account of what blame is has a certain degree of independent appeal. After all, blame
is often presented as the opposite of praise, and it seems that praise is something
that is always overtly bestowed (Sher 2006: 71). Moreover, philosophers who write
about issues of moral responsibility regularly group blame together with certain
other forms of unpleasant treatment, such as “avoidance, reproach, scolding, denun-
ciation, remonstration, and (at the limit) punishment” (Wallace 1994: 54), which
again suggests that blame should be understood as a kind of sanction. Finally, the
sanction account makes clear how blame has a “force” that goes beyond a simple
judgment of blameworthiness. Blame, on this view, is a form of punitive activity that
4
is directed at a person in virtue of her blameworthy behavior. It is no mystery then,

on this view, why blame is something that we are all eager to avoid.
While this sanction account of blame was once widely accepted in the philosophical
literature, I think it is fair to say that it has now fallen decisively out of favor. Even
philosophers who see close connections between blame and certain forms of
punishment or unpleasant treatment generally insist that blame itself is distinct from
any of these forms of punitive activity (Wallace 1994: 55–6). There are three
objections, in particular, that are commonly raised to the sanction account. First, this
view does not appear to allow for the phenomenon of private or unexpressed blame.
Yet we can coherently say things like, “Though I never told him, I always blamed my
father for moving us to Kansas.” Second, this view does not appear to allow for blame
of people who are outside the reach of our sanctioning activities (either because they
are now dead or distant from us in time or space). And yet it also seems quite possible
for us to blame people such as Hitler or Osama bin Laden, whom we are not in a
position to personally sanction in any way. Both of these objections point toward a
more general objection, which is that even when blame is overt, its force seems to
reside not in the outward conduct itself, but rather in the negative attitude that is
expressed by this outward conduct. But if that is correct, then it seems that the sanc-
tioning activities many people identify with blame are really just vehicles for the
expression of blame, and we still need an account of what the mental state of blame,
itself, is. The next two views attempt to provide such an account.
The assessment view

According to what I have called the assessment view, to blame a person for
something is essentially to take that thing to reveal something negative about
that person’s character. Defenders of the assessment view often appeal to the idea
of a moral “ledger” or “balance sheet,” and suggest that when we praise and blame
persons we are, in effect, making additions or subtractions to our assessment of
their overall “moral record” (Feinberg 1970: 125–7; Glover 1970: 64; see feinberg,
joel). Wrong-doers are judged to have a black mark, or a demerit, in their moral
ledger, which in turn lowers our overall assessment of their moral worth. Others
use the metaphor of a “blemish” or a “stain,” and suggest that to blame someone
is to see him or her as having a tarnished soul or character (Zimmerman 1988:
38). Since most of us care about whether others regard us as morally worthy or
not, we care about these positive and negative evaluations of our moral standing.
One advantage of the assessment view is that it can explain how blame goes
beyond a mere judgment of responsibility and blameworthiness, but in a way that,
unlike the sanction view, allows for the phenomenon of private or unexpressed
blame. In order to blame a person, I must not only judge that she is responsible and
blameworthy for an untoward action; I must also judge that she is diminished or
disfigured or tarnished in some way in virtue of her misconduct. I can make such an
assessment without ever expressing that judgment to the person in any way, through
word or action. Indeed, I can make such an assessment even if it would be impossible
5
for me to communicate it to the person, perhaps because she is no longer living or is

completely outside the sphere of my sanctioning activities. Thus the assessment
view seems to account for many instances of genuine blame that cannot be accom-
modated by the sanction view.
But critics of the assessment view have argued that this simply does not capture
what most of us have in mind when we blame someone for her misconduct. First, it
has been argued that most of us do not believe that we have a moral “record” or
“ledger” or “soul” that can be marred by our misdeeds. According to George Sher,
this idea is likely a “calcified remnant of a now largely discarded religious morality”
(2006: 76). The idea that we are all perpetually running a “moral tab,” which goes up
or down on the basis of our good or bad deeds, is simply not a part of our ordinary
moral consciousness. Second, it has been argued that this view still cannot capture
the distinctive force of blame, or explain why it is anything more than “a pointless
assignment of moral grades” (Scanlon 2008: 127). As Gary Watson puts the criti-
cism, “It is as though in blaming we were mainly moral clerks, recording moral
faults, for whatever purposes (the Last Assizes?)” (1987: 262). Finally, combining
these two criticisms, it has been argued that this view cannot account for the special
role that blame actually plays in our emotional and interpersonal lives (Watson
1987: 262; Sher 2006: 77). The notion that in blaming we may be dispassionately
evaluating a person’s moral record simply does not do justice to the emotional sig-
nificance of blame and to the important role this attitude plays in structuring our
moral relations with one another. Reflection on this significance and this role brings
us to the third, and probably most influential, contemporary account of the nature
of blame.
The reactive attitude view

In his landmark essay “Freedom and Resentment” (1993), P. F. Strawson (see
strawson, p. f.) drew attention to a set of attitudes that he argued are intimately
bound up with our practices of holding one another responsible. These “reactive
attitudes,” as he called them, are essentially emotional reactions to the good- or
ill-will that people manifest toward us (or others) in their behavior. For example,
we naturally respond with gratitude (see gratitude) when someone graciously
allows us to merge into heavy traffic, and with resentment when someone thought-
lessly blares her loud music well after midnight. And we naturally respond with
admiration when someone risks his own life to save another, and with indignation
when someone engages in gratuitous acts of cruelty. Strawson, and Strawson-inspired
theorists such as R. Jay Wallace, put particular emphasis on the negative attitudes
of resentment, indignation, and guilt as the characteristic emotional responses to
perceived manifestations of ill-will (Wallace 1994: 29–30). According to these
philosophers, these reactive attitudes are the key to understanding the nature and
significance of blame (and self-blame). Blame, on this view, is not simply a nega-
tive assessment of someone’s character, nor is it an explicit activity we engage in
in order to sanction someone for bad behavior. Blame is a way of responding
6
emotionally to the perceived disregard or disrespect manifested in someone’s

behavior toward ourselves or others. These reactions, according to Strawson, “rest
on, and reflect, an expectation of, and demand for, the manifestation of a certain
degree of goodwill or regard on the part of other human beings toward ourselves;
or at least on the expectation of, and demand for, an absence of the manifestation
of active ill-will or indifferent disregard” (1993: 57). And these reactive attitudes,
in turn, “tend to inhibit or at least limit our goodwill toward the object of these
attitudes, tend to promote an at least partial and temporary withdrawal of good-
will” (1993: 63). When we blame someone, then, we are emotionally exercised by
what they have done, and this emotional disturbance carries with it a certain
amount of hostility toward the offender. As Strawson puts it, the reactive attitudes
entail “the modification … of the general demand that another should, if possible,
be spared suffering” (1993: 63).
The reactive attitude view has seemed to many philosophers to capture quite nicely
the distinctive force of blame, and to explain how blame differs from a simple judg-
ment of blameworthiness. The person who says “I know X is blameworthy, but I just
can’t bring myself to blame him” is indicating that he does not feel the usual attitudes
of resentment, indignation, or hostility toward a person who has manifested ill-will.
And the person who forgives can be understood as disavowing the sort of “partial
withdrawal of goodwill” that would normally be justified in response to a blameworthy
agent. This view clearly allows for the possibility of private or unexpressed blame, but
it also gives a plausible account of what the reactive attitudes express when they are
communicated to others: they express the judgment that the agent has violated the
“basic moral demand” for goodwill or reasonable regard in her interactions with oth-
ers. This, in turn, explains why blame plays such an important role in our interpersonal
relationships, for blame and the other reactive attitudes embody at a deep level the
basic expectations we hold one another to as members of a shared moral community.
Despite the apparent advantages of the reactive attitude view, various objections
have been raised to this account. First, a number of philosophers have rejected the
claim that blame necessarily involves reactive emotions such as resentment or indig-
nation. It seems possible to blame friends or loved ones for their misdeeds, for
example, without feeling any attitudes of resentment, anger, or hostility toward
them. Moreover, George Sher and others have argued that blame of those who are
distant from us geographically or temporally may also be “affectless,” yet still count
as genuine instances of blame (Sher 2006: 89; Arpaly 2006: 12). We can’t possibly feel
reactive attitudes, in his view, toward every person whom we blame, for there are
just too many such individuals in the world.
Second, many philosophers reject Strawson’s claim that these reactive attitudes
necessarily embody a kind of hostility, or a “partial withdrawal of goodwill.” It seems
that we can genuinely blame people without in any way suspending our desire that
they be spared suffering. It has been argued that figures such as Gandhi and Martin
Luther King, Jr., for example, genuinely blamed their oppressors without harboring
attitudes of hostility or any other “retributive sentiments” toward them (Stern 1974:
78–9; Watson 1987: 286; see retribution).
7
Finally, it has been argued that Strawson, and those inspired by his account, have
put the emphasis on the wrong aspect of his view (Scanlon 1995: 54–60; Hieronymi
2004: 122–5). In order to understand the special force of blame, according to these
critics, what is important is not so much the reactive attitudes of resentment and
indignation (understood as affects), but rather the judgment of ill-will (and a set of
related judgments) to which these attitudes are typically sensitive. According to
Pamela Hieronymi, the characteristic force of blame comes (primarily) from the dis-
tinctive content of a judgment of ill-will or disregard: such judgments indicate that
one no longer stands in a relationship of mutual regard with another, and we care
deeply about standing in such relationships. In her view, then, the distinctive force of
blame can, in fact, be explained by appeal to a form of assessment; but that assess-
ment is not of the agent’s moral worth, but of the quality of her relations to others.
Thus each of the three traditional accounts of the nature of blame has advantages
and disadvantages. In the next section, I will very briefly describe three more recent
accounts of blame that attempt to improve upon these traditional accounts.
Recent Accounts of Blame

There has recently been a resurgence of philosophical interest in the topic of blame
and its connection to more general issues of moral responsibility. In an influential
article entitled “Two Faces of Responsibility,” Gary Watson defends the view that
there are in fact two kinds of blame, and that disagreements over the preconditions
of moral responsibility can often be traced to the failure to distinguish these two
types of moral response. George Sher and T. M. Scanlon, in turn, have recently
offered detailed accounts of blame that depart significantly from the traditional
views discussed above. In closing, I will briefly describe each of these accounts.
Watson’s aretaic blame and accountability blame

Watson’s basic thesis in “Two Faces of Responsibility” (1996) is that there are two
senses in which we might regard an agent as “responsible” for her conduct, and that
there are, relatedly, two types of “blame” we might direct toward an agent when her
conduct is objectionable in some way. The first type of responsibility he labels
“attributability.” To say that conduct is attributable to an agent for purposes of moral
assessment is to say that it reflects the agent’s own rational self-governance, her
ability to adopt ends based on her own evaluative commitments. Attributability
counts as a kind of responsibility, because the sort of rational self-governance it
involves justifies us in regarding the agent as an “author of her conduct, and … in an
important sense answerable for what she does” (1996: 229). The sense of blame that
goes along with attributability is what Watson calls aretaic blame, which consists of
appraisals of the agent’s “excellences and faults – or virtues and vices – as manifested
in thought and action” (1996: 231). Essentially, aretaic blame is a form of negative
assessment of an agent, which puts aretaic blame squarely in the category of
traditional assessment views of blame.
8
Watson labels the second type of responsibility “accountability,” and associates

accountability appraisal with issues of “reward and punishment” (1996: 235; see
desert). Unlike attributability, which concerns only the agent’s relation to her own
actions, accountability “is a three-term relationship in which one individual or group
is held by another to certain expectations, demands, or requirements” (1996: 235).
When an individual violates these expectations, demands, or requirements, she is a
fitting target of “accountability blame,” which Watson describes as “adverse or
unwelcome treatment” and refers to as a kind of “sanction” (1996: 237). This puts
accountability blame, therefore, squarely in the category of traditional sanction views
of blame.
What is particularly important and significant about Watson’s argument is his
suggestion that there are different preconditions for these two types of blame, and
that philosophers writing about issues of moral responsibility have not paid sufficient
attention to this distinction. In his view, accountability blame appears to require a
degree of control on the part of the agent that aretaic blame does not. His paper has
also inspired a great deal of new work on the distinction between “being responsible”
and “holding responsible” (Smith 2007; Macnamara 2011; Tognazzini and Fischer
2011). Whether or not he is correct in claiming that attributability and accountability
mark two distinct types of responsibility, he is surely correct that philosophers need
to be more careful about specifying the type of moral responses that are at issue
when we discuss “the conditions of moral responsibility.”
Sher’s dispositional account

In his book In Praise of Blame (2006), George Sher sets out to defend a comprehensive
account of blame and blameworthiness that avoids some of the pitfalls of the tradi-
tional accounts discussed above. After rejecting the three traditional accounts of
blame, Sher puts forward the following proposal: Blame should be understood as a
set of dispositions to have certain attitudinal and behavioral reactions, and these dis-
positions should be understood as traceable to a single desire–belief pair that
includes: (1) a belief that the person in question has acted badly or has a bad
character; and (2) a corresponding desire that the person not have acted badly or not
have a bad character (2006: 112). This results in what Sher calls a “two-tiered account
of blame” (2006: 138), with the core desire–belief pair forming the first tier and
some collection of blame-related behavioral and attitudinal dispositions forming the
second tier.
What is particularly distinctive about Sher’s account is his incorporation of a spe-
cific desire into the content of blame, and his suggestion that we understand blame
as a complex set of behavioral and attitudinal dispositions that are unified by their
association with this central desire–belief pair. In this way, he can explain why, for
example, anger, hostile behavior, reproach, and apology all count as blame-related
reactions, while denying that any of these activities or attitudes is essential to blame.
To blame someone, then, is to have this desire–belief pair and to be disposed to react
in these distinctive ways in appropriate circumstances.
9
One question to be asked about Sher’s account is whether the desire he associates
with blame has the correct content to unify the various blame-related attitudinal and
behavioral dispositions he describes. It might be argued that the core desire at the
heart of blame is not a wish that someone have been or have acted differently, but
rather a desire, as Adam Smith puts it, “to make him sensible, that the person whom
he injured did not deserve to be treated in that manner” and “to bring him back to a
more just sense of what is due to other people” (Smith 1759: II.iii.11). This would
connect the desire more closely with the kind of “demand for goodwill or reasonable
regard” found in the Strawsonian account. Regardless, the suggestion that we think
of blame as a set of dispositions organized around a central belief–desire pair
introduces an interesting new possibility into the blame literature.
Scanlon’s impairment account

The final account of blame I will look at is one defended by T. M. Scanlon in his book
Moral Dimensions (2008). Scanlon, like Sher, finds difficulties with all of the tradi-
tional accounts of blame, and seeks to present an account that explains how blame is
more than a (negative) evaluation, but not a form of sanction. Scanlon believes that
Strawson was basically correct to place human relationships at the foundation of
blame, but rather than identifying blame with the reactive emotions of resentment
and indignation, Scanlon places emphasis on “the expectations, intentions, and atti-
tudes that constitute these relationships” (2008: 128). He puts his proposal as follows:
To claim that a person is blameworthy for an action is to claim that the action shows
something about the agent’s attitudes toward others that impairs the relations that
others can have with him or her. To blame a person is to judge him or her to be blame-
worthy and to take your relationship with him or her to be modified in a way that this
judgment of impaired relations holds to be appropriate. (2008: 128–9)
For example, if I discover that a friend has betrayed me, I will take his action to
reveal attitudes (of disloyalty, disrespect, etc.) that impair my relationship with him.
His action reveals that he does not have the attitudes, dispositions, and intentions
that are (ideally) constitutive of a relationship of friendship. I may respond to this
judgment of impairment in any number of ways: I may do nothing at all, in which
case it might be said that I judge my friend blameworthy, but do not blame him. On
the other hand, I may modify my own attitudes, intentions, and expectations toward
my friend in response to my judgment of impaired relations. I may no longer trust
him or seek his company; I may feel angry, upset, disappointed, or just sad; I may
complain to him about his conduct and seek explanation or justification. In Scan-
lon’s view, all of these possible modifications to my own attitudes, intentions, and
expectations count as ways of “blaming” another, and what unites them is that they
are all responses to a judgment of impaired relations. Like Sher, then, Scanlon thinks
it is a mistake to identify blame with any single attitude or type of behavior; rather,
blame can take any number of different forms depending upon the nature of the
10
relationship that is impaired, the nature of the impairment itself, and the specific
relation between the agent and the one blamed.
All three of these more recent accounts of blame, then, seek to accommodate and
explain the diverse set of phenomena we commonly associate with blame. Watson’s
account sticks rather closely to the traditional accounts of blame, but he urges us to
distinguish two importantly different types of blame. Sher and Scanlon both offer
more unified accounts of blame that can explain how the various blame-related
responses are connected. Whatever we may conclude about the plausibility of these
accounts, they have and will continue to inspire much fruitful discussion about the
nature and significance of blame in the years to come.
See also: attitudes, reactive; character; desert; feinberg, joel;

forgiveness; free will; gratitude; guilt; moral agency; ought implies
can; punishment; responsibility; retribution; strawson, p. f.
REFERENCES
Arpaly, Nomy 2006. Merit, Meaning, and Human Bondage: An Essay on Free Will. Princeton:
Cohen, Stephen 1977. “Distinctions among Blame Concepts,” Philosophy and Phenomenological
Research, vol. 38, no. 2, pp. 149–66.
Feinberg, Joel 1970. Doing and Deserving. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Glover, Jonathan 1970. Responsibility. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Hieronymi, Pamela 2004. “The Force and Fairness of Blame,” Philosophical Perspectives,
vol. 18, pp. 115–48.
Macnamara, Coleen 2011. “Holding Others Responsible,” Philosophical Studies, vol. 152,
no. 1, pp. 81–102.
Scanlon, T. M. 1995. “The Significance of Choice,” in Stephen Darwall (ed.), Equal Freedom: Selected
Tanner Lectures on Human Values. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, pp. 39–104.
Scanlon, T. M. 2008. Moral Dimensions: Permissibility, Meaning, Blame. Cambridge, MA:
Schlick, Moritz 1939. “When Is a Man Responsible?” in D. Rynin (trans.), Problems of Ethics.
New York: Prentice Hall.
Sher, George 2006. In Praise of Blame. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Smith, Adam 1759. The Theory of Moral Sentiments. London: A. Millar.
Smith, Angela M. 2007. “On Being Responsible and Holding Responsible,” Journal of Ethics,
vol. 11, pp. 465–84.
Stern, Lawrence 1974. “Freedom, Blame, and Moral Community,” Journal of Philosophy, vol.
71, pp. 72–84.
Strawson, P. F. 1993 [1962]. “Freedom and Resentment,” in John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza
(eds.), Perspectives on Moral Responsibility. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, pp. 45–66.
Tognazzini, Neal, and John Fischer 2011. “The Physiognomy of Responsibility,” Philosophy
and Phenomenological Research, vol. 82, pp. 381–417.
University Press.
11
Watson, Gary 1987. “Responsibility and the Limits of Evil: Variations on a Strawsonian
Theme,” in Ferdinand Schoeman (ed.), Responsibility, Character, and the Emotions:
Essays in Moral Psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 256–86.
Watson, Gary 1996. “Two Faces of Responsibility,” Philosophical Topics, vol. 24, no. 2, pp. 227–48.
Wolf, Susan 1990. Freedom within Reason. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Zimmerman, Michael 1988. An Essay on Moral Responsibility. Totowa, NJ: Rowman &
Littlefield.
FURTHER READINGS
Adams, Robert Merrihew 1985. “Involuntary Sins,” Philosophical Review, vol. 94, pp. 3–31.
Arpaly, Nomy 2002. Unprincipled Virtue. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bennett, Jonathan 1980. “Accountability,” in Zak van Straaten (ed.), Philosophical Subjects:
Essays Presented to P. F. Strawson. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Brandt, Richard 1958. “Blameworthiness and Obligation,” in A. I. Melden (ed.), Essays in
Moral Psychology. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Dennett, Daniel C. 1984. Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press.
Fingarette, Herbert 1967. On Responsibility. New York: Basic Books.
Fischer, John, and Mark Ravizza (eds.) 1993. Perspectives on Moral Responsibility. Ithaca:
Haji, Ishtiyaque 1998. Moral Appraisability: Puzzles, Proposals, and Perplexities. Oxford:
Korsgaard, Christine 1996. “Creating the Kingdom of Ends: Reciprocity and Responsibility
in Personal Relations,” in Creating the Kingdom of Ends. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Moore, Michael 1997. Placing Blame: A Theory of the Criminal Law. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Morris, Herbert 1976. On Guilt and Innocence. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Murphy, Jeffrie G., and Jean Hampton 1988. Forgiveness and Mercy. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Smith, Angela M. 2008. “Control, Responsibility, and Moral Assessment,” Philosophical
Strawson, Galen 1994. “The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility,” Philosophical Studies,
vol. 75, nos.1–2, pp. 5–24.
Wallace, R. Jay 2011. “Dispassionate Opprobrium: On Blame and the Reactive Sentiments,”
in Samuel Freeman, Rahul Kumar, and R. Jay Wallace (eds.), Reasons and Recognition:
Essays on the Philosophy of T. M. Scanlon. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 348–72.
Watson, Gary 2004. Agency and Answerability: Selected Essays. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
University Press.
Williams, Bernard 1995. Making Sense of Humanity and Other Philosophical Papers.
Wolf, Susan 2011. “Blame, Italian Style,” in Samuel Freeman, Rahul Kumar, and R. Jay Wallace
(eds.), Reasons and Recognition: Essays on the Philosophy of T. M. Scanlon. Oxford:
1
Mercenaries and Private Military Companies

Deane-Peter Baker and James Pattison
The large-scale employment of private contractors in support of the US-led wars in

Iraq and Afghanistan has been hailed by some analysts as one of the most signifi-
cant changes in the conduct of armed conflict in the contemporary era. It has also
led to numerous accusations of mercenarism being directed against these contrac-
tors. Despite the strongly negative connotation associated with the mercenary
label, surprisingly little focused analysis of the ethics of contracted force has been
published.
Background
Mercenaries have long featured in armed conflicts. The use of mercenary armies in
Europe was considered a legitimate means of force generation until the Thirty Years’
War of 1618–48. That war was fought largely by mercenary armies on all sides, and
is considered to have been one of the most destructive conflicts in European history.
The war ended with the signing of the Treaty of Münster on October 24, 1648. This
treaty, when grouped together with the earlier Treaty of Osnabrück (May 15, 1648),
is generally referred to as the Peace of Westphalia, and is widely considered to have
established in international law and practice the principle of state sovereignty. This,
together with much of the blame for the destructiveness of the Thirty Years’ War
having been laid at the door of mercenary forces, led to the emergence of a norm
against the use of mercenary forces.
While large-scale use of mercenary forces has not been a feature of conflicts in the
modern era, mercenaries have remained active throughout the world, particularly in
Africa. Stories (some of them true) of the exploits of men like “Mad” Mike Hoare and
Bob Denard contributed to an almost glamorous reputation for mercenaries in the mid
to late twentieth century. A more recent phenomenon, particularly since the end of the
Cold War, has been the emergence of the private military and security industry. Private
military and security companies, or PMSCs (sometimes referred to as private military
firms, private military companies, or private security companies), now provide a myr-
iad of services that have, until recently, been largely performed by the regular military.
A notable early example was Executive Outcomes, a South African company
started by Eeben Barlow in 1989, which employed mostly former apartheid-era South
African military personnel. Active throughout most of the 1990s, Executive Outcomes
is best known for its actions in Angola and Sierra Leone. In both cases, it was employed
by the national government to train and support national armed forces engaged with
opposing rebel movements. By most accounts, Executive Outcomes was militarily
effective and was robust in its use of force (which included artillery, armored fighting
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee172
2
vehicles, helicopter gunships, and fixed-wing strike aircraft). Indeed, in Sierra Leone,
it was credited with playing a key role in pushing back the murderous Revolutionary
United Front from Freetown. Executive Outcomes was disbanded in the late 1990s,
and no PMSC since has approached this level of force employment, but it remains a
leading example for those addressing the political, social, and ethical implications of
the outsourcing of armed force to private contractors.
When after the 2003 invasion of Iraq it became clear that the United States and its
“coalition of the willing” had become embroiled in a long-duration counterinsur-
gency campaign, the US government turned to the private sector as a way to boost its
force capabilities. Peter W. Singer (2004) coined the phrase “the coalition of the bill-
ing” to refer to these contractors, with estimates of the number of private contractors
in Iraq ranging from 10,000 to more than 100,000. To be sure, most of the many
thousands of contractors employed in Iraq (and, increasingly, Afghanistan) are
unarmed and perform services such as logistics, interpreting, advising, and training
of Iraqi military and police, construction, and aviation support. According to Mark
Cancian (2008), only about 1 percent of the contractors are armed, primarily offering
guarding services for static facilities and convoys and close protection (bodyguard)
services. Of these, the now renamed and refocused Blackwater USA is without doubt
the best known. Blackwater leaped to international prominence on March 30, 2004
when four of the company’s contractors were ambushed and killed in the insurgent
hotbed city of Fallujah. Their bodies were dragged through the city, mutilated, burned,
and hung from a bridge – all before the watching eyes of the international media. The
incident was also a significant factor leading to the US military’s unsuccessful and
controversial attempt to “recapture” Fallujah from insurgents in April 2004. Blackwater
again came to prominence when one of the company’s protective security details
opened fire on allegedly unarmed Iraqis (killing 17) in Baghdad’s Nisoor Square on
September 16, 2007. This incident led to the 2009 Iraqi government’s decision to deny
Blackwater a license to continue to operate in Iraq, which in turn seems to have led to
the company changing its name to “Xe” in 2009 and “Academi” in 2011.
Ethical Issues
Despite being a minority grouping among private military and security contractors, it
is the so-called “trigger pullers” employed by companies like Executive Outcomes and
Blackwater that have caught the attention of journalists and academics. Certain critics
view private military and security contractors as morally indistinguishable from tra-
ditional mercenaries. By contrast, supporters point to the corporate structure
of PMSCs, the range of services offered by these companies, and their relative
openness about their legally binding contracts as ethically significant differences
to mercenaries.
Important early examples of rigorous analysis of the issues at hand were a book
chapter by C. A. J. Coady (1992) and a paper jointly authored by Tony Lynch and
Adrian Walsh (2000) in the Journal of Political Philosophy. Both take as their starting
point Niccolò Machiavelli’s comments on contracted combatants in The Prince
3
(1984; see machiavelli, niccolò). Coady, Lynch, and Walsh read Machiavelli’s
objections to contracted combatants as being effectively threefold:
1 Contracted combatants are not sufficiently bloodthirsty.

2 Contracted combatants cannot be trusted because of the temptations of political
power.
3 There exists some motive or motives appropriate to engaging in war that con-
tracted combatants necessarily lack, or else contracted combatants are motivated
by some factor that is inappropriate to engaging in war.
The first two objections, Lynch and Walsh argue, carry little weight. They are
empirically questionable and do not adequately distinguish the moral standing of
the contracted combatant from that of the national soldier, sailor, marine, or airman.
The question of motives, on the other hand, is significantly more challenging
ethically. In fact, this is the most frequently encountered objection to the employment
of contracted combatants.
Those concerned that contracted combatants lack some critical motivation
generally focus on the jus ad bellum criterion of right intention, which stipulates that
war may be waged only with the goal of achieving the just cause (see war). The
general presumption is that the economic dimension of the contracted combatant’s
employment, which in Iraq saw many private contractors earn several times the sal-
ary of those in the regular armed forces, excludes the possibility of him or her having
the appropriate motive. For the most part, the concern is that a private contractor’s
motive is objectionable in itself. But it may also be that a contractor’s alleged finan-
cial motive is instrumentally problematic. For instance, it is sometimes suggested
that being motivated by profit means that private contractors are more willing to
abandon their posts if the situation becomes too dangerous (see profit motive).
This “mercenary motives” objection has been challenged on several fronts. First,
defenders of private force highlight that there may be nothing wrong with being
motivated by monetary gain. For, we do not tend to rebuke those in other profes-
sions, such as lawyers and bankers, who may similarly be motivated primarily by the
high wages on offer. On the contrary, it is sometimes suggested that it is desirable
that those using or assisting military force are motivated by financial gain rather
than, for instance, patriotism, since extreme forms of the latter motivation may lead
to hypernationalism, xenophobia, and potentially the dehumanization of the enemy
(and opposing civilians). Second, supporters of PMSCs argue that many regular
soldiers are also largely motivated by financial gain, which plays a central role in their
decision to join the armed forces. A third argument that defenders of private force
make is that it is not necessarily empirically true that private contractors will be moti-
vated by financial gain. On the contrary, defenders argue that many private contractors
are predominantly motivated by apparently good motives, such as humanitarian
concern. The fourth point made in response to the mercenary motives objection is that
the application of the criterion of right intention to individual combatants is problematic.
This is because the assessment of matters of jus ad bellum in just war theory is to be
4
undertaken by states or the representatives thereof who make the decision to go to war,
rather than those who carry out the decision (see just war theory, history of). As
such, the consideration of private contractors’ motives (or intentions) seems to be an
irrelevancy; what matters are a state’s or its leaders’ motives (or intentions).
These replies seem to diffuse much of the force of the mercenary motives objection.
However, critics of those engaged in private force can still present this objection in a
qualified form. This reformulated objection runs as follows. Those engaged in pri-
vate force are objectionable because, although there may be exceptions, they are more
likely than regular soldiers to possess mercenary motives (given the high wages on
offer in the private military and security industry), and the possession of a financial
motivation in the context of military force is more morally problematic than in other
professions because military force clearly involves harming others. And, even if lead-
ers should be tasked with making decisions about jus ad bellum, it is still important
on an individual basis that private contractors act with the right motive.
In addition to the issue of the alleged mercenary motives of private contractors,
there is debate about the intentions of those engaged in private force. That is, there
is an important distinction between motive – the underlying reason for acting – and
intention – the purpose or objective of the action – at play here (Pattison 2008). For
while the contracted combatant may lack what may be considered the appropriate
motive, such as patriotism, she may nonetheless have the appropriate intention, such
as to protect civilians in a refugee camp. A useful example here is the case of
the American Volunteer Airgroup, or Flying Tigers, of World War II. Prior to the
United States’ entry into the war the Flying Tigers were formed from volunteers who
resigned from the US armed forces in order to fly on behalf of China, fighting
against Japanese aggression. There is no question that some of the pilots and aircrew
who joined the Flying Tigers did so out of a desire for adventure and lucrative
remuneration, though others seem genuinely to have joined up out of a desire to
fight for a just cause. Those in the former category did, nonetheless, fight with the
appropriate intention: namely, to oppose the Japanese Air Force. On the other hand,
it is sometimes claimed that private contractors will lack the appropriate intention
since there is insufficient control of their behavior on the battlefield and, as such,
they may undertake subsidiary objectives (perhaps instrumentally related to their
alleged mercenary motives) that differ from their employer’s main aims.
A related criticism is that because contracted combatants cannot be relied upon
to act according to patriotic duty in the way that (it is assumed) state combatants
usually can, they will be less responsive to the directives they receive from elected
civilians. Control, then, is the problem here. That is, there seems to be a blurring of
the lines of command and control, from democratically elected representatives to
soldiers, as PMSC employees are ultimately answerable to their company rather than
to the state employing their services.
Certainly, following traditional models of civil–military relations such as that
articulated by Samuel Huntington (1957), in which the military desire for honor is a
critical feature in ensuring obedience, this appears to be a problem. However, more
recent theories of civil–military relations, such as Peter Feaver’s (2003) agency
5
theory (which views the relationship as one of delegation, and akin to the employer–
employee relationship in which it is taken as a given that the employee has a strategic
incentive to “shirk”), cast doubt on how important this is (Baker 2011). In agency
theory, the primary means by which elected civilians ensure the obedience of their
military servants is through a range of monitoring and punishment mechanisms,
and there is no conceptual reason why such mechanisms cannot be applied (with
appropriate modification) to contracted combatants. For example, after the Nisoor
Square incident involving Blackwater contractors, the US State Department (the
branch of the US government for which the contractors were working at the time)
installed cameras in the escort vehicles used by Blackwater and began recording
radio communications made between the contractors. Later, as mentioned, the Iraqi
government refused to grant Blackwater a license to continue to operate in Iraq –
a classic case of what Feaver (2003: 91) calls “forced detachment” from service.
Critics of the industry also worry that contracted combatants represent a threat to
the appropriate civil–military relationship, which is a key component of democratic
governance and which envisions the military as being the armed “servants” of
democratically elected officials. In weak states, in particular, there has been concern
that contracted combatants may cross the line to become masters rather than
servants (Musah and Fayemi 2000). Yet there is little empirical evidence to support
this concern and the danger of coups is not one that clearly distinguishes the con-
tracted combatant from his counterpart in uniform, given the regular involvement
of state military personnel in coups and attempted coups.
These concerns about civilian control of the armed forces are part of a larger set
of worries about the accountability of private force. One significant issue here
concerns not whether PMSCs will be properly under governmental control, but
rather that governments can use PMSCs to their advantage to circumvent existing
democratic restrictions on the use of force. This is because it can often be much
easier for governments to use private force secretively to initiate military action or to
increase the size of a force without a parliamentary or public debate beforehand
(which is often required when using regular armed forces). Casualties among pri-
vate contractors are rarely reported and often not included in official death tolls, so
using private force can also be a way for governments to evade public concern over
casualties. The worry here, then, is twofold: first, the use of private force can weaken
the degree of democratic control over the use of force and, second, governments
may use PMSCs to engage in covert, secretive, or proxy operations that would not
have been possible with regular armed forces.
In addition to these concerns about democratic accountability, critics often
highlight a lack of clear legal accountability of PMSCs. That is, they argue that the
private military and security industry is ineffectively regulated because the interna-
tional law that prohibits the use of mercenaries (particularly United Nations
Resolution 44/34, the International Convention against the Recruitment, Use,
Financing and Training of Mercenaries, which presents a serious of very narrow
requirements that an individual needs to meet to be classified as a “mercenary”)
does not seem to apply to PMSCs. Critics also claim that the proper status of private
6
contractors under international humanitarian law (whether they can be regarded

legally as “combatants”) is contentious. In addition, states in which PMSCs operate
and in which they are based frequently lack the ability or the willingness to prose-
cute private contractors who commit wrong-doing.
The underlying concern here is that this lack of effective legal accountability means
that private contractors frequently operate with de facto impunity in the field. This, it
is claimed, means that they will be more likely to be involved in the abuses of civilians
and violate the central jus in bello principle of noncombatant immunity (see civilian
immunity). For instance, after the Coalition Provisional Authority specified that the
Iraqi laws and regulations do not apply to private contractors, several contractors were
alleged to have been involved in serious human rights violations of civilians, but
almost no one was prosecuted. On the other hand, defenders of the industry deny that
private contractors will be any more likely than regular soldiers to commit abuses.
They point to similar incidents involving regular soldiers, the professionalism and
high-level training of many private contractors, and reputational pressures on PMSCs
to maintain a positive reputation by avoiding abuses in order to win future contracts.
Moreover, these worries about the lack of effective legal accountability of
PMSCs and the violation of jus in bello do not seem to be fundamental objections
to private force. They could conceivably be tackled by a rigorously enforced and
extensive system of regulation of the industry. Indeed, many of the central objec-
tions to private force are contingent on empirical circumstances in one of two
senses. First, as just noted, the objection may be contingent in that it arises largely
because of the lack of effective accountability of private force, but the problems
that it focuses on could be tackled by increased regulation. For instance, the wor-
ries about the circumvention of the democratic control of armed force may be
alleviated by stricter rules on governments that want to hire private force in order
to ensure proper parliamentary and public debate. Second, the objection may be
contingent in that it applies to only some, but not all, PMSCs or private contrac-
tors. For instance, as discussed above, not all private contractors may possess mer-
cenary motives; some contractors may be motivated predominantly by other
reasons. It is a moot point whether the use of private force poses more fundamen-
tal normative concerns that, first, would apply even if PMSCs were effectively
regulated, second, would not also apply to regular armed forces and, third, apply
to all PMSCs (see Lynch and Walsh 2000; Fabre 2010; Pattison 2010). The most
frequently highlighted and potentially most serious challenges to private force
seem to concern the contingent issues discussed above.
See also: civilian immunity; just cause (in war); just war theory,
history of; machiavelli, niccolò; profit motive; war
REFERENCES
Baker, Deane-Peter 2011. “To Whom Does a Private Military Commander Owe Allegiance?,”
in Paolo Tripodi and Jessica Wolfendale (eds.), New Wars and New Soldiers: Military
Ethics in the Contemporary World. Aldershot: Ashgate.
7
Cancian, Mark 2008. “Contractors: The New Element of Military Force Structure,” Parameters,
Autumn, pp. 61–77.
Coady, C. A. J. 1992. “Mercenary Morality,” in A. G. D. Bradney (ed.), International Law and
Armed Conflict. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, pp. 55–69.
Fabre, Cécile 2010. “In Defence of Mercenarism,” British Journal of Political Science, vol. 40,
no. 3, pp. 539–59.
Feaver, Peter D. 2003. Armed Servants: Agency, Oversight, and Civil–Military Relations.
Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
Huntington, Samuel P. 1957. The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil–
Military Relations. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Lynch, Tony, and A. J. Walsh 2000. “The Good Mercenary?,” Journal of Political Philosophy,
vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 133–53.
Machiavelli, Niccolò 1984. The Prince, trans. Daniel Donno. New York: Bantam.
Musah, Abdel-Fatau, and J. ‘Kayode Fayemi (eds.) 2000. Mercenaries: An African Security
Dilemma. London: Pluto.
Pattison, James 2008. “Just War Theory and the Privatization of Military Force,” Ethics and
Pattison, James 2010. “Deeper Objections to the Privatisation of Military Force,” Journal of
Political Philosophy, vol 18, no. 4, pp. 425–47.
Singer, Peter W. 2004. “Warriors for Hire in Iraq,” April 15. Salon.com. At http://www.brook
ings.edu/articles/2004/0415defenseindustry_singer.aspx, accessed April 27, 2012.
FURTHER READINGS
Alexandra, Andrew, Deane-Peter Baker, and Marina Caparini (eds.) 2008. Private Military
and Security Companies: Ethics, Policies and Civil–Military Relations. New York:
Routledge.
Avant, Deborah 2005. The Market for Force: The Consequences of Privatizing Security.
Baker, Deane-Peter. 2011. Just Warriors, Inc: The Ethics of Privatized Force. London:
Continuum.
Chesterman, Simon, and Chia Lehnardt (eds.) 2007. From Mercenaries to Market:
The Rise and Regulation of Private Military Companies. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Kinsey, Christopher 2006. Corporate Soldiers and International Security: The Rise of Private
Military Companies. London: Routledge.
Krahmann, Elke. 2010. States, Citizens, and the Privatisation of Security. Cambridge:
Leander, Anna 2006. Eroding State Authority? Private Military Companies and the Legitimate
Use of Force. Rome: Centro Militare di Studi Strategici.
Percy, Sarah. 2007. Mercenaries: The History of a Norm in International Relations. Oxford:
Singer, Peter W. 2008. Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry,
updated ed. New York: Cornell University Press.
1
Existentialism
William L. McBride
The word “existentialism” came only gradually into general usage. Gabriel Marcel
(see marcel, gabriel) is often identified as the first philosopher to suggest it as a
name for his philosophy in the 1920s; by the late 1930s it and its German counterpart,
Existenzphilosophie, had been deployed by such diverse writers as the Russian exile
in France, Lev Shestov (1866–1938), and the German philosopher Karl Jaspers
(see jaspers, karl); and in the period immediately following World War II it became
something of an intellectual household word, associated first and foremost with
the Parisian Left Bank and its reigning vedettes, Jean-Paul Sartre (see sartre,
jean-paul), Simone de Beauvoir (see beauvoir, simone de), and Albert Camus (see
camus, albert). A kind of virtual Pantheon of existentialist philosophers was
assembled, thanks in considerable measure to the scholarly efforts of Jean Wahl
(1888–1974), with Søren Kierkegaard (see kierkegaard, søren) assuming the
place of father of these gods and Martin Heidegger (see heidegger, martin)
occupying a special niche among twentieth-century figures outside of France.
It has long been apparent to visitors to this Pantheon that existentialism, however
defined, had as one of its most central concerns the question of how to live. On the
other hand, it has been equally apparent that no single ethical doctrine or even a
single list of most salient moral concepts could be drawn up in such a way as to
characterize all of the most prominent thinkers who have been assigned the
existentialist label; indeed, as we shall see, agreement as to the exact nature of the
ethical views of the individual thinkers themselves has been elusive and, ultimately,
unattainable. Among important earlier commentators, Hazel Barnes (1915–2008),
who translated Sartre’s massive Being and Nothingness into English, authored what
is probably the best-known effort at delineating an existentialist ethics; but the
indefinite article in her book’s title, An Existentialist Ethics, was deliberately chosen,
since, as she acknowledged in the preface to a later edition (1978: xi), she took her
cues primarily from Sartre rather than any other existentialists, and she was not even
remotely pretending to write Sartre’s own ethics for him. Here, a brief, more or less
chronologically ordered, review of each of several major figures identified with the
existentialist tradition will be followed by an essay at producing some generaliza-
tions, malgré tout.
Kierkegaard’s most extended portrayal of someone whom he categorizes as an
ethical individual is Judge William, the fictitious, pseudonymous author of volume
2 of Either/Or. This volume takes the form of long letters written by William to a
young friend, presumed to be the “aesthete” who had been portrayed in various ways
in the previous volume. William calls upon him to abandon his ultimately pointless,
amoral if not immoral, way of life and to become more like him. For instance, Judge
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee173
2
William is married, and he proceeds to elaborate on the superiority of that state even
from an aesthetic point of view. The persona of William that Kierkegaard develops
is at best disquieting: that of an intelligent but highly conventional, somewhat
pretentious, self-satisfied prig, whose arguments include more than a few Kantian
overtones. He regards himself as a good Christian, of course, but at the end of the
book he admits to having been taken aback, to the point of reconsidering his
self-image, by having recently received a copy of a sermon from an old friend, now
a modest country pastor, unsuccessful by worldly standards, which contends that we
are always guilty before God.
Kierkegaard’s deep discontent with conventional bourgeois moral attitudes and
particularly with the established Church of his native Denmark that to him reflected
and reinforced these attitudes was based on the conviction that they failed to take
seriously the severe trials and anxieties that are associated with genuine Christianity,
which requires what he called a “leap of faith.” For him, the archetypical “knight of
faith” was the biblical figure of Abraham, whose story has so often troubled Jewish
and Christian writers on ethics by virtue of his fabled willingness to sacrifice his son,
Isaac – a horribly unethical act – because he had supposedly been commanded to do
so by God. (In the end, to be sure, Isaac was saved, and Abraham was judged to have
successfully coped with his “trial.”) Kierkegaard’s technical expression for the sort of
stance taken by Abraham is the “teleological suspension of the ethical” – the telos
being the religious commitment.
With what message does Kierkegaard leave us, then, concerning ethics? As most
sympathetic commentators agree, he is not advocating a wholehearted abandonment
of ethics: the word “suspension” does not mean that, whatever it does mean. They
differ widely, however, as to whether it may or may not still make sense to speak of
a Kierkegaardian ethic after all, and if so how to characterize it. Some, for instance,
have seen in Kierkegaard an anticipation of the so-called divine command ethics
that has become fashionable recently in certain Christian philosophy circles (see
divine command), whereas others prefer to stress some trait that Kierkegaard
appeared, especially in his late writings, to regard as establishing duties for us
independently of the presumed fact that God may command it: “neighbor love” is
one such trait. At the very least, however, Kierkegaard surely put into question some
fundamental assumptions about ethics as a domain that most “mainstream” Western
ethicists of numerous stripes had shared, and arguably continue to share to this day.
Such radical questioning was pursued, from an entirely different standpoint, by
Friedrich Nietzsche (see nietzsche, friedrich), the identification of whom as an
existentialist thinker has provoked sharp disagreements among commentators, with
some insisting that he should not be so labeled. For present purposes, however, what
matters most is the influence that he clearly exerted on later existentialists, Heidegger
and Sartre above all. Nietzsche expressed the deepest doubts about the very existence
of what some today would call “the ethical domain.” He advocated an abandonment
of the old “tablets” (the Ten Commandments and other, similar lists of ethical
prescriptions) and of the old dichotomy of good and evil (see evil), especially to the
extent to which the latter term suggests the existence of an ultimately inexplicable
3
“radical evil,” as in Immanuel Kant (see kant, immanuel); and he elaborated a

vision of a future in which superior individuals would be able to establish, so to
speak, new rules of their own. Moreover, in contrast to the usual tendency, among
Western ethicists, to identify universal, atemporal values, Nietzsche argued for a
view of ethics as having evolved historically (what he called the “genealogy of
morals”) in response to various new needs and stimuli. He took almost literally the
words of the Lutheran Good Friday hymn “God Is Dead,” applying them above all to
his own late nineteenth-century European culture in which, as he perceived it, the
old Christian theistic beliefs had mostly disappeared, while much of the moral code
that had once been supported by these beliefs was still widely held, but now without
any support. And he warned against the onset of the nihilism that he considered to
be the inevitable outcome of this situation unless “philosophers of the future” and
other “higher men” could seize the opportunity to lead society in new directions.
While interpretations differ concerning the precise ethical stance of Kierkegaard
and the implications of Nietzsche’s anti-ethicism, there are, if anything, even sharper
disagreements about Heidegger and ethics. Heidegger wrote relatively little
concerning ethics, and there are several texts in which he appears to regard ethics as
a distraction from his central metaphysical concern with the retrieval of “Being.” For
Heidegger there is one especially privileged mood – privileged in the sense of
allowing an opening to a possible awareness of what centuries of Western philosophy
had succeeded in concealing – and that is anxiety, or dread, a concept that had played
a central role in Kierkegaard’s thought. Heidegger tends to use such value-tinged
terms as “resoluteness” in his description of the presumably rare human being (the
preferred Heideggerian term for human being is Dasein) who escapes the trammels
of “everydayness,” impersonal existence. The single expression that is probably most
central to this aspect of Heidegger’s account is “authenticity” (see authenticity),
another term of Kierkegaardian provenance. But is this notion an adequate basis
for constructing an ethical system of the sort that Heidegger himself eschewed?
In attempting to answer this question, the interpreters are seriously divided.
In Sartre’s early magnum opus, Being and Nothingness, there is a footnote reference
to authenticity that makes it sound like a possible key to a future Sartrean ethic.
It occurs at the end of his analysis of the peculiar phenomenon of “bad faith” (see
bad faith and the unconscious), which he characterizes as a lie that one tells to
oneself; there is a way of radically escaping bad faith and recovering oneself, says
Sartre, and that is what he will call authenticity, but the description of it has no place
at this point. Nor did it have a place in any of Sartre’s very extensive later writings. In
the final sentence of the same book Sartre affirmed his intention to write a work on
ethics in the future. He did indeed do so: entitled Notebooks for an Ethics, it is massive
in size, rich in scattered insights, but poorly structured, because Sartre had
abandoned it at a certain point and it was only published posthumously. In places it
reads like a certain sort of traditional ethics, with a hierarchy of values of which
“generosity” – an inheritance, as it would seem, from Descartes’ Passions of the
Soul – occupies the summit. Francis Jeanson (1922–2009), who later became a
colleague of Sartre’s at the journal of which the latter was editor, Les Temps modernes,
4
wrote a book before ever meeting him entitled Le Problème moral et la pensée de
Sartre, of which Sartre approved. Sartre also wrote later manuscripts on ethical
themes, involving many more references to political issues than his earlier work,
manuscripts which went unpublished during his lifetime; one, which he summarized
during a conference at the Gramsci Institute in Rome, revolved around the then
recently concluded Algerian War of Independence against France and took as its
central slogan faire l’humain (to make the human). There are those who consider
these manuscripts as constituting a “second” Sartrean ethic, while others feel that
sufficient ethical implications may be drawn from his major work attempting to
integrate existentialism with Marxism, Critique de la raison dialectique, which was
written during that same war and published shortly before it ended, to allow us to
regard it as his “mature” ethical statement. Throughout all of these writings there is
at least one central idea that remains constant: the celebration of human freedom.
But even with respect to freedom there was a shift in Sartre’s thinking over the
years – not so much in his advocacy of its exercise, but in his realization, which
increased over time, of its fragility and limited scope in the actual world. In sum, for
all the recognition that is rightly paid to Sartre as a major contributor to ethical
discussions, the question of precisely how to characterize Sartre’s ethics is highly
complex and, like the same question regarding Kierkegaard’s and Heidegger’s ethics
but for very different reasons in each case, remains open to diverse interpretations –
in other words, ambiguous.
Sartre’s almost lifelong partner, Simone de Beauvoir, was the one existentialist
vedette who did actually write a book-length work on ethics that identified itself as
such, Pour une morale de l’ambiguïté. Very early in this work (which has been given
the very misleading English title The Ethics of Ambiguity, as if it were supposed in
some way to be definitive), Beauvoir asserts that existentialism has been closely
connected with ambiguity from its inception in Kierkegaard. (She does not at
this point mention, as well she might have, the centrality of the notion of ambiguity
to the philosophy of her and Sartre’s close colleague, Maurice Merleau-Ponty
[1908–61], himself often identified in the secondary literature as an existentialist
thinker.) Her tone is, on the whole, more positive than Sartre’s when looking to the
future, and she exhibits more of a sense of the importance of social solidarity than he
did in his early work; but she is at one with him in emphasizing the prime importance
of freedom and human liberation. In addition, it should be noted that both her
highly influential and well-known study of the situation of women, The Second Sex,
and her still much less well-known late work about attitudes toward and treatment
of the elderly, La Vieillesse (The Coming of Age), are original works with abundant
ethical implications for aspects of life little discussed by other existentialists.
This selective survey of a few of the most prominent existentialist writers, all
treated in greater depth elsewhere in this encyclopedia, has been organized with a
view to emphasizing the very wide range and diversity of their contributions to
thinking about ethics. If space permitted, it would be useful to continue this
demonstration by referring to yet others in the “Pantheon” with which this essay
began: for example, by drawing a contrast between the ethics of religious hope and
5
faith that is to be found in the works of Gabriel Marcel, the putative initiator of the
term “existentialism,” who then repudiated this label as it came increasingly to be
associated with the ideas of Sartre and Beauvoir, and the thought of Albert Camus,
who in The Myth of Sisyphus sought to distinguish his “absurdist” philosophy from
the various “existential” philosophies but nevertheless found himself almost
universally classified as an existentialist in the ensuing years. We must now, however,
turn to a brief attempt to develop a quasi-synthesis of the existentialist movement as
a whole, indicating some generally (but seldom universally) shared similarities of
approach and outlook, both ontological and ethical, that help to explain why these
individuals are so often grouped together in histories of late modern philosophy.
One fairly obvious commonality is the existentialists’ strong interest in literature
as philosophically relevant. Virtually all of Kierkegaard’s earlier writings are at least
as much works of literature as of philosophy (or, as the case may be, of philosophical
theology or philosophical psychology); Either/Or, volume 1, is an especially good
illustration of this. The early works appeared under various pseudonyms rather than
with Kierkegaard’s own name as author, and his reasons for this concealment were
far from frivolous: he intended to portray in depth various positions and attitudes
while at the same time not endorsing them as his own. Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke
Zarathustra is a literary masterpiece as well as a philosophical treatise, and both it
and numerous other works of Nietzsche’s contain abundant aphorisms, arguably a
more literary form, and some pure poetry. Heidegger, while he did not himself write
works of fiction or of poetry, was greatly attracted by works of art and by poems,
with the poet Friedrich Hölderlin (1770–1843) occupying a very special place
among his preferred authors, and poetry itself taking on increasing importance over
the course of his career, as illustrated by his famous assertion that “poetically man
dwells.” And all of the best-known French existentialists – Marcel, Sartre, Beauvoir,
and Camus – were also significant literary figures, although they tended to a greater
or lesser extent to try to distinguish their literary from their more strictly
philosophical writings. Moreover, no doubt in part because of these philosophers’
affinity for literature, some literary figures of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,
often cited by the philosophers themselves, have come to be considered “existentialist
writers”: Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–81) and Franz Kafka (1883–1924) are two of the
more obvious examples.
While it is evident that the existentialists’ ontological orientations vary greatly (to
begin with, one has only to consider the by-now banal division between theistic and
nontheistic existentialists), they all tend, each in his or her own way, to place great
emphasis on the human individual. In Kierkegaard and the early Sartre, though not
in some others, this emphasis is expressed above all through the concept of
“subjectivity,” but all of them share a strong commitment to upholding individuality
against the perceived modern trend toward massification, “mass man.” Along with
this one finds in them a certain, if not hostility, at least wariness with respect to
science and technology, which for Heidegger, for example, constitute the
danger-fraught framework (Gestell – often translated as “enframing”) of the
contemporary world. This wariness is coupled in most existentialist thinkers with a
6
refusal to take commonplace notions of causality, derived from Newtonian science,

as unquestionable in the domain of human behavior.
Within that domain, existentialists tend to emphasize action (“doing”) over
contemplation and to accord great importance to human freedom and choice, both
as a fact about the world and as an ethical ideal. As a consequence, they place
considerable stress on the notion of responsibility (see responsibility). What
makes responsibility a weightier matter for existentialist philosophers than for
adherents of many more traditional philosophical schools is existentialists’
conviction that “the rules” – of conduct, of human nature – are not given to us in
advance in any fixed, unalterable form. (Or, to repeat a famous formula cited by
Sartre and sometimes deployed as a mantra to “define” existentialism, “Existence
precedes essence.”) These thinkers are, of course, perfectly aware that we are all born
into societies with their own sets of conventions, especially ethical conventions – but
a strong admiration for those who revolt against conventions is apparent in virtually
all of their writings, from Kierkegaard’s diatribes against the smug, comfortable
bourgeois who consider themselves to be Christians but are in his view no such
thing, to Camus’ L’Homme révolté (The Rebel). Sartre is particularly articulate in his
rejection of the idea that ethical values are preinscribed in our universe; he takes this
to the point of denying that there is such a thing as a “human nature,” while Beauvoir
famously asserts in The Second Sex that one is not born a woman, but rather becomes
one. Both of them share with Nietzsche (although their understandings of precisely
what this means may well be somewhat different from his) a strong animus against
the “spirit of gravity” or “spirit of seriousness” that allows people to maintain an
unquestioning, dogmatic faith in any particular ideology. Even Kierkegaard, for all
his commitment to faith of a religious sort, was extremely aware of its tenuousness,
its fragility.
Indeed, in Kierkegaard the central notion of anxiety or dread is closely connected
with this awareness. Both Heidegger and Sartre, while not themselves religious,
recognized their indebtedness to Kierkegaard in this regard. They accepted the
latter’s distinction between dread and fear, fear being always directed toward a
specific object, while dread has as its object nothing in particular. The concept of
nothingness plays major roles in the thinking of almost all the existentialists,
although it plays itself out in somewhat different ways in each. For Nietzsche, for
example, nihilism was the threat par excellence to the European culture of his day.
For Heidegger, the annihilation that comes with death is a central concern in his
analysis of Dasein: he characterizes it as the individual’s “ownmost possibility.” For
Sartre, nothingness, le néant, is located at the very core of human reality. Camus’
most central problems in his two major philosophical essays, The Myth of Sisyphus
and The Rebel, are said to be, respectively, suicide and murder. It is the prevalence of
such concepts and preoccupations that have led to critics’ frequent characterizations
of existentialism as a philosophy of pessimism and despair.
A good way of understanding what existentialism, particularly as it bears on
ethics, meant to its proponents is, precisely, to examine what they considered to be
the most serious objections to it and their defenses against these objections. Gabriel
7
Marcel’s reasons for wishing no longer to be considered an existentialist were quite

obvious, and he stated them in no uncertain terms: while he claimed to understand
existentialism’s attractiveness to the young at a postwar time of great disorientation
and disillusionment with the past, he vehemently denounced its Sartrean version as
“Luciferian,” as tending to the systematic depreciation and degradation of human
beings. Beauvoir’s The Second Sex was the object of numerous reviews, some
hate-filled and personal, that went far beyond the acceptable limits of civility. Sartre’s
atheism was of course a central focus of Marcel’s ire, while Beauvoir was attacked in
large measure simply because her frank analyses of women’s oppression caused great
offense and fear among the guardians of a still extremely male-dominated French
society. Ironically enough in light of the subsequent attacks on her, many of them
coming from conservative Catholics, in Pour une morale de l’ambiguïté Beauvoir
tried to make common cause with religions specifically on the theme of evil, saying
that among modern philosophies, including that of Kant, existentialism alone fully
accepts, as religions do, the reality of evil. As for Sartre, his short essay L’Existentialisme
est un humanisme, originally presented as a lecture in Paris at a time when the
existentialist vogue was at its height, is above all an effort to vindicate existentialism
as an ultimately optimistic though sober approach to life that recognizes that there
are no simple formulas capable of automatically resolving genuine ethical dilemmas –
hence, there are no general ethical rules – but that clarifies the process of decision-
making through its realistic appraisal of the human condition. Against the charge
that existentialism condones inaction, the existentialist, according to Sartre, insists
that one must always make choices, so that a supposed refusal to choose is itself just
another kind of choice. In fact, the idea of “commitment” (l’engagement), which
Sartre emphasized particularly in his subsequent writings on literature, is another
concept that came widely to be regarded as central to the existentialist worldview.
But the aftermath of L’Existentialisme est un humanisme well illustrates the perils
of facile generalizing in saying what existentialism is and is not. For soon after the
publication of that essay a French admirer of Heidegger’s, Jean Beaufret (1907–82),
asked him to comment on Sartre’s ideas as expressed therein; in his reply, eventually
published as Brief über den Humanismus, Heidegger criticized Sartre’s existentialism
for being too anthropocentric. According to Heidegger, the engagement to thinking
about Sein, being, takes precedence over all commitments to action on the part of
Dasein, the human being. While Sartre in his lecture/essay had explicitly singled out
Heidegger as one of a comparative handful of contemporary existentialists (along
with himself and unnamed French colleagues in the atheist camp, and Marcel and
Jaspers in the theist one), Heidegger was now in effect saying that at the very least he
was not that sort of existentialist. But even Sartre is reported at least once to have
said, in a lecture, that he did not know what existentialism was.
Finally, any discussion of existentialism within the context of an encyclopedia
of ethics cannot avoid dealing with the question of its possible sociopolitical
implications, closely connected as the sociopolitical is with the ethical. But in this
regard, perhaps more than in any other, any attempt at generalization encounters
strong resistance. True, an attitude of anti-conventionality, already noted, runs like a
8
red thread through virtually all of them, and this helps to account for the frequently
observed popularity of existentialist writers among students, in particular, at times
of sociopolitical ferment (e.g., to take a relatively recent example, in Iran around the
time of the overthrow of the Shah). However, the situation of actual existentialist
philosophers vis-à-vis the sociopolitical is a complicated and fascinating potpourri.
Kierkegaard was a defender of the Danish monarchy and, though respectful of his
poorer countrymen (his father had been a wealthy merchant), no champion of
the masses during most of his short life. However, his increasingly intense struggle
against the Church establishment had made him something of a popular hero by the
time he died (having just, incidentally, run through his bank account), as the large
crowd of ordinary people at his funeral made clear. Nietzsche repeatedly denounced
the leveling tendencies, as he saw them, of socialism and democracy in his day, and
he wrote some highly vitriolic sentences attacking anti-Semitism, as well; but his
sister, who cared for him during his last years of suffering from mental illness, was,
precisely, a strong anti-Semite, and contrived to edit his unpublished papers in such
a way as to make him acceptable to the anti-Semites. In a supreme irony, he was
warmly praised by Hitler. One tendency current among some contemporary
Nietzsche scholars is to see him as anticipating a new, “agonistic” form of politics
that could be regarded as a future form of democracy, replacing liberal democracy.
The still much-disputed case of Heidegger, painful at best to most of his admirers
today, revolves around questions about the degree of his commitment to Nazism
and the compatibility or incompatibility of parts of his philosophy with that ideology.
It is indisputable that he was a longtime member of the Nazi Party and served for a
short time as a university rector under Hitler, carrying out the latter’s directives with
apparent enthusiasm during that period. At the same time, there are approving
references to Karl Marx (see marx, karl) in his work, specifically with respect to the
latter’s sense of the importance of history for thought.
The names of Marx and Marxism are of pivotal importance to the evolution
of existentialism in mid-twentieth-century France, and in a certain sense to
its gradual loss of intellectual hegemony. In the postwar period when the existentialist
vogue was at its height, a number of intellectuals, Sartre included, were beginning, as
Marcel had predicted in an early review of Sartre’s work, to take Marx’s thought very
seriously. But a certain interpretation of it, self-styled “orthodox Marxism,” was already
the official ideology of the Communist Party, and Communist intellectuals attacked
existentialism as severely from the “left” as conservative Catholics did from the “right.”
At first, Merleau-Ponty was closer, both personally and perhaps to some extent even
ideologically, to French Communist philosophers than were his existentialist col-
leagues; his single most important contribution to ethics, Humanism and Terror, was
his attempt, looking back at the Moscow Purge Trials of the 1930s, to understand and
explain how a person like Nikolai Bukharin (1888–1938), the most famous of those
who were sentenced there, could confess to having been “objectively” guilty of treason
while still maintaining “subjective” innocence. Within a few years, however,
Merleau-Ponty had become completely disillusioned with the Communists, whereas
Sartre, while always faulting their dogmatism and extreme conformism to Party
9
discipline, both tried to maintain his relations with them despite their vituperative
attacks on existentialism and, more importantly, tried to effect a synthesis between
existentialism and Marxism, at least the Marxism of Marx as he interpreted it. In a
short work entitled Search for a Method (Questions de méthode), he maintained that
Marxism was the dominant worldview of the current era, with existentialism serving
as a needed supplement in light of the failure of the dogmatic, “orthodox” Marxists to
allow Marxist theory to develop and evolve, particularly with respect to questions
concerning individual human beings. Sartre’s massive Critique of Dialectical Reason, in
the original French edition of which Search for a Method is included as an introductory
essay, employs a technical vocabulary which, though it is not antithetical to the old
existentialist one, is new and different, with the notion of praxis (see praxis) derived
from Marx’s early writings playing a central role. Late in his life Sartre, while remaining
a committed political radical, declared in an interview for the (American) Library of
Living Philosophers series that he no longer considered himself to be a Marxist.
A final illustration of the complicated skein of existentialist ethics and politics is the
case of Albert Camus. Though no more than any of the others, and less than some, a
systematic thinker about ethics, he has often, with good reason, been called a “moralist”:
a strong moral tone runs through many of his writings. This is especially evident in his
The Rebel, which, among other things, suggests that political revolutions, as
distinguished from individual revolts, are bound to fail. Francis Jeanson’s highly
negative review of this book in Les Temps modernes precipitated a very public and
bitter ending to the previous friendship between Camus and Sartre. Ironically, Camus
is the only one of the existentialist philosophers mentioned in the present essay who
was ever a member of the Communist Party: it was for a short time when he was a
young man still living in Algeria, where he had been born. Torn years later by the war
in Algeria, living in the increasingly vain hope for a reconciliation of the two sides,
French and native, he responded to an interviewer’s question, on the occasion of his
being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, by saying that, if he had to choose
between his mother (who still lived in Algeria) and justice, he would choose his mother.
There are those who would like to spread the existentialist net still more broadly
than it has been spread here – for example, seeing in the aphoristic Pensées of Blaise
Pascal (1623–62) a certain intellectual ancestry, particularly to Kierkegaard.
Moreover, there is no doubt that existentialism, more than most philosophical
movements, has had great influence on many aspects of modern culture, particu-
larly literature, religion, and the visual arts. There is a real sense in which, however
resistant to precise articulation this may be, “existentialism” represents a certain
kind of “spirit” of human self-affirmation that is capable of being renewed in any
age. It is self-evident that such a spirit cannot be captured in a specific set of ethical
rules or in a comprehensive moral doctrine. Nevertheless, existentialism is an
important historical movement that continues to attract enthusiastic adherents, reli-
gious and nonreligious alike, who find inspiration in that spirit in opposition to the
conformist and depersonalizing tendencies of the contemporary world. This analy-
sis has sought to describe some of its principal ethical implications for the thinkers
with whom this movement has been most closely identified.
10
see also: authenticity; bad faith and the unconscious; beauvoir, simone
de; camus, albert; divine command; evil; heidegger, martin; jaspers, karl;
kant, immanuel; kierkegaard, søren; marcel, gabriel; marx, karl;
nietzsche, friedrich; praxis; responsibility; sartre, jean-paul
REFERENCES
Barnes, Hazel 1978. An Existentialist Ethics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Beauvoir, Simone de 1947. Pour une morale de l’ambiguïté. Paris: Gallimard.
Beauvoir, Simone de 1949. Le Deuxième sexe, 2 vols. Paris: Gallimard.
Beauvoir, Simone de 1970. La Vieillesse. Paris: Gallimard.
Camus, Albert 1942. Le Mythe de Sisyphe. Paris: Gallimard.
Camus, Albert 1951. L’Homme révolté. Paris: Gallimard.
Heidegger, Martin 1967. Brief über den Humanismus, in Wegmarken. Frankfurt-am-Main:
Vittorio Klostermann, pp. 145–94.
Jeanson, Francis 1966. Le Problème moral et la pensée de Sartre. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.
Kierkegaard, Søren 1843. Enten-Eller. Copenhagen: Bianco Luno Press.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 1947. Humanisme et terreur. Paris: Gallimard.
Nietzsche, Friedrich 1883–4. Also sprach Zarathustra: ein Buch für Alle und Keinen. Ernst
Schmeitzner.
Sartre, Jean-Paul 1946. L’Existentialisme est un humanisme. Paris: Éditions Nagel.
Sartre, Jean-Paul 1960. Critique de la raison dialectique, vol. 1, with Questions de méthode.
Paris: Gallimard.
Sartre, Jean-Paul 1960. L’Être et le néant. Paris: Gallimard.
FURTHER READINGS
Ansell-Pearson, Keith 1994. Nietzsche as Political Thinker: The Perfect Nihilist. Cambridge:
Arp, Kristana 2001. Bonds of Freedom: Simone de Beauvoir’s Existentialist Ethics. Chicago:
Open Court.
Catalano, Joseph 1996. Good Faith and Other Essays. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Flynn, Thomas 2006. Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Gordon, Lewis 1995. Bad Faith and Antiblack Racism. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities
Press.
Jaspers, Karl 1971. Philosophy of Existence, trans. R. Grabau. Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press.
McBride, William L. (ed.) 1997. Existentialist Ethics. New York: Garland.
Magnus, Bernd 1978. Nietzsche’s Existential Imperative. Bloomington: Indiana University
Press.
Marcel, Gabriel 1956. The Philosophy of Existentialism. New York: Philosophical Library.
Mounier, Emmanuel 1949. Existential Philosophies: An Introduction. New York: Macmillan.
Sartre, Jean-Paul 1983. Cahiers pour une morale. Paris: Gallimard.
Schrader, George A., Jr. (ed.) 1967. Existential Philosophers: Kierkegaard to Merleau-Ponty.
New York: McGraw-Hill.
11
Schrag, Calvin O. 1961. Existence and Freedom: Towards an Ontology of Human Finitude.
Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
Schürmann, Reiner 1987. Heidegger on Being and Acting: From Principle to Anarchy.
Shestov, Lev 1969. Kierkegaard and the Existential Philosophy, trans. E. Hewitt. Athens: Ohio
University Press.
Simons, Margaret A. 1999. Beauvoir and The Second Sex: Feminism, Race, and the Origins of
Existentialism. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Wahl, Jean 1969. Philosophies of Exstence: An Introduction to the Basic Thought of Kierkegaard,
Heidegger, Jaspers, Marcel, Sartre, trans. F. M. Lory. New York: Schocken.
Westphal, Merold 1987. Kierkegaard’s Critique of Reason and Society. Macon, GA: Mercer
University Press.
Wild, John 1963. Existence and the World of Freedom. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
1
Universalizability
Jonathan E. Adler and Christopher W. Gowans
A judgment is universalizable only if the reasons for it do not depend on the

individuals referred to in that judgment ineliminably. If someone judges that Joe
is musically gifted because he was accepted at the Julliard School, that judgment is
universalizable only if it commits the agent to the claim that, under normal condi-
tions, any music student who is accepted at Julliard is gifted. Universalizability
implies that it is the generic qualities of the individual that justifies the judgment,
rather than singular qualities (ones that refer to that individual essentially).
Universalizability is intended as a test of the judger’s commitment to maintaining
that judgment through its full range of applications. It assumes that only general or
generic features of the original judgment are relevant or meritorious, and not the
specific individuals who happen to be mentioned.
As just indicated, universalizability applies outside of ethics. A kind of universaliz-
ability has been held to govern epistemic judgments: If two persons A and B are in
epistemically similar conditions by, in particular, having the same evidence for the
same proposition p, then if A is justified in believing p, B is justified in believing p as
well. Nevertheless, it is within ethics that universalizability is most extensively treated.
The claim that a concept of universalizability is central to morality is widely
discussed in contemporary ethics. A typical example would be: Bill judges that he
is permitted to lie to his frail grandmother about his poor health because the news
will disturb her. The judgment and its universalization should be understood
as tacitly qualified: there is no overriding need for Bill’s grandmother to have this
information. A universalization of this judgment (with the qualification) is that it is
permissible for anyone to lie about his health to so protect a close frail relative.
The previous universalized judgment seems itself susceptible to further univer-
salization: it would be permissible for anyone to lie to protect anyone frail and close
to him, not just a frail relative, from disturbing news. One can abstract, from a moral
judgment, features that are broader than the relevant moral property, and thereby
produce a universalization of greater generality.
Universalization speaks to the rightness of the original judgment because it
applies and tests that judgment in any situation that is similar to it in relevant
respects. In its main application to ethics, relevance would be moral relevance: that
Bill’s grandmother’s name is “Ellen” would not be a property to be kept fixed in the
universalized judgments. However, the fact that she is frail and that the news will
disturb her would be relevant.
The relevance condition is crucial because other situations cannot be identical to this
one (in every respect), and any two situations are going to be similar in an unlimited
number of respects. (For this problem within a Kantian framework, see O’Neill 1975,
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee174
2
1989: Ch. 5; Korsgaard 1996a.) However, specification of relevant similarity is suscepti-

ble to raising opposed, but complementary, threats to the test of universalizability –
over specificity or over abstractness. If the universalized judgment is filled out with
conditions so specific to the original judgment as to effectively pick out only the
circumstances of that judgment, even without containing names or singular referring
devices, the force of universalizability to commit one to a similar judgment in a wide
range of cases is undermined. The opposed threat is to drop all specificity: anyone who
is in circumstances relevantly similar to mine can lie. The result is stark indeterminacy
that provides no guidance and, again, places few demands on commitment.
Nevertheless, is it the task of a universalizability test to settle relevant similarity of
conditions, or is it the task of the domain of the judgment? For example, public uses
of derogatory ethnic, racial, or religious slurs or pejoratives violate widely respected
social ethics. Yet, we hear members of a racial or ethnic group casually using these
slurs or pejoratives among themselves. Is the universalized judgment that the slurs
are wrong for members of any group to so use (though we may find it more excus-
able when the slur is self-applied), or is the universalized judgment narrower – that
the slurs are wrong, unless self-applied by members of the particular group that is
slurred? The latter alternative is favored if the overt self-application reflects the
intention of those members to communicate to their listeners in a humorous, ironic,
or at least noninsulting usage. Arguably, what is ethically relevant is to not demean
or insult, rather than the particular words one uses.
Applying the test in the widest possible conditions that remain relevant secures
the strongest demands on one’s commitment to the initial judgment. The wide
application encourages assimilation of universalizability to other extremely broad
and basic normative principles such as a principle of formal justice or impartiality:
treat like (or relevantly similar) cases alike.
Yet, other philosophers are encouraged by the similarity among these abstract or
formal principles to discover some underlying and more fundamental and substantive
category, which is determinate or susceptible to empirical application. Marcus Singer
(1961) defends a “generalization argument” that provides a test for when an action is
morally acceptable, not seemingly conditional on an act being morally right or
wrong: if the consequences of everyone’s doing some act would be undesirable, no
one ought to do it.
Singer’s test, like other appeals to universalizability and its kin, rests on a demand
for consistency of judgments, though the type of consistency varies, including logical,
conceptual, rational, or semantic consistency, as well as nonarbitrariness. (For a
particularly strong emphasis on consistency as a basis for ethics, see Gewirth [1978].)
The demand for consistency across numerous similar circumstances is what lends
the test bite as a principle to criticize judgments that exhibit self-interested bias.
Universalizability is standardly construed as a barrier against allowing inclinations
to favor oneself or one’s preferences to bias ethical and other normative judgments,
often labeled as cases of “special pleading” or “making an exception in one’s favor.” On
such construals, universalizability is promoted as requiring that an ethical judgment
should be based on the merits of the case only, rather than personal preferences.
3
However, if universalizability is essentially a test of consistency, it is most plausibly

presented as only a necessary, not a sufficient, test for a moral (or reason-grounded)
judgment. The argument to resist universalizability as a sufficient test is that consist-
ency can be achieved among a set of bad judgments. Still, given our inclinations
toward promoting our own preferences, universalizability can be a strong test of
ethical judgments, even as only a necessary condition. If a permission, say, to lie to
you, applies essentially only to me or my current circumstances (but not when our
positions are reversed), that is inconsistent with the implied claim that the permis-
sion reflects the rightness or correctness of my proposed action.
Though there are earlier historical anticipations in related ideas, Immanuel Kant
in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals was the first to defend the moral
importance of universalizability (see especially 4:400–4 and 4:420–4; see kant,
immanuel). In the Groundwork, Kant argued that there is a single fundamental
moral principle that he called the Categorical Imperative. Though he believed that
the Categorical Imperative could be expressed by several different formulae, a con-
cept of universalizability was the key feature of the first of these formulae, what is
usually called the “universal law formula.”
Kant thought that the Categorical Imperative is both necessary and sufficient for
establishing the correct moral judgment. However, he believed this about the
universal law formula itself only insofar as he believed that this formula is “the very
same law” as the other formulae involving the evidently richer concepts of humanity
as an end in itself, autonomy, and the kingdom of ends. (There are different views
about the relationships among all these formulae, but these issues are beyond the
scope of this essay.)
According to universal law formula, you should “act only in accordance with that
maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law”
(4: 421). A variation of this formula requires that your maxim could be a “universal
law of nature,” and this is what Kant refers to in his discussion of the four examples
of the application of this formula (suicide, false promises, self-development, and
helping others). There is controversy about whether this variation differs in
meaning from the original formula. In any case, the basic idea is that an action
whose maxim could not consistently be willed to be a universal law would be
morally wrong. (An action that is not wrong is permissible; further specification is
required to distinguish actions that are merely permissible from those that are
obligatory.)
Kant thought that there is some sense in which “common human reason” ordinar-
ily employs the universal law formula in making moral judgments. Aside from the
question whether this empirical claim is true, there are two important areas of phil-
osophical discussion about the formula: interpretive issues concerning the meaning
and justification of the formula as Kant understood it, and philosophical questions
regarding the formula’s plausibility as a criterion of moral judgment.
An obvious issue is whether or not there is reason to accept the universal law
formula. Kant thought that the formula could be derived from the assumption that
morality must consist of imperatives that are categorical rather than hypothetical in
4
form. Since they are categorical, he suggested, they can have no condition, and hence
only universality, the form of law as such, can be the test of morality (see 4: 420–1).
Many commentators have been unconvinced by this argument. However, it has
been defended in reconstructed form (e.g., see Kitcher 2004). There is even more
controversy about whether or not a deeper justification of the formula is possible. In
the third part of the Groundwork, Kant appears to offer such a justification. The
basic claims are that, since we are rational beings, we have a free will, and the prin-
ciple of a free will is the universal law formula. However, the details of Kant’s argu-
ment have been diversely interpreted, and few are convinced that there is an
interpretation of the argument that renders it sound (for discussion, see Hill 1992
and Korsgaard 1996b).
Another important question is the proper specification of the maxim referred to
in the formula, that which we are supposed to be able to will as a universal law. Kant
said that the maxim is “the subjective principle of acting.” Presumably, this principle
refers to the agent’s understanding of what he or she is doing, where (it is often sup-
posed) this includes a description of the action, its circumstances, its purpose, and,
perhaps, the reason for it. One difficulty is that a person may be acting on more than
one maxim, and the maxims may differ in their degree of specificity or generality. It
is often objected that the universal law formula can give different results for different
maxims even when each of the maxims may correctly be said to be one of the per-
son’s principles of acting. Hence, there needs to be a plausible way of specifying the
maxim to which the universal law formula is to be applied. For example, O’Neill says
that the relevant maxim refers to “an agent’s fundamental or underlying intention or
principle” (1989: 87). However, not all proponents of Kant’s formula agree with this,
and Kant’s own examples do not fully conform to this description. It has also been
suggested that the selection of the relevant maxim requires the employment of “rules
of moral salience” based on some antecedent moral knowledge, for example of the
kinds of actions that are ordinarily impermissible (see Herman 1993).
A third issue concerns what the universal law test requires. Kant himself
distinguished two versions of the test. In the first, an action is wrong when the
maxim of the action cannot be thought as a universal law without contradiction.
Kant believed that violations of “perfect duties” (duties not to perform some kind of
action), such as the duties not to kill oneself and not to make a false promise, could
be shown to be wrong by this test. For example, if making false promises were a
universal law, then no one would believe promises, and it would not be possible to
make a false one. In the second version, an action is wrong when the maxim of the
action cannot be willed as a universal law without contradiction. Kant thought that
the rejection of “imperfect duties” (duties to pursue some end), such as the duties to
develop our talents and to help other people, could be shown to be wrong by this
test. For example, not helping other people cannot be willed as a universal law
because eventually everyone needs the assistance of others and so no one can will a
world in which such assistance was not forthcoming.
There are different interpretations of the nature of the contradiction in the first
version of the test. In an influential essay, Korsgaard (1996a) identified three
5
prominent interpretations in the literature. The logical interpretation says that

universalizing the maxim is logically impossible (for instance, in the preceding
example, there is no possible world in which everyone makes false promises). The
teleological interpretation states that universalizing the maxim contradicts the pur-
poses in a system of nature (e.g., suicide based on self-love is wrong because the
purpose of self-love is self-preservation). The practical interpretation maintains
that universalizing the maxim would defeat the purpose of the action (for instance,
in the earlier example, if all promises were false and hence not believed, a person
would not be able to get the money he or she seeks by making a false promise to
repay a loan). Korsgaard argued that, though each interpretation has some textual
support, the last yields the most philosophically plausible rendition of the universal
law formula.
There are also questions about the second version of the test, such as what it
means to say that an action cannot be willed as a universal law without contradic-
tion. It is commonly supposed that what is important is what cannot be rationally
willed as a universal law, and Kant’s own examples suggest that applying this test will
depend on some general facts about the nature of a rational (and perhaps a human)
will such as that it needs to develop its capacities in order to function well.
Various objections have been raised with respect to the application of the univer-
sal law formula. The best known from the history of philosophy is G. W. F. Hegel’s
contention that the formula is an “empty formalism” that by itself establishes no
particular duties (see Hegel 2008: section 135). Another objection is that Kant’s
discussion of his four examples is unconvincing. Finally, a common critique is that
the universal law formula yields results that are problematic in some way. This
objection usually takes one of two forms. First, it is sometimes maintained that the
formula declares something to be morally wrong that intuitively is morally permis-
sible (e.g., going to the city hall this afternoon cannot be a universal law). Second, it
is sometimes argued that the formula declares something to be morally permissible
that intuitively is morally wrong (for instance, a person lacking self-esteem might
consistently will a world in which people are cruel to one another). Defenders of the
formula typically respond that a proper understanding of the maxim and the test
undermine such purported counterexamples. However, many are not convinced.
Allen Wood, a philosopher sympathetic to Kant, concludes a survey of objections by
stating that the formula does not yield intuitively plausible results and should be
regarded simply as declaring that it is wrong to make ourselves exceptions to univer-
sal moral principles (1999). However, Kant clearly intended the formula to have
more force than this.
Though Kant’s specific claims about universalizability are controversial, the
general suggestion that some notion of universalizability is a crucial feature of moral
judgments has influenced many moral philosophers, including utilitarians or conse-
quentialists such as Henry Sidgwick and R. M. Hare. In that tradition, the basic idea
goes back at least to Sidgwick’s Methods of Ethics (see Book I, Ch. iii, Section 3;
Book III, Ch. i, Section 3, and Ch. xiii, Section 3; see consequentialism). Our
evidence is that the earliest use of the term “universalizability” is by R. M. Hare in
6
the form of asserting that if particular conduct is right for A, but not for B, there
must be a difference in the cases other than that A and B are different persons.
Hare treats universalizability as reversibility or “turn taking”: the idea of placing
yourself in the position of others in forming a moral judgment or prescription, an
idea similar to the Golden Rule (see golden rule). (Kant famously criticized the
Golden Rule in the course of his defense of the universal law formulation of the
Categorical Imperative [1998 4:430n].) So, if I judge that I can lie to you, then I am
committed to your right to lie to me in relevantly similar conditions (including sim-
ilar motivations or interests). The “you” is not restricted to actual individuals, but
extends to hypothetical individuals, so that the full variation of circumstances is con-
sidered in which you would ask yourself what you would actually want done if you
occupied that role. If, under this unrestricted application of universalization, I would
not accept the lie to me, I am inconsistent. Since the comparisons extend to the
weighing of intensity of individual desires, Hare argued in his later work (1981) that
universalizability or impartiality as the moral point of view, together with the claim
that each person would rationally seek to maximize his expected utility, generates or
justifies commitment to a form of utilitarianism (maximize the utility of all affected
by one’s conduct or action) (see Hare 1981: part II.6; see also Harsanyi 1976).
Parfit (2011) argues, largely on the basis of a series of counterexamples, that
Kant’s universal law formula should be revised to state that each person should
adhere to principles, the universal acceptance of which all persons could rationally
will (what he calls the “Kantian Contractualist Formula”). Parfit then argues that
this formula implies a form of rule consequentialism, what he calls “Kantian Rule
Consequentialism,” namely that each person should adhere to “optimific principles”
since all persons could rationally will only these principles.
Both utilitarian and Kantian forms of universalizability assume that the
one who enters a moral judgment is itself irrelevant to the rightness of the
judgment – universalizability is testing whether a judgment that an act is right
is correct, not whether it is correct from a particular point of view. An influen-
tial criticism insists that this very conception ignores the potential difference
between demands on an observer for his ethical judgment to be universalizable
and demands on oneself as the judger. The distinction is especially forceful in
cases of moral conflict, where the objection is that an agent may reasonably
decide a case in one way without implying that anyone else should decide it
similarly.
For example, Peter Winch (1972) urges the conflict of Captain Vere in Melville’s
Billy Budd as a case of a serious moral judgment that is nevertheless not first-
personally treated as universalizable. The otherwise perfectly innocent Billy Budd
is falsely accused by the bully, master-at-arms Claggart, of inciting the crew to riot.
Due to a speech-impediment and the stress, Billy finds himself tongue-tied. Instead,
he strikes Claggart, who then hits his head and dies in the fall. The military code,
which applies to Vere’s ship, requires capital punishment, while intuitive principles
of justice oppose this punishment. (“The conflict … is between two sets of equally
moral demands” [Winch 1972: 160–1].) During Billy’s makeshift court-martial,
7
Vere insists on the legal dictates as trumping other considerations. As a result, Billy
is condemned to death. However, Vere’s decision, so the objection goes, is not uni-
versalizable. He made this decision seriously from his first-personal point of view,
and not from the point of view of an observer of the event. Vere need not – and
does not – claim that anyone else confronted with his options should make the
same decision.
See also: consequentialism; golden rule; kant, immanuel
REFERENCES
Gewirth, Alan 1978. Reason and Morality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hare, Richard M. 1981. Moral Thinking: Its Levels, Methods, and Point. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Harsanyi, John C. 1976. Essays on Ethics, Social Behavior, and Scientific Explanation.
Dordrect, Holland: D. Reidel.
Hegel, G. W. F. 2008. Outlines of the Philosophy of Right, trans. T. M. Knox. New York:
Herman, Barbara 1993. “The Practice of Moral Judgment,” in The Practice of Moral Judgment.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Chapter 4.
Hill, Thomas E., Jr. 1992. “Kant’s Argument for the Rationality of Moral Conduct,” in
Dignity and Practical Reason in Kant’s Moral Theory. Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
Chapter 6.
Kant, Immanuel 1998. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Mary Gregor.
Kitcher, Patricia 2004. “Kant’s Argument for the Categorical Imperative,” Noûs, vol. 38,
pp. 555–84.
Korsgaard, Christine M. 1996a. “Kant’s Formula of Universal Law,” in Creating the Kingdom
of Ends. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Chapter 3.
Korsgaard, Christine M. 1996b. “Morality as Freedom,” in Creating the Kingdom of Ends.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Chapter 6.
O’Neill (Nell), Onora 1975. Acting on Principle: An Essay on Kantian Ethics. New York:
Columbia University Press.
O’Neill (Nell), Onora 1989. “Consistency in Action,” in Constructions of Reason: Explorations
in Kant’s Practical Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Chapter 5.
Parfit, Derek 2011. On What Matters, 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Singer, Marcus G. 1961. Generalization in Ethics. New York: Knopf.
Winch, Peter 1972. “The Universalizability of Moral Judgments,” in Ethics and Action.
London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, pp. 151–70.
Wood, Allen W. 1999. Kant’s Ethical Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
Chapter 3.
FURTHER READINGS
Deigh, John 1996. “Empathy and Universalizability,” in The Sources of Moral Agency: Essays
in Moral Psychology and Freudian Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
Chapter 8.
8
Hare, Richard M. 1952. Language of Morals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hare, Richard M. 1963. Freedom and Reason. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Locke, Don 1968. “The Triviality of Universalizability,” Philosophical Review, vol. 77,
pp. 25–44.
Milgram, Elijah 2003. “Does the Categorical Imperative Give Rise to a Contradiction in the
Will?,” Philosophical Review, vol. 112, pp. 525–60.
Potter, Nelson T. and Mark Timmons (eds.) 1985. Morality and Universality: Essays on
Ethical Universalizability. Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel.
Rabinowicz, Wlodzimierz 1979. Universalizability: A Study in Morals and Metaphysics.
Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel.
Seanor, Douglas and Nicholas G. Fotion (eds.) 1988. Hare and Critics: Essays on Moral
Thinking. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
1
Concepts vs. Properties, Moral

Ralph Wedgwood
The distinction between concepts and properties plays an important role in

several areas of philosophy outside ethics, such as metaphysics and the philoso-
phy of mind and language. This distinction may turn out to be important within
ethics as well.
The Distinction Between Concepts and Properties

The basic difference between concepts and properties is this: concepts are constituents
of our thoughts, and are used or deployed by us in our thinking, whereas properties
are features or attributes of things in the world. At least in the central cases that are
relevant here, using a concept involves thinking about some entity – some object or
property or the like; the concept is in effect a mode of presentation of that entity – a
way in which that entity is presented in thought. In the terminology that will be used
here, the concept “stands for” that object or property.
Both concepts and properties are, in different ways, involved as aspects of the
meaning or semantics of words or phrases. Consider a predicate like “… is red.” This
predicate can be used to ascribe the property of redness to things. If I assert “Your tie
is red,” I am ascribing the property of redness to your tie. At the same time, this
predicate “… is red” expresses the concept red. In general, words and linguistic
expressions express concepts (although many words are ambiguous or context-
sensitive, and so express different concepts in different contexts); it seems plausible
to identify the sense that a word has on a particular occasion with the concept that
the word expresses on that occasion.
One crucial difference between concepts and properties is that it is possible
for there to be several concepts that all ascribe or stand for the very same
property, but (at least on most views of concepts) it is not possible for more than one
property to be ascribed by the very same concept. For example, it seems plausible
that the property of being made of water is the very same property as the property of
being made of H2O. However, the concept water is not the same concept as the con-
cept H2O. Ancient thinkers like Empedocles had the concept water but not the con-
cept H2O. To have the concept H2O, one needs some understanding of chemistry
(specifically, of how hydrogen and oxygen atoms can combine to form molecules);
but no such understanding is necessary for having the concept water.
On the other hand, the concept made of water always stands for the very same
property – the property of being made of water. There is no other property that this
concept can ever stand for. In this way, concepts are more finely individuated than
the properties that they stand for.
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee175
2
While concepts are the constituents of thoughts, properties seem to be constituents

of states of affairs. Thoughts are items that figure in our thinking, as the contents of
our beliefs and other such states of mind; states of affairs are constituents of reality,
including the external world outside of our minds. Just as it is possible for the very
same property to be thought about by means of several different concepts, it is also
possible for the very same state of affairs to be represented by several different
thoughts. The state of affairs of there being water in the kettle is the very same state
of affairs as there being H2O in the kettle. But this state of affairs can be represented
by means of at least two different thoughts – the thought that there is water in the
kettle, and the thought that there is H2O in the kettle.
In this way, concepts are more finely individuated than properties. But how are
concepts and properties individuated? This question is controversial. There are two
main ways in which philosophers have thought about the individuation of properties
(Bealer 1982: 2–5). On one conception, properties are individuated simply by
necessary equivalence: if it is necessary that for all x, x has property X if and only if
x has property Y, then property X is identical to property Y. So, for example, if it is
necessary that for all x, x has the property of being an equilateral triangle if and only
if x has the property of being an equiangular triangle, then the property of being an
equilateral triangle is the very same property as the property of being an equiangular
triangle. According to the alternative conception, for a property X to be identical to
a property Y, what it is to have property X must be the same as what it is to have
property Y – where this seems to mean that the essence of having X must be the same
as the essence of having Y (Wedgwood 2007: 139).
Since concepts are the constituents of thoughts, the individuation of concepts
presumably goes hand in hand with the individuation of thoughts: in other words,
a concept C1 is identical to a concept C2 if and only if any thought p1 involving C1 is
the very same thought as the result p2 of substituting C2 for C1 in p1 (and conversely,
any thought q2 involving C2 is the same thought as the result q1 of substituting C1
for C2 in q2). But how exactly are thoughts individuated?
Many philosophers hold that thoughts are individuated by something akin to
what Frege (1892: 25) called their “cognitive significance.” Again, the exact details of
this idea are controversial; but here is one way in which the idea could be worked
out. Suppose that there is a thought p and a thought q. If p and q are one and the
same thought, then it is a necessary truth that anyone who simultaneously accepts
p and rejects q is guilty of the most elementary form of logical inconsistency –
simultaneously accepting and rejecting the very same thought. As we have seen, two
thoughts can represent the same state of affairs without being one and the same
thought. The thought that there is water in the kettle and the thought that there is
H2O in the kettle represent the very same state of affairs, but it is not necessary
that any thinker who accepts the first thought and rejects the second is guilty of
logical inconsistency: if the thinker does not know that water is H2O, then there
need be no logical inconsistency in the thinker’s simultaneously accepting the
thought that there is water in the kettle while rejecting the thought that there is H2O
in the kettle.
3
It may also be an important question for ethics what overall form the correct
theory of concepts will take. For example, some theories of concepts are inspired
by Bertrand Russell’s (1910–11) theory of descriptions. According to these
Russell-inspired theories, there are two kinds of concepts: first, there are primi-
tive concepts, which we possess in virtue of our direct acquaintance with the
properties that these concepts stand for; and second, there are the nonprimitive
concepts, which we possess in virtue of our having at least implicit knowledge
of how these nonprimitive concepts can be defined in terms of the primitive
concepts.
Other theories of concepts follow Jerry Fodor (1990) in holding that concepts
have only two individuating features: (1) their syntax (for example, some concepts
are syntactically simple while others are syntactically complex, some concepts have
the syntactic role of predicates while others have the role of operators, and so on);
and (2) the object or property in the world that they stand for (which Fodor would
identify with the object or property whose presence in the thinker’s environment the
“tokening” of the concept in thought reliably “covaries” with).
The main alternative to these two theories of concepts would be some version
of “conceptual role semantics,” according to which concepts are individuated by
their essential “conceptual role” – the role that the concepts play in thinking and
reasoning. For one version of this approach, see the “inferential role” approach
that has been championed by Brandom (2000); for another rather different
version of the “conceptual role” approach, see Wedgwood (2007). These dif-
ferent theories of concepts may play a significant role in some metaethical
debates.
Moral Concepts and Moral Properties

One way in which this distinction between concepts and properties could play an
important role in metaethics is if it is possible for there to be more than one concept
that stands for the very same moral property (see properties, moral).
Consider a paradigmatic moral judgment, such as the judgment that a certain
action (say, a US senator’s vote for healthcare reform) was morally right (see moral
judgment). This judgment involves a moral concept – the concept that is expressed
by the predicate “… is morally right”; and the moral concept ascribes or stands for a
certain moral property – the property of being morally right. Now, is there any other
concept that could stand for the very same property?
If properties are individuated merely by necessary equivalence, then there could
quite easily be other concepts that stand for the very same property. For example,
suppose that classical utilitarianism is true: that is, suppose that it is a necessary
truth that an act is morally right if and only if the act maximizes the total amount of
happiness in the world as a whole. Then since the property of being morally right
and the property of maximizing happiness are necessarily equivalent, it would follow
that they are one and the same property – even though the concept of being morally
right is certainly not identical to the concept of maximizing happiness.
4
Some philosophers – such as Derek Parfit (2011: Ch. 25) – object to this argument.
First, these philosophers will dispute the claim that the necessary equivalence of
a property X and a property Y is enough to show that X and Y are identical. In
particular, they will maintain that even if the property of being morally right is nec-
essarily coextensive with the property of maximizing happiness, these properties are
not identical: even if they are necessarily coextensive, the fact that an act maximizes
happiness is only what makes the act right; the property of maximizing happiness is
not the very same property as the property of being morally right.
In addition, these philosophers will dispute the analogy with the concepts water
and H2O, on the grounds that the explanation of how it is possible for these two
concepts to stand for the very same property cannot be adapted to apply to moral
concepts and moral properties. The concept of water that was used by ancient think-
ers like Empedocles seems to be what we might call a “recognitional natural-kind
concept.” That is, to possess the concept, one must have some ability to recognize
samples of water when one encounters them in experience, and the nature of the
concept ensures that the concept stands for whatever natural kind of stuff is domi-
nantly causally responsible for these experiences. So this everyday concept of water
in effect singles out the property by means of an inessential or accidental feature of
the property – namely, the kind of experiences that the property typically causes in
us. It may seem that this is a crucial part of the explanation of how it is possible for
both of these two concepts to stand for the same property.
Some philosophers may be tempted – perhaps under the influence of Saul Kripke
(1980: Lecture 3) – to conclude that this is the only way of explaining how two
concepts can stand for the very same property: two concepts can stand for the very
same property only if one of these concepts picks out the property by means of an
inessential or accidental feature of the property. But it seems that neither the concept
of what is right nor the concept of what maximizes happiness picks out the property
that the concept stands for by means of a purely accidental or inessential feature of
the property. So if this is right, it would be impossible to explain how the concept of
what is morally right could stand for the very same property as the concept of what
maximizes happiness.
It may be disputed whether this really is the only way of explaining how two
different concepts can stand for the very same property. Whatever the correct
resolution of that dispute may be, the distinction between concepts and properties
may also shed light on some other issues in metaethics, as will be explained in the
next two sections.
The Open Question Argument

One of the most influential arguments in metaethics is the “open question argument”
(OQA) famously presented by G. E. Moore (1993: Ch. 1; see open question
argument; moore, g. e.).
The OQA starts from the following observation. Let us say, following Moore
(1993: 92), that “naturalistic terms” are terms of the kind that are characteristic
5
of “the natural sciences and also of psychology.” Consider a description of a state

of affairs that is couched in purely naturalistic terms – for example, the descrip-
tion “maximizes the amount of happiness in the world” (or “is generally approved
of ”). Moore points out that we can always imagine someone asking herself,
“I know that this state of affairs maximizes the total amount of happiness in the
world, but is it good?” (or “I know that it is generally approved of, but is it really
good?”).
Now, this question seems to be, at least in a certain weak sense, an “open ques-
tion.” It would be a mistake to dismiss someone who asks this question by saying,
“The fact that you ask this question simply reveals that you just don’t understand the
word ‘good.’ That’s what it means to say that something is good – that it maximizes
the amount of happiness in the world.” In this respect, this question differs from a
question like “I know that John is the brother of a parent, but is he really an uncle?”
Someone who was genuinely perplexed by this question would reveal that they did
not fully understand the word “uncle.”
One of the main conclusions that Moore (1993: 58) draws from this point is that
if “x is F” is a naturalistic description, then the thought expressed by the statement
“If x is F, then x is good” is synthetic, and not an analytic truth. In drawing this
conclusion from the argument, Moore seems to be relying on a broadly epistemological
interpretation of analyticity, according to which a statement expresses an analytic
truth if and only if some (at least implicit) knowledge of this truth is necessary in
order to possess the concepts that are expressed by the statement.
This epistemological interpretation of analyticity can certainly be disputed. But
the most important point to make here is that Moore’s conclusion has to do with
the concepts that are expressed by the statement in question. It is not a conclusion
about the property of goodness that the concept stands for. According to this
epistemological interpretation of analyticity, an analytic truth is a thought that
must be at least implicitly known to be true by anyone who possesses the concepts
that it involves. So the fact that there are no analytic truths of such-and-such a kind
is a fact about concepts, not a fact about the property or properties that those
concepts stand for.
Even if the thoughts expressed by statements like “If x is F, then x is good” are
synthetic (and not analytic), it could still be that the state of affairs represented
by this thought is something that needs to be stated as part of any correct analy-
sis of the property of goodness. So we cannot conclude from this argument, as
Moore (1993: 59) did, that the property of goodness is a simple, unanalyzable
property. In general, the thoughts that present a correct analysis of the nature of
a property need not always be analytic truths.
It also does not follow that Moore (1993: 62) was right to conclude that the
property of goodness is not identical to any property that can be picked out in
nonethical “naturalistic terms” (see naturalistic fallacy). It seems to be in the
relevant sense an “open question” whether water is H2O. (Imagine a disagreement
about this question – say, between two early nineteenth-century chemists; it may be
that neither of these chemists is simply failing to understand the meaning of the
6
terms that the question involves.) So, a sort of “open question argument” can be
used to show that the thought that water is H2O is not an analytic truth. But it
clearly does not follow that water is not identical to H2O; the identity statement
“Water = H2O” may express a synthetic truth. So the OQA may not be the decisive
argument against ethical naturalism that some philosophers have taken it to be
(see naturalism, ethical).
Another conclusion that some philosophers might draw from the OQA is that we
possess the concept of what is good purely by virtue of being directly acquainted with
the property of goodness. This conclusion would follow from the OQA so long as
two further assumptions hold: first, the Russellian theory of concepts that was
mentioned above is correct; and secondly, “good” is one of the primitive moral
concepts – that is, it is a concept that we do not possess as a result of any knowledge
of how to define the concept by means of any other moral concepts. If the OQA shows
that possessing the concept good does not require any knowledge of a nonmoral
definition of the concept, then given these two further assumptions, it would follow
that the only way in which we could possess the concept is by being directly
acquainted with the property of goodness.
However, this Russellian theory of concepts is not obviously correct. On most
of the other theories of concepts that philosophers have devised, there are
not many concepts that we possess in virtue of our knowledge of any such defi-
nitions. For example, according to Fodor’s (1990) theory (described above),
there are no concepts that we possess in virtue of our knowledge of such
definitions. So from the perspective of this theory, it is hardly an interesting or
important discovery that no naturalistic definitions of moral concepts are
analytic truths.
Moral Motivation
Another central debate in metaethics concerns the idea that moral judgments are
in a way essentially practical – in other words, that there is an essential or “internal”
connection between moral judgments and motivation for action or practical reasoning
(see internalism, motivational).
The strongest kind of motivational internalism implies that it is impossible for anyone
to make the judgment that they could express by saying “I ought to ϕ,” without being
simultaneously motivated to ϕ. There are weaker forms of internalism as well. For
example, Michael Smith (1993) defends a much weaker version of internalism that
implies only that it is impossible for any rational agent to make the judgment that they
could express by saying “I ought to ϕ” without being simultaneously motivated to ϕ.
Even this weak version of internalism implies that moral judgments have a special
feature that differentiates them from almost all other kinds of judgments. (For
example, it does not seem plausible that it is impossible for any rational agent to
make the judgment that they could express by saying “Unless I ϕ, I will suffer instant
death” without being motivated to ϕ; it is at least possible for rational agents to
intend to sacrifice their lives.) Some philosophers seem to hold that it would follow
7
from this that the states of affairs represented by these judgments must also have a
special feature that differentiates them from all other states of affairs. For example,
J. L. Mackie (1977: 40) argues that if there are any states of affairs represented by
moral judgments, they must be states of affairs that have a very special and unusual
feature: “An objective good would be sought by anyone who was acquainted with it,
not because of any contingent fact that this person, or every person, is so constituted
that he desires this end, but because the end has to-be-pursuedness somehow built
into it” (see queerness, argument from; mackie, j. l.). Mackie thinks that this
feature is so strange that it is simply not credible that there are any states of affairs of
this kind.
This idea – that motivational internalism entails that the facts or states of affairs
represented by moral judgments have the strange and unusual feature of being
essentially or internally connected to motivation – has had a big impact among
philosophers: it has persuaded some philosophers – such as David Brink (1986: 27) – to
reject internalism (see externalism, motivational); and it has persuaded other
philosophers – apparently including Christine Korsgaard (2008: 317) – to reject the
idea that moral judgments represent facts or states of affairs (see constructivism,
moral).
However, in light of the distinction between moral concepts and moral properties,
this idea seems questionable. Motivational internalism is a thesis about the nature of
moral judgments, not about the nature of moral facts. The internalist connection
between moral judgments and motivation could be explained by the nature of the
thoughts that serve as the content of these judgments; and the nature of these
thoughts is determined by the concepts that they involve – not simply by the nature
of the states of affairs that these thoughts represent, or by the properties that moral
concepts stand for.
This point would be especially persuasive if properties are individuated by necessary
equivalence – so that, if classical utilitarianism is true, the property of being morally
right is identical to the property of maximizing happiness. On this view, the state of
affairs represented by the judgment that one could express by saying “It is right for
me to ϕ” is the very same state of affairs as is represented by the judgment that one
could express by saying “My ϕ-ing would maximize happiness.” But even if the first
judgment has an essential connection to motivation and practical reasoning, the
second judgment seems not to have any essential connection to motivation at all.
Even if this view of property individuation is wrong, there are other cases that
could illustrate the same point. The judgments that have an essential connection to
motivation are all naturally expressed with the first-person pronoun “I.” But the
judgment that John might express by saying “I ought to ϕ” seems to represent the
very same state of affairs as the judgment that he might express by saying “John
ought to ϕ”; but again, if John is suffering from amnesia and has forgotten that he is
John, then (even if the first judgment has an essential connection to motivation) the
second judgment has no essential connection to motivation at all.
This makes it plausible that the essential connection to motivation postulated
by motivational internalism is an intrinsic feature of moral concepts and moral
8
judgments – not a feature of moral properties or moral states of affairs. It may also be
straightforward at least for the “conceptual role” theory of concepts to explain why
this sort of internalism is true: it could simply be part of the essential “conceptual
role” of moral concepts (Wedgwood 2007: 95–9). If this is the correct explanation
of why this sort of internalism is true, it is not clear that it has any obvious or imme-
diate implications about the nature of moral properties or moral states of affairs. If
that is right, then Mackie was too quick to conclude that internalism reveals that if
moral facts existed, they would have to be facts of an extraordinarily strange and
unusual kind.
Conclusion
Investigating moral concepts reveals the nature of moral thought, while investigating
moral properties reveals the nature of moral facts or states of affairs. The two
investigations are likely to be closely intertwined, but most philosophers would
agree that they should be distinguished from each other; the distinction may play an
illuminating role in these metaethical debates.
See also: constructivism, moral; externalism, motivational; internalism,

motivational; mackie, j. l.; moore, g. e.; moral judgment; motivation,
moral; naturalism, ethical; naturalistic fallacy; nonnaturalism, ethical;
open question argument; properties, moral; queerness, argument from
REFERENCES
Bealer, George 1982. Quality and Concept. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Brandom, Robert 2000. Articulating Reasons. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Brink, David 1986. “Externalist Moral Realism,” Southern Journal of Philosophy, suppl.
vol. 24, pp. 23–42.
Fodor, Jerry 1990. A Theory of Content and Other Essays. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Frege, Gottlob 1892. “Über Sinn und Bedeutung” [“On Sense and Reference”], in Zeitschrift
für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik, NF 100, pp. 25–50.
Korsgaard, Christine M. 2008. The Constitution of Agency: Essays on Practical Reason and
Moral Psychology. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Kripke, Saul 1980. Naming and Necessity, rev. ed. Oxford: Blackwell.
Mackie, J. L. 1977. Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Moore, G. E. 1993. Principia Ethica, rev. ed., ed. Thomas Baldwin. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Parfit, Derek 2011. On What Matters, vol. 2. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Russell, Bertrand 1910–11. “Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description,”
Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, n.s., vol. 11, pp. 108–28.
Wedgwood, Ralph 2007. The Nature of Normativity. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
9
FURTHER READINGS
Blackburn, Simon 1998. Ruling Passions. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Darwall, Stephen 2002. “Ethical Intuitionism and the Motivation Problem,” in Ethical
Intuitionism: Re-evaluations, ed. Philip Stratton-Lake. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Frankena, W. K. 1939. “The Naturalistic Fallacy,” Mind, vol. 48, pp. 464–77.
Gibbard, Allan 2002. “Normative Concepts and Recognitional Concepts,” Philosophy and
Harman, Gilbert, and Judith Thomson 1995. Moral Relativism and Moral Objectivity. Oxford:
Blackwell.
Jackson, Frank, and Philip Pettit 1995. “Moral Functionalism and Moral Motivation,”
Peacocke, Christopher 1992. A Study of Concepts. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Smith, Michael 1995. “Internalism’s Wheel,” Ratio, vol. 8, pp. 277–302.
Sturgeon, Scott 2007. “Normative Judgement,” Philosophical Perspectives, vol. 21, pp. 569–87.
Wedgwood, Ralph 2004. “The Metaethicists’ Mistake,” Philosophical Perspectives, vol. 18,
pp. 405–26.
1
Personal Relationships
Justin Oakley
Personal relationships, such as friendships and family relationships, vary widely in

their quality, but play a crucial role in many of our lives. A human life with no such
partial ties is difficult to imagine, and many believe that a life devoid of close
personal relationships cannot be a life well-lived. These were familiar ideas to
Aristotle and other ancient Greek philosophers, but the impartialist basis of
Kantian and Utilitarian approaches to ethics raises challenges about the place of
personal relationships in an ethical life. To what extent can Kantianism and
Utilitarianism allow us to engage in friendships and family relationships? Debates
about these questions have also led to more abstract disputes about whether such
theories are fatally flawed – if living by their dictates turns out to be incompatible
with genuine friendship, or whether, conversely, friendship itself might have to be
renounced by those seeking to live an ethical life. More radically, the special
authority that morality and moral reasons are commonly assumed to have are
sometimes questioned from a perspective that regards personal relationships as
essential to a life worth living. Ethical scrutiny of partiality also extends to ques-
tions about the proper grounds of various familial obligations, such as parental
obligations to children, and adult children’s obligations to their elderly parents, and
to questions about the content of such obligations, and even whether there are any
such special duties in the first place.
The Nature of Personal Relationships

A common way of characterizing personal relationships is as those where each person
relates to the other considered as the unique individual that the person is, rather than
considered as the occupant of some social or professional role, or as meeting some
need that one has. By contrast, nonpersonal relationships are those where either per-
son involved relates to the other considered as a role-occupant or as meeting some
need, where one cares about their ability to fulfill the role competently, rather than
about who they are as a person (LaFollette 1996: 3–5). This contrast can be developed
further by highlighting differences between the sorts of conditions understood as
governing the initiation and termination of such relationships. For example,
professional and commercial relationships are premised on one party needing anoth-
er’s services or commodities, and the other party being willing and able to provide
that service or commodity. Thus, it is perfectly compatible with the existence of such
relationships that they are terminated after the relevant service or commodity has
been provided. Doctor–patient and lawyer–client relationships exist because of one
party’s need for medical or legal services and the other party’s competence to provide
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee176
2
them, and it is part of the norms understood as governing such relationships that the
relationship can cease once the medical or legal service has been provided. (This is
the case even if the doctor or the lawyer exhibits a concern for the patient or client as
a unique individual, and the patient or client relates to the doctor or lawyer not only
as a professional but also, in some sense, as a person – for example, in respecting their
refusal on conscientious grounds to provide certain sorts of services.) However, these
service-provision conditions are not part of the norms of personal relationships, and
indeed, they may even be incompatible with certain sorts of personal relationships. A
relationship which was terminated because a needed service had been provided
would hardly qualify as a genuine friendship. Nevertheless, it is clearly part of the
norms of friendship and loving relationships that the parties involved can legitimately
abandon them if, say, the relationship becomes deeply unfulfilling, the parties find
they no longer like each other or have little or nothing in common any more, or one
party seriously betrays the other (Oakley and Cocking 2001: 49–62; see friendship).
However, it does not seem to be part of the norms of professional and other sorts of
nonpersonal relationships that they can be legitimately abandoned if the parties find
that they do not like each other or that they lack shared interests.
Different kinds of personal relationships can be distinguished from each other in
various ways. Loving sexual relationships and friendships differ from relationships
between acquaintances in being closer and more intimate, in that there is more
warmth and emotional intensity, the parties reveal more significant aspects of them-
selves, typically spend more time together, and are motivated to promote each other’s
good. Familial relationships may also include these aspects of friendship, though of
course members of families may have personal relationships with each other without
those relationships being especially close (see family). And, some relationships –
such as those between enemies – may meet many of the criteria for personal relation-
ships, but may not be desirable (LaFollette 1996: 10). Another important feature of
close personal relationships is that, as Dean Cocking and Jeanette Kennett (1998)
argue, the parties involved are especially receptive to direction and interpretation by
each other. A close friend would be open to invitations from you to participate in
activities that he or she may have had no prior interest in – such as going to the ballet
– and will be inclined to accept such invitations because you are a friend. Close friends
are also particularly receptive to each others’ interpretations of their self-expressions,
in ways that they are not open to with acquaintances. The varieties of personal rela-
tionships can also be differentiated by their governing conditions. Close friends can
legitimately expect stronger commitments from each other than can acquaintances.
Minor breaches of obligation may not be sufficient grounds for terminating a friend-
ship but may be legitimate reason to end an association with an acquaintance.
Loving Relationships
A perennial issue is whether a truly loving relationship requires an unconditional
commitment to each other (see love). It is sometimes assumed that “love is not love
which alters when it alteration finds” (Shakespeare, sonnet 116). However, many
3
philosophers reject such an ideal of romantic love as implausible, and even perni-
cious. A truly loving relationship does not require a woman to remain devoted to an
abusive husband. So, it is more plausible to think that, as Amelie Rorty (1986: 399)
puts it, “love is not love which alters not when it alteration finds.” Indeed, according
to familiar interpretations of a Platonic ideal of love, one’s commitment to another
person ought to be conditional, though for different sorts of reasons to those just
mentioned. In The Symposium, Plato argues that love of the Form of Beauty is the
highest form of love, and that in ascending to this ideal one must give up that “base
and mean-spirited devotion to an individual example of beauty” (Plato 1951: 210c).
However, most modern philosophers writing on friendship and loving relationships
do not urge us to aspire to such other-worldly ideals.
A related controversy concerns what justifies our loving a particular person.
Gregory Vlastos (1973) argued that it is problematic to justify our love for another
person by appealing to their properties (as Platonic and certain other views would
have it), as this suggests that we do not love that person for themselves. Amplifying
the worry here is the possibility that these properties may be instantiated by someone
else who is similar to my beloved in the relevant respects, and so my beloved is
essentially replaceable (or “fungible”). David Velleman (1999) argues that a Kantian
analysis shows how we can love another individual for themselves. Velleman argues
that loving someone is essentially an attitude involving an appreciation of value in
them, in their capacity for reflective concern, and that one regards the beloved as
incomparable in that one refuses to compare them with others. On this view, one
loves a person for their rational will, which is “the intelligible essence of a person.”
Velleman also holds that this appreciation disarms our emotional barriers toward
those we love, rendering us more vulnerable to being emotionally affected by them
and more sensitive to their interests. This account might be thought problematic in
underemphasizing broader aspects of affectivity usually thought important to love,
such as feelings of affection and warmth, and mutual enjoyment of each others’
company (see emotion). Also, couples often explain their dissolving of a long-term
relationship by saying that they no longer love each other, but it is not clear how such
an explanation is available to such an analysis, as such couples would presumably
still appreciate each others’ capacity for reflective concern, and their emotional
barriers toward each other may well remain lowered.
Aristotle’s (1980) account of ideal friendship gives a more central place to affects
(such as goodwill) in friendship, and depicts such relationships as involving a very
strong commitment to another person, considered as virtuous (Nicomachean Ethics,
VIII, IX). The best form of friendship, according to Aristotle, is that between two
virtuous people, who take pleasure in their shared commitment to virtue, and who
help each other maintain and even improve their virtuousness. Given that a person’s
virtue or their rational will are regarded by these Aristotelian and Kantian accounts
as essential to who a person is, it might be difficult for such approaches to make
much sense of the worry about a person being loved for their properties rather than
for themselves. Nevertheless, controversies continue about whether such accounts
presuppose overly narrow conceptions of the person, and so doubts persist about
4
how such approaches justify loving a particular person without raising concerns
about misplaced objects of love, and the replaceability of the friend or the beloved.
Impartialist Ethical Theories and Friendship

Relationships where each party treats the other as a particular person rather than as
a generic role-occupant, and which are based on factors other than the provision of
services or commodities, are not necessarily valuable relationships. Indeed, as
mentioned earlier, even enemies may have such relationships with each other.
Nevertheless, personal relationships typically occupy a central place in the lives of
many of us, and our friendships and family relationships often greatly influence our
identities and moral development. We cherish our close personal relationships, we
grieve when such relationships break down, and we teach our children how impor-
tant it is to have friends and to be able to love. Indeed, many moral philosophers have
argued that friendship is an indispensable part of a good human life, as it is crucial
to what gives meaning and significance to our lives. Aristotle (1980) argued that
humans are by nature social creatures, and that close friendships are a necessary
“external good” for human flourishing because they provide us with important
insights about ourselves. That is, close friends are like “second selves” insofar as they
share certain qualities, and otherwise inaccessible aspects of ourselves can be revealed
to us through our knowledge of our close friends (Nicomachean Ethics XI, 9; Cooper
1980). Given the deep value traditionally accorded to friendship, many philosophers
have taken the capacity to coherently permit friendship as a sort of litmus test of the
acceptability of an ethical theory. An intense debate has developed about whether
Utilitarian, Consequentialist, and Kantian ethical theories can consistently allow us
to have true and good friendships (see consequentialism; kantian practical
ethics; utilitarianism; impartiality).
Michael Stocker has famously argued that leading a Utilitarian or Kantian life is
not compatible with having friendships. In his much-discussed example, Stocker
(1976: 462) suggests that we would find it alienating for someone we regarded as a
friend to visit us in hospital out of Utilitarian or Kantian motives. Stocker argues
that visiting us from the desire to maximize utility or from a motive of duty cannot
be an act of friendship, for friendship conceptually requires that the agent acts out of
friendship, rather than out of these other motives. Bernard Williams (1981) makes a
related point, in arguing that a man who saved the life of his drowning wife rather
than that of a stranger, thinking that it is morally permissible to save his wife, has
“one thought too many.”
In response to such criticisms, many utilitarians and consequentialists have invoked
the distinction drawn by John Stuart Mill (1962: 269) and Henry Sidgwick (1981:
413) between utilitarianism as a decision-procedure or motive, and utilitarianism as
a criterion of rightness. These theorists then argue that the demand to maximize
utility or the good can guide us indirectly, by providing us with a fundamental stand-
ard for justification that we are committed to meeting overall, instead of being taken
as directly providing the aim, motive, or decision-procedure for us to adopt in every
5
action we perform. The most important thing is that our actions maximize the good,
and thereby meet the utilitarian criterion of rightness, even if our action was prompted
by a non-utilitarian motive, purpose, or decision-procedure. It is then argued that
utilitarianism and consequentialism understood only as a criterion of rightness do
not preclude friendship.
Stocker (1976) anticipates these sorts of utilitarian and consequentialist responses
to his criticisms, but he argues that someone guided indirectly by those theories
could possibly achieve friendship only at the cost of a serious psychic disharmony
and moral schizophrenia. Also, it is far from clear that construing those theories as
guiding us indirectly will permit us to engage in friendships in any case, as this sug-
gestion relies on the rather dubious assumption that engaging in friendships is in
fact likely to maximize utility or the good.
Consequentialists have subsequently responded to such concerns in one of two
ways. One line of response attempts to make plausible the empirical claim that favoring
the interests of one’s friends over those of strangers (at least within certain limits)
is likely to maximize the good. Another line of response questions Stocker’s
psychological claim that being in a relationship with someone who was guided by the
dictates of consequentialism would be found alienating (see alienation).
Frank Jackson (1991) develops this first line of response, arguing that in pursuing
friendships, we are, as a matter of empirical fact, maximizing the good. Jackson
argues that we can usually more reliably benefit friends than we can strangers, as we
typically have a better understanding of what will benefit a friend than we have of
what will benefit strangers, and we are typically in a better position to confirm that
our beneficent efforts have actually succeeded in the case of friends than in the case
of strangers (see also Mill 1962: 270; Godwin 1968: 321–3; Hare 1993). But the
empirical claim that engaging in friendships maximizes the good is highly question-
able. For given the enormous need which exists in the world and how much of a
difference one could make with relatively little effort, it does not seem very plausible
to think that people who have fulfilling relationships of love and friendship are
actually bringing about as much good as they can by remaining in those relation-
ships (see Oakley and Cocking 2001: 102–11).
Even if one grants the empirical claim that a limited favoring of our nearest and
dearest is actually mandated by maximizing the good, there is still the concern that
such relationships that would survive this test would be found alienating, and so
would not qualify as good and true friendships in any case. Hence, a second and
perhaps more promising strategy available to consequentialists is to cast doubt on
suggestions that a relationship with someone guided by consequentialism would
actually be alienating. In an influential presentation of this strategy, Peter Railton
(1984) argues that a sophisticated consequentialist agent would be guided indirectly
by the dictates of the theory, such that they have a standing commitment to leading
a life that maximizes the good, but they need not act directly from a desire to maximize
the good or for the sake of maximizing the good. This sophisticated consequentialist
agent is guided by consequentialist dispositions, in that they would alter their dispo-
sitions and the course of their life if they thought these did not most promote the
6
good. Railton then argues that such an agent could act with affection and care for
particular individuals and would not be found alienating, and could thus engage in
genuine friendships, thereby avoiding the problem of alienation that plagues the
direct consequentialist agent.
Dean Cocking and Justin Oakley (1995) challenge the idea that moving from
direct to indirect consequentialism enables the theory to overcome the problem of
alienation and so to permit true and good friendships. Cocking and Oakley high-
light the role that governing conditions play in defining relationships and in distin-
guishing genuine friendships from other kinds of relationships. They then argue
against Railton’s claim that in making the governing conditions of the sophisticated
consequentialist’s relationships less obtrusive than the governing conditions of the
direct consequentialist’s relationships, the sophisticated consequentialist is thereby
able to overcome the problem of alienation afflicting the direct consequentialist
agent. Cocking and Oakley point out that in other sorts of cases where one party
finds the other’s governing conditions alienating and in conflict with friendship, a
similar strategy of making one’s governing conditions less obtrusive is not thought
to redefine the relationship as a genuine friendship. For example, an ambitious grad-
uate student who “befriends” influential professors only if and so long as this serves
his career prospects would not be able to transform those relationships into genuine
friendships, simply by making the conditions of those relationships less apparent to
such professors (in response, say, to their dismay). After all, the governing conditions
remain the same in both cases.
Subsequent attempts to show how consequentialists can have genuine friendships
have suggested that relegating further into the background one’s commitment to
maximizing the good enables the theory to accommodate friendship. Thus, Elinor
Mason (1998) argues that it would not be alienating to have a personal relationship
with a consequentialist agent who was disposed to terminate their general
pro-friendship disposition, rather than any particular relationship, when that
disposition became sub-optimal. It is open to question whether this strategy
succeeds. Others have attempted to make more plausible the empirical claim that
consequentialists would be required by their theory to abandon their personal rela-
tionships very rarely, and have suggested that such a consequentialist agent is thereby
less likely to be found alienating (see, e.g., Conee 2001). But this seems to miss
the point of the objection that the sophisticated consequentialist is alienating because
of the sort of conditionality they impose on their relationships, rather than because of
the frequency with which their consequentialist dispositions would lead them to
abandon their personal relationships.
Kantians such as Barbara Herman (1993) have responded to these alienation
worries by arguing that guidance by duty should be construed in an indirect way –
that is, not as a motive in the ordinary sense, but as expressing a background
commitment that, no matter what motives one acts on (e.g., affection, friendship,
etc.), one is not prepared to act impermissibly. Thus, Herman argues that a Kantian
agent may pursue his friendships with others, and perform acts out of friendship, so
long as those acts do not violate Kantian moral principles.
7
However, it has been suggested that such construals of guidance by Kantian duty
as an internalized normative disposition to not act impermissibly when one acts out
of personal concern for another deprive us of a significant part of the good of friend-
ship, and may even be incompatible with a good friendship (see Blum 1980; Oakley
and Cocking 2001: 66–73). Some argue that a person who was never prepared to
breach any duty for the sake of another person would be deficient as a friend, and
might not even count as a good and true friend at all. It might be wondered, for
example, what kind of friend someone would be if they were never prepared to tell a
lie to prevent their friend’s heart from being broken. Kantians might respond by
suggesting that there are special duties of friendship to (for example) not break a
friend’s heart, and that this duty could here take precedence over the duty not to tell
a small lie. But spelling out these duties of friendship seems to fall significantly short
of capturing the value of friendship, as perhaps considerably more can legitimately
be expected of a good friend than of a dutiful friend.
A different Kantian strategy, which develops a more robust conception of the
normative dispositions that we are to internalize, might be more promising here.
Thus, drawing on Kant’s later work on virtue, Barbara Herman (2007: 254–83) argues
that we must, in our actions, take as obligatory ends one’s own and others’ rational
agency: “The obligatory ends that regulate our loves require that we be attentive to,
because we may be responsible for, the development or rational health of those we
love, and of ourselves” (2007: 278). So if refraining from breaking one’s friend’s heart
is more important for their rational health and development than is their being told
a small lie, then the latter action might be regarded as morally justified on this
approach. However, such strategies seem less capable of dealing with other types of
cases, where what one does might be thought justified on account of one’s friendship,
but one could not plausibly be held to have a special duty of friendship to do so, nor
could one’s actions be seen as necessitated by the end of developing one’s friend’s
rational agency – such as indulging one’s friend’s minor vices, like their gambling
extravagances or other peccadilloes (see Cocking and Kennett 2000; Oakley and
Cocking 2001: 70–2). These sorts of cases point to a clear divergence in approach, as
Kantians are likely to deny that such actions could be morally justified. Thus, Herman
(2007: 22) could say that true friends would not request such things in the first place,
or at least, will understand when one says no to joining them in such activities, as
friendships must be equal and nonmanipulative or nonexploitative.
Some have taken these problems that Consequentialist and Kantian ethical
theories have in coherently allowing true and good friendships and other relation-
ships as fatal flaws in those theories, and so have looked instead to other approaches,
such as virtue ethics or an ethics of care, which are often thought to better account
for the nature and value of friendship and other sorts of personal relationships.
According to the dominant Aristotelian tradition in contemporary virtue ethics, for
example, the justification for engaging in genuine friendships does not rely on such
relationships promoting or expressing a commitment to some impartial moral value,
but rather holds that genuine friendships are a necessary constituent of a flourishing
human life (see, e.g., Cooper 1980; Hursthouse 1999: 6, 11, 224–6, 233–8; see virtue
8
ethics). Proponents of contemporary forms of an ethics of care have also been

motivated by dissatisfaction with Kantian and Utilitarian approaches to personal
relationships (see care ethics). For example, psychologist Carol Gilligan (1982)
challenges her predecessor Lawrence Kohlberg’s claim that adolescents who have
learned to think in terms of an ethics of duty have reached a higher level of moral
development. Gilligan’s research has inspired much subsequent work on the notion
of caring as central to ethics and ethical decision-making, and some of this work
draws on relational accounts of autonomy in the context of feminism, political
philosophy, and bioethics (see autonomy). A common strand in both these
approaches is the idea that friendships and family relationships provide a crucial
environment for the development of broader moral values and the capacities
required for them, such as a sense of fairness or justice and a capacity for empathy
(see LaFollette 1996: 89–92, 194–211).
Other philosophers have challenged Aristotelian approaches as providing an over-
moralized account of friendship (Cocking and Kennett 1998, 2000; Blum 1980). For
example, Dean Cocking and Jeanette Kennett (2000) argue that friendship is
inherently morally subversive, because they take good and true friends to be specially
receptive to direction and interpretation by each other, even where this leads the
friend to participate in certain sorts of immoral activities. On this view, one is not a
true friend of another unless one is (at least, up to a point) corruptible. This view faces
some problem cases – for example, it seems rather extreme to rule out from good and
true friendship a relationship between two monks who are specially receptive to
direction and interpretation by each other in all sorts of ways but are also mutually
committed to not engaging in acts they regard as immoral. In any case, on this kind
of view, morality and friendship represent two fundamentally different sorts of values
– there will be cases where friendship is plausibly thought to trump morality, and vice
versa. These sorts of considerations have led some philosophers to reject the long-
standing assumption in these debates that the capacity to coherently permit or
account for the value of friendship is a legitimate test of the adequacy of a particular
ethical theory. Instead, echoing Susan Wolf ’s (1982) well-known critique of morality
understood as an all-consuming ideal, some argue that the goods of friendship and
various personal activities and commitments are nonmoral values, which can com-
pete equally with morality (whatever one’s moral theory), and so can reveal plausible
limits on its proper sphere of influence (see overridingness, moral).
Ethics and Familial Relationships

A number of philosophers question the common assumption that it is morally
permissible for parents to favor their children as much as parents wish to do so (see
loyalty). Most ethical perspectives support some limits on partiality between
parents and children (and between other family members) – for example, it would
be wrong to evade justifiable taxation requirements in order to maximize one’s chil-
dren’s inheritance – but Kantians and Utilitarians advocate relatively stringent limits
on partiality within families. These limits derive from the ethical grounds taken by
9
such theories as justifying a level of family partiality in the first place. For example,
Utilitarians such as James Rachels (1989) and R. M. Hare (1993) have argued that
parents can justifiably have a limited partiality toward their children, as this leads
overall to children being looked after better than if parents were completely impar-
tial between the interests of all children. Rachels argues that parents are justified in
providing their children with day-to-day care, because parents’ physical proximity
to their children puts them in a specially good position to understand the children’s
needs and to help them, but parents are not justified in neglecting the more funda-
mental needs of strangers (e.g., for food, and basic medical care) in order to provide
a relatively trivial benefit for one’s child. However, while this rightly questions the
assumption that a child being one’s own is itself sufficient justification for unlimited
partiality toward them, many philosophers have resisted suggestions that parental
partiality is legitimated simply by the sorts of circumstantial factors that Rachels and
Hare appeal to (see parents’ rights and responsibilities).
Philosophers’ views about legitimate parental partiality and discretion are often
informed by accounts of the value of parenting, which in turn – in the case of genetic
parenthood – tend to be informed by accounts of the value of becoming a genetic
parent in the first place. Determining the value of genetic parenthood has been
thought particularly important for evaluating any limits on access to assisted repro-
ductive technologies such as in vitro fertilization (IVF), for the sake of the children
created through such technologies. (Indeed, it has also been suggested that protecting
children’s interests can justify limiting access to unassisted reproduction, through
establishing a system of licensing parents in order to exclude people who would be
incompetent at parenting [LaFollette 1980].) The liberty to access such reproductive
technologies is often thought to have a “presumptive primacy,” such that interven-
tion in this liberty is justifiable only where the harms to others in a person exercising
it are sufficiently serious (see Robertson 1994). But in the first place, in order to
justify such presumptive primacy, a plausible rationale needs to be given for the
value of reproductive liberty and the interest in becoming a genetic parent.
One rationale for the value of genetic parenthood and access to reproduction is
that these relations and technologies enable us to participate deeply in the creation
of a person (Strong 1997). Another argument is that genetic parent–child relation-
ships enable one to gain a valuable kind of self-knowledge through reflection upon
various family resemblances, and help one understand what aspirations it is realistic
to develop in light of one’s traits, inclinations, and aptitudes, where such knowledge
would be almost inaccessible were one unacquainted with one’s forebears (Velleman
2005). These sorts of claims have been challenged as relying on a questionable
genetic essentialism, but it is not clear that such rationales need presuppose exagger-
ated views about the influence of genetics on a person’s life.
There are also debates about the moral grounds of parental obligations and
responsibilities to their children, once born. The idea that a genetic connection with
a child is sufficient to ground parental duties toward them has been questioned, in
light of cases where embryos have been created and implanted without the consent
of those from whose gametes the child was created. These cases, along with examples
10
of adoptive parenthood, have led some to propose accounts of parenthood and

parental obligations that require the intentional participation of the parties involved.
However, couples who conceived a child due to recklessness or negligence with con-
traception are not generally taken to have lesser duties toward the resulting child.
Others argue that making a significant causal contribution to the conception and
development of a child is sufficient for parenthood and parental duties. On this
account, the various parties to an IVF-assisted surrogacy arrangement – the com-
missioning parents, the gestational mother, and even the custodians, if they differ
from the preceding individuals – could count as the parents of the resulting child,
and could legitimately be regarded as having parental duties toward the child (see
Bayne and Kolers 2003; see reproductive technology).
Another controversy surrounds the existence and proper grounds of filial duties –
for example, of care and emotional support – that adult children are often thought
to have toward their ageing parents (see filial duties). Some philosophers ques-
tion the legitimacy of such filial duties, given that children do not choose to
become members of their families initially (in contrast, say, to special duties of
friendship, where the relationship has been voluntarily chosen by both parties);
others defend the legitimacy of such duties insofar as adult children have come to
reflectively endorse them. Another attempt to ground adult children’s filial duties
appeals to reciprocity – we ought to care for our elderly parents in return for the
benefits of upbringing which they bestowed upon us. But providing their children
with at least a basic level of food, shelter, and education is what parents are obli-
gated to do in the first place, and simply fulfilling one’s obligations to another is
not normally thought to create a reciprocal obligation on recipients to provide
benefits in return. Jane English (1979) argues that adult children have obligations
to care for their elderly parents only if a friendship exists between them; others
object that this is too contingent a basis for such duties. Christina Hoff Sommers
(1986) argues that our filial duty to help care for our elderly parents is fundamen-
tally based on the nature of our relation to them – that I am their son or their
daughter – and on what society legitimately expects adult children to do for their
elderly parents, irrespective of whether a friendship exists between us. However,
the legitimacy of society’s expectations here could be questioned. Sarah-Vaughan
Brakman (1994) argues that we ought to provide some care for our elderly parents
as an expression of gratitude for the benefits they provided us during our upbring-
ing. Brakman acknowledges, however, that such gratitude-based obligations
toward our parents can be overridden, say, when they conflict with our obligations
toward our own children.
Whatever position we take on our filial obligations toward our elderly parents,
there may be limitations of rights-based approaches in this context. For an adult
child who provides a level of care that an elderly or sick parent arguably has a right
to, but who is never willing to “put themselves out” to provide any care beyond this
level, could be thought to be failing them as a son or a daughter. They might also be
said to lack certain virtues, such as the necessary level of compassion.
11
See also: alienation; autonomy; care ethics; consequentialism; emotion; family;

filial duties; friendship; impartiality; kantian practical
ethics; love; loyalty; overridingness, moral; parents’ rights and responsibilities;
reproductive technology; utilitarianism; virtue ethics
REFERENCES
Aristotle 1980. The Nicomachean Ethics, trans. W. D. Ross. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bayne, Tim, and Avery Kolers 2003. “Toward a Pluralist Account of Parenthood,” Bioethics,
vol. 17, pp. 221–42.
Blum, Lawrence 1980. Friendship, Altruism, and Morality. London: Routledge.
Brakman, Sarah-Vaughan 1994. “Adult Daughter Caregivers,” Hastings Center Report, vol. 24,
pp. 26–8.
Cocking, Dean, and Justin Oakley 1995. “Indirect Consequentialism, Friendship, and the
Problem of Alienation,” Ethics, vol. 106, pp. 86–111.
Cocking, Dean, and Jeanette Kennett 1998. “Friendship and the Self,” Ethics, vol. 108, pp. 502–27.
Cocking, Dean, and Jeanette Kennett 2000. “Friendship and Moral Danger,” Journal of
Conee, Earl 2001. “Friendship and Consequentialism,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy,
vol. 79, pp. 161–79.
Cooper, John M. 1980. “Aristotle on Friendship,” in Amelie O. Rorty (ed.), Essays on Aristotle’s
Ethics. Berkeley: University of California Press.
English, Jane 1979. “What Do Grown Children Owe Their Parents?” in Onora O’Neill and
William Ruddick (eds.), Having Children: Philosophical and Legal Reflections on
Parenthood. New York: Oxford University Press.
Gilligan, Carol 1982. In a Different Voice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Godwin, William 1968. “Thoughts Occasioned by the Perusal of Dr Parr’s Spital Sermon,” in
Jack W. Marken and Burton R. Pollin (eds.), Uncollected Writings (1785–1822) by
William Godwin. Gainesville: Scholars Facsimiles and Reprints.
Hare, R. M. 1993. “Moral Problems about the Control of Behavior,” Essays on Bioethics.
Herman, Barbara 1993. The Practice of Moral Judgment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Herman, Barbara 2007. Moral Literacy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Jackson, Frank 1991. “Decision-Theoretic Consequentialism and the Nearest and Dearest
Objection,” Ethics, vol. 101, pp. 461–82.
LaFollette, Hugh 1980. “Licensing Parents,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 9, pp. 182–97.
LaFollette, Hugh 1996. Personal Relationships: Love, Identity and Morality. Oxford:
Blackwell.
Mason, Elinor 1998. “Can an Indirect Consequentialist Be a Real Friend?” Ethics, vol. 108,
pp. 386–93.
Mill, John Stuart 1962. Utilitarianism, ed. Mary Warnock. Cleveland: Meridian Books.
Oakley, Justin, and Dean Cocking 2001. Virtue Ethics and Professional Roles. Cambridge:
Plato 1951. The Symposium, trans. W. Hamilton. London: Penguin.
12
Rachels, James 1989. “Morality, Parents, and Children,” in George Graham and Hugh
LaFollette (eds.), Person to Person. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, pp. 46–62.
Robertson, John A. 1994. Children of Choice. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Rorty, Amelie O. 1986. “The Historicity of Psychological Attitudes: Love Is Not Love Which
Alters Not When It Alteration Finds,” in P. A. French, T. E. Uehling, and H. K. Wettstein
(eds.), Midwest Studies in Philosophy, vol. 10, pp. 399–412.
Sidgwick, Henry 1981. The Methods of Ethics, 7th ed. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Sommers, Christina Hoff 1986. “Filial Morality,” Journal of Philosophy, vol. 83, pp. 439–56.
Stocker, Michael 1976. “The Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories,” Journal of
Strong, Carson 1997. Ethics in Reproductive and Perinatal Medicine: A New Framework.
Velleman, J. David 1999. “Love as a Moral Emotion,” Ethics, vol. 109, pp. 338–74.
Velleman, J. David 2005. “Family History,” Philosophical Papers, vol. 34, pp. 357–78.
Vlastos, Gregory 1973. “The Individual as an Object of Love in Plato,” Platonic Studies.
Williams, Bernard 1981. “Persons, Character, and Morality,” Moral Luck. Cambridge:
FURTHER READINGS
University Press.
Baier, Annette 1995. “The Need for More than Justice,” Moral Prejudices. Cambridge, MA:
Card, Robert F. 2004. “Consequentialism, Teleology, and the New Friendship Critique,”
Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 85, pp. 149–72.
Cottingham, John 1983. “Ethics and Impartiality,” Philosophical Studies, vol. 43, pp. 83–99.
Deigh, John 1996. “Morality and Personal Relations,” The Sources of Moral Agency: Essays in
Moral Psychology and Freudian Theory. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–17.
Feltham, Brian, and John Cottingham (eds.) 2010. Partiality and Impartiality: Morality,
Special Relationships, and the Wider World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Friedman, Marilyn 1993. What are Friends For? Feminist Perspectives on Personal Relationships
and Moral Theory. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Hursthouse, Rosalind 2007. “Aristotle for Women Who Love Too Much,” Ethics, vol. 117,
pp. 327–34.
Hursthouse, Rosalind 2008. “The Good and Bad Family,” in Laurence Thomas (ed.),
Contemporary Debates in Social Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 57–68.
Jeske, Diane 1997. “Friendship, Virtue, and Impartiality,” Philosophy and Phenomenological
Research, vol. 57, pp. 51–72.
Kapur, Neera Badhwar 1991. “Why It Is Wrong To Be Always Guided by the Best:
Consequentialism and Friendship,” Ethics, vol. 101, pp. 483–504.
Keller, Simon 2007. The Limits of Loyalty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kolodny, Niko 2003. “Love as Valuing a Relationship,” Philosophical Review, vol. 112, pp. 135–89.
13
Kolodny, Niko 2010. “Which Relationships Justify Partiality? The Case of Parents and
Children,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 38, pp. 37–75.
Oakley, Justin, and Dean Cocking 2005. “Consequentialism, Complacency, and Slippery
Slope Arguments,” Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics, vol. 26, pp. 227–39.
Paton, H. J. 1993. “Kant on Friendship,” in Neera Kapur Badhwar (ed.), Friendship:
A Philosophical Reader. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, pp. 133–54.
Price, A. W. 1989. Love and Friendship in Plato and Aristotle. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Scheffler, Samuel 1992. Human Morality. New York: Oxford University Press.
Scheffler, Samuel 2001. Boundaries and Allegiances. New York: Oxford University Press.
Sherman, Nancy 1993. “Aristotle on the Shared Life,” in Neera Kapur Badhwar (ed.),
Friendship: A Philosophical Reader. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, pp. 91–107.
Slote, Michael 2007. The Ethics of Care and Empathy. New York: Routledge.
Stocker, Michael 1981. “Values and Purposes: The Limits of Teleology and the Ends of
Friendship,” Journal of Philosophy, vol. 78, pp. 747–65.
Strong, Carson 2008. “Cloning and Adoption: A Reply to Levy and Lotz,” Bioethics, vol. 22,
pp. 130–6.
Upton, Candace L. 2008. “Context, Character and Consequentialist Friendships,” Utilitas, vol. 20,
pp. 334–47.
Woodcock, Scott 2010. “Moral Schizophrenia and the Paradox of Friendship,” Utilitas, vol. 22,
pp. 1–25.
1
Utilitarianism
Henry R. West
Introduction
Utilitarianism is a tradition in modern philosophy that an act, moral rule, public
policy, law, or institution is ultimately to be evaluated by its utility and only by its
utility. By utility is meant the intrinsic value (see intrinsic value) of the act and its
consequences. The “classical” utilitarians, Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832; see
bentham, jeremy), John Stuart Mill (1806–1873; see mill, john stuart), and
Henry Sidgwick (1838–1900; see sidgwick, henry), interpreted utility in terms of
the greatest happiness principle (see greatest happiness principle). Mill (1861:
210) formulated utilitarianism as follows: “The creed which accepts as the founda-
tion of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle holds that actions are
right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to pro-
duce the reverse of happiness.”
Notice that there are two elements to utilitarianism: an account of what makes
actions right or wrong – the “tendency” or (probable) consequences of the actions –
and a theory of intrinsic value, of what counts as good and bad consequences. Each
of these is a subject of controversy.
For the early utilitarians, it is the promotion of happiness and the prevention of
unhappiness that is the foundation of their systems. They also gave a hedonistic
(see hedonism) analysis of happiness. Mill continues the preceding statement: “By
happiness is intended pleasure (see pleasure), and the absence of pain; by unhappi-
ness, pain, and the privation of pleasure.”
Other utilitarians have given a different or richer theory of intrinsic value and
disvalue. Partly because happiness and unhappiness, or pleasure and pain, are diffi-
cult to measure, some recent utilitarians have analyzed utility as the satisfaction of
desires or preferences (see desire theories of the good). To be plausible, some
restrictions must be placed on the desires. Satisfaction of foolish, poorly informed
desires that result in frustration for the agent can hardly count as valuable. So, a
more plausible theory is satisfaction of rational, well-informed desire – what the
agent would desire if rational and well-informed. This is the interpretation of
utilitarianism that is used by John Rawls (see rawls, john) in his criticism of utili-
tarianism in A Theory of Justice (1971; revised edition, 1999). This theory leaves
open the objects of desires or preferences. Desires or preferences may be for states of
affairs that are independent of the individual person and beyond the knowledge of
the person. For example, a person may desire that certain things happen after his or
her death. Although Aristotle’s concept of eudaimonia, which is usually translated as
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee178
2
“happiness,” includes such things, this could hardly be interpreted as among the
pleasures or pains of the person. If the desire-satisfaction is limited to the conscious
experience of the person, it may come close to classical utilitarianism, but not if the
objects of desire or preference are completely open-ended.
G. E. Moore (1903, 1912) felt that it was self-evident that one should produce the
most intrinsic good (and least intrinsic bad) that one could, but he claimed that
other things beside pleasure and pain, such as knowledge and beauty, had intrinsic
value. Moore called himself an “ideal” utilitarian, but today the term “consequential-
ism” (see consequentialism) is more commonly used to include nonhedonistic
theories of the ends of actions, although sometimes “utilitarianism” is used to
include nonhedonistic theories.
For a hedonistic utilitarian, the utility of an act is the pleasure and painfulness of
the act itself and the pleasure and pain of its consequences. Because most acts pro-
duce both pleasure and pain, the pain must be subtracted from the pleasure, or vice
versa, to arrive at the net pleasure or pain produced. If more than one person is
affected, the net pleasure or pain of each must be added (or subtracted) to give the
total net pleasure or pain. In evaluating an act (or policy or moral rule or law or
institution), it would need to be compared with alternatives. The act or alternative
producing the greatest net pleasure (or least net pain) would be judged the best act.
Using “consequentialism” to refer to all ethical theories that regard right or wrong
actions to be based on the consequences of the actions, utilitarianism can be regarded
as a species of that family of theories, remembering that the value in consequential-
ist theories is not just the values that follow an act, but include the value of the act
itself. Consequentialism, like utilitarianism, evaluates acts (and so on) by the
intrinsic value of the act and its consequences, but nonhedonistic versions do not
limit the value to pleasure and pain. Consequentialist theories may include all sorts
of things other than pleasure and pain as intrinsically valuable or disvaluable, such
as knowledge (vs. ignorance), freedom or autonomy (vs. slavery or coercion), beauty
(vs. ugliness), human achievement and creativity, interpersonal relations such as
love and friendship (vs. hatred or hostility), peace (vs. war or violence), health (vs.
sickness), and other things (see value pluralism). Utilitarians usually recognize all
of these other things as valuable, but regard them as of instrumental value (see
instrumental value), contributing to pleasure or reduction of pain.
Consequentialism, in all of its varieties, is contrasted with Kantian and deontological
theories (see deontology) that hold that some acts are right or wrong without
regard to consequences. It is also in contrast to virtue ethics (see virtue ethics),
which holds that right and wrong to some extent reside in the motivation or character
traits of the agent independent of the other values of the act and its consequences;
and utilitarianism is in contrast to rights theories (see rights), if rights are regarded
as basic, not dependent upon their consequences. Most consequentialists have a
place for duties, and for virtues, but they regard them as derived from their useful
practices, and not as foundational. Most consequentialists also have a place for rights
and liberties, but, again, derive their force from their utility, and they subject any
recognized rights or liberties to a consequentialist critique.
3
Whatever the theory of value, it is assumed that it is aggregative: there can be

more or less of it, and comparisons can be made between the aggregate utility of
alternative acts. This, as will be seen, is a source of criticism.
Even if the value system of utilitarianism is limited to pleasure and pain or to
other elements of individual welfare, there are at least four distinctions that can be
made in giving an account of right or wrong actions. A first distinction is between
“actual” and “foreseeable” consequences. One formulation of an actual consequences
theory is to say, after the fact, that an action is right if it appears to in fact have had
better consequences than any alternative, wrong if there is an alternative that would
appear to have had better consequences. There are two problems with this formula-
tion. One is that one can never know the actual consequences of the alternative, for
if it is not performed, it does not have actual consequences, and one cannot even
know the actual consequences of the act that was performed, for its actual conse-
quences may still be in the future. The other problem is that an act done with as
much foresight as it is possible to have may turn out to be unfortunate due to unfore-
seeable circumstances. A mother driving her child to school in a car may be hit by a
drunk driver, injuring the child. Are we to say that the mother’s act of driving her
child to school was the wrong thing to do? It is better to say that it turned out to be
unfortunate on this occasion, rather than to say that it was a wrong act. Thus, a for-
mulation in terms of probability or foreseeability is preferable to a formulation in
terms of actuality.
Jeremy Bentham’s (1781: 2) formula for utilitarianism was:
By the principle of utility is meant that principle which approves or disapproves

of every action whatsoever, according to the tendency which it appears to have to
augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question:
or, what is the same thing in other words, to promote or to oppose that happiness.
I say of every action whatsoever; and therefore not only of every action of a
private individual, but of every measure of government.
Bentham’s formula, using the words “appears” and “tendency,” calls attention to the
future perspective. One does not have complete foresight – one only can judge by
tendencies of actions as they appear before the action.
A second distinction is between “universalistic” utilitarianism and the theory
with narrower scope. In Bentham’s formula, there is the phrase “of the party whose
interest is in question.” This implies that one may be judging the effects that an act
has on just the agent, or, for a legislator, just for his or her constituency, rather than
counting everyone affected. John Stuart Mill (1861: 218) was explicitly universalistic:
“[T]he happiness which forms the utilitarian standard of what is right in conduct,
is not the agent’s own happiness, but that of all concerned. As between his own
happiness and that of others, utilitarianism requires him to be as strictly impartial
[see impartiality] as a disinterested and benevolent spectator.”
A third distinction among utilitarian theories is whether the utilitarian criterion
of greatest pleasure or happiness is to be applied directly to each individual act, case
4
by case, or to classes of acts and only indirectly to the individual act in unique
circumstances. The former has come to be called “act utilitarianism”; the latter, “rule
utilitarianism,” but there are varieties of rule utilitarianism. Sometimes, rule utili-
tarianism is formulated by considering a generalization of the act: an act is right or
wrong according to what would be the consequences if everyone who has the occa-
sion to do the act did it; sometimes rule utilitarianism is formulated by asking
whether a rule permitting or prohibiting that kind of act would be justified on utili-
tarian grounds. If an act is right or wrong depending upon whether it is permitted
or forbidden by a rule having best consequences, does the rule have to be one that is
recognized in one’s society, or should it be the best rule even if not practiced?
Sometimes, indirect utilitarianism is not limited to rules but is applied to rights and
virtues. Rights are to be justified on utilitarian grounds, but then they are to be
respected even when a violation would produce more utility in the individual case;
virtues are justified on utilitarian grounds, and people are correct in acting on such
virtues, such as honesty, even when a contrary act, such as a lie, would have better
consequences in the particular case. We shall see that John Stuart Mill held a very
complicated theory with elements of both direct and indirect utilitarianism.
A fourth distinction is whether the theory is maximizing or not. Most formula-
tions of act utilitarianism are maximizing: the act is right that maximizes utility
(or minimizes disutility). An alternative to maximizing is “satisficing” (see satisfic-
ing). An act might be permitted, even if it is not maximizing, if it is “good enough.”
Mill’s theory is not satisficing, but his theory of morality is not maximizing. Above a
minimum, he advocates praise but not blame.
For utilitarians, the foundation of ethics is the production of good and the pre-
vention of bad. That is its attraction. What could be better than doing the most good
that can be done and preventing as much that is bad as one can? Other systems claim
that one can just intuit what is right and wrong (see intuitionism, moral), or that
duties are derived from the commands of God, or that there is a natural law to which
human behavior must conform. The substantive requirements of utilitarianism are
sometimes the same as what is demanded by these sources. For example, if God is
benevolent, won’t he command that humans promote as much happiness as is
possible? However, utilitarianism does not depend upon any of these authorities,
and the classical utilitarians did not.
Historical Development
Jeremy Bentham was the founder of utilitarianism as a movement in philosophy
with the name “utilitarianism.” Bentham, who had studied for the law but was
never to practice it, was seeking a foundation on which to base a rational reforma-
tion of the laws of England and of laws in general. He found the English law
obscure, inconsistent, and unjust. He had read David Hume’s Enquiry Concerning
the Principles of Morals (1751), in which Hume attempts to explain much human
behavior, including virtues, in terms of their “utility.” In about 1768–9, he read
Caesare Beccaria’s Of Crimes and Punishment (1764). Beccaria advocated reform
5
of law based on the principle “the greatest happiness of the greatest number.”
Bentham adopted this formula as the substance of the principle of utility and used
“the greatest happiness principle” interchangeably with “the principle of utility.” In
his first published work, A Fragment on Government, Bentham (1776: 3) said, “it is
the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and
wrong.” Bentham said that he had also found the principle in the works of Joseph
Priestley (1768) and Claude Adrian Helvetius (1759). An earlier formulation of the
principle is found in Francis Hutcheson’s An Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas
of Beauty and Virtue (1725: sec. III, §8), which anticipates Bentham not only in
principle but even in the use of the phrase “the greatest happiness of the greatest
number.”
The formula “the greatest happiness of the greatest number” was intended as a
distributive principle as well as a principle of value. The idea was that the number
of people whose happiness or unhappiness is affected should count. If a law
benefits more people than an alternative, it is the preferred law. However, Bentham
later recognized that it could be used to cause great suffering to minorities for
the lesser benefit to majorities; so he said that, to be precise, it should be simply the
greatest happiness principle, with each person to count for one and no one for
more than one.
Bentham said that to give a proof of the principle of utility is as impossible as it is
needless, but he criticized those who did not accept it as setting up their own senti-
ments to govern all who disagreed with them, which he called despotical, or allow-
ing each person’s sentiments to be a standard to itself, which he called anarchical.
Bentham (1789: 1) also thought that pleasure and pain are the motives of all
actions: “Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign
masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do,
as well as to determine what we shall do.” Each individual is motivated by his or
her own pleasure or pain, but it is possible for the legislator to create an environment
in which the individual’s self-interest will coincide with the common interest. This
is the purpose of laws with their punishments for antisocial behavior. Bentham
did careful analyses of punishments (see punishment). He regarded punishment
as pain and therefore an evil requiring justification. He rejected the retributive
theory that criminals deserve pain. The pain must be justified by forward-looking
results such as deterrence. There are cases, he argued, in which punishment
outweighs the mischief it is to cure; cases in which it is ineffective, such as insanity;
cases in which the mischief can be prevented by a cheaper method, such as
education. He analyzed the appropriate proportion between punishments and
offences, and so on. One of the most important contributions of utilitarian
thinking is to legal thought.
Bentham included all sentient beings in his moral universe. He said that it is not
whether animals have speech but can they suffer? It will be seen that twentieth-
century utilitarians have been strong advocates of preventing cruelty to animals.
Bentham also developed a hedonic or felicific calculus for the correct application
of the principle of utility. He identified two dimensions to a particular experience of
6
pleasure or pain: its intensity and its duration. Duration is obviously the length in
time of the experience of pleasure or pain; intensity is the measure of its quantity per
moment. To take into account the tendency of any act beyond itself, he listed the
degree to which it would result in further pleasures or pains, the degree of probabil-
ity of these results, the nearness or remoteness in time of these results (which later
commentators have thought should be accounted for by estimate of probability, not
independently), and the number of people who would experience these results. He
said that it was not to be expected that this process should be pursued previous to
every moral judgment or every legislative or judicial operation, but as near as the
process actually pursued approaches to it, so near will such process approach to the
character of an exact one.
John Stuart Mill revised Bentham’s quantitative analysis of the dimensions of
pleasure or pain as only intensity and duration to include the “quality” of different
kinds of pleasures and pains. In his essay “Bentham,” Mill (1838: 113) quoted
Bentham as saying “quantity of pleasure being equal, push-pin is as good as poetry.”
By others, utilitarianism was stigmatized as a doctrine worthy only of swine. To
counter these opinions, Mill argued that there are qualitatively higher and lower
pleasures and that no person with experience of the higher distinctively human
pleasures of the intellect, of the feelings and imagination, and of the moral senti-
ments would choose to surrender them for any quantity of the lower. Mill does not
say that on every occasion of choice between a higher pleasure and a lower, one
would choose the higher pleasure regardless of the difference in intensity and dura-
tion. He is only saying that one would not choose a life in which there are no higher
pleasures for one with extensive lower pleasures. One would not choose to be a satis-
fied fool rather than a dissatisfied Socrates.
Some critics have said that Mill’s qualitative distinction between pleasures makes
a calculus of pleasures impossible. Mill appeals to the preferences of those who have
developed an appreciation of various kinds of pleasure as the basis for weighing
them. And he says that there is no other tribunal to be referred to even on the ques-
tion of quantity (1861: 213): “What is there to decide whether a particular pleasure
is worth purchasing at the cost of a particular pain, except the feelings and judgment
of the experienced?” This, by the way, is not a desire-satisfaction theory of intrinsic
value. It is still pleasure and pain that are intrinsically valuable and disvaluable.
Desire or preference is only the evidence for which of the two – pleasures or pains –
is of greater degree.
Mill agreed with Bentham that the principle of utility cannot be given a proof in
the ordinary meaning of the term, but did claim (1861: 208): “Considerations may
be presented capable of determining the intellect either to give or withhold its
assent to the doctrine; and this is equivalent to proof.” This “proof ” is based on a
psychological claim. Mill says that the sole evidence it is possible to produce, that
anything is desirable, is that people do actually desire it. He thinks that it is obvious
that each person desires his or her own happiness, and this is proof that happiness
is good to that person, and the general happiness, consisting of summing up the
happiness of each person, is good to the aggregate of all persons. The argument
7
assumes that the happiness of different individuals can be summed up, which is
controversial. However, Mill also wants to argue for the much more controversial
psychological claim that people never desire anything except their happiness. He
admits that people desire other things, such as virtue and the absence of vice, and
fame, and possession of money. His argument is that these things are first desired
as means to happiness and then, by constant association, come to be desired as
ends, as “parts of happiness.” “The person is made, or thinks he would be
made, happy by its mere possession; and is made unhappy by failure to obtain it”
(Mill 1861: 236).
Mill held a complicated theory of the relation of individual acts to rules, rights,
and virtues. In some passages, Mill seems to hold an act utilitarian theory regarding
the rightness of acts, appealing to rules as guidelines for the individual to do the
act having best consequences. In reply to the objection that there is no time prior
to action to calculate the effects of an act, he says (1861: 224) that mankind has
been learning throughout human history the tendency of acts, and this knowledge
has come down as the rules of morality of the multitude and for the philosopher
until he or she has succeeded in finding better. This seems to regard the rules as
mere guidelines to be overridden in case one knows that a particular act will, in
the particular case, have better consequences than following the moral rule.
However, elsewhere, Mill seems to be a rule utilitarian in regard to morality. Mill
regards morality as only one part of what he calls “general expediency” – that is,
the production of good consequences in general. He says (1861: 246): “We do not
call anything [morally] wrong, unless we mean to imply that a person ought to be
punished in some way or other for doing it; if not by law, by the opinion of his
fellow creatures; if not by opinion, by the reproaches of his own conscience. This
seems to be the real turning point of the distinction between morality and simple
expediency.” This is evidence that so far as morality goes, Mill is a rule-utilitarian.
If justification for punishment is the criterion of morality, morality is most
conveniently thought of as a set of rules that are respected or violated, with
punishment for their violation. However, Mill leaves a loophole. The complicated
nature of human affairs is such that rules of conduct cannot be so framed as to
require no exceptions. Where possible, classes of exceptions should be incorporated
into the rules. However, he says (1861: 226): “There is no ethical creed which does
not temper the rigidity of its laws, by giving a certain latitude, under the moral
responsibility of the agent, for accommodation to peculiarities of circumstances.”
Thus, Mill seems to include both rule utilitarian and act utilitarian reasoning in
his system.
Because Mill regards morality as limited to what is deserving of punishment, he
leaves room for admirable actions that go beyond the call of duty – what is called
“supererogation” (see supererogation). Mill (1865: 337–8) says: “There is a standard
of altruism to which all should be required to come up, and a degree beyond it
which is not obligatory, but meritorious.” There are minimum moral requirements
which deserve punishment if they are not fulfilled, but beyond that Mill wants to
encourage beneficent acts with praise, but not blame those who do not do them.
8
Praise is pleasurable; blame is painful. Saints and heroes should be praised, but most
people cannot be expected to be heroes or saints and should not be made miserable
for their failure.
Mill’s Utilitarianism is the most widely read statement and defense of utilitarian-
ism. It consists primarily of responses to objections to the doctrine. The most
important of these is the assertion that justice is independent of utility and often in
conflict with it. The final chapter of Utilitarianism is devoted to answering that
objection. There, Mill analyzes the concept of justice as that set of obligations that
have correlative rights corresponding to them. To have a right is to have something
that society ought to defend me in the possession of, and, if someone asks why
society ought, Mill (1861: 250) says: “I can give him no other reason than general
utility.” Mill then argues that the utility concerned is security. Many things that we
desire we can do without; some things are desired or needed by some people and not
by others, but no one can do without security. Possession of life, liberty, and legiti-
mate material possessions are the most important things that society ought to defend
me in the possession of, and these are utilities, in the utilitarians’ sense of utilities,
meaning necessities for, or ingredients of, happiness. This generates feelings so
much more intense than those concerned with the more common cases of utility
that a difference of degree “becomes a difference in kind. The claim assumes that
character of absoluteness, that apparent infinity, and incommensurability with all
other considerations” (Mill 1861: 251). Rights are not to be violated to achieve
marginally better consequences, but even rights can be overridden in extraordinary
circumstances. Mill (1861: 259) says that “particular cases may occur in which some
other social duty is so important, as to overrule any one of the general maxims of
justice. Thus, to save a life, it may not only be allowable, but a duty, to steal, or take
by force, the necessary food or medicine, or to kidnap, and compel to officiate,
the only qualified medical practitioner.”
Mill applied his utilitarianism to call for various social reforms. He opposed
paternalistic legislation and paternalistic social attitudes, arguing for liberty of
individual conduct so long as it does not interfere with the legitimate interests
of others. He condemned the subjection of women in marriage and in society, and
when he was in Parliament he introduced a bill for women to have the right to vote
on the same basis as men. He thought that information on birth control should be
available to all married couples. He advocated universal suffrage and representa-
tive government as the best way for the working classes to have their interests
recognized. He advocated universal education, although by private institutions,
not the state.
Bentham and Mill gave little weight to moral intuitions, but Sidgwick’s method of
ethics is to take the intuitions of common sense and of intellectual theorizing and
attempt to make them consistent and coherent. He thought that the universalistic
aspect of utilitarianism is a rational intuition: no individual’s happiness is more
important than another’s “from the point of view of the universe.” He found that, in
order to make the intuitions of commonsense morality consistent, they needed to
presuppose utilitarian thinking or something like it. This foreshadowed the method
9
of “reflective equilibrium” of John Rawls (1971: 48–51). Sidgwick raised some

important issues for utilitarians that have since received significant attention, such
as our obligations to future generations and the question of optimal population
growth. He also raised the question whether the utilitarian should, on utilitarian
grounds, desire that the utilitarian doctrine be the publicly recognized ground of
morality. Perhaps it would have best consequences if some of the utilitarian conclu-
sions were rejected by mankind generally.
By the late nineteenth century, utilitarianism was regarded as the chief opponent
by idealist philosophers such as F. H. Bradley (1876), and in the early twentieth
century, it was the object of attack by intuitionists such as W. D. Ross (1930) and
E. F. Carritt (1947). Some of these attacks were aimed primarily at the hedonism of
classical utilitarianism. Moore (1903, 1912) and Hastings Rashdall (1907) called
themselves utilitarians but held pluralistic theories of intrinsic value. Rashdall was
what is today called a perfectionist, holding that not just happiness but moral virtue
and other human perfections are among the goods to be attained. However, later in
the century, hedonistic utilitarianism was espoused by C. I. Lewis (1946). John
Rawls regarded utilitarianism as the prevailing theory of justice, and his Theory of
Justice (1971) is an effort to present a persuasive alternative. Today, utilitarianism, or
at least consequentialism, is regarded as one of the most important normative ethical
theories and is included in nearly all ethics textbooks. William H. Shaw’s
Contemporary Ethics: Taking Account of Utilitarianism (1999) devotes an entire
textbook to utilitarianism.
In the twentieth century, the distinction between direct and indirect utilitarianism
became explicit. J. O. Urmson (1953) interpreted Mill as an indirect utilitarian, and
philosophers such as R. F. Harrod (1936), S. E. Toulmin (1950), Jonathan Harrison
(1952–3), P. H. Nowell-Smith (1954), and Marcus Singer (1961) have proposed
forms of indirect or restricted utilitarianism. John Rawls (1955) argued that an
indirect formulation would be superior to a direct one. The terms “act utilitarianism”
and “rule utilitarianism” were introduced by Richard Brandt (1959), and he
defended one of the most careful versions of rule utilitarianism (Brandt 1979).
David Lyons (1965) distinguished rule utilitarianism, formulated by asking what
would be the consequences of an act being generally performed, from a rule
utilitarianism that asked what would be the consequences of a rule being generally
accepted as a moral rule. He argued that the former, when the act is relevantly
specified by its consequences, collapses into act utilitarianism. R. M. Hare (1981)
proposed a two-level approach to moral thinking to reconcile act and rule
utilitarianism. We should have relatively simple specific moral rules that we learn
and feel by intuition to tell us what is right and wrong on particular occasions.
However, there is a higher level of “critical” thinking which settles situations of
conflict between specific moral rules by taking into account particularities of the
situation and formulating a judgment which is the same as act utilitarianism would
prescribe.
J. J. C. Smart (1973) defended a pure form of hedonistic act utilitarianism and
proposed game theory as a theoretical (although not a practical) way of dealing with
10
the uncertainty of other people’s actions. Smart and others, such as Derek Parfit
(1984), have raised the distinction between maximizing “average” happiness and
maximizing “total” happiness. There is no difference so long as the population
concerned is the same, but it makes a difference in population policy. Future
generations could consist of more happy people with less average happiness, creat-
ing a difference between the two views.
Some present-day utilitarians have varied from the tradition. Alastair Norcross
(2006) holds a hedonistic act utilitarian theory, but he attempts to dispense with the
concepts of right and wrong, and obligatory and permissible, in favor of a “scalar”
approach, classifying acts as simply better or worse. Brad Hooker (2000) defends
rule utilitarianism, or rule consequentialism, not as a goal of maximizing utility but
as a theory that best accords with our more specific moral judgments.
Critical Discussion
Many of the problems of utilitarianism have been discussed in the section on
historical development. One is how to account for the way in which individual acts
have consequences that arise only when they are in a context of the actions of
others to produce collective consequences. An example is conformity to useful
rules. Mill would say that there is seldom a discrepancy between the particular case
and following the useful rule, for an act in accord with a useful rule strengthens the
useful habit of following the rule, and an act in violation of a useful rule weakens
the useful habit of following the rule. Furthermore, an act in accord with a useful
rule strengthens the social practice of the rule, and an act in violation weakens the
social practice of the rule. However, one single act of lying is not going to noticea-
bly affect the social practice of truth-telling – that would require a sizable collection
of lies; hence, act utilitarianism could justify acts of lying when the act in the
particular case has marginally better consequences than telling the truth. If the
individual lie were part of a collection of lies that did undermine confidence in
veracity, how would one assign the consequences to the individual lie? Mill says
elsewhere (1852: 182): “If a hundred infringements would produce all the mischief
implied in the abrogation of the rule, a hundredth part of the mischief must be
debited to each of the infringements, though we may not be able to trace it home
individually. And this hundredth part will generally far outweigh any good
expected to arise from the individual act.” However, if there are fewer than a hun-
dred infringements, what then? Or if there are more than a hundred – suppose that
there are a thousand lies, even though only a hundred are necessary to erode con-
fidence in truth-telling. Does each still count a hundredth part or does it count a
thousandth part? This would make a difference in whether the act’s contribution to
the mischief would far outweigh the good expected to arise from the individual act.
There are thresholds before which collections of acts have no collective effects and
after which the collective effects are overdetermined. An example is voting. Does
one’s vote count only as long as one votes for the winner? Or, by a different method
of analysis, such that an act has effects only if it is a necessary condition of the
11
outcome, does one’s vote count only if the election is decided by just one vote?
These problems are explored by Lyons (1965), West (1965), Sobel (1967), and
Regan (1980). The difficulty in calculating the consequences of an act when it is an
unnecessary part of a collection of acts having significant consequences as a
collection is one reason for moving from act utilitarianism to some form of indirect
utilitarianism.
One of the most difficult problems for utilitarianism is how to measure happiness
and unhappiness, or pleasure and pain, especially when interpersonal comparisons
are required.
Bentham was searching for a unit of pleasure and pain, and in an unpublished
manuscript he proposed that the amount of money that a person would pay for a
particular pleasure or to avoid a particular pain could be a measure of the quantity
of the pleasure or pain (Baumgardt 1966: 558–61). Bentham recognized many of the
difficulties with this: the same sum would give more pleasure to one person than to
another, and to the same person at different times. There is also the diminishing
marginal utility of money: as Bentham put it, if one guinea would give a person one
unit of pleasure, it does not follow that a million guineas would give a person a mil-
lion units. Economists often use money as a criterion of social value without this and
other qualifications.
Utilitarians are left without any way of making precise calculations of the amounts
of pleasure and pain. However, it does not follow that the doctrine has no use. It is
common sense that some sufferings are greater than others; hence, public policy or
acts of benevolence can aim at alleviating the greatest sufferings without precise
numerical indices of how much greater one is than another. In making utilitarian
comparisons, it is assumed that quantities or degrees of pleasure and pain are
additive – the pains of two people are a greater extent of pain than that of only one
person. Some critics deny this, but their objection seems to have no merit.
Utilitarianism as an aggregative principle is claimed to ignore distribution. It is
said that unequal or unmerited distributions of the same utility are regarded as
equal. Utilitarians insist that the utility of different individuals are to be given
equal weight. No class or nationality or religion or gender is favored. However,
they are not dogmatic equalitarians. There is some basis for equality regarding the
means of happiness in the principle of diminishing marginal utility. The more
wealth or income that one has, the less an additional unit of wealth or income will
contribute to one’s welfare. In fact, some studies have shown that those in the
highest quintile of income are not as satisfied with their lives as those in the middle
quintiles. John Rawls (1971: 541–5, 154), in his effort to present an alternative to
utilitarianism, implicitly uses the diminishing marginal utility of what he calls
“primary goods” as the ground for the priority of liberty and to justify inequalities
only if they would benefit the worst-off class in society. Rawls is not a utilitarian,
but his substantive conclusions regarding distributive justice are very close to
those of utilitarians.
As indicated earlier, another quandary for hedonistic utilitarianism is the
distinction between average and total happiness in population policy. Utilitarians
12
are probably in agreement that the present rate of population increase is not sustain-
able without a great deal of human (and animal) misery resulting from stress on
resources, ecological deterioration, climate change, territorial conflict, and so on.
However, there is the theoretical question: if population could be stabilized, what
would be the optimal population? This creates a quandary for hedonistic utilitari-
ans, whose intuitions seem to be divided. If it is impersonal happiness that counts,
more happy people may outweigh the loss of happiness of the average; hence, the
total view wins out. If it is how happy individuals are that count, the total view loses,
although the average view also has to be qualified to count happy people, and not
simply average impersonal happiness. Otherwise, the death of a person of
below-average happiness would be beneficial.
Utilitarians downplay merit except as the rewarding of merit and the punishing of
demerit have good consequences. Utilitarians reject retributive punishments. The
pain of punishing a criminal is an evil, requiring justification. The justification
needs to be forward-looking, either to reform the criminal, to deter others from
similar criminal behavior, or to protect society from the criminal’s further offenses.
An eye for an eye is rejected. However, what if punishing an innocent person will
promote utility? Critics give examples such as that of executing an innocent person
to prevent a riot that would result in the loss of far more innocent lives. They argue
that this is unjust, even if it would prevent worse consequences. Utilitarians reply
that they would not want law enforcement officers and courts to have the authority
to condemn innocent people, knowing them to be innocent. Such a rule would not
be a useful rule. Even in the particular case, the death of the innocent person is a
known evil, and the result of executing or not executing is uncertain. If it is known
later than the victim was innocent, that will weaken trust in the useful system of law
enforcement. Is killing the victim the only way to avoid the riot – have all alterna-
tives been considered? However, if it is known to be the only way to avoid catastro-
phe, then the right to life of the victim must give way to the greater good. To avoid
catastrophe, a utilitarian sometimes has to provide for what would normally be a
wrong action. There are many instances in which innocent people suffer for the
greater good: those with infectious diseases may be quarantined; young people may
be conscripted into military service and forced to risk their lives. Utilitarianism is
not the only ethics that requires behavior that is normally wrong to be permitted in
exceptional circumstances.
Controversial among utilitarians is the obligation to make personal sacrifices.
Peter Singer (1972) has argued that affluent nations and individuals of affluence are
obligated to make great sacrifices to raise welfare of people who are less affluent. For
example, eating at home rather than eating out and contributing the saving to Oxfam
may save the life of a person in a famine-stricken area. Critics have said that this
makes utilitarianism too demanding, and some utilitarians have tried to avoid this
conclusion. If the sense of this demanding obligation only makes people feel guilty
without modifying their behavior, then it is counterproductive. However, if the guilt
makes them modify their behavior enough for each guilty person to save one life,
doesn’t it have good consequences?
13
The question of the obligation of self-sacrifice is part of a more general question

of autonomy and of impersonal vs. agent-centered morality. Traditional utilitarians,
such as Mill and Sidgwick, pointed out that, unless people are wealthy enough for
far-reaching philanthropy, they can usually do more good by paying attention to
benefiting themselves and others near to them, such as family, friends, and those in
one’s community, rather than by being concerned with global welfare or the welfare
of strangers. I know more about the needs of myself and those close to me, and I
have stronger motivation to do the good deeds. Nevertheless, critics, especially
critics of act utilitarianism, such as Bernard Williams (1973), have claimed that
utilitarianism makes personal integrity impossible. Williams claims that an act
utilitarian agent is required to subordinate all his or her private ideals, projects,
interests, and tastes to the goal of becoming a maximally efficient promoter of the
general good. One reply is that these projects, and so on, give primary pleasures,
a constituent of maximal happiness. Another reply is that if we are continually
seeking to benefit others, we may cause resentment toward our interference in their
lives. However, some consequentialists, such as Samuel Scheffler (1992: 104), have
attempted to answer this problem by revising the theory with an agent-centered
prerogative which “permits an agent to devote a proportionately greater weight to
his or her own projects than would be licensed by an exclusive appeal to an imper-
sonal calculus.”
Practical Implications
Utilitarianism requires that agents think about the consequences of their actions
and rules for action for everyone affected, including the least advantaged in society.
Utilitarianism began as a movement to reform English law, and it has historically
been associated with reform movements. In Bentham’s lifetime, some of his follow-
ers, including John Stuart Mill and his father James Mill, formed a movement known
as the “philosophical radicals,” who advocated an extension of the vote to the labor-
ing classes, universal education, individual liberties, representative government,
freedom of trade, legal reform, religious tolerance not only for Catholics but for
atheists, Irish independence, and other progressive legislation. Some utilitarians
thought that an economic policy of laissez faire would have best consequences, but
most were concerned with the suffering and inequalities resulting from unregulated
capitalism. Mill was sympathetic to utopian socialism, and he advocated nationali-
zation of natural resources. His Principles of Political Economy (1848) paid special
attention to the effect of alternative economic policies upon the working classes.
Hedonistic utilitarianism also calls attention to the suffering of nonhuman
animals. In recent years, utilitarians have been prominent in movements to prevent
the cruelty to animals in factory farming and medical experiments. Peter Singer’s
Animal Liberation (1975) was one of the most influential works in this movement.
Many utilitarians advocate vegetarianism.
Utilitarians also call attention to the long-term effects of actions. Hence, they
show concern for damage to the environment and for human contributions to global
14
warming. If overpopulation is seen as contributing to human misery and degradation

of the environment, utilitarians advocate population control. On the basis of the
happiness that comes from control of one’s life, utilitarians advocate the dissemina-
tion of birth control information and reproductive freedom for women.
Utilitarianism has obvious implications for issues in medical and biological ethics.
A hedonistic utilitarian is likely to support euthanasia and to place the happiness or
unhappiness of pregnant women above the life of fetuses in the abortion debate.
Utilitarians are concerned that much medical and biological research is aimed at
corporate profits rather than more pressing human needs.
One of the obvious sources of human suffering in the present world is war. The
universalism of utilitarianism counts casualties on both sides of a conflict equally,
and opposes the “national interest” when it is contrary to human interest. Some
utilitarians, such as Bart Gruzalski (2006), have done utilitarian analyses of current
military conflicts.
In general, utilitarianism stresses sensitivity to the needs of others and good
citizenship in the world community.
See also: bentham, jeremy; consequentialism; deontology; desire

theories of the good; greatest happiness principle; hedonism;
impartiality; instrumental value; intrinsic value; intuitionism, moral;
mill, john stuart; pleasure; punishment; rawls, john; rights; satisficing;
sidgwick, henry; supererogation; value pluralism; virtue ethics
REFERENCES
Baumgardt, David 1966. Bentham and the Ethics of Today. New York: Octagon Books.
Beccaria, Caesare 1995 [1764]. “On Crimes and Punishments,” in Richard Bellamy (ed.),
On Crimes and Punishments and Other Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bentham, Jeremy 1970 [1789]. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, ed.
J. H. Burns and H. L. A. Hart. London: University of London/Athlone Press.
Bentham, Jeremy 1988 [1776]. A Fragment on Government, ed. J. H. Burns and H. L. A. Hart.
Bradley, F. H. 1962 [1876]. Ethical Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Brandt, Richard B. 1959. Ethical Theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Brandt, Richard B. 1979. A Theory of the Good and the Right. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Carritt, E. F. 1947. Ethical and Political Thinking. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Gruzalski, Bart 2006. “Some Implications of Utilitarianism for Practical Ethics: The Case
Against Military Response to Terrorism,” in Henry R. West (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to
Mill’s Utilitarianism. Oxford: Blackwell.
Hare, R. M. 1981. Moral Thinking: Its Levels, Methods, and Point. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Harrison, J. 1952–3. “Utilitarianism, Universalization, and Our Duty to be Just,” Proceedings
of the Aristotelian Society, n.s., vol. 53, pp. 105–32.
Harrod, R. F. 1936. “Utilitarianism Revised,” Mind, vol. 45, pp. 137–56.
Helvetius, Claude Adrian 1759. De l’esprit or, Essays on the Mind, and its Several Faculties.
London.
15
Hooker, Bradford W. 2000. Ideal Code, Real World: A Rule-Consequentialist Theory of

Morality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hume, David 1998 [1751]. Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, ed. Tom L.
Beauchamp. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
Hutcheson, Francis 2004 [1725]. An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and
Virtue, ed. Wolfgang Leidhold. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.
Lewis, C. I. 1946. An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation. La Salle, IL: Open Court.
Lyons, David 1965. Forms and Limits of Utilitarianism. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Mill, John Stuart 1965 [1848/1871]. Principles of Political Economy. Vols. 2–3 of Collected
Works of John Stuart Mill, 6th ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Mill, John Stuart 1969 [1838]. “Bentham,” in J. M. Robson (ed.), Essays on Ethics, Religion and
Society. Vol. 10 of Collected Works of John Stuart Mill. Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, pp. 75–116.
Mill, John Stuart 1969 [1852]. “Whewell on Moral Philosophy,” in J. M. Robson (ed.), Essays
on Ethics, Religion and Society. Vol. 10 of Collected Works of John Stuart Mill. Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, pp. 165–202.
Mill, John Stuart 1969 [1861]. “Utilitarianism,” in J. M. Robson (ed.), Essays on Ethics, Religion
and Society. Vol. 10 of Collected Works of John Stuart Mill. Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, pp. 203–60.
Mill, John Stuart 1969 [1865]. “Auguste Comte and Positivism,” in J. M. Robson (ed.), Essays
on Ethics, Religion and Society. Vol. 10 of Collected Works of John Stuart Mill. Toronto:
Moore, G. E. 1959 [1903]. Principia Ethica. London and New York: Cambridge University
Press.
Moore, G. E. 1965 [1912]. Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Norcross, Alastair 2006. “The Scalar Approach to Utilitarianism,” in Henry R. West (ed.), The
Blackwell Guide to Mill’s Utilitarianism. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 217–32.
Nowell-Smith, P. H. 1954. Ethics. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Priestley, Joseph 1768. Essay on the First Principles of Government. London.
Rashdall, Hastings 1907 [1924]. The Theory of the Right and the Good, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Rawls, John 1955. “Two Concepts of Rules,” The Philosophical Review, vol. 64, pp. 3–32.
Rawls, John 1999 [1971]. A Theory of Justice, rev. ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Regan, Donald 1980. Utilitarianism and Co-operation. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Scheffler, Samuel 1992. Human Morality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Shaw, William H. 1999. Contemporary Ethics: Taking Account of Utilitarianism. Oxford:
Blackwell.
Singer, Marcus 1961. Generalization in Ethics. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Singer, Peter 1972. “Famine, Affluence, and Morality,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 1,
pp. 229–43.
Singer, Peter 1975. Animal Liberation. New York: Random House.
Smart, J. J. C. 1973. “An Outline of a System of Utilitarian Ethics,” in J. J. C. Smart and Bernard
Williams (eds.), Utilitarianism: For and Against. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sobel, J. Howard 1967. “ ‘Everyone,’ Consequences, and Generalization Arguments,” Inquiry,
vol. 10, pp. 373–404.
16
Toulmin, Stephen E. 1950. An Examination of the Place of Reason in Ethics. Cambridge:

Urmson, J. O. 1953. “The Interpretation of the Philosophy of J. S. Mill,” Philosophical
West, Henry R. 1965. Act-Utilitarianism and Rule-Utilitarianism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University PhD thesis.
Williams, Bernard 1973. “A Critique of Utilitarianism,” in J. J. C. Smart and Bernard Williams,
Utilitarianism: For and Against. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
FURTHER READINGS
Adams, Robert Merrihew 1976. “Motive Utilitarianism,” Journal of Philosophy, vol. 73,
pp. 467–81.
Albee, Ernest 1902. A History of English Utilitarianism. London: Allen & Unwin; New York:
Macmillan.
Brandt, Richard B. 1992. Morality, Utilitarianism, and Rights. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Foot, Philippa 1985. “Utilitarianism and the Virtues,” Mind, vol. 94, pp. 196–209.
Frey, R. G. (ed.) 1984. Utility and Rights. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Glover, Jonathan (ed.) 1990. Utilitarianism and Its Critics. New York: Macmillan; London:
Collier Macmillan.
Halevy, Elie 1972 [1928]. The Growth of Philosophical Radicalism. London: Faber & Faber.
Harrison, Jonathan 1979. “Rule Utilitarianism and Cumulative-Effect Utilitarianism,”
Canadian Journal of Philosophy, suppl. vol. 5, pp. 21–45.
Harrison, Ross 1983. Bentham. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Harsanyi, J. C. 1953. “Cardinal Welfare, Individualistic Ethics, and Interpersonal Comparisons
of Utility,” Journal of Political Economy, vol. 63, pp. 309–21.
Hurka, Thomas 1993. Perfectionism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lyons, David 1973. In the Interest of the Governed. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Mill, John Stuart 1977 [1859]. “On Liberty,” in J. M. Robson (ed.), Essays on Politics and
Society. Vol. 18 of Collected Works of John Stuart Mill. Toronto and Buffalo: University of
Toronto Press.
Mill, John Stuart 1984 [1869]. “The Subjection of Women,” in J. M. Robson (ed.), Essays on
Equality, Law and Education. Vol. 21 of Collected Works of John Stuart Mill. Toronto and
Buffalo: University of Toronto Press.
Miller, Harland B., and William H. Williams (eds.) 1982. The Limits of Utilitarianism.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Scarre, Geoffrey 1996. Utilitarianism. London: Routledge.
Scheffler, Samuel 1982. The Rejection of Consequentialism. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Scheffler, Samuel (ed.) 1988. Consequentialism and Its Critics. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Schneewind, J. B. 1977. Sidgwick’s Ethics and Victorian Moral Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Sen, Amartya, and Bernard Williams (eds.) 1982. Utilitarianism and Beyond. Cambridge:
17
Sidgwick, Henry 1981 [1874/1907]. The Methods of Ethics, 7th ed. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Singer, Peter 1979. Practical Ethics. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Skorupski, John 1989. John Stuart Mill. London: Routledge.
Stephen, Leslie 1900. The English Utilitarians. New York: P. Smith.
Utilitas: A Journal of Utilitarian Studies 1989. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
1
Gender and Patriarchy in Religions

Christine E. Gudorf
When living conditions change, they demand different human traits and modes of
activity and organization. The messages and structures of culture and religion are
then reinterpreted to meet the new conditions. Thus it should not be surprising that
the treatment of gender in religions and cultures has changed throughout history.
Until very recently, most religions and cultures recognized two sexes on the basis of
external genitalia at birth and assigned social gender roles on the basis of those
genitalia.
Religions, though linked to an ultimate reality through the human historical
experience of transcendence, are human institutions; and, as human institutions,
they seek not only to serve the larger community, but also to maximize and preserve
the power of religious institutions relative to other human institutions. Inevitably,
maximizing the power of religion and of religious institutions is sometimes
indistinguishable from maximizing the power of the elites that control religions. In
world religions – that is, in religions that have had, historically, a global impact; such
religions are here understood to have been Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism,
and Christianity – religious elites have been (in principle) exclusively male. There is
general agreement among scholars that:
Some founders of religions raised the religious status of women somewhat, relative to
their previous social condition, and mitigated their abuse by men. The early days of
many religions, before they became institutionalized, are thought to have been
empowering for women, for the prophets brought enlightened visions that were to
uplift all humanity. (Fisher 2007: 14)
Until the beginnings of modernity, however, few religions were founded by women –
although, as Sered has illustrated, a number of small, less known religions were
dominated by them. Such were
ancestral cults among Black Caribs in contemporary Belize, the indigenous religion of
the Ryukyu Islands, the zar cult of northern Africa, the Sande secret society of Sierra
Leone, matrilineal spirit cults in northern Thailand, Korean shamanism, Christian
Science, Shakerism, Afro-Brazilian religions, nineteenth-century Spiritualism, the
indigenous nat cults of Burma, and the Feminist Spirituality Movement in twentieth
century United States. (Sered 1994: 3)
Women were virtually invisible among the great prophets, high priests, jurists, judges,
and theologians who constructed the majority of religions around the world. Until
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee179
2
the twentieth century, women had little or no role among the religious teachers who
interpreted the great traditions to new generations of followers (see discrimination).
The exclusion of women from processes of formation and transmission in most tra-
ditions is one of the major themes of study among women engaged today in this field;
and they have documented that, in the past, the great traditions across many cultures
have dismissed women either as not being religious at all or as being significantly less
religious than men – or, when they were religiously active, as being less orthodox
than men and inclined to engage rather in magic and superstition, if not in outright
heresy. The state of subordination of women within religion – as within culture in
general – and their exclusion from leadership is called patriarchy.
Some religions, especially Hinduism and Judaism, have either created or allowed
women to create female domestic ritual within the larger tradition. In Hinduism
women are responsible for long series of rituals around pregnancy and childbirth,
for rituals designed to protect the health of their husbands, children, and brothers
(who are relied upon by North Indian women, for example, to take them to visit
their natal home), and for rituals aiming to help the family avoid disasters and
dangers and achieve prosperity (Jacobsen 2001; Wadley 2001). These rituals are part
of the bhakti tradition: this is common to the Hindu masses, which lack access to the
Brahminical rituals based on the sacred texts. In Judaism, after the Romans destroyed
the Second Temple in 70 ce, ritual was divided between the home and the synagogue.
Orthodox Jewish women initiated domestic ritual by lighting the candle that ushers
in the Sabbath and the holydays, as well as by preparing the Sabbath meal and
keeping the family kitchen in accordance with kasrut, a very intricate Jewish dietary
law. They also observed mikvah, a ritual bath required for cleaning ritual impurity
after menstruation and childbirth. Yet even in Hinduism and Judaism, where women
have ritual roles, they are not full members of the religion. In Orthodox Judaism, as
in the traditional Judaism that long preceded it, women are bound by few of the 613
commandments of the law and are no part of the minyan of ten adults required for
holding Torah services in the synagogue. According to the Torah, the mark of the
Jewish covenant with God is male circumcision. In Hinduism only male
Brahmans may be priests, and the goal of moksha – that is, release from the cycle of
rebirth – can only be reached from within the status of male Brahman; all others, if
they are to be able to aspire to moksha, must earn good karma and move through a
chain of rebirths until they are finally reborn as a male Brahman. And only men in
the “thrice-born” castes wear the “sacred thread.”
In a number of Muslim cultures women are considered to be less religious than
men, because they seldom (if ever) attend the mosque. Women explain that they are
actively discouraged from attending the mosque and that married women are
allowed neither to bring their children to the mosque nor to leave them alone. In the
mosque women are not allowed to lead the prayer; and they must be hidden, to
remain out of the sight and hearing of male worshippers. Mernissi (2001) describes
one common aspect of women’s religious practice in Morocco: making pilgrimage to
sanctuaries – to the tombs of the saints, where they pray for help, learn each other’s
stories, and support each other. The sanctuaries are female ground (very few males
3
are ever seen there), and they are not considered venues for orthodox Muslim prayer,
but rather part of the emotional landscape of superstition characteristic of women.
In Catholicism, the religiosity of women and poor people (popular religion) tends
to revolve around devotion to the Virgin Mary and the saints. Such practices are
understood by the clergy to lead to heresy – that is, to the worship of Mary or the
saints rather than of God; and, in the Caribbean, to syncretistic, Afro-Catholic forms
of worship (in Voudou, Santeria, Candomble, etc.). Devotion to Mary and the saints
is also supposed to distract believers from the central Catholic rituals of the
sacraments and mass, which are controlled by the clergy. An important aspect of the
reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962–5) was that it de-emphasized devotion
to Mary and the saints and stressed the clerically controlled sacraments, especially
the mass. Women are excluded from Catholic priesthood, though a large number of
Protestant denominations have ordained women as clergy. However, females have
not been universally accepted as members of the clergy, and female bishops remain
controversial.
The only exception from this pattern of exclusion and denigration has occurred
in those few religions in which women constitute the majority both among the
leaders and among the members, religions that have sometimes been founded by
women, essentially in the modern period – like Shakerism, Christian Science,
nineteenth-century Spiritualism, and the Feminist Spirituality Movement.
Female-dominated religions older than the modern period are almost exclusively to
be found in isolated cultures with essentially oral religious traditions and low rates
of literacy, cultures that place great emphasis on communication (either mystical or
through mediums) with spirits (deities, nature spirits, or ancestor spirits). All over
the world, in cultures in which spirit communication is important, women are
recognized as more likely mediums. The psychological explanation is that women’s
subordinate status in most cultures has given them more permeable ego boundaries,
so that they find it easier to let themselves be possessed.
One vitally important mechanism in the exclusion of women from leadership
roles in the world religions has been to cut them off from education: religious
education, especially higher; and in some places basic literacy.
Patriarchy: Not Universal

Religion scholar Mary Pat Fisher (2007) concludes that cross-cultural studies of
religions indicate that the more religion is an integral aspect of daily life rather than
something institutionalized and separate from it, the more women are likely to be
involved in it. The more a religion becomes institutionalized, the more women are
excluded from significant roles within it. Our information on non-literate religions
comes from limited archeological study of artifacts of ancient religion; from accounts
of archaic religions given by literate conquerors, traders, and missionaries; and, in
the case of pre-literate tribal religions that survived into modern times in Africa,
Latin America, the Pacific, and Central Asia, from often extensive anthropological
descriptions. Earlier religions, whether prehistoric or tribal, understand individuals,
4
society, and nature as forming a continuum. Later religions have lost this basic unity
and share a fundamental dualism that is reflected in time, space (sacred/profane,
earth/heaven), self (body/spirit), and society (men/women).
Perhaps the two most recurrent patterns in all of the evidence concerning religion
in non-literate societies are reverence for fertility as representing life; and the
centrality of balance between the sexes and the two dimensions of reality they
represent. This balance is often achieved through parallelism and almost always
involves sexual complementarity, the understanding of males and females as having
different and exclusive traits and roles that, taken together, constitute completeness.
This is not a claim that prehistoric, archaic or tribal religions were or are non-
patriarchal or fully egalitarian (see egalitarianism). The evidence simply suggests
that, when the activities and concerns of women were central to religion, the status
of women and men generally approached equality to a greater extent than in later
literate societies.
Fertility as Representing Life

There is an ongoing debate about whether earth-goddess worship was the earliest
form of human religion. The evidence is clear that fertility was regarded as a sacred
power and understood as primarily female. The earliest known cultic artifacts are
female figurines, often with human female bodies and with the head of various
animals sacred to the goddess, though artifacts of male deities also existed in most
of the same societies. Among the earliest cultic artifacts in Egypt there is a goddess
with the face of a pig – probably because pigs gave birth to large litters, which were
weaned early and demonstrated rapid weight gain, making pigs potent protein
sources and thus symbols of life sustenance. Snake-goddess figures were also early,
and are found all the way from India through to northern Europe, probably because
snakes represented the regeneration of life when they emerged from the ground and
shed their skins in the spring. Later there were goddess patrons for pregnant and
nursing mothers, for instance Mater Matuta of southern Italy, Madonna figures such
as Isis, Native American goddesses who gave humans the gift of corn or other staple
crop. The list is long. The specific image of female fertility that was worshipped dif-
fered – in much of West Africa, devotion to Mami Wata survived into the present,
and streams of water were often carved onto the ancient statues of mother goddesses.
In Europe and the near East, where the most archeological work has been done, the
majority of sexed images during the Paleolithic period are female, and in many
places female images continue to predominate well into the Neolithic, on altars and
in wall niches with oil lamps in front of them. Many of these earth mother-goddess
figures not only represented birth and life, but also death and decay, as these were
also part of the life cycle over which goddesses presided. Worship of these goddesses
seems to have been strongly associated with attitudes of reverence toward nature,
but not necessarily with the predominance of women in leadership roles.
The situation of women in religious traditions without sacred texts varies today.
There is general agreement that the status of women seriously declined in indigenous
5
societies all over the world during modern colonialism (1600–1950), in spite of the
fact that Europeans understood themselves as bringing an enlightened culture,
particularly on issues involving women. All over the world – in Latin America,
India, Southeast Asia, and Africa – under the impact of colonialism, women lost
their rights to own land and to have a legal standing. In Indonesia, for example,
Muslim women across many ethnicities lost legal inheritance rights and a host of
other economic rights previously guaranteed in the Quran (see inheritance).
These losses under civil law inevitably affected their religious status.
In general, however, despite the impact of colonialism on indigenous peoples, the
religious status of women in non-literate traditions, though varied, comes closer to
being equal to that of men than it does in literate traditions. This greater tendency
to equality seems linked to the fact that (a) such traditions are often found in
relatively isolated areas, where people live in intimate association with and
dependence upon nature; (b) their societies are structured in terms of sexual
parallelism (treated below); and (c) their communities are usually of small enough
size for the gifts and talents of individual women to be sufficiently known, so that
females are not evaluated solely on the basis of gender stereotypes.
Balancing Male and Female

A second common pattern in prehistoric, archaic, and tribal religion is that of
balance, especially between the sexes. This pattern is documented historically and
still found among many indigenous peoples today. Silverblatt (1987) described
pre-Incan tribes of the Altiplano as organized into two lineages, with men descended
from the sun and women from the moon, each sex having its own rituals and its own
plots of land, which were distributed at death within members of the sex. The
members of each sex selected from their ranks a chief, and the male and the female
chiefs ruled the village together, giving precedence to each over those matters that
were exclusive to one sex. Among the Kaata of Bolivia there are, still today, male
diviners and female diviners. Male diviners perform rituals intended to bring good
fortune; female diviners perform misfortune rituals, designed to remove bodily or
social disintegration. The complex local symbol system clusters together men, sta-
bility, and the mountain, and contrasts them to women, the river, and the cycle of
dissolution and renewal (Bastien 2001).
Among the Mapuche of Chile, the central nguillatun ceremony similarly requires
the leadership of both the female machi (shamans/priestess) and the male nguenpins
(lineage heads/priests; see Bacigalupo 2002). The Mapuche illustrate another
common pattern: that balance between maleness and femaleness needs to be
reestablished periodically, due to historical changes. Until the Mapuche were forced
onto reservations in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the machi were male,
and many of their functions involved assisting and supporting hunting and war,
while domestic ritual was headed by women within the lineages and dealt with
fertility issues. Now that they are settled agriculturalists, the machi are 95 percent
female and preside primarily over agricultural ritual. But ritual presiding has also
6
changed with the shift to female machis and to agricultural rituals: female machis
now share the role of ritual presider with priestly lineage chiefs, nguenpins, almost
all of whom are currently male.
Australian Aborigines constitute yet another example. Rita Gross has
explained that male Aborigines have their own set of rituals, from which all
women, except sometimes post-menopausal women, are excluded: the rituals
must be kept secret from them (2001: 301–3). With the exception of a short rite
performed by the medicine man before a laboring woman enters the last stages
of childbirth, men, too, are completely excluded from women’s rituals, which are
kept secret from them. During each sex’s rituals, the other sex, remaining apart,
observes silence out of respect. Furthermore, among Australian Aborigines, the
men’s ritual also illustrates an attempt to create, for men, a balance with women’s
more visible link with fertility, in that in men’s initiation rituals men cut open
the penis (or, in some groups, the arm) in order to simulate the menstrual bleed-
ing of women, they groan with the pains of childbirth, and they present to the
tribe the initiated boys in their arms as if they were newborns (see mother-
hood; fatherhood).
Sered (1994) suggests that the ritual shedding/ingesting of blood by men, as in
animal sacrifice or body mutilation, serves as an analog to female reproduction, in
that it makes men share the same blood. These rituals simultaneously represent
men’s claims to be bonded together and to reproduce the community.
The Sambia of New Guinea studied by Herdt (1994) understood the male
contribution to fertility in men, as some modern non-literate peoples did not; and
they believed that semen ingestion is necessary in order to make boys into fertile
men – unlike in the case of women, whom nature fashions to become fertile without
any cultural action. Elaborate systems of semen ingestion by boys serve to emphasize
men’s role in fertility. This fits with the larger pattern: virtually all cultures have male
puberty rituals, but less than 20 percent of all cultures of the globe have female
puberty rituals: societies assume that nature provides for females a dramatic indica-
tion of sexual maturity (menarche), but that culture must create ritual to mark sex-
ual maturity in males.
Sometimes balance between the sexes in society was achieved not through
parallelism, but through a check on power, as when the North American Iroquois,
whose war chiefs could only be male, had the highest ranking woman in the tribe
choose who was to be war chief. Among the Ammatoa people of South Sulawesi,
Indonesia, after the election of a new tribal leader, called the Ammatoa, that leader
chooses two women called aronta who, upon his death, will preside over not only
the funeral process, but also over the three year process for selecting the new
Ammatoa. To date all all Ammatoas have been male, but this is not required.
Sometimes these local traditions regarding balance between male and female
powers, roles, and interests survived transfer into other later religions, as in Bali,
where Hindu temple rituals must include pairs of male and female priest figures
(usually a married couple), a requirement that disappeared in Indian Hinduism in
late Vedic times. Balance between the sexes was a recognition that the welfare of the
7
entire community depended upon utilizing the gifts of both sexes, who each had
their own special powers and concerns.
Controlling Nature; Controlling Women

If female fertility was so sacred in prehistoric religion, and later non-literate
religions focused so regularly on complementarity and balance between the sexes,
how did men come to hold exclusive control over religions in later periods? We do
not have clear answers to this. But the most probable theory begins with the pre-
historic connection of women with the fertility of nature. Early human communi-
ties were dependent upon both human fertility and fertility in surrounding nature,
and worshipped that fertility, often in female form, in what have come to be called
goddesses.
In the agricultural revolution of 10,000 years ago, humans learned to harvest and
plant seed, rather than merely gathering whatever grew wild, to domesticate animals
rather than hunt all their meat, and to harness large mammals as beasts of burden.
This agricultural revolution allowed human settlements to grow, because it vastly
increased harvests. Human bands no longer needed to stay small and move on when
they had exhausted the local food supply through hunting and gathering. With
permanent settlements, humans developed specialization. Not everyone was
necessary in the task of growing food – some could become builders, others bakers,
others priests and kings. Specialization of labor spurred technology development.
Not only did people plant seed, but they invented plows and irrigation, millstones to
grind grain, ovens to bake it, wheels to move it and granaries to store it in. They built
cities and walls, bridges and dams. In short, they came to have less awe of nature and
its power, and to see themselves as having ever-increasing power over nature
(Diamond 1997). In different places, some gods became separate from nature; new
male gods arose in Europe, the Middle East and West Africa who were imaged more
as warrior-kings than as either mothers or consorts/sons of mother goddesses. As
literacy developed, and religious teachings were written in sacred texts, another new
technology – control of the texts—in culture after culture was assigned to men.
There seems to have been a strong connection between humanity’s growing power
over nature, and growing assertion of male power over women that continues into
the present (Shiva 1996). If fertility connected women to nature, then male control
of nature through technology was assumed to bestow on men power over women’s
fertility and production also.
Literacy, and the transmission of revelation in written rather than in oral form,
seem to have been effective methods for excluding women from religious power and
authority. When religious knowledge was oral, it was in many ways public and
accessible to all, because it was publicly recited. But literacy began as the specializa-
tion of only a small elite, charged with ruling and trading; still today, in most of the
world literacy is not universal. When religious knowledge took written form, it
became even more likely to be restricted to elites. In most literate religious traditions,
for thousands of years until the last century or so, women have been either
8
discouraged from the formal study of sacred scriptures or actually forbidden to

undertake it, and in many places they have been excluded from literacy itself.
Patriarchal Religion and Women

Interestingly enough, while there are some major differences in the way in which
the texts of world religions have understood women, they agree almost totally on
the purpose of women and their function in society: they are to be wives and
mothers, they are under the protection and control of men, and their usual place
is in the home. This understanding generally results from women being defined in
terms of their differences from men, rather than through their similarities with
men, and the basic difference noted is reproductive biology, which is interpreted
to mean not only that women were created for reproduction, but also that, because
they were created for the physical and material task of reproduction, women are fit
for child-rearing, but not for decision-making roles in the public sphere (see sexu-
ality in religions).
The leadership of men is also a general theme in sacred texts; explanations for it
include women’s dependence on men and the common notion that women should
be protected from the predation of other men, as well as from their own irrationality
and hyper-emotionality (see sexual equality). In the oldest traditions, for example
in Hinduism and Judaism, the leadership of men is taken for granted and underlies
both mythic accounts and the legal provisions in sacred texts. In later traditions such
as Christianity and Islam the leadership of men over women is directly stated in
sacred texts, as at Ephesians 5:22–33 or at Surah IV: 34–1. In many religions there is
a theme of male control over women as a feature necessary for protecting men’s
virtue from women’s seductive wiles. Seclusion, body covering, and veiling, the
supervision of women’s dress and activities outside the home (see modesty), even
honor killings (see shame and honor) have all been (and still are) justified as
necessary controls on female desire (see desire). But arguments concerning the
need to control women have often been used to obscure – or even to justify – violence
against women (Gudorf 2007; see domestic violence).
It is important to note the three late modern changes in the lives of women that
have allowed women’s movements to demand shared participation in religious and
other forms of leadership: the advent of effective contraception (see reproductive
technology); the extension of the human lifespan; and the resulting shift toward
sex equality in education and employment (see human rights and religion).
Women’s movements agree that the religions of the world will not be capable of
supporting the dignity and welfare of women until the latter are recognized as full
members of the religion and have been integrated to the level of taking
decision-making roles within it. The perspective of the sociology of knowledge – an
understanding that truth looks different from different social locations and
experiences – has become global and universal, except for religion. In no other
aspect of human life is the exclusion of a half of the population from participation
and/or decision-making accepted as just or supportive of the common good. The
9
basis of women’s activism globally is this perception that the welfare of women
demands that they be included on equal terms among those who make social
decisions. In religions as well, this perspective insists that only when women of all
races, classes, and ethnic groups are included among the priests, lawyers, and schol-
ars of the religion can religions effectively support the dignity and welfare of all
women.
See also: desire; discrimination; domestic violence; egalitarianism;

fatherhood; human rights and religion; inheritance; modesty;
motherhood; reproductive technology; sexual equality; sexuality in
religions; shame and honor
REFERENCES
Bacigalupo, Ana Maricella 2002. “The Rise of the Machi-Moon Priestess,” in Arvind Sharma
and Katharine K. Young (eds.), The Annual Review of Women in World Religions, vol. 6.
Bastien, Joseph W. 2001. “Rosinta, Rats and the River: Bad Luck Is Banished in Andean
Bolivia,” in Nancy A. Falk and Rita M. Gross (eds.), Unspoken Worlds: Women’s Religious
Lives, 3rd ed. Toronto: Wadsworth, pp. 243–52.
Diamond, Jared 1997. Germs, Guns and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York:
W. W. Norton.
Fisher, Mary Pat 2007. Women in Religion. London: Longman.
Gross, Rita M. 2001. “Menstruation and Childbirth as Ritual and Religious Experience
among Native Australians,” in Nancy A. Falk and Rita M. Gross (eds.), Unspoken Worlds:
Women’s Religious Lives, 3rd ed. Toronto: Wadsworth, pp. 301–10.
Gudorf, Christine E. 2007. “Violence against Women in World Religions,” in Daniel Maguire
and Sa’diyya Shaikh (eds.), Violence against Women in Contemporary World Religion:
Roots and Cures. Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, pp. 9–28.
Herdt, Gilbert 1994. Guardians of the Flute: Idioms of Masculinity. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Jacobsen, Dorrane 2001. “Golden Handprints and Red-Painted Feet: Hindu Childbirth
Rituals in Central India,” in Nancy A. Falk and Rita M. Gross (eds.), Unspoken Worlds:
Women’s Religious Lives, 3rd ed. Toronto: Wadsworth, pp. 83–102.
Mernissi, Fatima 2001. “Women, Saints and Sanctuaries in Morocco,” in Nancy A. Falk and
Rita M. Gross (eds.), Unspoken Worlds: Women’s Religious Lives, 3rd ed. Toronto:
Wadsworth, pp. 144–56.
Sered, Susan Starr 1994. Priestess, Mother, Sacred Sister: Religions Dominated by Women.
New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Shiva, Vandana 1996. “Let Us Survive: Women, Development and Ecology,” in Rosemary
Radford Reuther (ed.), Women Healing Earth: Third World Women on Ecology, Feminism,
and Religion. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, pp. 65–73.
Silverblatt, Irene 1987. Moon, Sun and Witches: Gender Ideologies and Class in Inca and
Colonial Peru. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Wadley, Susan S. 2001. “Hindu Women’s Family and Household Rites in a North Indian
Village,” in Nancy A. Falk and Rita M. Gross (eds.), Unspoken Worlds: Women’s Religious
Lives, 3rd ed. Toronto: Wadsworth, pp. 103–13.
10
FURTHER READINGS
Ali, Kecia 2006. Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qur’an, Hadith and
Jurisprudence. Oxford: Oneworld.
Aquino, Maria Pilar 1993. Our Cry for Life: Feminist Theology from Latin America. Maryknoll,
NY: Orbis.
Botéro, Jean 2001. Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia, trans. Teresa Lavender Fagan. Chicago:
Brown, Joanne Carlson, and Carole R. Bohn (eds.) 1989. Christianity, Patriarchy and Abuse:
A Feminist Critique. New York: Pilgrim Press.
Jung, Patricia B., Mary E. Hunt, and Radhika Balakrishnan (eds.) 2001. Good Sex: Feminist
Perspectives from the World’s Religions. New Brunswick, NJ and London: Rutgers
University Press.
Gross, Rita M. 1993. Buddhism after Patriarchy: A Feminist History, Analysis, and
Reconstruction of Buddhism. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Gudorf, Christine 1994. Body, Sex and Pleasure: Reconstructing Christian Sexual Ethics.
Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press.
Mahmoud, Saba 2005. Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Princeton
and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Parsons, Susan Frank (ed.) 2002. The Cambridge Companion to Feminist Theology. Cambridge:
Plaskow, Judith 1990. Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective. New York:
HarperCollins.
Raines, John C., and Daniel C. Maguire (eds.) 2001. What Men Owe to Women: Men’s Voices
from World Religions. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Ruether, Rosemary Radford 1983. Sexism and God-Talk. London: SCM Press.
Wessinger, Catherine (ed.) 1993. Women’s Leadership in Marginal Religions: Explorations out-
side the Mainstream. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
Yamani, Mai (ed.) 1996. Feminism and Islam: Legal and Literary Perspectives. New York:
New York University Press.
1
Love
Laurence Thomas
Since antiquity, there have been three primary categories of love: agape, eros, and
philia. The basic idea behind agape love has been anchored in the Christian view of
love for humanity. Eros love obviously refers to the sentiments and sensuous bond
between lovers. And philia love is generally understood as referring to the love
between friends (see friendship). We would do well to mention a forth category of
love, namely parental love (see parents’ rights and responsibilities), which is so
clearly unlike any of the other three categories of love.
Some Preliminary Observations

All four of these forms of love have something in common. Harry G. Frankfurt
(2004) and Bennett W. Helm (2010) both provide us with a very accessible state-
ment of what that commonality is. They observe that when we love another we
care about the good of a person for her or his own sake. Thus, love in all of its
forms stands in sharp opposition to selfishness, where the very aim of selfish
behavior is to accrue benefits to oneself. We can see this with even the most gen-
eral form of love, namely agape love. A person could do an enormous amount of
volunteer work: help in the soup kitchen on Sundays, provide assistance in the
hospital on Fridays, visit the elderly center on Tuesdays, and so on. If the person is
motivated entirely by agape love, then what is of the utmost importance to the
individual is that others are being helped by her or his volunteer work – and not
that she or he benefits in some way. By contrast, if the person’s motivation for
engaging in these voluntary activities is none other than selfishness, then things
are the other way around. What will be most important to the individual is that
engaging in these activities benefits her or him in some significant way, such as
making for a most impressive résumé or substantially increasing the chances of
getting a major promotion.
Frankfurt and Helm are absolutely right in claiming that when we love another,
we care about that person for her or his own sake. However, we have just seen that
motivations are of the utmost pertinence with respect to love. Two people can engage
in the exact same activities on behalf of another, but one is motivated by love and
another is motivated by selfishness. On the one hand, then, it is certainly true that
people are typically motivated to do good things on behalf of those whom they love.
On the other hand, though, from the mere fact that an individual does something
good on behalf of another, it does not thereby follow that the individual loves that
person, since the individual could be motivated entirely by the desire for personal
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee180
2
gain and sees acting on behalf of the person in question as none other than a means
to that end (see egoism; instrumental value).
We might usefully distinguish agape love from basic goodwill in the following
manner. People who act out of agape love typically do what no one could expect, let
alone require, them to do. It is truly commendable that someone works in a soup
kitchen or offers assistance at a hospital; however, it is most unlikely that anyone
would be in any way open to moral criticism for not doing so. By contrast, basic
goodwill is generally thought to be an aspect of simple moral decency; hence, it is
something that an individual could be open to moral criticism for not exhibiting.
For instance, an entirely healthy young person who gives her seat to an elderly per-
son who boards a crowded bus would normally be thought of as exhibiting basic
goodwill rather than agape love. Likewise for the person who calls for help in the
case of someone who passes out. Outside of religious contexts, it is common enough
these days for people to refer to acts of agape love as acts of goodwill, it being under-
stood that goodwill admits of a continuum with basic decency at one end and the
extraordinary at the other.
To conclude this section, the following observation is in order. Although agape
love typically involves a sacrifice that no one could demand of another, agape love
does not at all require that we know the other personally. Indeed, there is a very
straightforward sense in which individuals who are the beneficiaries of agape love
are rather interchangeable. For example, a person who out of agape love works in a
soup kitchen or at a home for the elderly is, respectively, committed to offering
sustenance to any hungry person who walks into the establishment or to giving assis-
tance to any elderly person who resides in the home. This consideration dramatically
distinguishes agape love from the three other forms of love, which are all highly
personal: parental, philia, and eros. In no respect are these loves interchangeable.
Love and the Good of the Other

As Frankfurt and Helm indicate, when we love another we want what is good for
that person, where this ranges over a wealth of personal things depending at least in
part on the type of relationship that we have with the person. But clarity is in order
here. Wanting what is good for another and determining what is good for another
are two different things, as is wanting what is good for another and providing what
is good for another. In the parent–child relationship, it is understood that we have an
entirely asymmetrical relationship at the outset, where the parents both determine
what is good for the child and provide what is good for the child. The child is not in
a position to do either of these things for her or his parents. The parent–child
relationship is by its very nature asymmetrical love. It remains that way for a very
long time, if not forever (see motherhood).
By contrast, the love of friendship and romance is by its very nature reciprocal
love. Even if there is an initial asymmetry, the relationship quickly becomes
reciprocal (see reciprocity). Otherwise, we do not have a friendship or a love rela-
tionship. Worse, we might have a very exploitive relationship if one does not
3
genuinely care for the other, but only feigns affection for the other for purely selfish
reasons such as monetary greed or professional self-advancement.
Friends want what is good for each other. Lovers want what is good for each other.
But mutual respect is also a defining feature of both types of relationships. Or so it is
when either is as it should be. And part of what that means is that neither imposes her
or his conception of the good upon the other. Of course, each can offer constructive
criticisms of the aims and objectives of the other; and that is compatible with suggest-
ing that the other would do well to change direction. However, a suggestion to change
course motivated out of love for another is in no way akin to a command that the
other do so; and respect for the objectives of the other would entail accepting the fact
that the friend or lover remains committed to pursuing the objective in question.
What is most characteristic of friends and lovers is the keen sense that each has of
the motivations of affection with which each acts toward the other. There are
countless reasons why a person could suggest that someone should pursue a differ-
ent course; and some of these may be quite unsavory, such as jealousy or the desire
to have a superior status. Between friends and lovers, however, the primary reason
will always be that she or he cares about the other rather than any unsavory motives
such as those just mentioned. And the friend or lover will grasp precisely that.
Initially, at least, parents are expected to contribute directly to the good of their
children. That is part of what it means to say that parents care about their children.
With friends and lovers, however, it is possible for each to care about the other
enormously, all the while playing a far less direct role in the realization of the goals
of one another. If, for instance, one is a physician and the other is a painter, then it
simply may not be possible for either to contribute in any direct way to the objectives
of the other. Indeed, there is a very straightforward sense in which each may have
very little concrete understanding regarding how the other goes about doing things.
Now, when things proceed as they should, there is nothing mysterious about
parents caring for their child and the child having an unshakable sense that this is so.
The parents bring the child into the world and then they show the child extraordinary
love well before the child even has a sense of self. The child’s very flourishing is a
response to their love. Accordingly, the child’s trust that the parents are committed
to her or his good is perfectly natural.
Clearly, we have a quite different scenario with regard to the extraordinary trust
that develops between either friends or lovers – the trust that without ulterior motive
each cares about the good of the other (see trust). On the one hand, it is clear that
complete trust does not develop all at once. That would be irrational. On the other
hand, though, there have to be initial steps taken if there is ever to be marvelous
trust between them. Following LaFollette (1995), self-knowledge plays a
most important role in this regard, it being understood that self-knowledge and self-
deception are polar opposites (see self-deception).
To state the obvious, it is next to impossible for a person to avoid entirely the
possibility of being deceived by another. A person would have to take the unusual
step of verifying everything at the most detailed level; and that would make it
virtually impossible to do much of anything that is meaningful. One could not
4
suddenly decide to take a bus and one could not ask a store clerk for information,
since either individual could be an imposter. And, of course, something as mundane
and as commonplace as asking a stranger for directions would be entirely out of the
question. At any rate, when it comes to trusting another at a personal level nothing
renders an individual more susceptible to being mistaken in the assessment of
whether or not someone is trustworthy than that the individual has very little self-
knowledge. For when an individual has clarity about what does and does not matter
to her or him and in general about the priorities of her or his life, then the individual
will most certainly have considerable clarity about what she or he wants in a friend,
and so the kinds of behavior that make someone choice-worthy as a friend.
Now, when two people have considerable self-knowledge and each exhibits with
grace and majesty the kind of behavior that the other finds admirable, each having
no clue whatsoever as to the grid of self-knowledge that is being brought to bear,
then we have the kind of interaction between the two of them that is characteristic
of either a wonderful friendship in the making or the possibility of a wonderful
romantic bond in the offing. Each naturally speaks to the good of the other. That is
at the heart of the love of friendship. That is at the heart of the love of romance. In
either case, each has remarkably good reasons to deem the other trustworthy.
If indeed to love another is to care for the good of another, then there is a most
profound respect in which either the love of friendship or the love of romance has as
its foundation self-knowledge on the part of both parties. Knowing who we are is
absolutely and unequivocally fundamental to grasping the reality that another cares
for our good.
Eric J. Silverman (2010) has advanced the view that love is not just about caring
about the other. It also significantly benefits the one who is loving. There is the rather
self-evident truth that people are happier on account of loving another. What is more,
loving another underwrites a person’s wherewithal to take herself or himself seri-
ously. Indeed, nothing better informs an individual’s sense of the positive difference
that she or he makes in a person’s life than witnessing that person’s reaction of appre-
ciation. Thus, there is no gainsaying Silverman’s insight. Just so, we should want to
distinguish between forging a relationship of love in order to become a better person
and, as it happens, becoming a better person as a result of loving another. This, of
course, underscores the point made earlier, namely that the motivation with which a
person acts makes a dramatic difference. However beneficial it may be in terms of
promoting psychological well-being for a person to love another individual, we do
not have love if such self-enhancement is the person’s only or primary motive for
engaging in the relationship. Indeed, if psychological well-being is the primary moti-
vation for loving another, then love turns out to be none other than a form of egoism.
From the very start the claim has been that to love another is to care about the
good of another for that person’s very own sake. But how do we know what is good
for another? The answer is very simple: by regularly spending time with that person
and doing so across a wide variety of circumstances. This is because the way in
which people behave and respond to what goes on around them tells us much about
who they are in terms of their likes and dislikes, their concerns and hopes, their
5
curiosities and indifferences, their vulnerabilities and strengths, and so on. The
more time two people spend together, the more they learn about one another.
Sometimes an event or a shared observation will be the occasion for making a most
profound self-disclosure or even refining a previous self-disclosure. Sometimes the
mere reaction to what has just been witnessed will itself be very revealing. In saying
absolutely nothing for a mere 10 seconds, a person could reveal something most
significant about herself or himself. Between individuals who have known one
another for a very long time, their nonverbal behavior is typically surfeited with
meaning that in many instances will be missed by someone who has recently met
either or both individuals. So it is with parents and children. So it is with the best of
friends. So it is with lovers.
We care about the good of those whom we love. And one of the ways in which this
caring manifests itself is that from time to time we do what is good for the other not
because a request by that individual has been made but because we have such
tremendous knowledge of what is good for that person and a marvelous opportunity
to do something good for the individual has so wondrously presented itself.
Eros
Before turning to one of the central questions in philosophy regarding love and
morality, let us briefly look at a question that readily presents itself. What is the
difference between the love of romance and the love of friendship? Obviously, the
first involves sex whereas the second does not. But that distinction, as well defined
as it is, would seem to be rather inadequate as an explanation. This is because the
distinction leaves entirely unanswered why it is that friends who dearly love one
another typically do not have sex. Interestingly, an unexpected source may provide
us with some insight, namely parental love.
Parental love makes three things unequivocally clear. One is that a profound
commitment to the good of another need not involve any sexual feelings at all on
anyone’s part. Another is that an extraordinary depth of affirmation on the part of
the other need not involve any sexual feelings at all on anyone’s part. Last, but
certainly not least, we do not suppose that the love of romance thereby renders
parental love otiose. Parental love remains an ever-treasured gift. There is a very
straightforward sense in which parental love is and remains a marvelous gift to a
person’s very soul. It is arguable that in many respects the love of a marvelous
friendship has these parallels to parental love but without either the obligations of
parenting or the authority that parents have. What is more, this time around it is a
matter of mutual choice between the two individuals who are friends.
Turning to romantic love, there is no denying the importance and the pleasure
that sex brings to the lives of individuals. Clearly, there is no reason whatsoever to
believe that people are willing to forgo sex. There is nothing that replaces the pleasure
and gratification that sexual intercourse animated by love occasions. Nothing
replaces the ecstasy thus occasioned. What is true, however, is that sex is a very
demanding activity. Both the sounds and movements of excitement and pleasure are
6
de rigueur, as each party engages in pleasing the other and responds to being pleased.
Friendship at its best allows for considerable closeness, sharing, bonding, and teas-
ing, but all the while keeping sex off limits. And just as two lovers know how to
please and be responsive to one another’s sexual behavior, two friends know how to
engage one another ever so richly, all the while keeping sex off limits. And if the idea
of a night out with the gals and a night out with the guys is any indication, it is clear
that is there much to be said for marvelous interaction where sex is kept off limits.
Finally, there is a respect in which the best of friendships very much resemble
marriages. People have very few close friends. They recognize that they are special to
one another and, moreover, they are jealous of that closeness. That is, they are both-
ered if someone looks as if she or he is taking their place. Last, but not least, there is a
sharing of personal information between the best of friends which, while hardly iden-
tical in content to the sharing between romantic partners, often rivals in importance
the sharing that takes place between a married couple. For example, a best friend may
know about a marital concern even before a spouse does. Or, that friend may know
about a sexual temptation that is never told to the spouse. That is, with friendship at
its best there is a level of self-disclosure that is rivaled only by romantic love.
Eros is not going away. It animates far too much for that to happen. The best of
friendships may be more akin to a kind of eroticism without the sex than not.
Love and Morality

One of the central philosophical questions pertaining to the relationship between
love and morality is based upon the very reality that love would seem to be ineluctably
partial. The question takes on special significance with respect to the moral
philosophy of Immanuel Kant; and this is owing to his theory of both moral
motivations and the moral worth of actions (see kant, immanuel).
While countless acts that are motivated by love can be the morally right thing
to do, their moral worth on the Kantian view misses the mark precisely because
they are motivated by love. An example made famous by Bernard Williams
(see williams, bernard) is saving one’s spouse from drowning. Barring some
tremendously unusual story, that is surely the right thing for a spouse to do. However,
the very point that Williams makes is that surely the fact that it is the right thing to
do ought not to have any role in someone being motivated to save her or his spouse
from drowning. Surely love for the spouse is rightly more than sufficient. Again, if a
parent sees two children drowning and only one of them belongs to the parent, the
very idea of the parent being torn as to which child to save because after all each
child has equal moral worth seems rather untenable. It is not just that no one could
blame the parent for saving her child over the one that is not hers, it would seem that
something would have to be terribly wrong if the mother needed to flip a coin in
order to determine which child should be saved and her child got the nod. In both
of these instances, we have what Williams referred to as “one thought too many” if
before acting the person needed to ascertain that saving the life of the spouse or
child would be morally acceptable. To finish this line of thought, here is an even
7
more incomprehensible case based upon the second example. Suppose that owing to
the flipped coin the other child got the nod rather than the mother’s child, and as a
result the mother dutifully saved that child instead of her own. This seems entirely
unacceptable, displaying a level of impartiality that is unfitting of a parent.
Of course, it is certainly true that a spouse or parent would have a moral reason to
act differently if the drowning spouse and the drowning child were both moral
monsters who would inflict enormous evil upon innocent individuals. So the
consideration might be taken to suggest that morality is hardly irrelevant in cases of
this sort. However, this consideration does not address the issue of moral motivation.
On Kant’s view, in order for an action to have moral worth, it must be done for moral
reasons. Well, by that criterion, an action done entirely or even primarily out of love
misses the moral mark.
David Velleman (1999) rightly observes that saving one’s spouse or child is
perfectly compatible with being ever so mindful of the plight of others. Indeed, the
very spirit of his point is that a person would have to be morally crass if she or he
could only save a loved one, and thus so behaved, and was otherwise utterly
indifferent to the fate of others. There is no gainsaying Velleman on this point,
whether it is one’s own child that one saves or some other child. However, the thesis
that (a) we would be morally crass if we are indifferent to the suffering of those
whom we cannot save is quite different from the thesis that (b) our actions have
moral worth only if they issue from moral motivations. It is thesis (b) that is one of
the central tenets of Kantian thought.
In the end, what is at issue here is what contributes to human flourishing at its
best. No one can possibly deny that a moral backdrop makes for a most salubrious
condition in which to live. We want to be treated morally by all; and most of all we
want to be treated morally by those with whom we have bonds of affection. What is
more, no one denies the magnanimity of those who put their lives on the line to
save the lives of those who are complete strangers to them. Rather, without suppos-
ing that love can replace morality or, for that matter, the other way around, the issue
is whether the motivation of love in and of itself makes a majestic difference for the
better, like no other sentiment can, even when morality and love counsel or require
the very same action. There is very good reason to believe that love does just that.
See also: egoism; friendship; instrumental value; kant, immanuel;

motherhood; parents’ rights and responsibilities; reciprocity;
self-deception; trust; williams, bernard
REFERENCES
Argyle, Michael 1975. Bodily Communication. New York: International Universities Press.
Badhwar, Neera 1987. “Friends as Ends in Themselves,” Philosophy and Phenomenological
Baier, Annette 1992. “Trust,” Tanner Lectures on Human Values, vol. 13. Salt Lake City:
University of Utah Press.
8
Bergsma, Jurrit 2004. “Towards a Concept of Shared Autonomy,” Theoretical Medicine and
Blum, Lawrence 1980. Friendship, Altruism, and Morality. London: Routlege & Kegan Paul.
Francesco, Alberoni 1983. Falling in Love. New York: Random House.
Frankfurt, Harry G. 2004. The Reasons of Love. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Helm, Bennett W. 2010. Love, Friendship, and the Self. New York: Oxford University Press.
LaFollette, Hugh 1995. Relationships: Love, Identity, and Morality. Oxford: Blackwell.
Nozick, Robert 1981. Philosophical Explanations. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Silverman, Eric J. 2010. The Prudence of Love. New York: Lexington Books.
Velleman, David 1999. “Love as a Moral Emotion,” Ethics, vol. 109, pp. 338–74.
Williams, Bernard 1981. “Persons, Character, and Morality,” in Moral Luck. Cambridge:
FURTHER READINGS
Badhwar, Neera 1995. Friendship: A Philosophical Reader. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Coles, Robert 1986. The Moral Life of Children. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press.
De Rougemont, Denis 1983. Love in the Western World. Princeton: Princeton University
Press.
McFall, Michael 2009. Licensing Parents: Family, State, and Child Maltreatment. New York:
Lexington Books.
Singer, Irving 2009. Philosophy of Love. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Soble, Alan 2008. The Philosophy of Sex and Love. St. Paul, MN: Paragon House.
Solomon, Robert, and Kathleen Higgins 1991. The Philosophy of (Erotic) Love. Lawrence:
University of Kansas Press.
Wolff, Sula 1989. Childhood and Human Nature. New York: Routledge.
1
Rationality
Gilbert Harman
Many questions in ethics are partly issues about rationality. There is the question
whether human lives are more important than the lives of other animals and, if
they are, why? One traditional answer is that human beings are rational in a way
that other animals are not and that makes them more important from a moral
point of view.
Or, it is said that morality is a matter of doing what one recognizes one ought to
do, where what one ought to do is what one has most reasons to do. Only rational
creatures can act on reasons in this way. Hence, only rational creatures can act
morally.
Some take moral requirements to be requirements of rationality. Others think
that master criminals or psychopaths can be immoral but highly rational.
On the other hand, some economists seek to explain market behavior by assuming
that producers and consumers are rational rather than moral.
Some say morality is more about being reasonable than about being rational, to
the extent that these are different.
Some wonder whether it is rational to do the right thing if it will be costly to
oneself to do it.
These and many other issues in ethics are at least in part issues about rationality
and reasons.
Ordinary Thought About What It Is to Be Rational, Reasonable,

Irrational, or Unreasonable
It may be helpful to begin by considering how people normally think about what it
is for someone to be rational or reasonable as opposed to being irrational or
unreasonable. For example, giving in to temptation is often thought of as irrational.
A student’s going to a party tonight instead of studying, knowing she will deeply
regret it tomorrow, strikes many people as understandable but irrational. Smoking
cigarettes while knowing of the health hazards involved might be described as
irrational. Such actions are not normally counted as unreasonable.
Attributing a bad grade on an exam to bias against one’s ethnic group might count
as both irrational and unreasonable if one knows that graders were not aware of the
identity of the students whose answers they graded. On the other hand, refusing a
reasonable proposal might be counted as unreasonable but not necessarily irrational.
These are among the ways we talk about being rational, reasonable, irrational, and
unreasonable.
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee181
2
Many mistakes and confusions are not ordinarily taken to be irrational or

unreasonable – for example, arithmetical mistakes, misremembering someone’s
name, and confusing one philosopher with another. People sometimes make very
serious errors about probability, for example, by assigning a higher probability to a
conjunction P&Q than to one of its conjuncts P, and the probabilities people assign
to certain situations can depend on how the situation is described even though the
descriptions are logically equivalent (Kahneman et al. 1982). Are such mistakes
always correctly described as irrational or unreasonable?
It is sometimes said that belief in astrology is irrational or at least unreasonable. It
is sometimes but less often said that belief in God is irrational or unreasonable.
Philosophical skeptics might say that it is irrational or unreasonable to be moral or
to believe that the future will resemble the past. Other philosophers say that such
skepticism is itself irrational or unreasonable. Is this just name calling (see
skepticism, moral)?
Rationality in Cognitive and Behavioral Science

One strategy in cognitive and behavioral science is to investigate what can be
explained on the assumption that people think and act rationally. Classical eco-
nomic theory seeks to explain market behavior as the result of interactions among
completely rational well informed agents following their own interests. Psycholo-
gists sometimes explain the judgments one makes about others by assuming that
such judgments are the result of reasonable causal inferences about what one has
observed of their behavior.
These strategies require assumptions about rationality. Classical economics
assumes that a rational agent maximizes expected utility (von Neumann and
Morgenstern 1944). Classical attribution theory in psychology identifies rationality
with scientific method (Kelley 1967).
However, people often seem to depart systematically from ideal expected utility max-
imizers and ideal scientists. They ignore background frequencies, look for confirming
rather than disconfirming evidence, take A&B to be more probable than A by itself, etc.
Furthermore, reasoners have limited time, limited memories, and limited
attention spans (Miller 1956). They make conscious or unconscious use of strategies,
heuristics, or rules of thumb that seem to work most of the time but not always. It
may be rational to use such rules if one has nothing better to use and if one has
limited resources.
If people depart from what is rational according to a particular theory, that may
be either because they are departing from ideal rationality or because that theory of
ideal rationality is incorrect.
In some cases, people appear to be inconsistent in what they accept. It is sometimes
suggested that this may be merely because they are using different concepts. When
someone judges that “Linda is more likely to be a feminist bank teller than she is to
be a bank teller,” they may be understanding “more likely” to mean something like
“more representative.” When people make apparent mistakes in logic, that may be
3
because they mean by “if ” what the experimenter means by “if and only if.” Given
what they mean, they may not be as inconsistent as they appear to be (Cohen 1981).
People are sometimes and perhaps always inconsistent in what they believe, but it
is not always irrational or unreasonable to be inconsistent in this way (Pollock 1991;
Nozick 1993).
Theoretical and Practical Rationality

We can distinguish theoretical from practical rationality: Theoretical rationality is
rationality in beliefs; practical rationality is rationality in action, or perhaps in plans
and intentions (see intention; practical reasoning). Similarly, we can distin-
guish theoretical reasoning, which most directly affects beliefs, from practical
reasoning, which most directly affects plans and intentions. The immediate upshot
of theoretical reasoning is either a change in beliefs or no change; the immediate
upshot of practical reasoning is either a change in plans and intentions or no change.
Theoretical and practical rationality are similar in various ways, but there are impor-
tant differences. One difference is that arbitrary choices are rationally required in prac-
tical reasoning in a way they are not at all rational or reasonable in theoretical reasoning.
In planning a trip from A to B, one may be rationally required to decide arbitrarily
between equally good routes. Knowing only that P has come to B from A, it is irra-
tional or unreasonable to decide arbitrarily that P has taken the first route rather than
the second. What is reasonable in practical reasoning is unreasonable in theoretical
reasoning. One has to make such arbitrary decisions in practical reasoning. One can-
not rationally reach corresponding arbitrary conclusions in theoretical reasoning.
Another difference between theoretical and practical rationality is that goals play
a role in practical reasoning that they should not play in theoretical reasoning. To
believe that something is so, merely because one wants it to be so, is theoretically
unreasonable, whereas to decide to try to make something so, merely because one
wants it to be so, can be practically reasonable.
To be sure, one’s goals are relevant to what questions to use theoretical reasoning
to answer. One can have practical reasons to try to answer one question rather than
another.
There are other cases also. One might have a practical reason based on loyalty to
believe that a friend is innocent of something she has been accused of. One might
have a practical reason not to have beliefs that other people disapprove of. One
might have a practical reason to have certain beliefs if that is a condition of working
for a certain institution. It is a matter of controversy as to what extent it is possible
or rational to believe conclusions for such practical reasons (Harman 1999).
Rationality and Consistency

In order to make any progress in thinking about rationality, it is of the greatest
importance to distinguish rationality from consistency. Rationality is most
immediately a property of one’s beliefs, intentions, and other attitudes. Consistency
4
and inconsistency are, in the first instance, relations among propositions and are
only indirectly relations among beliefs and other attitudes. Propositions
are inconsistent when and only when it is not possible for them all to be true together.
Hence, it is one thing to say that certain propositions are inconsistent with each
other and quite another to say that it is irrational or unreasonable to believe all of the
propositions. To say that propositions are inconsistent is not to say anything about
belief, and is not to say what to do about the inconsistency. Indeed, one can notice
that some of one’s beliefs are inconsistent without knowing which should be given
up, while having more important things to worry about.
It is similarly important to distinguish issues about inference and reasoning from
issues about implication and consistency. Inference and reasoning are psychological
processes leading to possible changes in belief (theoretical reasoning) or possible changes
in plans and intentions (practical reasoning). Implication and consistency are most
directly relations among propositions. Certain propositions imply another proposition
when and only when, if the former propositions are true, so is the latter. Propositions are
inconsistent if it is impossible that they are all true; otherwise they are consistent.
Consider
(1) A, B, and C imply D.

(2) Someone who believes A, B, and C should or may infer D.
These are quite different: (1) says nothing special about belief or any other
psychological state and says nothing about what anyone “should” or “may” do
(Goldman 1986). And (1) can obviously be true without (2) being true. The implica-
tion in (1) may be quite obscure, and someone who does not realize that it holds may
have no reason to infer D.
Someone who believes A, B, and C might also believe for a very good reason that
D is false; on recognizing that A, B, and C imply D, this person might have a reason
to stop believing one of A, B, or C than a reason to believe D.
Someone else who believes A, B, and C and recognizes that they imply D may
have no reason to be interested in whether D is true or false. Suppose that D is the
proposition that either 2 + 2 = 4 or the moon is made of green cheese. There
are infinitely many such trivial consequences of one’s beliefs that one has no reason
to infer. One has no reason to clutter one’s mind with trivial consequences of one’s
beliefs just because they follow from things one believes.
These examples show that, if implication is relevant to what it is reasonable to
believe, the connection is fairly complex.
Some theories of rationality (Stalnaker 1984; Gärdenfors 1988) attempt to abstract
away from practical limits to get a theory of ideal rationality that is concerned with an
ideally rational agent whose beliefs are always consistent and closed under logical
implication. Such an idealization appears to confuse rationality, ideal or otherwise, with
logical genius or even divinity! And it is unclear how to relate such an ideal to actual
finite human beings with their resource-limited rationality. If an ideal agent’s beliefs are
5
always deductively closed, they had better not be inconsistent, because everything fol-
lows from inconsistency. All inconsistent deductively closed agents will have the same
beliefs because such agents must believe everything. It is unclear how any of them could
recover from inconsistency. And, if being surprised involves at least momentarily hav-
ing inconsistent beliefs, such an agent had better not ever be surprised!
Conservatism
Ordinary rationality appears to be conservative in the sense that one starts from where
one is, with all of one’s present beliefs and intentions. Rationality or reasonableness
then consists in trying to improve one’s overall view. One’s initial beliefs and inten-
tions are privileged in the sense that one starts with them rather than with nothing at
all or with a special privileged part of them serving as data. Hence, one continues to
believe something one starts out believing in the absence of special reason to doubt it.
An alternative conception of rationality (Descartes 1637) might be called “special
foundationalism.” In this view, one’s beliefs are to be associated with reasons or
justifications that appeal to others, which themselves may require justifications, and
so on. Circular justifications are ruled out, so the process ultimately rests on special
foundational self-justifying beliefs. The foundational beliefs include beliefs about
immediate experience (headaches, perceptual experiences, etc.), obvious logical and
mathematical axioms, and similar beliefs. One starts from things that are evident.
Rationality or reasonableness then consists in accepting only what can be justified
from one’s foundational evidence.
One problem with the special foundations approach is that people tend not to
keep track of their reasons for nonfoundational beliefs. However, if one does not
associate a complete enough justification with a nonfoundational belief, it is
supposed to be irrational or unreasonable to continue to believe it. This realization
would undermine most of one’s beliefs!
The issue between the more general conservative approach and the special foundations
approach can be conceived as an issue about the burden of proof or justification.
According to general conservatism, the burden of justification is always on changing
beliefs or intentions. Merely continuing to believe or intend something requires no spe-
cial justification in the absence of a specific challenge to that belief or intention.
According to special foundationalism on the other hand, the burden of justification is
always on continued acceptance of any nonfoundational beliefs and intentions.
General conservatism better fits with ordinary judgments about rationality and
irrationality, because special foundationalism implies that it is irrational or
unreasonable to continue to believe most of what one ordinarily believes.
Induction and Deduction

It is sometimes suggested that induction and deduction are two kinds of reasoning.
However, in fact, they are not two kinds of anything. Deduction is concerned with
certain relations among propositions, especially relations of implication and
6
consistency. Induction is not concerned with those or any similar sort of relation
among propositions and is instead a kind of reasoning. And deduction is not a kind
of reasoning.
To be sure, reasoning is involved in the construction of a deductive proof or argu-
ment. However, except in the simplest cases, the best strategy is to not try to construct
the proof directly, by starting with the premises, figuring out the first step in the
proof, then the second, and so on, until the conclusion is reached. Often, it is useful
to start from the proposition to be proved and work backward, or to find a promis-
ing intermediate step and work backward and forward from there.
The so-called deductive rules of inference are not rules one follows in constructing
a proof. They are rules that the proof must satisfy in order to be a proof. One can reason
about such a proof, just as one can reason about anything else. However, the reasoning
is not itself well represented as anything like a deductive argument. Logic – the theory
of deductive relations – is not by itself a theory of reasoning. It is not by itself a theory
of what to believe or intend. It is not a theory of how to change one’s view.
Deductions, proofs, or arguments can be relevant to reasoning, although it is an
interesting and nontrivial problem to say just how – a problem that is hidden by talk
of deductive and inductive reasoning, as if it is obvious that some reasoning follows
deductive principles. The answer must be that it is often useful to construct deduc-
tions in reasoning about ordinary matters, but why should this be useful? What role
do deductions play in reasoning?
Sometimes one accepts a conclusion because one has constructed a proof of it
from other things one accepts. Similarly, sometimes one gives up something
previously accepted because of a proof that it is false, given other things one accepts,
a feature of some Socratic dialogues. However, there are other instances in which
one constructs a proof of something one already accepts in order to see what
assumptions might explain it. In such a case, the conclusion one accepts might be a
premise of the proof. The connection between proofs and reasoning is complex.
Coherence
Everything one believes is possibly relevant to the conclusions one can reasonably
draw. Rationality is at least theoretically a matter of one’s overall view, including one’s
beliefs and intentions. If it is reasonable to change one’s views in a certain way, let us
say that one’s view would be more rationally “coherent” if changed that way. We can
then describe principles of rationality as principles of rational coherence and can
(following Pollock 1979) distinguish two sorts of coherence, positive and negative.
Negative coherence is the absence of incoherence. Beliefs and intentions are
incoherent to the extent that they clash with each other, for instance, through being
inconsistent. Incoherence is something to be avoided, if possible, although it is not
always possible to do so. One’s beliefs might be inconsistent without one’s knowing
that they are; and, even if one is aware of inconsistency, one may not know of a
sufficiently easy way to get rid of it. So one way in which logic may be relevant to
the theory of rationality is by providing an account of one kind of incoherence or
inconsistency.
7
There is positive coherence among one’s beliefs and intentions to the extent that they are
connected in ways that allow them to support each other. We can only speculate about
what provides such positive coherence, but some of the factors that seem relevant are
explanatory connections, including causal connections; connecting generalizations; and
connections of implication (another way in which logic can be relevant to rationality).
Something such as simplicity may play an important role. In trying to explain
some data, it seems reasonable to consider a limited range of the infinitely many
logically possible explanations. The rational inquirer restricts attention to the set of
relatively simple hypotheses that might account for most of the data. This is not to
say very much, since it amounts to using the term “simple” for the relevant factors
that restrict attention to a certain few hypotheses (Corfield et al. 2009; Harman and
Kulkarni 2007). Furthermore, it is relative simplicity that matters. A hypothesis too
complicated to be considered at one time can have a different status at another time
if relevant less simple hypotheses have been eliminated. Therefore, to say that the
rational inquirer is concerned to find a simple hypothesis is not to say that the rational
inquirer is committed to believing that “reality is simple,” whatever that might mean.
Practical Rationality: Decision Theory

What about “decision theory” as an account of practical rationality? In its simplest
form (e.g., von Neumann and Morgenstern 1944), mathematical decision theory
applies when one is faced with a decision between two or more exclusive acts
(see game theory and rational choice). Each act A has possible outcomes O to
which one assigns certain utilities, u(O), and conditional probabilities in relation to
A, p(O|A). Then, the “expected gain” of possible outcome O in relation to act A is
p(O|A) × u(O). The “expected utility” of each act A is the sum of the expected gains
from each possible outcome of the act. In one version of the theory, rationality
requires doing an act A with highest expected utility. However, identifying decision
theory with a theory of practical rationality is like identifying logic with the theory
of theoretical rationality. Principles of decision theory are like principles of logic in
being principles of consistency or coherence, not principles of rationality.
It is an empirical issue whether people faced with hard practical problems should
try to think of them in decision theoretic terms, assigning appropriate utilities and
conditional probabilities and choosing the act with the highest calculated expected
utility. Given a poor assignment of utilities and probabilities, one could be led very
wrong by such a calculation.
Goals, Desires, Intentions, and Plans

Practical reasoning is concerned with advancing one’s goals, desires, intentions,
and/or plans. Some of these are derivative from others. One wants A; one also takes
B to be a means to A; so one wants B. That is, one wants B as a means to A. If one
obtains A in some other way or one decides that B is not after all a means to A, one
no longer has the same reason to want B. It is irrational to continue to pursue an
instrumental goal after one’s reason for wanting it has lapsed.
8
Suppose one has several goals. If one does A, one will satisfy goals G1, G2, and
G3. If one does B, one will satisfy goals G4, G5, and G6. It is not clear how one is to
reach an overall evaluation of acts A and B by combining one’s evaluation of their
outcomes. One idea (Franklin 1817) is to reduce one’s list of goals by trying to match
outcomes of A with equivalent outcomes of B, canceling out these equivalent
outcomes, so that one needs only to consider the remaining outcomes of each act.
That can still leave difficult choices.
Sometimes the fact that one wants something should not be treated as a distinct
reason to pursue it. For example, one should not count the satisfaction of two goals
A and B as distinct advantages of an act if the only reason for wanting A is that it will
enable one to attain B.
Furthermore, one often cares about something that is neither an ultimate end nor
means toward getting something one wants. If one has been tested for a serious ill-
ness, one wants the doctor to say that the test has come out negative, but that is not
a reason to bribe the doctor to say this!
Current plans and intentions play a special role in practical reasoning, recording
decisions already made, decisions that should not be frivolously discarded. They
represent one’s actual goals, in contrast with things merely valued or desired.
A person incapable of maintaining long-term intentions or plans would be
incapable of long-term planning and could have at best only a very low level of
rationality (Bratman 1987).
Morality, Rationality, and Reasonableness

The principles of rationality discussed so far do not distinguish between the moral
agent and the immoral but highly rational psychopath. Some moral theorists argue
for additional principles of rationality that have moral implications. For example,
there might be a principle of universalizability (see universalizability). Various
formulations of such a principle are possible: one’s reasons for acting are acceptable
only if it is acceptable that everyone acts on such reasons; one is justified in acting
on a certain maxim only if one is justified in willing that everyone act on that
maxim; you are required to act toward others only in ways you would want them to
act toward you; etc. If such a principle of universalizability is a principle of rational-
ity, some or all of morality is rationally required; the businessman who seeks only
profit without worrying about costs to others is not being rational; the rational
includes the moral. Or, perhaps, the relevant principle of universalizability is a
principle of reasonableness rather than rationality, and the businessman is rational
but not reasonable.
Conclusion
Being rational or reasonable contrasts with being irrational or unreasonable. The
behavioral sciences sometimes seek to explain behavior on the basis of certain
models of ideal rationality and the assumption that people tend to be rational.
9
However, there is considerable evidence that people depart from these models. We
can distinguish rationality in belief (theoretical rationality) from rationality in
action, plans, and intentions (practical rationality). Practical rationality and
theoretical rationality are similar in some respects but differ in other respects, for
example, in how arbitrary choices are treated. Formal logic and decision theory are
theories of consistency and implication and are not directly theories of rationality.
Rationality is conservative, since reasoning starts from and makes minimal changes
to one’s initial beliefs and goals, while seeking coherence. Desires are relevant, but
there are constraints on how they are relevant.
See also: game theory and rational choice; intention; practical

reasoning; skepticism, moral; universalizability
REFERENCES
Bratman, M. 1987. Intentions, Plans, and Practical Reasoning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Cohen, J. 1981. “Can Human Irrationality Be Experimentally Demonstrated?” Behavioral
and Brain Sciences, vol. 4, pp. 317–70.
Corfield, D., B. Schlkopf, and V. Vapnik 2009. “Falsificationism and Statistical Learning
Theory: Comparing the Popper and Vapnik-Chervonenkis Dimensions,” Journal for
General Philosophy of Science, vol. 40, pp. 51–8.
Descartes, R. 1967 [1637]. “Discours de la méthode,” in Philosophical Works of Descartes,
trans. E. S. Haldane and G. R. T. Ross. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Franklin, B. 1817. Private Correspondence, vol. I. London: Colburn.
Gärdenfors, P. 1988. Knowledge in Flux. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Goldman, A. 1986. Epistemology and Cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Harman, G. 1999. “Pragmatism and Reasons for Belief,” in G. Harman (ed.), Reasoning,
Meaning, and Mind. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 93–116.
Harman, G., and S. Kulkarni 2007. Reliable Reasoning: Induction and Statistical Learning
Theory. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Kahneman, D., et al. 1982. Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases. Cambridge:
Kelley, H. H. 1967. “Attribution Theory in Social Psychology,” Nebraska Symposium on
Motivation, vol. 14, pp. 192–241.
Miller, G. 1956. “The Magic Number Seven Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity
for Processing Information,” Psychological Review, vol. 63, pp. 81–97.
Nozick, R. 1993. The Nature of Rationality. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Pollock, J. 1979. “A Plethora of Epistemological Theories,” in G. Pappas (ed.), Justification and
Knowledge. Dordrecht: Reidel, pp. 93–114.
Pollock, J. 1991. “OSCAR: A General Theory of Rationality,” in R. Cummins and J. Pollock
(eds.), Philosophy and AI: Essays at the Interface. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 189–213.
Stalnaker, R. 1984. “A Theory of Conditionals,” in N. Rescher (ed.), Studies in Logical Theory.
von Neumann, J., and O. Morgenstern 1944. Theory of Games and Economic Behavior.
10
FURTHER READINGS
Baron, J. 2008. Thinking and Deciding, 4th ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bishop, M. A., and J. D. Trout 2005. Epistemology and the Psychology of Human Judgment.
Bonjour, L. 2010. “Problems of Induction,” in J. Dancy, E. Sosa, and M. Steup (eds.),
A Companion to Epistemology, 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 638–43.
Davidson, D. 2004. Problems of Irrationality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gigerenzer, G., and R. Selten 2001. Bounded Rationality: The Adaptive Toolbox. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press.
Harman, G. 1986. Change in View: Principles of Reasoning. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Johnson-Laird, P. N. 2009. How We Reason. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Peacocke, C. 2003. The Realm of Reason. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pollock, J. L. 2006. Thinking About Acting: Logical Foundations for Rational Decision Making.
Searle, J. R. 2001. Rationality in Action. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Simon, H. 1957. Models of Man: Social and Rational. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Stalnaker, R. 1984. Inquiry. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Thagard, P. 2002. Coherence in Thought and Action. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
1
Morally Tragic Life

Dale Jacquette
Moral Dilemmas
The concept of a morally tragic life is that of a well-intentioned moral agent caught
up in the circumstances of a genuine moral dilemma (see dilemmas, moral). Moral
tragedy strikes when, through bad luck, a subject is confronted with a choice between
conflicting comparably imperative moral obligations. The dilemma gives rise to
moral tragedy when it is rationally irresolvable, in the sense that prevailing events
make it practically possible at best to satisfy one conflicting obligation only at the
expense of another. It occurs inevitably in such situations that, regardless of what
thoughtful choice among conflicting action possibilities the individual makes, there
follows as a result an irreparable loss of a significant desired moral good or value.
Tragedy in the most general sense is sometimes defined as an undeserved,
significant, and typically irreversible loss. A genuine moral dilemma is a situation in
which opposing jointly unsatisfiable moral obligations impinge upon a moral agent.
Moral tragedy as a specific category is the irreparable loss in particular of something
of significant moral value, and with it the naive rationalist moral optimism that it
should always be possible at least in principle to satisfy all of one’s legitimate moral
obligations if only one has the energy, resources, and the will to employ them. Moral
tragedy is further compounded by the agent’s action or inaction contributing to the
loss of moral value when the choice of one moral good can only be exercised at
the irrecoverable loss of the other.
Instances of morally tragic life episodes have been discussed and are often
associated especially with the writings of Ruth Barcan Marcus (1980: 121–36).
Related problems concerning the possibility and meaning of genuine moral
dilemmas have featured in works on theoretical ethics by W. D. Ross (1930, 1939),
G. H. von Wright (1963, 1971), Bas C. van Fraassen (1973: 5–19), and many others
(see ross, w. d.; von wright, g. h.). The principles of an intuitively correct deontic
logic are also at stake in the correct understanding of putative moral dilemma situa-
tions (see deontic logic).
There is an interesting dispute among moral theorists as to whether there are or
can be genuine moral dilemmas, and if so whether and how such moral dilemmas
might be resolved. These issues have immediate implications for the question as to
whether or not it is possible through bad luck circumstantially to experience a
specifically moral tragedy, as distinct from other types of personal tragedies. For
simplicity, we shall only consider the case of moral tragedy for the individual,
although our conclusions are meant to apply with equal force to social situations in
which people collectively face moral dilemmas that also deprive them collectively
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee182
2
of a moral value as a result of their choosing one of a conflicting set of alternatives,

and when one conflicting, highly prized moral good can only be attained at the
cost of another.
Classical Greek and Contemporary Tragedy

As an instructive example of a morally tragic episode, beginning with a frequently
discussed dilemma in ancient Greek tragedy, we turn to Sophocles’ play, Antigone. In
the story, King Creon has forbidden burial of the tragic heroine Antigone’s slain
brother Polyneices, as prescribed by the gods after Polyneices’ act of civil treason.
Antigone is divided in her moral obligations between her duty to obey the secular
authority of the king by not burying her brother, and her moral duty to obey the
divine authority of the gods who require that she bury him. Antigone cannot both
bury and not bury Polyneices, and she believes herself to be under a moral obligation
both to obey the king and to obey the gods. The two moral authorities in this
situation unfortunately bring jointly incompatible moral imperatives to impinge on
Antigone’s life (Cowley 2001).
Similar cases are considered by the twentieth-century French existentialist
philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, in his 1946 lecture “Existentialism Is a Humanism”
(2007; see sartre, jean-paul). Sartre describes the moral predicament of a
student who is obligated both to fight with Free French Forces against Nazi
occupation during World War II, and to attend to his ill mother as her sole sup-
port. The student’s life is morally tragic in the sense defined, because no matter
what he decides to do, he is certain in the process to sacrifice something of sig-
nificant moral value. Accidental circumstances make the world such that the
moral value of comforting his mother and the moral value of standing up for
freedom in the fight against oppression cannot be jointly satisfied, but only one
at the expense of the other.
Avoiding Moral Tragedy

Two philosophical questions are raised by the occurrence of apparent moral obligation
conflicts: (1) Do they at least sometimes represent genuine moral dilemmas? (2) How,
if at all, can moral obligation conflicts best be resolved?
We might hope to avoid the appearance of genuine moral dilemmas, and thereby
cast doubt on the existence of genuine moral tragedy, by maintaining that there is
no conflict of moral obligations if the agent on whom the dilemma seems to impinge
is able to rationally prioritize one moral obligation over and above any superficially
conflicting obligations. Antigone, returning to her plight, is first meta-obligated to
rationally prioritize any apparently conflicting moral obligations she may believe
herself to be under, and then to recognize as her genuine moral obligations only
those that stand at the top of the hierarchy. In the play, as Sophocles tells it, this is
just what happens. Antigone decides that she has a greater moral obligation to the
gods than to King Creon, so she defies the king’s will and buries her brother as the
3
gods command, eventually suffering dire consequences at the king’s displeasure.

If the only genuine moral obligation is the one that can be rationally morally
justified as the most important or urgent to obey or act upon, then there can be no
real conflict of obligations for Antigone. There is at most an appearance of a moral
conflict that vanishes when the apparently conflicting obligations have been ration-
ally prioritized and the topmost obligation alone is judged to be morally imperative,
overriding any with which it might otherwise conflict. If that is true, then although
some persons might believe their lives to be morally tragic, there is no basis for
their experiencing an actual moral tragedy.
We may nevertheless wonder whether there is always a clear-cut rationale for
prioritizing conflicting moral obligations. What if we were morally obligated to
rescue two morally indistinguishable twins, and could only save one at the expense
of the other? Flipping a coin in order to decide which twin to save is arguably better
than letting both twins perish, but it does nothing whatsoever to relieve the moral
tragedy of losing something of tremendous moral value in such an unlucky situation,
no matter which twin is selected for rescue.
Sharply opposed to the obligation-absolving approach, there is, correspond-
ingly, an equally valid characterization of Antigone’s moral situation, according
to which, whatever she may finally decide to do, however she may try justifiably
to prioritize the moral obligations to which she is subject, it does not change the
fact that she is unluckily unable actually to fulfill all of her genuine moral obliga-
tions. Whether or not Antigone regards her moral obligation to the gods as taking
priority over her moral obligation to King Creon, and whether or not she resolves
her putative moral dilemma at a practical level by deciding to bury rather than
not bury her brother, her moral obligation to the king does not magically disap-
pear; it remains in force, even if it is subordinated to more important moral obli-
gations to the gods. Antigone endures a moral tragedy precisely because, despite
possessing the best possible moral will, she is unable to satisfy all of her moral
obligations, but is forced to choose one over and at the expense of the other. Her
unfulfilled obligation to the king in that case is not erased by her decision instead
to obey the gods.
Kant’s Principle That “Ought” Implies “Can”

Another reason for denying that there are genuine moral dilemmas or the possibility
of a morally tragic life is found in Immanuel Kant’s principle that “ought implies can”
(see kant, immanuel; ought implies can). The idea is that we can only be morally
obligated to do something that is physically or causally within our ability (Kant
1965: A548/B576; 1969: 76–81). If Antigone cannot obey both the king and the
gods, then by Kant’s principle it would appear that she is not morally obligated to do
so. Here, the difficulty is that Antigone can physically or causally do what the king
commands, and she can physically or causally do what the gods command. She just
cannot do both. Kant’s principle that “ought” implies “can” as a result does not seem
to absolve Antigone of either her moral obligation in particular to obey the king or
4
her conflicting moral obligation in particular to obey the gods; it only absolves her
of doing both.
The price to be paid for this application of Kant’s principle is that it does not
follow from the assumption that an agent is morally obligated to do action A and
morally obligated to do action B, that the agent is morally obligated to do both
actions A and B. This is strange in itself, but the consequence might be preferable to
denying that the agent is in any sense morally obligated to do action A, if it turns out
that action B is more highly rationally and morally prioritized than action A.
Antigone, in that event, cannot escape a morally tragic life simply by invoking Kant’s
formula that “ought” implies “can.” The reason is that both conflicting moral obliga-
tions continue separately to impinge on her, even though the joint action of both
burying and not burying her brother is something she is not morally obligated to do.
If she fulfills one of her conflicting obligations, then of necessity she will not be able
to fulfill the other, which is the characteristic mark of a morally tragic life episode.
What remains logically peculiar about the application of Kant’s principle to Antigone’s
quandary is that Antigone is supposed not to be morally obligated to both bury and
not bury her brother, despite the fact that circumstantially she is morally obligated to
bury him, and, on different grounds, morally obligated not to bury him.
Resilience of Moral Tragedy to Theoretical Resolution

The only relief from a morally tragic life available to Antigone is if, by means of a
philosophical analysis of her moral obligations under the circumstances described
in the play, it should turn out that, by choosing to honor her moral obligation to
the gods, she somehow effectively cancels her moral obligation to King Creon.
Otherwise, she will not be doing everything to which she is morally obligated, even
if she is rationally persuaded that her moral obligation to obey the gods far outweighs
her moral obligation to obey the king.
An account is needed in which it appears at least conceivable that lesser-prioritized
conflicting putative moral obligations are not genuine moral obligations at all, that
they should be classified as something other than genuine moral obligations when
they are not topmost in an agent’s rational prioritization of obligations hierarchy.
The intuitive difficulties of such a position make it sufficiently theoretically
unattractive as to cast doubt on whether it affords any avenue of escape from genuine
moral dilemmas and the morally tragic life for those unfortunate enough to find
themselves in circumstances of jointly unsatisfiable mutually incompatible but still
genuine moral obligations of whatever differential importance, exigency, or degree
or kind of justification. We can say conditionally that if the prioritization of moral
obligations does not totally cancel out lesser-prioritized obligations, then there is
no guarantee against the unfortunate possibility of falling under genuine moral
dilemmas and thereby risking the suffering of a morally tragic life.
See also: deontic logic; dilemmas, moral; kant, immanuel;

ought implies can; ross, w. d.; sartre, jean-paul; von wright, g. h.
5
REFERENCES
Cowley, Christopher 2001. “Moral Dilemmas in Greek Tragedies: A Discussion of Aeschylus’s
Agamemnon and Sophokles’s Antigone,” Etica e Politica/Ethics and Politics, vol. 3, http://
www.openstarts.units.it/dspace/handle/10077/5612, accessed July 10, 2012.
Kant, Immanuel 1965 [1781/1787]. Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith.
New York: St Martin’s Press.
Kant, Immanuel 1969 [1785]. Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. L. W. Beck, ed.
R. P. Wolff. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Company.
Marcus, Ruth Barcan 1980. “Moral Dilemmas and Consistency,” Journal of Philosophy,
vol. 77, pp. 121–36.
Ross, W. D. 1939. The Foundations of Ethics. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Sartre, Jean-Paul 2007 [1946]. Existentialism Is a Humanism, trans. Carol Macomber, ed.
John Kulka. New Haven: Yale University Press.
van Fraassen, Bas C. 1973. “Values and the Heart’s Command,” Journal of Philosophy, vol. 70,
pp. 5–19.
von Wright, G. H. 1963. Norm and Action: A Logical Inquiry. London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul.
von Wright, G. H. 1971. An Essay in Deontic Logic and the General Theory of Action.
Amsterdam: North-Holland.
FURTHER READINGS
al-Hibri, Aziza 1978. Deontic Logic: A Comprehensive Appraisal and a New Proposal.
Washington, DC: University Press of America.
Brink, David 1994. “Moral Conflict and Its Structure,” Philosophical Review, vol. 103, pp. 215–47.
Castañeda, Hector-Heri 1975. Thinking and Doing: The Philosophical Foundations of
Institutions. Dordrecht: D. Reidel.
Conee, Earl 1982. “Against Moral Dilemmas,” Philosophical Review, vol. 91, pp. 87–97.
Foot, Philippa 2002. Moral Dilemmas and Other Topics in Moral Philosophy. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
Gowans, Christopher W. (ed.) 1987. Moral Dilemmas. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gowans, Christopher W. 1994. Innocence Lost: An Examination of Inescapable Moral
Wrongdoing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Holbo, John 2002. “Moral Dilemmas and the Logic of Obligation,” American Philosophical
Hurd, Heidi M. 2008. Moral Combat: The Dilemma of Legal Perspectivalism (Cambridge
Studies in Philosophy and Law). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jacquette, Dale 1991. “Moral Dilemmas, Disjunctive Obligations, and Kant’s Principle That
‘Ought’ Implies ‘Can,’ ” Synthese, vol. 88, pp. 43–55.
Mason, H. E. (ed.) 1996. Moral Dilemmas and Moral Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nussbaum, Martha C. 2001. The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and
Philosophy, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
van Fraassen, Bas C. 1972. “The Logic of Conditional Obligation,” Journal of Philosophical
Logic, vol. 1, pp. 417–38.
1
Animal Rights
Mark Rowlands
The expression “animal rights” is employed in two different ways: one broad, the
other narrow. When employed in the broad sense – animal rights with a little “r” –
the claim that animals possess rights is used as a way of asserting that animals have
moral standing: that they are morally considerable – the legitimate objects of moral
consideration. Even moral theories that are officially hostile to the concept of
rights can accept that animals have them in this sense. Thus, Jeremy Bentham, the
founder of utilitarianism (see utilitarianism), described the idea of rights as
“nonsense,” and this antipathy has been inherited by subsequent utilitarians. Nev-
ertheless, utilitarianism formed the basis of Singer’s (1975) seminal defense of the
moral claims of animals. Thus, Singer, certainly in the minds of the general public,
is associated with the idea of animal rights even though the moral theory he deploys
is officially hostile to rights. The broad sense of animal rights is, therefore, a very
loose sense.
In the narrow sense – animal rights with a capital “R” – the claim that animals
possess rights is likely to be associated with two types of moral theory. The first
draws on the tradition of natural rights doctrine (see natural law), and is largely
associated with the work of Tom Regan (1983). So influential has Regan’s work been
that talk of animal rights is sometimes regarded as coextensive with Regan’s position.
However, it is also possible to locate the idea of animal rights in a very different
theoretical framework: contractualist moral theory (see contractualism).
For present purposes, we can understand the concept of a moral right (see rights)
in a way made famous by Feinberg (1970). Roughly, for a person P to have a moral
right is for P to have a valid claim (1) to a certain commodity, freedom, treatment,
etc., and (2) against an identifiable individual or individuals that they permit one
this commodity, freedom, or treatment, where (3) a claim is valid if it is derivable
from a correct moral principle or principles. The correct moral principle
demonstrates that P is, in fact, owed the commodity, freedom, or treatment in
question, and also that the persons against whom P has the claim do indeed owe
P this commodity, freedom, or treatment. When both a claim-to and a claim-against
have been validated by appeal to correct moral principles, we can speak of a valid
claim all things considered. And this, according to Feinberg’s analysis, is what
constitutes a moral right.
Armed with this conception of rights, Regan attempts to work out the correct
moral principles required for justifying the claim that animals have rights. Animals,
he argues, have natural rights that are grounded in their inherent value. First, animals
are subjects-of-a-life. That is, they have (1) beliefs, desires, perception, memory;
(2) a sense of the future, including their own future; (3) an emotional life together
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee183
2
with feelings of pleasure and pain; (4) preference and welfare interests; (5) the ability
to initiate action in pursuit of their desires and goals; (6) a psychophysical identity
over time; and (7) an individual welfare in the sense that their experiential life fares
well or ill for them, logically independently of their utility for others and logically
independently of their being the object of anyone else’s interests (Regan 1983: 243).
According to Regan, all creatures which are subjects-of-a-life (certainly all
mammals, probably birds, possibly reptiles and amphibians) have inherent value.
Being a subject-of-a-life is a sufficient condition for having inherent value, not a
necessary one. That is, if you are a subject-of-a-life then you have inherent value; but
if you are not a subject-of-a-life, it does not necessarily mean that you do not have
inherent value. The inherent value possessed by an individual is independent of
their being the object of anyone else’s interests: on how much that individual is liked,
respected, valued, etc. An individual’s inherent value is independent of their utility
vis-à-vis the interests of others. This value is not something an individual can culti-
vate by dint of their efforts, and it is not something they can lose by what they do or
fail to do. Finally, an individual’s inherent value is distinct from, and not reducible
to, the value that attaches to the experiences had by that individual. Regan refers to
this as intrinsic value (see intrinsic value). It is not possible to determine the
inherent value of an individual by adding up the intrinsic values of their experiences.
The distinction between inherent and intrinsic value allows Regan to clearly distin-
guish his view from utilitarianism.
If we allow that all subjects-of-a-life have inherent value, Regan argues, we can
derive several important moral principles concerning their treatment. According to
the respect principle, we are to treat those individuals who have inherent value in
ways that respect their inherent value. We fail to do this when we treat them as if
they lacked inherent value. One important failure of this sort, Regan argues, is
exhibited by the utilitarian, who treats both humans and animals as if they were
mere receptacles of valuable experiences (pleasures, preference satisfactions, etc.).
Another form of this failure of respect is to treat an inherently valuable individual as
if their value depended upon their utility relative to the interests of others. Another
form of the failure is to harm an inherently valuable individual so that we may bring
about the best aggregate consequences for everyone affected. All these are variations
on a theme: treating an individual with inherent value as if he, she, or it were nothing
more than a receptacle of value. That is, it is to treat something with inherent value
as if it lacked inherent value. This is a failure of justice.
From the respect principle, Regan derives the harm principle: we have a direct
prima facie duty not to harm individuals. Any subject-of-a-life has an experiential
welfare; their life can go experientially better or worse for them, independently of
their utility for others and of their being the object of another’s interests.
Subjects-of-a-life, therefore, have a distinctive kind of value that consists in their
having an experiential welfare. Therefore, at least prima facie, we fail to treat
individuals in ways that respect their value when we treat them in ways that detract
from their welfare; and we do this when we harm them. Therefore, Regan claims, we
have a prima facie direct duty not to harm those individuals who have an experiential
3
welfare. The qualification prima facie signifies that the duty can, in certain
circumstances, be overridden.
The respect principle, and to a lesser extent the harm principle, are Regan’s
candidates for morally correct principles that underwrite the moral claims of
animals. Animals have moral rights because they have valid claims to certain
commodities, freedoms, or treatments, and valid claims against us that we do not
prevent them from having these commodities, freedoms, or treatments. Their claims
in this regard are, Regan argues, valid claims all things considered.
Much of what is both distinctive and problematic about Regan’s theory involves his
postulation of inherent value. Regan is careful to reject the charge of naturalistic fal-
lacy (see naturalistic fallacy) – in this case, the fallacy of inferring that because
some creature is a subject-of-a-life it therefore has inherent value. Regan insists that
his postulation of intrinsic value is a form of inference to the best explanation. The
phenomena which need explaining by this inference are our considered moral beliefs.
Perhaps the most fundamental of these is the intuition that we have a duty to treat
people justly. Regan argues that other moral theories (principally, utilitarianism and
a form of perfectionism that ties moral worth to excellence) are incapable of
adequately reflecting this intuition. Rather, he argues, the intuition is best captured if
we accept that all subjects-of-a-life have inherent value. Thus, inherent value is a
theoretical postulate, justified, on Regan’s view, as an inference to the best explana-
tion. It is no different in kind, he claims, to the postulation of, for example, atomic
particles to explain characteristic patterns in a cloud chamber; or the postulation of
an additional planet to explain perturbations in the orbit of Neptune.
Nevertheless, one might object that, even as a theoretical postulate, inherent value
is both mysterious and, arguably, unnecessary (Rowlands 2009: 110–19). Historically,
one can distinguish, broadly speaking, two main approaches to axiology – the attempt
to understand the nature of value. One can understand value, as Regan appears to do,
as an objective feature of the world that is independent of our acts of valuing. Or, one
can think of value as a function of our acts of valuing. This dispute is ancient and
ongoing, and an attempted adjudication well beyond the scope of this essay. However,
for present purposes, it is sufficient to note that the existence of acts of valuing is
uncontroversial. Almost as uncontroversial is the idea that we value things in different
ways. Some things (e.g., money and medicine) we value instrumentally – for other
things they can help us attain. Other things, however, we do not value instrumentally.
It would be morally shallow to value one’s children only as an insurance policy against
old age. That we value things, and that some of those things we value inherently
rather than instrumentally, are relatively uncontroversial claims.
If, however, one does want to think of inherent value as something that exists inde-
pendently of acts of inherent valuing, then two potential objections arise. First, it
might be argued that the idea of inherent value is unacceptably mysterious, and that
Regan has done little to allay this mystery. Any theorist who wants to posit – for exam-
ple, by way of inference to the best explanation – the existence of a certain theoretical
entity, in order to explain a certain range of phenomena, is then placed under a fairly
pressing burden to investigate, and to try to say something about, the nature of the
4
postulated entity. Otherwise she has not provided us with a theory at all, but only with
a theoretical hole waiting for a theory to be put in its place. Allied to this charge of
mystery is a related objection: that the postulation of inherent value is unnecessary. It
might be that all the theoretical work we need to do in explaining our considered
moral beliefs can be done by way of inherent valuing rather than any presumed objec-
tive correlate – as long as we include not just what we do in fact inherently value, but
also what we are logically committed to inherently valuing given that we value these
things. That this can be done is, in effect, the claim endorsed by the main rights-based
alternative to Regan’s view: the contractualist defense of animal rights.
The idea that contractualism can underwrite the attribution of moral rights to
animals is one that many will find surprising: it is usually thought to be inimical
to the moral claims of animals (e.g., Carruthers 1992). Nevertheless, contractualist
defenses of the moral claims of animals have been developed by VanDeVeer (1979),
Cavalieri and Kymlicka (1996), Bernstein (1998), and Rowlands (1997, 2002, 2009).
This defense, at least in the form developed by Cavalieri and Kymlicka and Rowlands,
turns on distinguishing two forms of contractualism: Kantian and Hobbesian
(Kymlicka 1991). Both forms think that the content of our moral obligations can be
determined by way of the concept of a hypothetical agreement or contract. Their
primary differences concern their conceptions of (1) the authority of the contract;
that is, the conditions that must be satisfied in order for the contract to bind us, and
(2) in what this authority must be grounded.
According to Hobbesian contractualists (see hobbes, thomas), the basis of
morality can be understood as a hypothetical contract consisting of mutually advan-
tageous rules of conduct. The content of such conventions is fixed by bargaining:
each person wants the resulting agreement to serve the dual purpose of protecting
their own interests as much as possible while restricting their freedom as little as
possible. While this bargaining never really takes place, we can view this hypotheti-
cal bargaining over mutually advantageous conventions as the means by which a
community establishes its social contract. The ultimate source of this contract’s
authority derives from the fact that we have implicitly agreed to it: the contract
embodies the rules that we either have endorsed or would endorse if they had been
put to, and discussed by, us.
Our implicit assent to a hypothetical contract is not a brute fact but is dependent
on whether or not it is in our rational self-interest to endorse its rules. The principal
benefits we might secure are protection from those who might harm us and assis-
tance from those who might help us. Therefore, there is no direct (Hobbesian)
rationale for contracting with those individuals sufficiently weaker than you are to
be in a position neither to help you nor to hinder you. We can refer to this as the
equality of power condition. Neither is it in your interest to contract with those who
are unable to understand the terms of the contract and therefore reciprocate in the
ways required by it. We can call this the rationality condition.
Hobbesian contractarianism, therefore, exhibits the following characteristic
structure: the authority of the contract is explained in terms of our tacit agreement
to it; and our tacit agreement to the contract is explained in terms of our rational
5
self-interest. But, in this context, rational self-interest makes sense only if those with
whom we contract satisfy the equality of power and rationality conditions. Since ani-
mals satisfy neither of these conditions, Hobbesian contractualism precludes their
possession of rights.
Kantian contractualism (see kant, immanuel) uses the idea of a contract in a
fundamentally different way. The contract is not, as it is for the Hobbesian, a device
that constitutes moral right or wrong but, rather, is a heuristic device whose function
is to help us identify the content of the moral principles that we, in fact, endorse.
Whereas the Hobbesian contractualist understands the contract as an account of how
people come to have equal moral standing, the Kantian contractualist uses the con-
tract as a way of elucidating what it means for an individual to have equal moral
standing.
Rawls’ (see rawls, john) classic contemporary statement of contractualism con-
tains a mixture of Kantian and Hobbesian elements (Rowlands 2009; Nussbaum
2006). The contractualist case for animals is built on a Rawlsian framework purged
of these Hobbesian elements. At the core of Rawls’ contractualism are the idea of the
original position and the associated idea of the veil of ignorance:
No one knows his place in society, his class position or social status, nor does anyone
else know his fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, his intelligence,
strength, and the like. I shall even assume that the parties do not know their concep-
tions of the good or their special psychological propensities. The principles of justice
are chosen behind a veil of ignorance. This ensures that no one is advantaged or disad-
vantaged in the choice of principles by the outcome of natural chance or the contin-
gency of social circumstances. Since all are similarly situated and no one is able to
design principles to favor his particular condition, the principles of justice are the
result of a fair agreement or bargain. (Rawls 1971: 12)
This description of the original position is not plucked from thin air. Underlying it
is an intuitive equality argument that runs, in essence, as follows: if a property is
undeserved in the sense that its possessor is not responsible for its possession, then
its possessor is not morally entitled to, or deserving of, whatever benefits (or
penalties) accrue from that possession (Rawls 1971: 100–8).
Rawls believes that the intuitive equality argument underlies the ideal of equality
of opportunity, a cornerstone of liberal thought. Thus, it is a commonplace that
being born into a certain position in society – in a particular social, racial, or
economic group – is an undeserved and, hence, morally arbitrary property. And,
therefore, one should be neither benefited nor penalized by the possession of such a
property. Rawls’ use of the intuitive equality argument is used to show that the idea
of equality of opportunity, as this is understood in contemporary liberal cultures,
overlooks other significant sources of inequality: inequalities in natural talents and
abilities are undeserved in precisely the same way as social, racial, and economic
properties. Therefore, if it is unjust for someone to benefit from possession of unde-
served social, racial, economic, or gender properties, then it is equally unjust for
them to benefit from possession of undeserved natural talents.
6
If this intuitive equality argument is to work, it requires some tidying up (Rowlands

2002: 51–2). In particular, it requires a firm distinction between (1) those properties
that confer some minimal level of moral entitlement on a subject, and (2) those
properties that can either augment or diminish that subject’s level of moral entitle-
ments given that this minimal level has already been attained. The intuitive equality
argument applies only to the latter sorts of property.
With this tidying up, Rawls’ contractualist account provides us with a strikingly
simple case for the moral claims of animals. The intuitive equality argument justifies
the exclusion behind the veil of ignorance of properties that the subject has done
nothing to earn or merit. However, it seems both rationality and species membership
are undeserved properties in this sense. In the original position, therefore, one should
not know whether one is a rational agent, and one should not know one’s species.
Rawls is widely thought to reject the idea that animals fall under the scope of a
theory of justice. However, this rejection is far more equivocal than is generally
acknowledged. Moreover, this rejection is not in any way mandated by his account –
once purged of Hobbesian elements. In fact, quite the opposite is true.
Rawls claims that it is moral persons that are entitled to justice, where these are
understood as “capable of having … a conception of their good, as expressed by a
rational plan of life; and … capable of having … a sense of justice” (1971: 505).
However, even if we assume that animals are not moral persons in this sense, it does
not follow that they are outside the scope of justice. Rawls is very clear that being a
moral person is only a sufficient, and not a necessary, condition of inclusion under
the scope of a theory of justice (1971: 505–6).
At several points, however, Rawls does seem to explicitly claim that animals are not
entitled to equal justice: “Our conduct towards animals is not regulated by these prin-
ciples, or so it is generally believed” (1971: 504); “Presumably this excludes animals;
they have some protection certainly, but their status is not that of human beings”
(1971: 505); “While I have not maintained that the capacity for a sense of justice is
necessary in order to be owed the duties of justice, it does seem that we are not
required to give strict justice anyway to creatures lacking this capacity” (1971: 512).
The hesitation in these claims is obvious in the qualifications he uses to make them:
“or so it is generally believed,” “presumably,” “it does seem” – hardly ringing endorse-
ments. The claims seem to be (what Rawls himself would call) unreflective intuitions –
intuitions embodied in common sense, but not duly “pruned and adjusted” by the
sort of deliberations required to produce a mature conception of justice.
Moreover, these unreflective intuitions are, in fact, incompatible with Rawls’ theory.
The intuitive equality argument determines which properties are to be excluded, at
least provisionally, behind the veil of ignorance. This argument entails that rationality
and species membership – and, for that matter, moral personality – should be excluded
on the grounds that they are unmerited. Why was Rawls unable to see this entailment
of his own theory? The reason seems to be the presence in Rawls’ account of a residual
Hobbesianism of which he was never quite able to free himself. One Hobbesian prin-
ciple that Rawls never rejected was the idea that the contractual situation involves at
least rough equality of power between contractors: the equality of power condition.
7
This rough equality of power forms part of what Rawls called the “circumstances of
justice.” However, this condition is no part of a Kantian form of contractualism.
The original position is sometimes envisaged as the coming together of a group of
unencumbered individuals who then thrash out the terms of their association under
the requisite conditions of ignorance. However, this hyper-realist conception of the
original position is unwarranted: “Thus, it may be helpful to observe that one or more
persons can at any time enter the original position, or perhaps better, simulate
the deliberations of this hypothetical situation simply by reasoning in accordance with
the appropriate restrictions” (Rawls 1971: 20, emphasis mine).
To “enter” the original position is simply to reason in accordance with the appro-
priate restrictions (i.e., conditions of ignorance delimited by the intuitive equality
argument). Accordingly, there is no requirement that the original position contain
more than one contractor: “one or more persons can at any time enter the original
position.” It might be objected that one can know what is best for everyone only by
thrashing this out with other contractors. But this is a red herring. In the Rawlsian
contractual situation, one is assumed to be ideally rational and so will make an
ideally rational choice for everyone. The presence of other contractors is simply a
contingent feature of the contractual situation.
If the original position need not contain more than one contractor, then the equal-
ity of power condition makes little sense in this (Kantian) context. So why does Rawls
adhere to it? This seems to be an incongruous remnant of the Hobbesian vision of the
contract as a means of securing personal advantage. It is there because we tacitly
assume the contract makes no sense – and cannot be binding – unless we get some-
thing out of it at least as much as we put in. This is a Hobbesian idea, not a Kantian
one.
According to the rationality condition, only a creature capable of framing a contract
can be a recipient of the protection offered by that contract. This too is a Hobbesian,
rather than Kantian, idea. To be “in” the original position is merely to permit one’s
reasoning to be restricted by a certain form of ignorance. To be rational in the contrac-
tual situation is no guarantee of subsequent rationality. Thus, it is perfectly rational, in
this situation, to make arrangements for a future possible situation in which you are
not rational. The idea that only creatures capable of framing a contract can be recipi-
ents of the protection afforded by the contract is one that has no place in a Kantian
version of contractarianism. The idea is predicated on a conception of the authority of
the contract as deriving from our tacit acceptance of it, and our tacit acceptance of it
as grounded in prudential reasons. This is a Hobbesian idea, not a Kantian one.
In recent years, discussions of the moral claims of animals have expanded beyond
the issue of whether animals do or do not have rights, and this reflects wider tenden-
cies in ethical thought. It might be more useful to think of the issue of rights not as
the whole story concerning the moral status of animals, but as part of that story.
Nevertheless, it is surely a crucial part.
See also: contractualism; hobbes, thomas; intrinsic value; kant, immanuel;

natural law; naturalistic fallacy; rawls, john; rights; utilitarianism
8
REFERENCES
Bernstein, Mark 1998. On Moral Considerability. New York: Oxford University Press.
Carruthers, Peter 1992. The Animals Issue. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cavalieri, Paula, and Will Kymlicka 1996. “Expanding the Social Contract,” Etica e Animali,
vol. 8, pp. 5–33.
Feinberg, Joel 1970. “The Nature and Value of Rights,” Journal of Value Inquiry, vol. 4,
pp. 243–60.
Kymlicka, Will 1991. “The Social Contract Tradition,” in Peter Singer (ed.), A Companion to
Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 186–96.
Nussbaum, Martha 2006. Frontiers of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Rowlands, Mark 1997. “Contractarianism and Animal Rights,” Journal of Applied Philosophy,
vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 235–47.
Rowlands, Mark 2002. Animals Like Us. London: Verso.
Rowlands, Mark 2009 [1998]. Animal Rights. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Singer, Peter 1975. Animal Liberation. New York: Avon Books.
VanDeVeer, Donald 1979. “Interspecific Justice,” Inquiry, vol. 22, pp. 55–70.
1
Ewing, A. C.
Jonas Olson and Mark Timmons
Introduction
A. C. Ewing (1899–1973) came last in the tradition of British moral philosophers
that began with Henry Sidgwick and continued with H. A. Prichard, G. E. Moore,
W. D. Ross, and C. D. Broad. Philosophers in this tradition shared a nonnaturalist
realist view of moral metaphysics and the nature of moral judgment, but they dif-
fered on the relations between normative concepts and on normative ethics. Ewing
made substantial contributions to these controversies and anticipated several moves
in the contemporary debates as he sought to reconcile putatively incompatible views.
Attempts to find conciliatory “middle ways” are a recurring theme in Ewing’s work.
This essay focuses on three main topics: moral metaphysics and the nature of moral
judgment, the relation between intrinsic goodness and ought, and utilitarianism and
Rossian deontology. Finally, it describes briefly Ewing’s work in other areas of moral
philosophy.
Ewing on Moral Metaphysics and the Nature of Moral Judgment

The metaethical view that Ewing defended in The Definition of Good (1947a)
involves the following five claims. First, moral concepts cannot be completely ana-
lyzed in terms of (and thus reduced to) natural concepts. Second, properties and
relations that realize moral concepts are nonnatural (see nonnaturalism, ethical).
Third, moral thought and discourse are objective in the sense that they involve
beliefs and assertions that purport to represent stance-independent facts. Fourth,
the truth of a particular moral judgment involving the terms “good” or “ought”
requires that there be instantiated moral properties or relations that answer directly
to such terms, and some moral judgments are indeed true. Hence there are moral
facts (to which true moral judgments correspond) and those facts include nonnatu-
ral moral properties or relations that answer directly to the moral terms used in
moral judgments – call this moral property realism (see realism, moral). And
fifth, Ewing embraced an intuitionist moral epistemology according to which
synthetic moral truths are self-evidently true and thus in coming to understand such
truths one can come to have knowledge of them (see intuitionism, moral). As
Ewing’s metaethical views evolved, he never gave up the unanalyzability and
objectivity theses (the first and third claims above), or his intuitionist moral episte-
mology. He did, however, substantially revise his moral metaphysics and moral
semantics by rejecting moral property realism.
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee184
2
Ewing’s change in metaethical view had two main sources. First, in his Second
Thoughts in Moral Philosophy (1959), Ewing described nonnatural properties and
relations as mysterious – partly because of their causal inefficacy – which in his view
tended to cast doubt on the objectivity of moral judgments. The second source of
change was R. M. Hare’s view according to which moral judgments have both
non-cognitive and cognitive elements (see non-cognitivism; hare, r. m.). Ewing’s
middle way concedes to the non-cognitivists that a sincere moral judgment of the
form “X is good” or “X is bad” involves as part of its meaning what Ewing called an
“incipient conative attitude” either for or against X. Against the non-cognitivists,
Ewing’s middle way holds that a moral judgment also involves as part of its meaning
a normative assertion to the effect that the attitude being expressed is justified or
required of anyone in response to X. Such a normative assertion can be either objec-
tively true or false; there are in the world truth makers that serve to make normative
assertions true or false. One might suppose that in order to vindicate this latter
claim, Ewing must hold that there are properties of justifiedness or requiredness –
normative properties just as mysterious as the putative properties of goodness and
oughtness. But Ewing thought he had a way out of this predicament.
The key, he thought, was to recognize that a plausible correspondence theory of
truth requires that the correspondence relation between thought and language on
the one hand and reality on the other could be more or less direct. Ewing argued
that it is implausible to suppose that for every true empirical statement there must
be a direct correspondence between the reference-bearing terms of a proposition
and some “dedicated” item in reality that the terms in question signify. Ewing here
attempted an analogy between moral judgments and counterfactual conditionals.
Consider the claim that if I had jumped off the Woolworth Building in New York
and nothing had broken my fall, then I would have died. This claim is true, but it
is not made true by some shadowy fact involving an individual jumping and dying.
Rather, Ewing argued, it is made true indirectly by facts about the height of the
building in question, facts about human bodies falling at a certain rate, as well as
physical (and logical) laws – facts that obtain in the actual world. Based on this
idea of indirect correspondence to reality, Ewing held that the cognitive claim
embedded in moral judgments is made true by the natural facts that pertain to the
object of evaluation. So in appealing to the idea of indirect correspondence, Ewing
thought he had developed a hybrid metaethical view that (1) accommodates the
non-cognitivist idea that at least part of the meaning of moral judgments involves
some non-cognitive component, (2) retains a commitment to the idea that moral
judgments can be and sometimes are made objectively true by reality, yet (3) avoids
commitment to instantiated normative properties that figure in putative truth-
making normative facts. But, as Ewing came to realize, there are at least two seri-
ous gaps in this view.
First, the story of indirect correspondence for counterfactuals involves particular
facts together with causal (and logical) laws entailing particular counterfactual
claims. The parallel suggested for moral judgments would thus require that in addi-
tion to particular natural facts about the item of moral evaluation, there be moral
3
laws which serve to connect the facts in question with the appropriate conative
attitude. In his Value and Reality (1973), Ewing noted this gap in his 1959 view: “if
we are not ascribing any non-natural properties to the acts or attitudes evaluated
themselves, then we must at least be saying something about their relation to a
[moral] law” (1973: 195). According to Ewing, moral laws must exist but are not
part of the natural world, so it is reasonable to suppose that they are somehow in the
mind of God. This theological view raises the standard Euthyphro question (see
euthyphro dilemma). Ewing struggled with this dilemma and the solution he
proposed anticipates the solution that has been advanced recently by defenders of
so-called restrictive versions of the divine command theory (see divine com-
mand). Thus, in his final writings in moral philosophy, Ewing held that reflection
on the nature of morality (together with the rejection of an error theory) led one to
belief in God.
Second, Ewing held that his 1959 middle way failed to capture the peculiar nor-
mative authority or overridingness (vis-à-vis competing practical considerations) of
moral claims (see overridingness, moral). He dismissed the view that this author-
ity can be explained by appealing to demands that human beings may make of one
another. He thus thought that explanations of the authority and objectivity of moral
considerations require the existence of God. Ewing did not make clear how God’s
existence explains the authority in question, and indeed he conceded weaknesses in
his theory on this point (1973: 204).
Thus, toward the end of his career, Ewing was led to theological commitments in
trying to fill in the gaps left over from his earlier attempted middle way. But these
heavy-duty theological commitments seemed to make his overall metaethical view
less attractive than the nonnaturalist moral realism with which he began. In the first
place, even supposing that there are moral laws in the mind of God that mediate the
connection between natural facts and justified or required attitudes, it would appear
that this commits Ewing to particular instantiated normative facts involving atti-
tudes having the property of being justified or required. Thus, it is not clear that he
was really able to avoid commitment to instantiated normative properties, rejection
of which motivated his middle way. And perhaps more importantly, embracing a
metaethical position with theological backing seems to involve a far more extravagant
metaphysics compared to belief in instantiated nonnatural properties. And in so
doing, one runs the risk of being committed to an error theory in case the theological
commitments turn out to be false.
Ewing’s middle way and his later struggle to fill out the view anticipate important
current debates in metaethics. In recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest
in hybrid metaethical views (Copp 2001; Ridge 2007), and the view recently defended
by Richmond Campbell (2007) is very similar to Ewing’s 1959 middle-way position.
Finally, it is also notable that Ewing’s struggle with normative authority of morality
anticipates Stephen Darwall’s (2006) work on the second personal standpoint.
Against Darwall, but in agreement with such divine command theorists as Robert
Adams (1999), Ewing held that “Mere human beings have no authority to demand
of us that we act in a certain way except the authority of the state and society, and
4
such human organizations are fallible and may rightly be disobeyed under some
circumstances” (1973: 190).
Ewing on the Relation Between Intrinsic Goodness and Ought

A debate that was very much alive during the first half of the twentieth century,
and that came back in vogue in the early twenty-first century, concerns the rela-
tion between the concepts of intrinsic goodness and ought. Moore and Ross held
that the former concept is unanalyzable, but their chief concern was to deny that
intrinsic goodness is analyzable in purely naturalistic terms. Ewing shared their
opposition to naturalism and proposed an analysis of intrinsic goodness partly in
terms of the normative (nonnatural) concept of the ought of fittingness and partly
in terms of the psychological (hence natural) concept of a pro-attitude (see
ought; pro-attitudes). In so doing, Ewing anticipated what several decades
later became known as the buck-passing account of goodness (see buck-passing
account).
According to Ewing, for an object, X, to be intrinsically good is for X to be such
that it ought (in the fittingness sense of “ought”) to be an object of a pro-attitude for
its own sake. “Pro-attitude” is an umbrella term, covering “for instance, choice,
desire, liking, pursuit, approval, admiration” (1947a: 149). For an attitude to be fit-
ting is for it to be “most desirable in view of the situation” (1939: 3). For Ewing it was
quite clear that there is such a concept of ought and that it is different from the moral
ought. One reason is that when we say that a person ought to pursue her own pleas-
ure, we do not mean that the person ought morally to pursue her own pleasure, but
that it would be fitting for her to do so (1947a: 150, 185). Another difference between
the ought of fittingness and the moral ought is that the latter but not the former
implies can. There might be intrinsically good objects (e.g., Mahler’s symphonies)
that I cannot appreciate, due to lack of sophistication, but it might still be true that it
would be fitting for me to appreciate them. Ewing tentatively suggested the follow-
ing analysis of the moral ought: an agent, A, ought morally to φ just in case (1) it
would be fitting for A to φ; (2) were A not to φ it would in this respect be fitting to
disapprove morally of A. He also suggested that (1) might be dropped in favor of just
(2) (1939: 14).
Ewing thought that his analysis of intrinsic goodness in terms of fitting
pro-attitudes had several virtues. First, he took it to have desirable implications in
normative ethics (see the next section). Second, it is the most plausible “minimum
non-naturalistic theory of ethics, i.e., the theory other than naturalism which admits
least in the way of non-natural concepts” (1939: 14; 1947a: 169). He argued on
introspective grounds that it is more difficult to deny that we are aware of a nonnatu-
ral and unanalyzable concept of fittingness than to deny that we are aware of a non-
natural concept of intrinsic goodness (1947a: 157, 174, 178; 1962: 93). Third, the
analysis explains the allure of subjectivism about goodness, roughly the view that for
an object to be good is for it to be the object of a pro-attitude (1939: 2; 1947a: 180).
5
Fourth, the fact that different pro-attitudes are fitting to different objects explains the
heterogeneity of goodness (1947a: 149, 183).
Ewing considered several objections to his analysis. Chief among them is the
observation that it might be the case that a person ought to favor something for its
own sake more than some other thing although it is not the case that the former
is intrinsically better than the latter. To illustrate, a parent ought to favor her child’s
happiness for its own sake more than the equal happiness of a stranger. This can be
viewed as an instance of the notorious wrong kind of reason problem (see wrong
kind of reasons problem). Ewing offered two different solution proposals (Ewing
1939: 18–20; 1947a: 191–3; 1959: 108), both of which are problematic (Olson 2009).
Another objection, which Ewing attributed to Ross, is that the only proper ground
of admiration of a thing is its goodness. Ewing responded that the proper ground of
admiration is rather the good-making features, i.e., features that make pro-attitudes,
such as admiration, fitting (Ewing 1947a: 158, 172).
In his Second Thoughts in Moral Philosophy (1959), Ewing revised some of his
earlier views. He now regretted his “extended use of the term ‘fitting’ [since] it
suggests too much analogy between ethics and aesthetics” (1959: 94). He now
viewed the ought of fittingness as reducible to reasonableness (1959: 90) and he
retracted the view that the moral ought is analyzable (1959: 96). Ewing continued
to defend the analyzability of intrinsic goodness, holding that “to say that [X] is
intrinsically good is … to say that its nature in itself provides a reason for adopting
a favorable attitude towards it” (1959: 63) and that those reasons are provided by
the “factual characteristics [of X]” (1959: 100). But he added, somewhat confus-
ingly, that in his present view, goodness is analyzable in terms of the moral ought,
rather than in terms of fittingness or reasonableness, at least “in the more funda-
mental discussions of moral philosophy” (1959: 98–9). This seems inconsistent
with Ewing’s earlier contention that there is no contradiction in holding that
pleasure is intrinsically good and denying that one ought morally to pursue one’s
own pleasure (1947a: 185).
Ewing on Ideal Utilitarianism and Rossian Deontology

Ewing saw as one of the chief advantages of his analysis of intrinsic goodness
that it would pave the way for reconciliation between ideal utilitarianism and
Rossian deontology (Ewing 1939: 9ff.; 1947a: Ch. 5; 1959: 104). In this Ewing
anticipated an ongoing contemporary debate about whether every ethical theory
can be “consequentialized,” i.e., formulated as a version of consequentialism
(Portmore 2009).
According to ideal utilitarianism, a plurality of things, including actions, are
intrinsically good and we ought always to do what is best, i.e., what brings about the
maximum amount of intrinsic goodness. According to Rossian deontology, there is
a plurality of prima facie duties, i.e., types of actions that in the absence of counter-
vailing considerations are duties proper, irrespective of consequences; it is not the
case that we ought always to do what is best since maximizing intrinsic goodness is
6
just one prima facie duty among many (see ross, w. d.; prima facie and pro tanto
oughts). Now, according to Ewing’s analysis, to say that an action, such as keeping
a promise, is good is to say that it would be fitting to choose or produce it, i.e., to
perform it. “So to give a list of our different prima facie duties would be to give a list
of the different kinds of things (including actions) which are intrinsically good”
(1947a: 188). This accommodates the compelling thought (Foot 1985: 198) that we
ought always to do what is best in a way that does “not contradict the contentions of
Ross” (Ewing 1947a: 188).
Ewing considered the objection that Ross might have meant by “prima facie duty”
not what would be (pro tanto) fitting to do, but what one (pro tanto) ought morally to
do (1947a: 189). He responded that it couldn’t be the case that one ought morally to
do something if it is not the case that one ought to do it in the fittingness sense
(1947a: 189–90). But as we saw in the last section, this is questionable. It might be that
a parent ought morally to care more about her child’s suffering than the equal suffer-
ing of a stranger, although it is not the case that her child’s suffering is intrinsically
worse and consequently that it would not be fitting for her to care more about it.
Other Works in Moral Philosophy by Ewing

In The Morality of Punishment (1929), Ewing sought to reconcile a consequentialist
theory of punishment, according to which punishment is justified by its (deterring)
effects, with a retributive theory, according to which punishment is an end in itself,
i.e., intrinsically good (see punishment; retribution). His theory took punish-
ment to be a form of moral education, and so justified in terms of its consequences,
but it also accommodated the retributivist view that punishment is an end in itself.
Importantly, however, punishment is not intrinsically good qua infliction of pain,
but qua expression of moral disapproval of the crime. The idea is that “right mental
attitudes” to good things and bad things – e.g., crimes – are also intrinsically good
(Ewing 1970: 107). Ewing also published a book on political philosophy – The
Individual, the State, and World Government (1947b). This book was intended for a
nonprofessional audience and dealt with topics such as freedom and the rights of
individuals and the relationship between individuals and states.
see also: buck-passing accounts; divine command; euthyphro dilemma;

hare, r. m.; intuitionism, moral; non-cognitivism; nonnaturalism,
ethical; ought; overridingness, moral; prima facie and pro tanto oughts;
pro-attitudes; punishment; realism, moral; retribution; ross, w. d.;
wrong kind of reasons problem
REFERENCES
Adams, R. M. 1999. Infinite and Finite Goods: A Framework for Ethics. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Campbell, R. 2007. “What is a Moral Judgment?” Journal of Philosophy, vol. 104, pp. 321–49.
7
Copp, D. 2001. “Realist-Expressivism: A Neglected Option for Moral Realism,” Social

Darwall, S. 2006. The Second-Person Standpoint. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Ewing, A. C. 1939. “A Suggested Non-Naturalistic Analysis of Good,” Mind, vol. 48, pp. 1–22.
Ewing, A. C. 1947a. The Definition of Good. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Ewing, A. C. 1947b. The Individual, the State, and World Government. New York: Macmillan.
Ewing, A. C. 1959. Second Thoughts in Moral Philosophy. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Ewing, A. C. 1962 [1953]. Ethics. New York: Collier Books.
Ewing, A. C. 1970 [1929]. The Morality of Punishment (with some Suggestions for a General
Theory of Ethics). Montclair, NJ: Patterson Smith.
Ewing, A. C. 1973. Value and Reality: The Philosophical Case for Theism. London: George
Allen & Unwin; New York: Humanities Press.
Foot, P. 1985. “Utilitarianism and the Virtues,” Mind, vol. 94, pp. 196–209.
Olson, J. 2009. “Fitting Attitude Analyses of Value and the Partiality Challenge,” Ethical
Portmore, D. 2009. “Consequentializing,” Philosophy Compass, vol. 4, pp. 329–47.
Ridge, M. 2007. “Ecumenical Expressivism: The Best of Both Worlds?” in R. Shafer-Landau
(ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaethics, vol. 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
FURTHER READINGS
Dancy, J. 2000. “Should We Pass the Buck?” in Anthony O’Hare (ed.), Philosophy, the Good,
the True, and the Beautiful. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Olson, J., and M. Timmons 2011. “Ewing’s First and Second Thoughts in Metaethics,” in
Thomas Hurka (ed.), British Moral Philosophers from Sidgwick to Ewing. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Rabinowicz, W., and T. Ronnøw-Rasmussen 2004. “The Strike of the Demon: On Fitting Pro-
Attitudes and Value,” Ethics, vol. 114, pp. 391–423.
1
Moral Luck
David Enoch
If two drivers drive equally negligently, but only one of them causes serious harm or
injury (say, because a pedestrian is present in the wrong time and place only in front
of one of the drivers’ cars), are they equally morally blameworthy? After all, they were
equally negligent, and the difference between them was due to a factor that wasn’t
under their control, it was a matter of luck. Or is the driver who injured a pedestrian
more blameworthy? After all, she injured an innocent pedestrian, and the other driver
didn’t. If two judges are equally willing to take a bribe, but only one takes it because
only he was offered a bribe, are they equally morally blameworthy? After all, they were
equally willing to act wrongly, and the fact that only one of them was offered a bribe
was – as far as they were concerned – a matter of luck. Or is the judge who took a bribe
more blameworthy than the one who didn’t? After all, the latter did nothing wrong.
More generally, can it ever be the case that the extent to which we are morally blame-
worthy or praiseworthy for something depends on factors that are beyond our control,
on factors that may be thought of as a matter of luck? If two agents are alike in all rel-
evant matters that are under their (respective) control, is it still possible that the moral
status of one of them – in terms of responsibility, blame- and praiseworthiness, and the
like – differs from that of the other? If you answer “Yes,” you believe in moral luck.
The question of moral luck is interesting in its own right. But it may also
have broader implications for our understanding of moral responsibility (see
responsibility) and blameworthiness (see blame), and perhaps of agency
(the capacity to perform full-blooded actions rather than mere bodily movements,
which may be unique – as far as we know – to humans [see moral agency]). And
if we come to a conclusion regarding moral luck, it is not unlikely that this
conclusion will have some practical implications as well (for instance, for questions
in legal theory).
The Clashing Intuitions

The explicit discussion of moral luck – launched in its current form and terminol-
ogy in papers by Bernard Williams (1976; see williams, bernard) and Thomas
Nagel (1976) – is conducted in the shade of two contrasting families of intuitive
judgments. (In this and the next section I draw freely on Enoch 2010.)
On the one side, there is the control condition for moral responsibility (and the
like), according to which – somewhat roughly – we are not morally responsible for
what is not under our control. If so, it seems, we are morally responsible for some-
thing at most to the extent that that thing is or was under our control. Crucially –
and a point both Nagel (1976: 59) and Williams (1976: 36) emphasize – something
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee185
2
like the control condition is part and parcel of our commonsensical way of thinking
about morality. It’s not a highly theoretical principle cooked up by philosophers with
an ax to grind. Rather, it is built into our everyday practices of holding one another
responsible. If, for instance, I blame you for something (“Why on earth did you
hit me?”), and you proceed to show that it wasn’t under your control (“You don’t
understand, Badguy pushed my arm strongly in your direction”), I proceed to
withdraw my blame. Why would I do that, if I am not tacitly committed to some-
thing like the control condition?
So it seems like there is a strong initial case for the denial of moral luck. But when
we consider intuitive judgments of responsibility in specific cases, we find very
different results. In thinking about these cases, it is convenient to use Nagel’s (1976:
60) taxonomy into consequential moral luck, circumstantial moral luck, and consti-
tutive moral luck. (I will ignore Nagel’s fourth category – luck in how one’s will is
caused – because it is not clear that it is a distinct category, and because I do my best
not to deteriorate to a discussion of free will [see free will].)
Cases of consequential moral luck – if there are any – are cases where one’s moral
status is determined to an extent by the outcomes of what one does. This is the luck
arguably present in the example of the two equally negligent drivers. Other examples
are easy to come by. If you think that a successful murderer is more morally blame-
worthy or responsible than the attempted murderer even when there are no other
differences between them (as we sometimes say, when all other things are equal),
you believe that this is a case of consequential moral luck. If there is a difference in
the moral status between a negligent driver who kills a pedestrian and an equally
negligent driver who doesn’t (when all other things are equal), or if there is such a
difference between a non-negligent driver who kills and one who doesn’t (when all
other things are equal), or if there is a difference in moral praiseworthiness between
a firefighter who rescues a person from a burning building and one who – in the
same circumstances, showing the same degree of skill and courage – drops the
person to his death (Nagel 1976: 58; rescuing people from burning buildings is,
I guess, a percentage game, like almost everything else); if there is a difference in any
of these pairs of cases, then there is consequential moral luck.
Circumstantial moral luck is luck in the morally relevant circumstances one
finds oneself in, or in the moral tests and opportunities one faces, and is the kind
of moral luck arguably present in the two-judges example (Thomson 1989: 207). If
you think that the judge who took a bribe is more responsible or blameworthy than
the judge who never took a bribe but would have taken a bribe had he been offered
(assuming that whether or not he gets such an offer is out of his control), you
believe that this is a case of circumstantial moral luck. And here too other exam-
ples are easy to come by, both on the blameworthiness side and on the praisewor-
thiness side. Consider, for instance, two potential heroes, when because of
circumstances that are beyond their control – someone happens to drown near the
beach where one of them jogs, but not near the other potential hero’s beach – only
one of them gets to manifest her heroic dispositions in action and become, in a
sense, a real hero.
3
Constitutive moral luck is luck in the character traits and dispositions one finds
oneself with when arriving at the morally relevant scene. Suppose, then, two persons,
the first naturally empathetic and the second not so much. And assume further – as
surely seems possible – that this difference between them is due to factors like genet-
ics and early childhood education over which neither of them has or indeed has ever
had any control. We tend to judge people – indeed, to praise or blame them – for
their morally relevant character traits (see moral character). If this tendency of
ours is justified, then this is a case of constitutive moral luck. Furthermore, it seems
reasonable to suppose that our character traits are at least partly causally relevant to
the actions we perform. If all other things are equal, for instance, we would (descrip-
tively) expect our empathetic friend to give more to charity than his less empathetic
counterpart. And then, won’t we praise the former, and perhaps even blame the
latter? Here too there is (perhaps indirect) constitutive moral luck (Enoch and
Marmor 2007: 426; Nelkin 2008).
The combined force of such intuitive examples of consequential, circumstantial,
and constitutive moral luck seems quite strong. But in all these cases, something like
the control condition seems to entail that there can be no moral luck, of whatever
kind. Should we revise all these apparently intuitive judgments? Are they all errone-
ous? Or should we reject the control condition on moral responsibility, at least in the
versions in which it seems to entail that such a major revision is called for?
Some Argumentative Moves

Clashing intuitions are often the sign of an interesting philosophical problem. But
we try not to settle for stating the clashing intuitions. We try, rather, to come up with
arguments that give reason to go one way or the other on the relevant matter. Let me
briefly review, then, the central argumentative moves in the literature on moral luck.
There is moral luck

As already stated, the friends of moral luck typically rely – partly, at least – on the
purported intuitive force of some or all of the examples mentioned above. But some
of them also have more to offer by way of argument (this subsection draws on
Nelkin 2008).
A line of thought made famous by Williams (1976: 42 and on) focuses on the
common and appropriate responses of agents to their own actions and their conse-
quences. Williams focuses attention on “agent regret” – the special kind of emotion
that is available, for instance, to a driver who has killed a pedestrian but not to spec-
tators (who may be equally sorry for the loss of a life), even in cases where the driver
knows the accident did not result from any fault of his. Williams’ focus on agent
regret seems to amplify the intuitive force of the examples (of consequential moral
luck) of the sort already described. It is doubtful, however, whether it can do more
work here, perhaps partly due to the unclarity of Williams’ own arguments. And it
may be argued that while Williams is on to something important in the discussion
4
of agent regret, whatever needs accommodating here can be accommodated without

admitting the existence of moral luck. Perhaps, for instance, while the injuring
driver is not more blameworthy or even responsible than the non-injuring one, still
the former should, in some sense, take responsibility in a way the latter should not
(Wolf 2000; Enoch forthcoming).
Some such argumentative moves are designed to break the spell of the control con-
dition. One way of doing that is by trying to offer a reductio of it. This can perhaps be
done by noting how extreme – and extremely implausible – the consequences would
be of pursuing this principle consistently. Thus, the examples of purported cases of
moral luck divided into the three categories above are often presented not just as three
kinds of moral luck, but also as a kind of progression, where the intuitive pressure to
acknowledge the existence of moral luck increases as we proceed from consequential
to circumstantial and then to constitutive moral luck. Furthermore, it seems we can
proceed even further down this dangerous road, and approach the hazardous area of
the free will debate. If we uncompromisingly adhere to the control condition, we may
find ourselves shrinking the area of moral responsibility to “an extensionless point”
(Nagel 1976: 66). If you find this result unacceptable, you may think of the progres-
sion described as a reductio of the control condition. Of course, one may want to
adhere to the control condition up to a point on this progression, and not beyond it.
But unless one can offer a rationale for so restricting the control condition, such
restriction would be objectionably ad hoc (Nelkin 2008; Katz 2000: 798). It remains an
open question whether a rationale for such restriction can be found.
Another way to go here would be to distinguish different versions of the control
condition, showing that some are in fact compatible with (some kinds of) moral
luck, and rejecting only those versions that are not. Consider the example of the
successful murderer again. If he says something like “Well, the murder was not really
under my control,” referring to the similarity between him and his failing counterpart,
this would sound at the very least odd. It is not, after all, as if the murder was out of
his hands; he could have easily avoided it. So if we understand the control condition
as just the claim that people aren’t morally responsible for what is not under their
control, then it’s not clear that it entails the denial of moral luck. Perhaps this version
of the control condition is one the friends of moral luck need not reject. What they
need to reject is just a comparative version of the control condition (there can be no
difference in moral responsibility between two agents without a difference in what is
under their control: Zimmerman 2002: 559), or perhaps a gradual one (one is
responsible for something only to the extent that that thing is under one’s control:
Nelkin 2008). And those believing in moral luck may want to argue that these
stronger versions of the control condition are not as intuitively compelling as the
weaker version (that, as we saw, may very well be consistent with the existence of
moral luck); indeed, they may be positively objectionable (Raz 2010, forthcoming).
Similarly, one may want to distinguish not just between different versions of the
control condition, but between different things that may be meant by “control.”
Though some thoughts about control seem commonsensical (say, that we’re not
responsible for things that are not up to us), it is notoriously difficult to fully unpack
5
such thoughts, as some of the literature on free will makes very clear (see, for
instance, Fischer’s 1994 distinction between regulative and guidance control).
And it is possible that moral luck is consistent with the control condition, once “con-
trol” is properly understood. On the other hand, it does seem highly implausible that
there is a difference between the two drivers or two judges we started with in terms
of what is under their control, however control is precisely understood.
A related line of thought here is that what underlies the control condition on
moral responsibility is a simple-minded conception of human agency. The thought
is sometimes expressed that a clearer understanding of what agency is or perhaps of
why it is that agency is important (if indeed it is; see Williams 1976: 44–5) under-
mines the appeal of the control condition, and perhaps even suffices all by itself to
positively ground a commitment to moral luck. The plausibility of such moves
entirely depends, of course, on their details. Sufficient details are rarely supplied.
Another argument – due to Margaret Urban-Walker (1991) – asks us to imagine
a world with no moral luck, and compare it with a world with moral luck. If the latter
seems like a better world – as Urban-Walker argues, partly because it can accom-
modate certain intimate relationships that the former arguably cannot accommo-
date – this is taken as some reason to believe that there is moral luck. But such
reasoning is problematic at least for the following three reasons. First, it seems to
employ the inference scheme “Wouldn’t it be nice if p, therefore p” (where p stands
for “There is no moral luck”); if this is indeed the form of the argument, this is
reason to be highly suspicious of it (though see Enoch 2009; van Someren Gréve
2011). Second, given some plausible assumptions about the modal status of basic
moral truths – namely, that they are rather robustly necessary – it is not clear that the
thought experiment is coherent, for it asks us to imagine a situation in which the
moral truths are different than they are, and such a situation is arguably impossible
(see thought experiments in ethics). Third, one can argue with Urban-Walker
about the details of her thought experiment; it is not clear, for instance, that a world
with no moral luck cannot accommodate the relationships on which Urban-Walker
focuses.
There is no moral luck

Typically, those who deny the existence (and indeed possibility) of moral luck rely –
by way of positive support – directly on their favorite version of the control condi-
tion on moral responsibility. What more can be said here?
The denial of moral luck, and indeed the control condition, are often associated
with Kant, perhaps because of his emphasis on the absolute (and so consequence-
independent) value of the good will. And indeed, this is Nagel’s starting point. But
the interpretive issues are complicated here, and it is clear neither what Kant thought
about these matters (it is sometimes suggested, for instance, that Kant thought the
moral status of our actions is immune to luck when we behave permissibly, but not
otherwise), nor whether a good argument can be extracted from what Kant said or
should have said about these and related matters.
6
Some emphasize intuitions about fairness and arbitrariness (Feinberg 1995: 119).
It just seems unfair, for instance, to blame the successful murderer more than the
attempter. But while fairness considerations are certainly relevant in the context of a
discussion of legal punishment, it is not clear that they are relevant to questions of
blameworthiness. Indeed, because morality is not a person (and because only on
some highly controversial metaethical views is it an artifact [see metaethics]),
speaking about its norms in terms of fairness may be a category mistake. Perhaps
those emphasizing thoughts about fairness really just put the denial of moral luck in
a different, perhaps especially intuitively powerful, way; they seem to be insisting
that blameworthiness attributions must be fair, that is they must not be arbitrary,
that is they are not subject to luck. If so, there is here a restatement of the anti-luck
intuition, rather than an argument for it.
Another possible way of motivating the denial of (at least consequential) moral
luck may be based on an analogy with rational luck more generally. Imagine, then,
two basketball coaches who (independently) make a last-second call regarding
who gets the last shot. Suppose further that both of them make the same mistake
(choosing the shooter who is not the one with the best percentage in such circum-
stances), but that in one case the shooter makes the shot, and in the other she doesn’t.
We know, of course, what will happen: one coach will be praised, the other criticized.
And we know which team will win, and which will lose. But what should we say
about the rational status of the coaches’ decisions? It seems to me that the two
coaches are rationally on a par. If you agree, then you agree that (in this case, at least)
there is no rational luck. And assuming that there are some strong connections
between morality and rationality, or at least that moral responsibility is analogous to
susceptibility to criticism in terms of rationality (“rational responsibility”) in cases
like this one, this is some reason to believe that there is no moral luck (in conse-
quences, at least). This kind of argument is vulnerable to two kinds of objection: it
may be argued that morality is not like rationality in this way (see rationalism in
ethics; rationality); or, it may be argued that there is rational luck, perhaps even
in the coaches’ example, or perhaps in other cases. This is how Williams’ (1976)
Gauguin example may be relevant. If his argument works, it may be thought of as
showing that rational luck is at least possible.
Almost all of the argumentative work done by those denying moral luck is, how-
ever, negative in nature: efforts are dedicated to criticizing the arguments of the
supporters of moral luck, and – perhaps mainly – to explaining away the intuitions
about specific cases that are supposed to manifest moral luck. The more philosoph-
ical attempts at debunking explanations typically proceed by drawing distinctions
between propositions that are indeed about moral luck, and other, somewhat related
ones. Then the former are denied, the latter conceded, and the intuitive appeal of the
former is explained (away) by the appeal of the latter, and our natural tendency to
conflate the two (Andre 1983: 125; Rosebury 1995: 509–13).
One such attempt is epistemic in nature (Rosebury 1995; Richards 1986; Thomson
1989: 205; Rescher 1990: 154; Enoch and Marmor 2007: 415; Latus 2001). It is some-
times argued that what are taken by some to be cases of moral luck are really cases
7
of epistemic luck in the following sense: perhaps if god whispered in our ear that all
other things really are equal, we would and should judge the murderer and the
attempted murderer equally blameworthy. But god rarely whispers in our ear, and
given the radical uncertainty which is always relevant to our blaming others, it may
be reasonable to see the success of the murder as at least some evidence, say, that the
successful murderer was a bit more wholehearted in his deadly endeavor. And for
this reason we may be justified in judging him more blameworthy than the attempter.
Similarly, usually we don’t know just how negligent a negligent driver is, and so it
may be reasonable to treat the deadly consequence as some evidence for greater
degree of negligence. Perhaps this is why we are justified in judging the negligent
driver who kills as more blameworthy than the negligent driver who doesn’t.
Of course, if such examples are explained away epistemically, then it’s always possi-
ble that there will be (even actual, certainly hypothetical) cases where there is strong
evidence going in the other direction (say, the lucky driver has a long history of bad
and dangerous driving). In such cases, the epistemic line of thought does not arise,
and so we should proceed (on this view) to deny any blameworthiness difference
between the relevant two cases (Richards 1986: 171; Adler 1987). And notice, by the
way, that this epistemic line works very well with cases of circumstantial moral luck,
where it is hard to think of any countervailing evidence that could render it practi-
cally irrelevant (Enoch and Marmor 2007: 422). Think about the two judges again:
what evidence can we have regarding the dispositional corruptness of the judge who
is never offered a bribe that is remotely as strong as we do regarding the corruptness
of the judge who did in fact take a bribe?
Another important distinction the deniers of moral luck often utilize is that
between blameworthiness (and the like) on one side, and the justification of blame-
related reactions (Zimmerman 1987: 218–19; Jensen 1984; Richards 1986; Enoch
and Marmor 2007: 412) on the other. Think about the example of the two basketball
coaches again. It is one thing, I said in discussing that case, to ask about the rationality
of their respective decisions. It is quite another to ask about the appropriate procedure
to decide who won the game. We can imagine a game where the winner is deter-
mined only by the ex ante rationality of her moves compared to that of her competi-
tors. But basketball is not like that, and presumably for good reasons. If so, then there
are reasons to (rationally) blame the coach who made the lucky wrong call, while at
the same time declare his team as the winner of the game. Similarly, you may think
that we have reasons, say, to express more anger toward those whose negligence
resulted in serious harm. But from this it does not immediately follow that they are
more blameworthy than their luckier counterparts. Thus, some moral-luck-related
intuitions can perhaps be explained as really about blame-related activities, and not
about blameworthiness itself. It should be noted that the distinction between blame-
worthiness and blame-related reactions is not uncontroversial. It may be thought, for
instance, that some facts about which blame-related reactions are justified play a
constitutive role in determining blameworthiness (perhaps this is a way of reading
Scanlon 2008: 148–50). Let me mention just two more blame-related activities that
may be relevant here: criminal punishment and agent regret. Perhaps it can be argued
8
that we should feel agent regret when our agency is causally involved in the appropri-
ate way in bringing about a horrible outcome, or that we should punish more severely
the successful murderer and the negligent driver who injure compared to the
attempted murderer and the negligent driver who didn’t injure, but that it just doesn’t
follow from all this that the former are more morally to blame than the latter.
Another distinction is that between moral luck and plain luck, even when it has
moral implications (Athanassoulis 2005: 6; Enoch 2008). The deniers of moral luck
do not deny, after all, that some things are out of our control. They do not even typi-
cally deny that how well our lives go is partly determined by matters that are not
under our control – matters such as winning the lottery, having a loved one get seri-
ously ill, and so on (in this perhaps modern deniers of moral luck differ from the
Stoics with whom they are sometimes associated [see Williams 1976: 35–6]). Indeed,
there is even a sense in which they needn’t deny that morality is subject to luck.
Which moral obligations one has, for instance, certainly depends on the circum-
stances one finds oneself in (whether I am morally required to get up and let another
person take my seat on the bus depends on how crowded the bus is, how tired or
strong I am, how weak or tired some others look, and so on), and these are certainly
not completely under one’s control. And the question is whether, once the deniers of
moral luck admit all this luck, the friends of moral luck still feel that something
important about luck has been left out.
Yet another distinction that is sometimes used in this context is that between the
evaluation of the agent and the evaluation of the action (Thomson 1989).
Blameworthiness is thought more closely related to the former, but the moral luck
intuitions are thought to be more closely related to the latter.
Recently, the project of coming up with debunking explanations of intuitions about
luck has taken also a psychological turn, with some writers trying to show that these
intuitions are the product of some well-known cognitive biases (Domsky 2004;
Royzman and Kumar 2004). It remains to be seen how successful such attempts can be,
both in terms internal to such psychological explanations and in terms of their implica-
tions for the philosophical debate over moral luck (Statman 2005; Enoch and Guttel
2010). (Adam Smith 2002 [1790]: 109, after declaring that the denial of moral luck is
“self-evident,” something that “is acknowledged by all the world, and there is not a dis-
senting voice among all mankind,” proceeds to offer explanations for our conflicting
intuitions. They are offered, if I understand them correctly, as debunking explanations,
in the spirit of the suggestions mentioned earlier in this paragraph. [See smith, adam].)
And of course, the deniers of moral luck can help themselves to a combined
strategy – using some or all of these distinctions, perhaps with others, to explain
away the intuitions of those believing in moral luck.
Bedrock?
On both sides of the debate, then, arguments come up. And yet there is a nagging
worry that there’s an upper bound to the strength of such arguments, simply because
the moral luck debate is too close to moral bedrock. Often, believers in moral luck
9
will come up with a purported example of moral luck, and will be amazed that some
are tempted not to so classify it. Similarly, deniers of moral luck will insist on the
control condition, and find it almost unbelievable that some philosophers – even
some good philosophers – deny it (consider again the quote from Adam Smith
above). On both sides, then, the views on moral luck are thought of as pretty basic,
the kind of claim that helps to support other claims, and that needs little support
itself (Sverdlik 1988: 183). Perhaps this is why this literature leaves a kind of frustrat-
ing feeling (Nelkin 2008, for instance, speaks of a stalemate): moral luck is a topic
everyone wants to have something to say about, but one that hardly anyone does
have something interesting (let alone convincing) to say about.
Bigger Picture
The questions regarding moral luck are interesting and important enough, then, to
merit all by themselves philosophical attention. But it is also likely that a better
understanding of the phenomena in the vicinity of the moral luck debate will have
implications elsewhere. In this concluding section I hint – in a brief and somewhat
speculative way – at some such implications.
Most obviously, questions about the nature of – and the conditions necessary and
sufficient for – responsibility and blameworthiness are of course of more general
interest. Even regardless of the moral luck debate, we want a better understanding of
these phenomena. And the moral-luck-related implications of more general theories
here may serve as (partial) tests for their plausibility. While it seems, for instance, that
something about control is necessary for responsibility, it is highly controversial exactly
what. A better understanding of (perhaps purported) moral luck may have interesting
implications for this debate.
Or consider, for instance, what are sometimes called “character-based theories of
blame” (Thomson 1989). On such theories, one is morally blameworthy for an action
if and only if, and because, it reflects badly on one’s character. Such a theory has
rather immediate implications for the moral luck debate: it rules out consequential
and circumstantial moral luck, but trivially accepts constitutive moral luck. (Exercise:
show that this is in fact so. And see Enoch and Marmor 2007: 431.) If such implica-
tions seem plausible on reflection, this serves to bolster the plausibility of character-
based theories of blame. If not, this may be considered (some) reason to reject them.
Several times already I have mentioned the worry that the discussion of moral
luck cannot be fully conducted without taking controversial stands in the free will
debate. This may be a problem: it would have been more convenient had the moral
luck debate been more easily isolable from such larger issues. On the plus side,
though, that it cannot be so isolated means that there may be general lessons to be
learned from the moral luck debate, perhaps ones that should affect the way we
think about the freedom of will debate as well.
The moral luck debate may have implications also for a general theory of excuses –
conditions under which one may, despite having performed a wrong action, be
(perhaps partly) exempt from responsibility. For instance, much recent attention has
10
been given to ignorance as an excuse, and more specifically (and problematically) to

moral ignorance as an excuse. Here the main question is whether an agent perform-
ing a wrong action may be (perhaps partly) excused in virtue of failing to realize that
the action was in fact wrong. Assuming that often what we are in a position to know
is subject to luck (because what evidence we are exposed to is often a matter of
luck, what other opinions we come across is often a matter of luck, etc.), the moral
luck debate is bound to have implications for the moral ignorance debate as well
(Smith 1983).
And the moral luck debate may also have practical implications. Perhaps, for
instance, some questions in legal theory – like whether the crime for a completed
offense should be greater than that for an attempt, or what the appropriate arrange-
ments should be for dealing with the costs of accidents – should be discussed in the
shadow of the moral luck debate. It would be naïve to expect the moral luck debate
to have immediate implications for such legal questions; here as everywhere else, the
move from a moral thesis to a thesis about the morally desirable legal arrangements
is neither deductive nor trivial. But it would perhaps not be too naïve to think that
the moral discussion here is at least somewhat relevant to the legal ones (Enoch
2008, 2010, and the references there).
See also: blame; free will; metaethics; moral agency; moral character;
rationalism in ethics; rationality; responsibility; smith, adam; thought
experiments in ethics; williams, bernard
REFERENCES
Adler, Jonathan 1987. “Luckless Desert Is Different Desert,” Mind, vol. 96, pp. 247–9.
Andre, Judith 1983. “Nagel, Williams, and Moral Luck,” Analysis, vol. 43, pp. 202–7; reprinted
in Statman 1993, pp. 123–9.
Athanassoulis, Nafsika 2005. Morality, Moral Luck and Responsibility: Fortune’s Web.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Domsky, Darren 2004. “There Is No Door: Finally Solving the Problem of Moral Luck,”
The Journal of Philosophy, vol. 99, pp. 445–64.
Enoch, David 2008. “Luck between Morality, Law, and Justice,” Theoretical Inquiries in Law,
vol. 9, pp. 23–59.
Enoch, David 2009. “Wouldn’t It Be Nice If p, Therefore, p (for a Moral p),” Utilitas, vol. 21,
pp. 222–4.
Enoch, David 2010. “Moral Luck and the Law,” Philosophical Compass, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 42–54.
Enoch, David forthcoming. “Being Responsible, Taking Responsibility, and Penumbral
Agency,” in Ulrike Heuer and Gerald Lang (eds.), Luck, Value and Commitment: Themes
from the Ethics of Bernard Williams. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Enoch, David, and Ehud Guttel 2010. “Cognitive Biases and Moral Luck,” The Journal of
Moral Philosophy, vol. 7, pp. 372–86.
Enoch, David, and Andrei Marmor 2007. “The Case Against Moral Luck,” Law and Philosophy,
vol. 26, pp. 405–36.
Feinberg, Joel 1995. “Equal Punishment for Failed Attempts: Some Bad but Instructive
Arguments Against It,” Arizona Law Review, vol. 37, pp. 117–33.
11
Fischer, John Martin 1994. The Metaphysics of Free Will. Oxford: Blackwell.
Jensen, Henning 1984. “Morality and Luck,” Philosophy, vol. 59, pp. 323–30. Repr. in Statman
1993, pp. 131–40.
Katz, Leo 2000. “Why the Successful Assassin Is More Wicked than the Unsuccessful One,”
California Law Review, vol. 88, p. 791.
Latus, Andrew 2001. “Moral Luck,” The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. At http://www.
utm.edu/research/iep/m/moralluc.htm.
Nagel, Thomas 1976. “Moral Luck,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, suppl. vol. 50,
pp. 137–52; reprinted in a revised version in his Mortal Questions, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1979, pp. 24–38; and in Statman 1993, pp. 57–71.
Nelkin, Dana K. 2008. “Moral Luck,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. At http://plato.
stanford.edu/entries/moral-luck/.
Raz, Joseph 2010. “Being in the World,” Ratio, vol. 23, no. 4, pp. 433–52.
Raz, Joseph forthcoming. “Agency and Luck,” in Ulrike Heuer and Gerald Lang (eds.), Luck,
Value and Commitment: Themes from the Ethics of Bernard Williams. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Rescher, Nicholas 1990. “Moral Luck,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Association,
vol. 64, pp. 5–20; reprinted in a revised version in Statman 1993, pp. 141–66.
Richards, Norvin 1986. “Luck and Desert,” Mind, vol. 65, pp. 198–209; reprinted in Statman
1993, pp. 167–80.
Rosebury, Brian 1995. “Moral Responsibility and ‘Moral Luck,’” The Philosophical Review,
vol. 104, pp. 499–524.
Royzman, Edward, and Rahul Kumar 2004. “Is Consequential Luck Morally
Inconsequential? Empirical Psychology and the Reassessment of Moral Luck,” Ratio,
vol. 17, pp. 329–44.
Scanlon, Timothy M. 2008. Moral Dimensions: Permissibility, Meaning, Blame. Cambridge,
Smith, Adam 2002 [1790]. The Theory of Moral Sentiments, ed. Knud Haakonssen. Cambridge:
Smith, Holly 1983. “Culpable Ignorance,” The Philosophical Review, vol. 92, pp. 543–71.
Statman, Daniel (ed.) 1993. Moral Luck. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Statman, Daniel 2005. “Doors, Keys and Moral Luck: A Reply to Domsky,” Journal of
Sverdlik, Steve 1988. “Crime and Moral Luck,” American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 25,
pp. 79–86; reprinted in Statman 1993, pp. 181–94.
Thomson, Judith Jarvis 1989. “Morality and Bad Luck,” Metaphilosophy, vol. 20, pp. 203–21;
reprinted in Statman 1993, pp. 195–215.
Urban-Walker, Margaret 1991. “Moral Luck and the Virtues of Impure Agency,”
Metaphilosophy, vol. 22, pp. 14–27; reprinted in Statman 1993, pp. 235–50.
van Someren Gréve, Rob 2011. “Wishful Thinking in Moral Theorizing: Comment on
Enoch,” Utilitas, vol. 23, pp. 447–50.
Williams, Bernard 1976. “Moral Luck,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, suppl. vol. 50,
pp. 115–36; reprinted in a revised version in his Moral Luck, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1981, pp. 20–39; and in Statman 1993, pp. 35–55.
Wolf, Susan 2000. “The Moral of Moral Luck,” Philosophical Exchange, vol. 31, pp. 4–19;
reprinted in Cheshire Calhoun (ed.), Setting the Moral Compass: Essays by Women
Philosophers, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 113–27.
12
Zimmerman, Michael 1987. “Luck and Moral Responsibility,” Ethics, vol. 97, pp. 374–86;
reprinted in Statman 1993, pp. 217–33.
Zimmerman, Michael 2002. “Taking Luck Seriously,” The Journal of Philosophy, vol. 99,
pp. 553–76.
FURTHER READINGS
Dan-Cohen, Meir 2008. “Luck and Identity,” Theoretical Inquiries in Law, vol. 9, pp. 1–22.
Davis, Michael 1986. “Why Attempts Deserve Less Punishment than Complete Crimes,” Law
and Philosophy, vol. 5, pp. 1–32.
Domsky, Darren 2005. “Tossing the Rotten Thing Out: Eliminating Bad Reasons Not to Solve
the Problem of Moral Luck,” Philosophy, vol. 80, pp. 531–41.
Duff, R. Anthony 1990. “Auctions, Lotteries and the Punishment of Attempts,” Law and
Gardner, John 2004. “The Wrongdoing that Gets Results,” Philosophical Perspectives, vol. 18,
pp. 53–88.
Honore, Tony 1988. “Responsibility and Luck,” The Law Quarterly Review, vol. 104,
pp. 530–53.
Keating, Gregory C. 2006. “Strict Liability and the Mitigation of Moral Luck,” Journal of
Ethics and Social Philosophy, vol. 2, no. 1. At www.jesp.org.
Kessler, Kimberly D. 1994. “The Role of Luck in the Criminal Law,” University of Pennsylvania
Lewis, David 1989. “The Punishment that Leaves Something to Chance,” Philosophy and
Moore, Adrian, W. 1990 “A Kantian View of Moral Luck,” Philosophy, vol. 65, pp. 297–321.
Otsuka, Michael 2009. “Moral Luck: Optional, Not Brute,” Philosophical Perspectives, vol. 23,
pp. 373–88.
Parker, Richard 1984. “Blame, Punishment, and the Role of Result,” American Philosophical
Pritchard, Duncan 2007. Epistemic Luck. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ripstein, Arthur 2008. “Closing the Gap,” Theoretical Inquiries in Law, vol. 9, pp. 61–95.
Schroeder, Christopher H. 1995. “Causation, Compensation, and Moral Responsibility,” in
David G. Owen (ed.), Philosophical Foundations of Tort Law. Oxford: Clarendon,
pp. 347–61.
Schulhofer, Stephen J. 1974. “Harm and Punishment: A Critique of Emphasis on the Results
of Conduct in the Criminal Law,” University of Pennsylvania Law Review, vol. 122,
pp. 1497–607.
Shachar, Yoram 1987. “The Fortuitous Gap in Law and Morality,” Criminal Justice Ethics,
vol. 6, pp. 12–36.
Sorensen, Roy A. 1998 “Logical Luck,” The Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 48, pp. 319–34.
Statman, Daniel 1993. “Introduction,” in Daniel Statman (ed.), Moral Luck. Albany:
State University of New York Press, pp. 1–34.
Statman, Daniel 1997. “The Time to Punish and the Problem of Moral Luck,” Journal of
Applied Philosophy, vol. 14, pp. 129–35.
Waldron, Jeremy 1995. “Moments of Carelessness and Massive Loss,” in David G. Owen (ed.),
Philosophical Foundations of Tort Law. Oxford: Clarendon, pp. 387–408.
13
Wallace, R. Jay forthcoming. “Regret, Justification, and Value: Reflections on Themes from ‘Moral
Luck,’ ” forthcoming in Ulrike Heuer and Gerald Lang (eds.), Luck, Value and Commitment:
Themes from the Ethics of Bernard Williams. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Williams, Bernard 1993. “Postscript,” in Daniel Statman (ed.), Moral Luck. Albany:
State University of New York Press, pp. 251–8.
Zimmerman, Michael 2006. “Moral Luck: A Partial Map,” The Canadian Journal of Philosophy,
vol. 36, pp. 585–608.
1
Harm
Matthew Hanser
The main philosophical questions regarding harm are, first, what exactly it is, and,
second, whether it matters morally. The questions are connected: whether harm has
moral significance must surely depend, at least in part, upon how it is understood.
Not every moral theory assigns fundamental significance to harm. According to act
utilitarianism, the right action to perform is the one that would result in the great-
est sum of well-being among sentient creatures (see utilitarianism; well-being).
The theory attributes no independent significance to how actions affect particular
individuals. Furthermore, even if a utilitarian were to take an interest in a particular
individual’s fate, he would ask only which of the available actions would be best for
that individual. He would not care whether any of the actions harmed the individ-
ual. If A gives B a small benefit when he could instead have given him a larger one,
he may not harm B, but he does not do what’s best for him either; and, if A chooses
the least harmful option when he cannot help but harm B, he harms B, yet he does
do what’s best for him. There is no necessary connection between doing what’s best
for someone and avoiding harming him. As a first approximation, let us say that A
harms B if and only if one of A’s acts or omissions negatively affects B’s interests or
well-being (see action; omissions). On this maximally broad understanding, an
action’s harming someone is much the same as its being bad for him. If a moral
theory’s interest in how an action affects someone is exhausted by the question
whether its performance is good or bad for him, that theory has no special need
for the concept harm. It need only employ the concept bad for (see good
and good for). It is possible, however, to understand harm more narrowly
than this, and to see the narrower notion as having moral significance. Our more
public actions almost invariably affect other people’s interests, if only indirectly;
and, while we should perhaps always bear these effects in mind when deciding what
to do, many think that we needn’t in general give them all that much weight in our
deliberations. But harming someone – say, by physically assaulting him – can seem
a much more serious matter, morally speaking, than merely negatively affecting his
interests. A deontological theory (see deontology) might well hold that we have
an especially strong reason – perhaps even an obligation – not to harm people.
Likewise, it might hold that we have an especially strong reason – perhaps even an
obligation – to prevent people from suffering harm and to come to the aid of those
who are already suffering it. On such a view, to harm someone is to inflict an espe-
cially important kind of negative effect upon him.
The concept of harm may also play a significant role in legal and political theory.
According to a strong version of what is sometimes called the harm principle (see
harm principle), a state may legitimately criminalize only actions that harm other
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee186
2
people. According to a somewhat weaker version of the principle, a state may

criminalize behavior only when doing so serves to prevent others from suffering
harm. This version is more permissive because the actions whose criminalization it
permits needn’t themselves be acts of harming. (Both versions of the principle can
be found in Mill’s 1859 essay On Liberty; see mill, john stuart). An even weaker
version of the principle holds only that harm prevention provides a legitimate
rationale for criminalizing conduct; it allows that other legitimate rationales may
also exist (Feinberg 1984: 10–14; see feinberg, joel). However exactly the harm
principle is formulated, it is most plausibly interpreted as presupposing a narrow
notion of harm. The principle is meant to place significant limits upon the state’s
ability to interfere with individual liberty. If merely preventing people from having
their interests negatively affected were an acceptable rationale for criminalizing
conduct, liberty would be inadequately protected.
We should be open to the possibility that the notion of harm invoked in the
harm principle differs from that invoked in the moral constraint against harming
and in the moral requirement to prevent or alleviate harm. Yet another notion
may be relevant in civil law, where the question is for which negative effects an
agent may justly be required to compensate others (see torts). When seeking a
more precise understanding of harm, then, we should always bear in mind the
theoretical use or uses to which the notion will be put. The challenge is to find an
understanding that makes defensible such claims as that there is a special
moral constraint against harming, or that there is a special moral duty to aid
victims of harm, or that criminal laws are just only when they serve to prevent
harm to others.
Suffering Harm and Acts of Harming

Before considering how the maximally broad understanding of harm formulated
above might fruitfully be narrowed, we must consider the relationship between acts
of harming and the harms that people suffer. When someone’s skull is cracked, he
suffers harm, and this is so whether the skull-cracking blow was struck by an
assailant or by a falling tree limb. It is plausible, then, to see the cracking of the per-
son’s skull as the harm he suffers, and the assailant’s attack, or the falling of the limb,
as the cause of that harm. So let us say that A harms B if and only if A causes B to
suffer harm. This is not equivalent to the view that A harms B if and only if B would
have fared better had A not acted as he did. Consider an example due to Derek Parfit
(1984: 371–2). We adopt an energy policy that involves burying radioactive waste in
an area that we know will become earthquake prone in the distant future. Three
hundred years later an earthquake occurs, releasing radiation that kills or injures
thousands of people living nearby. Because of the pervasive effects this energy policy
had on their ancestors’ daily lives, none of those affected by the radiation would ever
have been conceived had we chosen a different policy (see nonidentity problem).
It is thus not true that they would have fared better had we not acted as we did. But
3
they did suffer harms when they were exposed to radiation, and we caused those
harms by burying the radioactive material where we did. So we harmed them.
If harming someone is a matter of causing him to suffer harm, the question arises
whether the harm someone suffers can always be understood independently of the
action whereby it is inflicted. Usually this is possible. As already observed, cracked
skulls needn’t be produced by actions. But consider the harm inflicted by rape.
Typically, rape causes a variety of independently intelligible physical and psycho-
logical harms; but one might think that the victim of rape also suffers a distinctive
harm in being subjected to a sexual assault. Likewise, someone who is struck on the
head by an assailant suffers a physical harm that might just as well have been caused
by a falling tree limb; but he is also the victim of an assault, and this, too, might be
thought to be a distinctive sort of harm. These distinctive harms, if they exist, cannot
be separated from the voluntary acts whereby they are inflicted. Falling tree limbs do
not assault people; only agents can do that. But perhaps we needn’t recognize such
harms. To be assaulted is, clearly, to be wronged or to have one’s rights violated (see
rights). And one can be wronged or have one’s rights violated only by an agent –
falling tree limbs neither wrong people nor violate their rights. So perhaps victims of
assault do not suffer distinctive harms. Rather, in addition to suffering whatever
harms they suffer as a result of being assaulted, they also suffer distinctive, non-
harm-based wrongs (Gardner and Shute 2000). If this is correct, it may yet always be
possible to explain what it is to suffer harm without making reference to acts of
harming. If we take this line, however, we must allow for the possibility of harmless
assaults – assaults (including rapes) in which the victim is wronged but not harmed.
And that would in turn require us to reject any version of the harm principle
according to which only actually harmful conduct may legitimately be criminalized.
Narrowing the Account

We began with a broad account according to which A harms B if and only if one of
A’s actions or omissions negatively affects B’s interests or well-being. We reformu-
lated this to say that A harms B if and only if A causes B to suffer harm. Obviously
this leaves us still needing an account of what it is to suffer harm. On a broad
understanding, someone suffers harm if and only if his interests are negatively
affected; and, on a permissive understanding of causation, A causes B to suffer harm
if and only if some act or omission of his figures into a causal explanation of B’s suf-
fering harm. So, if we wish to make the present account narrower, we can do so in
either of two ways. First, we can say that, in order for A to harm B, the causal link
between A’s action and the harm that B suffers must be of a special kind; and second,
we can say that suffering harm is not simply a matter of having one’s interests nega-
tively affected. Or we can say both of these things. Let’s begin by considering the
first option.
There is a difference between inflicting harm upon someone and merely acting in
a way that figures into a causal explanation of his suffering harm. There is a differ-
ence between breaking someone’s arm and acting in way that figures into a causal
4
explanation of his arm’s breaking, and between killing someone and acting in a way
that figures into a causal explanation of his dying (see killing). It is plausible to sup-
pose that, if there is a special moral prohibition against harming, it extends over acts
of inflicting harm upon people, but not necessarily over acts that merely figure into
causal explanations of people’s suffering harm. (We may have moral reasons not to
perform acts of the latter sort, but these are not the acts that the special prohibition
is meant to rule out.) It will be no easy matter saying what exactly it is to inflict harm,
but it surely involves a much tighter connection between agent and harm than is
involved in an agent’s merely figuring into a causal explanation of the harm. But
tightening the notion of harming in this way is not enough. If we have a special duty
to prevent people from suffering harm and to come to the aid of those who are
already suffering it, this duty surely applies whether the harms they suffer are
inflicted by agents or caused by natural disasters. Yet, arguably, we do not have a
special duty to prevent or alleviate just any negative effect on a person’s interests.
Nor is it plausible to suppose that the special prohibition against harming is meant
to rule out the inflicting of just any negative effect upon someone’s interests. Suppose
your successes always make me unhappy, perhaps by leading me to dwell on my own
failures. It does not follow that you violate a pro tanto duty by succeeding in your
endeavors, or that others have a pro tanto duty to prevent me from suffering this sort
of distress. My interest in being spared such distress does not merit the same moral
and legal protection as (say) my interest in bodily integrity. So we still need a
narrower understanding of what it is to suffer harm.
What Is It to Suffer Harm?

The most widely accepted account of what it is to suffer harm is a counterfactual
comparison account: S suffers harm if and only if there occurs an event such that
S would have fared better had that event not occurred. (Some prefer a variant that
refers to the obtaining of a state of affairs rather than to the occurrence of an event.)
In order to determine whether someone has suffered harm, according to this
account, we must compare the level of well-being he actually enjoys over the course
of his life with the level of well-being he would have enjoyed had some event not
occurred. This is still a broad account, since it counts any negative effect on someone’s
well-being as a harm. But note that it is also only an account of what it is for someone
to suffer harm in the long run. Suppose that an event results in a subject’s being for a
time somewhat worse off, but thereafter and for a longer time much better off, than
he would have been otherwise. Over the course of his entire life he fares better than
he would have done had the event not occurred. According to the present account, he
suffers no harm relative to the occurrence of this event – and so an agent who causes
this event does not thereby harm him. Ideally, however, we should be able to pose
the question whether an agent may permissibly inflict a short-term harm upon
someone for the sake of bestowing upon him a long-term benefit. We need an
account of harm that is flexible enough to recognize the existence of a short-term
harm even if in the long run the victim fares better than he would have done
5
otherwise. Let us say, then, that a subject suffers harm at a time, or over an interval
of time, if and only if there occurs an event such that he would have fared better at
that time, or over that interval of time, had that event not occurred.
Just as we need an account not merely of suffering harm in the long run, but also
of suffering harm at a time, so too we need an account not merely of suffering harm
on balance, but also of suffering harm in a particular respect. There are many aspects
or components to a person’s well-being, and a single event may cause someone to
fare better with respect to one of these components but worse with respect to another.
Even if, on balance, the subject fares better than he would have done otherwise, it
may be that he fares significantly worse in some respect; and we should be able to
pose the question whether an agent may permissibly harm a subject in one respect
in order to benefit him in another respect. We should thus modify the account once
more: a subject suffers harm in a certain respect, at a time or over an interval of time,
if and only if there occurs an event such that he would have fared better in that
respect, at that time or over that interval of time, had that event not occurred.
Throughout these modifications, the counterfactual comparison account of what
it is to suffer harm has remained very broad: it still allows that a subject may suffer
harm with respect to any aspect or component of his well-being. But, now that we
have explicitly introduced aspects or components of well-being into the account, we
are in a position to make the account narrower. We can insist that harm can be suf-
fered only with respect to certain aspects or components of well-being. The chal-
lenge is then to say which aspects these are and to explain what is so special about
them. Feinberg, for example, distinguishes between “welfare” and “ulterior” inter-
ests, and he suggests that, for the most part, only interests of the former sort should
be protected by the criminal law (Feinberg 1984: 37–8, 61–4).
Although widely accepted, counterfactual comparison accounts of harm face
problems. First, how a subject would have fared had a given event not occurred
depends upon how exactly the counterfactual scenario is conceived. Consider an
example due to Jeff McMahan (2002: 108). A patient dies of a hemorrhage brought
on by his cancer. Would he have fared better had the event of his death not occurred?
This depends. When we imagine his actual death not occurring, are we to imagine
everything leading up to that event remaining unchanged? In that case the patient
would surely have died soon anyway, of some other complication from his cancer –
and so it turns out that he would not have fared appreciably better had his death not
occurred. It follows, surprisingly, that he suffers no appreciable harm in dying.
Alternatively, when we imagine away his actual death, we could also imagine away
the entire causal history leading up to that event. But this would be to imagine away
too much. The causal history leading up to his death arguably includes his birth –
and so, once again, it turns out that he would not have fared better in the counterfactual
scenario. He would not have fared better had he never been born. Proponents of
counterfactual comparison accounts must find some middle ground here, but it is
hard to see a non-arbitrary way of specifying exactly how much of the history lead-
ing up to an event should be imagined away when we ask how a subject would have
fared had the event not occurred. McMahan (2002: 109) calls this the metaphysical
6
problem and contrasts it with the epistemological problem of how we can ever know
how a subject would have fared in a given counterfactual scenario.
Preemptive harms also pose a problem for counterfactual comparison accounts.
Suppose that A breaks B’s legs, but that C would have done the same thing moments
later had A not beaten him to it. Intuitively the actual event of B’s legs being broken
comes to him as a harm. But B would have fared no better had that particular event
not occurred, for in that case an exactly similar event of leg breaking would have
occurred moments later. According to the counterfactual comparison account, then,
B suffers no harm when his legs are broken.
Alternative Accounts
Various responses to these and other problems are available to proponents of coun-
terfactual comparison accounts (Feinberg 1984, 1986; Feldman 1991; McMahan
2002; Thomson 2011). But the problems are sufficiently serious for some to prefer
seeking other ways of understanding what it is to suffer harm. One option is to
employ a temporal rather than a counterfactual comparison: to suffer harm is to
come to be worse off (in some respect) than one was before (Thomson 1990: 259–69;
Velleman 2008: 242–3). Since this account of harm does not rely upon counterfactual
comparisons, it is immune to the metaphysical problem. It can also accommodate
the existence of preemptive harms: someone comes to be worse off if his legs are
broken, and this remains true even if another agent would have broken them had
the actual agent not done so first. But the view faces problems of its own. First, it is
hard to see how it can account for death’s ever being a harm: if the dead fare neither
well nor badly, then dying can’t make one worse off than one was before. (Ancient
arguments to the effect that death is never a harm are discussed elsewhere – see
death.) The view also seems unable to account for the existence of preventive
harms. Suppose that B is suffering from a debilitating condition and that A prevents
B from receiving a cure. B’s condition does not get any worse – he does not come to
be worse off than he was before – but surely A harms him by acting as he does.
Indeed, a subject may suffer harm even though his well-being improves in every
respect. If B’s debilitating condition improves, but would have improved even more
had A not prevented this from happening, then, once again, A harms him by acting
as he does. The counterfactual comparison account, by contrast, has no difficulty
accommodating the existence of preventive harms. Even when the victim of a pre-
ventive harm is not made worse off than he was before, he is made worse off than he
would have been otherwise.
Whether the relevant comparison is temporal or counterfactual, comparative
accounts hold that, in order to suffer harm, one need only be made worse off (in
some respect) than one was before, or than one would have been otherwise. It doesn’t
matter how badly off one comes to be in absolute terms. But, while it may be bad for
a person to become a little less fabulously well off than he was before or than he
would have been otherwise, we might question whether such a person should be said
to suffer harm. Do we have as strong a reason to prevent people from suffering such
7
losses as we do to prevent them from being put into non-comparatively bad condi-
tions? Motivated in part by such thoughts, a more radical alternative to counterfac-
tual comparison accounts abandons comparisons entirely and holds that harms are
certain non-comparatively bad states or conditions (Shiffrin 1999; Harman 2004;
see good and better). Perhaps these states or conditions are intrinsically bad
(see intrinsic value); perhaps they are bad relative to some standard or norm; or
perhaps they are bad in virtue of satisfying some other condition, not yet specified.
Like temporal comparison accounts, non-comparative accounts are immune to the
metaphysical problem. And, like temporal comparison accounts, they can accom-
modate the existence of preemptive harms: if a subject is in the right sort of bad
condition, he suffers harm whether or not another agent would have put him into
that state had the actual agent not done so first. But, unlike temporal comparison
accounts, non-comparative accounts can accommodate the existence of (some) pre-
ventive harms. If an agent prevents someone’s non-comparatively bad state from
being improved, he can be said to cause the continuation of the harm the person was
already suffering. But death seems still to pose a problem, since being dead seems
not to be a non-comparatively bad state or condition. And should we really deny that
someone whose condition has been seriously worsened has thereby been harmed,
just because his condition is not yet bad in absolute terms? Perhaps, when we must
choose which victims of harm to aid, we should take into consideration their abso-
lute levels of well-being, and not just how much worse off they are than they were
before, or than they would have been otherwise; but it doesn’t follow that those who
are still doing well in absolute terms haven’t suffered genuine harms in being reduced
to their current levels. Likewise, it does not follow that those who are already doing
well suffer no harm when they are prevented from doing even better.
An even more radical alternative is to deny that suffering harm consists in being
in a bad state or condition at all. Perhaps suffering harm is rather a matter of under-
going a certain sort of event (Hanser 2008). Paradigmatic harms might then include
losses, either partial or complete, of one’s physical or mental capacities. Such an
event-based account of harm would share the virtues of temporal comparison
accounts. Yet, unlike temporal comparison accounts, it could accommodate death as
a harm, since dying involves losing one’s capacities. It could also accommodate the
existence of preventive harms, so long as the event of being prevented from receiving
a benefit is also counted as a harm. There are, however, costs to denying that suffering
harm consists in being in a bad state. When a subject loses a capacity to some degree,
he is typically thereby put into a deprived state; and we generally think that the
longer that deprived state lasts, the more serious the harm he suffers. But if the harm
he suffers is simply the event of his losing the capacity and not his resulting deprived
state, it is hard to see why the severity of the harm he suffers should vary with the
duration of the state (Thomson 2011).
See also: action; death; deontology; feinberg, joel; good and better;
good and good for; harm principle; intrinsic value; killing; mill, john
8
stuart; nonidentity problem; omissions; rights; torts; utilitarianism;

well-being
REFERENCES
Feinberg, Joel 1984. Harm to Others. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Feinberg, Joel 1986. “Wrongful Life and the Counterfactual Element in Harming,” Social
Feldman, Fred 1991. “Some Puzzles About the Evil of Death,” Philosophical Review, vol. 100,
pp. 205–27.
Gardner, John, and Stephen Shute 2000. “The Wrongness of Rape,” in Jeremy Horder
(ed.), Oxford Essays in Jurisprudence, 4th series. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
pp. 193–217.
Hanser, Matthew 2008. “The Metaphysics of Harm,” Philosophy and Phenomenological
Harman, Elizabeth 2004. “Can We Harm and Benefit in Creating?” Philosophical Perspectives,
vol. 18, pp. 89–113.
McMahan, Jeff 2002. The Ethics of Killing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Shiffrin, Seana 1999. “Wrongful Life, Procreative Responsibility, and the Significance of
Harm,” Legal Theory, vol. 5, pp. 117–48.
Thomson, Judith Jarvis 1990. The Realm of Rights. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Thomson, Judith Jarvis 2011. “More on the Metaphysics of Harm,” Philosophy and
Velleman, J. David 2008. “Persons in Prospect,” Philosophy & Public Affairs, vol. 36,
pp. 221–88.
FURTHER READINGS
Broome, John 1993. “Goodness is Reducible to Betterness: The Evil of Death is the Value of
Life,” in Peter Koslowski and Yuichi Shionoya (eds.), The Good and the Economical.
Berlin: Springer-Verlag, pp. 70–86. (Reprinted in Broome, John 1999. Ethics out of
Economics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.)
Hanser, Matthew 2011. “Still More on the Metaphysics of Harm,” Philosophy and
Kamm, F. M. 1993. Morality, Mortality, vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kamm, F. M. 1996. Morality, Mortality, vol. 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kamm, F. M. 2007. Intricate Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Norcross, Alastair 2005. “Harming in Context,” Philosophical Studies, vol. 123, pp. 149–73.
1
Human Subjects, Research Use of

Robert Wachbroit
It is difficult to imagine the achievements of scientific medicine in the last century

without the practice and findings of human experimentation. Even with research on
animals or the use of sophisticated computer models, our knowledge of human
biology has been too meager to allow us to forgo examining how humans respond to
experimental treatments or settings. The scientific challenge is immense, particu-
larly regarding the design and interpretation of experiments. This is because the goal
is to discover (clinically useful) generalizable knowledge from the particular
responses of a limited number of people. And these people might not all respond in
the same way, for reasons we might not even be able to identify, much less predict.
Moreover, characterizing the response might not be at all straightforward. Is the
response a reflection just of the experiment’s hypothesis, or are other factors
involved, including idiosyncratic ones? To rule out plausible alternative explana-
tions of the results, we may need to expand the experimental setup so as to incorpo-
rate controls, placebos, double-blinds, and so on, which we hope will clarify or
disambiguate the data. Human experimentation can thus be a blunt tool in medical
research; but we often have no better.
Two features dominate the characterization of human experiments in medical
research. First of all, the aim of an experiment is not to benefit the particular people
participating in the study, but rather to make a discovery that leads to generalizable
knowledge. This does not mean that researchers are indifferent to the health or
welfare of their subjects. And in many cases a successful experiment will result in
some subjects benefiting directly from their participation; but such benefits are
seen as “merely” welcome consequences of performing the experiment. They are not
part of the purpose of the experiment. Indeed, in many cases experiments are
successful – they generate clinically useful generalizable knowledge – even though
none of the subjects is benefited. The second important feature of human experi-
ments, closely connected with this point, is that, typically, human subjects are inten-
tionally and deliberately exposed to risks, both known and unknown. (Although
valuable research can include simply observational studies, human experimentation
is generally understood to involve an intervention or manipulation of the human
subject’s situation.) In order to determine the adverse effects of an experimental
drug, the researcher cautiously gives it to a few subjects and notes the results. In
order to determine whether treatment A is better than treatment B, the researcher
might administer A to half of the subjects and B to the other half, expecting one
group not to do as well as the other group. These risks, and sometimes actual harms,
are created in order to produce generalizable knowledge. This second feature is the
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee187
2
source of most of the ethical concerns regarding the use of human subjects in clinical
research (see research ethics).
It is worth noting that this second feature can be found in other human
activities – for instance in employment; but there it does not raise comparable
concerns. Someone might work in a factory manufacturing a pharmaceutical for a
medical condition that, as a matter of fact, she will never have. Thus, she will not
benefit directly from the factory’s product. Furthermore, even though the factory
might be deemed a safe workplace, this does not mean that it is entirely free of risks.
Nevertheless, the fact that a worker may take some risks in order to make a product
that will benefit only others is not seen as morally problematic, especially if the
worker receives a proper salary. For more striking examples, consider police officers
or firefighters. They can be exposed to great risks, and yet they are usually not the
direct beneficiaries of their efforts. The firefighter is not rescuing his property,
the police officer is not responding to a criminal act in which she is a victim. These
jobs are seen to be not only morally acceptable, but important and honorable. Why
is serving as a human subject seen so differently, why does it raise distinct ethical
concerns?
The prevailing explanation of why serving as a human subject in medical research
raises ethical concerns is that such experimentation is performed by physicians, yet
exposing people to risk without the aim of benefiting them is contrary to the physi-
cian’s education and purpose. Nevertheless, this is what researchers often need to do.
For example, a large class of human experiments consists in determining the toxicity
of a drug by administering increasingly larger doses to healthy subjects, until a set
number of them are too sick to tolerate any more of the drug. Although one of the
best-known medical mottos is “Do no harm,” this is clearly not a command that a
researcher can follow.
With this explanation in mind, the task of research ethics for much of its history
has been to reconcile the physician’s training with the need for human experimenta-
tion. This has been done by incorporating the issues of research ethics – including
the ethical treatment of subjects – into the framework of medical ethics and of the
ethical treatment of patients.
Of course, we should immediately note that not all human experimentation is a
matter of medical research. Behavioral or social science research aiming to
investigate some hypothesis about human behavior will often proceed through
experimentation on human beings, which is usually performed by people who are
not physicians. Nevertheless, the same ethical concern – people are being used and
sometimes exposed to risk not for their benefit but for the purpose of generating
knowledge – informs all regulations, whose scope include medical and nonmedical
research (Department of Health and Human Services 2005). The ethical constraints
on nonmedical research are not seen as fundamentally different from the ethical
constraints on medical research. Although nonmedical human experiments might
not have the urgency, drama, or high risk that characterize some medical experi-
ments, as far as their subjects are concerned, these experiments are governed by the
same ethical requirements as medical experiments are. We will focus on the use of
3
human subjects in medical experiments, since the ethical issues in that case are
most striking and vivid.
The Medical Ethics of Research

Of the four canonical concerns of medical ethics – respect for persons, beneficence,
nonmaleficence, and justice – the first has received the greatest amount of attention
(see bioethics; autonomy; informed consent; benevolence). This concern has
been realized in medical practice in two ways. Any medical procedure requires the
patient’s informed consent; and the patient is free to withdraw from any treatment at
any time. These requirements seem to be easily translated to the research setting. No
one can be subject to an experiment without his or her informed consent; and that
person can withdraw from the experiment at any time. Indeed this is precisely the
perspective of the first major statement of research ethics: the Nuremberg Code.
This document was created in response to the atrocities committed in the name of
science under the Nazis – atrocities revealed in the war-crimes trial that was
pointedly labeled the “Nuremberg Medical [sic] Trial”: “The voluntary consent of
the human subject is absolutely essential” is the first and overriding principle
(Nuremberg Code 1947).
There have been interesting discussions in medical ethics over what constitutes
consent, how informed it needs to be in order to be valid, whether legitimate exceptions
to requiring consent exist, and so on. Comparable concerns can be raised in the research
setting. While in some cases it might be more difficult to explain the purpose of an
experiment than the purpose of a standard therapy in medicine, this is not seen to create
any more than a difference of degree and detail. Regarding the requirement for informed
consent, one issue that has received greater attention in behavioral and social science
experiments than in medical ones is the alleged need for deception. For example, in the
famous Milgram (1974) experiments subjects must be deceived: they must be led to
believe that they would administer harmful electric shocks to other people, since the
experiment tests whether they will do it simply at the request of the person who con-
ducts the experiment. Such deception is a clear violation of the informed consent
requirement. The controversy is whether the value of the resulting knowledge
justifies making an exception to that requirement.
More important is the requirement that all informed consent for human
experimentation include the acknowledgment that what is being proposed is
research and not therapy. The aim of the research is to discover generalizable
knowledge, not to offer therapy to the research participant. Failure to acknowl-
edge this difference is sometimes called “the therapeutic misconception” (Miller
and Brody 2003).
To be clear, the therapeutic misconception arises when the subject believes that he
is being treated rather than experimented upon: he believes that he is being treated
as a patient, that the researcher is acting as if she were his physician, and that the
procedure is being performed with the aim to make him better. The therapeutic
misconception can also apply to the researcher, if she is confusing experimenting on
4
her subject with treating her patient. The therapeutic misconception must be
avoided, since it undermines the validity of the subject’s consent; but this does not
mean that researchers and subjects must have the same aims. Even though an exper-
iment does not aim to give a therapeutic benefit to any particular participant, there
is often some chance that it will. Consequently a person could agree to participate in
an experiment knowing that it is an experiment and not a form of therapy, and yet
hoping to benefit therapeutically from this participation. Many people agree to be
subjects precisely because participating in an experiment may offer them the best
chance of an improvement in their medical condition. When no treatment is avail-
able, the possibility of a therapeutic benefit might be worth the risk of participating
in an experiment. Such intentions do not involve the therapeutic misconception,
nor do they necessarily invalidate consent.
The applicability of the medical model becomes problematic when we turn to the
concerns of beneficence and nonmaleficence. How are these to be translated into the
research setting, since researchers do not aim to benefit their subjects or to avoid
harming them? This problem has come to be understood as the problem of what
constitutes reasonable or acceptable risk.
Acceptable risk
It makes little sense to assess risks without considering benefits (see risk). In some
cases we might be able to quantify a risk in the light of an expected harm – the
probability of the harm, multiplied by the amount of the harm. We might also be
able to identify significant psychological attitudes toward the risk in question – such
as dread, salience, control, and so on. Nevertheless, such determinations do not, on
their own, indicate whether the risk is large, small, excessive, or minimal – in short,
whether the risk is reasonable or acceptable. Judgments of this kind can only be
made by considering the expected benefits as well.
All procedures in medical practice carry some degree of risk. We determine
whether the risks a patient undergoes are acceptable by weighing them against the
expected benefits that the same patient will receive – that is, against the probability
of the benefit, multiplied by the amount of the benefit. In medicine, acceptable risk
means that the expected benefits for a patient outweigh the expected harms to the
same patient.
Determining acceptable risk in a research setting is different in two significant
ways. First, we are much more ignorant about the nature of the harms and their
likelihood; this is partly why we are undertaking the research. Second, and perhaps
more important, the acceptability of risk now involves a comparison between the
risks that the subjects are exposed to and the benefits of acquiring the generalized
knowledge that the research hopes to acquire. While in medicine the risks a patient
undergoes are justified by the (therapeutic) benefits that the same patient can be
reasonably expected to receive, in research the risks that a human subject undergoes
are justified by the knowledge that will be generated. Even though, as we have noted,
some human subjects might benefit therapeutically from participating in a particular
5
protocol, offering such benefits is not the aim or justification of the experiment.
Medical practice and medical research require fundamentally different kinds of
trade-offs.
This last point can be made clearer by looking at some efforts to minimize the
difference. Much of clinical research is organized to proceed through three phases.
Phase I consists in investigating only the safety or toxicity of the experimental drug
or treatment. Phase II consists in determining whether the drug or treatment has
any therapeutic benefit. Phase III consists in comparing the experimental drug or
treatment with the current treatment (or with a placebo, if there is no treatment) in
order to determine how therapeutically effective the new drug or treatment is.
Consequently, Phase III experiments typically involve giving the experimental treat-
ment to one group of subjects, and the standard treatment or a placebo to the other
half. Some commentators have asked: How can a physician ask someone to forgo the
standard treatment of her medical condition and submit herself to an experiment?
Doesn’t that go against the physician’s duty to treat the patient’s medical problem to
the best of her ability and knowledge? Wouldn’t a physician whose prescribed treat-
ment was based on random assignment, or who didn’t even know the treatment
because of double-blinding, be guilty of malpractice?
The standard reply is to appeal either to the doctrine of therapeutic equipoise
or to the doctrine of clinical equipoise (Freedman 1987). If the thinking of the
individual researcher–physician is evenly divided between possible outcomes (ther-
apeutic equipoise), or if there is no consensus in the medical community over
whether the experimental treatment is superior to the current treatment (clinical
equipoise) – in other words, if the two arms of the study are in equipoise – then the
researcher–physician is not knowingly giving the subject–patient the worse
treatment regardless of which treatment she administers. According to therapeutic
equipoise, she is not going against her better clinical judgment. According to clinical
equipoise, she is not in conflict with the consensus in the medical community. On
either version, the researcher’s actions are consistent with the physician’s duties.
There have been many objections raised against therapeutic or clinical equipoise
(Miller and Brody 2003). Perhaps the most significant is the objection that
the doctrine cannot be applied to Phase I or Phase II experiments, which consti-
tute the vast majority of experiments performed. In most cases, until Phase II is
complete, there is little if any evidence of any therapeutic effect, and so little empirical
basis for the researcher or the medical community to be divided (Wachbroit 2010).
More interesting for our discussion, however, is the general idea underlying the doc-
trine. As far as risks are concerned, the researcher must act as if she were the sub-
ject’s physician and he her patient; the researcher can allow risks in the research
setting only insofar as a physician, in accordance with a physician’s duties, can allow
these risks in the clinical setting. But this idea completely ignores that the clinical
setting and the research setting are different and that the physician and the researcher
have different aims. Even though the same person might be a physician and a
researcher, that does not entail that her practicing medicine and her performing
research have the same aim.
6
Different aims can affect the acceptability of risk. For example, although a blood
draw in a healthcare setting carries some risk, it is regarded as an acceptable, per-
haps even a minimal risk. However, suppose someone at a party performed blood
draws simply for (admittedly bizarre) entertainment. Regardless of that person’s
skill, we are not likely to regard the blood draws performed for entertainment as an
acceptable risk. The point is that a procedure that is of acceptable risk in a clinical
setting is not thereby of acceptable risk in a different setting (such as that of research).
An argument for it is needed; and this is because aims matter.
Whether the risks a participant will undergo in an experiment are acceptable
depends upon the knowledge that the experiment is expected to yield. How is this
risk–knowledge assessment to be made? We have no agreed metric for determining
whether some piece of knowledge is greater or better than another. We can say that
knowledge about a fatal disease is more significant than knowledge about a mild
discomfort, but we have no idea how to quantify that difference. We cannot appeal
to the consequences or applications of knowledge, since we often cannot determine
them until after the fact and in the context of obtaining other pieces of knowledge.
Thus there is no accepted algorithm for making these assessments, but rather a call
for judgment, taking into account the significance of the subject matter and the
opportunities that the knowledge might generate.
Given this difficulty in determining whether the risks are acceptable in relation
to the knowledge that would be obtained, it is not surprising that some writers do
not discuss risk–knowledge assessment directly, but treat the assessment as two
separate questions instead. First comes the question of whether the knowledge
obtained from the experiment has scientific and social merit. This is understood as
a yes/no question. Its purpose is to rule out frivolous or poorly designed experiments.
The second question is whether the risks to the subjects are excessive. But, as we
noted earlier, we can’t determine whether a risk is excessive outside of a consideration
of the expected benefits – in this case, knowledge. We can of course require that
there be no unnecessary risks – that the experiment should not include risky
procedures that could be eliminated without invalidating the experiment. We can
also require that no other experiment be available that investigates the same
scientific hypothesis and is less risky. None of these considerations, however,
determines whether the risk is excessive. A risk–knowledge assessment seems
unavoidable (Emanuel et al. 2000).
Acceptable risk in research is generally understood to cover more than just the
trade-off between the risks subjects are exposed to and the knowledge obtained. A dif-
ferent set of considerations results in a different kind of risk assessment, one that com-
pares the risks subjects are exposed to against the potential benefits subjects receive.
These benefits could range from an altruistic satisfaction in supporting clinical research
to receiving personal medical benefits or other rewards. Whereas the risk–knowledge
assessment is done from the perspective of society, this risk–benefit assessment is done
from the subject’s perspective. That is to say, the former assessment addresses whether
the experiment is acceptable from society’s point of view, the latter assessment addresses
whether the experiment is acceptable from the subject’s point of view.
7
(The contrast between risk–knowledge assessment and risk–benefit assessment is

sometimes invoked in a component analysis of risk, where experimental procedures
are divided into therapeutic and non-therapeutic procedures [Weijer 2000].
Nevertheless, the contrast can be drawn without subscribing to that analysis of risk.
For a critique of the component analysis of risk, see Wendler and Miller 2008 and
Rid and Wendler 2010.)
Arguably, a strict adherence to the distinction between research and therapy
entails that the acceptability of an experiment’s risk should not depend upon the
benefits, particularly the therapeutic benefits, that people participating in the exper-
iment might receive. These benefits and the associated risk–benefit assessments are
of course important to the people who consider participating in an experiment, and
they inform the validity of an individual’s consent to participate. But to take these
benefits into account in determining the acceptability of the experiment’s risk
undermines the contrast between research and therapy. The primary purpose of an
experiment is not to provide therapeutic benefits, and so the experiment should not
be assessed by the extent to which it does that. Experiments can be successful and
important even though the subjects receive no therapeutic benefit. Consider, for
example, an experiment that demonstrates that a popular but risky folk remedy has
no efficacy.
That said, research regulations and the institutions charged with determining the
acceptability of an experiment’s risk – institutional review boards (IRBs) or research
ethics committees (RECs) – consider both types of risk assessments as part of their
duty to protect people who participate in experiments. For example, according to
the US Code of Federal Regulations (Department of Health and Human Services,
2005), if the participants are children and the risks are greater than minimal, then
the risks are not deemed acceptable unless the experiment holds out the prospect of
therapeutic benefits to the participants (46.405). (It is perhaps worth noting that the
consideration of these benefits can be overridden if the risk–knowledge assessment
is sufficiently favorable and deemed to be so by the Secretary of Health and Human
Services.) It’s not clear whether this mixture of assessments, this departure from
pure research considerations, represents a realistic appreciation of the blurring of
research and therapy or reflects a confusion.
Risk–knowledge assessments and (the subject’s) risk–benefit assessments can
easily diverge. An individual might rationally want to participate in a particular
experiment because, despite the enormous risks, it offers some possibility, however
small, of treatment. Nevertheless, society (the IRB or REC) might conclude, given
the serious risks and the slim likelihood of obtaining clinically useful knowledge,
that the experiment constitutes an unacceptable risk. On the other hand, an IRB
might judge an experiment to be worthwhile and of acceptable risk. Nevertheless,
the researchers might have difficulty recruiting people to be subjects or particpants
because, from the participant’s point of view, the risks might not be worth
undertaking. It might be thought that when the experiments are indeed worthwhile
this divergence could be overcome through the provision of extra benefits as
incentives to participate. The standard framework in research ethics, however,
8
blocks such a move by placing restrictions on what benefits are acceptable to con-
sider from the participant’s perspective – in other words, on what benefits are
acceptable for an experiment or researcher to provide.
Acceptable benefits
The benefits a person might receive from participating in an experiment can be
divided into direct and indirect ones: the former are therapeutic benefits that the
subject receives as a result of participating in the experiment, the latter are any other
benefits that the subject receives – for instance increased medical attention, further
healthcare benefits, financial compensation, and the like. The amount of direct
benefits a particular experiment could yield will depend upon the details of what the
experiment’s hypothesis is and how it is being investigated. The amount of indirect
benefits shows no such dependence. Thus the participant might receive a direct
benefit if the experimental drug turns out to be efficacious and the participant is
part of the treatment group as opposed to the control group. But the amount and
kind of indirect benefits the participant receives will depend upon factors external
to the hypothesis – such as what the researcher (or the sponsor of the research)
agrees to give to people who participate in the experiment.
A rational decision over whether to participate in an experiment will consider
direct and indirect benefits, though the importance assigned to different benefits
will vary from person to person. Since indirect benefits are relatively easy to con-
trol, it is possible to design most experiments so that many people would find
assessing risk from the participant’s perspective – the participant’s risk–benefit
assessment – acceptable, if not attractive. For example, the researcher can simply
offer more money.
Because indirect benefits can be easily controlled, the standard approach to
research ethics is wary about them for at least two reasons:
(1) If the participant’s risk–benefit assessment enters into a consideration of the
acceptability of an experiment’s risk, then, as we have just noted, with an appropriate
addition of indirect benefits an extremely attractive risk–benefit assessment
could overwhelm an unfavorable risk–knowledge assessment. It seems that any
investigation – the testing of any hypothesis by any means – could be designed so
that its risk, at least from the participant’s point of view, is acceptable.
(2) Even if we are strict about the research/therapy distinction and hence we keep
the research participants’ benefits separate from determining the acceptability of an
experiment’s risk, the presence of too much in indirect benefits can distort a person’s
judgment over whether to be a research subject. This is unapologetic paternalism
(see paternalism): agreeing to participate in research because there is a possibility
to receive enormous direct benefits is reasonable; agreeing to participate because
there is a possibility to receive enormous indirect benefits is suspect.
The conclusion from either (1) or (2) is that indirect benefits should not count
and that researchers should be restricted in how much they can offer in indirect
benefits.
9
Financial compensation is a paradigm of an indirect benefit. It is also perhaps the

most difficult area of applicability of the medical model and of medical ethics to the
research setting, because there is no clinical counterpart to compensating research par-
ticipants financially, and so there is no discussion in clinical ethics that could be suitably
applied to the research setting. Typically, patients are not financially compensated for
undergoing medical care; nor has anyone argued that they are entitled to compensa-
tion for undergoing medical care. Of course, they might be entitled to compensation
for other reasons – for example on account of the details of their insurance policy. We
do not believe that healthcare providers should compensate their patients financially,
or that those who compensate healthcare providers should also compensate patients. A
better fit would arise if human subjects are not compensated because they are volun-
teers. They should participate out of altruism. (It is a curious omission that no one
seems to argue that researchers should forgo compensation out of altruism.)
The standard argument for not compensating human subjects, or at least for not
compensating them at a meaningful level, is that such compensation might create an
“undue influence.” That is to say, if subjects were compensated significantly, they
might participate in an experiment simply because the pay was good, or because
they needed the money. Such considerations are “undue” because the desire for
money might improperly overrule the subject’s reasons for not participating in the
experiment. Despite appearances, this argument is not so much about the frailties of
human motivation as it is about the nature of research participation. We don’t raise
this worry in the case of ordinary employment. Many people are employed in jobs
they don’t like because they need or like the pay. If the labor is worthwhile and
legitimate, it would be strange, if not perverse, to say that the pay should be lowered
so that no one would do it because he needed the money. Imagine someone arguing
that no one should work in the sewers simply because he needs the money and that,
in consequence, we should ensure the pay is so low that no one who considers that
kind of job would be subject to undue influence through money. Of course, some
might object that certain levels of compensation in research might raise concerns
about coercion or exploitation; but this does not distinguish research participation
from employment, since the very same concerns can be raised there as well. (Imagine
someone proposing a maximum wage law.)
Why is research participation so different? One thought is this: research partici-
pation is not a job because it is a “great sacrifice.” The analogy is with organ donation.
Donating a kidney is a great sacrifice, which can only be acknowledged as a gift.
Selling the kidney undercuts that thought, transforming the noble sacrifice into a
commercial transaction. We place a certain value on the human body, especially the
non-replenishable parts. To sacrifice them by donating them for the right reasons is
consistent with their value; to sell them is not. According to the analogy, therefore,
research participation is a form of sacrifice – perhaps because it is thought to be
demeaning to be treated like a guinea pig – and so participation must be donated
rather than compensated. Otherwise we undermine the value we place on this sort
of sacrifice. This doesn’t mean that no money can change hands. Human subjects
might be compensated for their expenses in participating in the experiment. There’s
10
no reason to aggravate the sacrifice. (Indeed, they might even be rewarded for their
sacrifice; but this can be tricky, since a reward must not be seen as a payment.)
It is not clear how to justify this picture of research participation. One might claim
that research participation is a great sacrifice in that it is demeaning, it diminishes
autonomy, or it threatens some other value; but, given the range of employment that
we regard as legitimate (even though perhaps unpalatable), is it credible to claim
that research participation is so much worse as a job? Perhaps there is a slippery
slope argument in which, if we allow research participation to be a job, we will logi-
cally have to allow something that is clearly unacceptable. But such an argument has
yet to be made.
Just research
In medical ethics, questions of justice are generally understood to be questions
regarding the distribution of healthcare access or, on some accounts, the distribu-
tion of health status (Daniels 2007; Fleck 2009). In research ethics there are two
different questions about distribution:
1 Are the benefits of research fairly distributed?

2 Are the burdens of research, including the risks or inconveniences of participa-
tion, fairly distributed?
The first question is similar to the question about justice in medical ethics, since the
benefits from research that can be distributed are research results translated into
clinical applications. For example, from the standpoint of ethics, there seems to be
little difference between what constitutes a fair distribution of a standard therapy
and what constitutes a fair distribution of a newly discovered and proven therapy.
(There have been discussions, regarding international research ethics, of whether
researchers or their sponsors owe the research participants or the broader community
access to experimental treatment, assuming that such treatment has been shown to be
successful. It should be clear that, in these particular cases, providing access consti-
tutes an indirect benefit, with all its attractions and problems; see international
research ethics.)
The second question – about the fair distribution of burdens – arises in two
different contexts. Consider the following. A company decides to conduct the inves-
tigation of an experimental drug in a developing country because it is easier and
cheaper to recruit the research subjects from the local population, and not because
the experiment addresses one of that country’s health problems. Have the research
subjects or the local community been unfairly burdened or exploited? Could indirect
benefits provide adequate compensation? These questions form the problem of what
constitutes a fair selection of research subjects.
A different context for the emergence of the same question is as follows. Although
everyone arguably benefits from the general practice of clinical research, only some
people take up the burden of participating in it as subjects. Does this mean that
people who do not participate as subjects are free riding, or taking advantage of
11
those who do (see free riding)? Is there a general duty or obligation to participate
in research (Wachbroit and Wasserman 2005)?
These two considerations point in different directions. One asks whether it is
unfair for certain people – those belonging to so-called vulnerable populations – to
participate as human subjects. The other asks whether it is unfair for certain people –
those who benefit from medical research – not to participate as human subjects.
There’s no clear counterpart to these questions in medical ethics. And it is not
obvious that principles regarding a fair distribution of medical benefits entail any
principles regarding a fair distribution of research participation. Insight into the
latter will more likely come from direct inquiry into moral and political philosophy.
The Prospects for a Research Ethics Distinct from Medical Ethics

What are we to make of the medical ethics framework for research ethics? The concerns
about informed consent appear to be sufficiently similar for the medical ethics
framework to be applicable, once the different aims of medicine and research are
acknowledged and incorporated into securing consent. More challenging problems
with the applicability of the framework emerge when we turn to the issue of risk assess-
ment, since the difference in aims between medicine and research points to differences
in the meaning of “acceptable risk.” Finally, when we consider the issue of financial
compensation as well as issues regarding the just distribution of research participation,
the framework is silent, because we are in an area that has no clinical counterpart.
The presence of these difficulties and challenges does not necessarily invalidate the
medical ethics framework. They might be satisfactorily addressed within that frame-
work. But their presence does motivate the search for viable alternatives. One possi-
ble alternative proceeds by acknowledging that research is a profession in its own
right and not merely an activity that some physicians sometimes engage in (Wachbroit
2006). This means that a researcher is not characterized simply as someone who
engages in a certain type of activity and has a certain kind of knowledge. We would
not say that someone who cuts into people skillfully and with good intentions is
thereby a surgeon, and so we should not say that someone who collects data carefully
and systematically in order to test a hypothesis is thereby a researcher. A researcher
who can justify placing her subjects at considerable risk is someone whose activities
and credentials are embedded in a set of institutions. These might include institutions
responsible for publishing research, institutions involved in training researchers (typ-
ically, universities), institutions that oversee research (IRBs or RECs), institutions
that fund research, and institutions of relevant professional societies. Characterizing
this set and how its members form the “research enterprise” is complex; an analysis
would take us too far from the main topic of this essay. That said, we can note some
points that bear on the ethical considerations regarding the use of human subjects.
Central to the institutional perspective is the acknowledgment that trust is
essential in order for people to participate legitimately as human subjects (see
trust). This trust is not necessarily directed toward the researcher – the subject
might never actually meet that person; nor need it be directed toward any particular
12
person on the research team. It is directed toward the research enterprise, though,
admittedly, the subject might not articulate it in quite that way. On the medical
model, the dominant question is how to protect human subjects. Failure here can
mean that the subject is wronged or harmed. On the alternative model, the domi-
nant question is what is required in order for the subject’s trust in the research enter-
prise to be justified. Failure here can mean not only that the subject is harmed or
wronged, but also that the subject has been betrayed. This is in part why, in specific
experiments, such failures can often be considered scandals.
It remains to be seen whether this approach must differ materially regarding the
need for valid consent or for what counts as acceptable risk. Nevertheless, if the
researcher is characterized as performing a fundamentally different role from that of
the physician, the moral obligations toward human subjects might have a different
character and justification from those toward patients. Whether this alternative
yields a more satisfactory response to the other issues discussed – compensating
subjects, distributing burdens fairly – remains to be seen.
See also: autonomy; benevolence; bioethics; free riding; informed

consent; international research ethics; paternalism; research ethics;
risk; trust
REFERENCES
Daniels, Norman 2007. Just Health: Meeting Health Needs Fairly. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Department of Health and Human Services 2005. US Code for Federal Regulations, 45 CFR
46, Revised 2005. Washington, DC. At http://ohsr.od.nih.gov/guidelines/45cfr46.html,
Emanuel, Ezekiel, David Wendler, and Christine Grady 2000. “What Makes Clinical Research
Ethical?” Journal of the American Medical Association, vol. 283, pp. 2701–11.
Fleck, Leonard 2009. Just Caring: Health Care Rationing and Democratic Deliberation. Oxford:
Freedman, Benjamin 1987. “Equipoise and the Ethics of Clinical Research,” New England
Journal of Medicine, vol. 317, pp. 141–5.
Milgram, Stanley 1974. Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. New York:
HarperPerennial.
Miller, Franklin G., and Howard Brody 2003. “A Critique of Clinical Equipoise: Therapeutic
Misconception in the Ethics of Clinical Trials,” Hasting Center Report, vol. 33, pp. 19–28.
Nuremberg Code 1947. At http://ohsr.od.nih.gov/guidelines/nuremberg.html, accessed
February 23, 2012.
Rid, Annette, and David Wendler 2010. “Risk–Benefit Assessment in Medical Research:
Critical Review and Open Questions,” Law, Probability, and Risk, vol. 9, pp. 151–77.
Wachbroit, Robert 2006. “Research as a Profession,” Philosophy and Public Policy Quarterly,
vol. 26, pp. 18–20.
Wachbroit, Robert 2010. “Assessing Phase I Clinical Trials,” Law, Probability, and Risk, vol. 9,
pp. 179–86.
13
Wachbroit, Robert, and David Wasserman 2005. “Research Participation: Are We Subject to
a Duty,” American Journal of Bioethics, vol. 5, pp. 48-9.
Weijer, Charles 2000. “The Ethical Analysis of Risk,” Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics,
vol. 28, pp. 344–61.
Wendler, David, and Franklin Miller 2008. “Risk–Benefit Analysis and the Net Risks Test,” in
Emanuel J. Ezekiel, Robert A. Crouch, Reidar K. Lie, et al. (eds.), The Oxford Textbook
of Clinical Research Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 503–13.
FURTHER READINGS
Ezekiel, Emanuel J., Robert A. Crouch, Reidar K. Lie, et al. (eds.) 2008. The Oxford Textbook
of Clinical Research Ethics. New York: Oxford University Press.
National Bioethics Advisory Commission 2001. Ethical and Policy Issues in Research Involving
Human Participants. At http://bioethics.georgetown.edu/nbac/human/overvol1.pdf,
Wertheimer, Alan 2011. Rethinking the Ethics of Clinical Research. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
1
Golden Rule
Thomas Carson
Roughly, the golden rule says that we must treat others as we would be willing to
have them treat us or, alternatively, that we must not treat others in ways in which we
are unwilling to be treated ourselves. The golden rule entered the Judeo-Christian
tradition from ancient Mesopotamia. The Mesopotamian tradition includes the
following injunction: “Son, that which seems evil to thee, do not to thy companion.”
Shortly before the birth of Christ, Rabbi Hillel said: “That which is hateful to you, do
not do to your neighbor: that is the whole of the Torah, while the rest is commentary
thereon; go and learn it.” By “neighbor” Hillel meant all fellow human beings (Wattles
1996: 49–50). Jesus gives two statements of the golden rule in the New Testament:
“And as you want that people do to you do thus to them” (Luke 6:31); “All things
therefore which you will that people do to you, do thus to them for this is the law and
the prophets” (Matthew 7:12). The following statement is attributed to Mohammed:
“That which you want for yourself, seek for mankind.” Confucius (who predates
Hillel, Christ, and Mohammad) said: “Do not impose on others what you do not
desire others to impose on you.” (See Wattles 1996: 15–67 for these references.) One
of the earliest statements of the golden rule is found in the Hindu Upanishads
(800–600 bc): “Let no man do to another that which would be repugnant to himself;
this is the sum of righteousness; the rest is according to inclination” (Hertzler 1934:
420). Hertzler also attributes versions of the golden rule to Zoroastrianism, the
Buddha, and Lao-Tze (1934: 420–1).
There are several well-known objections to the golden rule that are widely taken to
be fatal or decisive. The first objection is that the golden rule prohibits many acts that
are morally right. Sometimes it is right to do things to others that they don’t want us to
do (and, thus, sometimes it is right to do things to others that we would not want done
to us were we in their position, with their wants and desires). For example, sometimes
it is morally right for judges and jurors to punish murderers. However, judges and
jurors who punish murderers violate the golden rule, because, if they were in the mur-
derer’s place and had the murderer’s desires, they would not be willing to be punished.
Kant regards this as a fatal objection to the golden rule; “the criminal would on this
ground be able to dispute with the judges who punish him” (Kant 1993: 27; see kant,
immanuel). Second, the golden rule permits people with unusual preferences to per-
form wrong acts. For example, it permits masochists to inflict pain on non-masochists,
because the masochists are willing to have others inflict pain on them. The first objec-
tion assumes that the golden rule purports to offer a necessary condition for morally
permissible/acceptable conduct. The second objection assumes that the golden rule
purports to offer a sufficient condition for permissible/acceptable conduct.
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee188
2
R. M. Hare gives the most important defense of the golden rule in recent philosophy.
Hare’s defense is based on his theory about the meaning of moral concepts. He claims
that moral judgments are universalizable prescriptions that are overriding (Hare
1981: 55; see hare, r. m.). He holds that moral judgments are prescriptions or com-
mands. “Lying is wrong” entails the prescription/command “Don’t lie.” To say that
moral judgments are universalizable means that, if one makes a moral judgment, one
is committed to making the same moral judgment about any similar case, unless
there is a morally relevant difference between the cases. To say that moral judgments
are overriding means that a person who makes moral judgments takes the prescrip-
tions expressed by them to override (to be more important than) all other conflicting
considerations, such as considerations of prudence, etiquette, and the law. According
to Hare, statements of the form “It is morally wrong, all things considered, for you to
do X, but, nevertheless, you would be justified in doing X” are self-contradictory.
Hare also thinks that it is inconsistent to say that it is morally wrong (on balance) for
you to do X but still command or advise you to do X (see moral judgment; over-
ridingness, moral; prescriptivism; universalizability).
Hare holds that we must be able to give reasons for the moral judgments we make.
If I say that an action is right or wrong, I must be able to point to some (non-moral)
feature of the action in virtue of which it is right or wrong. The answers/reasons we give
to questions about why actions are right or wrong commit us to general moral princi-
ples. For example, if I say that an action is wrong because it involves breaking a prom-
ise, then I am committed to the principle “It is wrong to break promises.” Hare writes:
[W]hen we make a moral judgment about something, we make it because of the
possession by it of certain non-moral properties … moral judgments about particular
things are made for reasons; and the notion of a reason, as always, brings with it the
notion of a rule which lays down that something is a reason for something else. (1963: 21)
We can test and criticize moral principles by imagining hypothetical cases and
asking whether we are willing to endorse the judgments and prescriptions they
commit us to. Few of us are willing to accept the consequences of the view that it is
always wrong to break a promise, since it commits us to the view that it would be
wrong to break a promise to meet someone in order to render life-saving first aid in
an emergency. Therefore, we will try to come up with better principles, for example:
“It’s wrong to break a promise, unless doing so is necessary in order to bring about
very good consequences or to prevent very bad consequences.” Hare says: “What we
are doing in moral reasoning is to look for moral judgments and moral principles
which, when we have considered their logical consequences, and facts of the case,
we can still accept” (1963: 88; see moral reasoning).
One very important test of moral principles is whether we are willing to accept
their implications (and sincerely endorse the prescriptions they commit us to) for
hypothetical situations in which we switch places with other people. If I judge that
it is permissible for me to do something to you, I am committed to saying that it
would be permissible for someone else to do the same thing to me if I were in a
relevantly similar situation. According to Hare’s test, my doing X to you and saying
3
that it is morally permissible for me to do this commits me to consenting to (to not

objecting to) you or others doing X to me if I am in a hypothetical situation rele-
vantly similar to yours. Hare’s “switching places” test is tantamount to a version of
the golden rule. Suppose that a dishonest plumber claims that it is morally permis-
sible (or even obligatory) for him to defraud his customers and bill them for
unneeded repairs that cost them thousands of dollars. To be consistent, he must say
that it would be morally permissible (obligatory) for others to defraud him and
those he cares about in relevantly similar (hypothetical and/or actual) cases. Since
moral judgments are prescriptive, he is committed to consenting to (to not object-
ing to) others defrauding him and those he loves in relevantly similar circum-
stances. A normal person who is concerned for her own welfare and the welfare of
those she loves cannot do this.
The idea of morally relevant differences is extremely important for the purposes of
Hare’s theory. Often people disagree about whether or not certain differences are mor-
ally relevant. For example, people disagree about whether there is a morally relevant
difference between killing someone and failing to save someone’s life, and about
whether there is a morally relevant difference between abortion and infanticide. Some
have concluded that the universalizability principle and Hare’s version of the golden
rule are useless as principles of moral reasoning, because any application of them pre-
supposes certain assumptions about what sorts of differences are and are not morally
relevant and, in turn, such claims presuppose answers to disputed moral questions.
Hare attempts to answer this objection by showing that one can effectively use
the universalizability principle in moral arguments without making any controver-
sial assumptions about which kinds of differences are morally relevant and which
are not. He says that the only assumption one needs to make is that one’s own per-
sonal place in the universe is not morally relevant. If two cases differ only in that
two individual people reverse their positions and all of the universal properties
remain the same, then there is no morally relevant difference between them. Hare
writes:
Our present argument has no need of a definition of universalizability in terms of

relevant similarity. In this book we shall be appealing … only to exact similarity, and
shall not need therefore to say, before the argument begins, what is and what is not
relevantly similar … therefore we can use hypothetical cases exactly similar in their
universal properties, and differing only in the roles played by individuals. (1981: 62–3,
my emphasis; see also Hare 1963: 107)
Here is a variation of an argument that Hare gives in Freedom and Reason. Suppose
that someone says that it is permissible for him to own you as a slave. You ask if it
would be permissible for you to own him as a slave, and he says “no.” You accuse him
of inconsistency, and he replies that there is a morally relevant difference between
the two cases, namely that he is European and you are African. How can we show
that this isn’t a morally relevant difference without presupposing the falsity of the
man’s moral judgment, in which case the consistency argument is useless for
4
establishing the falsity of his moral judgment? If the man imagines a hypothetical
case in which he is an African and you are a European, he will find that he objects to
your owning him as a slave. This thought experiment about a hypothetical case
reveals the inconsistency of his view.
Hare has greatly influenced recent discussions of the golden rule. Gensler and
Carson defend consistency versions of the golden rule. Carson (2010: 131) offers the
following proof of the golden rule (this proof is a modified version of arguments
given earlier in Gensler 1986, 1996, 1998):
1 Consistency requires that, if you think that it would be morally permissible

(morally right) for someone to do a certain act to another person, then you
must grant that it would be morally permissible (right) for someone to do that
same act to you in relevantly similar circumstances. (If you are consistent and
think it’s morally permissible for someone to do something to another person,
then you will think that it would be permissible for someone to do the same
thing to you.)
2 Consistency requires that, if you think that it would be morally permissible
(right) for someone to do a certain act to you in certain circumstances, then
you must consent to (not object to) him/her doing that act to you in those
circumstances.
Therefore,
GR Consistency requires that, if you think that it would be morally permissible

(right) for someone to do a certain act to another person, then you must
consent to someone doing the same act to you in relevantly similar
circumstances. (If you are consistent and think that it would be morally
permissible for someone to do a certain act to another person, you will
consent to (not object to) someone doing the same act to you in relevantly
similar circumstances.)
This argument is valid: the conclusion follows from the premises. Both premises are
consistency requirements. Premise 1 addresses questions about the consistency of a
person’s different moral beliefs. Premise 2 addresses questions about whether a
person’s moral beliefs are consistent with her attitudes and actions.
Premise 1 follows from the universalizability principle. If it is right for someone
to do something to another person, then it is right for someone to do the same
thing to me in relevantly similar circumstances. Consistency requires me to judge
acts done to others in the same way in which I judge acts done to myself. Premise
2 says that my attitudes must be consistent with my moral judgments. If I say that
it is morally permissible for you to do something to me, I must consent to it. I can’t
object to it, or resent you for doing it, or say that it is wrong for you to do it. If I
think that it is permissible for you to beat me at chess, then I cannot object to your
5
beating me at chess. (I don’t have to allow you to beat me at chess or to want you to
beat me, but, in order to be consistent, I cannot object or complain if you beat me.)
The force and power of this version of the golden rule derive from the fact that, since
we do object to other people doing certain things to us (or to our loved ones), we cannot
consistently say that it is morally permissible for anyone to do these things to others. For
example, suppose that I am a salesperson for a pest control company. I try to manipulate
customers into signing on to a very expensive course of treatment. I lie and tell them
that they have “carpenter ants” in their homes. I also greatly exaggerate the harm that
carpenter ants can cause. This costs people lots of money and exposes them to poisons
in their homes. I claim that it is morally right for me to do this. But I am inconsistent
because I object to members of other professions lying to me to manipulate me when-
ever doing so is to their advantage. I very much object to my physician or lawyer or
accountant or car mechanic doing something like this to me or to my loved ones.
The Hare–Gensler–Carson version of the golden rule (GR) can answer the two
objections to the golden rule mentioned earlier. A masochist who inflicts pain on
non-masochists violates GR, because he does not consent to have this done to him
in relevantly similar circumstances. A relevantly similar case would be one in which
he is a non-masochist who finds having pain inflicted on him very distressing and
objects to others inflicting pain on him. (The people he is causing to feel pain are
non-masochists who object to having pain inflicted on them.) A masochist who
adequately imagines the position of a non-masochist having pain inflicted on him
against his will would not consent to having pain inflicted on him in cases in which
he is in a relevantly similar position. (For more on this point see, Gensler 1996: 99;
1998: 110–12; Carson 2010: 137–8).
GR avoids Kant’s objection about the moral permissibility of punishing criminals
against their will. Kant’s objection assumes that the golden rule commits us to the
following:
[A] If I claim that someone’s doing act X to person S is morally permissible,

then, on pain of inconsistency, it must be the case that I would not object to
someone doing X to me were I in S’s position with S’s desires.
Many traditional versions of the golden rule say or imply A, so Kant’s objection is a
fair objection to many traditional versions of the golden-rule. However, GR does not
imply A; it only implies the following:
[B] If I claim that someone’s doing act X to person S is morally permissible,

then, on pain of inconsistency, I must now not object to someone’s doing X
to me in a relevantly similar situation (among other things, I must now not
object to someone’s doing X to me in the hypothetical situation in which S
and I switch places and I have all of S’s properties).
Hare clearly accepts B and rejects A (see Hare 1963: 108). The difference between A
and B depends on the difference between: (1) the preferences I would have in a
6
hypothetical situation in which I switch places with another person and actually have
her preferences and aversions; and (2) my present preferences for a hypothetical situ-
ation in which I switch places with another person and acquire her wants and aver-
sions. Suppose that I take a mind-altering drug that causes me to become so severely
depressed that I want to kill myself. I now prefer that, if I were to take such a drug
and become suicidal, others should forcibly intervene to prevent me from taking my
own life. However, if I were determined to commit suicide, I would strongly prefer
that others not try to stop me and I would strongly object to their doing so. B (but
not A) is consistent with the view that it would be permissible for others to intervene
to stop me from killing myself in such a case (see Carson 2010: 140; see Hare 1963:
115–17 for a discussion of the issue of punishment).
A and B also have very different implications for cases in which someone tries to
act on immoral desires. Suppose that a Hutu member of the Interahamwe (the hate
group that perpetrated the Rwandan Genocide in 1994) wants to murder his Tutsi
neighbors. According to A, you can’t consistently hold that it would be right for you
to use force to stop him from killing his neighbors, because, if you were in his posi-
tion and had the motivations of a fanatical member of the Interahamwe, then you
would object to being forcibly restrained from killing. B, however, allows for the
possibility that you are consistent in holding that it would be morally right for you
to stop him from killing his neighbors. You might (now) be willing to be coerced
should you acquire and try to act on immoral desires. B gives intuitively more
plausible results than A for these cases and for a wide range of other cases.
See also: hare, r. m.; kant, immanuel; moral judgment; moral reasoning;
overridingness, moral; prescriptivism; universalizability
REFERENCES
Carson, Thomas 2010. Lying and Deception: Theory and Practice. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Gensler, Harry 1986. “A Kantian Argument Against Abortion,” Philosophical Studies, vol. 49,
pp. 83–98.
Gensler, Harry 1996. Formal Ethics. London: Routledge.
Gensler, Harry 1998. Ethics. London: Routledge.
Hare, R. M. 1963. Freedom and Reason. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hare, R. M. 1981. Moral Thinking. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hertzler, J. O. 1934. “On Golden Rules,” Ethics, vol. 44, pp. 418–36.
Kant, Immanuel 1993. Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. James Ellington,
3rd ed. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Wattles, Jeffrey 1996. The Golden Rule. New York: Oxford University Press.
FURTHER READINGS
Allinson, R. E, 1992. “The Golden Rule as the Core Value in Confucianism and Christianity,”
Asian Philosophy, vol. 2, pp. 173–85.
7
Cadoux, A. T. 1912. “The Implications of the Golden Rule,” Ethics, vol. 3, pp. 272–87.
Gewirth, Alan 1978. “The Golden Rule Rationalized,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy, vol. 3,
pp. 133–47.
Hoche, Hans-Ulrich 1978. “Die Goldene Regel,” Zeitscrift fur Philosophische Forshung,
vol. 32, pp. 355–75.
Locke, Don 1968. “The Trivializability of Universalizability,” Philosophical Review, vol. 77,
pp. 25–44.
Singer, Marcus 1961. Generalization in Ethics. New York: Knopf.
Singer, Marcus 1963. “The Golden Rule,” Philosophy, vol. 38, pp. 293–314.
Weiss, Paul 1941. “The Golden Rule,” Journal of Philosophy, vol. 3, pp. 421–30.
1
Marcel, Gabriel
Thomas Anderson
Gabriel Marcel, twentieth-century French philosopher (1889–1973), was often

classified as a Christian existentialist (see existentialism) not only because he was
a Roman Catholic but also to distinguish his thought from that of atheistic existen-
tialists such as Jean-Paul Sartre (see sartre, jean-paul) and Simone de Beauvoir
(see beauvoir, simone de). Marcel was noted for his investigations into lived human
experiences, in particular those like love, fidelity, and trust involved in interpersonal
(intersubjective) relationships (see personal relationships; intersubjectivity).
He was among the first to enunciate the distinction between intimate interpersonal
I–thou relations and impersonal, objective I–him or I–her relations. His distinction
between having and being, his critique of mind–body dualism by insisting on the
embodiment of human persons, his emphasis on the thoroughly situated and
vulnerable character of human existence and the profound influence human beings
have on each other, his criticism of reductive explanations of sensation as well as
his critiques of scientism and technocracy, all were major influences on other
twentieth-century thinkers.
Yet in all this Marcel has almost no references to ethics as a discipline distinct
from other branches of philosophy such as metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and so
forth. In fact, he spends no time discussing any systematic division of philosophy
into different areas of knowledge. This is because philosophy for him is not primarily
an intellectual discipline engaged in by professionals but a personal search which
can be undertaken by any human being who is conscious of his or her deep human
longing for being, that is for something (or someone) which would fulfill human
existence by endowing it with lasting meaning and value (Marcel 1973: 6, 9–10;
2001a: 7, 13–14). Since Marcel conceives philosophy to be a search for values and
attempts to set forth the way humans should live and, especially, the “attitudes” they
should adopt to achieve lasting values, his philosophical reflections fall generally
within what is designated as ethics (2001b: 167–8). Furthermore, since his emphasis
is on the attitudes and dispositions (such as humility, fidelity, and love) that human
beings should incorporate in their lives, Marcel’s reflections on values can be placed
within the contemporary field of virtue ethics (see virtue ethics).
In his search for being, Marcel adopts the methods of phenomenology (2001a: 88–90,
94, 106; see husserl, edmund). That is, putting aside all presuppositions he reflects
upon and describes our ordinary human experiences precisely as we live them in order
to attain an insight into their essential structure and to uncover the necessary conditions
which make such experiences possible. The notion of a presuppositionless inquiry
should be stressed. Marcel insists that he arrived at his major philosophical positions
decades before he became a Catholic (1998: 195). He acknowledges, however, that
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee189
2
centuries of Christianity have stimulated the development of certain ideas (such as the
absolute value of human beings, life as a gift, God as an absolute Thou – to be discussed
below) which might not have been conceived without it.
His analyses of our everyday experiences of values lead Marcel from the start to
reject the position of those (like his contemporary Jean-Paul Sartre) who claim that
values are entirely human creations. For if we reflect without preconceptions or
prejudices on our experiences of values, Marcel asserts, we will see that those experi-
ences are of something or someone appealing to us (often nonverbally), or even
stronger of something or someone that we experience having a claim on us and issu-
ing a demand that we feel obliged to respond to. Values do not compel us, yet we
perceive persons and things having value as deserving a positive response and,
although we are free to do so, failure to offer one does not remove the appeal of their
intrinsic worth but rejects and betrays it.
The following is the kind of experience Marcel analyzes to argue for the objectiv-
ity of values (see value realism). Many people today are suffering immensely from
natural disasters and there has been a worldwide outpouring of assistance to them.
The straightforward explanation for such a response is, Marcel would say, that
people across the globe experience the victims to have inherent dignity and value.
They are felt to possess value in themselves, intrinsic value (see intrinsic value)
that calls for recognition and assistance. The victims’ values are not thought to be
conferred on them externally by other human beings, for such values can simply
be removed by those same human beings.
The experience of the intrinsic worth of human beings is a form of love, for
Marcel, and along with fidelity it is one of those common human experiences that
he frequently studies. When it comes to fidelity, it is simply a fact, he observes, that
many persons promise to be faithful to other human beings and to causes (such
as peace and justice) that they love (1965: 41–54). Marcel is struck by the fact
that such promises are often unconditional, that is, those who make them put no
temporal or spatial limits on them. Whether voiced or not, parents’ commitments
to their children are usually of this type, as are spouses’ mutual pledges of lasting
love, and some people’s lifelong dedication to promoting peace and justice among
human beings. Now what explains someone’s unconditional love and fidelity to oth-
ers, Marcel asks. No doubt the person who pledges unconditional fidelity and love
is aware that risk is involved but, Marcel argues, such a person must also experience
others to participate in, be part of, something or someone of unlimited value. The
only way to explain why persons feel called to pledge themselves without reserva-
tion to others, even to the point of being willing to offer their lives for them, is that
they feel those others to be part of something which contains such overwhelming
value that it demands their total response. Such values, Marcel reasons, must be
imperishable, eternal, and not the creation of arbitrary and reversible human choices
(2001b: 79; 2002: 135, 170–1). Unless unconditional eternal values are encountered
in other human beings, pledges of unconditional fidelity and love to them are
unintelligible, foolish, or fraudulent. But that, he points out, amounts to denigrating
attitudes and behavior that people of all ages have considered most praiseworthy.
3
Marcel also argues that to experience human beings to possess or participate in

overwhelming value is to recognize, at least dimly and tacitly, that they are gifts. To
refer to human life as a gift is to claim that it is not just a freak accident of blind,
indifferent, cosmic forces; it is not “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
signifying nothing.” To call human life a gift is to assert that it is meaningful because
it possesses incomparable unlimited value (see life, meaning of; life, value of).
But finite, mortal human beings can be seen to possess incomparable value and
dignity, Marcel contends, only if human life is experienced, at least dimly and
implicitly, to be not a product of purposeless chance but a gift freely bestowed by a
being which is itself of unlimited value – a being that can only be a loving creator,
which he calls an absolute Thou. Yet because that experience may be faint and
unreflective, it can remain unrecognized and even denied by someone who actually
has it (Marcel 2001b: 22, 118–22; 2002: 135–7, 167).
Since Marcel describes philosophy as driven by a search for that which would fulfill
the deepest desire of humans, namely, something possessing eternal value, and since
experiences of fidelity and love and of life as a gift are experiences of the eternal value
inherent in human existence, it is just such experiences that he encourages humans to
pursue. To put it simply, if we are to live meaningful fulfilled lives we should become
faithful, loving, humble, and reverent human beings. Indeed, he even claims that those
individuals whose fidelity prompts them to give their lives for others must feel that their
sacrifice is in some mysterious way the most meaningful thing they can do and the
fulfillment of their being, not their total annihilation (Marcel 2001a: 165–8; 2002: 77).
There are, of course, many in our day who refuse to pledge unconditional love
and fidelity to anything, for they find nothing and no one to be of unconditional
value. They consider life ultimately to be meaningless, even absurd, for humans and
their world are simply fluke accidents of cosmic evolution whose destiny is eternal
extinction. It is precisely that view that led to the Nazi crematoriums, Marcel argues.
And he introduces his notion of purification to explain why some people apparently
never encounter eternal intrinsic values in human beings.
Not just anyone does or can experience unconditional values, no more than just
anyone can appreciate the beauty of a Beethoven symphony or of Van Gogh’s
paintings. Just as it demands a certain “ear” or “eye” to experience the beauty of that
music and those paintings, so it demands a particular attitude or disposition to
experience being. Marcel is among those moral philosophers who believe that
certain mental perspectives and moral attitudes need to be present in a person if he
or she is to experience eternal intrinsic values (1973: 182–6; 2001a: 9–10; 2001b:
136ff.). One must become purified, he says, which means first of all breaking with
self-centeredness and becoming humbly open and receptive to reality in all its mul-
titudinous dimensions, both spiritual and physical. One of the main reasons people
today fail to recognize the inherent dignity of human beings and the meaningfulness
of human life is, he claims, that they believe science and technology are the only
legitimate approaches to the real (2001a: Ch. 2). Since science in itself says nothing
about spiritual aspects of reality, including values, it is also silent about the ultimate
meaning of human life. As a result those enamored of science see questions about
4
life’s ultimate purpose as unanswerable if not meaningless. Similarly, those who view
the world only as things to be dominated, manipulated, and used by technology have
neither the desire nor the humility to encounter spiritual goods such as the intrinsic
value and dignity of human beings above and beyond their usefulness. Purification,
then, involves openness to features of the real that are nonempirical, immaterial, and
cannot be manipulated. It acknowledges a human being’s deep need for spiritual
goods such as love, peace, and justice, goods which embody eternal values and so
contribute to the fulfillment of human life. At its limit purification is also receptive
to the possibility of fulfillment in an eternal union with an absolute Thou.
Thus Marcel believes that to the extent one is purified he or she will be able to
encounter eternal values inherent in human beings and be able to recognize the
value of the spiritual attitudes (virtues) which contribute to human fulfillment.
Again, that does not mean that all who experience the inherent dignity of human
beings are explicitly aware of doing so. Experiences of being may be so vague
and implicit that many who have them may not reflect on them and may even
deny they take place. Nevertheless, Marcel insists that nothing less than an expe-
rience of overwhelming, unlimited values can explain a theist’s, an agnostic’s, and
even a professed atheist’s unconditional love for and fidelity to his or her fellow
human beings.
See also: beauvoir, simone de; existentialism; husserl, edmund;

intersubjectivity; intrinsic value; life, meaning of; life, value of;
personal relationships; sartre, jean-paul; value realism; virtue ethics
REFERENCES
Marcel, Gabriel 1965. Being and Having, trans. K. Farrer. New York: Harper & Row.
Marcel, Gabriel 1973. Tragic Wisdom and Beyond, trans. S. Jolin and P. McCormick. Evanston,
IL: Northwestern University Press.
Marcel, Gabriel 1998. “Concrete Approaches to Investigating the Ontological Mystery,” trans.
K. R. Hanley, in Gabriel Marcel’s Perspectives on the Broken Word. Milwaukee: Marquette
University Press.
Marcel, Gabriel 2001a. The Mystery of Being, vol. 1, trans. G. S. Fraser. South Bend, IN:
St. Augustine’s Press.
Marcel, Gabriel 2001b. The Mystery of Being, vol. 2, trans. R. Hague. South Bend, IN:
St. Augustine’s Press.
Marcel, Gabriel 2002. Creative Fidelity, trans. R. Rosthal. New York: Fordham University
Press.
FURTHER READINGS
Anderson, Thomas 2006. A Commentary on Gabriel Marcel’s The Mystery of Being. Milwaukee:
Marquette University Press.
Gallagher, Kenneth 2002. The Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel. New York: Fordham University
Press.
5
Gillman, Neil 1980. Gabriel Marcel on Religious Knowledge. Washington, DC: University
Press of America.
Marcel, Gabriel 1963. The Existential Background of Human Dignity. Cambridge, MA:
Marcel, Gabriel 1973. Problematic Man, trans. B. Thompson. New York: Herder &
Herder.
Pax, Clyde 1973. An Existential Approach to God: A Study of Gabriel Marcel. The Hague:
Martinus Nijhoff.
1
Ought
Stephen Finlay
The word “ought” figures centrally in many different philosophical issues. Considered
the normative or action-guiding word par excellence (see normativity), it appears
in many of the most central questions of ethics (e.g., how ought one to act, and what
kind of person ought one to be?), of political philosophy (e.g., what kind of
government ought we to have?), of decision theory (e.g., how ought one to choose
under conditions of uncertainty?), and of epistemology (e.g., what ought we to
believe, and why?). An entire branch of logic (see deontic logic) is frequently
understood as concerned with the formal relationships of “ought” sentences.
Consequently, defining or clarifying the meaning of “ought” is one of the central
problems of metaethics as the study of the foundations of ethics.
“Ought” appears to have multiple meanings. It has a nonnormative meaning,
sometimes labeled “epistemic” or “predictive,” and often interpreted as meaning
probably, as in:
(1) Given his history as a habitual offender, Roger ought to be back in prison
within a year.
This essay is not directly concerned with this sense of “ought.” But many writers
commonly also distinguish between many different normative “ought”s or senses of
“ought,” including moral, rational, prudential, legal, and etiquette senses, as well as
an “all-things-considered” sense or “ought”-simpliciter.
Descriptive or Prescriptive?
“Ought” most famously becomes a focal philosophical problem in the writings of
David Hume, who observed the tendency of moralists’ reasonings to pass from “is”
claims to “ought” claims, and questioned the validity of this kind of inference (1739:
469). The controversial idea that there is an unbridgeable is–ought distinction (see
is–ought gap) is therefore sometimes known as “Hume’s Law,” and is often
understood as a distinction between descriptive sentences and speech acts (“is” claims),
which purport to represent facts or how the world is, and prescriptive sentences and
speech acts (“ought” claims), which are rather aimed at changing how the world is.
A basic issue thus concerns whether the meaning of “ought” is correctly captured
by descriptivism (also known as “cognitivism”), or by expressivism (also known as
“non-cognitivism” and “prescriptivism”) (see cognitivism; non-cognitivism;
prescriptivism). On descriptivism, simple declarative “ought” sentences function
to represent the world as being a particular way, or to report alleged facts. On (pure)
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee190
2
expressivism, their basic semantic function consists instead in the speaker’s doing
certain practical kinds of things, such as giving advice, issuing commands, or
expressing plans (e.g., Hare 1952), and there are no facts about what one ought to do,
except perhaps in some weak, metaphysically noncommitting sense.
Philosophers commonly call “ought” sentences “imperatives,” but this requires caution,
since grammatically they are in the declarative rather than the imperative mood; contrast
“You ought to close the door” with the genuine imperative, “Close the door.” It is uncon-
tested that “ought” sentences are commonly used to give advice, issue commands, or
express plans. But descriptivists argue that these features are pragmatic rather than
semantic, a matter merely of how “ought” is frequently used and not any part of its mean-
ing, as is presumably the case when a sentence such as “I want you to close the door” is
put to similar use (see moral language, uses of). Descriptivism’s opponents object that
it cannot account for the tightness of the connection between the use of “ought” and its
expressive or motivational role, although there is longstanding disagreement over exactly
how tight this connection is. This disagreement often takes the form of dispute over
(i) the conceivability of amoralism, in which an agent makes sincere moral judgments
without the expressive or motivational roles claimed by expressivist theories (see amor-
alist), or (ii) the nature of weakness of will (see weakness of will).
Objections to expressivism arise from the common occurrence of simple “ought”
sentences in indirect or nonasserted contexts, such as disjunctions, conditionals,
and negations. First, when a speaker uses an “ought” sentence in one of these
contexts, she seems not to be doing the kind of thing that expressivism identifies
with its meaning. For example, if Eva says, “It is not true that José ought to close the
door,” she has used the sentence “José ought to close the door,” but she has not
prescribed that José close the door. Second, in these indirect uses, “ought” sentences
are apparently put in truth-functional relationships with other sentences, which we
might naïvely have thought requires them to have some descriptive content. This is
known as the “Frege–Geach Problem” (see frege–geach objection). Contemporary
expressivists think it can be solved.
Conceptual Connections and Philosophical Theories

As a central item of our normative vocabulary, “ought” plausibly has conceptual
connections to many other kinds of normative terms, such as “good,” “reason,”
“rational,” and “virtue.” Many of these connections inspire philosophical analyses of
“ought” sentences, which take related concepts to be more basic than and so explan-
atory of the meaning of “ought.” But in each case, it is also possible to try reversing
the direction of analysis, taking “ought” to express the more basic notion.
Plausibly, what ought to be the case is whatever is best, or most good (Sloman
1970). We return to this connection again in the following text.
Many writers today take the concept of a reason for action (see reasons) as more basic
than the concept ought, prompting analysis of “S ought to do A” as meaning that S has
most reason to do A. One problem here is that if an agent is unaware of his reasons to do
A, then sometimes what he ought (at least rationally) to do is something other than A.
3
Other writers suggest variations on the idea that what an agent ought to do is just what-
ever he would do if he were rational. But often a distinction is drawn between objective
(or fact/reason-based) and subjective (or information-based/rational) “ought”s. Practices
of giving advice raise problems here, since while what an agent ought rationally to do
depends entirely on his own information, the appropriate thing for an advisor to tell him
he ought to do typically depends at least in part on the advisor’s information instead.
Connections to the concepts of virtue and vice or defect are exploited by neo-
Aristotelian views, which propose to analyze “S ought to do A” as meaning, for
example, that S would do A if S were not in some way defective for a member of S’s
kind (Anscombe 1958; see neo-aristotelian ethical naturalism).
The use of “ought” in so-called “hypothetical imperatives” such as “If you want to
stop the draft, you ought to close the door” inspires an instrumentalist theory that
an agent ought to do A just in case doing A would promote his desires. J. L. Mackie
(1977: 66) writes that “‘ought’ … says that the agent has a reason for doing some-
thing, but his desires along with these causal relations constitute the reason.”
A major difficulty for analyzing “ought” by appeal to desires is illustrated by moral
“ought”s, which are apparently “categorical imperatives” applying to agents irrespec-
tive of their desires (see imperatives, categorical and hypothetical).
Taking seriously the classification of “ought” sentences as imperatives, G. E. M.
Anscombe (1958) claims that the meaning of the distinctively moral “ought” is prop-
erly tied to a theistic worldview and the existence of a deity who prescribes laws (see
divine command). Within an atheistic worldview, she argues, moral “ought” loses
its meaning and becomes a “word of mere mesmeric force.”
Linguistic Approaches: “Ought” as a Modal

Syntactically, “ought” is classified as a modal auxiliary verb, meaning that it is always
supplemental to some other main verb. This places “ought” in a larger family of modal
terms, which includes “should,” “must,” “might,” “may,” “could,” “can,” “has to,” and “needs
to.” Although the attention of philosophers has often focused narrowly on “ought,”
important data about its meaning comes both from observing the features it shares in
common with other modals, and from observing the features that are distinct.
A noteworthy feature of modal words is that they appear ambiguous, with several
distinct kinds of meaning. For example, “must” is used to talk about what is morally
obligatory, what is legally required, what is guaranteed by the evidence, and what is
logically entailed. Standard treatments of modals in philosophy and linguistics identify
a core of common meaning underlying the variety of surface senses. Semantically,
they are standardly interpreted as expressing notions of necessity and possibility.
This is extended to deontic modals, such as “ought,” by understanding obligation as
normative necessity, and permission as normative possibility (von Wright 1951).
In moral philosophy and deontic logic, “ought” has commonly been interpreted as
meaning it is obligatory that, and hence identified with normative necessity. (This is
probably incorrect, as we discuss in the following text.) Necessity and possibility
operators are standardly interpreted in turn as quantifying over possible worlds in
4
some relevant domain D. On this approach, must p means that p is true in all possible
worlds in D, while may p means that p is true in some possible worlds in D. The deon-
tic “must” thereby means in all permissible worlds, while the deontic “may” means in
some permissible worlds. The different senses or flavors of modality can then be
explained as generated by different ways of defining D, or restricting the set of possible
worlds over which the modal quantifies (Kratzer 1981). For example, an epistemic
modal concerns what is true in some or all epistemically possible worlds (e.g., what
must or might be the case, for all you know), while a deontic modal concerns what is
true in some or all deontically possible worlds, or worlds compatible with some system
of norms, ideals, or ends (e.g., what must or may be the case, given that the moral law
is obeyed). We can then account for any distinctions of meaning within the deontic
realm, as generated by different systems of norms, ideals, or ends. For example, we
can distinguish between what is necessary or obligatory for being in compliance with
morality (or with particular moralities), the law, etiquette, self-interest, etc.
While having many theoretical virtues, this general framework for interpreting
deontic concepts encounters some difficulties and controversies, such as the
paradoxes of deontic logic (for details, see deontic logic). These difficulties
include some that arise specifically from the meaning of “ought.” Below, we consider
(i) problems about the logical form of “ought”-sentences, and (ii) problems about the
modal or deontic strength of “ought.”
Logical Form
A unified treatment of modals suggests that we take “ought” to be an operator on
sentences or propositions, and indeed it is usual to assign basic “ought” sentences the
logical form Op, expressible as “It ought to be that p” (e.g., Chisholm 1964). A sentence
such as “John ought to beat up Tom” is then to be understood as equivalent to “It ought
to be that John beats up Tom.” However, there are problems with reducing ought-to-do
claims to ought-to-be claims. At least some claims of the form “S ought to do A” seem
to say that S possesses an obligation, an obligation to do A. But propositions of the
form Op, to the effect that some state of affairs ought to be the case, do not seem to
capture this feature. As the passive transformation argument points out, “John beats up
Tom” expresses the same proposition as “Tom is beaten up by John.” Yet, a person can
reasonably accept that Tom ought to be beaten up by John, while at the same time
denying that John ought to beat up Tom, on the grounds that, while Tom deserves it,
John has neither an obligation nor a right to beat him up (Geach 1982).
Some philosophers therefore argue that “ought” has a meaning ascribing to agents
a normative relation to actions, thereby attributing obligations. This is consistent with
G. H. von Wright’s early system of deontic logic (1951), where the “ought” operator was
applied to schematic letters representing action-types; Peter Geach (1982) argues that
the shift in subsequent deontic logics to a propositional operator was a step backward.
Geach even claims that all talk about what ought-to-be has to be reduced to disguised
talk about what some agents ought to do, if it is to mean anything. However, others
accept a logical ambiguity in “ought” sentences between ought-to-be and ought-to-do.
5
A compromise view is that while ought-to-do is a propositional operator, it has an

extra argument-place or index for an agent; that is, these basic ought sentences have
the logical form O(s, p) (e.g., Wedgwood 2006). An alternative solution that tries to
preserve a unified treatment of “ought” as a propositional operator proposes that the
ambiguity is due to the presence of an implicit “agency-operator,” stit, expressed as “sees
to it that.” We could then distinguish between O(S stit: S does A) and O(S does A), and
identify S’s obligations with what it ought to be that S stits (Belnap and Horty 1996).
Deontic Strength
As observed in the preceding text, “ought” is often translated as it is obligatory that,
and interpreted as expressing deontic necessity. It is certainly stronger than a mere
possibility or permission modal such as “may”; “S ought to do A” seems to entail “S
may do A,” but not vice versa. However, English observes a clear difference between
the meaning of necessity modals such as “must” and “have to” on one hand, and
that of “ought” on the other. “Ought” is in some way deontically weaker than “must”;
“S must do A” apparently entails “S ought to do A,” but not vice versa (e.g., Chisholm
1964). Linguists therefore distinguish between “strong” and “weak” necessity. But
this merely gives the problem a name: What is “weak” necessity?
Intuitively, while “S must do A” suggests that doing A is the only permissible course
of action, “S ought to do A” suggests merely that doing A is the best of the permissible
courses of action (Sloman 1970). If so, then what S ought to do might be something
supererogatory or “beyond the call of duty,” rather than something obligatory (see
supererogation). Since “best” is contrastive, it is commonly suggested that “ought”
itself is always relative to some set of alternatives. According to the “actualist” view of
Jackson and Pargetter (1986), for example, “S ought to do A” is true just in case S’s
doing A is better than what S would in actuality do otherwise.
One way of formalizing the notion of a “best” possibility is provided by Angelika
Kratzer’s influential semantics (1981), which proposes that “ought” and other deontic
modals are always relative to a set of norms, ideals, or ends, which she labels an ordering
source. The function of the ordering source is to rank the different possible worlds in
the domain D on the basis (roughly) of how close those worlds come to satisfying all of
its member norms, ideals, or ends. (More precisely, for any two possible worlds w1 and
w2, w1 is ranked as “better” than w2 just in case the set of norms, ideals, and ends that are
satisfied by w2 is a proper subset of the norms, ideals, and ends that are satisfied by w1.
Hence, this semantics yields no ordering of w1 and w2 if each satisfies some norm, ideal,
or end which is not satisfied by the other, which seems a shortcoming of this theory.)
The special case of “ought” still presents a difficulty for Kratzer’s semantics, however,
because she defines normative “strong necessity” as expressed by “must” as meaning
what is true in all the best possible worlds. One way of extending this approach to allow
for “weak necessity” is to suggest that “ought” is relativized to multiple ordering sources,
and that what ought to be the case is whichever of the equally best options by a first set
of norms, ideals, or ends is ranked best by a second (or third, etc.) set of norms, ideals,
or ends (von Fintel and Iatridou 2005).
6
On a linguistic approach to modals, we would ideally like our semantics also to

accommodate the nonnormative or epistemic “ought.” Proponents of a Kratzer-style
analysis make a variety of suggestions of the following kind: sentence (1) in the opening
section of this essay means that Roger’s being back in prison within a year is the “best
(i.e., greatest) likelihood,” or that it is the best thing for us to believe (Sloman 1970; von
Fintel and Iatridou 2008). A competing idea is to take the epistemic sense of “ought” as
its core meaning, and define the relevant senses of “best” in terms of this. Finlay (2009)
proposes that normative “ought” means roughly: what is probable given that the norms,
ideals, or ends are subsequently achieved.
Etymological and Comparative Data

“Ought” develops approximately its modern, normative meaning in Middle English,
having earlier been a past-tense form of “own” – one of many cases of a verb of
possession turning into a deontic modal (consider also “have to” and “got to”).
English is relatively unusual for having a single term with the precise meaning of
“ought.” Von Fintel and Iatridou (2008) show that, in many other European
languages, the concept ought is expressed by constructions that express counterfac-
tual “strong” necessity (i.e., “would have to”), which are therefore ambiguous in
those languages. However, English also provides a near-synonym in “should,” which
seems to differ in meaning from “ought,” if at all, only in being less formal.
See also: amoralist; cognitivism; deontic logic; divine command;

frege–geach objection; imperatives, categorical and hypothetical;
is–ought gap; moral language, uses of; neo-aristotelian ethical
naturalism; non-cognitivism; normativity; prescriptivism; reasons;
supererogation; weakness of will
REFERENCES
Anscombe, G. E. M. 1958. “Modern Moral Philosophy,” Philosophy, vol. 33, pp. 1–19.
Belnap, N., and J. Horty 1996. “The Deliberative Stit: A Study of Action, Omission, Ability,
and Obligation,” Journal of Philosophical Logic, vol. 24, pp. 583–644.
Chisholm, Roderick 1964. “The Ethics of Requirement,” American Philosophical Quarterly,
vol. 1, pp. 147–53.
Finlay, Stephen 2009. “Oughts and Ends,” Philosophical Studies, vol. 143, pp. 315–40.
Geach, Peter T. 1991 [1982]. “Whatever Happened to Deontic Logic?” in P. Geach (ed.), Logic
and Ethics. Dordrecht: Kluwer, pp. 33–48.
Hume, David 1978 [1739]. A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. L. Selby-Bigge and P. Nidditch.
Jackson, Frank, and Robert Pargetter 1986. “Ought, Options and Actualism,” Philosophical
Review, vol. 95, pp. 233–55.
Kratzer, Angelika 1981. “The Notional Category of Modality,” in H. Eikmeyer and H. Rieser
(eds.), Words, Worlds, and Contexts. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, pp. 38–74.
7
Mackie, J. L. 1977. Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Sloman, Aaron 1970. “‘Ought’ and ‘Better,’” Mind, vol. 79, pp. 385–94.
von Fintel, Kai, and Sabine Iatridou 2005. “What to Do If You Want to Go to Harlem:
Anankastic Conditionals and Related Matters.” At http://mit.edu/fintel/www/harlem-
rutgers.pdf, accessed on April 26, 2010.
von Fintel, Kai, and Sabine Iatridou 2008. “How to Say Ought in Foreign: The Composition
of Weak Necessity Modals,” in J. Gueron and J. Lecarme (eds.), Time and Modality.
Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 115–41.
von Wright, G. H. 1951. “Deontic Logic,” Mind, vol. 60, pp. 1–15.
Wedgwood, Ralph 2006. “The Meaning of Ought,” in R. Shafer-Landau (ed.), Oxford Studies
in Metaethics, vol. 1. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 127–60.
FURTHER READINGS
Cariani, Fabrizio 2009. “Ought Is Not a Box.” At http://www.philosophy.northwestern.edu/
people/faculty/documents/OughtBasicFinalCut.pdf, accessed on March 3, 2012.
Føllesdal, Dagfinn, and Risto Hilpinen 1970. “Deontic Logic: An Introduction,” in R. Hilpinen
(ed.), Deontic Logic: Introductory and Systematic Readings. Dordrecht: Reidel, pp. 1–35.
Horty, John F. 2001. Agency and Deontic Logic. New York: Oxford University Press.
Jackson, Frank 1985. “On the Semantics and Logic of Obligation,” Mind, vol. 94, pp. 177–95.
Thomson, Judith Jarvis 2008. Normativity. Peru, IL: Open Court.
Van Fraassen, Bas 1973. “Values and the Heart’s Command,” Journal of Philosophy, vol. 70,
pp. 5–19.
1
Gadamer, Hans-Georg
Jean Grondin
Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900–2002) is the founder of modern-day philosophical

hermeneutics. His relevance for ethics lies mainly in the fact that he relied on Aristotle’s
notion of phronesis (practical wisdom, prudence) to describe the hermeneutic
experience of understanding and in his strong defense of Aristotle’s conception of
ethics, with its insistence on custom shaped by education and tradition, which helped
usher in a rehabilitation of a practical philosophy that does not follow the Kantian
model of a universalistic, normative ethics.
Hermeneutics is the discipline dealing with issues of interpretation. Its traditional
aim is to sort out the rules that can guarantee a true interpretation. The German
philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey (1833–1911) viewed it as important to the human
sciences, since it could provide methodical guidelines that would help secure their
scientific status: what methods should the humanities follow in order to achieve
objectivity? With his philosophical hermeneutics, Gadamer also wants to reflect on
the truth experience of the humanities, and of our world experience more generally;
but he argues that methods alone cannot account for the validity of this experience.
Methods, he contends, presuppose that the results of knowledge are independent
from the point of view of the knower. This model would be inappropriate for the
humanities, since their object matter is one that interests us and that we always study
in light of our historical situation and “prejudices.” Gadamer’s hermeneutics asserts
that the recipe for understanding, and for the humanities, does not lie in the suspen-
sion of the point of view of the observer, as the ideal of a methodical science would
suggest, but in the recognition that the participant is already involved in his or her
subject matter. This vision of hermeneutics has been influenced by Gadamer’s
teacher, Martin Heidegger, who argued that every human understanding is guided
by anticipations of meaning that are rooted in the worry – or question – that we are
for ourselves (see heidegger, martin). We cannot help but be involved in the
matters we seek to understand.
At first glance, what Gadamer has to offer seems to be a hermeneutics – that is,
a theory of understanding – geared for the humanities, not an ethics per se. But
ethics does come to play a paramount role in Gadamer’s project. In “The
Hermeneutic Relevance of Aristotle” – a central chapter of his great opus Truth
and Method, originally published in 1960 – Gadamer finds in the Aristotelian
notion of phronesis a blueprint for the type of “knowledge” or understanding that
is constitutive of hermeneutics (1989: 312–24; see aristotle; prudence).
Gadamer is attracted by the fact that Aristotle saw that phronesis represented “a
distinct form of knowledge” from the one we encounter in science, where we seek
to understand regularities of the outside nature. There are many differences
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee191
2
between the two types of knowledge that elicit Gadamer’s interest and frame his
understanding of ethics.
(1) It first strikes him that phronesis is not a type of wisdom that can be sepa-
rated from the knower. It is not the mastery of a subject matter distinct from us: “For
moral knowledge, as Aristotle describes it, is clearly not a knowledge of an object
standing in front of us. The knower is not standing in front of a state of affairs that
he merely observes. He is directly involved in what he knows” (1989: 314). It would
be meaningless to pretend that we are detached from the issue of the good life, or of
what it is right to do. Here the methodical idea of validity deriving from the inde-
pendence of the object from the knower appears inadequate.
(2) Another important difference is that phronesis is not primarily a matter of
intellection or theoretical knowledge, but one of application: it is oriented toward
the situation at hand and to what it is that I have to do. Moral wisdom is the right
answer to a particular situation. For Gadamer, the inescapable situatedness of moral
wisdom doesn’t lead to relativism – a charge that was often leveled against his
philosophy. One applies here, he would argue, an absolutist norm, which would be
foreign to the reality of ethics. We always act in a given situation. Yet one can also
speak of right or wrong in ethics. But this soundness, in judgment as well as in
action, doesn’t conform to the scientific model of truth and falsehood.
(3) It is clear for Gadamer that the practical wisdom of Aristotle cannot be
described as science (episteme), which is a universal knowledge of unchanging real-
ities. It is a particular “wisdom” of situations that constantly change. It cannot be
understood as a technical knowledge (techne) either: there one would merely apply
rules to produce an object different from us. One follows a techne if one wants to
build a bridge or a table, but the sphere of praxis is a different matter altogether,
since we are part of what is being “produced.” A techne provides a how-to manual,
which explains how to generate this or that object. There is no such thing, Gadamer
holds, in the sphere of practical knowledge. In this he resists an understanding of
ethics that links it to rules or norms one would merely have to follow.
In Truth and Method it is perhaps not all that clear whether Gadamer tries to unfold
an ethics of his own or whether he is only looking for a “model of knowledge” that
could shed light on the hermeneutical experience of understanding – as it is prac-
ticed, for instance, in the humanities. In the humanities also, he argues here,
● the knower is not separated from what she is studying;

● wisdom is not only a matter of theoretical knowledge, but of practical insight
with immediate particular relevance for us; and
● we do not merely apply a set of pre-given rules to a given task, as is the case with
technical knowledge.
In a later essay, “Hermeneutics as Practical Philosophy,” another important analogy

between hermeneutics and practical philosophy is highlighted: “understanding, like
3
action, always involves a risk and is never just the simple application of a general
knowledge of rules … [it] is an adventure and, like any other adventure, is dangerous”
(Gadamer 2007a: 243). Gadamer is clearly after an ethical model that doesn’t only
focus on universal knowledge but takes into account the risk and adventure inherent
in any action.
In a seminal article of 1963, “On the Possibility of a Philosophical Ethics”
(Gadamer 2007c: 274–89), it becomes obvious that Gadamer sees in Aristotle a
distinct ethical model. In what was an original move at the time, Gadamer defended
Aristotle’s idea of ethics against the prevailing Kantian paradigm of a universalistic
and normative ethics (see kant, immanuel). He rehabilitates the ancient notion of
a practical philosophy, understood as a “practical knowledge” that one seeks not
only in order to know what virtue is, but also in order to become good. Modernity
introduced a distance between theory and practice: theory (science) is conceived as
an all-covering explanation of phenomena that can then be mastered. All knowledge
becomes knowledge of the universal, and this also holds for ethics. Yet this poses a
dilemma for ethics: can the universal focus do justice to the concreteness with which
conscience answers to an ethical situation (2007c: 279)? Gadamer believes that it
can, at best, underline the absence of exception to moral obligation, as is the case
with Kant’s emphasis on the self-examination of conscience, which is undertaken in
order to determine if conscience is ruled by the purity of the moral motive. A
conciliatory thinker, Gadamer doesn’t reject Kant’s perspective outright, but he
definitely thinks that it is very one-sided in that it fails to encompass the whole of
our moral experience. Does the essence of morality reside, he asks, in the constraining
character of an imperative command or in the ethos (in der Sitte), in other words in
the “substantiality of the moral order” as it is lived in family, in society, and in the
state (2007c: 282)? Gadamer thus comes to recommend a model of ethics focused on
the lived ethos, as it was espoused by Aristotle and Hegel (see hegel, georg wilhelm
friedrich). The focal point of ethics shifts from the self-examining conscience to
the following of moral custom. This ethics has no qualms recognizing that it is
framed by experience, education, and tradition. Aristotle cares less about the
morality of conscience than about goods and virtues – that is, concrete practical
affairs that make up the true objects of a practical philosophy. He argues (against
Plato) that virtue is not only a matter of knowledge or intellection, but a matter of
what one is; less a matter of conscience than a matter of our being, which has been
shaped by our education and way of life. Aristotle can thus account not only for the
judgment of the moral conscience (which is stressed by Kantian ethics), when he
speaks of deliberation, but also for the “supporting ground” of custom, which
conditions our moral judgment. His key virtue of prudence is less a form of
knowledge than one of being, which discerns what is feasible and what a situation
demands – elements that appear foreign to a Kantian ethics. The feasible is not only
what is commanded by a pure imperative of reason; it is also that which is useful and
thus “right.” Kant’s disregard for the ends and usefulness of action appears unreal.
Practical wisdom doesn’t find its realization in universal concepts, but in its concrete
application when it recognizes what is doable in a given situation. What is relevant
4
here is not to possess the right concepts but to do the right thing. This is why
philosophers, Gadamer concludes with a touch of irony, do not have more phronesis
than others. In sum, Gadamer promotes an ethics that is less concerned with
universal norms than with the conditioned character of human-life situations.
It should be noted that Gadamer himself reflects here on the “possibility” of a
philosophical ethics, that is, on what it should be about. He remains on a general,
one could say “metaethical,” level and doesn’t himself provide any immediate ethical
guidelines. Gadamer always claims that the philosopher is not a “moralist” or a
prophet. He doesn’t preach what we have to do, he describes what is. Practical
philosophy “presupposes that we are already shaped by normative conceptions in
the light of which we have been brought up and that lie at the basis of the order of
our entire social life” (2007b: 263). Nonetheless it does have a practical impact in
that it “brings to our reflective awareness the common threads that bind us all”
(ibid.). Practical philosophy is not phronesis, to be sure, but it can be of assistance in
making conscious “the ultimate purposes of one’s actions” (ibid.). Ethics does not
offer a techne, a how-to manual; it is a philosophy, a quest of wisdom. As such it
remains embedded in the human choice and hope for the good.
Gadamer’s views on ethics are not limited to his actualization of Greek philosophy.
In his work he repeatedly argues that one has to trust the good judgment and the
common sense of the individual, as it has been brought about by tradition, society, and
culture, and he warns against the allegedly superior knowledge of the self-proclaimed
experts in ethical matters, especially those who claim to be perfectly neutral, since
there is no such thing in ethics (we can only find this neutrality in mathematics or in
the technai). Gadamer adopted Socrates’ wisdom, which consisted in the
acknowledgment of one’s own ignorance. This wisdom was also true of Plato’s
philosophy as a whole, he believed – which he had already described in his thesis of
1931 as a “dialectical ethics,” in other words a philosophy that takes into account the
finitude of human knowledge, the idea that we are not gods but mere mortals who try
to sort out the good life as best we can, through dialogue and openness to the situation
as well as to others. He claimed in his last philosophy that the soul of his hermeneutics
lies in the recognition that the other may be right. This can be viewed as the moral of
Gadamer’s hermeneutics.
See also: aristotle; hegel, georg wilhelm friedrich; heidegger,

martin; kant, immanuel; prudence
REFERENCES
Gadamer, Hans-Georg 1989 [1960]. Truth and Method, 2nd rev. ed., trans. Joel Weinsheimer
and Donald G. Marshall. New York: Crossroad.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg 2007a [1975]. “Hermeneutics as Practical Philosophy,” in Richard
E. Palmer (ed.), The Gadamer Reader. A Bouquet of the Later Writings. Evanston,
IL: Northwestern University Press, pp. 228–45.
5
Gadamer, Hans-Georg 2007b [1978]. “Hermeneutics as a Theoretical and Practical Task,” in

Richard E. Palmer (ed.), The Gadamer Reader. A Bouquet of the Later Writings. Evanston,
Gadamer, Hans-Georg 2007c [1963]. “On the Possibility of a Philosophical Ethics,” in Richard
E. Palmer (ed.), The Gadamer Reader. A Bouquet of the Later Writings. Evanston,
FURTHER READINGS
Gadamer, Hans-Georg 1977. Philosophical Hermeneutics, trans. David E. Linge. Berkeley:
Gadamer, Hans-Georg 1982 [1975]. Reason in the Age of Science, trans. Frederick G. Lawrence.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg 1991 [1931]. Plato’s Dialectical Ethics: Phenomenological Interpretations
Relating to the Philebus, trans. Robert M. Wallace. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg 1999. Hermeneutics, Religion, and Ethics, trans. Joel Weinsheimer.
Grondin, Jean 1994. Introduction to Philosophical Hermeneutics. New Haven: Yale University
Press.
Grondin, Jean 2003. Hans-Georg Gadamer. A Biography. New Haven: Yale University
Press.
Hahn, L. E. (ed.) 1997. The Philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer. (The Library of Living
Philosophers, vol. 24.) Chicago and LaSalle, IL: Open Court.
Hollinger, R. (ed.) 1985. Hermeneutics and Praxis. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre
Dame Press.
Michelfelder, Diane P., and Richard E. Palmer (eds.) 1989. Dialogue and Deconstruction. The
Gadamer–Derrida Encounter. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Malpas, Jeff, and Santiago Zabala (eds.) 2010. Consequences of Hermeneutics: Fifty Years After
Gadamer’s Truth and Method. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
Palmer, Richard E. (ed.) 2007. Gadamer in Conversation: Reflections and Commentary.
1
Bluffing
George G. Brenkert
Bluffing is discussed, most frequently, in business ethics (see business ethics), and
even there it is a minor topic. It is unfortunately not discussed in most ethics books.
Part of the problem is that bluffing is identified with business bargaining or
negotiation situations. Examples in the ethics literature typically mention cars,
houses, or bids in poker. But bluffing takes place outside of business (and poker games)
in government, nonprofits, and even in some marriages. Bluffing may also be found
in games and competitive situations not involving negotiations. In baseball, the
catcher may bluff a throw to second base. In wartime, one army may seek to bluff by
constructing fake tanks and designing troop movements in directions other than it
intends to attack. Finally, bluffing may occur in everyday situations when someone
wants something that is blocked or prevented by someone else, and seeks to gain
what he or she wants through some artful behavior, either verbal or nonverbal,
which misrepresents the truth. Thus, a social climber might, by bluffing, gain admit-
tance to a dinner thrown by the head of state and only open to a select list of indi-
viduals. Similarly, job interviewees might seek to bluff their way through an interview.
Accordingly, accounts of the meaning of “bluffing,” such as what Albert Z. Carr
gives in his classic article on business bluffing, are too narrow when they maintain
that bluffing is the use of “conscious misstatements, concealment of pertinent facts,
or exaggeration … to persuade others to agree with them” (1968: 144). Bluffing is not
limited to statements, but includes forms of nonlinguistic behavior intended to
deceive (see lying and deceit). Also, when bluffers make various statements, they
may not be seeking to get others to agree with them, but to do certain things they
want them to do. In general, bluffing is an attempt to get someone to do or to agree
to something through deception. Bluffers try to deceive someone into thinking that
they are going to do something they have no intention of doing, that they know or
believe something they do not in fact know or believe, or that they are someone else
(see Cambridge Online Dictionary 2010).
Inasmuch as bluffing involves deception, it raises ethical issues regarding honesty,
trust (see trust), and manipulation. Can a moral person engage in bluffing? Three
different approaches propose answers to this question.
The game view is defended by Carr, who argues that business “has the impersonal
character of a game – a game that demands both special strategy and an understanding
of its special ethics” (1968: 144). Business and poker have their own rules, according to
which bluffing is both expected and ethically acceptable. Of course, there are limits to
deception in business as there are in poker (Carr 1968: 145). Still, within these broad
limits, one is ethically justified in playing to win by the use of bluffing. Allhoff sup-
ports this view, but replaces Carr’s appeal to the conventional features of business as a
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee193
2
game with a moral argument that legitimates bluffing by appealing to the notion of
endorsement. In the case of business, people endorse bluffing because it is the only
“reasonable procedure for the buyer to lower the sale price below [one’s] reservation
price” (Allhoff 2003: 287). Even more strongly, he claims that “without bluffing, the
idea of negotiations itself almost (though not quite) becomes incoherent” (Allhoff
2003: 287). Many remain skeptical of this appeal to a separate game ethics to justify
bluffing.
A self-defense view (see self-defense) is offered by Thomas Carson, who
argues that, in ordinary situations, when one deals with others who are not cynical
or hardened negotiators, it is morally permissible to “misstate one’s bargaining
position when one has good reason to believe that one’s negotiating partner is
doing the same.” Unless one misrepresents one’s own position, one’s own interests
may be harmed (Carson 1993: 317). In short, one may bluff to defend oneself
against attack by the bluffing of others in negotiations (1993: 326–8). Gregory
Dees and Peter Cramton agree that the justification for engaging in bluffing “rests
largely on a notion of defensive fair-play in a morally imperfect world” (Dees and
Cramton 1991: 144). They base their view on a Mutual Trust perspective, accord-
ing to which “moral obligations rest, at least in part, on a foundation of mutual
trust. When that foundation of trust is absent, the obligation is undermined”
(1991: 136). In this situation, bluffing may be permitted. Still, in contrast to Carson,
they hold that “outside of a few recreational contexts, deception is a regrettable
feature of business negotiations, even when it is justified (or commonplace)”
(Cramton and Dees 1993: 361).
A mutual advantage view is supported by Alan Strudler, who maintains that “no
plausible case [can] be made for the prima facie wrongness of deception” in bargaining
situations (1995: 812). In Strudler’s account, deception “helps solve the problem of
communication shared by the parties to a negotiation.” The benefit it produces is that
“it provides a safe device for indirect communication that both parties may find
useful” (1995: 818). Thus, when negotiating parties are competent and know that
limited deception is permitted, “each party has a fair and equal opportunity to safely
get information about his opponent’s reservation price, and neither party is likely to
gain a large advantage over the other” (1995: 818). In these circumstances, bluffing
“has strong moral credentials” (1995: 818).
The above accounts of the justification of bluffing in business are important
contributions toward sorting out the ethics of bluffing. But they do not address the
broader issue of bluffing. In short, ethicists have not developed a general theory of
the ethics of bluffing. It is all well and good to focus on bluffing in negotiations,
but, as noted at the outset, bluffing occupies a much larger moral space than that.
We require a deeper moral understanding of the role of this important notion in
our lives.
See also: business ethics; lying and deceit; self-defense; trust

3
REFERENCES
Allhoff, Fritz 2003. “Business Bluffing Reconsidered,” Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 45,
pp. 283–9.
Cambridge Online Dictionary 2010. Bluff. At http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/
british/bluff_1#bluff_1__3, accessed May 10, 2010.
Carr, Albert Z. 1968. “Is Business Bluffing Ethical?” Harvard Business Review, vol. 46,
pp. 143–53.
Carson, Thomas 1993. “Second Thoughts about Bluffing,” Business Ethics Quarterly, vol. 3,
pp. 317–41.
Cramton, Peter C., and J. Gregory Dees 1993. “Promoting Honesty in Negotiation: An
Exercise in Practical Ethics,” Business Ethics Quarterly, vol. 3, pp. 359–94.
Dees, J. Gregory, and Peter C. Cramton 1991. “Shrewd Bargaining on the Moral Frontier:
Toward a Theory of Morality in Practice,” Business Ethics Quarterly, vol. 1, pp. 135–67.
Strudler, Alan 1995. “On the Ethics of Deception in Negotiation,” Business Ethics Quarterly,
vol. 5, pp. 805–22.
FURTHER READINGS
Beach, John 1985. “Bluffing: Its Demise as a Subject Unto Itself,” Journal of Business Ethics,
vol. 4, pp. 191–6.
Carson, T. L., R. E. Wokutch, and K. F. Murrman 1982. “Bluffing in Labor Negotiations: Legal
and Ethical Issues,” Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 1, pp. 13–22.
Dees, J. Gregory, and Peter C. Cramton 1995. “Deception and Mutual Trust: A Reply to
Strudler,” Business Ethics Quarterly, vol. 5, pp. 823–32.
1
Nuclear Weapons
Steven P. Lee
Nuclear weapons are the most destructive military technology ever developed.
The original atomic bomb of 1945 was about a thousand times as powerful as the
largest existing conventional weapon, and the hydrogen or thermonuclear bomb,
developed eight years later, was about a thousand times more powerful than the
1945 bomb (see weapons research and development). Within the short space
of less than ten years, the amount of destructive power in human hands increased
a million-fold, an augmentation by six orders of magnitude.
Such an increase in destructive capability was bound to have an impact on our
moral understanding of war (see war). The morality of war is usually assessed in
terms of just war theory, an over two-thousand-year-old Western intellectual tradi-
tion, which, given its incorporation into international law, has now come to repre-
sent our universal understanding of these matters (see just war theory, history
of). The morality of war may also be assessed from other moral approaches, one
important alternative being consequentialism or utilitarianism (see consequen-
tialism; utilitarianism). Consequentialism assesses actions in terms of the moral
value of their consequences, and, of course, the horrendous consequences of the use
of nuclear weapons are morally relevant to their assessment. But just war theory
itself incorporates a concern for consequences in stipulating that the effects of a
military action be proportionate to the good thereby achieved (see proportional-
ity [in war]). The principle of proportionality is one of the requirements of jus in
bello, the part of just war theory concerning how military force is used.
But jus in bello includes another key moral concern, that civilians be spared.
All intentional civilian harm is prohibited under the principle of discrimination
(see civilian immunity; doctrine of double effect). The destructiveness of
nuclear weapons is such that their effects cannot, in general, be restricted to mil-
itary targets, especially when the risks of nuclear escalation are taken into account.
Given the inevitability of a large number of civilian casualties, it cannot be rea-
sonably maintained that this harm is unintended. Thus, under the two principles
of jus in bello, the amount of civilian harm caused by nuclear weapons, whether
deliberate damage or collateral damage, makes the use of nuclear weapons unac-
ceptable (see collateral damage).
It may seem curious that nuclear weapons as weapons should have a significant
moral impact, given the general truth that moral wrongs arise in war not from weapons
themselves, but from how they are used. Consider this adage: weapons don’t kill civil-
ians, combatants kill civilians. This may be thought to apply to all weapons; combatants
choose either to kill civilians or not to kill them with whatever weapons they happen to
use. But nuclear weapons are morally special in this regard. Unlike conventional (that is,
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee194
2
nonnuclear) weapons, their use is not sometimes indiscriminate or disproportionate,

sometimes not, depending on the choice of their user. They are always or inherently
indiscriminate and disproportionate. They cannot, as a rule, be used in a discriminating
or proportionate way. Considered individually or collectively, they are outsized imple-
ments of destruction, uncontainable within traditional military purposes.
A lively moral debate over nuclear weapons ran from the beginning of the nuclear
age in 1945 through the end of the Cold War in 1991, when the dissolution of the
Soviet Union removed the enmity between the two largest nuclear states that had
made the risk of devastating nuclear war such a palpable threat. But the moral prob-
lems remain, despite a decrease in the likelihood of a general nuclear war.
In the debate, the moral understanding of nuclear weapons closely paralleled the
strategic understanding of them. The morality of nuclear weapons is the morality of
nuclear strategy. In strategic terms, it was recognized, especially given the prospects
of nuclear retaliation, that the weapons were, indeed, too destructive to be used in
war. Nuclear policy became deterrence policy (see deterrence). Nuclear weapons
could not be used, as conventional weapons could, to deny the enemy military
advantage, but rather were useful only to threaten to punish an opponent who dared
to use them first. This might seem to remove the moral issue because a policy of
nuclear deterrence, if successful, would harm no one, and indeed might keep a pop-
ulation from the harm of a conventional war that, without nuclear deterrence, might
have occurred. Nuclear weapons were seen by some as the fulfillment of the old
hope (held, for example, by Alfred Nobel) that, if weapons were made horrible
enough, war would become so irrational that it would cease to occur. From this
point of view, nuclear weapons kept the superpowers from war for 45 years, and
have proved to be a great moral success.
But nuclear deterrence represents a serious moral problem in its own right.
Nuclear deterrence threatens great harm to civilians, putting them at significant
risk, holding them hostage to the good behavior of their leaders (not even consider-
ing the risk to civilians due to the possibility of a nuclear war by accident). The
requirements of deterrence do not allow the nuclear threat to be a bluff (see bluff-
ing). Under the principle of discrimination, nuclear deterrence is morally unaccep-
table, even if the weapons are in fact never used, even if deterrence works. Hostages
are morally wronged even if the threats against them are never carried out. The
moral point is sometimes put in this way: the principle of discrimination prohibits
the intention to harm civilians, and this intention (in a conditional form) is present
in a policy of nuclear deterrence. That there is such an intention was evident from
the strategic understanding of nuclear weapons that emerged in the first two dec-
ades of the nuclear age. Each superpower developed the capacity to destroy the other
side as a functioning society through obliterating its largest cities and tens of mil-
lions of its citizens. If one side had this capacity, the other side felt the need to have
it to deter its opponent from attacking. Deterrence was based on a mutual threat of
societal destruction. Both the threat, involving an intention to inflict societal
destruction, and the need for such a threat, were inherent in the capacity. Each
superpower quickly saw the need to make its retaliatory capability invulnerable to
3
destruction by a surprise first strike, making the mutually held capacities that of
assured destruction. The strategic policy came to be known (by its critics and then
by its advocates) as mutual assured destruction (MAD).
To the critics of MAD, the policy was not only morally mad, but strategically
mad as well. Intellectual efforts were made to show that nuclear deterrence need
not be based on MAD in order to show that the strategic and moral defects of
MAD were not inherent in nuclear deterrence itself. One strategic defect of MAD,
according to the critics, was the lack of credibility of the threat. Deterrence in gen-
eral is ineffective unless credible; the threatened party must believe that the threat-
ening party would have not only the capacity to carry out the threat, but the will to
do so as well, lest the threat be perceived as a bluff and rendered ineffective. Critics
feared that the retaliatory threat of societal destruction would be perceived as a
bluff because retaliation could lead to the destruction of the retaliator’s society
when the other side unleashed an additional barrage of nuclear weapons in
response to the response. Nuclear threats under MAD are like a parent threatening
to burn the house down if his child does not eat her vegetables; the threat may not
be effective because the child would perceive it as a bluff. The purposed strategic
fix was to develop greater accuracy in weapons delivery, allowing a counterforce
nuclear capability. With such a capability, a state could threaten to strike military
targets outside of cities, while holding its capacity for societal destruction in abey-
ance. This threat could be credible because such an attack need not lead to societal
destruction; the threat of societal destruction held in abeyance would dissuade the
opponent from retaliation.
This alleged strategic fix was seen also as a moral fix. The threat of a counter-
force attack, unlike the threat of societal destruction, may not violate the princi-
ple of discrimination. The threat would involve no intention to harm civilians, so
it would not hold civilians hostage. Problems with the principle of proportional-
ity might be avoided as well because the civilian harm expected from precise
nuclear attacks on military targets might not be disproportionate to the military
advantage sought. But, in fact, problems remain in regard to both principles. In
the case of proportionality, the unique effects of nuclear weapons, such as deadly
radiation, would extend far beyond the target, doing great harm to civilians.
Moreover, the argument that the principle would not be violated depends on the
prospects for a nuclear war being limited. But such prospects seem uncertain at
best because the likelihood of escalation from a limited nuclear attack to a large-
scale nuclear exchange would be significant. The prospects of escalation would
have to be counted as expected civilian harm in the proportionality assessment,
so proportionality would be much harder to satisfy. The argument regarding the
principle of discrimination is also weak, for the counterforce threats must exist in
the context of additional threats of societal destruction. The reason is that the
credibility of the counterforce threats depends on the unwillingness of the oppo-
nent to respond by retaliating against the attacker’s society, and this unwilling-
ness depends on the attacker’s continuing to threaten the opponent’s society.
Counterforce nuclear threats are credible only if they are added onto threats of
4
societal destruction, which can be held in abeyance, not if they replace them.
There is no fix for what puts nuclear weapons at odds with the requirements of
jus in bello.
This leads to the central moral problem, an apparent moral dilemma at the heart
of nuclear deterrence (see dilemmas, moral). So far we have been speaking of jus
in bello, but the other part of just war theory is jus ad bellum, which concerns the
morality of going to war or initiating force. A central idea of jus ad bellum is that a
state is entitled to use force, if necessary, to defend itself. As we have seen, nuclear
deterrence is morally unacceptable in terms of jus in bello. In that sense, nuclear
weapons seem to make self-defense morally impossible. The problem is that jus ad
bellum is designed to allow what seems impermissible from the perspective of jus in
bello, a defensive posture of nuclear deterrence. If one state has an assured destruc-
tion capacity, its opponent may plausibly reason that it can defend itself from
destruction only if it too deploys such a capacity and uses it to make counter-threats.
In such cases, one part of just war theory prohibits nuclear deterrence and the other
part permits it, and a moral dilemma results.
The dilemma is nicely captured by Michael Walzer: “Nuclear weapons explode
the theory of just war. They are the first of mankind’s technological innovations that
are simply not encompassable within the familiar moral world” (1977: 282).
Resolving the dilemma requires an ordering of jus in bello and jus ad bellum to
determine which takes priority in the case of such a clash. Which overrides the
other? Walzer’s own solution is to adopt a doctrine he calls supreme emergency,
which allows a state to relax the requirements of jus in bello when the political com-
munity it represents is threatened with destruction, as it is when a state’s opponent
has an assured destruction capacity (1977: 271–83). This orders the self-defense per-
missions of jus ad bellum over the prohibitions of jus in bello. On the other hand, one
could take what Walzer calls the absolutist position, which favors the jus in bello over
the jus ad bellum, thereby making nuclear deterrence impermissible. But the
dilemma seems to persist because it is not clear that either of these orderings should
have preference over the other. This dilemma is not a general problem for just war
theory. When nuclear weapons are not involved, such a dilemma does not generally
arise because a state can then defend itself from attack without violating jus in bello
principles.
Through its long history, just war theory has successfully accommodated itself to
a wide variety of technological and social changes in the nature of warfare. But it is
not clear that it has the resources to do so in the case of nuclear weapons. The capac-
ity for assured destruction afforded by nuclear weapons is historically unprece-
dented in a morally significant way. No previous weapon could create this capacity
because no previous weapon could guarantee that the “loser” in a war could destroy
the “winner.” Moreover, it would be a mistake to think that the moral dilemma of
nuclear deterrence is historically bounded by the Cold War. It is a potential inherent
in the existence of the weapons. MAD is a military relationship with many potential
instantiations; it is not unique to the United States and the former Soviet Union. The
paradox will have a new instantiation whenever there are two military opponents
5
with a sufficient degree of enmity and with nuclear arsenals sufficient to destroy
each other. In our own day, the paradox is instantiated in the relationship between
India and Pakistan, and perhaps in the relation between the United States and China.
Moreover, the moral dilemma cannot necessarily be avoided through nuclear
disarmament. The dilemma lies not in the existence of the weapons, but in our
capacity to construct them. Nuclear weapons cannot be “disinvented.” If all nuclear
weapons were destroyed, we would still retain the knowledge and capacity to
rebuild them; the result might be a condition of “weaponless nuclear deterrence”
(Schell 1986), which might be as morally problematic as deterrence with the weap-
ons. In the absence of nuclear weapons, great powers would retain their ability to
remake the weapons as a hedge against another state seeking an advantage by
“breakout.” In this sense, nuclear deterrence would continue to exist. Moreover, it
may well be a more dangerous form of nuclear deterrence, more unstable, with the
rebuilding capacities acting like the mobilization plans that led inexorably to World
War I. Weaponless deterrence may make our situation more dangerous than a
MAD relationship, or it may not. But in a morally relevant sense, it would still be a
state of nuclear deterrence.
The crucial issue is the way in which nuclear weapons are viewed by the interna-
tional community. They are, fortunately, not regarded as ordinary, legitimate weap-
ons, whose firing is acceptable in a context in which the firing of other weapons
would be. This fact is represented by the existence of the so-called nuclear taboo, a
habit or a tradition of the nonuse of nuclear weapons that has developed since the
beginning of the nuclear age. Were this habit or tradition to become sufficiently
deep and extensive that the use of nuclear weapons would be, in a strong sense,
unthinkable, we could say that the use of nuclear weapons would have been delegiti-
mated. Under conditions of delegitimation, weaponless deterrence could be a less
dangerous policy than MAD. Thus, the moral imperative is to seek the delegitima-
tion of the use of nuclear weapons. Disarmament agreements can aid in this effort,
as a form of “confidence building,” but they cannot by themselves achieve it. Nuclear
disarmament should not be sought for its own sake, but as a means to strengthen the
tradition of the nonuse.
Nuclear weapons are sometimes classed together with chemical and biological
weapons under the heading weapons of mass destruction. There is some justifica-
tion for this grouping in that all three kinds of weapons are likely, if used, to cause
great casualties among civilians. The reason is that their harmful effects cannot be
limited to military targets. This is the case for nuclear weapons, as we have seen,
because their harmful effects spread widely. But there is a different reason that
this is the case for chemical and biological weapons. These weapons are generally
not very effective against military targets, because they are slow acting or because
combatants can easily be protected against them, for example through vaccines or
protective equipment, while civilian populations are more likely to be vulnerable
to them. But, given the morally important feature of nuclear weapons discussed
above, there is strong justification for separating nuclear weapons from chemical
and biological weapons in our moral criticism. Neither chemical nor biological
6
weapons, as they currently exist, can create a condition of assured destruction, so

these weapons do not affect our moral understanding of war in the way that
nuclear weapons do.
See also: bluffing; civilian immunity; collateral damage;

consequentialism; deterrence; dilemmas, moral; doctrine of double
effect; just war theory, history of; proportionality (in war);
utilitarianism; war; weapons research and development
REFERENCES
Schell, Jonathan 1986. The Abolition. New York: Avon Books.
Walzer, Michael 1977. Just and Unjust Wars. New York: Basic Books.
FURTHER READINGS
Boyle, Joseph, John Finnis, and Germain Grisez 1987. Nuclear Deterrence, Morality and
Realism. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Hardin, Russell, John Mearsheimer, Gerald Dworkin, and Robert Goodin 1985. Nuclear
Deterrence, Ethics and Strategy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hashmi, Sohail, and Steven P. Lee (eds.) 2004. Ethics and Weapons of Mass Destruction:
Religious and Secular Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kavka, Gregory 1987. Moral Paradoxes of Nuclear Deterrence. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Kenny, Anthony 1985. The Logic of Deterrence. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lackey, Douglas 1984. Moral Principles and Nuclear Weapons. Totowa, NJ: Rowman &
Littlefield.
Lee, Steven P. 1992. Morality, Prudence, and Nuclear Weapons. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Shue, Henry (ed.) 1989. Nuclear Deterrence and Moral Restraint. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Tannenwald, Nina 2007. The Nuclear Taboo: The United States and the Non-Use of Nuclear
Weapons Since 1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
1
Sensibility Theory
Andrew Sneddon
Sensibility theories present a view of moral truths as constitutively dependent on

human sensibilities. The historical roots of this sort of view are the sentimentalist
theories of such British philosophers as David Hume, Francis Hutcheson, and
the Third Earl of Shaftesbury (see hume, david; hutcheson, francis;
sentimentalism; shaftesbury, third earl of). However, sensibility theories
were most distinctively developed in late twentieth-century English-language
philosophy. All versions of sensibility theories portray moral judgment as having
two features: first, it expresses beliefs and hence is fully capable of being either
true or false; second, it is intrinsically connected to human motivation via such
psychological capacities as our emotions. Sensibility theories are commonly
represented as being committed to the reality of moral properties. However, some
prominent versions do not share this commitment. Some proponents claim that
the view derives some appeal from the way it portrays the experience of moral
values and judgments, whereas other versions disavow any commitment to a distinctive
portrayal of moral experience.
Hallmark
The hallmark of sensibility theories is their distinctive view of the relation between
human minds and moral truths. It is useful to locate sensibility theories between two
other sorts of theories. On one side there are broadly Platonist views which portray
moral properties as constitutively independent of human minds (see plato).
Typically, proponents of such views are committed to the reality of moral properties
(see realism, moral) and to a view of moral judgment as expressive of beliefs
essentially about such properties and hence capable of being literally true or false
(see cognitivism). However, many think that moral judgments and/or properties
stand in intimate relations with moral motivation and that Platonist versions of
moral realism face serious challenges in delivering such relations (see externalism,
motivational; internalism, motivational). The idea is this: if I sincerely judge
that something – for example, eating meat – is wrong, then, other things being equal,
I should be motivated to some degree to act accordingly. However, if moral properties
are constitutively independent of human minds, then it is mysterious why I should
be so motivated. Moreover, if moral judgments express beliefs, then it seems that
they need not motivate me at all. A view commonly attributed to David Hume is that
I can believe that something is the case, but if I do not have any desires about the
issue, then I will be unmoved by these beliefs.
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee195
2
One way to account for motivational internalism is to give up the cognitivist view
of moral judgment and instead to portray moral judgment as essentially expressive
of emotions (see non-cognitivism). The most famous version of this view is
emotivism (see emotivism). Emotivists typically give up the idea that moral
judgments can be literally true or false, as they do not purport to express beliefs
about the nature of the world. Instead, moral judgments are, either directly or more
subtly, expressions of a person’s feelings. With cognitivism goes any reason to think
that moral properties are real features of the world. Hence emotivists are typically
anti-realists. Insofar as cognitivism and realism are desirable, emotivist anti-realism
is no more attractive than platonic realism.
Sensibility theorists share the cognitivism of Platonic realists, but give up the
idea that moral truths are independent of human minds. They share the internal-
ism of the emotivists but not its non-cognitivism. Sensibility theorists are divided
about moral realism. According to sensibility theories, our capacities for thinking
about morality neither track an independently existing moral existence nor give
rise to the mere appearance of moral properties. Instead, moral truths and human
minds stand in a relationship of equal partners, each just as fundamental as the
other. This is the central hallmark of sensibility theories. Following John
McDowell, let’s call this the no priority thesis: sensibility theorists prioritize nei-
ther minds nor the world in their account of the nature of morality (McDowell
1987: §4).
Here are two brief formulations of the relation between agents and moral
properties as envisioned by proponents of the no priority thesis. (Certain features
needed for complete statements have been omitted in order to focus on more
essential features.)
1 x is good/right if and only if x is such as to make a certain sentiment of

approbation appropriate. (Wiggins 1987: Ch. 5, §3)
2 x is good/right if and only if x is such as to merit a certain attitude.
(cf. McDowell 1985: §4)
At this point three things are worth emphasizing about these formulations. First,
the proffered relation between moral properties and human responses is very close.
To merit a certain attitude just is what it is to be good/right on this view. Second,
despite the essential reference to human attitudes, by the standards of these formula-
tions the properties/objects/states of affairs that satisfy these formulations truly are
good/right.
Finally, moral notions appear on both sides of these formulations. Objects and so
on give rise to many attitudes and sentiments, perhaps infinitely many, and not all
are relevant to moral experience. When we try to specify just what attitudes or
sentiments are being deployed in these formulations, we will have to use moral
notions. Sensibility theorists seem to be saying that x is good/right if and only if x
elicits the characteristic response for good/right things. This is clearly circular.
Indeed, sensibility theorists are open that such formulations of the no priority thesis
3
are circular (Johnston 1989: 144–8; Wiggins 1987: Ch. 5, §4; Wright 1988: §5). Much
debate about sensibility theories concerns whether such circular formulations are a
theoretical virtue or vice (Darwall et al. 1992: 155–62; D’Arms and Jacobson 2000:
729–32; Sneddon 2004: 302–11).
Characteristic Arguments
The primary argument
The central and most famous arguments for sensibility theories are analogies
between moral properties and moral experience on one side and other human
experiences and their objects on the other side.
Color experience, and secondary quality experience in general, is one of the
models offered by sensibility theorists for moral experience and moral proper-
ties. Seeing something red figures in now classic versions of this argument
(Wiggins 1987: Ch. 5, §5; McDowell 1985: §3). To be red is to be disposed to
appear in a certain way to creatures with a certain sort of perceptual capacity
under certain conditions. Things that are red really have such dispositions, but
the nature of these dispositions is constituted in part by the responses to which
they give rise in observers. This invites a circular formulation much like those
offered in specifying the no priority thesis. Here is David Wiggins’ formulation of
this circle:
x is red if and only if x is such as to give, under certain conditions specifiable as

normal, a certain visual impression. (1987: Ch. 5, §5; Ch. 3, §6)
This is suggestive as a model for moral properties and experience. If this formulation
for color properties is correct, then such properties are both features of objects and
essentially constituted by their relations to human responses. Neither the world nor
human responses has priority over the other in this formulation. Moreover, this
formulation of the nature of redness offers a blend of objectivity and subjectivity.
Applied to moral experience and properties, some sensibility theorists think that
this offers a model for cognitivism and internalism.
It is generally thought that, whatever its merits, the analogy with color
experience is disanalogous at a crucial point (McDowell 1985: §4; Darwall et al.
1992: 162–3; see Sneddon 2004 for a denial that there is a disanalogy). For normal
viewers to have the visual experience of redness when viewing certain sorts of
surface under normal viewing conditions is appropriate because the reflective
properties of these surfaces cause such experiences. As Stephen Darwall, Allan
Gibbard, and Peter Railton put it, for color experience a causal idiom underwrites
the justificatory one. However, for moral experience we have no such causal story
to tell, so the justificatory idiom is unexplained and hence not clearly warranted
(Darwall et al. 1992: 163). Whereas the colors of surfaces are plausibly thought to
be constituted in part by their causal tendencies, this is much less plausible for
4
moral properties. The wrongness of slavery seems not be constituted by causal

links between details about slavery and the experiences of those exposed to these
details; it is constituted, at first glance at least, solely by the nature of slavery, par-
ticularly the effects it has on people held as slaves and the moral status it attributes
to these people, regardless of how it appears to those who observe these things.
Sensibility theorists offer other analogies, again using a nonmoral aspect of
human experience as a model for moral experience and moral properties, but ones
that avoid the apparent disanalogy that arises with color experience. McDowell
offers fearfulness (1985: §4), which he casts as not a secondary quality. Both
McDowell and Wiggins offer humor, again as an alternative to secondary quality
experience (McDowell 1987: §4; Wiggins 1987: Ch. 5, §7; Ch. 3, §6). For something
to be genuinely scary or funny is not just for it to have certain sorts of effects on
people – things that are not truly funny or scary can reliably have these effects. It is
instead for the characteristic responses to be warranted. Here is a circular formulation
for humor, using the McDowellian terminology of responses being merited:
x is funny if and only if x is such as to merit a certain attitude.
If we are comfortable with the blend of objectivity and subjectivity offered in this
rendering of the relation between humorous things and human humor sensibilities,
then we find here a promising model for moral experience. At the very least the
comparison of moral experience with experiences of fear and humor promises to
render the objectivity of moral properties no more mysterious than that of funniness
and scariness. However, neither does the comparison provide any details about just
what it is for an attitude to be appropriate in any of these domains.
Secondary arguments
Wiggins and McDowell have developed their versions of sensibility theory in
part through criticism of, and, in McDowell’s case, extended dialogue with,
contemporary non-cognitivism. Despite the variety of kinds of non-cognitivism,
they share an idea that is rejected by sensibility theorists. Like sensibility theo-
rists, non-cognitivists emphasize the importance of human minds in our best
accounts of the nature of value. But unlike the account offered by sensibility
theorists, non-cognitivists insist upon a rigid division between the objective
truths about the world on the one hand and the nature of values on the other.
The world in itself is portrayed as containing no values at all; values are to be
understood as mere expressions of emotion or projections of our sentiments
onto a value-free world. Rather than mind and world being equal partners with
regard to the nature of value, as the sensibility theorists’ no priority thesis has it,
non-cognitivists portray the mind as the sole source of values. Both Wiggins
and McDowell have developed their versions of sensibility theory by scrutinizing
and rejecting the relation between mind and world that is at the core of
non-cognitivism.
5
Wiggins designs his discussion around versions of non-cognitivism which

contrast inner and outer perspectives on the world and claim that values stem from
or belong to the inner perspective only (1987: Ch. 3, §§5–6). He charges such non-
cognitivism with incoherence in the way it deploys the notions of inner and outer
perspectives on the world. The inner perspective on the world is the perspective
that we actually have: an engaged one, within which we interact with the world and
try to make sense of it and our own lives. The outer perspective is a perspective
from which one can view the world perfectly objectively, without any reference to
human concerns. The claim of the non-cognitivist is that from the outer perspec-
tive we find no values. Values are not part of the world as it is purely objectively,
divorced from human concerns. Instead, values are only evident from the inner
perspective: we project our own feelings and concerns onto a value-free world.
Wiggins worries that this distorts matters in several ways, to the point of incoher-
ence. His chief worry is that non-cognitivism recommends the inner, engaged per-
spective as the only one from which to make sense of values without actually taking
that perspective in its account of the nature of value. The non-cognitivist portrays
values as projections of our sentiments; our concerns about meaning do not actu-
ally answer to the nature of the world in any way. But from the inner perspective,
this is not how things seem to us. Some things matter to humans more than others,
and, from the engaged inner perspective, it seems to us that to figure out the sources
of life’s meaning we must orient ourselves appropriately with regard to the world.
If the non-cognitivist is going to endorse the inner perspective as the source of
values, then the non-cognitivist ought to design a theory around how values seem
to the inner perspective. According to Wiggins, to treat value as a mere projection
of human sentiments is to fail to do justice to the experience of values from the
inner perspective. He suggests that from this perspective we should see human
concerns and the world as equal partners in the nature of value, instead of seeing
the mind as the sole source of value. His criticisms of non-cognitivism lead directly
to the no priority thesis.
McDowell has developed his version of sensibility theory in part through extended
conversation with Simon Blackburn’s defenses of non-cognitivism and quasi-realism
(see quasi-realism). Blackburn is explicitly “projectivist” about values (see
projectivism): values are to be understood as projections of human sentiments
onto a value-free world (1988: 362).
McDowell argues that, for the projectivist account of value to be convincing, we
must not only be able to specify the human sentiments that are projected onto the
world for specific sorts of value experience, but we must be able to do this without
making essential reference to the values that the sentiments are supposed to
explain. If we must make reference to values in our specification of the sentiments
that are purportedly projected, then we do not have an explanation of these values
that casts human sentiments as their sole source. Instead, we would have a version
of the no priority view. Crucially, McDowell thinks that the projectivist often
cannot meet this theoretical constraint. McDowell examines humor as a test case
for the projectivist (1987: §4). To provide a projectivist account of the nature of
6
funniness, we must be able to specify a human sentiment or tendency indepen-

dently of the nature of the things that we find funny. If we cannot do this, then we
have no reason to think that there is some aspect of human psychology fit to feature
as the central explanation of the nature of the funny. McDowell worries that the
projectivist project cannot be carried out here. For instance, an inclination to laugh
does not serve to pick out the experience of humor from other aspects of human
experience, such as embarrassment. If the projectivist cannot specify some senti-
ment that is the parent of the humorous, then it looks as if we must describe the
mental side of humor as a tendency to find things funny. This is a version of the no
priority thesis: world and mind are cast as equal partners in this particular domain
of human experience. As we have already seen, the funny serves as an analogy for
the experience of moral values. In the present context, the worry is that as it goes
for humor, so it might well go for projectivist accounts of value experience in gen-
eral: unable to specify some aspect of human psychology that is the source of the
phenomena in question, the best explanation of values will take the form codified
in the no priority thesis.
Here are three implications of giving up the ability to discern either the nature
of the world or human psychology independently of the other. The first two
concern the way to do moral philosophy and the substance of moral sensibility
theories. Suppose that we follow McDowell and Wiggins on the inseparability of
human experience from our ideas about the nature of the world. How should we
then do moral philosophy? People experience values in different ways, which
surely are not equivalent. Without either claiming access to a domain of values to
which human experience answers or surrendering the very idea of the normative
superiority of some experiences of value over others, what is left as a basis for
moral philosophy? McDowell offers two things, both intimated by the title of his
“Virtue and Reason” (1979). First, to understand the nature of right and wrong
conduct, we must understand the nature of the virtuous person’s experience of the
world. The virtuous person clearly understands the demands that the world
presents us with; people who do not share the virtuous person’s character cannot
see these demands clearly. This is the epistemological counterpart of the no
priority thesis: since mind and world are equal partners in the constitution of
value, certain sorts of minds – those of virtuous people – are as good a source of
information about values as we have.
Second, the rejection of a foundation for values outside of the mind threatens the
connection between reason and moral judgment. Reason requires consistency: the
reasonable person can judge like things to be like and unlike things to be unlike. Put
this way, reason seems to require that judgment answers to standards presented by
the world outside of human experience. The reasonable person’s mind tracks things
as they are. But McDowell and Wiggins reject the idea of an outer perspective from
which we can judge the content and reasonability of deliverances from the inner
perspective. As a consequence we seem to lose the possibility of reasonable moral
judgment. From the inside there seems to be no way of distinguishing arbitrary
projection of sentiments from judgment that meets standards of rationality.
7
Consequently this line of argument for sensibility theory threatens the idea of moral
judgment as a deployment of reason.
McDowell’s response is to reject the idea that reasonable judgment requires that
the mind track mind-independent standards that constitute rationality. Instead,
McDowell follows Wittgenstein in locating the standards of rational judgment
within the engaged human perspective on the world. Standards of rationality are
internal to ways of living. Rationality in judgment is achieved not by correctly
tracking some mind-independent reality but instead by judging in ways that are
defensible by the best sorts of reasons that can be mustered from within particular
traditions of thought and discussion (McDowell 1979: §4). If rational judgment
required mind-independent standards, then to renounce our access to mind-
independent reality would threaten our confidence that our judgments could indeed
meet rational standards. But if these standards are instead internal to ways of living
then we can retain this confidence.
This brings us to the third implication. The rejection of the rigid distinction
between inner and outer perspectives and the insistence on standards of rationality
internal to ways of living are important for understanding the status of the circular
formulation of the no priority thesis. It is tempting to take the formulations offered
by McDowell and Wiggins as analyses of moral properties in terms of experiences or
judgments of certain sorts. Generically, such analyses must explain one phenomenon
in terms of other phenomena in order to be successful. If this could be done, then
one could gain an understanding of the things being explained by gaining an
understanding of the independent phenomena offered in the explanation. Seen this
way, the circular formulations offered by sensibility theorists seem unsuccessful
precisely because of their circularity: no independent phenomena are offered to
deliver understanding of the moral phenomena that call out for explanation.
However, such reductive analyses of moral phenomena will be attractive only if we
can explain these phenomena in terms independent of the ways of life in which
these phenomena have their natural home. This possibility is part of what the present
arguments reject. Instead of such analysis, sensibility theorists typically insist that
the circular formulations of the no priority thesis are performing a different sort of
intellectual job. This job is not to deliver understanding of the moral phenomena in
question but to supplement the understanding that we already have (Wiggins 1987:
Ch. 3, §7; see Johnston 1989: 144–9 for discussion of circularity).
Varieties of Sensibility Theory

Although these are characteristic primary and secondary arguments, there is
disagreement among sensibility theorists about both the importance of these
arguments and the sort of theory the arguments deliver. This section briefly presents
some of this variety.
The versions of sensibility theory offered by McDowell and Wiggins are the
best known. Both are cognitivist, as are the other versions in this section.
McDowell’s sensibility theory is explicitly realist (McDowell 1985: §4; 1987: §4).
8
Although Wiggins does not endorse anti-realism, neither does he cast his version
of sensibility theory as realist (Wiggins 1987: Ch. 5, §10). Wiggins, more than
McDowell, emphasizes the contingency and ongoing activity of the cultural
processes by which world and mind become paired in the way captured by the no
priority thesis (Wiggins 1987: Ch. 5, §§8–9; Ch. 3: §11). The result is a sort of
relativity about values (see relativism, moral): people outside of cultural tradi-
tions in which property-response pairs are forged and nurtured should not be
expected to share the responses to given properties typical of these traditions
(Wiggins 1987: Ch. 5, §11).
Jesse Prinz has developed an empirically informed version of sensibility theory.
This makes his version the only naturalist variety (see naturalism, ethical;
nonnaturalism, ethical). At the core of Prinz’s version are dispositions to feel
emotions within what he calls the approbation and disapprobation ranges. Prinz
defends a perceptual account of emotion (see emotion), and hence his version of
sensibility theory can avail itself directly of the analogy with properties experienced
via paradigmatically perceptual means, such as color (2007: 88–9, 108–11). However,
Prinz’s theory is closely tied to empirical moral psychology, unlike those of McDowell
and Wiggins (see moral psychology). Prinz combines realism and relativism more
explicitly than either McDowell or Wiggins. Prinz argues that the best accounts of
mental representation hold that mental states represent their reliable causes. Given
the combination of his account of moral judgment in terms of emotions with a per-
ceptual theory of emotion, Prinz argues that we get moral properties for free (2007:
107): the reliable causes of moral sentiments have moral properties (see sentiments,
moral). Unlike McDowell and Wiggins, Prinz downplays the objective aspect of
sensibility theories (2007: Ch. 4). His relativism, like his accounts of moral judgment
and moral properties, depends heavily on empirical demonstration of variety in val-
ues among cultures (2007: Ch. 5).
Crispin Wright and Mark Johnston offer versions of sensibility theory, but unlike
the prior three theorists they downplay moral phenomenology and the analogy with
perceptually experienced secondary qualities (Wright 1988: 180; Johnston 1989:
142–4). Wright casts the debate between realists and anti-realists in terms of differ-
ing notions of truth. The realist’s version includes a requirement that true ideas
somehow correspond to the nature of the world, while the anti-realist explains truth
in terms of “superassertibility”: a statement is superassertible if it is assertible with
regard to some body of information and remains so no matter how that information
is improved (Wright 1996: 10). Wright thinks that, with regard to moral truths, the
realist will fare poorly (1996: 13). Nevertheless he preserves a notion of truth for
moral judgment, making his position cognitivist.
Johnston presents a version of the no priority thesis in an explanation of moral con-
cepts as part of a family of response-dependent concepts (1989: 145–9). The combina-
tion of subjectivity and objectivity formulated in this thesis delivers what Johnston
calls “qualified realism” about response-dependent phenomena, including values
(1989: 148). The reality of such phenomena is qualified precisely because it depends
on minds in the way specified by the no priority thesis.
9
See also: cognitivism; emotion; emotivism; externalism, motivational;

hume, david; hutcheson, francis; internalism, motivational; moral
psychology; naturalism, ethical; non-cognitivism; nonnaturalism,
ethical; plato; projectivism; quasi-realism; realism, moral; relativism,
moral; response-dependent theories; sentimentalism; sentiments, moral;
shaftesbury, third earl of
REFERENCES
Blackburn, Simon 1988. “How to Be an Ethical Antirealist,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy,
vol. 12, pp. 361–75.
D’Arms, Justin, and Daniel Jacobson 2000. “Sentiment and Value,” Ethics, vol. 110,
pp. 722–48.
Darwall, Stephen, Allan Gibbard, and Peter Railton 1992. “Toward fin de siècle Ethics: Some
Trends,” The Philosophical Review, vol. 101, no. 1, pp. 115–89.
Johnston, Mark 1989. “Dispositional Theories of Value III,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian
Society, Supplemental Volumes, vol. 63, pp. 139–74.
McDowell, John 1979. “Virtue and Reason,” The Monist, vol. 62, pp. 331–50.
McDowell, John 1985. “Values and Secondary Qualities,” in Ted Honderich (ed.), Morality
and Objectivity. London: Routledge, pp. 110–29.
McDowell, John 1987. “Projection and Truth in Ethics,” Lindley Lecture, University of
Kansas.
Prinz, Jesse 2007. The Emotional Construction of Morals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sneddon, Andrew 2004. “Prichard, Strawson, and Two Objections to Moral Sensibility
Theories,” Journal of Philosophical Research, vol. 29, pp. 289–314.
Wiggins, David 1987. Needs, Values, Truth, 3rd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Wright, Crispin 1988. “Moral Values, Projection, and Secondary Qualities,” Proceedings of the
Aristotelian Society, Supplemental Volumes, vol. 63, pp. 1–26.
Wright, Crispin 1996. “Truth in Ethics,” in Brad Hooker (ed.), Truth in Ethics. Oxford:
FURTHER READINGS
Blackburn, Simon 1981. “Reply: Rule-following and Moral Realism,” in Steven H. Holtzman
and Christopher M. Leich (eds.), Wittgenstein: To Follow a Rule. London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul, pp. 163–87.
Blackburn, Simon 1993. “Errors and the Phenomenology of Value,” in his Essays in Quasi-
Realism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 149–65.
D’Arms, Justin, and Daniel Jacobson 2005. “Sensibility Theory and Projectivism,” in David
Copp (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Ethical Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
pp. 186–218.
Kirchin, Simon 2003. “Ethical Phenomenology and Metaethics,” Ethical Theory and Moral
Practice, 6, pp. 241–64.
McDowell, John 1981. “Non-cognitivism and Rule-following,” in Steven H. Holtzman and
Christopher M. Leich (eds.), Wittgenstein: To Follow a Rule. London: Routledge & Kegan
Paul, pp. 141–62.
10
McDowell, John 1983. “Aesthetic Value, Objectivity, and the Fabric of the World,” in Eva
Schaper (ed.), Pleasure, Preference, and Value. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
pp. 1–16.
Miller, Alexander 2003. An Introduction to Contemporary Metaethics. Cambridge: Polity,
Ch. 10.
Sosa, David 2001. “Pathetic Ethics,” in Brian Leiter (ed.), Objectivity in Law and Morals.
1
Racism
Bernard R. Boxill
Several important debates dominate the study of racism. Perhaps the most important
of these debates is over what racism is: a prejudice, an emotion, an attitude, a vice, an
ideology, a doctrine, a theory, a belief, a kind of behavior, or the domination of one
race over another? Closely related to and dependent on the results of that debate is
the dispute over what exactly makes racism the very special evil it is generally sup-
posed to be; if racism is the domination of one race by another it will be evil because
it is an injustice; if it is a doctrine or a belief the exact nature of its evil will be less
clear. Then there are the debates over the varieties of racism like anti-black racism,
Nazism, and anti-Semitism, and over its relation to other similar evils like sexism,
ethnocentrism, speciesism, and on some accounts nationalism (see nationalism
and patriotism). And of course there are debates over the relations between the
different kinds of racism like anti-black racism, anti-Semitism, the racism directed at
Native Americans, and anti-Asian racism. Yet other debates are over the sources or
origins of racism. How did it start? Or is it an innate and perhaps ineliminable aspect
of human nature? One special case of this dispute is whether anti-black racism
resulted from the enslavement of Africans in the New World or whether it preexisted
and helped to cause that enslavement, and if so, what are its causes. And finally of
course there are debates over the very idea of race without which presumably there
could not be racism (see race). Some of the disputants in those debates argue that
race is or can be a natural kind, others that race is a social construct and was invented
to justify slavery and other systems of domination. And these debates have led to
other debates, for example, over the date of the invention of race, over the identity of
its inventors, and over when it first reared its ugly head. It is now widely agreed that
the word “race” (if not the idea) began to be used with scientific pretensions in Europe
and America in the last two decades of the eighteenth century, and that Thomas
Jefferson, Georges-Louis Buffon, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, and Immanuel Kant
are among those most responsible for this development, but some philosophers have
argued that Kant is the crucial figure, and that the dangerous implications of the idea
it stood for affected his moral philosophy and Western moral philosophy generally
(see kant, immanuel).
Here I review some of the main positions philosophers have defended in the
debates over what racism is, and over the nature of its evil.
Defining “racism” is difficult because of the varied usage people make of it and its
cognates and derivatives. Although it was once used to refer primarily to beliefs,
doctrines, and ideologies, it is now often used to refer to institutional patterns or
social practices that have adverse effects on members of groups thought of as “races,”
even if a conscious belief that they are “inferior or unworthy” is absent. One strat-
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee196
2
egy to deal with the confusion is to stipulate a definition aimed at making the word
more precise and thus hopefully more useful as a tool in social analysis. But this
risks further confusion and the erasure of important distinctions usually marked by
ordinary usage. Another is to fashion a definition that tries to capture its central
usages. George M. Frederickson, the well-known historian of race and racism, opts
for the first strategy. He records that he was once so wearied by the word’s increas-
ing ambiguity that he decided not to use it in a study of white supremacy in the
United States and South Africa. In any case since that study was not simply about
racist ideas and doctrines, but about “ideology in the broadest sense,” namely the
“relationship” between the “cultural aspects – racist attitudes, beliefs and ideas and
structures and policies of racial domination” – he used “white supremacy” for it
instead (2002: 153). Although he admits that “white supremacy” cannot replace
“racism” generally, since that term is often used to refer to doctrines making invidi-
ous distinctions among “white” people, and some kinds of racism aim at extermina-
tion rather than domination or exclusion, he evidently supposes that there are
sufficiently compelling advantages to using “racism” as a suitably generalized kind
of “white supremacy,” and as a short formulation proposes: “racism exists when one
ethnic group or historical collectivity dominates, excludes, or seeks to eliminate
another on the basis of differences that it believes are hereditary and unalterable”
(2002: 156, 170).
The phrase “on the basis of differences” in his definition should be read as imply-
ing that racism exists only when a racist ideology or doctrine cites racial differences
to attempt to sanction a belief in a race’s inferiority or to justify its domination, exclu-
sion, or extermination. This seems justified given Frederickson’s strong suggestion
that “racism” should be used only to refer to theories that use alleged peculiarities of
the members of a race to “sanction a belief in their inferiority or justify enslaving
them or discriminating against them” (2002: 154). Conformably, Anthony Appiah
prefers the word “racialism” to “racism” to describe doctrines that do not claim any
moral hierarchy among the races though they hold that races are inherently different
in their moral and intellectual capacities.
Frederickson’s supposition that racist ideologies allege differences rather than
superiority and inferiority to justify mistreatment is warranted given that such
ideologies use the words “superior” and “inferior” ambiguously, sometimes as if
being superior meant being justified in dominating the inferior, but sometimes to
refer to the gradations along some dimension like intelligence or virtue that must be
combined with some moral view in order to justify a moral hierarchy among the
races, and consequently to qualify as racist. For example, Plato’s justification of
the rule of the philosopher kings is based partly on their wisdom, and partly on the
moral rule that the wise ought to rule those less wise. Since the moral views on
which racist ideologies rely are often unstated, the precise nature of the moral hier-
archy among the races that they recommend is often difficult to infer from the
differences in the races that they affirm; claims of a race’s intellectual inferiority are
typically used to help justify its domination, but Thomas Jefferson made such claims
about blacks to justify their expulsion from the United States, not to justify their
3
enslavement. Perhaps the moral views racist theories rely on are often not stated
because they are usually plainly objectionable when they are. The idea that one
group ought to dominate another group simply because its members are on average
more intelligent than those of the other is ludicrous. Nevertheless many current
discussions of racism seem to object only to its factual claims, although Jefferson
exposed the mistake more than two centuries ago. Of course some factual claims
about the races – for example, that some are morbidly and inherently pliant or
grossly unintelligent – are objectionable, partly because they are false, and partly
because they invite or encourage the domination of the races in question either by
appearing to offer opportunities for mischief to the unscrupulous, or by relying on
the audience to mindlessly supply the unstated and objectionable moral theory the
claims need to seem to justify mistreatment of the races in question.
Fredrickson’s distinction between mere beliefs about the races and doctrines or
ideologies justifying moral hierarchies among the races helps us to see that even the
zealots of an ideology need not believe everything in it. The US South’s racist
ideology declared blacks to be inferior to whites, but Martin Delany argued plausi-
bly that Europeans enslaved Africans because they believed that Africans’ under-
standing of tropical agriculture was superior to their own, and only later invented
the ideology of black inferiority to try to justify their crime (1988: 64, 12). If Delany
was right, though “superior” and “inferior” were probably used in different senses in
the belief and the ideology in question, an uneasy tension between beliefs about race
and racist ideologies may obviously sometimes underlie racial domination. Similarly,
although official Nazi ideology claimed that Jews were inferior to Aryans, some
Nazis need not have believed it; notoriously, people often try to eliminate competi-
tors they believe are better than they are. Consider too the slave hunter Tom Loker’s
comment in Uncle Tom’s Cabin (cited by Thomas Schmid 1996: 37): “They ain’t no
different from us deep down, you see; that’s why we got to work all the harder to
keep them there, or they’ll be the ones on the top, and us below.” This suggests that
even the most vigorous sustainers of the South’s practices may have had beliefs that
conflicted with its ideology, at least if Harriet Beecher Stowe is to be believed.
Probably racial domination is often based on uneasy conflicts between racial beliefs
and racist ideologies. There is likely to be false consciousness and bad faith in such
subordination (see bad faith and the unconscious).
Understanding racial doctrines claiming differences and hierarchies among the
races is essential to understanding the institutions in white supremacist societies
and how and why they change. They normally help to generate these institutions
and also develop with considerable autonomy from them – only a simplistic Marxism
supposes that a doctrine is determined by its associated institutions – often being
augmented and enriched by ideas from outside the society; social Darwinism, for
example, was a foreign import that surely affected the evolution of racist doctrine in
North America, which affected in turn the institutions that this doctrine helped to
generate. But Fredrickson was right that racial doctrines cannot account for “white
supremacy” (2002: 153). Such doctrines only help to generate the institutions of
racial domination in white supremacist societies; they never do so all by themselves.
4
The form these institutions take is also normally deeply affected by forces operating
independently of and often in defiance of the racist doctrines that helped to generate
them. As students of American slavery have come to acknowledge, the institutions
of racial domination the masters established were compromises between their doc-
trine of white racial superiority and slave recalcitrance generated by slave ideology
and institutions. The dominated are not inert matter to be molded however the
dominators please. Further, these institutional compromises often eventually led to
corresponding changes in the white supremacist ideology that had made those com-
promises. And since the slaves in time inevitably resisted the institutions that were
already the result of the compromises they had forced, the masters’ white suprema-
cist ideology continually evolved, though not necessarily in positive ways.
More generally, since many white supremacist societies are also liberal societies
and consequently contain doctrines and ideologies that compete with the ruling
racist doctrine and ideology, the institutions of racial domination in such societies
are never the products of their racist doctrines and ideologies alone, but always the
result of some compromise between those doctrines and ideologies and the other
doctrines and ideologies they compete with. Finally, racist doctrines and ideologies
in white supremacist societies are often forced to make compromises – sometimes
major ones – in the institutions of racial doctrines they help to generate within those
societies by doctrines and ideologies and their attendant institutions that come from
without. If Martin Delany had realized his hope to undermine Southern slavery by
growing cotton for export more cheaply in Africa than it could be grown in the
South, an ideology and institutions outside the borders of a white supremacist soci-
ety would have caused its favorite institution to collapse despite the strenuous sup-
port of its ideology. And of course that ideology had to make massive compromises
when its zealots lost the Civil War. Indeed, it eventually changed in response to the
institutional changes they had so strenuously opposed, though not immediately, of
course. The slave holders clung to it after their defeat, and it rewarded their tenacity
by motivating them and eventually enabling them to partly reverse many of the
institutional compromises they had been forced to make. Still, as time passed, the
ideology of the South changed. The ideology of the slave holders’ children and
grandchildren, though certainly racist and supremacist, was not exactly the same as
that of their parents and grandparents.
These considerations make it clear that indeed racist doctrine cannot alone suffice
for an understanding of white supremacist societies. But understanding such socie-
ties and defining racism are entirely different things, and it is hard to see the advan-
tage of stipulating that the word “racism” coined to refer to racist doctrine, and still
widely used in this sense, be used instead to refer only to the combination of all the
things, suitably generalized, necessary to understanding white supremacist societies,
even if they are related to each other and interact in the ways I have indicated. On the
contrary, the close relation and interaction of doctrines, ideologies, and institutions
is a good reason to keep their names distinct, at least if one wants to get clear on
the societies they are located in. This seems especially important because although
doctrines, ideologies, and institutions interact with and change each other, they do
5
not change each other automatically or immediately and each can change as a result
of forces that do not originate in the others. A physiologist trying to understand the
human body would only be courting confusion if he decided to call it “liver” because
the body cannot be understood without understanding how the liver interacts with
and affects all the other organs in the body.
Perhaps Fredrickson thinks that although racist doctrines and ideologies and the
institutions they interact with and try to justify are analytically distinguishable aspects
of one compound thing, e.g., white supremacy, that they can exist only as aspects of
that thing and never independently of each other. But plainly institutions often exist
before the ideologies needed to justify them exist. This may be how slavery and its
accompanying ideology arose in some parts of America. This was evidently how
Delany saw it. And Eric Williams, author of the classic Capitalism and Slavery, agrees.
After reviewing the evidence, he concluded forcefully that “the reason” for Negro slav-
ery in the British Caribbean was “economic not racial” (1994: 19). Unless an economic
reason for establishing an institution is taken mistakenly as a justification for doing so,
Williams implies that racial slavery existed without racial ideology or doctrine. Many
others make the same contention about the origins of racial slavery and racial ideol-
ogy in Virginia, though their contention became the subject of an extended debate, its
critics arguing that racist attitudes preceded and helped to determine the choice of
Africans for enslavement there. Notably, however, both sides agreed that the issue was
historical not conceptual. Neither suggested that racial slavery could not exist without
a racist ideology. To insist that they cannot would eliminate potentially enlightening
empirical researches into the origins of slavery by definitional fiat.
If a racist ideology is defined as the result of an interaction between racist doc-
trines and the institutions they help generate, then it obviously cannot exist without
ever having had any institutions to interact with. But a racist ideology can exist even
when the institutions it interacted with no longer do; the Civil War’s destruction of
slavery did not also destroy the racist ideology that helped to establish it. How else
can we explain why the institutions that emerged after the fall of slavery seem so
much a compromise between that ideology and those of the North? Further, people
can invent racist doctrines to justify institutions that they plan to establish and con-
sequently which do not already exist. The eminent historian of slavery and race
David Brion Davis tells us that as Europeans began to spread beyond Europe in large
numbers they were astounded by the variety in appearances of different human
beings, and “searched for categories with which to explain the astounding fact that
creatures could be so obviously human and yet so different” (1966: 466). Suppose
that pursuing that goal European scientists invented the idea of race and even spec-
ulated that some races were inferior to others in some perhaps important ways. We
have agreed that such speculations would not be properly described as racist, but
bright men with an eye for profit could certainly use them to persuade the greedy
and reassure the squeamish to establish institutions to exploit the newly discovered
races. Columbus’s alleged comment that the gentleness and docility of the Arawaks
of Hispaniola made them suitable for servitude encapsulated a racist doctrine justi-
fying the institutions that followed and quickly annihilated the Arawaks.
6
Perhaps the idea behind the recommended definition of “racism” is to save its
pejorative force for that most dangerous combination of racist doctrine, ideology,
and institution. This suggestion is very misguided since racist ideologies and
doctrines are dangerous even when unaccompanied by corresponding institutions.
Was Columbus’s comment harmless? Perhaps Aristotle would never have invented
the idea of natural slavery had there been no slavery in ancient Athens, but centuries
later the Spanish resurrected that dead and largely forgotten idea to excuse genocide
in America. Institutions involving racial domination without racist ideology or
doctrine – as some argue, black slavery in early Virginia and the British Caribbean
– should also be condemned, of course. But I would agree in refraining from calling
them racist institutions, or instances of institutional racism, partly because there is
ample reason to condemn them without having to appeal to racism – after all they
involve domination even if no one tried to justify it by citing racial differences – and
partly out of respect for privileged usage. Kwame Ture and Charles V. Hamilton,
who first popularized the expression and perhaps coined it, used it to refer to institu-
tions that relied on the “pervasive” operation of “anti-black attitudes,” including the
idea that “whites are better than blacks; therefore blacks should be subordinated to
whites” (1992: 5). The expression has often come to be used to refer to any institu-
tion that has negative effects on blacks even if these are completely unintended and
unexpected, and even if the institution does not rely on the operation of anti-black
attitudes. Thus, if this trend were endorsed, affirmative action would be an instance
of institutional racism if it turned out to have invidious – even if unintended –
consequences for blacks or whites, as some of its critics predict it will (see affirma-
tive action). Clearly, the trend is part of the larger trend that can only end in the
word “racism” being meaningless and should therefore be resisted.
Disputes between advocates of the voluntarist and the doxastic theories of racism
have become one of the most interesting areas in the philosophy of racism. Jorge
Garcia – the best-known defender of the voluntarist theory – insists that any valid
theory of racism must be consistent with the intuition that racism is a vice (1996:
259) and that racially based disregard, hatred, contempt, ill will, and such attitudes
directed against a person or persons on account of their assigned race is necessary
and sufficient for racism. Defenders of doxastic theories maintain that commitment
to a racist ideology is necessary and sufficient for an individual to be described as a
racist and that insisting that racism is a vice is question begging, since it might
exclude from consideration some genuine cases of racism.
Two of the more suggestive objections that advocates of doxastic theories have
raised to the voluntarist theory are that emotions including those it cites as sufficient
for racism are really just sets of beliefs (Mills 2003: 40; see emotion). And that it is
psychologically incoherent because it makes the impossible claim that racists can
have ill will toward people they assign to a race without also having beliefs to justify
their ill will. Neither is decisive; the first implies – unsurprisingly – that the racist
has beliefs but it does not follow that these beliefs are among those typically found
in racist ideologies; and the second is stymied by the notorious fact noted by many
who have tried to reason with racists that they tend to retain their racist ill will even
7
after all the reasons they give for it have been rebutted; but both suggest interesting
avenues for further research.
A more obvious difficulty for the voluntarist theory lies in its thesis that ill will is
necessary for racism. This seems false since intuition firmly declares that the English
imperialists and the aristocratic upper classes of the old South were racists, though
some of them seemed to have no ill will toward the people they dominated. A famous
example is Rudyard Kipling, who claimed that nonwhites were the “white man’s bur-
den,” but seemed sincerely willing to help bear that burden. The voluntarist theory’s
defenders have tried to meet this criticism with the strained argument that Kipling
and his ilk “meant” to retard the interests of black and colonial peoples and conse-
quently had ill will toward such peoples. Perhaps a more satisfactory response is
implied in Joshua Glasgow’s recent essay that attempts to provide an account of rac-
ism in terms of disrespect. It acknowledges that racism occurs in a wide variety of
locations – for example, in our attitudes and behaviors – but nevertheless attempts
to show that disrespect for members of a racialized group can be identified in all its
locations (Glasgow 2009: 80). On this account disrespect could stem from a wide
variety of deeper vices including ill will, but unfortunately for the voluntarist theory
not necessarily only from ill will. Still it suggests how the doxastic theory can incor-
porate the voluntarist theory’s view that racism is always a vice, though the vice is
not necessarily ill will. According to doxastic theory, racists are committed to racist
ideologies and such ideologies are false. This in itself would not make racists vicious
because – according to a long tradition in Western philosophy beginning perhaps
with Socrates and including Descartes and Locke – holding false beliefs is not neces-
sarily wrong. What is wrong is holding beliefs knowing that there is not adequate
evidence to support their truth (see ethics of belief). But the racist does seem
committed to holding false beliefs without adequate evidence, at least if the “notori-
ous fact” mentioned earlier is true. It may be objected that this notorious fact can be
accounted for without necessarily implying that racists are vicious. Ideologies
are very large, complex webs of beliefs, and as the Duhem–Quine thesis urges, peo-
ple may often be able, perhaps innocently, to retain the beliefs in that web they con-
sider central by making suitable modifications elsewhere in the system. But even
that thesis concedes that at some point making heroic changes in a theory’s auxiliary
parts to secure its central claims against new evidence and reasoned argument loses
its innocence. In such cases some vicious emotion or motive must drive the self-
induced blindness. Clifford (1999) gives an example of greed seducing a man into
holding a certain belief and of the strategies he adopted for doing so despite the
evidence against it. In the case of racism, the racist may retain his ill will not despite
the rebuttal of all reasons for it, but because his ill will or some other vice enables
him to blind himself to that rebuttal. Greed may have often been that other vice, but
another vice, pride, blazes out as the chief culprit and I plump for it.
See also: affirmative action; bad faith and the unconscious;

emotion; ethics of belief; kant, immanuel; nationalism and
patriotism; race; slavery
8
REFERENCES
Clifford, W. K. 1999. The Ethics of Belief and Other Essays. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.
Davis, David Brion 1966. The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture. Ithaca: Cornell University
Press.
Degler, Carl N. 1959. “Slavery and the Genesis of American Race Prejudice,” Comparative
Studies in History and Society, vol. 2, pp. 49–66.
Delany, M. 1988. The Condition, Elevation, Emigration and Destiny of the Colored People of
the United States. Salem: Ayer.
Frederickson, G. 2002. Racism: A Short History. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Garcia, J. L. A. 1996. “The Heart of Racism,” in Bernard Boxill (ed.), Race and Racism. Oxford:
Glasgow, J. 2009. “Racism as Disrespect,” Ethics, vol. 120, pp. 64–93.
Handlin, Oscar, and Mary Handlin 1950. “Origins of the Southern Labor System,” William
and Mary Quarterly, 3rd series, vol. 7, pp. 199–222.
Jordan, Wintrop D. 1968. White Over Black. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Mills, C. W. 2003. “Heart Attack: A Critique of Jorge Garcia’s Volitional Conception of
Racism,” Journal of Ethics, vol. 7, pp. 29–62.
Schmid, T. 1996. “The Definition of Racism,” Journal of Applied Philosophy, vol. 13, pp. 31–40.
Ture K., and Charles V. Hamilton 1992. Black Power. New York: Vintage.
Vaughan, Alden T. 1995. Roots of American Racism. New York: Oxford University Press.
Williams, Eric 1994. Capitalism and Slavery. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
FURTHER READINGS
Arthur, J. 2007. Race, Equality, and the Burdens of History. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Babbit, S. E., and Campbell, S. (eds.) 1999. Racism and Philosophy. Ithaca: Cornell University
Press.
Blum, L. 2002. I’m Not a Racist, But … The Moral Quandary of Race. Ithaca: Cornell University
Press.
Garcia, J. L. A. 1997. “Current Conceptions of Racism: A Critical Examination of Some
Recent Social Philosophy,” Journal of Social Philosophy, vol. 28, pp. 5–42.
Garcia, J. L. A. 1999. “Philosophical Analysis and the Moral Conception of Racism,”
Philosophy and Social Criticism, vol. 25, pp. 1–25.
Garcia, J. L. A. 2001. “Racism and Racial Discourse,” Philosophical Forum, vol. 32, pp. 125–45.
Goldberg, D. T. 1990. Anatomy of Racism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Gordon, L. 1999. Bad Faith and Anti-Black Racism. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press.
Harris, L. (ed.) 1999. Racism. Amherst, NY: Humanity Books.
Headley, C. 2000. “Philosophical Approaches to Racism: A Critique of the Individualistic
Perspective,” Journal of Social Philosophy, vol. 31, pp. 223–57.
Levine, M. P., and T. Pataki (eds.) 2004. Racism in Mind. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Mills, C. W. 1998. Blackness Visible. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Shelby, T. 2002. “Is Racism in the Heart?” Journal of Social Philosophy, vol. 33, pp. 411–20.
Shelby, T. 2005. We Who Are Dark: The Philosophical Foundations of Black Solidarity.
Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.
Taylor, P. 2004. Race: A Philosophical Introduction. Cambridge: Polity.
Thomas, L. 1993. Vessels of Evil. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Zack, N. 1993. Race and Mixed Race. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
1
Reflective Equilibrium
Michael DePaul
Nelson Goodman (1965: 66–7) introduced the method of reflective equilibrium

(RE) into contemporary philosophy as a way to justify principles of induction and
deduction. John Rawls (see rawls, john) brought the approach over to moral and
political philosophy, employing it to construct his theory of justice. It is to Rawls
(1971: 19–21, 48–51) that we owe the term “reflective equilibrium.” In his early and
influential paper on the topic, Norman Daniels described RE as “an attempt to
produce coherence in an ordered triple of sets of beliefs held by a particular person,
namely (a) a set of considered moral judgments, (b) a set of moral principles, and (c)
a set of relevant background theories” (1979: 258). RE has become the default view
of how moral inquiry should be conducted even though it is controversial how RE
should be understood and RE faces serious objections.
The Basic Idea: Narrow Reflective Equilibrium

According to RE an inquirer, S, begins with a set of initial moral judgments (IMJs).
These will simply be all the various moral judgments S holds; they might concern
actual particular actions, hypothetical actions, types of actions, or even moral
principles. They might concern right or wrong, obligation, blame, justice, virtue or
vice, etc. Here are some widely shared IMJs:
Bernie Madoff shouldn’t have run a Ponzi scheme.

Humphrey Bogart’s character in Casablanca was unselfish.
It is unjust knowingly to convict innocent persons.
It is wrong to treat people merely as means to your own ends.
The first thing RE directs S to do is filter out those IMJs that were formed in
conditions where error is likely, e.g., those formed when S was tired, emotionally
distraught or drunk, when S had a personal interest in the case, or was ignorant of
the relevant facts. Judgments that survive this filtering are known as considered
moral judgments (CMJs).
The next step for S is to construct a moral theory, MT, consisting of a principle or
set of principles that accounts for S’s CMJs in the sense that a person employing the
MT in conjunction with the relevant facts would arrive at the CMJs.
Significantly, S’s CMJs are not held fixed as S constructs a theory; rather, S is to
proceed by a process of mutual adjustment to CMJs and the principles of S’s emerging
MT. A common type of adjustment would occur when S finds a tentative principle
that accounts for some limited range of CMJs conflicts with a very firmly held CMJ
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee197
2
and as a result revises or rejects the principle. When the CMJ is a judgment regarding
a hypothetical case, this amounts to uncovering a counterexample to the tentative
principle (see thought experiments in ethics). In other cases, however, the CMJ
might be rejected; e.g., if S finds that a moral principle that successfully accounts for
a wide range of CMJs and that S finds very plausible on its own conflicts with a CMJ
of which S is less confident, then S should revise the CMJ to accord with the principle.
Here is another noteworthy type of conflict that can force revision of CMJs: Most
inquirers will find some sort of supervenience principle intuitively compelling, e.g., the
principle that two actions could not be morally different (e.g., one right and the other
wrong) without differing in some morally relevant nonmoral characteristic (see super-
venience, moral). So suppose such a principle is one very abstract element of S’s MT.
Most inquirers also have strong convictions about which features of an action could be
morally relevant; e.g., we’re near certain an agent’s hair and eye color are generally not
morally relevant and we’re quite confident that whether an action causes suffering is
morally relevant. So let’s suppose S has typical CMJs about moral relevance. Given a
supervenience principle and CMJs regarding relevance, judgments about particular
real or hypothetical cases can conflict. If S judges that one action is right and another
wrong, but there is no difference between the actions that S thinks could be morally
relevant, then something must give, usually the CMJ regarding one of the two actions.
Here, as in all other cases of revision, which CMJ or moral principle is revised and
which retained will be determined by what seems most acceptable, credible, or likely
to be true to S upon reflection. We might also describe this as S’s degree of belief,
confidence, or commitment or how intuitively plausible S finds the proposition.
There are doubtless other phrases one could use to describe or refer to the feature of
belief that determines what S will revise to eliminate conflicts. For convenience, we’ll
use “credence” and its cognates for this feature of belief. Because revisions are
determined by S’s degree of credence in the individual parties to conflicts, we get
the potentially misleading but oft-cited claim that according to RE nothing is
immune to revision. The truth is that judgments regarding all types of propositions,
e.g., moral principles or evaluations of hypothetical actions, are open to revision.
The reason the claim might mislead: if upon reflection there are CMJs or moral
principles that have very high credence for S, specifically, more credence than any-
thing with which they conflict, then these judgments will be immune to revision.
When the reflective process of uncovering and resolving conflicts and the effort
to construct an MT that accounts for S’s CMJs runs its course, and S is left with a
coherent set of CMJs and an MT that accounts for all of them, S’s moral beliefs are
in a state of reflective equilibrium.
This is not the end of the game, however; S will have only attained a narrow
reflective equilibrium (NRE).
Wide Reflective Equilibrium

Elaborating Norman Daniels’ suggestion, we’ll represent the state of narrow
reflective equilibrium attained by S with <{CMJN}, {MTN}>, where this is the
ordered pair of the set of considered moral judgments S accepts in NRE and the set
3
of principles that constitutes the moral theory S accepts in NRE. The next step is for
S to attempt to disrupt her state of NRE. One important way of doing this is by
considering alternatives to {MTN} along with philosophical arguments that might
decide among these alternatives. Thus, for example, if {MTN} is some sort of
consequentialism, S should certainly consider broadly Kantian and Aristotelian
alternatives along with the arguments that have been used to support these theo-
ries. S should also consider theories and their supporting arguments that present
more radical challenges to {MTN}, e.g., Nietzsche’s views, moral egoism, and nihil-
ism. Ideally, S should consider all alternatives, but a good start in practice would be
to consider the basic alternative moral theories that have been developed and
debated throughout the history of philosophy.
How could such a process force S to alter <{CMJN}, {MTN}>; more specifically,
what might the arguments for and against {MTN} use as premises? Since S has
attained NRE, if the premises are all drawn from {CMJN}, the effort will fail.
{MTN} already accounts for all the elements of {CMJN}, so there will be no new
and clever examples that will elicit from S moral judgments that contradict {MTN}.
S could hardly have attained NRE if there were any hypothetical cases about
which she would form a CMJ at odds with what {MTN} would dictate when
applied to the case.
One idea pressed by Daniels (1979) is that the premises of an argument that
might force S to alter <{CMJN}, {MTN}> must be drawn from some “background
theory” (BT) that S accepts. The term “background theory” is probably too grandi-
ose, since this is a grab bag that will include anything else S believes that might be
relevant to S’s MT or CMJs. S’s BTs will include at least such things as views about
human nature, and various elements of metaphysics (e.g., views concerning free
will, or the nature of persons or actions), epistemology (e.g., views about the kinds
of circumstances where we’re likely to make mistakes or the possibility of a priori
justification), language (especially the analysis of moral language or accounts of the
etiology of moral terms), and also elements of psychology, sociology (e.g., regarding
the role morality plays in society), and biology. Daniels allows that BTs may also
contain some moral elements, including even considered moral judgments, so long
as these do not overlap entirely with {CMJN}. (One might question this idea on
grounds explained above, however. How could S really have attained NRE if any of
S’s moral judgments at all conflict with MT?) While some of all this might rise to the
level of explicit theory, much of it will not.
Let {BTN} be the set of background beliefs S accepts when she begins the process
of trying to disrupt her NRE. If the history of philosophy provides an argument
against {MTN}, or for some alternative MT, with premises that appear in {BTN},
then <{CMJN}, {MTN}, {BTN}> is incoherent. S must make some revision, and
likely a series of revisions, to attain a coherent system of beliefs. While reflection
upon some argument philosophers have already constructed might alert S to an
incoherence, <{CMJN}, {MTN}, {BTN}> could obviously contain idiosyncratic
problems that arguments written for a broader audience would not bring to light.
S therefore must also engage in an individual project of reflection aimed at uncov-
ering and resolving any incoherencies within <{CMJN}, {MTN}, {BTN}> not
4
highlighted by consideration of the moral theories and arguments pro and con
found in the history of philosophy.
As when trying to attain NRE, once again no “type” of proposition is granted a
privileged status. When deciding whether to revise her MT, CMJs, or BTs, S is
guided only by her degree of credence in the relevant beliefs. If an argument from
the history of philosophy reveals a conflict between some element of {BTN} and
{MTN}, S might revise her MT, in effect moving from <{CMJN}, {MTN}, {BTN}> to
<{CMJN}, {MTN1}, {BTN}>. But S might instead reject one of the premises of the
argument, thus moving to <{CMJN}, {MTN}, {BTN1}>. Which course S takes is deter-
mined by what has more credence for her, all things considered.
If S continues the reflective process of seeking and resolving conflicts, she might
eventually reach a point where her wider system of beliefs is in the kind of equilib-
rium she had attained for her moral beliefs in NRE. This state is known as wide
reflective equilibrium (WRE). We can represent it as <{CMJW}, {MTW}, {BTW}>.
Here’s a very simple example of how the opening stages of this process might go:
Suppose that {MTN} includes a broadly consequentialist theory of right action (see
consequentialism) and that {CMJN} is a very conventional set of moral judgments.
Now suppose S begins working through Nietzsche’s critique of conventional “slave”
morality (see nietzsche, friedrich). Nietzsche’s account of the development of
moral concepts immediately rings true to S. Acceptance of this account provides S
grounds for doubting many elements of {CMJN}. This, in turn, requires revisions to
various elements of {MTN}. Why did S accept Nietzsche’s theory of the development
of moral concepts? Presumably it squared very well with important elements of
{BTN}. Adding Nietzsche’s systematic account, S comes to hold {BTN1}. This
provokes S to eliminate a whole series of elements of {CMJN}, moving through
{CMJN1}, {CMJN2}, {CMJN2}, and eventually reaching {CMJNn}. But we also might
anticipate that some of S’s conventional CMJs would have sufficient credence that
S would not immediately reject them even though {BTN1} casts them into doubt.
But given everything removed from {CMJN}, {CMJNn} will no longer support the
consequentialism that formed the core of {MTN}, and in addition the Nietzschean
account of moral concepts that is a prominent part of {BTN1} directly undermines
this theory. Eliminating the consequentialist principle, S comes to accept {MTN1},
which will now be a very impoverished “moral theory,” perhaps containing only a
few very abstract elements such as a supervenience principle. The whole package S
accepts at the end of this process, <{CMJNn}, {MTN1}, {BTN1}>, will obviously not be
stable; it will be incoherent. So S must embark upon a process of rebuilding a new
set of CMJs along with a moral theory that accounts for them, a package that we
might expect to end up with Nietzschean flair.
Conservative versus Radical Wide Reflective Equilibrium

The conception of WRE just presented is actually rather conservative in spite of the
sweeping changes to <{CMJN}, {MTN}> it can force. For any movement to occur,
<{CMJN}, {MTN}, {BTN}> must be incoherent, and the course of the revisions needed
5
to attain coherence will be guided by S’s credence in the various elements of {CMJN},
{MTN}, and {BTN}. Similarly, the revisions that moved S to NRE were determined by
S’s credence in her initial CMJs. This is an oversimplification. S would typically
acquire additional information along the way. Thus, in the example from the end of
the previous section, S probably learned facts about the meanings various words
had in ancient languages from reading Nietzsche, and these new facts would have
convinced S to accept Nietzsche’s account of the development of moral concepts. S
could obviously add information while moving to a point of NRE as well. In addi-
tion, while moving toward NRE S will consider and make moral judgments about
real situations she has never encountered before and novel hypothetical situations.
So <{CMJN}, {MTN}> will not be determined solely by S’s initial CMJs and their
credence levels. And <{CMJW}, {MTW}, {BTW}> will not be determined simply by
the elements of <{CMJN}, {MTN}, {BTN}> and how much credence these have for S.
But this is only because S can make moral judgments about new cases and add new
factual information along the way. What S cannot do, according to the conservative
understanding of WRE, is alter existing beliefs or their credence levels in ways not
required by the acquisition of new information, or to eliminate conflicts among
beliefs, which might include moral judgments about new cases.
This understanding of WRE may be too constrained. Is it really the case that
reading and reflecting upon philosophical ethics only serves as an occasion for the
kind of mechanical updating of beliefs described above? Are we forever stuck with
the degrees of credence we first placed in beliefs, with these initial credences always
guiding our revisions? Philosophical reflection seems capable of provoking more
radical revisions. Suppose S is exposed to an entire interconnected moral system
that is new to S, significantly different from <{CMJN}, {MTN}>, but not sufficiently
supported by {CMJN} and {BTN} that S would be forced to adopt it. Might S not
nevertheless adopt this system because, upon reflection, it simply comes to seem
more likely to be true than {MTN}, the moral position S managed to work out for
herself? A radical understanding of WRE allows for such discontinuous revisions
that break with prior beliefs and their credences. Indeed, according to radical WRE,
one significant reason for considering philosophical alternatives to the moral views
that comprise one’s NRE is precisely to reflect upon material that might provoke a
radical revision of one’s moral view. Another part of the rationale is to seek and
resolve incoherence between the views one holds in NRE and one’s BTs in the way
envisioned by conservative WRE. (See DePaul 1993: 39–48.)
Once we recognize reflection upon alternative systems of philosophical ethics
might provoke a radical revision of the views held in NRE, it should be easy to see
that other types of experience, including especially intense engagement with
literature, film, music, and art, might also produce such revisions. It would doubt-
less often be a good thing for persons to use such engagement as another means of
disrupting their NREs, but it is not clear that such exposure is always a good idea.
Intense engagement with the arts as well as certain kinds of real life experience seem
to have the potential to corrupt one’s moral judgment as well as to enhance it. The
many advocates of censorship have not been mistaken about the possibility of such
6
corruption; they have instead been mistaken about what is likely to corrupt as
opposed to enhance moral judgment and also how best to deal with potentially
corrupting material. The approach taken by radical WRE is continuous with the
basic idea driving RE from the start: the reflective judgment of the individual
inquirer is the ultimate arbitrator.
According to radical WRE, then, a significant part of moving from NRE to WRE
will involve S considering whether she has had sufficient life experience and the
right kinds of such experience for her to be a competent moral judge. In addition,
recognizing the potentially salutary but also potentially corrupting potential of the
various arts, S must consider whether she has had enough engagement with the
right kinds of art, literature, film, etc. for her to be a competent moral judge. If it
should turn out that S does not meet her own standards for competent judgment,
this will provide ground for doubting many elements of {CMJN}. But it will not do
for S to respond simply by eliminating the now dubious elements of {CMJN} and
replacing them with new CMJs, for these too will be called into doubt. In order to
form CMJs and also judgments about MTs that she can trust, S must expose herself
to the real life experiences or experiences with art required to live up to her own
standards (cf. DePaul 1993: 137–83).
S’s initial views about what’s required to be a competent moral judge might be
elements of {BTN}, and hence at least the opening stages of this process could be
seen as an underappreciated element of the movement to WRE conservatively
understood. A radical understanding of WRE is required only if it is allowed that
the effort to live up to her own conception of a competent moral judge by broadening
her life experience or engagement with the arts might lead S to radical, discontinuous
revision of her moral views. Either way, it’s most important to recognize the
significance of reflection on what’s required for competent moral judgment and
whether one meets the standard. One might think this an insignificant matter –
we’re talking about philosophical inquiry here and we philosophers can all be
presumed to clear the bar. But this would be to ignore the danger of blindness to
one’s own limitations. In the end there is no sure way to avoid such blindness, but
WRE, conservative and radical, at least requires that one reflect on the problem,
formulate a view, and then live up to it.
Objections and Replies

Nearly all objections to WRE come down to the same complaint: The course of an
inquirer’s revisions and the overall moral view she eventually accepts are deter-
mined by nothing other than her levels of credence in the relevant beliefs. (One
notable exception is Peter Singer’s [2005] complaint that WRE includes so much
that the method becomes vacuous.) This is really just an accurate statement of a
core element of WRE, so it can hardly constitute an objection all by itself. There
are more and less aggressive ways of building out to a full-blown objection. One
relatively mild approach adds the claim that relying upon credences as WRE does
is illegitimate unless some reason can be provided for thinking that our credences
7
are reliable in the sense that the things that have a high level of credence are likely
to be true (Brandt 1979: 18–21). Peter Singer takes a much more aggressive
approach by adding this premise: “all the particular moral judgments we intui-
tively make are likely to be derived from discarded religious systems, from warped
views of sex and bodily functions, or from customs necessary for the survival of
the group in social and economic circumstances that now lie in the distant past”
(1974: 516). Another variant, which echoes familiar objections to moral intui-
tionism, complains that since the initial credences of our CMJs determine the
shape of the moral views we will hold in RE, the method is inherently conserva-
tive and could never lead to a moral view significantly different from conven-
tional morality.
The last of these objections largely misses the mark since it doesn’t appreciate the
difference between NRE and WRE. While it is surely possible for an inquirer to end
up holding some sort of conventional morality in WRE, given everything required
to attain WRE, there are many ways the method might force an inquirer away from
conventional morality. Indeed, one wonders what more an inquirer could reasonably
do in this vein that goes beyond what’s required by radical WRE.
One can challenge the more aggressive objections for exaggerating the pitiful
state of our moral judgments. Singer, for example, is probably right about the ori-
gin of some particular moral judgments, but his claim covers all particular moral
judgments. This is extravagant on its face. Consider the example of a particular
judgment provided above: Bernie Madoff shouldn’t have run a Ponzi scheme. Is it
at all plausible to claim that this judgment derives from “discarded religious sys-
tems, from warped views of sex and bodily functions,” or the like? And it’s easy to
find similar examples. Finally, since Singer’s claim applied to particular judg-
ments, it once again fails adequately to appreciate the distinction between NRE
and WRE.
This leaves the more moderate versions of the objection. It is tempting to try to
finesse these by agreeing that they shift the burden of proof onto WRE: Some
account must be provided of the reliability of those CMJs and other judgments that
play a significant role in determining the moral views one holds in WRE, but we
cannot expect this account to be prior to or independent of WRE – the required
account will emerge as part and parcel of the overall views one holds in WRE. It is,
therefore, premature to criticize WRE for not yet having produced the requisite
account, given that we are still so far from having attained WRE.
Daniels (1979), who developed this response, bolstered it by pointing out the
close similarity between WRE and the method employed by science. (His point
probably also holds for less formal modes of empirical inquiry.) The similarity
itself provides some support for WRE, since it would be odd if essentially the same
method of inquiry were acceptable for empirical inquiry but unacceptable for eth-
ics. Further support can be found, Daniels maintains, by attending to the status of
CMJs and the judgments that play a comparable role in empirical inquiry.
Historically, we have only recently attained a close enough approach to WRE with
respect to beliefs about ordinary middle-sized objects to provide a detailed account
8
of the reliability of ordinary perceptual judgments, which presumably are what

play the role of CMJs. Given the greater complexity and contestability of morality,
one would predict it would take longer to get close enough to WRE to expect an
account of the reliability of our CMJs. So while an account of the reliability of
these judgments must eventually be provided, given our current stage of progress
toward WRE, we do not face a crushing objection because we cannot provide the
account yet.
While promising, this line of response faces questions. Disagreement about
morality is easily overestimated; the huge level of consensus regarding familiar
cases easily underestimated (see disagreement, moral) And because it moves
beyond coherence between CMJs and MT, WRE has resources that might lead
inquirers toward a greater degree of agreement. Nevertheless, it seems most reason-
able to expect that, in the end, WRE will produce convergence upon a small number
of alternative moral views with significant differences rather than convergence on a
single view. This would guarantee that the CMJs or credences of all inquirers are
not reliable, in spite of the fact that, having attained WRE, all would have accounts
of their own reliability. This result would undermine the defense of WRE just
outlined, but would it doom WRE?
Not necessarily. WRE can still be defended as a rational method of inquiry, and in
fact the only rational method. In essence, WRE directs inquirers to leave nothing out
of consideration and, when conflicts arise, to revise on the basis of what, all things
considered, has the greatest credence. Is there really any sane alternative approach to
moral inquiry (DePaul 1998)?
See also: coherentism, moral; consequentialism; disagreement, moral;

epistemology, moral; intuitionism, moral; intuitions, moral; literature
and ethics; moral judgment; nietzsche, friedrich; rawls, john;
supervenience, moral; thought experiments in ethics
REFERENCES
Brandt, Richard 1979. A Theory of the Good and the Right. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Daniels, Norman 1979. “Wide Reflective Equilibrium and Theory Acceptance in Ethics,”
DePaul, Michael 1993. Balance and Refinement: Beyond Coherentism in Moral Inquiry.
London: Routledge.
DePaul, Michael 1998. “Why Bother with Reflective Equilibrium,” in Michael DePaul and
William Ramsey (eds.), Rethinking Intuition: The Psychology of Intuition and Its Role in
Philosophical Inquiry. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Goodman, Nelson 1965. Fact, Fiction and Forecast. New York: Bobbs-Merrill.
Singer, Peter 1974. “Sidgwick and Reflective Equilibrium,” The Monist, vol. 58, pp. 490–517.
Singer, Peter 2005. “Ethics and Intuitions,” Journal of Ethics, vol. 9, pp. 331–52.
9
FURTHER READINGS
Bonevac, Daniel 2004. “Reflection without Equilibrium,” Journal of Philosophy, vol. 101,
pp. 363–88.
Brink, David 1989. Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Copp, David 1984. “Considered Moral Judgments and Justification: Conservatism in Moral
Theory,” in D. Copp and D. Zimmerman (eds.), Morality, Reason and Truth. Lanham:
Rowman & Allanheld, pp. 141–68.
Cummins, Robert 1998. “Reflection on Reflective Equilibrium,” in Michael DePaul and
William Ramsey (eds.), Rethinking Intuition: The Psychology of Intuition and Its Role in
Philosophical Inquiry. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Daniels, Norman 1996. Justice and Justification: Reflective Equilibrium in Theory and Practice.
Elgin, Catherine Z. 1996. Considered Judgment. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Holmgren, Margaret 1989. “The Wide and Narrow of Reflective Equilibrium,” Canadian
Knight, Carl 2006. “The Method of Reflective Equilibrium: Wide, Radical, Fallible, Plausible,”
Philosophical Papers, vol. 35, pp. 205–29.
Rawls, John 1951. “Outline of a Decision Procedure for Ethics,” Philosophical Review, vol. 60,
pp. 177–97.
Rawls, John 1974–5. “The Independence of Moral Theory,” Proceedings and Addresses of the
Scanlon, Thomas 2003. “Rawls on Justification,” in Samuel R. Freeman (ed.), The Cambridge
Companion to Rawls. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sosa, Ernest 1989. “Equilibrium in Coherence?” in John Bender (ed.), The Current State of
the Coherence Theory. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Stich, Stephen 1988. “Reflective Equilibrium, Analytic Epistemology, and the Problem of
Cognitive Diversity,” Synthese, vol. 74, pp. 391–413.
Tersman, Folke 2008. “The Reliability of Moral Intuitions: A Challenge from Neuroscience,”
1
Tragedy of the Commons

David Schmidtz
Today, the word “tragedy” is used to refer generically to anything really bad. The
word has an older meaning, though, referring to literary works that depict a
protagonist caught up in events inexorably leading to his or her doom. Some of that
older meaning is implicit in the logic of what we now call the “tragedy of the
commons.” The phrase was invented by Garrett Hardin (1968), who credits the idea
to W. F. Lloyd (1833); (see also H. Scott Gordon 1954).
The Logic of the Commons

Suppose there is a plot of land. The land has a carrying capacity: a number of
animals the land can sustain more or less indefinitely. (The concept of carrying
capacity is somewhat problematic. While it points to something real, because there
really are limits to what the land can support, such limits are not fixed. Carrying
capacity is somewhat fluid, and a function of many variables. For example, whether
Kruger Park in South Africa can carry 15,000 elephants depends on whether we
want to leave room for rhinos, which is not simply an ecological issue.) Suppose
the parcel’s carrying capacity is 100 animals. The land is owned jointly by 10
shepherds, each of whom owns 10 animals for a total flock of 100 animals. The
land is thus at its carrying capacity. As things stand, let us say each animal is worth
$1 to its owner, so that, at carrying capacity, 100 animals are worth $100. Crucially,
although the 10 shepherds treat their individual flocks as private property, they
jointly treat the land as one large pasture, with no internal fences, so that their
animals graze freely.
10 shepherds × 10 animals each = 100 animals

Individual flock’s value = 10 animals × $1 = $10
Total flock’s value = 100 animals × $1 = $100
Now, suppose one shepherd adds an eleventh animal. We now have 101 animals
altogether, and thus have exceeded the land’s carrying capacity. There is not quite
enough food per animal now; therefore, they are a bit leaner, and the value per
animal drops to 95 cents. The total stock of 101 animals is now worth $95.95, which
is $4.05 less than what the total stock was worth before, when it was within the land’s
carrying capacity.
So, why would a shepherd add the extra animal, when it so clearly is a losing
proposition? At the original carrying capacity, the individual flocks of 10 were worth
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee198
2
$10. Having added one more sheep, the shepherd now has eleven, and each is worth
95 cents. That works out to $10.45, which means that the individual shepherd
actually made a profit of 45 cents by adding the extra animal, even though the value
of the total stock went from $100 to $95.95.
Although the total cost to the group of adding the extra animal exceeded the total
benefit, the individual shepherd receives 100 percent of the benefit, while paying
only 10 percent of the cost. The other 90 percent is paid by the other nine shepherds:
they own 90 percent of the animals, so they suffer 90 percent of the loss involved in
the falling price per animal. Individual shepherds, though, see only individual costs
and benefits, and act accordingly. The logic of the commons has begun its seemingly
inexorable grind toward its tragic fate (see sustainability).
Formally, a commons becomes a commons tragedy when collective use of a
commune or open-access commons exceeds carrying capacity. The tragedy of the
commons is one version of the more general problem of externalities. An externality,
also called an “external” or “spillover” cost, is that portion of the cost of a decision
borne by someone other than the decision-maker. We say cost is “internalized”
when the arrangement is changed so that decision-makers now bear the entire cost
of their decisions. One general purpose of property institutions is to internalize
externalities, preventing people from shifting the cost of their activities onto others.
Ideally, property regimes should evolve, internalizing externalities as they become
significant – both “positive” externalities associated with productive effort and
“negative” externalities associated with misuse and overuse of commonly held
resources. A system is more likely to be economically and ecologically sustainable to
the extent that agents who decide how much of a resource to use pay for the true cost
of their decision (see responsibility). It is more likely to be a tragic commons to
the extent that agents who decide how much of a resource to use do not have to pay
the cost of excessive use, and cannot capture the benefits of individually modest use.
Real-world examples are all too common. Traces of commons tragedy can be seen in
everything from overfishing of coral reefs to socialized healthcare systems where
access to healthcare services is limited only by a patient’s willingness to wait in line.
Worries about commons tragedies are implicitly frequent in debates about famine
relief (should we bring food to the people?), immigration (should we bring people to
the food?), and population control (how many more shepherds do we have the right
to add?) (see immigration; population; refugees).
Private Property as a Solution to Commons Problems

In an unmanaged commons, individual shepherds are left to decide for themselves
whether to step up the intensity of their resource use. They do not take full
responsibility for the cost of their overuse, however, because the cost falls mainly on
other members of the group of communal users. The payoff of overuse is negative
for the group but positive for the individual who elects to overuse.
Is there nothing those other shepherds can do? One option would be to cut their
jointly owned territory into 10 smaller parcels, so each shepherd owns a small parcel
3
with its own individual carrying capacity. Under this new arrangement, instead of
dispersing the environmental degradation over the entire commons, the damage is
concentrated on the offender’s own private land. Thus, in the hypothetical example,
instead of dispersing damages worth $4.05 over 100 animals and 10 owners, the
damage is concentrated within the individual shepherd’s own parcel. To keep the
example simple, suppose the parcel covers an area one-tenth the size of the original
communal plot. Suppose also that, when the damage is concentrated in one-tenth of
the area, the resulting damage is 10 times as great per square foot. In that case, the
flock of 10, which had been worth $10, is now a starving flock of eleven, worth about
$5.05. The value of each animal has been cut roughly in half, a painfully obvious
mistake. Consequently, under a system of individual parcels, everyone learns in a
hurry not to add an eleventh animal.
Private ownership gives an owner the right to exclude. By conferring the right to
exclude, the system gives an owner the opportunity to conserve a resource. In giving
such an opportunity, the system also provides an incentive, because whatever owners
save, they save for themselves.
An Alternative Solution: Communal Management

In a large range of cases, parcelization is a viable alternative to managing land
as an unregulated commons. It is not always the only alternative. Another
option is for the shepherds to leave the territory in a common pool, and instead
of each tending a small flock of 10 sheep, ignoring the costs they impose on
each other as they add more sheep, they could pool their flocks and become
joint owners of a single large flock of 100 sheep. Each shepherd now has an
interest in all of the sheep. Under a communal arrangement, a shepherd consid-
ers not whether to add the eleventh sheep, but whether to add the 101st. Adding
an extra sheep means that, for each shepherd, the result is not that the value of
his flock goes from $10 to $10.45. Instead, the value goes from a 10 percent
ownership stake in $100 to a 10 percent stake in $95.95. Therefore, under the
communal arrangement, no one wants to add the extra sheep. Here, too, as in
the case of switching to private parcels, an external cost has been internalized,
and each of the 10 shepherds now has a self-interested reason to respect the
land’s carrying capacity. They will have more information to process than would
a small private owner, and less incentive to process it with diligence, since their
stake in the decision is only 10 percent, and since their voice might be only one
vote out of 10, and quite possibly their vote will not be the deciding vote any-
way. Still, other things equal, they will want to make decisions that accord with
sustainable use.
So, regardless of whether they cut their land into parcels, or pool their flocks of
sheep, the fact remains that, in the real world, a community of 10 people has a good
chance of being able to come together to devise and enforce rules governing the
land’s use that will enable them to avoid collective suicide. However, there is an
additional issue to consider.
4
The Open-Access Commons: A Different Sort of Problem

Suppose the group has gone communal, pooling both their land and their live-
stock. So far, so good. Now, however, suppose that, whatever rules the 10 shep-
herds might devise to regulate the addition of extra animals, they are not able to
stop an eleventh shepherd from entering the picture with yet another flock. With a
fixed and known set of players, viable conventions tend to emerge, but if a com-
munity is not able to restrict the inflow of new users, then we have an open-access
commons, which makes the tragedy far more likely (see globalization; world
hunger).
Sometimes, everything depends on whether it is possible to add an extra player,
rather than on existing players adding an extra animal. For a community to manage
itself successfully, it must be able to control negative externalities among members
within the community, but historically it is even more critical that the community be
able to restrict access, controlling the size and membership of the community of
users. Robert Ellickson (1993) contrasts the unregulated or open-access commons
with communes. A commune is a restricted-access commons. In a commune,
property is owned by the group rather than by individual members. People as a
group claim and exercise the right to exclude. Typically, communes draw a sharp
distinction between members and nonmembers, and regulate access accordingly.
Access to public property tends to be restricted by time of day or year. Some activities
are permitted; others are not.
Some medieval commons lasted, nontragically, for hundreds of years. Elinor
Ostrom (1990) describes a Swiss commons whose written records date back to the
thirteenth century. Cattle were privately owned but grazed in communal highlands
in the summer. People grew private crops on individual plots in the valleys, intending
to use part of their crops to sustain their cattle over the winter. The basic limitation
on communal summer grazing was that owners could send only as many cattle to
the highland meadows as their private land parcel could sustain over the winter,
with fodder grown during summer.
Allowing individual owners freely to decide whether to add to their individual
stock is above all what governors of a commons cannot do. To avoid tragedy,
governors of a common pasture must manage the overall livestock population,
based on their estimate of the pasture’s overall carrying capacity. There are several
ways to do this. Managers can allow a given owner to graze cattle on common land
only in proportion to: (a) how much hay he or she produces, (b) the ratio of land
that belongs to him or her, or (c) the number of shares he or she owns in the
cooperative.
In the Swiss commons, Ostrom says, no citizen could send more cows to the Alps
than he or she could feed during the winter. As Schmidtz and Willott (2003a)
summarize, partners recognize an imperative to avoid the tragedy of the commons
and in each case do so by taking the option of overgrazing out of the hands of
individual partners. History indicates, though, that members of successful
communes internalize the rewards that come with that collective responsibility. In
5
particular, they reserve the right to exclude nonmembers. A successful commune

does not run itself as an open-access commons (see environmental ethics).
See also: environmental ethics; globalization; immigration; population;

refugees; responsibility; sustainability; world hunger
REFERENCES
Early sections of this essay borrow from Schmidtz (1994) and from Schmidtz and Willott
(2002, 2003b). Later sections borrow from Schmidtz (2000) and from Schmidtz and Willott
(2003a).
Ellickson, Robert C. 1993. “Property in Land,” Yale Law Journal, vol. 102, pp. 1315–400.
Gordon, H. Scott 1954. “The Economic Theory of a Common-Property Resource – the
Fishery,” Journal of Political Economy, vol. 62, pp. 124–42.
Hardin, Garrett 1968. “The Tragedy of the Commons,” Science, vol. 162, pp. 1243–8.
Lloyd, W. F. 1833. Two Lectures on the Checks to Population. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ostrom, Elinor 1990. Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective
Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schmidtz, David 1994. “The Institution of Property,” Social Philosophy and Policy, vol. 11,
pp. 42–62.
Schmidtz, David 2000. “Islands in a Sea of Obligation: An Essay on the Duty to Rescue,” Law
Schmidtz, David, and Elizabeth Willott 2002. Environmental Ethics: What Really Matters,
What Really Works. New York: Oxford.
Schmidtz, David, and Elizabeth Willott 2003a. “Reinventing the Commons: An African Case
Study,” University of California at Davis Law Review, vol. 36, pp. 203–32.
Schmidtz, David, and Elizabeth Willott 2003b. “The Tragedy of the Commons,” in R. Frey
and C. Wellman (eds.), Blackwell Companion to Applied Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell,
pp. 662–73.
FURTHER READINGS
Willott, Elizabeth 2002. “Recent Populations Trends,” in D. Schmidtz and E. Willott (eds.),
Environmental Ethics: What Really Matters, What Really Works. New York: Oxford.
1
Negligence
Holly M. Smith
The degree of an agent’s blameworthiness for unjustified wrong-doing varies with

the mental attitude the agent has at the time of the action: other things being equal,
the highest degree of blameworthiness attaches to purposeful wrong-doing (the
agent intends to commit the wrong), but progressively decreases if the agent acts
knowingly (the agent believes the action is wrong), acts recklessly (the agent believes
there is a substantial risk of serious wrong), or acts negligently (see blame; risk). In
all these cases except negligence the agent is aware that the act is or risks being
wrong. Most cases of negligence, however, do not involve conscious advertence to
the risk of wrong; the agent’s “mental attitude” is lack of awareness. For this reason
the common assumption that negligent wrongful action is blameworthy has puzzled
many commentators, and sometimes been rejected.
Negligent conduct may include omissions (see omissions) as well as actions, and
may include other kinds of wrongs beyond harms (see harm). In some actions
commonly described as negligent, the agent knowingly acts in a manner that falls
below the standard of care applicable to such activities. She is aware of a small risk
created by her action, but disregards it. Thus a technician negligently washes the lab
glassware, knowing it ought to be washed thoroughly, but working hurriedly and
consciously failing to scrub every surface. Because of her negligent work, we hold
the technician blameworthy when the unclean glassware contaminates an
experiment. No bright line divides such advertent negligence from recklessness; the
difference depends on the probability and gravity of the harm. Cases of advertent
negligence fall easily within the spectrum of culpable mental states, since they
involve the agent’s awareness of the unjustifiable risk she creates. Like cases of reck-
lessness, however, cases of advertent negligence give rise to questions about moral
luck (see moral luck): if two technicians wash glassware with equal negligence,
but only one contaminates a later experiment, are they both equally blameworthy?
The more puzzling cases are those of inadvertent negligence: cases in which the
agent is not aware at the time that her action unjustifiably risks wrong-doing, but she
should have been aware of this risk. Many accounts of responsibility (see responsi-
bility) and blameworthiness require satisfaction of an epistemic condition: they hold
that an agent cannot be blamed for causing harm if the agent is unaware that her
action either risks or will lead to harm (Sher 2009: Ch. 1; Alexander and Ferzan 2009:
70–1). Ignorance that one’s action will have a harmful upshot is a paradigmatic
example of the kind of mental state that excuses unjustifiable action. One reason
ignorance excuses is that it seems unfair to hold an agent responsible for failing to
meet some requirement when she is unaware the requirement demands something
of her in the present case. Since the inadvertent negligent agent is unaware that her
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee199
2
action risks some harm, it appears that she has this paradigmatic excuse, so how can
she be blameworthy when the harm ensues?
In discussing this issue, it is helpful to distinguish between tracing cases and
non-tracing cases of negligence, both of which can be understood as cases of cul-
pable ignorance (King 2009: 579–80). In tracing cases, the relevant episode
involves a sequence of two actions: a benighting action and a subsequent unwitting
negligent action. The benighting action is an earlier action in which the agent
ought to obtain information relevant to her subsequent choice but culpably fails to
do so. Her lack of information subsequently leads her to act unwittingly to cause
or risk harm. Consider a doctor who fails to read the most recent issue of his
medical journal (his benighting act). If he had read the journal he would have
discovered that the traditional treatment for premature infants has been shown to
lead to blindness, and should be abandoned. In a later emergency he administers
the traditional treatment to a premature infant (the unwitting negligent act), and
the infant is blinded. On many accounts, he is blameworthy for administering the
traditional treatment, and his blameworthiness for it traces back to his culpability
for not reading the journal.
Theorists have argued that the epistemic condition for blameworthiness is satis-
fied, albeit indirectly, in tracing cases. At the time of the unwitting negligent act the
agent may be unaware that his action risks harm, but at the time of the earlier
benighting act, he was aware that his failure to acquire information would unjustifi-
ably risk his subsequently causing harm. These theorists understand tracing cases as
special cases of a broader category of episodes in which an earlier culpable act of an
agent prevents subsequent appropriate action. A driver who drinks heavily and then
drives, causing an accident, is commonly viewed as blameworthy for the accident.
Although at the time of the accident she lacked the degree of physical control
normally required for moral responsibility, she is nonetheless judged blameworthy
because her drinking culpably caused her later impairment. Her culpability for the
earlier act is transmitted to the later act (Rosen 2003: 62–3; Zimmerman 1986).
Other theorists have questioned whether blameworthiness for an earlier act is
transmitted to a subsequent act in the manner claimed (Smith 1983: 543–71). A long
tradition holds that we judge someone blameworthy when we find fault with that
person because of the reprehensible motives with which she performed the act in
question. In negligent acts, however, the agent’s motives may be unimpeachable.
When the doctor unknowingly chooses a harmful treatment, he is motivated by a
laudable desire to save the infant’s life. There is, of course, fault to be found in his
earlier motives when he failed to read his medical journal – perhaps from laziness,
or lack of concern for his patients, or a stronger desire to play golf than to update his
medical knowledge. Such motives give us reason to find him very blameworthy for
failing to read his journal. It is unclear, however, that they also give us reason to find
him blameworthy for the subsequent well-motivated act to which his failure leads.
We believe that the doctor’s failing to read his journal renders him blameworthy for
the infant’s blindness, since he could foresee that his failure to read the journal might
have some such consequence. But should we also hold him blameworthy for his later
3
treatment of the infant? This would require holding the doctor blameworthy twice
for the infant’s blindness – once for his benighting act, and once for his negligent act.
However, it is far from clear that the doctor is more blameworthy for this sequence
of acts than he would be for a single act that resulted in the same harm. Consider a
situation in which the doctor’s benighting act led to a similarly harmful act on the
part of a colleague. The colleague, working for a medical charity in a war zone,
depends on the doctor for updates on medical advances. When the doctor fails to
read his journal and so fails to alert his overseas colleague, the colleague blinds a
premature infant by using the traditional treatment. In such a case the stateside
doctor is blameworthy for the harm to the war zone infant. Having culpably failed to
read the journal, he failed to alert his colleague to the dangers of the standard treat-
ment, and this failure led to the colleague’s acting in a way that harmed the infant. Is
the doctor in the original case (in which he performs both the benighting act and the
unwittingly harmful act) more blameworthy than he is in the second case, in which
he performs only a benighting act, and his colleague performs the resultant unwit-
tingly harmful act? If we hold that in the original case the doctor performs two
culpable acts, it appears that he must be more blameworthy for this sequence of acts
than he is in the second case, in which he performs only one culpable act. But it is
hardly clear that he is more blameworthy in the original case than in the second
case. If not, then the doctor’s culpability must accrue in virtue of the benighting act
alone, and no additional blame accrues to him in virtue of the negligent act itself.
This suggests that, contrary to the tracing account we are considering, blameworthi-
ness for earlier acts is not transmitted to subsequent acts.
Some commentators might reply by claiming that we fault wrong-doers, not just
for their flawed motives, but also for their flawed cognitive states. On this view, the
doctor’s belief, at the time of the negligent act, that the traditional treatment is best
counts as a flawed cognitive state, and grounds his blameworthiness for choosing
the traditional treatment. But it is difficult to see how to pursue this argument
successfully. What makes a cognitive state – a belief, for example – morally flawed? It
does not appear to be the content of the belief, since a week earlier a belief with the
same content would not have been morally flawed. It does not appear to be the falsity
of the belief, since false beliefs often excuse rather than inculpate agents. It does not
appear to be the consequences of the belief, since many beliefs lead to bad conse-
quences but still excuse the agent for his action. Perhaps the claim is that the belief ’s
history renders it morally flawed: it is the product of a culpable act. But many beliefs
are the products of culpable acts, and yet are not themselves morally flawed (I steal
a book and read it; my resulting beliefs are the product of a culpable act, but those
beliefs are not morally flawed in themselves). And if it is claimed that the history
of the belief grounds the agent’s blameworthiness, this claim seems subject to the
counterargument of the previous paragraph.
Some authors who invoke the tracing explanation for why inadvertent negligent
acts are culpable have claimed that we can never, or at best rarely, have enough
knowledge to be certain that a given negligent act actually resulted from some past
culpable failure to acquire information (Rosen 2003, 2004). Perhaps the doctor
4
overheard someone remark that the current journal had no important articles, so he
inferred that there was no hurry to read it. Should he have relied on this remark, or
should he have known that the “informant” was untrustworthy on such matters? If
he believed the informant to be trustworthy, was this belief based on some earlier
failure to adequately investigate the informant’s judgment? Such chains of possibly
negligent acts trail off into the distant past, and it may be difficult to know whether
the agent was really culpable for the original act in such a chain. If so, it can be
argued that we are rarely, perhaps never, in a position to ascribe blame for present
negligence.
The issues in non-tracing cases are somewhat different. In tracing cases, the rel-
evant episode involves two actions: an earlier benighting action and a subsequent
inadvertent negligent action whose culpability arguably traces back to the benight-
ing act. In non-tracing cases of negligence, there does not seem to be an earlier
benighting act; there is simply the agent’s failure to advert to the potential harm at
the time of action (King 2009; Sher 2009: Ch. 2). Consider a mother who leaves her
dog in the car on a hot day while picking up her child at school. Unexpectedly
distracted by a dispute with the teachers, she forgets the dog and fails to return until
it is too late (Sher 2009: 24). Some theorists maintain that cases such as this are best
understood as ones in which there is no earlier benighting act: the agent’s only fail-
ure is simply the failure to remember the dog. If this failure to remember can’t be
traced to some earlier culpable act, how can the mother be blameworthy for her
dog’s death? Failure to remember some fact, per se, is hardly the source of blame-
worthiness, since we non-culpably fail to remember many facts we once knew.
A common strategy is to say that the mother is blameworthy for the dog’s death if a
reasonable person in her situation would have remembered the dog in time. But
this strategy must spell out what characterizes “a reasonable person in the agent’s
situation.” Would a reasonable person have believed all the morally relevant facts
about the world? Surely this standard is too demanding. Would a reasonable per-
son have believed exactly what the agent herself believed? This standard is too lax,
since the mother wouldn’t qualify as negligent. Would a reasonable person have
had a better memory than the mother? But one can’t help having the type of mem-
ory one does. Some authors argue that there is no non-arbitrary and fair way to
specify what a “reasonable person” would have remembered in such a case, and
hence that we cannot use the “reasonable person” standard to fix when an agent
counts as culpably negligent (Alexander and Ferzan 2009: Ch. 3; Zimmerman
1986: 207; but see Westen 2008). Others have argued that even if we can charac-
terize the “reasonable person,” requiring the agent to act as such an agent would
have done makes an impossible demand on her, since she often cannot know, or
at this point perform, what the reasonable person would have done (Smith 2011).
These considerations raise serious doubts whether negligence can be a ground for
blameworthiness.
Another strategy for explaining why the mother’s inadvertent negligence is
blameworthy is to say that her failure to remember the dog shows a flawed quality of
will: had she cared sufficiently about the dog’s welfare, she would have remembered,
5
so we can infer that her quality of will (or her attitude or character) is faulty on the
occasion of the negligence (see character). However, pursuing this strategy is
difficult. In some cases it may be legitimate to infer the negligent agent has a flawed
quality of will, but the character trait in question may be one which she has not been
(or would not be) able to improve or circumvent. If so, can we fairly blame the agent
for a personality flaw that she could not help having? In other cases it may not be
clear that we can legitimately infer the negligent agent has a flawed quality of will.
Suppose the mother has repeatedly shown marked concern for the dog’s welfare,
taking costly steps to ensure its health and safety. From this one tragic instance of
forgetfulness, it seems illegitimate to infer that she is not appropriately concerned
for her dog (King 2009: 583–7).
Negligence is invoked as a consideration supporting blameworthiness in morality,
but also as a consideration supporting liability for legal sanctions. In Anglo-
American law, negligent conduct is widely construed as a ground for liability in tort
or civil law, and even for a limited number of crimes (see torts; criminal law).
Given this, and the assumption that in general a person should not be liable for legal
sanctions unless he or she is morally blameworthy, the question of whether a person
is genuinely blameworthy for negligence is a pressing one, since severe penalties
may ride on it. In the legal context practical considerations in favor of holding a
negligent person liable are often invoked: for example, it is often argued that making
people liable for negligence gives them an additional motive for taking greater care
in the field of action, and so ensures that they perform fewer harmful actions. Others
have maintained, however, that holding the negligent person liable cannot have any
deterrent value, since the person is quite unaware that his prospective action risks
harm and so cannot respond to the threat of a penalty.
The greater prevalence of liability for negligent conduct in tort law than in crim-
inal law may be explained partly by the fact that the objective of tort law is some-
what different from that of criminal law. In the case of tort law, a chief aim is to
determine which party should bear the cost of a harm, the party who suffers the
harm or the party who causes the harm. Since, in Anglo-American law, there is
usually an effort to impose the cost on the party who has fault in the matter (see
strict liability), the fact that the agent who negligently caused the harm often
shows some defective conduct – either at an earlier time, when she culpably failed
to ascertain the risks of her action, or at the time of the negligent conduct, when she
failed to advert to the risk – means that it is not surprising that tort law should hold
negligence a ground for liability. However, the notion of “defective conduct”
appealed to in such reasoning may not require a finding of blameworthiness per se,
or blameworthiness for the negligent conduct itself, as opposed to its benighting
precursor.
The question whether – and if so, why – negligent conduct is blameworthy
remains under active philosophical and legal dispute.
See also: blame; character; criminal law; harm; moral luck; omissions;
responsibility; risk; strict liability; torts
6
REFERENCES
Alexander, Larry, and Kimberley Kessler Ferzan with Stephen Morse 2009. “Negligence,” in
Crime and Culpability: A Theory of Criminal Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, pp. 69–85.
King, Matt 2009. “The Problem with Negligence,” Social Theory and Practice, vol. 35, pp. 577–95.
Rosen, Gideon 2003. “Culpability and Ignorance,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society,
vol. 103, pp. 61–84.
Rosen, Gideon 2004. “Skepticism about Moral Responsibility,” in John Hawthorne (ed.),
Philosophical Perspectives: Ethics, vol. 18. Malden, MA: Blackwell, pp. 295–313.
Sher, George 2009. Who Knew? Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Smith, Holly M. 1983. “Culpable Ignorance,” The Philosophical Review, vol. XCII, pp. 543–71.
Smith, Holly M. 2011. “The Moral Clout of Reasonable Beliefs,” in Mark Timmons (ed.),
Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics, vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 1–25.
Westen, Peter 2008. “Individualizing the Reasonable Person in Criminal Law,” Criminal Law
Zimmerman, Michael J. 1986. “Negligence and Moral Responsibility,” Noûs, vol. 20, pp. 199–218.
FURTHER READINGS
Hall, Jerome 1963. “Negligent Behavior Should Be Excluded from Penal Liability,” Columbia
Montmarquet, James A. 1995. “Culpable Ignorance and Excuses,” Philosophical Studies,
vol. 80, pp. 41–9.
Montmarquet, James A. 1999. “Zimmerman on Culpable Ignorance,” Ethics, vol. 104, pp. 842–5.
Rosen, Gideon 2008. “Kleinbart the Oblivious and Other Tales of Ignorance and
Responsibility,” Journal of Philosophy, vol. 105, pp. 591–610.
Sverdlik, Steven 1993. “Pure Negligence,” American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 30, pp. 137–49.
Williams, Glanville 1961. Criminal Law: The General Part, 2nd ed. London: Stevens, pp. 100–22.
Zimmerman, Michael J. 1988. An Essay on Moral Responsibility. Totawa, NJ: Rowman &
Littlefield.
Zimmerman, Michael J. 2008. Living with Uncertainty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
1
War
Seth Lazar
Introduction
Since at least the first recorded instance of human-on-human conflict, in Wadi
Halfa, Sudan, between 14,000 and 12,000 years ago (Reader 1998: 142–3), human
beings have fought with, and killed one another. Also, probably since that first con-
flict over diminishing resources, we have sought to explain and justify some of this
killing. Each culture, each historical and religious tradition, has its own history of
debate about war’s morality (see just war theory, history of). Christian just war
theory traces its roots to the early Church fathers, medieval scholastics, and the
eighteenth- and nineteenth-century jurists. The Qur’ān offers Muslims guidance on
when and how to fight; while Hindus derive insights from the Mahabharata and the
Laws of Manu, among other places. Other traditions have their own key texts and
insights. In recent years, thinking about war’s morality has slipped its religious
moorings, and drifted towards more secular, universalist foundations. Foremost
among these is the conviction that profound moral reasons protect all human beings
equally against lethal attacks, no matter how they otherwise differ (see killing). To
justify killing, we must explain how these weighty reasons can either be overridden,
or defeated by some other consideration. Although other terms might be used, this
is most commonly expressed in the conviction that all people have fundamental
human rights against being killed, such that we can only justify killing them if they
have somehow lost that right, or it has been overridden by some even weightier set
of moral reasons (see rights). Since killing is the business of war, if warfare is to be
justified, we must explain how our enemies lose their rights against attack, or how
those rights are overridden by our positive reasons for fighting. On this justificatory
project hangs the viability of an ethics of war: if it fails, we must reject warfare, and
endorse pacifism (see pacifism).
This essay focuses on contemporary philosophers’ attempts to render warfare
consistent with an adequate understanding of the human right to life. It does not
explore the historical roots of contemporary just war theory, interesting though they
are, for two reasons (besides, of course, brevity). The first is skepticism about the
religious substructure of most historical just war thinking. Not only does this
undermine some of the key arguments in the tradition, it also invalidates it as the
basis of consensus between adherents to different cultural traditions. Principles of
just war theory must aim at universal application, so should not presuppose
unreasonable, culturally specific premises. The second is the historical tradition’s
understandable ignorance of the idea of human rights. For example, Francisco de
Vitoria (1492–1546) is often considered one of the most sophisticated Catholic just
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee200
2
war theorists, and yet he nonetheless inherited his tradition’s animosity toward
Muslims, proposing one set of rules for Christian adversaries, and another for
Saracens. In “war against the infidel,” he wrote, “peace can never be hoped for on any
terms; therefore the only remedy is to eliminate all of them who are capable of bear-
ing arms against us, given that they are already guilty” (Vitoria 2006: 329; see also de
Pizan 2006: 222). Vitoria was also typically uninterested in the rights of our own
combatants. Few now would agree that “men of lower condition and class cannot
prevent war even if they consider it to be unjust, since their opinion would not be
heard; it would therefore be a waste of time for them to examine the causes of war”
(2006: 319). Of course, this indifference to individual rights is hardly surprising.
Vitoria had no conception of universal fundamental human rights, and it would be
anachronistic to expect him to do so. He wrote for his world, just as the seven-
teenth-, eighteenth-, and nineteenth-century jurists such as Wolff (1679–1754),
Vattel (1714–67), and Clausewitz (1780–1831), respectively, wrote for theirs,
expounding doctrines of practically unlimited sovereignty, with no judge higher
than the nation-state, and therefore no one to answer to – least of all the ordinary
people whose lives are at stake. We too must write for our world, with our own fun-
damental moral commitments at the forefront of our thinking (Skinner 2002: 88).
Though the historical just war tradition can inform our arguments, if we want to
know how – and if – war can be squared with universal human rights, we need more
modern tools.
The most influential figure in the contemporary just war debate is Michael Walzer,
whose Just and Unjust Wars (2006) set a pattern that even his fiercest critics have
endorsed. Put simply, Walzer argued that wars can be justified only if two conditions
are met. First, we may only resort to war to protect fundamental human rights.
Second, we may only fight if we can do so without violating our adversaries’ rights.
Walzer’s critics have questioned his specific accounts of what rights are worth
fighting (and killing) for, and how the right to life can be lost, but they have not
questioned this basic justificatory model. In this essay, I first summarize Walzer’s
views, and then those of his critics, before indicating some more fundamental
departures from his approach.
Just and unjust wars

Walzer is often presented as the archetype of orthodox, traditional just war theory.
Though his views have formed a contemporary orthodoxy, there is little that is
archetypal or traditional about them. When discussing the resort to war – often
called jus ad bellum – he does not deploy the traditional just war theory criteria of
just cause (see just cause [in war]), proper authority, right intention, last resort,
reasonable prospects of success, and proportionality (for detailed discussion, see
Coates 1997). Instead, he adopts the “legalist paradigm,” derived from international
law. The paradigm affirms that the dominant value of international society is the
“survival and independence of separate political communities.” This grounds states’
rights of territorial integrity and political sovereignty (see international
3
relations). Forcibly undermining these rights constitutes criminal aggression,

which justifies either individual or collective defense, which may also extend to
punishment, to deter future attacks. Nothing besides aggression can justify war
(Walzer 2006: 61).
Why should the survival and independence of political communities matter so
much? Walzer looked to individual human rights to do the key justificatory work.
States’ sovereignty and territorial integrity are grounded in the human rights of
their citizens, in three ways. First, states make a key contribution to individual
security. Rights have value “only if they also have dimension” (Walzer 2006: 58),
which they get from states’ borders – “within that world, men and women … are
safe from attack; once the lines are crossed, safety is gone” (2006: 57). Second,
states protect a common life, made by their citizens over centuries of interaction.
If the common life of a political community is valued by its citizens, then it is
worth fighting for. Third, they have also formed a political association, an organic
social contract, whereby individuals have, over time and in informal ways,
conceded aspects of their liberty to the community, to secure greater freedom for
all. Walzer sees this too as the object of a basic human right. The survival and
independence of these communities matter because they protect their citizens’
rights to security, the common cultural life that they have formed, and their
collective freedom.
Walzer makes five revisions of the legalist paradigm. First, he adds the permission
to defend our rights preemptively. Political communities may preemptively defend
themselves if they face a threat of war, and inaction would “seriously risk their
territorial integrity or political independence” (2006: 85; see preventive and
preemptive war). Second, he advocates interventions to support secession when a
sub-community in a state has demonstrated its representativeness and its claims to
independence. His third revision defends counterbalancing interventions into civil
wars in response to interference by another state. Fourth, he argues that states’ rights
against aggression can be lost “when the violation of human rights within a set of
boundaries is so terrible that it makes talk of community or self-determination …
seem cynical and irrelevant” (2006: 90). Confronted with crimes that “shock the
moral conscience of mankind” (2006: 107), such as massacre and mass enslavement,
whoever is able to intervene may permissibly do so (see crimes against humanity;
humanitarian intervention). Finally, Walzer explicitly rules out any form of col-
lective punishment, arguing that defeat is deterrent enough.
Where jus ad bellum is a matter for political leaders – and to a lesser extent, for the
civilians who hold them to account – how wars are fought (jus in bello) should, in
Walzer’s view, be the concern of combatants. This division of moral labor is tied to
his view that jus ad bellum should be independent from jus in bello. Exempted from
the requirement to evaluate the resort to force, combatants on either side of a conflict
are in morally identical positions – both those whose side was justified in resorting
to war (hereafter combatants-J), and those whose side was not (hereafter
combatants-U). Walzer calls this the “moral equality of combatants” (see moral
equality of combatants).
4
There are two main justifications for the moral equality of combatants. First, there
is an experiential similarity between combatants on either side of a conflict. They
tend to believe that they are justified in fighting, and indeed fight for good reasons –
for example, loyalty, a belief that their country is under threat, and trust in their
leaders (Walzer 2006: 127). Where these reasons are absent, they often fight under
duress. In either case, they fight because they think they have to. Second, Walzer
thinks both combatants-U and combatants-J lose their rights against attack, under
principles of self-defense. This follows from his view that legitimate acts of war must
respect individual rights (2006: 135). Since all persons have fundamental rights
against being attacked, combatants can only be morally equal if those they fight
against have no right against them doing so. One loses the right to life in war when
one takes up arms against an enemy (2006: 136). By attacking me, a person alienates
himself from me, and from our common humanity, and so becomes a legitimate
target of lethal force (2006: 142). By becoming a soldier, an individual has “allowed
himself to be made into a dangerous man” (2006: 145), with the attendant liabilities,
and immunities. Combatants who target only enemy combatants are morally equal,
because neither group violates rights by targeting the other. By contrast, noncom-
batants on neither side of a war pose threats, so they have not surrendered their
rights against attack. This founds the other linchpin of Walzer’s jus in bello, noncom-
batant immunity (2006: 137; see civilian immunity). Of course, there are fuzzy
boundaries between combatants and noncombatants – some become dangerous
through other indirect contributions to the war effort. Walzer distinguishes, for
example, between munitions-workers who make what combatants need to fight, and
farmers who make what they need to live, and suggests that only the former lose the
protections of noncombatant status.
Even if noncombatants are not deliberately attacked, they will be predictably
killed, often in greater numbers than combatants (see collateral damage). These
killings too must be justified. Walzer develops a modified version of the doctrine of
double effect – the deontological principle which distinguishes between the
intentional, and the foreseen but unintended infliction of harm in the course of
achieving some distinct good (see doctrine of double effect). An act that kills
noncombatants may be permitted if, in itself, it is a legitimate act of war, with
a morally acceptable effect that the actor intends to achieve (as against the evil effect,
which is neither one of his ends, nor a means to his ends), and which is sufficiently
valuable to compensate for allowing the evil effect (Walzer 2006: 153; see
proportionality [in war]). Skeptical about the independent significance of
intentions to permissibility, Walzer adds that combatants must accept risks to
themselves, if that preserves noncombatant lives (2006: 155). Consistent with his
doctrine of combatant moral equality, both combatants-U and combatants-J can
permissibly inflict collateral damage.
Combatants who target only combatants, and incidentally harm noncombatants
no more than is justified by the doctrine of double effect, “are not acting kindly or
gently or magnanimously; they are acting justly” (Walzer 2006: 135). They are not
violating rights. Walzer does argue, however, that in some rare cases rights may be
5
overridden, if the stakes are high enough, and here the independence of jus ad
bellum from jus in bello breaks down. Commanders, faced with defeat in a war that
must be won – where the enemy attacks something more fundamental, and more
global, than their territorial rights and political independence – may authorize
intentional attacks on noncombatants (2006: 254). This permission is confined to
cases of “supreme emergency,” outside of which conduct is independent from resort,
and the rules of war are strict.
In addition to these defining contributions to jus ad bellum and jus in bello,
Walzer offers some valuable insights on how wars should be brought to an end, and
how remedial and moral responsibility should be distributed. He seeks to balance
two imperatives: first, eliminating the threat that necessitated conflict; second, lay-
ing the foundations for peace. There is no mandate for ambitious reconstruction or
regime change, unless the defeated regime cannot be reformed. Although reason-
able prevention is a valid goal, he warns that collective punishment will inflame
resistance. In accordance with his division of moral labor, only political leaders
should be punished for their unjustified wars, while combatants are accountable
only for breaches of jus in bello (see war crimes). Civilians who can influence their
leadership, but who failed to prevent the leadership from initiating an unjustified
war, do share some of the responsibility, however (Walzer 2006: 301). Reparations
may be levied, to make good what the justified side lost in the war, and these will
fall evenly on all members of a society – not because they are all responsible,
but because there is no more targeted way to administer reparations, and because
“citizenship is a common destiny” (Walzer 2006: 297; see reparations; collective
responsibility).
War and Human Rights

Walzer tried to blend conventional beliefs about the permissible use of force with
modern ideas about fundamental human rights: resorting to war is justified in
defense of human rights, but only if you can fight without violating rights. His critics
have mostly accepted these premises (although sometimes favoring different terms),
but questioned how he proceeds from them.
They first targeted Walzer’s move from human rights to states’ rights to sovereignty
and territorial integrity (Beitz 1979; Doppelt 1978; Luban 1980; Wasserstrom 1978;
for Walzer’s response, see Walzer 1980; for further development, see Beitz 2010;
Rodin 2002). They questioned the normative purchase of his metaphor of the
organic social contract, and tested his hypothesis that states guarantee individual
security, finding it doubly false: states are often the greatest threat to their members,
in particular to minorities; moreover, only murderous aggressors would take life for
the sake of it. In many cases, an aggressing army would be happy to secure its
objectives without taking life – provided the defending state puts up no resistance
(e.g., Rodin 2002: 131–3). If our concern were solely to protect life, we should often
appease and submit, not put ourselves and others at risk by fighting. Indeed,
sometimes border-crossers come to enforce security, not to threaten it. Walzer’s
6
appeal to the value of collective freedom is also suspect, since in diverse political
communities freedom for the majority can mean oppression for the minority.
Likewise, his invocation of the “common life”: in modern societies, can we even
speak of a single common life? Even if we can, is it really threatened in wartime?
And even if our culture were threatened, would it really be worth killing for? The
conclusion, these critics suggest, is that instead of deriving sovereignty and territorial
integrity from individual rights, we should concentrate on protecting the individual
rights themselves. Sovereignty is not a significant barrier to the use of military force,
therefore, because states are only entitled to sovereignty if they genuinely protect the
rights of individuals within them (Shue 1997). Interestingly, this means all justified
wars conform to the same pattern – there is no sharp difference between humanitarian
interventions and other forms of self- or other-defense (Tesón 2003).
These objections to Walzer probably hit their mark, but we might wonder whether
the position they lead to is really satisfactory. Most people regard wars of national
defense as paradigmatically justified, but on this account there is nothing special
about them. Moreover, how do these critics themselves justify fighting a nonmurderous
enemy who wants to take only our sovereignty, not our lives? Unless there is some-
thing worth protecting beyond our lives, we are not justified in resisting, and so
putting our lives (and those of our adversaries) at risk. And while there are undoubt-
edly problems with Walzer’s under-theorized collectivism, we should also question
the radical individualism of his critics’ proposals. Ordinary thinking suggests that
there are distinctively collective dimensions to war that should not be ignored.
Walzer’s simplistic argument to derive states’ rights from basic human rights is
undoubtedly flawed. However, his critics’ indifference to values besides those basic
rights might be an equal failing.
Walzer’s key innovations in jus in bello have also been much scrutinized
(e.g., Coady 2004, 2008a, 2008b; Fabre 2010; Frowe forthcoming; Hurka 2005;
Øverland 2006; McMahan 1994, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2009; McPherson 2004; Rodin
2002, 2008). The critique first targets the moral equality of combatants, and starts
by asking whether combatants-J really lose their rights against attack, so that
combatants-U can fight justly. Walzer insists that they share liability because each
poses a threat to the other. However, in ordinary self-defense (see self-defense),
justified defenders do not lose their rights against attack by defending themselves.
A rape victim who defends herself against an assailant now poses a threat to him,
but he is not now entitled to kill her in self-defense. Walzer notes that combatants-U
and combatants-J often fight for similar reasons – duress, ignorance, loyalty, and so
on. However, he nonetheless thinks – how could he not? – that one side can be
justified, the other unjustified. And there is no good explanation of why justified
defenders should lose their rights to life (e.g., Coady 2008a: 127). At some points,
Walzer implies that combatants-J are liable because they consent to be attacked, but
this is prima facie implausible: why should someone who volunteers to fight in a
justified war waive his or her right not to be killed by the unjustifiably attacking
enemy (McMahan 2009: 51ff)?
7
Moreover, even if combatants-J were liable, combatants-U will also kill

noncombatants in the course of combat. These deaths must be justified by the good
effects intentionally achieved thereby. However, a successful military attack by a
combatant-U advances his unjustified war, bringing its unjustified goal closer to
realization. Instead of a good being balanced against an evil, the unjust combatant
unintentionally inflicts one evil, in the course of intentionally achieving another
(Hurka 2005). It seems this cannot possibly be justified, so the claim that
combatants-U and combatants-J are morally equal must be false.
We should reject the moral equality of combatants, and with it the division of
labor that permits combatants to focus exclusively on conduct, leaving questions of
resort to their political leaders. Combatants too need to be justified in order to fight
permissibly. However, Walzer’s critics do not stop here. They think that merely
posing an unjustified threat is neither sufficient nor necessary for one to be liable to
be killed. What really matters is responsibility for that threat (Coady 2008a: 112;
Fabre 2009: 37; McMahan 2009; McPherson 2004; and Rodin 2002: 80–3). The
responsibility view states that individual combatants are liable to be killed if and
insofar as they are morally responsible (see responsibility) for an unjustified
threat of harm, and it is both necessary and proportionate to kill them to avert that
threat (e.g., McMahan 2009: 35).
This is a demanding standard. One might think that combatants-U are only rarely
morally responsible for the threats they pose. They usually do not know they’re acting
unjustifiably, and are subject to duress from their superiors. In many cases, they are
morally innocent, so on this account are not liable to attack. Moreover, it is impossible
to distinguish between innocent and guilty combatants-U (Lazar 2010; Shue 2010).
Combatants-J neither have the relevant information about their adversaries, nor are
able to administer force with such precisely discriminating lethality. Gunners target
coordinates, not individuals. If we are only permitted to attack liable targets, then
we ought not to attack at all. Under these conditions, a just war is impossible, and we
should embrace pacifism. For Walzerians, this would be a reductio ad absurdum.
The responsibility view counters the pacifist challenge by first questioning
whether combatants-U are really innocent (McMahan 2009: Ch. 3; Rodin 2008:
51–3), noting that modern democracies do not aggressively coerce participation,
and that most combatants negligently fail to examine the justification for fighting.
The second response is to propose a lower standard of moral responsibility for
liability (Coady 2008a: 114; Frowe forthcoming; McMahan 2009: 197; Rodin 2008).
On this account, liability is grounded in one’s voluntary actions foreseeably bringing
about the unjustified threat, so even wholly innocent combatants-U can be liable.
This new criterion of liability would perhaps save the responsibility view from the
threat of pacifism, but it invites a further objection. If the bar for liability is set so
low, then how can we avoid rendering many more noncombatants liable than is
morally plausible? The responsibility view faces this dilemma (Lazar 2010) as long
as a significant number of noncombatants are responsible to at least the same degree
as a significant number of combatants. As we shred the combatants’ excuses, so must
8
we shred those of the noncombatants; as we lower the standard of liability for

combatants, the same must go for noncombatants. Our efforts to avoid the threat of
pacifism lead us to reject noncombatant immunity.
One could simply accept this conclusion (e.g., Frowe forthcoming). However,
even most of Walzer’s critics think noncombatant immunity is fundamental to a
plausible account of jus in bello, so a resolution to this horn of the responsibility
dilemma is imperative. Rodin has argued that minimal responsibility for an
unjustified threat is necessary, but not sufficient for liability: posing the threat is a
further necessary condition (Rodin 2008: 47–8). This would seemingly protect
noncombatants, who do not pose threats, but unfortunately it would also protect the
many combatants, at all levels in the military, who do not directly pose threats either.
Rodin responds that those who are responsible for a threat that they do not pose can
be liable if they nonetheless share the intention of the threatener. Thus, a commander
who orders a subordinate to fire is liable, though he does not pose the threat himself,
because he is partly responsible for the threat, and shares the intention that it be
posed. However, still, many low-ranking combatants who do not pose threats also
do not share the intentions of those who do. At least, they do not share those
intentions any more than do the many noncombatants who positively support the
war (Frowe forthcoming). Hence, Rodin’s response does not resolve the problem –
either it fails to include all combatants in liability, or it includes too many
noncombatants. It also lacks theoretical motivation: one can easily imagine
hypothetical cases where responsibility seems sufficient for liability; moreover, he
has no argument to justify this hybrid conception, besides its convenient consonance
with the conventional rules of war (he does not, for example, explain how it fits with
the reciprocity-based model of self-defense in Rodin 2002).
McMahan initially (1994) conceded that many noncombatants may be permissible
targets in war, but has in recent years rowed back from this radical conclusion. He
now argues that killing noncombatants is almost never militarily necessary, therefore
they cannot be liable, as one is only liable to be killed in self-defense if doing so is
necessary (see also Frowe forthcoming). He also suggests that, while noncombatants
may be responsible to some degree for the objectively unjustified threats that their
side poses, their responsibility is too minimal to make lethal attacks proportionate
(McMahan 2009: Ch. 5; see also Coady 2008a: 112). Neither response is persuasive.
It is easy to conceive of situations when disregarding noncombatant immunity is
militarily necessary – especially in asymmetric wars, where weaker parties make
deliberate use of their adversaries’ compunction about attacking noncombatants,
and lack the resources for a counterforce challenge (Gross 2010). Moreover, if
noncombatants are not sufficiently responsible to be liable, then neither are many
combatants. And anyway, in McMahan’s model of self-defense, liability only requires
a small asymmetry between the defender and the responsible agent – there is no
need for proportionality between the fate suffered, and the degree of responsibility,
when it’s a matter of life against life. If this is an implausible view of self-defense,
then we should change our criterion of liability, and adopt a genuinely higher
standard of responsibility, requiring some degree of fault (Lazar 2009).
9
The responsibility view is torn between pacifism on one hand, and a radical
rejection of noncombatant immunity on the other. Neither outcome is attractive. One
solution, proposed by McMahan (2004, 2010) and endorsed by Fabre (2009: 39) and
Frowe among others, is to distinguish between the morality of war and the law of war.
The responsibility view, they claim, is the correct account of war’s morality, but the
laws that govern conduct should be quite different. Thus, there should be a legal
equality of combatants, because anyway both sides will invariably believe themselves
justified, and do whatever combatants-J are entitled to do. Moreover, implementing
the responsibility view would be too difficult, given the lack of information available
to combatants, and their inability to administer harm in proportion to responsibility.
And the laws of war should endorse noncombatant immunity, because extending
permissions to kill noncombatants to combatants-J would lead to their abuse by
combatants-U as well. A legal principle of discrimination between combatants and
noncombatants is the best way to reduce innocent suffering in war in the long term.
This argument has met with some skepticism (e.g., Shue 2008, 2010). If the
responsibility view is the correct account of the moral justification of war, and if it is
impossible to apply it, then it is impossible to fight a morally justified war, and we
should endorse pacifism. Stronger still, if the responsibility view simply cannot be
applied to war, then how can it be called a morality of war? There is a parallel here
with a debate in distributive justice (see justice; rawls, john). A theory of
distributive justice that presupposes deep altruism among members of society will
look different from a theory that takes people as they are, just as a theory that
presupposes a superabundance of resources will be different from one that recognizes
some degree of scarcity. In general, a morality of Φing that cannot be applied to any
actually feasible instances of Φing is not a morality of Φing. In Shue’s view, the
arguments in favor of rejecting the responsibility view at the level of law work with
equal force against it as a theory of war’s morality. Ultimately, the morality of war is
just the morally best set of rules for actual armed conflicts.
Alternative Approaches
Critics of Walzer’s rights-based contributions to jus ad bellum and jus in bello have
identified some profound flaws in his arguments, but their positive proposals
have been less compelling. Followed through consistently, they lead to unsettling
conclusions, such as outlawing wars of national defense, and endorsing either
pacifism, or a radical disregard for noncombatant immunity. The recurring problem
seems to be the exaggerated emphasis on the weight of individual human rights. If
we allow those rights to trump or exclude all other moral reasons, we are led to
untenable practical conclusions. We can only reach plausible conclusions by fudging
our theory of rights – for example, through the moral alchemy by which Walzer
derives states’ rights to sovereignty and territorial integrity from individual human
rights, or his untenable account of how combatants-J lose their rights to life. We can
move forward in at least three ways. First, we could positively endorse the controver-
sial conclusions of the individualist responsibility view, and argue for the rejection
10
of commonsense thinking about the morality of war (e.g., Frowe forthcoming).

Second, we could persist in the attempt to make our theory of rights more compat-
ible with sensible conclusions about war (e.g., among anti-Walzerians, Rodin 2008
and Fabre 2009; among Walzerians, Emerton and Handfield 2009). Or, third, we
could conclude that rights, while undoubtedly crucial to the ethics of war, are not
the whole story, and seek other moral reasons that can override those grounded in
rights (e.g., Lazar forthcoming; May 2007). This final section suggests alternative
approaches to the just war debate, in which fundamental human rights play a less
decisive role.
Yitzhak Benbaji’s (2008, forthcoming) contractarian rethinking of the ethics of
war is among the most ambitious attempts to develop an alternative justification for
traditional views about jus in bello and jus ad bellum. Benbaji thinks that the
Walzerian war convention – including the moral equality of combatants and
noncombatant immunity – would be the object of a fair and mutually beneficial
contract between states, as representatives of their citizens. States need an obedient
military to defend their citizens’ basic rights, he argues, but if we deny the moral
equality of combatants, and insist that combatants-U are not permitted to fight,
then potential combatants must make sure they are going to be combatants-J before
they take up arms, and must refuse any order they think requires them to violate
rights. The moral equality of combatants is, therefore, necessary for states to have an
effective, obedient army to defend themselves. Moreover, everyone would agree to
the principle of noncombatant immunity because it limits the suffering caused by
war. Individual combatants waive their rights against attack by becoming members
of the armed forces, because it is written into the institutional structure of soldiery
that one is a permissible object of lethal attack by the enemy, in virtue of this fair and
mutually beneficial convention. Becoming a soldier signifies agreement to this
convention. Of course, this view has numerous weaknesses, but it is at least an
attempt to rethink the underlying moral structure of just war theory, rather than
simply continuing to rearrange a limited set of conceptual pieces.
Larry May (e.g., 2007) explains jus in bello by looking beyond the victims’ rights
to the responsibilities of combatants. He emphasizes the importance of warriors
showing compassion, mercy, and humanity, arguing that these virtues are crucial
if they are to distinguish themselves from murderers and barbarians. May also
allows consequentialist elements (see consequentialism) into his theory of jus ad
bellum, bucking a trend of skepticism about that school of thought within the
rights-based account of war (e.g., Rodin 2002). Simon Caney (2005) and James
Pattison (2010) likewise argue that wars of humanitarian intervention in particular
are justified when the rights protected are more numerous and weighty than the
rights violated.
Besides leading to a rethink of basic problems of jus in bello and jus ad bellum, the
impasse within the rights-based account of war also offers the opportunity to raise
some quite different questions, not least those concerning justice after war, or jus
post bellum, which has been surprisingly little discussed among just war theorists,
but which is now receiving ever more attention (e.g., Orend 2000). However, there is
11
also room for looking beyond these conventional problems, and considering some
different divisions in just war theory.
For example, much of the contemporary debate examines the moral reasons that
apply to individual combatants in wartime as though there were no difference
between a war fought between states, and a conflict fought between loose aggregates
of people in a state of nature. Especially among Walzer’s critics, there is little
sensitivity to the institutional dimensions of morality – either the moral significance
of the institutions that war places under threat, or the importance of institutions for
justifying combatants’ fighting. Christopher Kutz’s (2005) work stands out as a rare
attempt to explore the moral importance of membership of the armed forces of a
state when it comes to the ethics of killing in war, with the same degree of
philosophical rigor as is applied in the debate over rights (see also Estlund 2007).
James Pattison (forthcoming) explores similar issues from the opposite perspective,
asking what is distinctive about the use of force by private military companies,
increasingly common in the military endeavors of liberal democracies. Is there a
difference between the institutional relationship between mercenary and paymaster,
and that between soldier and taxpayer? Cheyney Ryan (2009) has argued against the
pernicious consequences of allowing the institutions of the modern military to
become dissociated from people’s ordinary lives, so that the true costs of war are not
brought home to the majority.
Equally, Walzer’s critics have tended to focus exclusively on analyzing war from
the perspective of potential combatants, without paying proper attention to the
specific reasons that confront political leaders. There is an assumption, sometimes
explicitly stated (e.g., McMahan 2005; Øverland 2006: 458), that wars are nothing
more than aggregates of individual cases of self- and other defense, such that
political leaders should go to war if and when their subjects would justifiably
choose to fight. They need to consider nothing else besides these moral reasons
grounded in individual self-defense. And yet, political leaders clearly confront
other reasons besides just these. Obviously, they must consider the geostrategic
implications of the use of force, in a way that individuals defending themselves
need not. They must also take into account the predictable wrong-doing that their
forces will engage in – we know from history that the experience of war can be
bestializing, and there will always be some individuals who, crazed with bloodlust
or vengeance, will run amok. Political leaders also have far more information than
do combatants, as well as a wider range of options, including to choose whether or
not there will be a conflict – whereas potential combatants can choose only whether
they engage in it themselves. Taking these contrasting sets of reasons together with
the importance of institutions, there is an opening for a much more political just
war theory.
Diverting our attention from the microfoundations of war toward institutions
and political leaders might also lead us to consider how just war theory fits into a
broader theory of international justice, a topic which is surprisingly rarely discussed
(although see Rawls 1999; Caney 2005). This is especially important for our account
of jus post bellum as we debate whether there is any morally relevant difference
12
between suffering caused by war, and suffering caused by poverty. However, it might
also impact on jus ad bellum. If rich countries are responsible for conditions of
poverty in poor countries, which lead to many people dying avoidably, then might
this count as a just cause for war? Can the rights-based account of war avoid
conclusions like these (Luban 1980)?
Additionally, new research must do more to recognize the fast-evolving nature of
warfare. Stuck on the path established by Walzer, too much contemporary thinking
presupposes outdated, possibly obsolete strategic models. More work is needed on
the shift towards “risk-transfer warfare,” whereby the governments of advanced
democracies, worried about the electoral impact of allowing the costs of war to fall
on their citizens, transfer risks away from their combatants toward enemy
combatants and noncombatants, minimizing their own casualties while causing
excessive collateral damage (Shaw 2005). New technologies must also be explored,
such as the increased use of remote-controlled aircraft to deliver smart bombs to
their targets (e.g., Kahn 2002). Perhaps most importantly, recent years have seen the
deployment of military force against nonstate agents become the standard case of
military engagement, at least for the advanced democracies. The twentieth-century
paradigms of military conflict – World Wars I and II, Vietnam – are undoubtedly
still relevant, but contemporary theorists need to look more closely at the
asymmetrical conflicts that dominate contemporary warfare – at least by the
advanced democracies (Gross 2010). National defense is ordinarily conceived as
the protection of one nation-state against an overweening neighbor. How should it
be understood when the enemy is a paramilitary organization that recognizes no
constraints on permissible conduct, and may be capable of complex large-scale
assaults on civilian centers, but conversely has far more restricted objectives than
national takeover (see terrorism)?
See also: civilian immunity; collateral damage; collective

responsibility; consequentialism; crimes against humanity; doctrine of
double effect; humanitarian intervention; international relations; just
cause (in war); just war theory, history of; justice; killing; moral
equality of combatants; pacifism; preventive and preemptive war;
proportionality (in war); rawls, john; reparations; responsibility; rights;
self-defense; terrorism; war crimes
REFERENCES
Beitz, Charles 1979. “Bounded Morality: Justice and the State in World Politics,” International
Organization, vol. 33, pp. 405–24.
Beitz, Charles 2010. “The Moral Standing of States Revisited,” Ethics and International Affairs,
vol. 23, pp. 325–47.
Benbaji, Yitzhak 2008. “A Defense of the Traditional War Convention,” Ethics, vol. 118,
pp. 464–95.
Benbaji, Yitzhak forthcoming. The War Convention as a Social Contract: A Theory of the Laws
of War. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
13
Caney, Simon 2005. Justice Beyond Borders: A Global Political Theory. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Coady, C. A. J. 2004. “Terrorism and Innocence,” Journal of Ethics, vol. 8, pp. 37–58.
Coady, C. A. J. 2008a. Morality and Political Violence. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Coady, C. A. J. 2008b. “The Status of Combatants,” in D. Rodin and H. Shue (eds.), Just and
Unjust Warriors: The Moral and Legal Status of Soldiers. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, pp. 153–75.
Coates, A. J. 1997. The Ethics of War. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Doppelt, Gerald 1978. “Walzer’s Theory of Morality in International Relations,” Philosophy
Emerton, Patrick, and Toby Handfield 2009. “Order and Affray: Defensive Privileges in
Warfare,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 37, pp. 382–414.
Estlund, David 2007. “On Following Orders in an Unjust War,” Journal of Political Philosophy,
vol. 15, pp. 213–34.
Fabre, Cécile 2009. “Guns, Food, and Liability to Attack in War,” Ethics, vol. 120,
pp. 36–63.
Frowe, Helen forthcoming. Defensive Killing: An Essay on War and Self-Defense. Oxford:
Gross, Michael 2010. Moral Dilemmas of Modern War: Torture, Assassination and Blackmail
in an Age of Asymmetric Conflict. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hurka, Thomas 2005. “Proportionality in the Morality of War,” Philosophy and Public Affairs,
vol. 33, pp. 34–66.
Kahn, Paul W. 2002. “The Paradox of Riskless Warfare,” Philosophy and Public Policy
Kutz, Christopher 2005. “The Difference Uniforms Make: Collective Violence in Criminal
Law and War,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 33, pp. 148–80.
Lazar, Seth 2009. “Responsibility, Risk, and Killing in Self-Defense,” Ethics, vol. 119,
pp. 699–728.
Lazar, Seth 2010. “The Responsibility Dilemma for Killing in War,” Philosophy and Public
Lazar, Seth forthcoming. Justifying War. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Luban, David 1980. “Just War and Human Rights,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 9,
pp. 160–81.
May, Larry 2007. War Crimes and Just War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
McMahan, Jeff 1994. “Innocence, Self-Defense and Killing in War,” Journal of Political
McMahan, Jeff 2004. “The Ethics of Killing in War,” Ethics, vol. 114, pp. 693–733.
McMahan, Jeff 2005. “Just Cause for War,” Ethics and International Affairs, vol. 19,
pp. 1–21.
McMahan, Jeff 2006. “On the Moral Equality of Combatants,” Journal of Political Philosophy,
vol. 14, pp. 377–93.
McMahan, Jeff 2009. Killing in War. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
McMahan, Jeff 2010. “Laws of War,” in S. Besson and J. Tasioulas (eds.), The Philosophy
of International Law. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 493–510.
McPherson, Lionel 2004. “Innocence and Responsibility in War,” Canadian Journal of
14
Orend, Brian 2000. “Jus Post Bellum,” Journal of Social Philosophy, vol. 31, pp. 117–37.
Øverland, Gerhard 2006. “Killing Soldiers,” Ethics and International Affairs, vol. 20,
pp. 455–75.
Pattison, James 2010. Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect: Who
Should Intervene? Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pattison, James forthcoming. “Deeper Objections to the Privatisation of Military Force,”
Journal of Political Philosophy.
Pizan, Christine de 2006. “War and Chivalry,” in G. M. Reichberg, H. Syse, and E. Begby
(eds.), The Ethics of War: Classic and Contemporary Readings. Oxford: Blackwell,
pp. 210–26.
Rawls, John 1999. The Law of Peoples, with “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited.” Cambridge,
Reader, John 1998. Africa: A Biography of the Continent. London: Penguin.
Rodin, David 2008. “The Moral Inequality of Soldiers: Why jus in bello Asymmetry is Half
Right,” in D. Rodin and H. Shue (eds.), Just and Unjust Warriors: The Moral and Legal
Status of Combatants. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 44–68.
Ryan, Cheyney 2009. The Chickenhawk Syndrome: War, Sacrifice, and Personal Responsibility.
Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Shaw, Martin 2005. The New Western Way of War: Risk-Transfer War and its Crisis in Iraq.
Cambridge: Polity.
Shue, Henry 1997. “Eroding Sovereignty: The Advance of Principle,” in R. McKim and
J. McMahan (eds.), The Morality of Nationalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Shue, Henry 2008. “Do we Need a Morality of War?” in D. Rodin and H. Shue (eds.), Just and
Unjust Warriors: The Moral and Legal Status of Soldiers. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, pp. 87–111.
Shue, Henry 2010. “Laws of War,” in S. Besson and J. Tasioulas (eds.), The Philosophy of
International Law. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 511–30.
Skinner, Quentin 2002. Visions of Politics Volume I: Regarding Method. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Tesόn, Fernando 2003. “The Liberal Case for Humanitarian Intervention,” in J. L. Holzgrefe
and R. Keohane (eds.), Humanitarian Intervention: Ethical, Legal and Political Dilemmas.
Vitoria, Francisco de 2006. “Just War in the Age of Discovery,” in G. M. Reichberg, H. Syse,
and E. Begby (eds.), The Ethics of War: Classic and Contemporary Readings. Oxford:
Walzer, Michael 1980. “The Moral Standing of States: A Response to Four Critics,” Philosophy
Wasserstrom, Richard 1978. “Review of Michael Walzer’s Just and Unjust Wars,” Harvard
FURTHER READINGS
Anscombe, G. E. M. 1979. “War and Murder,” in James Rachels (ed.), Moral Problems:
A Collection of Philosophical Essays. New York: Harper & Row, pp. 393–407.
15
Benbaji, Yitzhak 2007. “The Responsibility of Soldiers and the Ethics of Killing in War,”
Buchanan, Allen 2006. “Institutionalizing the Just War,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 34,
pp. 2–38.
Fullinwider, Robert K. 1975. “War and Innocence,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 5,
pp. 90–97.
Gray, J. Glenn 1998. The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle. London: University of
Nebraska Press.
Kamm, Frances M. 2000. “Justifications for Killing Noncombatants in War,” Midwest Studies
in Philosophy, vol. 24, pp. 219–28.
Kamm, Frances M. 2001. “Making War (and Its Continuation) Unjust,” European Journal of
Kamm, Frances M. 2004. “Failures of Just War Theory: Terror, Harm, and Justice,” Ethics,
vol. 114, pp. 650–92.
Kamm, Frances M. 2005. “Terror and Collateral Damage: Are They Permissible?” Journal of
Ethics, vol. 9, pp. 381–401.
Mavrodes, George I. 1975. “Conventions and the Morality of War,” Philosophy and Public
Nagel, Thomas 1972. “War and Massacre,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 1,
pp. 123–44.
Orend, Brian 2000. Michael Walzer on War and Justice. Ithaca: McGill-Queen’s University
Press.
Orend, Brian 2000. War and International Justice: A Kantian Perspective. Waterloo: Wilfrid
Laurier University Press.
Øverland, Gerhard 2005. “Killing Civilians,” European Journal of Philosophy, vol. 13,
pp. 345–63.
Roberts, Adam, and Richard Guelff 2000. Documents on the Laws of War, 3rd ed. Oxford:
Rodin, David, and Henry Shue (eds.) 2008. Just and Unjust Warriors: The Moral and Legal
Status of Soldiers. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Shue, Henry 1998. “Let Whatever Is Smouldering Erupt? Conditional Sovereignty, Reviewable
Intervention, and Rwanda 1994,” in Albert J. Paolini, Anthony P. Jarvis, and Christian
Reus-Smit (eds.), Between Sovereignty and Global Governance: The United Nations, the
State and Civil Society. Basingstoke: Macmillan, pp. 35–59.
Shue, Henry, and David Rodin (eds.) 2007. Preemption: Military Action and Moral Justification.
Zohar, Noam J. 1993. “Collective War and Individualistic Ethics: Against the Conscription of
‘Self-Defense,’” Political Theory, vol. 21, pp. 606–22.
1
Price, Richard
Robert B. Louden
Richard Price (1723–91) was a Welsh dissenting (i.e., non-Anglican) minister who
made major contributions not only to ethics but also to theology, political thought,
national finance, probability theory, and actuarial science. His main work in moral
philosophy (the focus of this essay and also his first publication) is A Review of the
Principal Questions and Difficulties in Morals (1758; 2nd ed. 1769). In the third
edition (1787), normally referred to in contemporary discussion of Price, the title
was shortened to A Review of the Principal Questions of Morals. Also important for
Price’s ethics is a set of letters that he co-published with his friend Joseph Priestley
in 1778 entitled A Free Discussion of the Doctrines of Materialism and Philosophical
Necessity. Here Price extends the analyses of liberty of will and self-determination
defended earlier in the Review (see free will).
In theology, Price’s main publication is Four Dissertations (1767) (I: “On
Providence;” II: “On Prayer;” III: “On the Reasons for expecting that virtuous Men
shall meet after death in a State of Happiness;” IV: “On the Importance of Christianity,
the Nature of Historical Evidence, and Miracles.” Part IV is one of a number of
eighteenth-century responses to David Hume’s controversial “Of Miracles,”
published as Section X of his Enquiry concerning Human Understanding; see hume,
david). Price also appended a short Dissertation on the Being and Attributes of the
Deity to the third edition of the Review.
Price’s political writings, for which he is best known among the wider public,
include Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, the Principles of Government, and
the Justice and Policy of the War with America (1776 – also in Price 1991), a strong
defense of the American Revolution which led to an invitation from the Continental
Congress to become a citizen of the United States and serve as an advisor to financial
matters (Price declined); Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution
and the Means of making it a Benefit to the World (1784 – also in Price 1991); and
A Discourse on the Love of Our Country (1789 – also in Price 1991). The Discourse,
which caused Edmund Burke “a considerable degree of uneasiness” (Burke 1968: 91),
is a defense of the French Revolution and served as the immediate stimulus for
Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). Finally, in the areas of national
finance, actuarial science, and probability theory (all of which reflect Price’s strong
interest in applied mathematics), his major works are Observations on Reversionary
Payments (1771) and An Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt
(1772). In 1764 Price also edited Thomas Bayes’ famous “Essay towards solving a
problem in the ‘Doctrine of Chances,’” first published in the Philosophical Transactions
of the Royal Society, and in recognition of which Price was also named a Fellow of the
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee201
2
Royal Society. A presentation of what has come to be known as “Bayes’ Theorem,” the
results of this work are still widely discussed in probability and decision theory.
Locating a common thread in Price’s impressively diverse writings may be an impos-
sible task. But we can come close by noting that he brings a Platonic mathematician’s
eye for objectivity, necessity, and universality to the study of moral ideas (see plato),
that his core conviction regarding the importance of liberty and self-determination in
ethics strongly influences his political thought, and that as a moralist he approaches
national finance reform with the presupposition that debts ought to be repaid. Finally,
as a Presbyterian minister, Price is above all concerned to “trace the obligations of vir-
tue up to the truth and nature of things, and these to the Deity” (Price 1948: 11).
Epistemology and Metaethics

The opening chapter of Price’s Review is strongly epistemological in orientation, and
in the preface he also warns readers that he regards it as the most important part of the
book: “There is nothing in this Treatise, which I wish more I could engage the reader’s
attention to, or which, I think, will require it more, than the first Chapter. … If I have
failed here, I have failed in my chief design” (1948: 3). Price’s immediate target is empir-
icist moral sense theory or sentimentalism, especially the version of it defended by a
“late very distinguished writer, Dr. Hutcheson” (1948: 13; see hutcheson, francis;
sentimentalism), according to which moral ideas are derived “from a moral sense;
meaning by this sense, a power within us, different from reason, which renders certain
actions pleasing, and others displeasing to us” (1948: 13–14). But in defending a
rationalist view of ethics (see rationalism in ethics), Price also challenges the key
claim of Lockean empiricism (see locke, john). Not all of our ideas come from expe-
rience. Some, including not only our ideas of right and wrong, but many other funda-
mental ideas such as substance, duration, space, causation, and necessity, come from
reason or understanding. Price locates two fundamental differences between sense
and understanding. First, sense is passive rather than active; second, it concerns only
particulars rather than universals. As he notes:
Sense consists in the obtruding of certain impressions upon us, independently of our
wills; but it cannot perceive what they are, or whence they are derived. It lies prostrate
under its object, and is only a capacity in the soul of having its own state altered by the
influence of particular causes. It must therefore remain a stranger to the objects and
causes affecting it. … Sense presents particular forms to the mind; but cannot give rise
to any general ideas. (1948: 19)
Price’s rationalist account of moral ideas, and of ideas in general, is indebted not
only to Samuel Clarke (whose name is praised in a footnote toward the end of the
book, along with those of Isaac Newton and Joseph Butler, as one of “three of the
greatest this world has ever known” [Price 1948: 291n.; see clarke, samuel; butler,
joseph]), but also Ralph Cudworth (see cudworth, ralph) and Plato, particularly
the Plato of the late dialogue Theatetus. However, ultimately his critique of
3
empiricism is motivated by convictions about the nature of morality. Price aims to

convince the reader that moral judgments about right and wrong are objective in a
very strong sense. They refer to necessary and eternal properties that are what they
are independently not only of “the particular frame and structure of our natures”
(Price 1948: 15) but also of any commands issued by God. In Price’s view, morality
is “fixed on an immovable basis, and appears not to be, in any sense, factitious; or the
arbitrary production of any power human or divine; but equally everlasting and
necessary with all truth and reason. And this we find to be as evident, as that right
and wrong signify a reality in what is so denominated” (1948: 52). Translated into
the terminology of modern ethical theory, Price is a moral realist who is firmly
opposed to voluntarism and divine command theories of ethics (see realism,
moral; divine command).
Included in Price’s argument that humans can obtain objective knowledge of right
and wrong by means of their power of understanding is a distinctive view about how
we make moral judgments. Moral judgment is not typically a matter of deduction or
induction (as previous philosophers had argued), but rather of direct perception –
an intuition of self-evident truth. For the term understanding, as Price uses it,
includes that of intuition: “we have a power [of] immediately perceiving right and
wrong: … this power is the Understanding” (1948: 41). Price is an intuitionist in his
moral epistemology, and here he is the forerunner of twentieth-century British
writers such as H. A. Prichard, W. D. Ross, A. C. Ewing, and E. F. Carritt (see
intuitionism, moral; prichard, h. a.; ross, w. d.; ewing, a. c.).
Normative Ethics
In his normative ethics Price presents a classical (indeed, pre-Kantian) defense of
deontology – that is, of the view that the moral rightness of actions is not exclusively
determined by the value of their consequences (see kant, immanuel; deontology).
In presenting his account of moral rightness, Price also critiques the proto-utilitarian
views about right action advocated by empiricist moral sense theorists (see
utilitarianism). Citing with approval a remark from Butler’s Dissertation on the
Nature of Virtue, Price too seeks to convince readers that virtue and morally right
action are not reducible to benevolence or doing good for others: “Benevolence and
the want of it, singly considered, are in no sort the whole of virtue and vice” (1948:
131; cf. Butler n.d.: 535). However, while many commentators have claimed that
Butler is the first modern deontological theorist, his own normative ethics is in fact a
form of oblique or indirect utilitarianism, according to which human beings are
constructed by God in such a manner (and for the reason) that they will produce the
greatest amount of happiness by not trying to do so (Butler n.d.: 538; for discussion,
see Louden 1995). But on Price’s view God and humans judge moral rightness in the
same manner: both perceive directly that certain kinds of action are intrinsically
right, and others intrinsically wrong, irrespective of consequences. For both human
beings and God, “virtue is by no means reducible to benevolence” (Price 1948:
247– 8). God pursues happiness “in subordination to rectitude, and by those methods
4
only which rectitude requires” (1948: 250), and so too do humans. Price rather than
Butler is thus a more plausible candidate for the title of first deontologist.
In defending his nonconsequentialist account of right action (see consequen-
tialism), Price appeals to the commonsense convictions of ordinary reflective
people. “All men at all times have agreed in” holding that (for example) theft is wrong,
even when committed in order to increase the welfare of others, or that honesty is
right, even when it does not increase overall happiness (1948: 170). The end does not
always justify the means. And humans normally make these and other judgments
about what is right and wrong without appealing to consequences: “it is further to be
observed on this argument, that in these cases it does not appear that mankind in
general much attended to distant consequences” (1948: 135–6). As Price notes:
Can we, when we consider these things, avoid pronouncing, that there is intrinsick
rectitude in keeping faith and in sincerity, and intrinsick evil in the contrary; and that it
is by no means true, that veracity and falshood appear in themselves, and exclusive of
their consequences, wholly indifferent to our moral judgment? Is a notion capable
of being seriously defended, or even endured by an ingenuous mind, that the goodness
of the end always consecrates the means …? (1948: 133–4)
Like Ross and other twentieth-century intuitionists, Price is also strongly

anti-reductionistic and pluralistic in his normative ethics (see value pluralism).
There are different kinds of duty, and duties may conflict with each other. In the
Review, he discusses six different “heads” or general principles of virtue: our duties
to God, our duties to ourselves, and duties toward other human beings of beneficence,
gratitude, veracity, and justice (1948: 138–64). All but one of these general princi-
ples (viz., beneficence) enjoin us to perform certain actions “independently of all
considerations of utility” (1948: 139).
Although these six general principles are self-evidently true, at the level of
particular cases “we find that they lead us in contrary ways” (Price 1948: 166).
Conflicts of duty are unavoidable in human life, and moral dilemmas are not always
rationally resolvable. There are times when we may “be rendered entirely incapable
of determining what we ought to chuse” (1948: 167). It is thus impossible for humans
always to know what they ought to do in specific circumstances: “so imperfect are
our discerning faculties, that it cannot but happen, that we should be frequently in
the dark” (1948: 167). At the same time, this does not mean there is no right answer.
It just means that we finite humans may never know what the right answer is: “The
weakness of our discerning faculties cannot in any case affect truth. Things them-
selves continue invariably the same, however different our opinion of them may be,
or what doubts or difficulties may perplex us” (1948: 168n.).
But in the end Price holds that there is in fact a unifying ground for the six
different heads of virtue:
it is plain, that they all run up to one general idea, and should be considered as only dif-
ferent modifications and views of one original, all-governing law. … The same law that
5
requires piety, requires also benevolence, veracity, temperance, justice, gratitude, &c. All
these rest on the same foundation, and are alike our indispensable duty. (1948: 165)
The many different duties enjoined by the six heads of virtue thus all rest on the
same foundation. On this important point Price seems closer to Kant than to Ross
and other intuitionists, for whom “loyalty to the facts is worth more than a
symmetrical architectonic or a hastily reached simplicity” (Ross 1930: 23). But what
exactly is the “foundation” or “all-governing law?” Here Price is oddly silent. In a
footnote he appeals to Socrates’ famous claim that “concerning the virtues; though
they are many and various, there is one common idea [eidos] belonging to them all,
by which they are virtues” (Price 1948: 165n.; cf. Meno 72c). However, an “all-
governing law” that determines our conduct implies much more than a common
idea or general term such as “red” that is predicated of all red objects.
Deontology and More: Price and Kant

For many years, commentators have repeatedly pointed to Price’s ethical theory as
an anticipation of Kant’s, and two fundamental similarities between these two
authors’ positions have already been alluded to in the present discussion (viz., their
deontological, anti-consequentialist accounts of right action, and their conviction
that there exists a universal moral law from which all duties emanate) (see categor-
ical imperative; kantian practical ethics). But there also exist further basic
resemblances between their moral outlooks that are important to note.
Fruitful encounters with Hume

Just as Kant credits Hume with waking him from his “dogmatic slumber” and giving
his work in philosophy a new direction (Kant 2002: 4: 260/57), so Price also
acknowledges a strong debt to Hume. In looking back on his intellectual formation
he writes: “strange as it may seem … I owe much to philosophical writings of Mr.
Hume, which I likewise studied early in life. Though an enemy to his scepticism, I
have profited by it” (Price 1991: 142). In their encounters with Hume, both Price and
Kant were led to the conclusion that human beings necessarily presuppose certain
fundamental ideas in their ordinary judgments about experience. Although Price’s
specific terminology differs from Kant’s, his position is surprisingly similar. For
instance, concerning space and time, Price writes: “Space … as well as duration, is
ncluded in every reflection we can make on our own experience, or that of other
things” (1948: 24). Price and Kant were both led, in part through their reading of
Hume, to the view that a priori concepts play major roles in scientific as well as
moral thought (see a priori ethical knowledge).
Rational vs. instinctive benevolence

Just as Kant holds that the naturally kind-hearted person’s actions lack moral worth
because they stem merely from inclination rather than reason (Kant 1996a: 4:
398/53), so Price proclaims that while “Rational Benevolence entirely coincides with
6
rectitude … instinctive benevolence is no principle of virtue, nor are any actions

flowing merely from it virtuous” (1948: 191). In both cases each author, while advo-
cating a positive role for emotions in the moral life, insists that virtuous agents act
not from motives of pleasure but from a sense of duty.
The centrality of self-governance

Price and Kant both reject the widespread assumption that morality is an exclu-
sively other-regarding affair. Kant argues in the Metaphysics of Morals (1797), if
there were no duties to oneself, “then there would be no duties whatsoever” (Kant
1996a: 6: 417/543), and for Price duties to oneself comprise the “second branch of
virtue” (Price 1948: 148). Each author stresses the centrality of what Price calls
“governing all of our inferior powers so that they shall never disturb the order of
our minds; acting up to the dignity and hopes of reasonable and immortal beings;
and the uniform and stedfast pursuit of our own true perfection in opposition to
whatever difficulties may come in our way: This is high and true virtue” (Price
1948: 150).
Common human reason

Kant repeatedly appeals to the judgments of ordinary reflective people in his
argument for the moral law, and so does Price. “Common human reason … agrees
completely” with the categorical imperative “in its practical appraisals and always
has this principle before its eyes” (Kant 1996a: 4: 402/57); likewise Price’s position on
the criteria of moral worth of action and character “agrees completely with the
common sentiments and determinations of mankind” (Price 1948: 191). Both
authors believe that the moral philosopher’s proper task is not to lecture readers
from on high or to cram a new theory down their throats, but rather to provide an
accurate account of ordinary moral consciousness.
Liberty, justice, and revolution

Finally, just as Kant defended the French Revolution for demonstrating “a moral
character of humanity” which “permits people to hope for progress toward the bet-
ter” (Kant 1996b: 7: 85/302), so Price also discerned in it “a diffusion of knowledge
which has undermined superstition and error … the ardor for liberty catching and
spreading, a general amendment beginning in human affairs, the dominion of kings
changed for the dominion of laws, and the dominion of priests giving way to the
dominion of reason and conscience” (Price 1991: 195). Both authors saw in the
political revolutions of the Enlightenment a concrete sign that human moral pro-
gress was not an illusion.
The above list of noteworthy resemblances between Price’s and Kant’s ethical the-
ories is by no means exhaustive, and in making any final comparative judgments
about the two theories one should also consider some important differences between
them. For example, in both his intuitionism and moral realism Price is ultimately
closer to Ross than to Kant. But when one views these anticipations of Kant in
7
tandem with the growing mountains of appreciative literature on Kant’s ethics, it is

hard not to conclude that Price’s ethics has been unduly neglected. The traditional
explanation for this neglect has been that Price’s work lacks the systematic depth and
unity of Kant’s. There is more than a grain of truth in this explanation, but it is also
true that many contemporary readers who find themselves drawn to Kantian ethics
are themselves skeptical, or at least less than enthusiastic, regarding the wilder doc-
trines in his ambitious system. Those readers who find themselves in this position
are thus heartily encouraged to take a closer look at the more philosophically mod-
est deontological ethics of Price.
See also: a priori ethical knowledge; butler, joseph; categorical

imperative; clarke, samuel; consequentialism; cudworth, ralph;
deontology; divine command; ewing, a. c.; free will; hume, david;
hutcheson, francis; intuitionism, moral; kant, immanuel; kantian
practical ethics; locke, john; plato; prichard, h. a.; rationalism in
ethics; realism, moral; ross, w. d.; sentimentalism; utilitarianism; value
pluralism
REFERENCES
Burke, Edmund 1968 [1790]. Reflections on the Revolution in France, ed. Conor Cruise
O’Brien. Baltimore: Penguin.
Butler, Joseph n.d. [1736]. The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, To Which are added
Two Brief Dissertations. New York: John W. Lovell.
Kant, Immanuel 1996a [1783–98]. Kant’s Practical Philosophy, trans. and ed. Mary J.
Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [For all Kant citations, the first set
of numbers refers to the traditional German Academy volume and page number,
which is reprinted in the margins of most recent English translations. The second
number refers to the page number in the relevant volume of The Cambridge Edition of
the Works of Immanuel Kant.]
Kant, Immanuel 1996b [1786–1817]. Religion and Rational Theology, trans. and ed. Allen W.
Wood and George di Giovanni. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kant, Immanuel 2002 [1783–96]. Theoretical Philosophy after 1781, ed. Henry Allison and
Peter Heath. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Louden, Robert B. 1995. “Butler’s Divine Utilitarianism,” History of Philosophy Quarterly,
vol. 12, pp. 265–80.
Price, Richard 1758. A Review of the Principal Questions and Difficulties in Morals.
London: Millar.
Price, Richard 1764. “An Essay towards solving a problem in the ‘Doctrine of Chances’, by the
late Rev. Mr. Bayes, F. R. S. communicated by Dr. Price, in a letter to John Canton, A. M.,
F. R. S.,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 370–418.
Price, Richard 1767. Four Dissertations. London: Cadell.
Price, Richard 1771. Observations on Reversionary Payments. London: Cadell & Davis.
Price, Richard 1772. An Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt.
London: Cadell.
8
Price, Richard 1776. Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, the Principles of Government,
and the Justice and Policy of the War with America. London: Cadell.
Price, Richard 1784. Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution and the
Means of making it a Benefit to the World. London: Cadell.
Price, Richard 1789. A Discourse on the Love of Our Country. London: Stafford & Cadell.
Price, Richard 1948. A Review of the Principal Questions in Morals, ed. D. D. Raphael. Oxford:
Clarendon Press. [Revised impression: 1974. A reprint of the third edition (1787), this is
the most frequently citied edition of the Review.]
Price, Richard 1978 [1778]. A Free Discussion of the Doctrines of Materialism and Philosophical
Necessity, in a Correspondence between Dr. Price and Dr. Priestley. New York: Garland.
Price, Richard 1991. Political Writings, ed. D. D. Thomas. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
FURTHER READINGS
Åqvist, Lennart 1960. The Moral Philosophy of Richard Price. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksells.
Barnes, Winston 1942. “Richard Price: A Neglected Eighteenth Century Moralist,” Philosophy,
vol. 27, no. 66, pp. 159–73.
Cone, Carl. B. 1952. Torchbearer of Freedom: The Influence of Richard Price on Eighteenth
Century Thought. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press.
Cua, Antonio S. 1966. Reason and Virtue: A Study in the Ethics of Richard Price. Athens: Ohio
University Press.
Hudson, W. D. 1970. Reason and Right: A Critical Examination of Richard Price’s Moral
Philosophy. London: Macmillan.
Molivas, Gregory I. 1997. “Richard Price, the Debate on Free Will, and Natural Rights,”
Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 58, no. 1, pp. 105–23.
Raphael, D. D. (ed.) 1991 [1969]. British Moralists: 1650–1800, 2 vols. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Schneewind, J. B. (ed.) 1990. Moral Philosophy from Montaigne to Kant: An Anthology, 2 vols.
Schneewind, J. B. 1998. The Invention of Autonomy: A History of Modern Moral Philosophy.
Thomas, D. O. 1977. The Honest Mind: The Thought and Work of Richard Price. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
Thomas, Roland 1924. Richard Price: Philosopher and Apostle of Liberty. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Zebrowski, Martha K. 1994. “Richard Price: British Platonist of the Eighteenth Century,”
Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 55, no. 1, pp. 17–35.
1
Paradox of Happiness
Ben Eggleston
The paradox of happiness is the puzzling but apparently inescapable fact that
regarding happiness as the sole ultimately valuable end or objective, and acting
accordingly, often results in less happiness than results from regarding other goods
as ultimately valuable (and acting accordingly). That is, in many circumstances,
happiness is more effectively achieved when other objectives are regarded as worth
pursuing for their own sakes than when happiness alone is regarded as worth
pursuing for its own sake (see happiness; hedonism; intrinsic value). These
other objectives might be regarded as ultimately valuable instead of happiness, or
merely in addition to happiness; but they must be valued for their own sakes, and not
merely as means to the achievement of happiness. These other objectives may
include loving family relationships and friendships, meaningful professional
relationships, immersion in rewarding work, the exercise of skills and abilities,
accomplishments and triumphs, participation in religion or a large cause or
movement, and contributions to one’s culture or nation.
The paradox of happiness can be understood as applying to people individually or
in groups. With respect to people individually, the paradox of happiness is the fact
that any given individual is likely to be less happy if happiness is her sole ultimate
objective than she would be if other goods were among her ultimate objectives. With
respect to groups of people, the paradox of happiness is the fact that any given group
of people, such as a community or a society, is likely to be less happy, collectively, if
happiness is its sole collective ultimate objective than it would be if other goods were
among its collective ultimate objectives.
There are two prominent, mutually compatible explanations for the paradox of
happiness. The first appeals to the claim that when people have choices to make,
they are generally poor judges of their available options’ effects on happiness (both
individual and collective). A proponent of this view might claim, for example, that
people generally overestimate the extent to which additional income will increase
their happiness, and generally underestimate the extent to which a longer commute
between home and work will decrease it. In this view, people are systematically so
inept at making happiness-promoting choices that a surer route to happiness is for
people to aim, when making choices, at objectives other than the promotion of
happiness (Sidgwick 1907: 142; Bradley 1927: 102; Parfit 1984: 5).
The second explanation appeals to the claim that even if people were generally
capable of accurately judging their available options’ effects on happiness, a more
subtle problem would remain. This problem is that, for most people, happiness is
unattainable without several of the goods listed above (friendship, rewarding
work, etc.), and the full realization of these goods typically requires an intensity of
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee202
2
emotional and affective investment – to the extent of regarding the goods as worth
pursuing for their own sakes – that is impossible for people who regard happiness
alone as worth pursuing for its own sake. According to this explanation, then,
people who regard happiness as the sole ultimate objective can expect to be less
happy than they might otherwise be, not solely because of the bad choices they
will make – though those may be a problem – but also, and more subtly, because
of the impoverished range of options and possibilities from which they will have
the opportunity to choose (Butler 1726: 186, 190–2; Mill 1873: 117; Sidgwick
1907: 136, 405; Hodgson 1967: 58–9, 61; Stocker 1976: 456; Kavka 1978: 291;
Gauthier 1984: 263; Parfit 1984: 6; Railton 1984: 140–1; Elster 1984: 40; Elster
1989: 24).
According to each explanation, the paradox of happiness is ultimately a contingent
matter of empirical psychology. Nevertheless, each explanation seems to capture a
deep truth about human nature. The paradox they explain has significant, if disputed,
implications for ethical theory and other areas of practical philosophy.
In these areas of philosophy, the paradox of happiness is most frequently adduced
in order to criticize theories that regard the maximization of happiness – either for
the agent alone or for multiple individuals – as the criterion of rational action or
right action (depending on the kind of theory being criticized). For example, the
orthodox theory of instrumentally rational action maintains that an act is
instrumentally rational if and only if it maximally advances the agent’s interests (see
egoism). Assuming that a person’s interests can be at least roughly equated with
happiness, it can then be argued that the paradox of happiness makes this theory
self-defeating, in the sense that agents who subscribe to it will be likely to achieve the
theory’s goal of happiness less effectively than agents who subscribe to a nonorthodox
theory of instrumentally rational action (Kavka 1978: 293; Elster 1983: 9; Parfit
1984: 7; Hollis 1998: 17), such as one that regards some of the discrete objectives
listed earlier as ultimate ends, instead of regarding the agent’s interests or happiness
as the sole ultimate end, with other objectives being valuable (if at all) only as means
to that end.
The challenge posed by the paradox to this theory of instrumentally rational
action is paralleled by challenges posed by the paradox to two ethical theories,
ethical egoism and utilitarianism. Ethical egoism maintains that an act is right if and
only if it maximally advances the agent’s interests, and thus is identical to the theory
just discussed except that it is a theory of morality rather than instrumental
rationality. As a result, it is vulnerable to the same charge of self-defeat. Similar
claims are often made about utilitarianism (see utilitarianism; consequen-
tialism), standard versions of which maintain that an act is right if and only if it
maximizes the well-being of all sentient beings (Hodgson 1967: 3, 60; Stocker 1976:
461; Parfit 1984: 27–8). Whereas the charge of self-defeat against the two theories
just discussed rests on the individual form of the paradox of happiness, the charge of
self-defeat against utilitarianism rests on the collective form of the paradox. Still, the
basic contours of the charge are the same: utilitarianism is self-defeating in the sense
that agents who subscribe to it will be likely to achieve the theory’s goal of maximizing
3
well-being less effectively than agents who subscribe to an alternative ethical theory
such as Kantianism, social contractarianism, or commonsense morality.
In this way, the paradox of happiness makes theories that prescribe the
maximization of happiness vulnerable to the charge of being self-defeating. The
force of this charge may be contested, however, with a cluster of considerations that
advocates of such theories often marshal in defense of them. First, it may be pointed
out that for a theory to be self-defeating in the sense employed above is not for the
theory to imply its own falsity (which would, admittedly, be damaging). Nor does
self-defeat amount to the disproof of any claim of the theory, since theories criti-
cized for being self-defeating often take no position regarding the consequences of
people generally subscribing to them. Instead, for a theory to be self-defeating in the
sense employed above means something decidedly less discrediting – namely, that,
given human beings as they are actually constituted, people who pursue the theory’s
sole ultimate objective single-mindedly often achieve that objective less effectively
than other people. So a theory can be self-defeating because of an accident of human
psychology, rather than because of any defect internal to the theory itself. On this
view, the paradox of happiness may capture a genuine fact about human nature –
one with important practical implications – but it has no bearing on theoretical
projects claiming that happiness must, in the last analysis, be acknowledged as the
foundation of morality or instrumental rationality (Hare 1981: 38; Scheffler 1982:
46; Kagan 1989: 37).
Although advocates of theories prescribing the maximization of happiness typically
maintain that the preceding argument should be an adequate defense against the
charge of self-defeat as a matter of principle, they typically add that their theories also
respond constructively to the problems that the paradox of happiness causes in prac-
tice. For example, given that utilitarianism prescribes the maximization of happiness,
it also prescribes that agents shape their personal aims, values, and decision-making
procedures in whatever way will best promote the maximization of happiness.
Accordingly, utilitarianism may, because of the paradox of happiness, prescribe that
agents include things other than happiness among their ultimate objectives. In doing
so, it might recommend either of two strategies, depending on which would better
promote the maximization of happiness. Each strategy, however, has a corresponding
shortcoming, making the choice between them a trade-off.
The first strategy is for agents to keep happiness in mind as their regulative
objective that helps them calibrate the intensity of their commitments to other goods
that they also regard as ultimate objectives (Hare 1981: 49–52; Railton 1984: 153–4).
The main shortcoming of this strategy is that if agents keep happiness in mind as
their regulative objective, they might remain vulnerable to the paradox of happiness.
For that paradox might plausibly be thought to arise not only in many cases in which
happiness is an agent’s sole ultimate objective, but also, more generally, in many
cases in which happiness is the preeminent value in an agent’s decision-making pro-
cedure (even if it is not the agent’s sole ultimate objective). In light of this considera-
tion, this strategy might plausibly be regarded as missing the point of the paradox of
happiness, and thus as equally vulnerable to it (Williams 1988: 190).
4
The second strategy is for agents to hold goods other than happiness in such high
esteem, as ultimate objectives, that happiness, assuming it is still retained at all as an
ultimate objective, has no privileged status relative to other ultimate objectives.
In short, utilitarianism might be “self-effacing” (Parfit 1984: 23–4, 40–3). The main
shortcoming of this strategy is that if agents do not keep happiness in mind as their
regulative objective, new complications ensue. One complication is that if a theory
prescribing the maximization of happiness directs agents not to regard happiness as
having any privileged status in their decision-making procedures – and thus, in effect,
directs them to forget the theory altogether – then this seems to open a troublingly
wide chasm between the substance of the theory and the kind of thinking it directs
agents to engage in. Another complication is more practical. In particular, this
strategy is risky to implement, because if an agent decides to revise her values with
the aim of making them maximally conducive to happiness, then she faces a difficult
task, for there are many ways in which she could do it sub-optimally, but only one way
(or perhaps a few ways) in which she could do it optimally. And if the way she chooses
involves (as is characteristic of this second strategy) ceasing to regard happiness as a
regulative objective, then she has only one chance to get this transformation right.
For once she ceases to regard happiness as a regulative objective, then the maximization
of happiness will no longer function for her as a goal in the light of which she might
monitor, critically assess, and periodically tweak her decision-making procedure.
Such ongoing oversight and revision might still occur, but it will be guided by
whatever other objectives have gained ascendancy in her value system – not happiness.
So this strategy is risky to implement because of the difficulty of getting it right the
first time and the probable lack of opportunities for repeated attempts.
Further considerations may be introduced in order to address these objections to
the two strategies mentioned, and further objections may then be lodged. Moreover,
the paradox of happiness may give rise to other lines of argument in practical
philosophy than the ones canvassed here. But these are the lines of argument in
which the paradox of happiness has been most influential in historical and
contemporary theorizing about ethics.
See also: consequentialism; egoism; happiness; hedonism; intrinsic

value; utilitarianism
REFERENCES
Bradley, F. H. 1927. Ethical Studies, 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Butler, Joseph 1896 [1726]. The Works of Joseph Butler, D.C.L., vol. 2, ed. W. E. Gladstone.
Elster, Jon 1983. Sour Grapes: Studies in the Subversion of Rationality. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Elster, Jon 1984. Ulysses and the Sirens: Studies in Rationality and Irrationality, rev. ed.
5
Elster, Jon 1989. Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Gauthier, David 1990 [1984]. “The Incompleat Egoist,” in David Gauthier (ed.), Moral
Dealing: Contract, Ethics, and Reason. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
pp. 234–73.
Hare, R. M. 1981. Moral Thinking: Its Levels, Method, and Point. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Hodgson, D. H. 1967. Consequences of Utilitarianism: A Study in Normative Ethics and Legal
Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hollis, Martin 1998. Trust within Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kagan, Shelly 1989. The Limits of Morality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kavka, Gregory 1978. “Some Paradoxes of Deterrence,” Journal of Philosophy, vol. 75,
pp. 285–302.
Mill, John Stuart 1981 [1873]. “Autobiography,” in John M. Robson and Jack Stillinger (eds.),
Autobiography and Literary Essays, vol. 1 of Collected Works of John Stuart Mill. Toronto:
Scheffler, Samuel 1982. The Rejection of Consequentialism: A Philosophical Investigation of
the Considerations Underlying Rival Moral Conceptions. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Stocker, Michael 1976. “The Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories,” Journal of Philosophy,
vol. 73, pp. 453–66.
Williams, Bernard 1988. “The Structure of Hare’s Theory,” in Douglas Seanor and N. Fotion
(eds.), Hare and Critics: Essays on Moral Thinking. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
pp. 185–96.
FURTHER READINGS
Adams, R. M. 1976. “Motive Utilitarianism,” Journal of Philosophy, vol. 73, pp. 467–81.
Frey, R. G. 2000. “Act-Utilitarianism,” in Hugh LaFollette (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Ethical
Theory. Malden: Blackwell, pp. 165–82.
Hare, R. M. 1989 [1973]. “Principles,” in R. M. Hare (ed.), Essays in Ethical Theory. Oxford:
Pettit, Philip 1988. “The Paradox of Loyalty,” American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 25,
pp. 163–71.
Russell, Bertrand 1930. The Conquest of Happiness. New York: H. Liveright.
Woodcock, Scott 2010. “Moral Schizophrenia and the Paradox of Friendship,” Utilitas,
vol. 22, pp. 1–25.
1
Death
John Martin Fischer
Death has inspired much philosophical literature to go along with the existential
dread. Indeed, much of the literature has explored the issue of whether the dread is
justified; Epicurus and his followers argued that it is not, as they hold that death
cannot be bad for the individual who dies (see stoicism). Although the Epicurean
view seems unacceptable to most contemporary philosophers, it has its adherents,
and many would at least concede that one can learn much from seeking to refute
Epicureanism about death.
But what is death, and who exactly dies? Perhaps not surprisingly, both the proper
definition of “death” and the selection of a criterion for death are highly contentious.
If one takes it that death is the permanent cessation of life, this is both controversial (in
that some would argue that we can live again after death) and nonreductionist, since
we would need to define “life” (or at least have a firmer grasp on life than death). But
life can seem as mysterious as death, and some philosophers have given up on the project
of giving a reductive definition of death for precisely this reason (Feldman 1992).
There is also considerable disagreement about the proper criterion of death.
In general, there is an important distinction between the concept of a thing
(or, relatedly, its essence), on the one hand, and the criterion or criteria we use
(perhaps in certain specific contexts) to pick out that thing. So, for example, a rash
of a certain sort or a fever above a certain level might be the criteria for illness; they
are “signs” of an underlying illness, but are not themselves part of the concept or
essence of the illness.
Traditionally, the two standard (potentially conflicting) criteria for death were the
“heart/lung” criterion and the “brain function” criterion. In cases in which there has
been a significant brain injury, these criteria can pull apart; the brain function
criterion for death can be met, whereas the heart/lung function criterion is not.
Nowadays “circulatory/respiratory function” is preferred to “heart/lung function,” as
the key notion is the functioning of the systems, rather than the presence (or even
functioning) of particular organs. One can engage in respiration without the lungs
when on a heart/lung bypass machine. Additionally, we would distinguish between
a criterion that focuses on the whole brain and one that selects the “upper brain” (see
brain death). A patient can irreversibly lose consciousness without being whole
brain dead, which is usually meant to include the brain stem, which controls various
autonomic processes. So someone in a “persistent vegetative state,” such as Terry
Schiavo, could be upper brain dead but not dead according to the whole brain
criterion or the circulatory/respiratory criterion. (For a helpful discussion of the
various criteria for death, see Shewman 1997.)
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee203
2
In addition to debates about the concept, essence, and criteria of death, there are
disagreements about who exactly dies, even when we are simply restricted to human
beings. Is it a human animal? An embodied mind? This is a locus of intersection
between ethical issues and the more abstract ruminations of metaphysics. Also, one’s
more abstract metaphysical views about who we are could have implications for
one’s views about death. So, for example, philosophers disagree about how to
conceptualize our persistence over time. On one view, sometimes called “three-
dimensionalism” (3D), persons are “wholly present” at each time at which they exist,
and they (as it were) “sweep through time.” On this view, I am fully present today
and (I hope) I will be fully present tomorrow, and so forth. (For a discussion of the
relationship between certain 3D views and death, see Hershenov 2006.) In contrast,
on “four-dimensionalism” (4D) persons are, as it were, “temporal worms” that are
not fully present at any time; rather, according to the 4D picture, persons are “spread
out” over time. On this view, we have “temporal parts” that are indeed fully present
at respective times, and persons persist over time in virtue of the successive presence
of their temporal parts. There is a good discussion of the relationship between the
4D view and death in Hudson (2001).
For the purposes of this essay, I’ll assume as working hypotheses that death is the
irreversible cessation of life, and that we are fully present at times (as in 3D). One
might distinguish between metaphysical and ethical issues pertaining to death,
although the two kinds of issues are intimately related. I’ll start with the (roughly
speaking) metaphysical issues. Here I find it especially helpful to consider the chal-
lenges to our commonsense views about death presented by Epicurus and Lucretius
(and their contemporary followers): the “Epicureans.”
We can identify at least three (metaphysical) challenges posed by the Epicureans
to our ordinary views that death can be a bad thing for the individual who dies. First,
how can death be a bad thing for the individual who dies, since death robs the
putative harm of its subject (see harm)? Given that the subject no longer exists, it is
impossible for the individual to experience anything unpleasant or negative as a
result of his death; how, then, can death be bad for the individual who dies? Second,
when exactly is the time of the harm or misfortune? In general, when something is
bad for an individual, we can identify the time at which it is bad for the individual –
the time of the harm. But, given that there is no overlap between death (as opposed
to “dying”) and the existence of the individual who dies, when exactly does the harm
take place? Finally, given that we are indifferent to the period of time before we were
born, and on the plausible supposition that death is the mirror-image of the time
before we were born, why shouldn’t we regard our prospective deaths with indiffer-
ence? (This “mirror-image” argument was added to Epicureanism by Lucretius.
There is an excellent discussion of these three challenges in Nagel 1979.)
How can anything that does not involve pain, suffering, or otherwise unpleasant
experiences be a bad thing for an individual? Of course, death might involve
unpleasant experiences (if there is an afterlife and one is unfortunate). But our
working assumption here is that death is an experiential blank; here, death is
assumed not to involve any experiences at all. Thus, we can (for our purposes here)
3
think of death as a transition between living and being dead, or we can think of it as
the state of being dead; in any case, it is (here) supposed to be an experiential blank.
Various defenders of the commonsense view that death can indeed be bad for
the individual who dies have proposed cases in which it appears that something
can be bad for an individual without involving any unpleasant experiences (for
that individual). Consider, for instance, Nagel’s (1979) example of a man who is
betrayed behind his back but never finds out. In Nagel’s example, people who
present themselves as the man’s friends have get-togethers at which they pass
scurrilous rumors and make nasty accusations about him, but he never finds out
and never, let us suppose, has any bad experiences as a result of these meetings.
Nagel thinks that the man himself has been harmed – a bad thing has happened to
him – even though he never has any unpleasant experiences as a result of the secret
meetings. Other philosophers have provided examples in which an individual’s
right to privacy is violated, but she never discovers this (or experiences anything
negative as a result); here, again, it seems that the individual has been harmed –
her rights violated – and yet this badness cannot be explained in virtue of
unpleasant experiences.
A proponent of the Epicurean position (that death cannot be bad for the indi-
vidual who dies) might reply that in (say) Nagel’s example, the man at least can (in
some sense) experience something negative as a result of the clandestine betrayals;
after all, he could presumably find out about the meetings. Further, the Epicurean
here will point out that death (by our suppositions) is crucially different from the
case of the man betrayed behind his back; in contrast to this sort of situation, death
makes it impossible for the individual who dies to experience anything. So the
Epicurean will insist that nothing can be bad for an individual, if the individual
cannot experience anything unpleasant as a result of it.
But the critics of Epicureanism about death have offered examples in which it is
impossible for the individual in question to have any unpleasant experiences as a
result of the putatively bad thing, and yet it does seem as if the thing is indeed bad
for the individual. For instance, Fischer (1997) has presented a variant on Nagel’s
betrayal case in which the man cannot find out about the betrayal, and yet in which
it seems that the man is indeed harmed by the betrayal. Also, Nagel’s example of a
person who is reduced to the mental status of a “contented infant” as a result of a
stroke or brain injury appears to be a case in which the individual is indeed harmed
but cannot experience anything unpleasant as a result.
Even so, these examples are not decisive, as the proponents of Epicureanism are
quick to point out. Note that in the examples the individuals still exist. The Epicurean
will insist that something can harm an individual only if the individual exists (to be
the subject of the harm or misfortune) at the time of the putatively harmful thing.
And, again, none of the examples adduced thus far are of the required form; after all,
it would simply beg the question to invoke a scenario in which a previously existing
individual has gone out of existence, and claim that this individual has been harmed
in virtue of going out of existence (or in virtue of something coincident with his
going out of existence).
4
It appears as if we have reached what might be called a “dialectical stalemate.” The

defender of Epicureanism here will dig in his heels and point out that none of the
examples has the form that would be necessary to show, in a non-question-begging
way, that death can be bad for the individual who dies. In all of the cases, one is asked
to extrapolate from a scenario in which the subject of the putative harm still exists to
a conclusion about death – a fundamentally different state (in which the subject has
gone out of existence). On the other hand, the critic of Epicureanism will defend the
extrapolation. He will suggest that if it is plausible that (say) a betrayal that cannot be
discovered can be bad for an individual, it is also plausible that death (although
admittedly different in fundamental ways) can also be bad for the individual who
dies. If it is the impossibility of experience that renders it false that death harms an
individual, this should also apply to the cases of betrayal and brain injury discussed
above. But intuitively the cases of betrayal and brain injury are indeed cases in which
the individuals in question have been harmed. Thus, perhaps death can indeed be
bad for the individual who dies.
The second challenge to the commonsense view that death can be bad for the
individual who dies pertains to the timing of the harm or misfortune. In general, it
seems that we can assign a time or temporal interval during which the “badness” of
a bad thing takes place. But if death is indeed bad for the individual who dies, when
exactly does the badness take place? Can it take place before death? Alternatively,
can it take place after the individual ceases to exist? Either option might seem at least
a bit jarring and unintuitive. The proponents of Epicureanism will insist that if death
were a harm, we would need to be able to assign a time to the harm; further, they
contend that any candidate for the time of the harm of death is unacceptable.
But the proponents of the commonsense view have a range of options available as
to the time of the harm of death. Some have argued that the harm of death takes
place while the individual still exists and thus prior to death (Pitcher 1984; Feinberg
1984; Luper 2009). Others claim that the harm occurs subsequent to the time during
which the individual exists (Bradley 2009). Still others contend that the harm occurs
“eternally” – that is, at all times (Feldman 1992). Finally, various defenders of the
commonsense view resist the attempt to pinpoint a time or temporal interval at
which the badness of death occurs (Nagel 1979; Silverstein 1980, 2000). It is thus not
obvious that we are forced to the Epicurean position in virtue of considerations
pertaining to the time of the badness of death. Also, there are notorious difficulties
with specifying the time of certain actions – say, the time of a killing – but it does not
follow that killings do not take place! Perhaps we should here follow Aristotle’s wise
advice not to look for more precision than the subject matter allows.
The third challenge posed by the Epicureans to the ordinary view that death can
be a bad thing for the individual who dies stems from the “mirror-image” argument
presented by Lucretius. Lucretius points out that we are indifferent to the fact that
we were born when we were actually born, rather than earlier; given that posthu-
mous nonexistence is the mirror-image of prenatal nonexistence, Lucretius
commends to us indifference toward our prospective deaths. After all, the two
periods of nonexistence – prenatal and posthumous – are entirely symmetric: if one
5
had been born earlier (holding fixed the actual time of death), one would have had
more experiences, and if one were to die later (holding fixed the actual time of birth),
one would have more experiences. Prenatal and posthumous nonexistence appear to
be symmetric in their features, and thus it seems that we should have symmetric
attitudes toward them.
Of course, the symmetry thesis only yields the Epicurean conclusion if we leave in
place our ordinary indifference to prenatal nonexistence. But why exactly shouldn’t
the mirror-image argument cause us to reevaluate this indifference? That is, the
mirror-image argument, strictly speaking, only shows (if successful) that there is no
relevant difference between prenatal and posthumous nonexistence; it is itself silent
as between adopting indifference toward posthumous nonexistence and concern
toward prenatal nonexistence.
Further, it is not clear that the mirror-image argument is successful in showing
that there is no relevant difference between the two periods of nonexistence. One
approach to defending the commonsense asymmetry in our attitudes toward
prenatal and posthumous nonexistence holds that, whereas it is metaphysically
possible for an individual to die considerably later than he actually dies, it is meta-
physically impossible for an individual to have been born considerably earlier than
he actually was born. Given this point, any person who regretted that he was not
born considerably earlier would be essentially wishing for something impossible,
which is manifestly irrational. Call this move in reply to Lucretius’s mirror-image
argument the “asymmetry of possibility” reply. There are developments of this sort
of reply in Nagel (1979) and Kaufman (1999). Note that, even if the asymmetry of
possibility reply does not provide an explanation of the ordinary asymmetry in our
attitudes (because presumably most people are unaware of the relevant metaphysical
issues), it arguably could provide a justification for this asymmetry.
But it is not so clear that the asymmetry of possibility reply is adequate. Nagel
himself presented a story he attributes to Robert Nozick, in which hypothetical
creatures (otherwise like us) emerge from spores that are created many years
before they typically “hatch” (Nagel 1979). In such a scenario, it seems that
individuals would still have the same asymmetric attitudes toward prenatal and
posthumous nonexistence that we actually have; and yet, in the scenario in
question, individuals could have been “born” considerably earlier than they
actually are. This suggests that the asymmetry of possibility reply is going in the
wrong direction.
Further, it is not at all obvious that we could not have been born considerably
earlier. (Of course, what is at issue is “metaphysical possibility,” not a narrower
notion of possibility that takes into account actual conditions and constraints of
feasibility.) Of course, the counterfactual, “If someone had been born considerably
earlier than I was actually born, it wouldn’t have been me,” is presumably true; after
all, such an individual would have issued from a different sperm and egg, had
different genetics, different early experiences, and so forth. And yet it does not
follow that it is metaphysically impossible that I have been born considerably earlier
than I was actually born. After all, the counterfactual is rendered true in virtue of
6
features of the closest possible worlds where someone is born considerably earlier;
in the possible worlds closest to the actual world in which someone (identified
suitably) is born considerably earlier than I was actually born, that individual is not
identical to me. But metaphysical possibility is a different modality from the
modality expressed by the counterfactual in question, and such possibility is not
read off the features of the closest possible worlds. Metaphysical possibility can be
underwritten by less proximate possible worlds than those that ground the relevant
counterfactuals.
Further, even if it is required for my existence that I have issued from a particular
sperm and egg, this does not entail that it is metaphysically impossible that I have
been born considerably earlier; after all, the sperm and egg could have existed
considerably earlier. (That is, it is arguably metaphysically possible that the particular
sperm and egg from which I actually issued have existed considerably earlier; this is
on a par with the claim that it is metaphysically possible that I have existed consider-
ably earlier.) Finally, it is not irrational to regret something, the occurrence of which
is metaphysically possible but highly unlikely; I often regret not having won the
California lottery, and so forth. Thus, the asymmetry of possibility reply does not
seem promising to me.
I find the Parfitian reply more attractive. Parfit provided examples in which we
have asymmetric attitudes toward past and future pains; that is, all other things
equal, we prefer our pains in the past. Anthony Brueckner and John Fischer (1986)
have argued that there is a similar asymmetry in human attitudes toward past and
future pleasures, and that this asymmetry can help in replying to the mirror-image
argument. Brueckner and Fischer say:
Imagine that you are in some hospital to test a drug. The drug induces intense pleasure
for an hour followed by amnesia. You awaken and ask the nurse about your situation.
She says that either you tried the drug yesterday (and had an hour of pleasure) or you
will try the drug tomorrow (and will have an hour of pleasure). While she checks on
your status, it is clear that you prefer to have the pleasure tomorrow. There is a tempo-
ral asymmetry in our attitudes to “experienced good” that is parallel to [although, of
course, the reverse of] the asymmetry in our attitudes to experienced bads: we are
indifferent to past pleasures and look forward to future pleasures. (1986: 218–19)
They go on to apply this point to the mirror-image argument of Lucretius:
Death is a bad insofar as it is a deprivation of the good things in life (some of which,
let us suppose, are “experienced as good” by the individual). If death occurs in the
future, then it is deprivation of something to which we look forward and about which
we care – future experienced goods. But prenatal nonexistence is a deprivation of past
experienced goods, goods to which we are indifferent. Death deprives of something
we care about, whereas prenatal nonexistence deprives us of something to which we
are indifferent. (1986: 219)
7
Whereas the asymmetry of possibility reply is not a very good explanation of the
ordinary asymmetry in our attitudes, the Parfitian reply does seem to be a plausible
psychological explanation of the asymmetry. But is the Parfitian reply an adequate
justification of the ordinary asymmetry in our attitudes toward prenatal and posthu-
mous nonexistence? This depends on whether one can argue successfully that the
asymmetry in our general attitudes toward past and future pleasures is rational (see
rationality). If our attitudes toward prenatal and posthumous nonexistence can
be seen to be a special case of a rationally defensible general asymmetry, the Parfitian
reply would be supported.
Given that the major challenges posed by Epicureanism can be met, defenders of
the commonsense view that death can be a bad thing for the individual who dies
typically explain this badness in terms of deprivaton; death is bad, when it is indeed
bad for the individual who dies, insofar as it deprives him of what would otherwise
have been (on balance) good. Of course, there remain many unresolved disputes in
evaluating the metaphysical issues pertaining to death. Also, there are many inter-
esting issues at the intersection, as it were, of the metaphysics and ethics of death.
Clearly, many of the most pressing ethical questions deal in some way or another
with death: abortion, euthanasia, suicide, and the death penalty leap immediately to
mind (see abortion; capital punishment; euthanasia; suicide). One of the
best and most comprehensive treatments of the metaphysical and ethical dimen-
sions of death is McMahan (2002).
Although of course a detailed exploration of these issues is beyond the scope of
this encyclopedia essay, we might at least begin to see the force of some of the ethical
issues by focusing, again, on challenges emerging from Epicureanism. Here, however,
I think we can see especially clearly the implausibility of the Epicurean position.
If death cannot be bad for the individual who dies, we might wonder why an indi-
vidual shouldn’t just commit suicide. But the Epicurean does have a reasonable reply
here; his view is that death cannot be bad for the individual who dies, but it does not
follow from this that any individual has a reason to bring about his own death. All
that follows is that if death occurs, it cannot be a bad thing for the individual. (For
an interesting discussion of this and related issues, see Warren 2004.)
But now we might ask what reason an individual would have, on the Epicurean
approach, to avoid oncoming threats to his life. So, suppose one is standing on a
railroad track and sees a train coming very fast; what reason does one have (according
to the Epicurean) to step aside? Assuming that one could know that the train would
kill one instantaneously (with no pain involved), why exactly should one step aside,
if one is an Epicurean about death? It is a bit awkward for an Epicurean to say that
one has reason to take actions to secure one’s continued life, since he does not think
that death is a bad thing in virtue of depriving an individual of continued life.
I suppose an Epicurean could say that it is better to live than to die, but that death is
not worse than continued life; but this just doesn’t seem plausible at all. No doubt an
Epicurean could come up with some reason to step aside, but it will seem, at best,
contrived.
8
But there is an even worse problem for the Epicurean view. I do not see how the
Epicurean could say that it is morally wrong to commit murder in certain circum-
stances. That is, if you were convinced that one could instantaneously and painlessly
kill a hermit, with no one ever finding out about this act, why exactly would you
have any reason not to do this, on an Epicurean approach? It seems to me that an
Epicurean would say that you ought to murder the hermit under such circumstances,
if it would give you pleasure to do so. Again, no doubt the Epicurean can produce
some explanation of the impermissibility of such a horrific act, but such scenarios at
least put considerable pressure on Epicureanism.
See also: abortion; brain death; capital punishment; euthanasia; harm;

rationality; stoicism; suicide
REFERENCES
Bradley, Ben 2009. Well-Being and Death. New York: Oxford University Press.
Brueckner, Anthony L., and John Martin Fischer 1986. “Why is Death Bad?” Philosophical
Feinberg, Joel 1984. Harm to Others. New York: Oxford University Press.
Feldman, Fred 1992. Confrontations with the Reaper. New York: Oxford University Press.
Fischer, John Martin 1997. “Death, Badness, and the Impossibility of Experience,” Journal of
Hershenov, David 2006. “The Death of a Person,” The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy,
vol. 31, pp. 107–20.
Hudson, Hud 2001. A Materialist Metaphysics of the Human Person. Ithaca: Cornell University
Press.
Kaufman, Frederick 1999. “Pre-Vital and Post-Mortem Non-Existence,” American
Luper, Stephen 2009. The Philosophy of Death. New York: Cambridge University Press.
McMahan, Jeff 2002. The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Nagel, Thomas 1979. “Death,” in Thomas Nagel (ed.), Mortal Questions. New York: Cambridge
Pitcher, George 1984. “The Misfortunes of the Dead,” American Philosophical Quarterly,
vol. 21, pp. 183–8.
Shewmon, D. Alan 1997. “Recovery from ‘Brain Death’: A Neurologist’s Apologia,” Linacre
Silverstein, Harry S. 1980. “The Evil of Death,” Journal of Philosophy, vol. 77, pp. 401–24.
Silverstein, Harry S. 2000. “The Evil of Death Revisited,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy,
vol. 24, pp. 116–35.
Warren, James 2004. Epicurus and His Critics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
FURTHER READINGS
Belshaw, Christopher 2009. Annihilation: The Sense and Significance of Death. Stocksfield,
UK: Acumen.
9
Benatar, David (ed.) 2010. Life, Death, and Meaning: Key Philosophical Readings on the Big
Questions. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Fischer, John Martin (ed.) 1993. The Metaphysics of Death. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Fischer, John Martin 2009. Our Stories: Essays on Life, Death, and Free Will. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Kamm, F. M. 1993. Morality, Mortality, vol. 1. New York: Oxford University Press.
May, Todd 2009. Death. Stocksfield, UK: Acumen.
1
Predatory Pricing
Jeremy Snyder
Predatory pricing consists of selling goods or services at unusually low prices.

Typically these prices are unreasonably low by the standards of the local market,
usually to the point where they are unprofitable to the seller. The intent of the
predatory seller is to force competitors out of the market and to achieve monopoly
pricing power within that market. Predatory pricing is frequently cited as an
unethical practice within business and marketing ethics texts (Brenkert 2008;
Desjardins 2008; see business ethics) and is condemned by the American
Marketing Association’s Code of Ethics (AMA 2004).
The source of the wrongness of predatory pricing is not readily apparent. It is
frequently associated with the wrongs of fraud and coercion (see coercion),
though these forms of wrong-doing may be separable from predatory pricing. A
predatory seller need not engage in fraud as the seller may be completely transpar-
ent about her prices and even intentions. Whether or not predatory pricing involves
coercion is less clear and will depend on one’s account of coercion. As a predatory
price can be agreed to by both the buyer and seller without a threat or the use of
force, some accounts of coercion will maintain that neither party has been coerced
into the transaction. These agreements can seem genuinely voluntary as predatory
pricing can be beneficial to both buyer and seller, at least over the short term
(Delener 1998).
Charges that predatory pricing is unethical can be broken into two categories.
First, predatory pricing can undermine the competitive market, which carries its
own ethical import independent of the long-term effects of doing so. In this case, the
concern is that predatory pricing is a violation of either the letter or the spirit of
the competitive rules of the market. As one commentator puts it: “By operating in a
competitive market system a marketer undertakes certain commitments, among
which is that conditions for the competitive market are not to be undermined. One
of those conditions is that the price of goods is to be set in light of market conditions”
(Brenkert 2008: 121). This criticism can also be articulated as a violation of Kant’s
categorical imperative: predatory pricing cannot be universalized as it destroys the
competitive market (Brenkert 2008).
More commonly, predatory pricing is criticized for its long-term effects (Elgido
2009). If successful, predatory pricing creates a monopoly for the predatory seller
which allows that seller to charge prices greater than those that would be possible in
a competitive market. These prices can be criticized on one of two grounds. First,
they may undermine the freedom of the buyer, particularly if the good being sold is
necessary to the buyer’s well-being. The buyer cannot choose to forgo the necessary
good and is therefore compelled to pay more than would be the case in a competitive
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee204
2
market. The buyer’s lack of freedom can make the exchange appear to be coercive as
the seller creates conditions under which the buyer has no choice but to accept the
seller’s price.
Second, the seller’s gain from its monopoly can be considered unfair (AMA 2004).
While both buyer and seller may gain from the sale of necessary goods even under
monopoly conditions, the concern is that the seller’s gain is unfairly high and comes
at the expense of or exploits the buyer (see exploitation). This judgment of
unfairness requires a benchmark of fair transactions or a just price against which the
unfair transaction can be measured (see just price). One popular benchmark for
market transactions is a hypothetical fair market price, achieved under competitive
market conditions (Wertheimer 1996). Gains beyond those that the seller would
have received under competitive market conditions, then, can be understood to be
unfair.
Other secondary effects can be associated with predatory pricing as well, though
they are less central to its perceived wrongness. In particular, predatory pricing can
be criticized for driving other sellers out of the market. These actions can harm not
only the former sellers but other stakeholders as well. For example, predatory pricing
is frequently associated with large, multinational corporations moving into
communities served predominantly by smaller, locally owned businesses. In these
cases, if lower prices drive out the local businesses, critics worry that the profits that
these multinationals earn will not be reinvested locally and that the needs of the
local community will not be as well served given the distant ownership of the newly
dominant seller (Desjardins 2008).
National governments may be accused of abetting predatory pricing by granting
subsidies to sellers that allow them to reduce their prices. These advantages can
conceivably drive other competitors from the market, and, if the seller is then able to
raise its prices, the secondary harms described above may accrue (Desjardins 2008).
Public subsidies are common throughout business, and include, for example, farm
subsidies in wealthy countries that undermine agricultural development in low- and
middle-income countries (see global distributive justice). As these subsidies
allow subsidized sellers to reduce prices without necessarily incurring a loss, these
practices may not meet the traditional definition of predatory pricing.
The extent to which genuine predatory pricing takes place is not clear. On some
accounts, absent any barriers to entry into the market by new sellers, predatory
sellers will not be able to maintain a monopoly as new sellers will enter the market
and former sellers will reenter (Yamey 1972). If this is the case, then these preda-
tory sellers may not be able to maintain high prices for their goods long enough to
recoup their losses from below-market, predatory pricing. Alternately, predatory
pricing has been argued to be rational for sellers under conditions of uncertainty
as to the market share being sought by competitors (Roth 1996). Given some
unclarity over the conditions under which predatory pricing takes place, what is
sometimes labeled as predatory pricing can simply be an instance of a more effi-
cient seller entering a market and eliminating competitors through free market
competition.
3
See also: business ethics; coercion; exploitation; global distributive

justice; just price
REFERENCES
American Marketing Association (AMA) 2004. Code of Ethics. At http://www.marketing-
power.com/AboutAMA/Pages/Statement%20of%20Ethics.aspx. Last accessed May
26, 2010.
Brenkert, George 2008. Marketing Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell.
Delener, Nejdet 1998. “An Ethical and Legal Synthesis of Dumping: Growing Concerns in
International Marketing,” Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 17, pp. 1747–53.
Desjardins, Joseph 2008. An Introduction to Business Ethics, 3rd ed. New York: McGraw Hill.
Elgido, Juan Manuel 2009. “The Just Price: Three Insights from the Salamanca School,”
Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 90, pp. 29–46.
Roth, David 1996. “Rationalizable Predatory Pricing,” Journal of Economic Theory, vol. 68,
pp. 380–96.
Wertheimer, Alan 1996. Exploitation. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Yamey, Basil 1972. “Predatory Pricing: Notes and Comments,” Journal of Law and Economics,
vol. 15, pp. 129–47.
FURTHER READINGS
Chonko, Lawrence 1995. Ethical Decision Making in Marketing. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
DeGeorge, Robert 2009. Business Ethics, 7th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Ortomeyer, Gwendolyn 1993. “Ethical Issues in Pricing,” in N. Craig Smith and John Quelch
(eds.), Ethics in Marketing. Boston: Irwin, pp. 389–404.
Schlegelmilch, Bodo 1998. Marketing Ethics: An International Perspective. Toronto:
International Thomson Business Press.
1
Worth/Dignity
William J. FitzPatrick
The Concept and Role of Dignity

The concept of dignity is famously multifaceted, with such a variety of applications
that some have even dismissed it as incoherent (Pinker 2008). Dignity is often said,
for example, to be an inalienable quality that all people have, serving as a foundation
for basic human rights. However, if dignity is inalienable, why would Oregon need a
“Death With Dignity Act” to ensure that people can die with it? How could abusive
and demeaning treatment “take it away” from victims of oppression, as is also often
said? Do contestants on reality television shows retain their dignity even as they
degrade themselves to the delight of mocking viewers? Are certain unpleasant
diagnostic procedures “undignified,” as many feel, and does that imply that dignity
has only a limited value that can reasonably be traded for other goods such as
medical benefits? While the concept of dignity is indeed complex, however, the
appearance of incoherence can be dispelled with some basic distinctions that will
also serve to focus the discussion to follow.
The primary notion of dignity for our purposes, as employed in talk of “human
dignity,” is the idea of a certain moral status involving possession of an inherent,
unearned form of worth or standing – a basic worth or standing that is neither
dependent on one’s being of use or interest to others nor based on one’s merits,
and which essentially calls for certain forms of respect (see respect). It is in this
sense that many hold that all persons possess a fundamental, inalienable dignity,
which grounds basic rights (see rights) or the authority to make claims and
demands of others. This is related to but importantly distinct from the notions of
having or maintaining a sense of one’s dignity, or of comporting oneself with
dignity or behaving in a dignified manner.
Patients experiencing irreversible loss of control over their bodies and minds may
feel a sharp decline in their sense of dignity through the loss of the kind of self-
control and independence that typically informs one’s identity as a person; such loss
can lead to a sense of embarrassment, shame, frustration, and passivity that
undermines one’s self-conception and sense of place in the world. None of this,
however, implies any loss of dignity in the primary sense: people in this condition
still matter and deserve the same respect and caring concern. Therefore, when
people speak of wanting to die with dignity or in a dignified manner, what is meant
is being able to end one’s life without having to suffer a prolonged period of loss of
one’s sense of dignity and identity, which is compatible with recognizing that dignity
itself remains uncompromised. Similarly, medical procedures we find humiliating
may temporarily offend our sense of dignity, conflicting with our usual way of
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee205
2
comporting ourselves and compromising our self-control and modesty; but if they
are performed professionally and for good reason, there is no violation of dignity
and no dignity is sacrificed in submitting to them.
Violations of dignity occur when beings who possess dignity in the primary
sense are treated in ways incompatible with respecting that status, as through
physical abuse, racist oppression, or sexist subordination. Such mistreatment does
not “take away” the victim’s dignity (if it did, there would thereafter be no dignity
to violate), though it typically offends against and may even damage a person’s
sense of dignity, making her feel dehumanized. To affirm the inalienability of
dignity is not to deny that a person’s sense of dignity can be damaged in this way,
but only to insist that her basic worth and moral standing cannot be taken away
(at least as long as the grounds of her dignity remain intact). And, finally, to claim
universal and equal possession of human dignity is not to deny that people often
fail to honor that dignity through their behavior. When people degrade them-
selves, as through servile or self-disrespecting behavior, they act in ways that do
not befit that dignity. Often, such behavior indicates lack of a proper sense of their
own dignity, and if this is habitual they may lose that sense altogether. This does
not imply, however, that they have lost their dignity in the primary sense, which is
why it remains appropriate to criticize such behavior as undignified – disrespectful
of the basic worth or standing they still possess as persons from whom more is to
be expected.
Our focus here will be on the primary concept of dignity as a moral status
involving possession of an inherent, unearned worth or standing – a notion that has
played a variety of roles in ethical and political thought. It is central, for example, to
many attempts to resist consequentialist ethical thought (see consequentialism;
utilitarianism), with the idea that respecting a person’s dignity or “inviolability”
typically requires constraining one’s behavior to avoid harming, coercing, or
deceiving her, even where such restraint fails to bring about the best overall
consequences (Nagel 1995; Kamm 1996). Thus, respect for a person’s dignity
precludes killing her even if harvesting her organs is the only way to save several
others, and it precludes torturing one person even to prevent someone else from
torturing two – the claim being that dignity is properly respected by refraining from
treating anyone in disrespectful ways, not by doing whatever it takes to maximize or
minimize good or bad outcomes (see deontology).
The notion of equal human dignity is also often cited (e.g., in the UN Charter) as
grounding universal human rights (Debes 2009: 53), and it plays an important role
in some conceptions of political justice (see justice) and universal constitutional
principles. It has been argued, for example, that all citizens are entitled to the
conditions necessary for living lives worthy of human dignity (as far as natural
circumstances permit), through the protection and support of their basic human
capabilities involving physical, mental, and emotional health, bodily safety, free-
dom of movement, association and expression, political participation, imagination,
choice of affiliation and work, artistic and intellectual appreciation and expression,
recreation, and so on (Nussbaum 2006, 2008). The concept of dignity has even
3
been extended to cover nonhuman animals, with different forms of animal dignity
claimed to ground norms of interspecies justice prohibiting treatment (by human
beings) that undermines animals’ characteristic forms of flourishing by depriving
them of normal nutrition, characteristic physical activity, interactions with others
of their species, or basic enjoyments suited to their nature, or that imposes cruel
conditions of squalor and suffering (Nussbaum 2006: Ch. 6; see animals, moral
status of).
Despite widespread endorsement of appeals to dignity, however, philosophers
offer very different answers to basic questions about it. What is the primary subject
of dignity (to which dignity is most directly attributed) and object of respect? What
makes something or someone possess dignity? What kind of respect is appropriate
to dignity, and what is involved in respecting dignity? Is the possession of dignity an
objective fact we discover, or is a person’s possession of dignity something we
construct or confer? These issues will be taken up in turn.
The Subjects of Dignity

One major source of current thought about the nature, grounds, and implica-
tions of dignity is Immanuel Kant (see kant, immanuel), who divided things of
value into those that have a price and those that have a dignity. Things with
merely relative worth – based on their satisfaction of human needs, inclinations,
or tastes – have a price and are in principle replaceable; they are mere things that
may be used as we see fit, in accordance with our desires and ends. By contrast,
that which has dignity has an intrinsic and unconditional worth, being above all
price and lacking any equivalent; it is an end-in-itself and so may be treated only
in ways compatible with respecting this special form of worth (Kant 1998: 4,
434–6, 428–9).
When people speak of dignity in this sense, they typically attribute it to persons
or rational beings. While Kant sometimes spoke that way, however, this sort of talk
was importantly derivative for him and remains so for many neo-Kantians. Kant
attributed dignity, absolute value, and worthiness of respect primarily to rational
nature – our psychological capacities to set our own ends, to pursue them through
rational means, and to legislate, respect, and follow the moral law. It is not merely
that our rational nature is what qualifies us as ends-in-ourselves and possessors of
dignity, but that rational nature itself remains primarily what is the end-in-itself
and has dignity (Hill 1992: 38–57). This means that, for Kant, respect for persons
is ultimately reducible to respect for the rational nature in persons: “respecting it
in you is precisely what it means to respect you” (Wood 1999: 144). Hence, even
apart from the question whether the notion of dignity extends beyond human
beings to include nonrational animals, there is the question whether even in the
human case the primary subject of dignity is the person herself or is instead one of
her capacities.
The Kantian position on this question entails that insofar as nonrational humans
and animals may partake in some measure of dignity, this will have to be grounded
4
in relations to rational nature, though Kant himself did not pursue such an extension
of the concept (Wood 1998). Children, for example, bear a relation of potentiality to
rational nature, and animal nature stands to embodied rational nature as a
precondition. Such relations might provide grounds for a derivative form of dignity
or worthiness of respect even within a broadly Kantian framework, though how this
might work is a complicated matter. A zygote, for example, has the same potentiality
for rational nature as a child, so if that relation were sufficient for full human dignity,
then zygotes would be accorded the same dignity as children; but while some
embrace such an implication (Lee and George 2008), many would reject it as
stretching the notion of dignity beyond plausibility. Such a potentiality relation
would also fail to provide any account of the dignity of disabled humans who lack
even such potentiality. And even in the case of healthy children, one might doubt
whether respect for children is really reducible to respect for the rational capacity
they will one day have.
There are, of course, many alternatives to the Kantian approach. Even if one
follows Kant in taking the possession of rational nature to be the qualifying condition
for human dignity, one might think that the primary subject of dignity remains irre-
ducibly the person and that respecting the dignity of the person does not just reduce
to respecting her rational capacities. This difference in focus may be significant.
Kant rejected such practices as euthanasia (see euthanasia) or physician-assisted
suicide, for example, on the grounds that ending one’s life and hence dispatching of
one’s rational nature to put an end to misery amounts to subordinating one’s rational
nature to one’s inclination to be free from suffering; and since, for Kant, rational
nature is the real end-in-itself and the very source of any value to be found in one’s
inclinations, such a subordination is perverse. By contrast, those who take the person
irreducibly to be the possessor of worth or dignity – even if this is so only by virtue
of her rational nature – may hold that proper respect for the dignity of the person
allows for physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia in certain circumstances. If the
whole person is the proper object of respect, it is hardly obvious that such respect
must always privilege the continuation of rational agency over the ending of
irremediable misery, or that we best respect the person by giving absolute and
unconditional priority to the preservation of one of her capacities over all other
aspects of her life and experience.
The Grounds of Dignity

Another possibility is to drop the Kantian, and earlier Stoic, idea that possession
of rational nature is even a necessary qualifying condition for dignity. Some neo-
Kantians have done this without abandoning the central role of rational nature as
the constructive source of all obligation through communal moral legislation: for
even if the source of all obligation lies in the legislation that rational agents make,
there is nothing to stop that legislation from having as its content direct obliga-
tions even to nonrational beings such as animals, according a kind of dignity to
them (Hill 2000: 87–118; Korsgaard 2004).
5
Alternatively, one might depart even further from the Kantian focus on rational
nature and allow for a variety of grounds for a variety of forms of dignity. Perhaps
rational nature is by itself not sufficient to ground dignity, which requires in addition
the possession of a good will (Dean 2006); or perhaps rational nature is at any rate
the wrong focus, the operative feature really being, for example, a capacity for love
or for harmonious relationships (Metz 2010 finds the basis for such a view of dignity
in traditions of sub-Saharan African thought, supporting an ideal of communal
relationships that grounds norms of interpersonal behavior). On some views, rational
nature is not necessary either: forms of dignity might be grounded in nonrational
forms of animal agency, intelligence, sentience, and emotion that allow for
nonrational humans and animals to possess forms of dignity quite independently of
relations to rational nature and its legislative activity (Nussbaum 2006: Ch. 6).
One might also question the linking of a being’s dignity to its individual capacities,
holding instead that a being may also possess dignity simply by being a relevant kind
of thing. On this view, a severely retarded human being may possess the same basic
dignity and right not to be killed or used for others’ purposes as any other human
being, and more than animals with comparable mental capacities, simply by virtue
of being a member of a species whose normal, mature members possess rational
capacities, which makes him a certain kind of thing to which a special dignity
attaches. If defensible, such a view might account for the intuition that all human
beings (which need not include zygotes, on a gradualist conception of the process of
becoming a human being) possess a moral status distinct from that of animals. On
the other side, critics will question the moral significance of species-membership,
and some have even argued that Darwinism – which maintains that homo sapiens is
an evolved species just like any other, continuous with the rest of the biological
world rather than separated from it through special creation in a divine image –
undermines the very idea of a special human dignity (Rachels 1990). Many will, of
course, dispute this last inference, arguing that, despite the truth of Darwinism,
there remain morally relevant special features of human life that do justify talk of a
distinctive human dignity (even granting other forms of animal dignity).
Respect for Dignity

While there is a fair amount of agreement over the basic normative implications of
human dignity, such as what would constitute central violations of it (e.g., slavery,
rape, murder, caste systems), there remain important disagreements over less obvious
cases. While some take the dignity of the human being to imply that it is always
wrong intentionally to end the life of an innocent human being at any stage, others
reject any such implication, holding instead that while the dignity of every (relevantly
innocent) human being implies a negative right not to be killed involuntarily, it does
not prohibit voluntary euthanasia or assisted suicide in extreme circumstances;
indeed, this may be part of respecting the dignity of the whole person in question.
To those who hold the latter view, the rival “pro-life” view may appear to privilege
the life in the human organism over the person herself, parallel to Kant’s focus on the
6
rational nature in a person, described earlier. One might then worry that what is
really being respected by absolute prohibitions on physician-assisted death is not so
much the person herself, who may reasonably wish to end her life, as the abstract
“life” in the person or in the organism that was once a person – an impression
reinforced by refusals to remove life-support out of “respect for human life” even
long after the person who used to be subserved by that life has ceased to exist (see
life, value of). This leads back to questions about the proper subject of dignity: is
it human life that primarily has dignity or the human person?
However exactly dignity is ultimately construed, the kind of respect (see respect)
appropriate to that which has dignity is what has been called “recognition respect,”
as distinguished from “appraisal respect” (Darwall 2006: 122). We have appraisal
respect for people when they merit esteem by virtue of their skill, conduct, or
character. However, the idea of basic dignity or worth is the idea of a moral status
that entitles one to a kind of respect that is independent of such esteem, and equally
independent of contingent social status. To respect a person simply as a person with
dignity is to recognize her as having a certain moral standing – something retained
even by those with poor moral characters, which is why it remains an offense against
human dignity to torture or degrade or experiment on criminals, even if they have
forfeited some of their rights (such as freedom from incarceration).
The moral standing in question again involves a kind of inviolability and worth
that must be taken into account in deliberation: persons count and so should be
treated in ways that reflect this, both (i) negatively, by refraining from violations of
dignity involving injury, deceit, coercion, condescension, or callousness, and (ii)
positively, by promoting the development and maintenance of capabilities necessary
for living lives consistent with dignity – particularly capacities for meaningful, free
choice (see autonomy).
There may, however, be another dimension to this moral standing not captured in
terms of a special kind of value and response. It has recently been argued that dignity
and respect must be understood in an irreducibly second-personal way: “The dignity
of persons … is the second-personal authority of an equal: the standing to make
claims and demands of one another as equal free and rational agents. … And respect
for this dignity is an acknowledgement of this authority that is also second-personal”
(Darwall 2006: 121). On this account, dignity is not a value we should believe others
to possess so much as a kind of second-personal authority to make valid claims of
one another, which we respect in others by making ourselves accountable to them.
The Metaethics of Dignity

The source of this authority points to a contrast among metaethical accounts of
dignity. Realists (see realism, moral) take dignity or worth to be a real normative
property that persons possess along with their other properties, which is to be
recognized and respected (FitzPatrick 2005). By contrast, neo-Kantian
constructivist construals of dignity typically see it not as a real property we
encounter in persons but as something we confer and to which we are committed
7
through the exercise of our own rational agency, binding us as an internal norm of
reason rather than as an external value constraining our wills (Korsgaard 1996a;
1996b: 407, 301).
The second-personal approach to dignity mentioned in the preceding text is more
similar to the latter, except that what commits us to the equal dignity or authority of
persons is instead something second-personal: we commit ourselves to others’
dignity or authority by addressing second-personal reasons to them, as by making
demands or holding them accountable (Darwall 2006: 243–76). An upshot of this
difference is that, unlike other broadly Kantian approaches, the second-personal
approach keeps the focus of dignity and respect on the person herself, rather than
emphasizing the necessity of valuing the rational capacity in persons.
See also: animals, moral status of; autonomy; consequentialism;

deontology; euthanasia; justice; kant, immanuel; life, value of; realism,
moral; respect; rights; utilitarianism
REFERENCES
Darwall, Stephen 2006. The Second Person Standpoint: Morality, Respect and Accountability.
Dean, Richard 2006. The Value of Humanity in Kant’s Moral Theory. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Debes, Remy 2009. “Dignity’s Gauntlet,” Philosophical Perspectives, vol. 23, pp. 45–78.
FitzPatrick, William J. 2005. “The Practical Turn in Ethical Theory: Korsgaard’s Constructivism,
Realism, and the Nature of Normativity,” Ethics, vol. 115, no. 4, pp. 651–91.
Hill, Thomas E. 1992. Dignity and Practical Reason in Kant’s Moral Theory. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press.
Hill, Thomas E. 2000. Respect, Pluralism and Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kamm, Frances 1996. Morality, Mortality, vol. 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kant, Immanuel 1998 [1785]. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. and ed. Mary
Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Korsgaard, Christine 1996a. The Sources of Normativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Korsgaard, Christine 1996b. Creating the Kingdom of Ends. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Korsgaard, Christine 2004. “Fellow Creatures: Kantian Ethics and Our Duties to Animals,”
The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, ed. Grethe B. Peterson. Salt Lake City: University
of Utah Press, pp. 77–110.
Lee, Patrick, and Robert George 2008. “The Nature and Basis of Human Dignity,” Ratio Juris,
vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 173–93.
Metz, Thaddeus 2010. “Human Dignity, Capital Punishment, and an African Moral Theory:
Toward a New Philosophy of Human Rights,” Journal of Human Rights, vol. 9, pp. 81–99.
Nagel, Thomas 1995. “Personal Rights and Public Space,” Philosophy and Public Affairs,
vol. 24, no. 2, pp. 83–107.
8
Nussbaum, Martha 2008. “Human Dignity and Practical Entitlements,” in The President’s
Council on Bioethics, Human Dignity and Bioethics: Essays Commissioned by the
President’s Council on Bioethics. US Independent Agencies and Commissions, Ch. 14.
Pinker, Steven 2008. “The Stupidity of Dignity,” The New Republic, May 28.
Rachels, James 1990. Created from Animals: The Moral Implications of Darwinism. Oxford:
Wood, Allen 1998. “Kant on Duties Regarding Nonrational Nature,” Proceedings of the
Aristotelian Society, supp. vol. 72, pp. 189–210.
Wood, Allen 1999. Kant’s Ethical Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
FURTHER READINGS
Elshtain, Jean Bethke 1999–2000. “The Dignity of the Human Person and the Idea of Human
Rights: Four Inquiries,” Journal of Law and Religion, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 53–65.
Hill, Thomas E. 2002. Human Welfare and Moral Worth. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kolnai, Aurel 1976. “Dignity,” Philosophy, vol. 51, pp. 251–71.
Macklin, Ruth 2003. “Dignity is a Useless Concept,” British Medical Journal, vol. 327,
pp. 1419–20.
Malpas, J., and N. Lickiss (eds.) 2007. Perspectives on Human Dignity: A Conversation.
President’s Council on Bioethics 2008. Human Dignity and Bioethics: Essays Commissioned by
the President’s Council on Bioethics. US Independent Agencies and Commissions.
Quinn, Philip 2007. “On the Intrinsic Value of Human Persons,” in P. van Inwagen and
D. Zimmerman (eds.), Persons: Human and Divine. New York: Oxford University Press,
pp. 237–60.
1
Truth in Ethics
Michael P. Lynch
The topic of truth in ethics can be divided into three main questions: Are moral
judgments truth-apt? Are any moral judgments true? And, if some moral judgments
are true, in virtue of what are they true?
A judgment is “truth-apt” when it is capable of being true or false. There are at least
three widely acknowledged reasons for thinking that moral judgments are truth-apt.
None of these reasons are definitive. But they make a prima facie case – as indicated
by the fact that those who deny that moral judgments are truth-apt typically expend
considerable effort trying to explain these reasons away.
The first reason moral judgments are truth-apt is that they have the logical
features of truth-apt judgments. A judgment has then such features when it can be
meaningfully negated, when it can figure in detachable conditionals, and generally
be understood, for purposes of logic, as truth-functional. Moral judgments have all
of these features.
A second reason to think that moral judgments are truth-apt is that they are sub-
jected to norms of epistemic appraisal. Moral judgment takes place in what Sellars
called the “space of reasons.” If I make a moral judgment about, e.g., the injustice of
the death penalty, and you deny that judgment, then in the normal course of things
I am committed to giving you a reason or some other evidence in favor of my judg-
ment. If I cannot produce a reason or any other evidence – even a reason that is itself
up for challenge – I should retract my judgment, or at least lower my confidence in
it. This makes most moral judgments different from many judgments of taste. I need
not retract my judgment that fettucine alfredo is delicious if you deny it. Nor am I
committed to giving you a reason for why I made the judgment. But if I declare that
it is sometimes right to torture prisoners, I am committed to giving you a reason if
you deny that judgment. If I cannot produce one, I appear to incur an obligation to,
at the very least, lower my confidence in that opinion.
The third reason moral judgments seem truth-apt is that they have objective
pretensions. That is, we normally take ourselves to be capable of making moral
mistakes and being in moral ignorance. Indeed, we typically think of moral
growth and maturity as a process that involves identifying and correcting past
moral error and coming to appreciate morally relevant factors of which one had
previously been unaware. Thus someone who was raised in a racist environment
might later come to see his previous views as morally mistaken. In doing so, he
seems to commit himself to thinking that his previous views were not only false,
but that their truth-value did not depend on his having judged them to have a
certain truth-value.
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee206
2
All three of these reasons can be challenged; but together they represent at least a
prima facie case for taking moral judgments to be truth-apt. The question is just
what sort of truth they are apt for.
Philosophical tradition has generally taken it for granted that if moral judgments
are true, then they are going to be true in the same way as any other sort of true judg-
ment. The historically most prominent theory of truth is the correspondence theory.
According to that view, judgments are true just when they correspond to the facts.
Any such view, if it is to amount to something more than a platitude, must say some-
thing about the nature of the facts, and the nature of the correspondence relation. It
has proven difficult to answer these questions in a way that makes it plausible that
moral judgments also correspond to facts.
Many contemporary correspondence theorists, for example, take it that for a
judgment to correspond to facts is for the concepts that compose the judgments to
accurately represent objects and properties in the world. Their guiding metaphor is
that of the map: true judgments are like accurate maps. Thus
Represent: The judgment that x is F is true if and only if the object represented by
<x> has the property represented by <F>.
Call a theory of this general shape a representational theory of truth. Philosophers

who endorse this general approach typically also endorse moral realism. Thus they
take the relevant judgments to represent objects and properties that exist indepen-
dently of the systems that are representing them (see realism, moral).
Representational theories of moral truth have some clear advantages. They
explain the objective pretensions of moral judgment. What we can represent we can
also misrepresent. Accordingly, representational theories of truth allow for the
possibility of moral error. Judging that something is morally right doesn’t make it so.
Correspondingly, they also allow for a clear notion of moral improvement. Our
moral opinions improve the more we represent the moral properties as they are, and
not as we might, for example, wish them to be.
But any representational theory of moral truth also faces a significant hurdle.
Representational theories are hostage to a theory of representation. Most contempo-
rary theories of representation are naturalist. They take it that:
Natural: Representational relations supervene on natural relations.
If so, representational theories of truth are only plausible where the content of our
judgments can be understood as causally responsive to an external environment that
contributes to that content. That is, you can’t map what isn’t there and you can’t map
well that with which you don’t have some even indirect causal contact. Consequently,
representational theories are often thought to be difficult to apply to judgments –
like moral and mathematical judgments – that seem to be about objects and proper-
ties to which we don’t bear obvious causal relations.
3
In particular, there are well-known and intuitive reasons for thinking moral
properties, should they exist, would not be the sort of properties with which we
enter into causal contact (Harman 1977). The problem, as Crispin Wright (1992)
has emphasized, is not just that one might wonder how moral properties can be
thought to causally explain our moral judgments and beliefs. The problem is that it
is hard to see how moral properties can be seen to be part of a causal explanation for
anything other than moral judgments. Wherever we are confident that we are cog-
nitively responsive to physical objects, we typically take it that the objects to which
we are so responsive cause more than just our responses. We respond to the pres-
ence of cats on mats by forming a belief about cats, but the cat’s being on the mat
causes more than my belief – it also causes the mouse to stay in the hole, and a flea
to be on the mat, and so on. This nexus of causal connections is part of what con-
vinces us that there is something to which we are responding when we form our
beliefs about cats, or make judgments about them. But with Wright and Harman,
one might wonder whether this wide spectrum of causal connections exists in the
moral case.
The above considerations help to illustrate why the question of truth can seem
particularly puzzling in the case of morality. We have reasons to believe that moral
judgments are true. But it is difficult to explain how this can be so. Attempts to
specify the nature of correspondence either seem to make it difficult for moral judg-
ments to correspond in the defined sense or end up sounding suspiciously vacuous
(as in: moral judgments are true when they correspond to moral reality).
As a result of considerations of this general sort, many philosophers take it that,
despite our initial reasons, we must give up on the idea that any moral judgment is
true. This thought can be cashed out in at least two ways. One way is the route of
the traditional expressivist (see emotivism). According to this view, moral judg-
ments express nonrepresentational states of mind. So if truth is a matter of accu-
rate representation, moral judgments are not even truth-apt, and hence no moral
judgment is true (or false). Another alternative is to accept that moral judgments
do aim to represent properties in the world, it is just that they always fail to hit the
target. The world, so to speak, doesn’t cooperate: none of the properties or facts
our judgments aim to represent actually exist. So if truth is a matter of representation,
then all positive moral judgments are false. This is the route of the traditional error
theorist (see error theory).
What alternatives remain for those who wish to hold that at least some moral
judgments are true? One route, favored by a number of contemporary philo-
sophers, is to deny a central assumption of our discussion so far: namely, that
judgments – moral or otherwise – are true in virtue of having a single substantive
property such as correspondence. The most obvious way to deny this assumption
is to claim that there is no substantive property of judgments in virtue of which
judgments – any judgment – is true. This is the route taken by those who embrace
minimalism about truth (Horwich 1998; Field 2001) (see minimalism about
truth, ethics and). According to minimalism, the concept of truth is only a
logical device for generalization, and does not serve to denote a theoretically
4
interesting or explanatory property. Our grasp of the concept of truth is exhausted

by our grasp of the instances of
TS: p is true if and only if p.
Here, this is understood to imply that, for example, the proposition that roses are red
is true is equivalent, in nonopaque contexts, to the proposition that roses are red. If
this is so, the minimalist claims, then there is nothing more to be said about what
makes judgments – moral or otherwise – true. In particular, nothing needs to be
said about how judgments represent objects and properties, and so the fact that
moral judgments don’t seem to be representational is no barrier to their being true.
Minimalism is strictly consistent with realism about morality or the view that there
are mind-independent moral properties (see realism, moral). But it can seem like
an odd pairing from the standpoint of theoretical motivation. For if there are moral
properties out there in the world, it would be curious indeed if they had nothing to do
with why the judgments we make about them are true. Perhaps as a consequence, it is
more common to find minimalism adopted by philosophers who deny moral realism.
Expressivists, in particular, have found minimalism about truth congenial. As
noted, some classical expressivists held that moral judgments are not truth-apt. A
familiar objection to expressivism points out that, as we noticed above, this is belied
by the logical features of such judgments – which appear to be capable of being
meaningfully negated, used as the antecedents of detachable conditionals, and which
appear as premises and conclusions in valid arguments (see frege–geach objec-
tion). It seems as if moral judgments wouldn’t have these features if they weren’t
truth-apt. One way of responding to such problems, championed by Simon
Blackburn (1998) and other quasi-realists (see quasi-realism), is to adopt mini-
malism about truth. According to minimalism, being true is no great metaphysical
achievement. Thus if to make the moral judgment that murder is wrong is to express
one’s sentiments, then to judge that it is true that murder is wrong is just to express
those same sentiments by other means.
Some philosophers have suspected that the quasi-realist is in a precarious
position. The quasi-realist needs to distinguish between judgments that are
expressive in content as opposed to those that are not. This can no longer be done
in terms of truth, if minimalism is correct. In particular, we cannot say that non-
moral judgments are true in virtue of representing reality while moral judgments
are not. For there is no property of judgments that makes judgments true if
minimalism is correct.
One possibility is that the quasi-realist can hold that while both moral and
nonmoral judgments can be true, only nonmoral judgments express beliefs. But
there are reasons to doubt the success of this suggestion as well. Suppose that moral
propositions are true, I can judge them, but no such judgments express beliefs. Thus
I do not express a belief when I judge that
M: Murder is wrong.
5
Yet according to minimalism M is equivalent to
MT: <Murder is wrong> is true.
So if in judging M I fail to express a belief, I also fail to express a belief in judging MT.
So on the view in question, I can judge that it is true that murder is wrong, but I won’t
believe it. For if I did believe MT, I would believe M. Yet the view we are entertaining
is one according to which moral judgments don’t express beliefs. That is:
Where P is a moral judgment, if I judge P then it is not the case that I believe P.
So on the view we are considering, there are moral truths, but I can believe none of
them; nor can I believe that they are true. That seems unsatisfactory. Just one reason
it is unsatisfactory is this. Presumably, in stating her view, the quasi-realist believes
that there are moral truths, or at the very least, that there can be (after all, her mini-
malism ensures this possibility). But it is very difficult to understand why, or even
how, you could believe that there are moral truths if, for any particular moral truth,
you can’t believe that it is true.
Not surprisingly, therefore, expressivists who are minimalists about propositional
truth are often minimalists about belief-truth. Moreover, they take it that the con-
cept of belief is itself minimally understood, as in: to believe that p is just to be dis-
posed to judge that p is true (Blackburn 1998; Timmons 1998). But this “creeping
minimalism” (Dreier 2004) just exposes a further worry – namely that once mini-
malism is accepted, expressive judgments turn out to have many of the logical and
semantic features had by nonexpressive judgments. If so, then we lose the ability to
distinguish between the expressive and nonexpressive judgments.
Above, we noted that if one hopes to retain the idea that at least some moral judg-
ments are true, then it seems that one might need to deny that all judgments are true
by virtue of representing reality. One possibility is to embrace minimalism: to hold
that there is nothing in virtue of which all true moral judgments are true. Another
way is to take it that moral judgments are true in a different way than nonmoral
judgments. What other property might moral judgments have in virtue of which they
could be true? One suggestion, favored by some constructivists (see constructiv-
ism, moral), is that moral judgments are true when they are coherent in some way.
Coherence theories of moral truth usually start with the idea that a theory of
moral truth might be constructed out of a theory of what it is for moral judgments
to be warranted or justified (cf. Dorsey 2006). According to a leading theory of
moral epistemology, a moral judgment is warranted to the degree to which the
moral framework to which it belongs is in a state of wide reflective equilibrium
(see reflective equilibrium). We might put this as follows: S’s judgment that p is
warranted to the degree that it coheres with the rest of S’s moral and nonmoral
judgments.
The notion of coherence picks out a family of epistemic desiderata. It is generally
thought that a framework is coherent insofar as, and to the degree to which, its
6
members display relations of mutually explanatory support, it is complete, and it is

consistent. Call these coherence-making features. Such features themselves come in
degrees: members of a framework can be more or less consistent, more or less mutu-
ally explanatory, etc. A framework of judgments increases in coherence to the degree
to which it exemplifies these features, on balance, to a greater degree. “On balance”
because the features are not themselves isolated in their coherence-increasing power.
A framework would not be more coherent on balance, for example, simply by
increasing its size (completeness) by including consistent but explanatorily uncon-
nected judgments. Intuitively, by increasing its explanatorily isolated judgments, the
coherence of the framework would on balance remain static or decrease.
With these notions in hand, we can make sense of what it would be for a moral
framework to improve in coherence. Framework F is more coherent at t2 than at t1,
when on balance, it has at t2 either more of the coherence-making features or some
of those features to a greater degree. So if completeness, consistency, and explana-
tory connectedness are coherence-making features, adding a consistent and expla-
natorily connected judgment to the system will increase that system’s coherence
along those dimensions. Consequently we can say that P coheres with moral frame-
work F if, and only if, the result of including P in F would, on balance, make F more
coherent.
The idea behind a coherence theory of moral truth is this. If warranted moral
judgments are those that are coherent, then true moral judgments are those that are
what we might call supercoherent. We can define supercoherence as:
SUP: The moral judgment P supercoheres with F if and only if P coheres with F
at some stage of inquiry and would continue to do so through all successive and
additional improvements of moral and nonmoral information to F.
The constructivist suggestion then comes to this: A moral judgment P is true in

virtue of its being supercoherent with F. Thus, where the correspondence theorist
takes it that moral judgments are true in virtue of their relation to facts (or proper-
tied objects), the constructivist takes it that moral judgments are true in virtue of
their relation to other judgments.
One benefit of the coherence theory of moral truth is that it seems to offer some
of the advantages of both moral realism and moral anti-realism. For example, by
explaining the truth of moral judgments in terms other than representation, a
coherence theory would seem to accommodate at least two of expressivism’s key
insights. First, the view is consistent with there being no distinctively moral proper-
ties in the world. Second, it is consistent with the thought that our value judgments
have a different function than our judgments about the natural world (Blackburn
1984). But unlike quasi-realism, the theory still allows for a sharp contrast between
the moral and the nonmoral: the door is open to holding that value judgments are
true in virtue of supercoherence and judgments about the physical world are true
by representing objects in the natural world. On the realist side of the equation,
7
coherence theories seem to allow for the possibility of moral error. A judgment’s
being supercoherent (with a given framework) is a significant cognitive achieve-
ment. Many of our current moral judgments may not be supercoherent. Indeed, it
is possible that none of them may be. And as already noted, the view allows for a
notion of improvement of moral judgment.
Yet coherence theories of moral truth also face some clear objections. One prob-
lem is that they seem to allow for equally supercoherent but incompatible moral
frameworks. And this in turn suggests that the coherentist is in fact proposing a
relativist view of moral truth (see relativism, moral). That is, no moral judgments
are absolutely true; all moral judgments are relatively true (Capps et al. 2009; Harman
1996). That is:
A moral truth is true relative to F in virtue of its being supercoherent with F.
Whether moral relativism of this sort is problematic is not entirely clear. One reason
to think it is problematic is that the present view says that a moral judgment is true
when it would be part of a durable system of moral and nonmoral judgments. Crucially,
there is no requirement that the nonmoral judgments themselves be true. And that is
a problem. In other words, if certain false nonmoral beliefs are forever held fast, and
enough other adjustments are made to the system to compensate for holding them fast,
even the craziest moral views might turn out to be supercoherent, and thus even the
craziest moral views might be true. In short, the objection is not just that the theory is
committed to relativism, but that it is committed to an objectionable form of relativism.
The coherentist might try to block the implication that her view is committed to
an objectionable form of relativism by adding some constraints (Lynch 2009). Thus,
she might claim that the correct theory of moral truth is not SUP but:
Concordance: The moral judgment P is true if and only if it is concordant with F,

where P is concordant with F just when (a) P supercoheres with F; (b) P superco-
heres with the nonmoral truths; and (c) the proposition P supercoheres with F is
not true in virtue of being supercoherent with F.
The addition of clause (b) means that, according to the present theory, in order for
one’s moral judgment P to be true, it must not only supercohere with one’s other
nonmoral judgments, but those judgments must be true – in whatever way non-
moral judgments are true. Thus some moral judgments that might supercohere with
one’s moral and nonmoral judgments may not be concordant with those judgments
simply because they are inconsistent with the empirical facts (that is, the judgments
that accurately represent some nonmoral reality). The addition of (c) means that it
is not sufficient for a framework’s being supercoherent (or a judgment supercoher-
ing with F) for that framework to include the judgment that it is itself supercoherent.
Judgments of supercoherence are not true by virtue of supercoherence.
The addition of these constraints means that a moral judgment’s being true is
even more of an achievement. Nonetheless, it still seems at least logically possible
8
that there is a moral judgment P that is concordant with some framework while its
negation is concordant with some other framework. If concordance with a frame-
work is sufficient for truth, that appears to entail that the view is still a form of rela-
tivism. Whether the relativism in question is any longer a threat to objectivity
remains an open question.
Coherence theories of moral truth take moral judgments to be true in a different
way than other kinds of judgments. As such, they are committed to some form of
truth pluralism: to the view that there is more than one property of judgments in
virtue of which judgments can be true. Other theories of moral truth might also be
committed to truth pluralism. A correspondence theory of moral truth that argued
that the way in which moral judgments correspond is distinct from the way that
nonmoral judgments correspond might also be committed to pluralism. Likewise a
theory that held that minimalism was true of moral judgments but representational-
ism was true of nonmoral judgments.
Pluralism about truth, however, brings its own problems. One such problem is how
to account for the validity of so-called mixed inferences. Consider, for example, this
argument: Grass is blue or murder is wrong. Grass isn’t blue, so murder is wrong. This
is a valid argument. But if its premises and conclusion are true in “different ways” it is
not clear how it can be valid. For it is not clear that it preserves a single “way” of being
true (Tappolet 1997). Some (Beall 2000; Lynch 2009) have suggested these and other
problems might be solved in favor of pluralism. Whether this is so, and whether
theories of moral truth require an assumption of pluralism, remain open questions.
See also: cognitivism; constructivism, moral; emotivism; epistemology,

moral; error theory; fact–value distinction; frege–geach objection;
metaethics; minimalism about truth, ethics and; quasi-realism; realism,
moral; reflective equilibrium; relativism, moral
REFERENCES
Beall, J. 2000. “On Mixed Inferences and Pluralism about Truth Predicates,” Philosophical
Capps, D., M. P. Lynch, and D. Massey 2009. “A Coherent Moral Relativism,” Synthese,
vol. 166, pp. 413–30.
Dorsey, Dale 2006. “A Coherence Theory of Truth in Ethics,” Philosophical Studies, vol. 127,
no. 3, pp. 493–523.
Dreier, James 2004. “Meta-Ethics and the Problem of Creeping Minimalism,” Philosophical
Perspectives, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 23–44.
Field, Hartry 2001. Truth and the Absence of Fact. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Harman, Gilbert 1977. The Nature of Morality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Harman, Gilbert 1996. “Moral Relativism,” in G. Harman and J. J. Thomson (eds.), Moral
Relativism and Moral Objectivity. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 3–64.
9
Horwich, Paul 1998. Truth, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lynch, Michael 2009. Truth as One and Many. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tappolet, Christine 1997. “Mixed Inferences: A Problem for Pluralism about Truth Predicates,”
Timmons, Mark 1998. Morality without Foundations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
FURTHER READINGS
Bloomfield, Paul 2001. Moral Reality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
University Press.
Hooker, Brad (ed.) 1996. Truth in Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell.
Kirkham, Richard 1992. Theories of Truth. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Künne Wolfgang 2003. Conceptions of Truth. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
LaFollette, Hugh 1991. “The Truth in Ethical Relativism,” Journal of Social Philosophy, vol. 20,
pp. 146–54.
Schroeder, Mark Forthcoming. “The Moral Truth,” in M. Glanzberg (ed.), The Oxford
Handbook to Truth. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wedgwood, R. 1997. “Non-Cognitivism, Truth and Logic,” Philosophical Studies, vol. 86,
pp. 73–91.
Wiggins, David 1998. Needs, Values, Truth. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Williams, Bernard 1995. “Truth in Ethics,” Ratio (n.s.), vol. 8, pp. 243–58.
Wright, C. 1998. “Truth in Ethics,” Ratio (n.s.), vol. 3, pp. 209–26.
1
Adversarial System of Justice

W. Bradley Wendel
The Adversarial System and Alternatives

“Adversarial” is a term used to describe the legal system in jurisdictions such as the
United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, all of
which share the heritage of English common law. It refers to the control by the parties
over the selection of legal theories and presentation of evidence. The hallmark of an
adversarial system of justice is two competing sides, generally represented by law-
yers, with a neutral judge serving essentially in the role of referee and legal decision-
maker. The relevant contrast with adversarial systems is with legal systems in which
greater control is vested in state officials to control the presentation of facts and the
legal contentions to be considered (Damaška 1986). These systems are rooted in
Roman law of antiquity, as opposed to English common law, and are often referred
to as civil law jurisdictions (Merryman 1985). This discussion will avoid the ambigu-
ous term “civil law,” however, because it suggests the distinction between civil and
criminal adjudication – that is, between cases in which a right asserted is personal to
one of the parties (civil) and those in which a wrong-doer is prosecuted on behalf of
the citizenry as a whole (criminal). Instead, legal systems founded in Roman law will
be called Continental, to emphasize their development in the legal traditions of
Continental Europe, particularly France and Germany (Langbein 1985).
In an adversarial system, the power to initiate legal proceedings lies with the
person claiming a violation of her rights, known as the plaintiff in a civil action.
The plaintiff alleges facts entitling her to some form of legal relief; the adverse party,
known as the defendant, can introduce facts in rebuttal or raise legal defenses, and
the lawsuit proceeds with a judge as a neutral referee. In a criminal case the action
is instituted by government officials known as public prosecutors, on behalf of
society as a whole, but again an independent judge, occupying a different branch of
government, serves as a neutral referee (see criminal law). Like plaintiffs in a
private lawsuit, public prosecutors select the legal theories to be adjudicated in the
proceeding by bringing specific charges against the accused. In both civil and
criminal cases, lawyers for the parties frame legal issues by filing motions for
consideration by the judge. Judges in adversarial litigation have relatively little
authority to raise legal issues on their own. By contrast, judges in Continental
systems exercise considerably more control over the presentation of evidence and
the framing of the legal issues to be decided. For example, these judges often
conduct the questioning of witnesses themselves, rather than leaving this task to
counsel for the contending parties. State officials also manage the investigatory
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee207
2
phase of a lawsuit in a Continental system, reducing the possibility of abuse of

procedures for exchanging factual information.
Continental systems are sometimes called “inquisitorial,” particularly in the con-
text of criminal prosecutions, but this term not only unfairly calls to mind abuses
like the Star Chamber in England, but obscures the extent to which there are
elements of adversarial procedure in Continental legal systems (Merryman 1985:
Ch. 17). Similarly, judges in modern adversarial legal systems have assumed a more
“managerial” role over pretrial factual investigation and the presentation of evidence
at trial (Resnik 1982). Thus, it is better to see adversarial and Continental systems of
adjudication as ideal types, with elements of each being blended in the legal systems
of most countries (Langbein 1985: 824).
One notable distinction between adversarial and Continental systems is the
former’s receptivity to vesting authority to determine contested factual issues in
nonexpert, nonofficial bodies. In the United States, there is a right to trial by jury in
most civil and criminal cases. The right to jury is generally accepted in serious crim-
inal cases in other common law jurisdictions, including Canada and the United
Kingdom. Most Continental systems do not provide for decision-making by lay
juries, although Japan recognizes a limited role for juries in criminal cases.
Criticism of Adversarial Systems

Adversarial procedures have been criticized as expensive and cumbersome when
compared with available alternatives – not only civil law adjudication but alternative
dispute resolution procedures such as arbitration and mediation (Hazard 1978:
120–35). Because the parties’ lawyers control the progression of a lawsuit, with the
judge being in a relatively passive role, there is an ever-present danger that the lawyers
will use legal procedures as a means to impose costs on the adversary or to delay the
adjudication of legal and factual issues. In the United States in particular, lawyers
can exploit procedures for obtaining discovery of factual information known to the
other side, and use the pretrial discovery process to drive up their opponent’s costs
by withholding relevant information or making excessive demands for disclosure.
Lawyers for an adversary may also try to surprise their opponent at trial, as depicted
in countless courtroom scenes in films and television shows. In Continental systems,
all of the participants generally know the relevant information at an earlier stage in
the proceedings (Langbein 1985: 831). Party control over the presentation of
evidence in adversarial litigation may also make it more difficult for the adjudicator
to discern the truth about some factual issue in dispute, since one side may have an
incentive to obscure damaging facts (Luban 1988: 68–74).
A potential consequence of having an adversarial system of adjudication is that
much of the legal system can become “privatized,” where the resolution of disputes
is by agreement of the parties. Crowded court dockets and the resulting delays can
create pressure on courts to encourage the settlement of civil cases and the resolu-
tion of criminal prosecutions by plea bargaining (see criminal justice ethics;
plea bargaining). One problem with the private resolution of disputes is that the
3
rights of the parties may not be fully protected from abuse by more powerful adver-
saries. In theory, the judge in an adversarial proceeding serves not only as a referee
but as an enforcer of certain basic rights of the parties – ensuring notice, an
opportunity to be heard, the reliability of evidence presented, and so on. The
presence of a neutral adjudicator serves as a check on the imbalance of power that
may exist in society, between wealthy and poor litigants, corporate and individual
parties, and the state and citizens. Some scholars have therefore criticized private
dispute resolution, through civil settlements or plea bargaining in criminal cases, for
perpetuating distributional inequalities (e.g., Fiss 1984). Private settlement also may
impede the development of law in a common law system, dependent as it is upon
litigants to initiate legal proceedings and pursue them through trial and appeal. Law
may be seen as a public good (see public goods) in the economic sense that others
may not be excluded from its protection. If a legal right is established in one case,
other citizens not a party to the case still enjoy the protection of that right.
Justifying an Adversarial System in Moral and Political Theory

Philosophers may be concerned with the adversarial system of justice in general,
inquiring into whether it is justified as a part of a scheme of institutions and norms
that serve some social end. To put it another way, the issue is how to integrate the
adversarial system into our political ideals and practices as a whole. Given the exist-
ence of Continental legal systems in democratic nations like France, Germany, and
Japan, it cannot be the case that democracy necessarily entails an adversarial system
of justice. Nevertheless, there may be democratic ideals that are instantiated in the
adversarial system and give these practices their justification. Alternatively, philoso-
phers may be interested in specific aspects of the adversarial system, often connected
to the obligations of lawyers (see legal ethics). For example, lawyers may be
deemed to have stringent obligations to keep information relating to clients
confidential, or to assert positions in court that they themselves do not believe to be
meritorious. These kinds of questions can be raised in connection with other “adver-
sarial professions” as well, including politics, journalism, and business; the charac-
teristic all of these professions have in common is that they claim a moral permission
for practitioners to harm others in ways that would otherwise be morally impermis-
sible (Applbaum 1999; see professional ethics). The paradigm example of an
adversary profession would be the military, and philosophers often analogize the
situation of lawyers within a basically just political system to soldiers fighting a just
war (e.g., Donagan 1984; see just war theory, history of).
Whether aimed at justifying the adversarial system in general or at particular
practices falling under it, these arguments may take a consequentialist or deonto-
logical approach (Luban 2007). Consequentialist accounts attempt to show good
outcomes that result from adversarial procedures (see consequentialism). For
example, one might appeal to the superior capacity of the adversarial system to fer-
ret out the truth, or to safeguard the rights of a criminal accused. Consequentialist
arguments often depend on the reliability of adversarial processes and their capacity
4
to correct for the self-interest, laziness, or even corruption of decision-makers. To

put it in terms of the psychology of judgment and decision-making, adversarial
presentation of the evidence and arguments in a court proceeding help safeguard
against the effects of automatic, intuitive decision-making processes which may be
prone to predictable biases and errors, and which may become entrenched through
confirmation bias (Gilovich and Griffin 2010: 546–54, 566–9; see moral psychol-
ogy). As an early and influential report on lawyers’ professional responsibilities in
an adversarial system observes, if an adjudicator tries to decide a dispute without the
assistance of partisan advocacy,
at some early point a familiar pattern will seem to emerge from the evidence; an
accustomed label is waiting for the case and, without awaiting further proofs, this label
is promptly assigned to it. … [W]hat starts as a preliminary diagnosis designed to
direct the inquiry tends, quickly and imperceptibly, to become a fixed conclusion as all
that confirms the diagnosis makes a strong imprint on the mind, while all that runs
counter to it is received with diverted attention. (Fuller and Randall 1958: 1160)
The strongest consequentialist justifications for the adversarial system therefore

emphasize its capacity to improve the quality of judgments made, either about facts
in dispute or about competing legal arguments. These arguments are of questionable
validity. As critics have pointed out, the formal law and informal norms governing
trials and the pretrial discovery process permit a great deal of conduct that is
intended to prevent the truth from being discovered (Luban 2007: 32–40).
On the other hand, deontological justifications appeal to some intrinsic value
which is promoted through adversarial procedures (see deontology; intrinsic
value). One might argue, for instance, that the adversarial system promotes human
dignity by permitting the parties to litigation to tell their stories and be heard by deci-
sion-making institutions (Donagan 1984; see worth/dignity). Partisan
representation by lawyers therefore vindicates the value of decency which contributes
to the justification of the legal system as a whole. Similarly one might appeal to the
autonomy of persons to pursue what they take to be morally justifiable ends
(Fried 1976; see autonomy). A legal system in a liberal democracy may be
understood as a way to maximize the autonomy of citizens to define and act on their
own conception of the good, without unwarranted interference from others or from
the state (see liberalism). In either case, the client’s entitlement to professional
assistance in her projects grounds the permission of a lawyer to represent the client’s
interests alone, without modifying this stance to take account of the adversary’s
claims. Deontological justifications such as these are often deployed in support of the
adversarial system of adjudicating criminal cases, where the defendant’s procedural
entitlements often lead to suppression of evidence (confessions and items seized
from the defendant) which is probative of the truth of the charges against the accused.
The best-known justification for an adversarial political system is John Stuart
Mill’s metaphor of the marketplace of ideas. Mill argues that truth, which is neces-
sary for good government, is more likely to emerge from a process of opposing
arguments than from an authority silencing what it takes to be expressions of
5
untruth. The best test of truth is exposure to challenge: “The beliefs which we have
most warrant for, have no safeguard to rest on, but a standing invitation to the whole
world to prove them unfounded” (Mill 1989: 24; see mill, john stuart). Mill’s
notion of the value of the marketplace of ideas is appealing within a generally liberal
political outlook. In its modern form, liberalism often begins with an assertion
of the pluralism of values or comprehensive doctrines (Berlin 1969; see value
pluralism). The challenge for a political system is to establish the basis for legiti-
macy notwithstanding well-founded disagreement about what morality requires or
permits (see disagreement, moral).
A liberal, equality based argument for an adversarial system of justice would be
that it allows citizens to challenge assertions of political power by appealing to public
reasons. A great deal of scholarly energy has gone into justifying the practice of judi-
cial review in American law – that is, the power of courts to invalidate laws passed by
representative legislatures. Although it is impossible here to canvass the various
responses to this “countermajoritarian difficulty” (Bickel 1962), one response
deserves attention for the way it connects the adversarial system of justice with
the value of equality. On this account, courts – and particularly the Supreme Court –
are uniquely concerned with matters of principle, namely what rights citizens ought
to have when understood as free and equal (Dworkin 1985, 1996, 2000). Citizens in a
liberal democracy can always vote, organize, lobby, and seek change through other
political means. But they also have the capacity to hire a lawyer and put forward a
claim, grounded in public reason, that they ought to be recognized by courts as
having certain legal rights. To the extent other political institutions are captured by
powerful interests, corrupt, indifferent, or sclerotic, the judicial resolution of lawsuits
brought by individual citizens can serve as a powerful alternative means for bringing
about social change. It is not an accident that the adversarial system is valorized in the
United States, given its history of recognizing important civil rights, such as racial
equality, only after protracted litigation (Kluger 1975; see civil rights). (Some rights
established through litigation and judicial decisions remain controversial, including
the right to obtain an abortion and the emerging recognition of same-sex marriages
[see abortion; same-sex marriage].) Adversarial litigation is by no means neces-
sary for a democratic society, but it can be understood as an important means for
broadening citizen participation, protecting individual rights (including those not as
yet recognized), and checking the power of the state and wealthy private actors.
Duties of Lawyers Within an Adversarial System

Lawyers in an adversarial system claim that they are required by their professional
role to serve as partisan advocates for their clients’ positions. They must zealously
defend their clients’ lawful interests, regardless of any moral qualms they may have,
either about their clients’ ends or the means used to achieve them, as long as the
means are lawful. In the United States, this conception of lawyers’ role obligations is
often summarized with the maxim “zealous advocacy within the bounds of the law.”
The contrasting ideal-type here would be an official employed by the state to
6
investigate the facts of a dispute and make a recommendation for how it should be
resolved. In common law adversarial systems, lawyers are expected to demonstrate
exclusive, or at least very strong, loyalty to their clients’ stated interests, being relatively
unconcerned with the justice of the positions asserted by their clients. Adversarial
lawyers do have some obligations not to present false evidence or otherwise corrupt
the litigation process, but these obligations are understood as qualifications on the
overarching duty of partisanship owed with reference to their clients’ interests as they
define them. Naturally, if lawyers are not expected to take the justice of their own
clients’ interests into account, then a fortiori they have no obligation to concern
themselves with the justice of positions asserted by opposing parties in litigated
disputes, the claims of third parties, or the interests of society as a whole.
A speech in the English House of Commons by Lord Henry Brougham, the
advocate for Queen Caroline, in defense of an action for adultery brought by King
George IV, has come to stand for the indifference that lawyers should have toward
the public interest when acting in a representative capacity:
An advocate, in the discharge of his duty, knows but one person in all the world, and
that person is his client. To save that client by all means and expedients, and at all
hazards and costs to other persons … is his first and only duty; and in performing this
duty he must not regard the alarm, the torments, the destruction which he may bring
upon others. (Quoted in Luban 2007: 22; Dare 2009: 6)
In this conception of adversarial ethics, the lawyer’s professional obligations are keyed
to her client’s interests, not to the justice of the client’s claim, nor to the interests of
society generally. While Lord Brougham’s speech was made in the context of a crimi-
nal trial (and, specifically, a highly politicized proceeding), lawyers often cite it as a
statement of the obligations they owe to clients in both criminal and civil litigation.
Specific duties are entailed by these broad principles. Perhaps the most frequently
discussed duty is the obligation of confidentiality owed to clients (see confidential-
ity). As the duty is formulated in American law, lawyers may not reveal or use to the
client’s disadvantage any information relating to the representation of the client. The
duty of confidentiality and the attorney–client privilege (a related doctrine in evi-
dence law barring admission of confidential communications between attorney and
client) are intended to “encourage full and frank communications between attorneys
and their clients and thereby promote broader public interests in the observance of
law and administration of justice” (Upjohn Corp. v. United States, 449 US 383 [1981]).
Confidentiality, on this account, is an instrumental value (see instrumental value).
Keeping secrets is justified to the extent it promotes the more fundamental value of
compliance with law. The idea is that clients will not be forthcoming with their law-
yers about all the facts they know, unless they can be assured their lawyers will not
disclose this information, either voluntarily or under compulsion by a court. This
argument, like appeals to the capacity of the adversarial system to determine the
truth, has not been verified empirically. As critics have noted, it also relies on
intuitions about the willingness of clients to listen to their lawyers’ advice, the knowl-
edge by clients of the precise contours of the duty of confidentiality and its exceptions,
7
and the deterrent effects of disclosure obligations (Simon 1998: 54–62). Nevertheless,

the duty of confidentiality is well established in the law, and strict confidentiality
rules prohibit disclosure even in cases in which the interests of a third party appear
to outweigh the client’s interest in confidentiality (Zacharias 1989).
A related issue is the scope of permissible deception, either in representation at
trial or in negotiations. It is permissible for lawyers in negotiations to bluff and dis-
semble to avoid revealing the client’s bottom line (see bluffing). At trial, a lawyer
may not knowingly present false evidence, but is permitted to present evidence and
make arguments that are inconsistent with the truth as the lawyer understands it.
For example, a criminal defense lawyer who knows her client is guilty may cross-
examine an elderly, nervous woman who is the only eyewitness to a robbery, to
make it appear that the witness is mistaken in her identification of the perpetrator.
Similarly, a lawyer may put on witnesses to truthfully testify that they were with the
defendant at the time the victim said a robbery was committed, even though the
accused has told the lawyer that the victim is mistaken about the time of the robbery,
and he actually committed it. (Both these examples are discussed in Hazard et al.
2010: 705–6.) These sorts of tactics cannot be justified straightforwardly as a contri-
bution to the discovery of truth. In moral terms, they arguably constitute wrongful
lying or deception (Markovits 2009: Ch. 2; see lying and deceit). Defenders of the
adversary system therefore rely on long-run, systemic considerations such as creat-
ing the right incentives for the parties’ lawyers to do their best investigation and
preparation for trial, or giving effect to the presumption of innocence and require-
ment of proof beyond a reasonable doubt in criminal cases.
The adversarial system of justice is a well-entrenched feature of common law
jurisdictions. The conflicts it sometimes poses with the requirements of ordinary
morality have led to fascinating but ultimately inconclusive debates within the legal
profession and among philosophers. Cases involving deception, confidentiality, and
the defense of guilty clients highlight the competing values and ends that underlie
the legal system, such as autonomy, justice, dignity, and truth-finding.
See also: abortion; autonomy; bluffing; civil rights; confidentiality;

consequentialism; criminal justice ethics; criminal law; democracy;
deontology; disagreement, moral; equality; instrumental value;
intrinsic value; just war theory, history of; justice; legal ethics;
liberalism; lying and deceit; mill, john stuart; moral psychology;
plea bargaining; professional ethics; public goods; same-sex marriage;
value pluralism; worth/dignity
REFERENCES
Applbaum, Arthur Isak 1999. Ethics for Adversaries. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Berlin, Isaiah 1969. “Two Concepts of Liberty,” in Four Essays on Liberty. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
8
Bickel, Alexander M. 1962. The Least Dangerous Branch. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.

Damaška, Mirjan R. 1986. The Faces of Justice and State Authority. New Haven: Yale University
Press.
Dare, Tim 2009. The Counsel of Rogues? A Defence of the Standard Conception of the Lawyer’s
Role. Farnham: Ashgate.
Donagan, Alan 1984. “Justifying Legal Practice in the Adversary System,” in David Luban
(ed.), The Good Lawyer. Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Allanheld.
Dworkin, Ronald 1985. “The Forum of Principle,” in A Matter of Principle. Cambridge, MA:
Dworkin, Ronald 1996. Freedom’s Law: The Moral Reading of the American Constitution.
Dworkin, Ronald 2000. Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality. Cambridge,
Fiss, Owen M. 1984. “Against Settlement,” Yale Law Journal, vol. 93, pp. 1073–90.
Fried, Charles 1976. “The Lawyer as Friend: The Moral Foundations of the Lawyer–Client
Relation,” Yale Law Journal, vol. 85, pp. 1060–89.
Fuller, Lon L., and John D. Randall 1958. “Professional Responsibility: Report of the Joint
Conference,” American Bar Association Journal, vol. 44, pp. 1159–62, 1216–18.
Gilovich, Thomas, and Dale W. Griffin 2010. “Judgment and Decision Making,” in Thomas
Gilovich, Dacher Keltner, and Richard E. Nisbett (eds.), Social Psychology, 2nd ed.
New York: W. W. Norton, pp. 542–88.
Hazard, Geoffrey C., Jr. 1978. Ethics in the Practice of Law. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Hazard, Geoffrey C., Jr., Susan P. Koniak, Roger C. Cramton, et al. (eds.) 2010. The Law and
Ethics of Lawyering, 5th ed. New York: Foundation Press.
Kluger, Richard 1975. Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black
America’s Struggle for Equality. New York: Knopf.
Langbein, John H. 1985. “The German Advantage in Civil Procedure,” University of Chicago
Luban, David 1988. Lawyers and Justice. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Luban, David 2007. “The Adversary System Excuse,” in Legal Ethics and Human Dignity.
Markovits, Daniel 2009. A Modern Legal Ethics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Merryman, John Henry 1985. The Civil Law Tradition, 2nd ed. Stanford: Stanford University
Press.
Mill, John Stuart 1989. “On Liberty,” in On Liberty and Other Writings, ed. Stefan Collini.
Resnik, Judith 1982. “Managerial Judges,” Harvard Law Review, vol. 96, pp. 374–448.
Simon, William H. 1998. The Practice of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Zacharias, Fred C. 1989. “Rethinking Confidentiality,” Iowa Law Review, vol. 74, pp. 351–411.
FURTHER READINGS
Frank, Jerome 1949. Courts on Trial: Myth and Reality in American Justice. Princeton:
Frankel, Marvin 1975. “The Search for Truth: An Umpireal View,” University of Pennsylvania
9
Freedman, Monroe 1975. Lawyers’ Ethics in an Adversary System. Indianapolis: Bobbs-

Merrill.
Kagan, Robert A. 2003. Adversarial Legalism: The American Way of Law. Cambridge, MA:
Margalit, Avishai 1996. The Decent Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Mitchell, John B. 1987. “Reasonable Doubts Are Where You Find Them: A Response to
Professor Subin’s Position on the Criminal Lawyer’s ‘Different Mission,’” Georgetown
Journal of Legal Ethics, vol. 1, pp. 339–62.
Subin, Harry I. 1987. “The Criminal Lawyer’s ‘Different Mission’: Reflections on the ‘Right’
to Present a False Case,” Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics, vol. 1, pp. 125–54.
Uviller, H. Richard 2000. “The Neutral Prosecutor: The Obligation of Dispassion in a
Passionate Pursuit,” Fordham Law Review, vol. 68, pp. 1695–718.
1
Motivation, Humean Theory of

David Sobel
The Humean theory of motivation maintains that beliefs by themselves are

insufficient to motivate action and that a desire is a necessary component in
explaining action. Intuitively the idea is that merely accepting that such and such is
the case – say, that the cat is on the mat – in no way by itself provides the agent with
a goal which could lead to action. But if we add in a desire – say, a desire that the cat
not be on the mat – then this belief/desire pair could motivate one to act to remove
the cat from the mat. Of course, one might slip and fall with no desire to do so, but
this would not be the sort of intentional action at issue here. The Humean view
should, and typically does, recognize that a desire by itself is insufficient to motivate
action as action requires not only a goal but some beliefs about what one might do
that would help promote that goal.
The notion of a motivating reason at issue here is descriptive rather than normative
(see reasons, motivating and normative). That is, the idea is not that one needs
a desire for Φ in order for it to be a good idea to take action toward Φ. Rather, the idea
is that it is descriptively the case that one will not act unless there is some desire which
prompts the action. It is now common to distinguish normative reasons from moti-
vating reasons. A normative reason explains why it was a good idea to do something
(perhaps relative to a certain body of information). The Humean theory of normative
reasons maintains that having a desire for an option, perhaps under counterfactual
situations, makes it the case that one has a good reason to get that option. A motivat-
ing reason, by contrast, explains why an agent did what she did where this explana-
tion need not vindicate such action as wise. Even unwise action can be explained and
motivating reasons are what would do such explaining. For example, we might say
that Joe unwisely broke his diet because the cheesecake looked so luscious. The agent’s
beliefs and desires will help explain even unwise action a person takes in a way that
they will not help explain slips (except perhaps Freudian ones). It is the descriptive,
not normative, version of the Humean doctrine at issue here.
The Humean theory of motivating reasons has its roots in remarks by David
Hume (see hume, david). Hume maintained that “[r]eason is the discovery of truth
or falsehood” (1978: 458). He also claimed that “[r]eason alone can never be a
motive to any action of the will” (1978: 413). The idea seems to be that that which is
true or false, or even our take on what is true and false, cannot motivate us to action
on its own. Rather, Hume held, thinking about what is true or false only motivates
us toward an action when conjoined with a passion. Hume maintained that desires
or passions are “original existences,” not attempts to copy or represent accurately any
part of the world. In short, they cannot be accurate or inaccurate to the way things
are. Our take on what is true and false might guide our action but only thanks to the
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee208
2
existence of a passion. That is, if we want X and believe that doing Y will bring about
X, then our belief that doing Y will bring about X can influence our actions. But the
same belief in someone with no passion for X would be motivationally inert. Beliefs,
on this view, do not set a goal about how the world should be but rather passively
report the way the world is. No wonder, then, that beliefs are motivationally inert.
The “direction of fit” (see direction of fit) understanding of the nature of belief
and desire, perhaps the most widely held contemporary understanding of the
difference between beliefs and desires, fits well with Hume’s thinking and is best
thought of as an attempt to make the Humean thought about the difference between
beliefs and desires more explicit. Michael Smith influentially championed the
“direction of fit” account (1987, 1994). Smith maintained that the key difference
between beliefs and desires is that they have different directions of fit to the world.
Beliefs aim to track the way the world already is. When one has a belief one aims to
have what is in one’s head mimic what is already the case in the world. So beliefs
have a world to mind direction of fit. The way the world is sets the standard for what
should be in the head. But desires are different. A desire that you not step on my foot
would not tend to go out of existence upon learning that you are on my foot. Desires
aim to make over the world so as to fit them. Desires have a mind to world direction
of fit. When it comes to desires, what is in the head sets the standard for how
the world should be. We tend to try to make the world match what is in our head in
the case of desires. (Nothing of relevance to our issues here hangs on whether beliefs
are best understood as actually being determined by what is in the head.)
Smith tried to develop this intuitive difference into a concrete theory of the
difference between beliefs and desires:
For the difference between beliefs and desires in terms of directions of fit … amounts,
inter alia, to a difference in the counterfactual dependence of a belief that p and a
desire that p on a perception with the content that not p: a belief that p tends to go out
of existence in the presence of a perception with the content that not p, whereas a
desire that p tends to endure, disposing the subject in that state to bring it about that
p. (1994: 115)
Some who resist the Humean theory of motivation claim that there can be
“besires” – that is, modally inseparable belief-like states and desire-like states. On
one version of this thought one could not have the beliefs that the virtuous person
has when she sees a person drowning yet remain unmoved (McDowell 1979; Dancy
1993). Smith’s account above is meant to show that there could be no such besires for,
if its story about the difference between beliefs and desires were correct, then a single
state being both a belief and a desire would require that state to have incompatible
tendencies. Such a background besire-like state p would both have to tend to go out
of existence and not tend to go out of existence upon the introduction of an
appearance with the content that not p. Thus there can be no besires, Smith argued.
Champions of the existence of besires claim that certain ways of seeing how the
world is are necessarily conjoined with a particular motivational direction. So,
3
according to this anti-Humean conception, when an agent has a besire, another

agent could not share the belief component of this state yet lack the desire component
of this state. The Humean will insist that we can modally pull apart these two aspects
of the besire. Anti-Humeans will have to argue that a person without the motivational
part must not actually share the belief part of a besire. Intuitively it seems the onus
is on the anti-Humean to explain to us what the content of the belief-like component
of the besire might be like such that one could not be in this state absent a particular
motivation.
Friends of besires have replied that the two parts of the besire can avoid this
problem if each part is directed toward a different proposition: “the virtuous agent
‘believes’ (belief direction of fit), say, that a state of affairs S ought to be promoted
and ‘desires’ (desire direction of fit) that S be brought about” (Rosati 2006: 11,
characterizing the view of Little 1997).
There can appear to be a dilemma facing direction of fit accounts. According to
the direction of fit story, there is a background state and an introduced state of the
perception that not p. We can tell whether the background state is a belief or a desire
or something else depending on how it responds to the introduced state. But, as
Sobel and Copp point out:
[O]n the one hand, if the introduced state is or entails a belief, the account cannot
claim to explicate the real difference between beliefs and desires. The account would
be unhelpfully circular. On the other hand, if the introduced state is instead understood
to be something more like a mere seeming that not p, there seems to be a wide range of
cases in which the account gives incorrect results for the agent might dismiss the mere
seeming as not veridical and so have no tendency to lose her background belief that p.
What seems to be needed is an introduced state that counts as in some way a perception
with the content that not p, that is not itself a belief, but that interacts with the belief
that p exactly as if it were an incompatible belief. (2001: 49)
If we can find no such state, the direction of fit account will need to help itself to the
distinction between what is a belief and what is not and will be unable to helpfully
explain that distinction.
The Humean theory has been subject to several other criticisms. Thomas Nagel
(1970) argued that the Humean theory must note the distinction between what he
called motivated and unmotivated desires. Motivated desires, in his sense, are desires
that we have for reasons, whereas unmotivated desires are those we simply find
ourselves with. He writes:
The claim that a desire underlies every act is true only if desires are taken to include
motivated as well as unmotivated desire, and it is only true in the sense that whatever
may be the motivation for someone’s intentional pursuit of a goal, it becomes in virtue
of his pursuit ipso facto appropriate to ascribe to him a desire for that goal. But if the
desire is a motivated one, the explanation of it will be the same as the explanation of his
pursuit, and it is by no means obvious that a desire must enter into this further
explanation. (1970: 29; see also Scheuler 1995)
4
Shafer-Landau (2003) has argued that to explain action we must sometimes

appeal not to the fact that an agent has a desire but to the agent’s belief that they have
such a desire. He asks us to consider a case in which someone convinces herself that
she wants to be a lawyer and so enrolls in law school. But when in school she finds
that she in fact has no motivation for her coursework and quickly drops out. Here,
Shafer-Landau thinks, the best explanation for the initial enrollment in law school is
not that she had a desire to be a lawyer but lost it, but rather that there never was
such a desire that she had but she falsely believed that she had such a desire and this
false belief was capable of motivating her. Thus, desires are not needed to motivate.
However, there are other explanations for what happened in this case. Perhaps she
did have a desire to be a lawyer but lost it upon learning better what being a lawyer
was really like, for example (Rosati 2006: 10–11).
An influential line of criticism of the Humean theory of motivation stems from
work by Warren Quinn (1993) and has been continued by T. M. Scanlon (1998).
Quinn argued that the best understanding of what Humeans have in mind by a desire
is a bare tendency to perform an action. But, he claimed, such a bare tendency has no
power all by itself to help us see such behavior as action. He introduced the example
of a person who has a tendency to turn on radios that he sees. This person has no
thought that it is good to turn on radios and sees nothing valuable about doing so, yet
he has a strong tendency toward such behavior. According to Quinn, we would not
think of such behavior as action and we would not see such a person as counting as
having, in the ordinary sense, a desire to turn on radios. Rather, the key element to
rationalize action which is involved in having a desire, according to Quinn, is for it
to seem to the agent that there is something good about doing something. Scanlon
seconds this idea, developing a notion of “directed-attention desires.” We have such a
desire for x when considerations persistently appear to provide reasons to x. Of
course we can have such a desire against our better judgment. But according to
Quinn and Scanlon what turns behavior into action is a representational thought
or appearance to the effect that one has a reason to do something, not some non-
representational bare functional state such as the tendency to turn on radios.
The Humean might reply that functional states can be more or less complex. On any
plausible view, having a desire to do something is normally more complex than simply
having a disposition to do it. We do not normally desire to blink, although we are dis-
posed to do so. Normally a desire to do something involves a tendency to think about
doing it, a tendency to plan ways to do it, a tendency to notice opportunities to do that
thing, a tendency to object when obstacles are put in the way of one’s doing it, to stew
over missed opportunities to do it, and so on. In Quinn’s example, for all we have been
told, the radio man may have very few of these tendencies. Perhaps we are to imagine
that whenever the man walks near a radio, his arm shoots out, his fingers close on the
radio’s knob, and his wrist executes a clockwise twist. Perhaps Scanlon had something
like this in mind when he said that “the idea of such a purely functional state” – one
that consists simply in a disposition to do something like turn on radios – fails to
qualify as a desire in the ordinary intuitive sense (Scanlon 1998: 38). If this is what
Scanlon meant, the Humean might be able to agree with him that the radio man does
5
not have a desire to turn on radios. But it does not follow that what is missing in the
radio man example is an element of evaluation, a taking something to be a reason for
turning on radios. Perhaps what is missing is a thick enough set of dispositions to
constitute what a Humean would call a desire – a set that includes dispositions of the
kind sketched earlier in this paragraph (Copp and Sobel 2002).
Related Matters
Many important philosophical theses hinge on the truth of the Humean theory of
motivation. I will only discuss two. Bernard Williams (1981; see williams, bernard)
has influentially maintained that normative reasons for Φ-ing must be potentially
explanatory of the agent Φ-ing. This, Williams maintained, forged a connection
between motivating reasons and normative reasons. If motivating or explanatory
reasons require a desire, and if normative reasons must be possible explanatory
reasons, then normative reasons too require a desire. Or so Williams, in effect,
influentially argued. In this way, Williams thought we could vindicate a broadly
Humean theory of normative reasons via accepting the truth of the Humean theory
of motivating reasons.
Expressivists such as Allan Gibbard (1990) would seemingly be cheered by the
truth of the Humean theory of motivation (see non-cognitivism). Hume offered
the tools for developing a non-cognitivist account of morality by insisting that moral
claims are necessarily motivationally charged, while beliefs alone are not. The upshot
is that moral claims are unlikely to merely be the expression of a belief. Add to this
the thought that where there is motivation there must be a desire, and we see that
sincere moral claims, since they are motivational, must involve the presence of a
desire. And if this were true, it seemingly helps along the thought that not only are
sincere moral claims not merely the expression of a belief, but they are at least
partially the expression of a non-cognitive desire-like state. Although it is clearly
possible to express that one is in a state that one is not actually in, if there were
motivational desires associated with all sincere moral judgments it would be no
surprise that part of what is expressed in moral judgments came to be that one had
such a non-cognitive attitude.
So the stakes in understanding whether the Humean theory of motivation is
correct are high and how we settle this question will have a significant impact on
what we think on a variety of other important philosophical issues.
See also: direction of fit; hume, david; non-cognitivism; reasons,

motivating and normative; williams, bernard
REFERENCES
Copp, David, and David Sobel 2002. “Desires, Motives, and Reasons: Scanlon’s Rationalistic
Moral Psychology,” Social Theory and Practice, vol. 28, pp. 243–76.
Dancy, Jonathan 1993. Moral Reasons. Oxford: Blackwell.
6
Hume, David 1978 [1740]. A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge, 2nd rev. ed.
P. H. Nidditch. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Little, M. 1997. “Virtue as Knowledge: Objections from the Philosophy of Mind,” Noûs,
vol. 31, pp. 59–79.
McDowell, J. 1979. “Virtue and Reason,” Monist, vol. 62, pp. 331–50.
Quinn, Warren 1993. “Putting Rationality in Its Place,” in Morality and Action. Cambridge:
Rosati, Connie 2006. “Moral Motivation,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. At http://plato.
stanford.edu/entries/moral-motivation/.
Scanlon, T. 1998. What We Owe to Each Other. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Scheuler, G. 1995. Desire. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Shafer-Landau, Russ 2003. Moral Realism: A Defense. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Smith, Michael 1987. “The Humean Theory of Motivation,” Mind, vol. 96, pp. 36–61.
Smith, Michael, 1994. The Moral Problem. Oxford: Blackwell.
Sobel, David, and David Copp 2001. “Against Direction of Fit Accounts of Belief and Desire,”
Analysis, vol. 61, no. 1, pp. 44–53.
FURTHER READINGS
Anscombe, G. E. M. 1957. Intention. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
Cohon, Rachel 2008. Hume’s Morality: Feeling and Fabrication. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Copp, D. 1995. “Moral Obligation and Moral Motivation,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy,
supplement, vol. 21, pp. 187–219.
Copp, D. 1997. “Belief, Reason, and Motivation: Michael Smith’s The Moral Problem,” Ethics,
vol. 108, pp. 33–54.
Darwall, S. 1983. Impartial Reason. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Drier, J. 1990. “Internalism and Speaker Relativism,” Ethics, vol. 101, pp. 6–26.
Frankena, W. 1976. “Obligation and Motivation in Recent Moral Philosophy,” in K. Goodpaster
(ed.), Perspectives on Morality: Essays of William Frankena. Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame
Gibbard, A. 1990. Wise Choices, Apt Feelings. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Hare, R. 1952. The Language of Morals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Harman, G. 1975. “Moral Relativism Defended,” Philosophical Review, vol. 85, pp. 3–22.
Humberstone, Lloyd 1992. “Direction of Fit,” Mind, vol. 101, pp. 59–83.
Hume, D. 1975. An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Lewis, David 1988. “Desire as Belief,” Mind, vol. 97, pp. 323–32.
Lewis, David 1996. “Desire as Belief II,” Mind, vol. 105, pp. 303–13.
Parfit, D. 1997 “Reasons and Motivation,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, supplement,
vol. 71, pp. 99–130.
Platts, M. 1979. Ways of Meaning. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
7
Platts, M. 1999. “Hume on the Generation of Motives: Why Beliefs Alone Never Motivate,”
Hume Studies, vol. 25, pp. 101–22.
Railton, P. 1986a. “Moral Realism,” Philosophical Review, vol. 95, pp. 163–207.
Railton, P. 1986b. “Facts and Values,” Philosophical Topics, vol. 14, pp. 5–31.
Sayre-McCord, G. 1997. “The Metaethical Problem,” Ethics, vol. 108, pp. 55–83.
Scheuler, G. 1991. “Pro Attitudes and Direction of Fit,” Mind 398, vol. 100, no. 2, pp. 277–81.
Schroeder, Mark 2007. Slaves of the Passions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Shafer-Landau, Russ 1998. “Moral Motivation and Moral Judgment,” Philosophical Quarterly,
vol. 48, pp. 353–8.
Shafer-Landau, Russ 2000. “A Defence of Motivational Externalism,” Philosophical Studies,
vol. 97, pp. 267–91.
Sinhababu, Neil 2009. “The Humean Theory of Motivation Reformulated and Defended,”
The Philosophical Review, vol. 118, no. 4, pp. 465–500.
Smith, Michael 1997. “In Defense of The Moral Problem: A Reply to Brink, Copp, and
Sayre-McCord,” Ethics, vol. 108, pp. 84–119.
Smith, Michael 2004. “Humean Rationality,” in Alfred R. Mele and Piers Rawling (eds.), The
Oxford Handbook of Rationality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 75–92.
Smith, Michael 2009. “The Explanatory Role of Being Rational,” in David Sobel and Steven
Wall (eds.), Reasons for Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 58–80.
Stampe, Dennis 1987. “The Authority of Desire,” Philosophical Review, vol. 96, pp. 335–81.
Stevenson, C. 1944. Ethics and Language. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Stevenson, C. 1937. “The Emotive Meaning of Ethical Terms,” Mind, vol. 46, pp. 14–31. (Repr.
in Stevenson, C. 1963. Facts and Values. New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 10–31.)
Svavarsdottir, S. 1999. “Moral Cognitivism and Motivation,” Philosophical Review, vol. 108,
pp. 161–219.
Tennenbaum, Sergio 2006. “Direction of Fit and Motivational Cognitivism,” in Russ Shafer-
Landau (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 235–64.
van Roojen, Mark 1995. “Humean Motivation and Humean Rationality,” Philosophical
Velleman, J. D. 1992. “The Guise of the Good,” Noûs, vol. 26, pp. 3–26.
Wedgwood, R. 2004. “The Metaethicists’ Mistake,” Philosophical Perspectives, vol. 18, pp. 405–26.
Zangwill, Nick 1998. “Direction of Fit and Normative Functionalism,” Philosophical Studies,
vol. 91, no. 2, pp. 173–203.
1
Nietzsche, Friedrich
Bernard Reginster
The importance of the philosophy of Nietzsche (1844–1900) in the history of ethics

is no longer in dispute, but the nature of this importance very much is. It is commonly
believed to lie in his sharp critique of the authority of morality. Moral values are
assumed to have two kinds of authority – they are universal and overriding – and
Nietzsche challenges both. Moreover, this critique of morality also assigns a contro-
versial role to psychology, particularly in On the Genealogy of Morality (1887), which
is widely considered his most important work on the subject. Although this common
view certainly captures an important strain of Nietzsche’s ethical thought, it also
overlooks another which is arguably of equal importance, namely his development
of a distinctive new conception of happiness as an alternative to the traditional, and
in his view unrealistic, conception of it in terms of fulfillment. I shall accordingly
divide this essay in two main sections: I shall devote the first section to Nietzsche’s
critique of morality and attempt to elucidate the role of psychology in it, and I shall
focus on his new conception of happiness in the second section.
Morality
At the time when Nietzsche directs his attention to it, the authority of morality has
gone largely unchallenged. Most of the substantial disputes focus either on the
content of morality or on the source of its authority. For instance, while Kant main-
tains that the normative core of morality is the respect due to the dignity of the
rational agent, and the source of its authority lies in the autonomy, or self-legislation,
of this agent, Schopenhauer argues that the normative core of morality is compassion
for the suffering of any sentient being (BM: §15), and that its authority is rooted in a
natural and fundamental aversion for suffering together with the insight into the
metaphysical identity of all beings (BM: §22).
Nietzsche departs from this tradition precisely by attacking what has gone unchal-
lenged. Thus, he develops arguments designed to show that the authority of morality is
neither universal, nor overriding (see overridingness, moral). To say that moral val-
ues are universal is to say that their authority is not relative to the particular circumstances
of the agent, such as his inclinations and affective dispositions, or the beliefs he acquired
through acculturation. And to say that moral values are overriding is to say that they
have priority over other kinds of (nonmoral) values. The two kinds of authority are
distinct since values can be universal without being overriding, and vice versa. However,
the (alleged) grounds for the universality of moral values can also be grounds for their
overriding authority, so that debunking one kind of authority can also debunk the
other. This would be true, for example, of the notion that moral values derive their
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee209
2
authority from their higher “origin” (BGE: 2) (such as the will of God), since such an
origin can guarantee at once their universality and their overriding authority.
The arguments Nietzsche proposes against the universality of morality are
metaethical in character (see metaethics), whereas the arguments against the over-
riding authority of morality draw on a more substantive conception of the good for
human beings. His metaethical critique of moral values consists in challenging their
universality. Insofar as they are bound to some particular evaluative “perspective,”
shaped by the psychological and social circumstances of the agent who ascribes
authority to them, these values have no validity beyond it (WP: 254, 259; TI: IV 5).
Although there is a wide consensus on this aspect of Nietzsche’s metaethics, almost
everything else about it is a matter of debate. Some scholars suggest that the rejection
of a universal morality remains compatible with objectivism. They take Nietzsche to
defend a form of ethical naturalism: the moral good is defined in terms of flourishing,
which is in turn determined by objective facts about the nature of individuals (see
naturalism, ethical). Since natural constitution varies among individuals, what
is good for one is not necessarily good for another (e.g., Schacht 1983: Ch. 6;
Richardson 1996: Ch. 3). Other scholars, who object that this form of ethical
naturalism offers no satisfactory answer to the question of why the flourishing of
human beings should itself be judged as objectively valuable in the first place, take
Nietzsche to challenge the universality of moral values by denying their objectivity
(e.g., Leiter 2002: Ch. 4). The precise nature and consequences of this denial are also
matters of dispute. Some scholars attribute a form of subjective realism to Nietzsche,
which combines semantic cognitivism – moral judgments are true or false (see
cognitivism) – with the claim that the truth-making facts of moral judgments
must be sought in the attitudes of the agent toward their objects, rather than in these
objects themselves (e.g., Reginster 2006: Ch. 2; see subjectivism, ethical). Others
still argue that Nietzsche’s position is fictionalism, which combines semantic cogni-
tivism with the claim that the truth-making facts of moral judgments are fictions
(Hussain 2007; see fictionalism, moral).
Many scholars have taken Nietzsche’s denial of the objectivity of moral values (and
indeed of any value) to imply that he is a nihilist about values: since no value has
objective validity, none deserves our confidence (e.g., Schacht 1973; see nihilism).
However, Nietzsche himself describes such nihilism as “a transitional stage” (WP: 7)
and proceeds to advocate new values of his own. This suggests that he did not take a
value’s lack of objectivity to imply a lack of normative authority. And indeed, though
in very different ways, both subjective realism and fictionalism are intended as alter-
natives to the objectivism that Nietzsche repudiates. Subjective realism is the claim
that the truth and authority of a value judgment never depended on the existence of
objective normative facts (Langsam 1997; Reginster 2006: Ch. 2). And fictionalism
may be construed as the claim that, although the authority of a value judgment
depends on the invocation of objective normative facts, these can be supplied by
make-believe (Hussain 2007).
That Nietzsche is not a nihilist about values is also implied by his view that meta-
ethics alone does not settle the question of the value of morality. If denying the
3
objectivity of moral values were sufficient to deprive them of their authority,

Nietzsche would not deem it necessary to demonstrate that endorsement of these
values, let alone actual compliance with them, undermines the possibility of human
“greatness”:
What if a symptom of regression were inherent in the ‘good,’ likewise a danger, a seduc-
tion, a poison, a narcotic, through which the present was possibly living at the expense of
the future? Perhaps more comfortably, less dangerously, but at the same time in a meaner
style, more basely? – So that precisely morality would be to blame if the highest power and
splendor actually possible to the type man was never in fact attained. (GM: Preface 6)
Nietzsche associates “greatness” with creativity, an activity that, as he understands

it, conflicts the traditional moral condemnation of suffering and inequality, and so
might require the violation of traditional moral injunctions, such as compassion for
the suffering and equal respect for all:
Such men of great creativity, the really great men according to my understanding, will
be sought in vain today and probably for a long time to come; until, after much disap-
pointment, one must begin to comprehend why they are lacking and that nothing stands
more malignantly in the way of their rise and evolution, today and for a long time to
come, than what in Europe today is called simply “morality” … The two doctrines it
preaches most often are: “equal rights” and “sympathy with all that suffers” – and it takes
suffering itself to be something that must absolutely be abolished. (WP: 957)
Nietzsche’s argument appears to take the form of a thought experiment. Given the
choice between a world in which there are great creative achievements, but in which
much human suffering goes unrelieved and there is inequality, and a world in which
much or all human suffering is relieved and equality prevails, but few or no great creative
achievements exist, would we choose the latter, “moral” world over the former, “immoral”
one? Nietzsche believes that our likely response to this experiment will be ambivalence,
and this suffices to undermine morality’s claim to overriding authority: creative great-
ness represents a value that has at least a claim to compete with the claims of morality.
Creative greatness conflicts with the moral condemnation of suffering and
inequality not on contingent, but on essential grounds. When Nietzsche declares, for
example, “that the creator may be, suffering is needed” (Z: II 2), or that “the disci-
pline of suffering, of great suffering … only this discipline has created all enhance-
ments of man so far” (BGE: 225), he is not simply rehearsing the romantic
commonplace that great achievements often seem to grow out of intense suffering.
In his view, the relationship with suffering is not merely an accidental, if common,
feature of creativity, but an essential aspect of it. As Nietzsche understands it, to be
creative – and this arguably includes the ideal of self-creation, which some take to be
central to Nietzsche’s ethics (e.g., Nehamas 1985: Ch. 6) – is to seek deliberately new
challenges, that is to say, to confront and attempt to overcome difficulties or resist-
ances hitherto unvanquished. Since suffering consists of the experience of such
4
resistance (see suffering), then creativity essentially involves suffering, and would
inevitably be thwarted in a climate shaped by a morality that takes “suffering itself to
be something that must absolutely be abolished.”
Nietzsche’s critique of Christian morality is not limited to such metaethical and
substantive objections. It also includes psychological misgivings of two kinds (see
moral psychology). First, he argues that the conception of moral agency required
by this morality is implausible – an “imaginary psychology” designed to aggrandize
it (A: 15) by attributing to moral agents supra-natural characteristics, such as pure
rational motives or (contra-causal) free will (see free will), notions Nietzsche finds
objectionable (BGE: 21; TI: VI 7; A: 14). This imaginary psychology underestimates
the role of innate and largely immutable physiological and psychic traits, and
generally overestimates the role of conscious mental states, in the production of
action (Knobe and Leiter 2007; see Leiter 2002: Ch. 3).
The appeal to psychology does not aim only at deflating the grandiose self-image
of morality (particularly in its Christian form) as supra-natural. It also rests on the
recognition that a full-fledged critique of morality must consider not only the
normative and metaphysical views that underwrite it, but also their psychological
“origins,” their motivations or affective significance (GS: 347). The “psychological
studies” that constitute On the Genealogy of Morality arguably aim to treat morality
as “a sign language of the affects”: “Even apart from the value of such claims as ‘there
is a categorical imperative in us’, one can still always ask: what does such a claim tell
us about the man who makes it?” (BGE: 187). Merely showing that the categorical
imperative lacks “value,” by which Nietzsche here means “rational foundations”
(BGE: 186), will have little critical efficacy if, as he believes, it represents a kind of
rationalization, “a desire of the heart that has been filtered and made abstract”
(BGE: 5), for such desire and affects will not necessarily be altered by purely philo-
sophical arguments (Janaway 2007).
Although the Genealogy’s project appears predicated on the importance of history
in the critical investigation of morality, it is the psychological insights developed in
that work that Nietzsche eventually emphasizes (GM: EH III). His focus on ressenti-
ment, and the related feelings of power and self-esteem, suggests that he has in mind
the role of what is understood today as narcissistic pathologies in the development of
certain moral phenomena (such as, e.g., the inexpiable guilt of the Christians [GM:
II 22]). Narcissistic pathologies may be present when an individual holds himself to
exceedingly demanding standards, which underwrite illusions of his own grandiosity
or, alternatively, debilitating feelings of inferiority or worthlessness. So long as the
critique of this individual’s condition is limited, for example, to the “rational
foundations” of the standards that govern his self-assessment, or to the epistemic
credentials of that assessment, it misses the point. For the issue surely is not simply
that his standards are excessively demanding, but what his holding himself to them
tells about the man, or what affective role they play in his psychological economy.
Without an appreciation of the affective roots of moral beliefs and attitudes, no
critique of morality could be effective in changing those beliefs and attitudes when
appropriate (GS: 347; see Reginster forthcoming).
5
Happiness
Toward the end of his productive life, Nietzsche makes a startling declaration: “We
have discovered happiness” (A: 1; see GS: Preface 3). With this remarkable claim, he
indicates that his ethical thought is not limited to a critique of morality, but also
includes a conception of happiness, which differs in fundamental respects from
prevalent existing conceptions (see happiness). The conception of happiness
Nietzsche attacks is fulfillment, which combines the two most prevalent views of
happiness as pleasure and desire satisfaction. It is a condition in which one has
everything one wants and there is nothing left to be desired. And this objectionable
conception of happiness, like the conception of morality considered earlier, is
prevalent in Christianity: for instance, Thomas Aquinas defines it as a state that
“so … fulfill[s] a man’s whole desire that nothing is left for him to desire” (Summa
Theologiae, Ia IIae, 1.5).
Nietzsche is prompted to reconsider this traditional conception of happiness by
Schopenhauer’s influential pessimism (see schopenhauer, arthur): “Everything in
life proclaims that earthly happiness is destined to be frustrated or recognized as an
illusion. The grounds for this lie deep in the very nature of things” (WWR: II xlvi,
573). Schopenhauer also conceives of happiness in terms of fulfillment: it is “a final
satisfaction of the will, after which no fresh willing would occur,” a “permanent
fulfillment which completely and forever satisfies its craving” (WWR: I §65, 362).
He is led to the conclusion that “earthly happiness” is impossible by his analysis of
fundamental facts about human psychology, including his “negative” conception of
pleasure as the experience of the absence of pain (see pleasure), or his understanding
of human desires as expressions of relentless “drives” (see desire). For the purpose
of understanding Nietzsche, however, the most important Schopenhauerian argu-
ment for the impossibility of fulfillment is based on a peculiar fact about human
beings – they are susceptible to boredom.
Schopenhauer describes boredom as a “longing without a determinate object”
(WWR: I §29, 164). As he sees it, boredom is the consequence of the frustration of a
peculiar desire to desire: “boredom,” he declares, is “the empty longing for a new
desire” (WWR: I §52, 260). When someone is bored, she will typically complain that
she has “nothing to do.” Obviously, she means not that she is under no obligation to
do anything – this would be leisure, not boredom – but rather that she has no incli-
nation or desire to do anything. Nothing arouses her interest; nothing engages her
will, or her desire. Moreover, she laments this condition precisely because she also
desires to have something to will, or to desire. This desire has no determinate
object – it is “empty” in that she merely desires something to desire, but nothing in
particular. Her boredom is thus the expression of an “empty longing,” a desire to
desire again.
Crucially, for Schopenhauer, the ultimate cause of boredom is the absence of
anything in this life that is intrinsically good: “Thus if life, in the craving for which
our very essence and existence consist, had a positive value and in itself a real intrinsic
worth, there could not possibly be any boredom” (PP: II §146, 287). An object is
6
intrinsically good, for Schopenhauer, when its value does not depend on the fact that
it is desired, which is to be rather motivated by it. By contrast, an object is extrinsi-
cally good when its value depends entirely on the fact that it is desired. If anything in
life had value “in itself,” its possession would be a positive good, rather than merely
the absence of the pain caused by the need for it. It would retain its interest, it would
continue to inspire desire, even after possession of it has been secured, and its posses-
sion would not lead to boredom. And so, for Schopenhauer, the appeal of intrinsi-
cally good objects does not simply lie in their intrinsic goodness, but also in the fact
that, by virtue of their intrinsic goodness, they are capable of satisfying at once the
desire motivated by your need for them and your desire to be interested by them.
And the defect of extrinsically good objects is not their lack of intrinsic goodness as
such, but the fact that, by virtue of lacking intrinsic goodness, they lose the ability to
satisfy your desire to be interested as soon as their possession is secured.
The susceptibility to boredom reveals that, in addition to first-order desires for
determinate objects (e.g., fame, wealth, love, food and shelter, and so on), which cause
pain so long as they are unsatisfied, human beings also have a second-order desire, a
desire whose object is a desire, and the frustration of which is felt as boredom. In the
absence of intrinsically good objects, which alone are capable of satisfying both first-
and second-order desires at once, the satisfaction of first-order desires for determi-
nate objects, which eliminates ordinary pain, necessarily implies the frustration of the
second-order desire to have (first-order) desires, and therefore boredom, and vice
versa. This explains why human life “swings like a pendulum to and fro between pain
and boredom” (WWR: I §57, 312): something is always left to be desired.
Although Schopenhauer remained “stuck” in the Christian perspective, in that he
never abandons the notion that happiness is fulfillment, his response to its impos-
sibility in this life was not to look for it in another as the Christians do: what
Nietzsche calls his “unconditional and honest atheism” (GS: 357) forbade him to
take this road. However, he still attempts to find in this life an achievable condition
that at least approximates fulfillment. He finds it in the state of “complete resignation,”
a version of the Buddhist concept of cessation of desire. Complete resignation is not
simply giving up the pursuit of desires that cannot be satisfied, but in somehow
giving up those desires themselves. Such a condition is not fulfillment, to be sure,
but it is a state in which there is, so to speak, nothing left to be desired, a state of
peace and painlessness, which therefore deserves to be called the good at least
“metaphorically and figuratively” (WWR: I §65, 360).
Schopenhauer thus takes the impossibility of fulfillment to be thoroughly regret-
table, incompatible with true happiness; and he attributes this impossibility to a
characteristic of the world we live in: it is bereft of intrinsic goodness. Nietzsche’s
own critique of the conception of happiness as fulfillment differs from Schopenhauer’s
in each of these two respects and proves to be far more radical. First, the impossibil-
ity of fulfillment is a consequence not of a defect of the world, but of the nature of
one of our most fundamental desires. And, far from being incompatible with happi-
ness properly conceived, the impossibility of fulfillment is an essential and distinc-
tive feature of it.
7
To see what led Nietzsche to this radical idea, it is helpful to begin with some
modifications of Schopenhauer’s analysis of boredom. First, the desire whose frus-
tration is experienced as boredom is not simply a desire to desire, but rather a desire
to engage in activity (recall that the ordinary complaint of the bored is not that she
has nothing to desire, but nothing to do). Still, boredom can arise even when one has
something to do, namely, typically, when the required activities are unchallenging.
Boredom is therefore the frustration of the desire to engage in some challenging
form of activity. These two modifications of Schopenhauer’s account imply a third,
even more significant one. Boredom can occur even when one’s activity results in
securing the possession of intrinsic goods. It is possible for someone to tire of
intellectual or creative achievements, for example, even when she takes the value of
these achievements to be independent of her pre-existing needs and desires for
them. This is because the desire that lies at the source of boredom is not simply the
desire to desire, but the desire to be engaged in a challenging form of activity. And
even intrinsic goods, once their possession is firmly secured, might lose their appeal
by ceasing to motivate engagement in that sort of activity.
Nietzsche’s famous, and much misunderstood, concept of the will to power, I now
want to argue, designates a desire to engage in a challenging form of activity.
Appearances notwithstanding, the will to power is not a desire for domination and
control; it is rather a desire for the confrontation of resistance: a “striving against some-
thing that resists” (WP: 704), “a desire to overcome, a desire to throw down, a desire to
become master, a thirst for enemies and resistances and triumphs” (GM: I 13), which
is therefore “never satisfied unless it has opponents and resistance” (WP: 696; see
power). Since resistance is concretely defined only in relation to determinate desires,
then the will to power is a (second-order) desire for the activity of confronting and
overcoming resistance in the pursuit of some determinate (first-order) desire
(Reginster 2006: Ch. 3; cf. Clark 1990: Ch. 7; Richardson 1996: Ch. 1).
We saw earlier how this concept of the will to power underwrites Nietzsche’s con-
ception of the good of creativity, and how, by including suffering as an essential
ingredient, it conflicts with the prevalent moral condemnation of it. We can now see
how the same concept underwrites Nietzsche’s revaluation of happiness. For it is in
the very nature of the will to power to preclude fulfillment. Insofar as it is satisfied
by the ongoing activity of overcoming resistance to the satisfaction of some determi-
nate desire, it presupposes the frustration of this determinate desire; but it is not
satisfied until that resistance is finally overcome, at which point it itself becomes
frustrated, since it is deprived of a resistance to overcome. Under the sway of his will
to power, the individual is thus induced to seek new challenges, new resistance to
overcome, and is thus engaged in perpetual “self-overcoming” (Z: II 12).
In contrast to the happiness of fulfillment – “the happiness of resting, of not being
disturbed, of satiety, of finally attained unity, as a ‘sabbath of sabbaths’” (BGE: 200) –
Nietzsche’s “new happiness” must preclude fulfillment, not because, as some have
supposed, it is a quest for never-attained perfection (e.g., Rawls 1973: 25; see per-
fectionism), but because it involves the successful pursuit of the will to power:
“What is happiness? – The feeling that power increases – that a resistance is overcome.
8
Not contentment, but more power; not peace at all, but war; not virtue but profi-
ciency (virtue in the Renaissance style, virtù, virtue free of moralic acid)” (A: 2).
And hence, far from being incompatible with happiness, the impossibility of
fulfillment proves to be its most distinctive characteristic.
In Nietzsche’s view, the happy life also has an essential subjective dimension: a
person’s life cannot be happy unless his attitude toward it is affirmative. And he
famously maintains that to affirm life is to be prepared to will its eternal recurrence
(GS: 341). There has been much dispute over the meaning of this elusive notion (see
Löwith 1997; Soll 1973; Nehamas 1985: Ch. 5; Clark 1990: Ch. 8), but a simple and
plausible way to understand it rests on a comparison and contrast with wishing of a
perfect moment that it would never end. Wishing for the eternal recurrence, and not
just the eternity, of a moment reflects an acknowledgment that the temporal
deployment and finitude of the moment are actually part of its appeal. The activities
in pursuit of the will to power are necessarily deployed over time and finite, so that
the affirmation of a life consisting of such activities would plausibly take the form of
wishing for its eternal recurrence. The happy life is also, on this new conception, a
tragic life: since it consists of relentless quest for new challenges and self-overcoming,
it is bound to end in failure with a challenge that, for one reason or another, the
person is unable to meet (Z: I 17).
See also: cognitivism; desire; fictionalism, moral; free will; happiness; metaethics;
moral psychology; naturalism, ethical; nihilism;
overridingness, moral; perfectionism; pleasure; power; schopenhauer, arthur;
subjectivism, ethical; suffering
REFERENCES
Reference edition of Nietzsche’s works: Herausgegeben von Giorgio Colli and
Mazzino Montinari 1967–1977. Friedrich Nietzsche: Sämtliche Werke, Kritische
Studienausgabe. Berlin: de Gruyter.
The following books by Friedrich Nietzsche and Arthur Schopenhauer, commonly
referred to in this essay and listed in the reference list, have been abbreviated thus in
text: Beyond Good and Evil (BGE); On the Basis of Morality (BM); On the Genealogy
of Morals (GM); Parerga and Paralipomena (PP); The Anti-Christ (A); The Gay
Science (GS); The Twilight of the Idols (TI); The Will to Power (WP); The World as
Will and Representation (WWR); Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Z).
Aquinas, Saint Thomas 1964. Summa Theologiae: Latin Text and English Translation,
Introductions, Notes, Appendices, and Glossaries. Cambridge: Blackfriars.
Clark, Maudemarie 1990. Nietzsche on Truth and Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Hussain, Nadeem 2007. “Honest Illusion: Valuing for Nietzsche’s Free Spirits,” in B. Leiter
and N. Sinhababu (eds.), Nietzsche and Morality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Janaway, Christopher 2007. Beyond Selflessness. Reading Nietzsche’s Genealogy. Oxford:
9
Knobe, Joshua, and Brian Leiter 2007. “The Case for Nietzschean Moral Psychology,” in
B. Leiter and N. Sinhababu (eds.), Nietzsche and Morality. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, pp. 83–109.
Langsam, Harold 1997. “How to Combat Nihilism. Reflections on Nietzsche’s Critique of
Morality,” History of Philosophy Quarterly, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 235–53.
Leiter, Brian 2002. Nietzsche on Morality. London: Routledge.
Löwith, Karl 1997. Nietzsche’s Philosophy of the Eternal Recurrence, trans. J. Harvey Lomax.
Nehamas, Alexander 1985. Nietzsche. Life as Literature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Nietzsche, Friedrich A. 1966 [1886]. Beyond Good and Evil (BGE), trans. W. Kaufmann. New
York: Random House.
Nietzsche, Friedrich A. 1968a [1888]. The Anti-Christ (A), trans. R. J. Hollingdale.
Nietzsche, Friedrich A. 1968b [1888]. The Twilight of the Idols (TI), trans. R. J. Hollingdale.
Nietzsche, Friedrich A. 1968c [1901]. The Will to Power (WP), trans. W. Kaufmann and
R. J. Hollingdale. New York: Random House.
Nietzsche, Friedrich A. 1969 [1887]. On the Genealogy of Morals (GM), trans. W. Kaufmann.
New York: Random House.
Nietzsche, Friedrich A. 1974 [1882]. The Gay Science (GS), trans. W. Kaufmann. New York:
Random House.
Nietzsche, Friedrich A. 1978 [1883–5]. Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Z), trans. W. Kaufmann.
Reginster, Bernard 2006. The Affirmation of Life: Nietzsche on Overcoming Nihilism.
Reginster, Bernard forthcoming. “Moral Psychology,” in K. Gemes and J. Richardson (eds.),
Oxford Handbook on Nietzsche. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Richardson, John 1996. Nietzsche’s System. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Schacht, Richard 1973. “Nietzsche and Nihilism,” Journal of the History of Philosophy, vol. 11,
pp. 66–90.
Schacht, Richard 1983. Nietzsche. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Schopenhauer, Arthur 1995 [1840]. On the Basis of Morality (BM), trans. E. F. J. Payne.
Providence, Oxford: Berghahn Books.
Schopenhauer, Arthur 1974 [1851]. Parerga and Paralipomena (PP), trans. E. F. J. Payne.
Schopenhauer, Arthur 1969 [1818]. The World as Will and Representation (WWR), vols. I
and II, trans. E. F. J. Payne. New York: Dover Publications.
Soll, Ivan 1973. “Reflections on Recurrence,” in R. Solomon (ed.), Nietzsche. A Collection of
Critical Essays. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, pp. 322–42.
FURTHER READINGS
Most of the secondary literature on Nietzsche’s ethical thought focuses on On the
Genealogy of Morality and often takes the form of a commentary on that work (as do
Leiter 2002 and Janaway 2007).
10
Acampora, Christa (ed.) 2006. Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals: Critical Essays. Oxford:
Hatab, Lawrence 2008. Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morality: An Introduction. Cambridge:
May, Simon 1999. Nietzsche’s Ethics and his “War on Morality.” Oxford: Clarendon Press.
May, Simon (ed.) 2010. Cambridge Critical Guide to Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morality.
Owen, David 2007. Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morality. Stocksfield: Acumen.
Ridley, Aaron 1998. Nietzsche’s Conscience: Six Character Studies from the Genealogy. Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press.
Schacht, Richard (ed.) 1994. Nietzsche, Genealogy, Morality: Essays on Nietzsche’s on the
Genealogy of Morals. Berkeley: University of California Press.
1
Quasi-Realism
Simon Blackburn
The Expressivist Background

Quasi-realism is the view especially associated with Simon Blackburn and Allan
Gibbard that expressivists in subjects like ethics can explain and justify the forms of
thought that have been taken to be inconsistent with their theory (Blackburn 1993,
2010; Gibbard 1990, 2003; see prescriptivism).
In ethics, the expressivist starts with what we do by saying that X is good, and
proposes an answer in terms of activities such as voicing attitude, soliciting sameness
of attitude, or in general making public a stance toward X. For the sake of theory
such stances should be contrasted with simply holding a belief in some fact about X,
it being apparent that evaluations have a different “direction of fit” with the world,
being more like desires, whose function is to effect changes in the world, than
straightforward beliefs, whose function is to represent the world (Anscombe 1957;
Smith 1987). Entering a moral or evaluative claim would be more like announcing a
plan, saying for instance, “Let’s all go to the beach!” than like saying something
obviously factual, like “Lions hunt.” The point of the expression is to make public
such states for others to take notice of, and preferably of course to share.
Expressivism is therefore the view that there are things which we say that look as
though they describe aspects of reality, but which are not to be explained in such
terms. When we use them we are not in the first instance to be thought of as
describing facts, or representing how things stand. Rather we are voicing states of
mind that are usefully contrasted with the simple description of fact. In ethics these
will be prescriptions or attitudes, recommending and endorsing kinds of conduct or
kinds of character. In other areas, other stances take their place. Talking about the
probability of a horse winning a race, we might be voicing a recommendation to buy
or sell bets at a particular price. Talking about necessities, we might be laying down
rules for how to think, rather than describing some layout of possibilities or “possible
worlds.” The advantage of all such theories is that they can dispense with “queer”
facts from the areas in question, and potentially queer ways of knowing about such
facts (Ayer 1936; Mackie 1977). They also dispense with the problem of understanding
why these queer facts would be of any interest to us. Generally speaking we confine
our interests to the world as it reveals itself to our senses, or to theories which help
us to make sense of that world.
Expressivism is a version of pragmatism, in that it concentrates on what is done
with words, or what gives our sayings their utility. It sees saying as a species of
doing. This contrasts with a classical semantic approach to an area, in which the
aim is to give the “truth condition” or fact that sayings in the area pick out. Such
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee210
2
theories work in terms of representation of a part of reality: the values, or

probabilities or possibilities, for example. A theory following this line is naturally
thought of as a “realism” (see realism, moral), since it works in terms of the slice
of reality that corresponds to the truth of a saying. If we assert, for instance, that
we ought to pay our debts, the classical approach would be to aim for a theory
telling us that it is true that we ought to pay our debts if and only if such-and-such
is the case, where the blank is filled in by some account of what the existence of the
obligation consists in.
According to expressivists, in ethics and potentially in other areas, such theories
are either unilluminating, or actively misguided. They cast no light on the topic of
value as a whole if, for instance, they only manage to say the same evaluative thing
in different words. If a theorist suggests that “X is good” is true if and only if X
deserves approval then even if the view may be correct, it is little use, since it casts
no light on what evaluation is, what fault is shown by those who disagree, how such
verdicts may be established, or why we would be interested in them.
On the other hand, as Moore’s open question argument suggests (see moore, g. e.;
open question argument), such theories will be actively misguided if they take
out the evaluation altogether. For example, if a theorist suggests that “X is good” is
true if and only if X generates more happiness than any alternative, then the view is
substantive enough. It may present us with a nice enough standard for judging
whether something is good. But it does not illuminate the meaning of that judg-
ment, since clearly someone can value and endorse things on different grounds than
whether they generate happiness, but does not thereby show failure to understand
what “good” means. Competence with the term survives a disposition to draw on
quite idiosyncratic or alien standards for its application.
The expressivist is comfortable with this feature, since competence with the
term, in his view, is shown by deploying it to express a certain attitude, and
people can have the same attitude to very different things, or different attitudes
to the very same thing. Expressivists deny that we are simply telling others what
our own attitudes are, for then we would speak truly provided we know what
those attitudes are and sincerely describe them. But in an evaluative conversation
each side can accept that the other is sincere without having any inclination to
accept what they say.
Objections
Expressivism is a direct descendant of eighteenth-century approaches to ethics in
terms of moral sentiments (Hume 1978; Smith 1976; see hume, david; smith,
adam). Although it might seem to be a natural enough view of the functional essence
of moral and evaluative discourse, it has had many objections raised against it.
Centrally, these derive from a generalized fear of “subjectivism” or “relativism” or
even “nihilism.” Many writers fear an evaluative vacuum if there is no factual
authority to which our moral and evaluative opinions need to answer. So the most
important objections to expressivism cluster around the thoughts that in evaluative
3
discussions we attempt to say things that are true. We attempt to represent how things
stand, and sometimes we admit we may be wrong, or insist that we are right. We
conduct our thinking in terms of there being a fact about the value of some course of
action, or the obligations or duties that apply to us. We hold our opinions subject to
evidence and may be liable to correction and dissent. In short we practice as if there
is a fact of the matter, just as in ordinary empirical or commonsense contexts. By
denying this, say critics, expressivism cuts itself off from ideas that are needed to give
a realistic account of actual moral practice. It does not preserve the appearances.
One possible reaction to this kind of argument is an error theory (Mackie 1977;
see mackie, j. l.). This would claim that expressivism is in fact correct in its account
of what we are doing, but that the forms of thought that realists highlight show us to
be in the grip of a mistake. The mistake would be that of thinking that there is a
moral reality which it is important to get right. Another more concessive response
would be that although this is an error, we can continue to talk of truth and fact in
evaluative contexts, only as a kind of fiction (Lewis 2005; Blackburn 2005).
Quasi-realism by contrast is the project of showing that the objection to expressivism
fails. We do not need to confess to everyday error, nor to retreat to thinking that it is
only a fiction that we ought to try to pay our debts. The quasi-realist attempts to
explain and justify the way that evaluative and moral thought actually takes place,
only without at any point departing from an expressivist account of what is actually
going on. It attempts to show that although we talk and think in many ways “as if ” our
discourse is a description or representation of independent moral facts, this appearance
is not an argument against expressivism, but is entirely compatible with it.
Thus in response to the problem that we hold opinions responsive to evidence or
doubt that we may be wrong, the quasi-realist will point out that we hold many
attitudes responsive to evidence, and sometimes find that we were wrong to hold
them. If I am angry at you for something I believe you to have done, I may find that
my anger was inappropriate and embarrassing if it comes to light that you did no
such thing. In response to the fact that we disagree with each other about ethical and
moral issues, the quasi-realist will point out that we can disagree in many states with
the practical direction of fit toward the world. Plans can clash with each other: “Let’s
go to the beach” – “No, let’s go to the mountains.” So can intentions and prescrip-
tions: “Put him to bed” – “No, take him to hospital.” It can be just as important that
we coordinate practically directed mental states as that we share beliefs; indeed, it is
arguably more important, since beliefs may not directly result in action, whereas
intentions, plans, and prescriptions do so.
Since coordination is important so is discussion aimed at resolving practical
disagreements. A plan can become a topic for public discussion, or private reflec-
tion. If you propose that we go to the beach and I propose that we go to the moun-
tains, we need to discuss which plan to follow. We pose the question by asking “What
is the thing to do?” and may each try to drum up considerations that sway the
issue in our own direction (Gibbard 2003). Moral and ethical discussion similarly
concerns coordination over plans or prescriptions, only these are ones where the
stakes are higher. For a couple need not fall out over whether to go to the beach
4
or the mountains, but are almost bound to do so if, say, one of them has a tolerant or
amused attitude toward their child’s dishonesty, while the other thinks it is a matter
of the utmost seriousness. So they have to ask “what is the way to think” about this,
and hope to find an accommodation.
In such discussions comparisons are drawn and implications assessed. In order
for this to happen, quasi-realists point out, practical language needs to mimic the
propositional appearance of ordinary language. Thus suppose we spoke only a
simple language which allowed us to express ourselves as for some things and
against others by saying “Hooray for X” or “Boo to X.” We could signal simple
agreement by echoing an initial exclamation of this kind. But even dissent would
want more structure, since if we frown or signal disapprobation, it would be
ambiguous whether we object to the evaluation itself, or object to the person hav-
ing voiced it. We would lack any elegant means of making the evaluation the topic
of discussion. So just as we make plans about the topic of discussion by asking
whether one thing or another is “the thing to do,” we need to discuss the evaluation
by focusing on the properties of the thing we are valuing, and we do this by asking
whether X is actually good or bad.
The quasi-realist theory about the nature of an evaluative predicate has attracted
a good deal of attention. The usual story about the meaning of a predicate isolates
the property to which it refers, and supposes that a predicate works by introducing
mention of that property. In the simplest case, when we say of some identified thing
X that it is F, the sentence is true or false according to whether X possesses which-
ever property “F” introduces. Expressivists mistrust the notion of evaluative proper-
ties, so this kind of story is clearly not available to them. The quasi-realist proposes
instead a theory that anchors the semantics not in a property to which reference is
made, but in the attitude of the user of the sentence. The rule will be that one is to
assert that X is good or assert that it is bad if and only if one intends to evaluate X
favorably, or unfavorably as the case may be. And instead of saying under which
conditions it is true that X is good or bad, the account substitutes the conditions
under which it is semantically appropriate to say that X is good or bad, which are
simply the conditions in which you have the relevant attitude (the attitude may be
morally inappropriate, according to others, of course). There is a shift in focus away
from reference and truth, which are regarded as introducing alarming metaphysics
into the theory of value, and toward the use of the terms in the kinds of practical
discussion we have to conduct. This general shift can be seen as part of a pragmatist
approach to the philosophy of language (Price 2011; see price, richard), and has
an ancestry in the approach to language of the later Wittgenstein, and of J. L. Austin
(Austin 1962; see austin, j. l.).
If a quasi-realist is asked what makes it true that, for instance, health is better than
illness, the natural answer will draw on whichever ethical standards he upholds, or in
other words it will cite the features that elicit his preference of health to illness. But it
does not follow, as naturalistic reductionists in ethics mistakenly suppose, that those
properties determine the meaning of the remark. The meaning is found in the
attitude that someone making the remark is voicing, not in the features that are taken
5
to provide the reasons for it. This enables quasi-realists to bypass the thorny problem
for reductionists, of explaining why moralists with different standards are not simply
talking past each other. They are no more doing so than those who disagree on
whether to go to the beach or the mountains are talking past each other, although
they too will probably have somewhat different standards for the ideal holiday.
Inventing evaluative predicates and operators enables us to put our commitments in
the same form as other things we wish to say. We do this by inventing predicates like
“… is good,” operators such as “you ought to …,” and nouns such as “rights” and “duties.”
We can then make familiar inferences, for instance with the conditional sentence “if
you ought to give alms every day of the week, then you ought to give alms on
Wednesdays” or “if it is wrong to tell lies, it is wrong to get your little brother to tell lies.”
This last example was used in a landmark paper by Peter Geach (1965) as a decisive
logical objection to expressivism, the thought being that in this context the sentence “it
is wrong to tell lies” is not asserted and does not express any attitude to lying. And you
could not say “if boo to lying then …” since that makes no sense. Furthermore, Geach
pointed out, it is no good to claim that in the conditional the sentence means some-
thing different than it does in straightforward, assertoric contexts. For asserted and
unasserted uses mate together in any argument of the form of modus ponens: “it is
wrong to tell lies; if it is wrong to tell lies then it is wrong to get your little brother to tell
lies, so it is wrong to get your little brother to tell lies.” If there were ambiguity between
the first and second sentence, this would be invalid, but it is not.
However, expressivists reply that far from making a difficulty for them, all that
these indirect contexts illustrate is the need for evaluative predicates, precisely in
order for us to make inferences that keep track of the interrelations between our
attitudes, and between our attitudes and our beliefs. This can be seen as a version of
a “commitment-theoretic” or “inferential role” semantics, where the meaning of any
thought is fundamentally a matter of its role in mediating the cognitive life of its
subject (Harman 1987). Direct, asserted evaluative sentences express attitudes, just
as direct, asserted ordinary sentences express beliefs. But with conditionals and
other indirect contexts, what is normally asserted becomes the topic and inferential
routes are offered. So, for instance, in the theory of probability “if there is a better
than evens chance that a coin will fall heads, there is a lower than evens chance that
it will fall tails” does not signal commitment to any particular betting rate, but to a
linkage between one betting rate and another. However, the precise way in which a
semantic theory with this inspiration should be developed remains controversial
(Hale 1986; Shroeder 2008).
Another controversial topic has been the relationship between quasi-realism and
the deflationary theory of truth (Dreier 1996). This theory holds that all that is
required to understand the notion of truth is to absorb the equivalence between
asserting that p and asserting that p is true. The truth predicate adds no new content
or complexity to the saying. However, it has a use in enabling us to generalize and
make indirect reference to assertions, as when we say “if p is true, and q is true, then
p & q is true” or “the things John said at breakfast were true.” It has been argued that
deflationism is inconsistent with expressivism, since given the ordinary propositional
6
form of evaluative and moral assertions, we can attach the idea of truth in them
quite freely: if you ought to clean your teeth every day, then it is true that you ought
to clean your teeth every day (and a fact, and really true). But, the complaint goes,
expressivists do not want to call evaluations true or false, or to talk of facts.
The quasi-realist response to this has been to distinguish what may be drawn upon
as we give our best theory of the nature of evaluative and moral commitments, from
what we can say at the end of the day. Thus the expressivist explanation of thought
and talk involving explanations avoided moral properties and moral facts. But once
that explanation is given, then indeed, given that deflationism is right, talk of truth
and fact can come in freely at the end, for they add no new theoretical or metaphysical
dimension to the ordinary evaluative assertions themselves. Given deflationism, it is
only in the first instance, for the sake of fundamental theory, that notions like
description and representation, or moral and evaluative facts, are avoided.
Quasi-realism explains how we may, in ethics, have thoughts about our own
possible flaws and failings. I can wonder whether I am right in what I think about
(say) charitable giving, since I know that in such a complex area there may be
considerations that would force me to a reevaluation of the topic, were I to learn
them or bring them to mind. Of course, such a reevaluation would happen in the
light of other beliefs and values that I hold. It has been suggested that this still leaves
a residue of firm or foundational commitments that the quasi-realist must regard as
a priori correct (Egan 2007). Blackburn replies that this ignores the holistic nature of
moral argument, but also ignores the way in which a quasi-realist would interpret
offering an a priori status to anything, in terms of doubting the semantic competence
of anybody minded to deny it.
Further Reflections
When expressivism takes advantage of quasi-realistic defenses, it arouses the
suspicion that it misses any element of moral authority, or equivalently that it leaves
us facing an abyss of relativism. For if all that is happening is that people are voicing
their own attitudes, with no independent source of right or wrong, then “who is to
say” which opinion is to be preferred?
However, quasi-realists reply that so far from being hospitable to relativism, they
provide the necessary ammunition against it. For the relativist tries to say that each
of two conflicting opinions might be true (‘true for those who hold them”). But the
quasi-realist will deny that anybody should say any such thing: who is to hold this
apparently even-handed position? If A says that fox hunting with dogs is permissible,
and B says that it is not, a third party can side with one or the other, or even try to deny
that a question of permissibility arises. But he cannot say that they are both right. It
would be like saying that it is true that going to the beach is the thing to do, and true that
going to the mountains is the thing to do, which is in effect to give up planning at all.
As for moral authority, the quasi-realist is no worse off than anybody else. Moral
theorists disagree, for example, on whether there are constraints on moral opinion
deriving from notions like that of the common point of view (Hume 1978) or the
7
impartial spectator (Smith 1976) or the need to find maxims that can be applied
universally (Kant 1949). They disagree over whether there are moral constraints that
pure practical reason imposes on us. Quasi-realism by itself is silent about the
success of such enterprises. It is also silent about the constraints that other theorists,
following Aristotle, hope to derive from human need, or human nature (Foot 2001;
see foot, philippa).
However, although quasi-realism does not by itself provide a moral epistemology,
it is hospitable to the view that we sometimes know whether things are good or
bad, where the claim to knowledge expresses our confidence that our verdict is
unshakable, in the sense that no improvement in our position that would upset our
evaluation is on the cards (this does not, of course, imply that we always do know
what we claim to know). For this reason quasi-realists are uncomfortable with the
common label of non-cognitivism. Indeed, turning the tables, quasi-realism is also
free from metaphysical doubts that can lead to skepticism. For example, moral real-
ists need to worry whether we are built to “track” their strange facts, or to worry
what adaptive advantage such tracking is supposed to give us (Street 2006). But this
is a worry from which expressivists, protected by quasi-realism, can be entirely free.
See also: austin, j. l.; foot, philippa; hume, david; mackie, j. l.; moore, g. e.;
open question argument; prescriptivism; price, richard; realism, moral;
smith, adam
REFERENCES
Anscombe, G. E. M. 1957. Intention. Oxford: Blackwell.
Austin, J. L. 1962. How to do Things with Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ayer, A. J. 1936. Language, Truth and Logic. London: Gollancz.
Blackburn, S. 1993. Essays in Quasi Realism. New York: Oxford University Press.
Blackburn, S. 2005. “Quasi Realism No Fictionalism,” in M. Kalderon (ed.), Fictionalism in
Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Blackburn, S. 2009. “Truth and a priori Possibility: Reply to Egan,” Australasian Journal of
Blackburn, S. 2010. Practical Tortoise Raising and Other Philosophical Essays. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Dreier, J. 1996. “Expressivist Embeddings and Minimalist Truth,” Philosophical Studies,
vol. 83, pp. 29–51.
Egan, A. 2007. “Quasi-Realism and Fundamental Moral Error, ” Australasian Journal of
Foot, P. 2001. Natural Goodness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gibbard, A. 1990. Wise Choices, Apt Feelings. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Hale, B. 1986. “The Compleat Projectivist,” Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 36, pp. 65–85.
Harman, G. 1987. “(Non-solipsistic) Conceptual Role Semantics,” in E. Lepore (ed.), New
Directions in Semantics. London: Academic Press.
8
Hume, D. 1978 [1739]. A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge and P. H. Nidditch.
Kant, I. 1949 [1785]. Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Thomas
Abbott Kingsmill. New York: Liberal Arts Press.
Lewis, D. K. 2005. “Quasi-Realism is Fictionalism,” in M. E. Kalderon (ed.), Fictionalism in
Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mackie, J. 1977. Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong. London: Penguin.
Price, H. 2011. Naturalism Without Mirrors. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Shroeder, M. 2008. Being For: Evaluating the Semantic Program of Expressivism. Oxford:
Smith, A. 1976 [1759]. The Theory of Moral Sentiments, ed. D. D. Raphael and A. L. Macfie.
Smith, M. 1987. “The Humean Theory of Motivation,” Mind, vol. 96, pp. 36–61.
Street, S. 2006. “A Darwinian Dilemma for Realist Theories of Value,” Philosophical Studies,
vol. 127, pp. 109–66.
1
Pharmacist Ethics
Dien Ho
The diverse professional roles which modern pharmacists play create an ethical
landscape that gives rise to a variety of moral problems. In order to understand the
different types of ethical issues in pharmacy ethics, we must examine some of the
main professional roles pharmacists undertake. This essay examines three of these
roles and outlines the interdependency between the professional roles of pharmacists
and ethical issues generated by them.
Retail Pharmacists
As a provider of therapeutics, a typical retail pharmacist is often also an employee of
a for-profit pharmacy. What is her obligation to the financial success of her employer?
In addition to dispensing medications, retail pharmacies often sell products that are
not conducive to the physical well-being of customers. For instance, they often carry
cigarettes, alcohol, snacks that are high in fat and sugar, and pseudo-scientific
remedies or over-the-counter medications that are of marginal benefit. When a
retail pharmacist sees that her client is asking for a pack of cigarettes as she fills her
prescription for emphysema, where does the pharmacist’s duty lie? Does she have a
duty to promote the well-being of her client and to attempt to persuade her not to
smoke? Or does she instead have a duty to her employer whose primary interest is
to maximize profit? The tension between competing duties of different professional
roles arises in other contexts as well. A pharmacist might notice that a higher-dosage
medication exists and that her clients can save substantial amounts of money by
simply obtaining higher-dosage prescriptions from their physicians and dividing the
medications into smaller units. If the pharmacist were to recommend this approach,
she would help her clients at the expense of the other members of their health
maintenance organizations (HMOs) and of consumers at large.
The for-profit nature of most pharmacies entails that pharmacists must manage
their time taking into consideration their employers’ financial interests. How much
time should pharmacists spend on counseling their clients? Balancing a patient’s
well-being against the fiscal concerns of one’s employers is not unique to pharmacists.
Physicians routinely undergo fiscal reviews by their HMOs to determine how
efficiently they deliver healthcare. The tension between the duty of a healthcare
provider to her patients and to other individuals (e.g., her employer) is of course
well-articulated in healthcare ethics (see duty and obligation; professional
ethics). However, the tension exists only insofar as we ascribe a relationship
between a pharmacist and her client that is akin to the one between healthcare
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee211
2
providers (e.g., physicians) and their patients. In the latter context, competing duties
often emerge as a result of healthcare providers’ professionally defined fiduciary
duty to their patients (see Boyd 1989–90; Resnik et al. 2000). Thus, in order for
there to be the kind of moral tensions described, we must first determine if retail
pharmacists have a professionally defined fiduciary duty to their clients.
If the role of a retail pharmacist is only to serve as a gateway through which
physicians dispense medications, then her fiduciary responsibility to her clients is
minimal at best. To be sure, she must ensure that prescriptions are filled properly
and that her clients’ prescriptions do not conflict. However, these duties best fall
under the broad umbrella of professional responsibilities and not under any special
fiduciary responsibility specific to retail pharmacy practice. On the other hand, if we
construe the professional role of a retail pharmacist as an integral part of healthcare
delivery in that she actively assists in determining patients’ therapeutic directions,
then her relationship to her clients (or better yet, to her patients) would be far more
similar to the one between healthcare providers and their patients. The exact nature
of the professional role of a retail pharmacist, in this respect, affects the ethical
obligations she has toward her clients.
The uncertain professional role that retail pharmacists occupy in the healthcare
management of a patient can also create ethical issues for retail pharmacists when they
question the therapeutic judgment of a physician. Should they express their concerns
to the patient (thus potentially undermining the medical judgment of a physician) if
they believe a prescription to be of marginal benefit? The extent to which a retail
pharmacist should cooperate with the therapeutic plan recommended by a physician is
also a matter of moral debate. If a physician has written a prescription for a placebo
treatment, how should a retail pharmacist respond if the patient asks her about the
exact biomechanics of the drug? Should she maintain the illusion? These ethical issues
certainly exist among members of a care team (e.g., among nurses, physicians,
technicians, etc.). As retail pharmacists increase their participation in patients’ care,
they will begin to confront ethical issues embedded in the power relationships among
members of a care team.
Richard Schultz and David Brushwood have claimed that pharmacists ought to
have a greater involvement in the healthcare management of patients by acting as
advocates for them. Pharmacists can not only provide counseling but also advance
patients’ healthcare interests, especially their pharmaceutical needs (Schultz and
Brushwood 1991). Their argument for shifting pharmacists’ obligation from
physician-centric to patient-centric relies on the premise that pharmacists are often
more accessible to patients. They are so because retail pharmacists are often members
of the patients’ local community and they have more frequent contacts with patients.
Moreover, they argue that patients are more likely to feel comfortable speaking to
pharmacists than to their physicians. Given the importance of continual drug
compliance and pharmacists’ accessibility to patients, Schultz and Brushwood
conclude that an enlarged role for pharmacists is in patients’ best interests.
There are, however, some difficulties with this argument. Traditionally, by
centralizing healthcare from diagnostics to treatments under one physical roof, care
3
givers can minimize the coordinating logistics in a patient’s health management to

ensure a smooth continuation of care. Recent studies have shown that the discon-
tinuation of care is a major contributor to medical errors, and therefore it becomes
all the more important that one eliminates logistical barriers in patients’ care (Moore
et al. 2003). Furthermore, hospital pharmacists already serve an important role in
determining the healthcare interests of patients. To be sure, their contribution is
physician-centric in that they serve as pharmaceutical consultants in care teams
often led by patients’ physicians. However, in terms of individuals who serve as
advocates for patients’ complex pharmaceutical needs, hospital pharmacists appear
to suffice, at least with regard to patients receiving care in hospitals.
For smaller clinics, however, retail pharmacists might be of significant value to a
physician. Given the complexity and the constant introduction of novel drugs, a
pharmacist can be an invaluable consultant in providing expert recommendations
for a physician and her patients. The main concern here is to identify a method by
which one can effectively bring a retail pharmacist into the discussion with patients
and their care teams with regard to the patients’ therapeutic directions. Finally, if the
goal of expanding the role of pharmacists is to ensure that patients comply with their
drug regimens, then retail pharmacists are surely ideal in playing the role of monitors.
Nevertheless, this new responsibility does not represent a shift to an autonomous
patient-centric advocacy role; rather, it simply treats retail pharmacists as extensions
of physicians.
Retail pharmacists also confront the issue of conscientious objection to the
delivery of certain care that runs contrary to the pharmacists’ moral views (see
conscientious objection). In the United States, physicians have significant
flexibility when it comes to the right to refuse treatments. For instance, obstetricians
are not required to perform legally permitted abortions even if they have the skills
and facilities to do so. A similar difficulty exists for retail pharmacists. Do they have
the right to refuse to dispense certain medications because they deem it unethical to
do so? Just as a physician has the right to refuse to perform an abortion on personal
moral grounds, one can make a similar argument for the right of refusal for retail
pharmacists. One common argument made in favor of a physician’s right to refuse
treatments rests on the protection of a patient’s well-being. A physician who is forced
to treat a patient against her moral beliefs might unconsciously compromise the
quality of care. Thus, the refusal to treat on personal moral grounds falls under
the same justificatory umbrella as the refusal to treat on the basis of personal bias.
To be sure, the leeway we provide a physician to refuse to treat is balanced against
the potential harm of the refusal. If no alternative physician is available to provide
the care and the care is critical, one is less inclined to think that the refusal is justified.
The limitation to physicians’ right to refuse treatment stems from the fiduciary
obligation they have toward their patients. Whether pharmacists have a similar right
to refuse to dispense certain drugs depends partly on the existence of this fiduciary
obligation. And, this latter question once again rests on the nature of the professional
role of retail pharmacists. If they are merely dispensers of medications, then it
becomes far less clear that the special fiduciary obligation exists. If that is the case,
4
the right not to fill certain prescriptions is akin to the right not to sell any products
(even if it is life-saving). However, if we construe retail pharmacists as being a part
of the care team, then they must also assume the same fiduciary responsibility that
ensures patients have access to necessary medications (see Fenton and Lomasky
2005; Wicclair 2006; Dieterle 2007).
With the advent of powerful do-it-yourself medical products, retail pharmacists
confront the issue of whether the sales of these products to consumers at large is
ethically sound. For instance, traditional prenatal genetic tests are often done in
clinical settings with strict and detailed pre- and post-counseling. As do-it-yourself
prenatal genetic testing kits become more readily available, pharmacies must decide
whether the sale of these products helps or harms individuals who use them. The
concern is that without the standard counseling, individuals who undertake prenatal
testing might not interpret the results correctly. On the other hand, do-it-yourself
genetic kits permit individuals who might otherwise not undergo prenatal genetic
testing the opportunity to do so in a private, accessible, and convenient manner (see
Modra 2006). In one respect, the dilemma here is akin to a pharmacy’s sales of any
potentially harmful products. What is the limit of paternalism? Again, the answer to
this question would largely depend on the professional obligations that pharmacists
have toward their clients.
Finally, the emergence of cross-border drug purchasing often facilitated by the
Internet has raised some ethical concerns. Prescription drugs in the United States
can often be purchased significantly cheaper in Canada and in Mexico. Patients have
little or no contact with the pharmacists who fill these prescriptions, and as such
patients receive virtually no counseling (see Hazlet and Bach 2001; Cohen 2004).
What duties do these pharmacists owe their clients? Furthermore, local drug prices
are often dictated by complex negotiations among federal, local, large chain
pharmacies, and pharmaceutical companies. By crossing borders to obtain drugs,
one has essentially introduced foreign market demands into a local context. In this
sense, individuals who take advantage of lower drug prices in other countries are
exploiting cheap foreign drug prices based on market and political arrangements
that do not take them into consideration. Should foreign pharmacists fill these
prescriptions knowing that these clients are exploiting a drug pricing loophole that
may undermine the local pricing arrangements and may eventually harm their local
clients? On the other hand, if a home pharmacist concludes that overseas pharmacists
provide a safe source of cheaper dugs, does she have an obligation to inform her
patients, especially those who are financially desperate, that they can obtain
medications by filling their prescriptions overseas?
Hospital Pharmacists
Hospital pharmacists take on a larger role in determining the therapeutic direction
of a patient. Not only do they ensure that medications, chemo-treatments, and other
pharmaceutics such as Total Parenteral Nutrition are delivered to patients safely and
accurately, they often also play the role of a consultant when the pharmaceutical
5
needs of a patient become complicated. In some hospitals, the in-house pharmacists

make rounds to clarify patients’ drug histories. They also provide discharge
instructions to patients with regard to their drug regimens. On a broader scale, hos-
pital pharmacists assist in drafting hospital drug policies and in determining what
drugs should be adopted for hospital’s use.
On the clinical level, it is clear that hospital pharmacists’ professional roles are
similar to those of other hospital care providers. In this sense, ethical problems that
confront clinical healthcare providers in general confront hospital pharmacists as
well. For instance, suppose a pharmacist believes that disclosing certain remote
side-effects (e.g., impotence) would actually increase the risks of their occurrence,
must a pharmacist disclose these facts even if doing so would expose patients to
greater risks? This dilemma is an instance of the well-articulated tension between a
care provider’s duty to disclose the truth to her patients and her duty to safeguard
her patient’s health. Likewise, should a pharmacist participate in the withdrawal of
life-sustaining medication with the intention to end a patient’s life? Is it morally
equivalent to active euthanasia? Insofar as these problems pose ethical challenges
to healthcare providers in general, they also present (albeit nonunique) moral
difficulties for hospital pharmacists.
At the policy level, a different set of ethical issues confront hospital pharmacists.
Primarily, they must address concerns relating to distributive justice and institutional
and social implications of hospital policies (see allocating scarce medical
resources; justice). A policy that aims to contain medical cost, for instance, might
benefit not only the hospital per se but also society at large by perhaps lowering cost
and thus allowing more individuals to have access to care. In addition to removing
wasteful spending, cost containment often involves institutional decisions to curtail
the usages of costly medications or procedures in order to maximize healthcare
benefits with limited resources. One consequence is that although, as a whole,
hospitals can deliver care more efficiently (and perhaps with better quality), patients
who were marginal candidates for certain expensive treatments or medications
would be denied access to potentially beneficial therapies. These institutional
decisions require hospital pharmacists to balance the well-being of patients at large
against the well-being of individual patients. For a hospital pharmacist, the problem
of distributive justice becomes even more acute since she presumably has a fiduciary
duty to her patients whose well-being can be directly affected by institutional policies.
(For a detailed discussion of distributive justice and healthcare, see Daniels 1985.)
Research Pharmacists
As scientists first-and-foremost, research pharmacists encounter ethical problems
that are prevalent in research ethics (see research ethics). Some of these issues
include the use of subjects from vulnerable populations, the problem of double-blind
clinical trials, and the ethical tension between serving the interests of a for-profit
research company and the interests of the public and of specific subjects. In addition,
there are some ethical issues that are somewhat unique to research pharmacists.
6
Advertisements for specific drugs can be misleading and, without the proper
counseling, they might sway patients into believing that they “need” certain drugs.
In turn, physicians are pressured into prescribing medications that they do not
necessary believe are beneficial to their patients (see advertising, ethics of).
Historically, pharmacists have refrained from directly marketing medications to
consumers. The reason stems from pharmacists’ desire to safeguard patients from
seeking medications that are not necessary or therapeutic. Direct marketing of
medications encourages potentially erroneous self-diagnoses on the part of patients.
On the other hand, one might argue that direct marketing of pharmaceuticals
empowers patients on par with other forms of dissemination of medical information.
Patients now have knowledge of new drug therapies, and they can play a greater part
in determining their own therapeutic direction. Appealing to paternalism to ban the
direct marketing of drugs to patients, according to this argument, runs contrary to
our trust in patients to make autonomous decisions.
Another ethical issue that arises for research pharmacists is the medicalization of
human conditions. Specifically, as pharmaceutics become more able to control and
manipulate biological conditions, what once fell under normal deviations and the
course of nature might become “treatable” conditions. The widespread prescription
of medications to treat erectile dysfunction (a condition that would have been
considered a normal sign of aging not too long ago) is an example of medicalization.
Since pharmaceutical companies can benefit financially from marketing treatments,
there is a substantial incentive to medicalize these biological conditions. Research
pharmacists, in this sense, can help determine what disease warrants corrective
treatments. The medicalization of biological conditions is not merely an ethical
problem. It also touches on metaphysical issues such as the nature of who we are and
our concept of normalcy. As our abilities to modify ourselves increase, variances
that were once accepted as a part of nature will be opened to control and modifications.
In pursuing research that can radically alter human nature, we must determine
whether research pharmacists should take into consideration moral implications of
their scientific pursuits. (For a discussion of the therapy/enhancement distinction,
see Bostrom and Roache 2007.)
Pharmaceutical companies also confront the issue of setting fair price points for
their drugs (see just price). Unlike nonessential goods such as luxury cars, many
medical supplies are essential not only to the maintenance of one’s life but also to a
level of health that is necessary for the pursuits of normal life goals. Setting a high
price point may satisfy a pharmaceutical company’s obligation to the stockholders,
but it can also limit distribution and availability of the drugs for the most needy.
Rawlians such as Richard Spinello (Spinello 1992) and Norman Daniels (Daniels
1985) have argued that, because pharmaceutical price points directly impact the
range of liberty an individual enjoys, pharmaceutical companies must take into
consideration the socio-ethical effect of their price-setting (see healthcare
resources, distribution of; rawls, john). In a nutshell, if one is committed to
the view that individuals have a right to fair equality of opportunity to pursue a
normal range of life goals and that certain drugs are essential to ensure the fairness
7
of the pursuit, then individuals might have some claim to these drugs. Pharmaceutical
executives must balance two factors in setting their price points: their responsibility
to shareholders who expect maximal profit, and their moral obligations to ensure
that the manner in which their products are sold does not create or contribute to
social injustices (see corporate social responsibility).
Conclusion
The three professional roles we have examined all give rise to different sets of moral
issues. Some of these issues are familiar, in that they arise in other professional and
medical domains as well. Because of the fluidity of a pharmacist’s professional role,
however, the exact moral boundaries and obligations are continually evolving. It is
nevertheless clear that because understanding and dispensing modern drugs
demand specialized knowledge acquired through years of studies, an asymmetric
power dynamic exists between pharmacists and the public at large. As such, a clearer
understanding of the ethical obligations of pharmacists is necessary in order to
safeguard the public from possible abuses resulting from the power asymmetry.
See also: advertising, ethics of; allocating scarce medical resources;

conscientious objection; corporate social responsibility; duty and
obligation; healthcare resources, distribution of; just price; justice;
professional ethics; rawls, john; research ethics
REFERENCES
Bostrom, Nick, and Rebecca Roache 2007. “Ethical Issues in Human Enhancement,” in Jesper
Ryberg, Thomas S. Petersen, and Clark Wolf (eds.), New Wave in Applied Ethics. London:
Palgrave MacMillan.
Boyd, Thomas 1989–90. “Cost Containment and the Physician’s Fiduciary Duty to the
Patient,” DePaul Law Review, vol. 39, pp. 131–59.
Cohen, Jillian 2004. “Pushing the Borders: The Moral Dilemma of International Internet
Pharmacies,” The Hastings Center Report, vol. 34, no. 2, pp. 15–17.
Daniels, Norman 1985. Just Health Care. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University
Press.
Dieterle, J. 2008. “Freedom of Conscience, Employee Prerogatives, and Consumer Choice:
Veal, Birth Control, and Tanning Beds,” Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 77, pp. 191–203.
Fenton, Elizabeth, and Loren Lomasky 2005. “Dispensing with Liberty: Conscientious
Refusal and the ‘Morning-After Pill’, ” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, vol. 30,
pp. 579–92.
Hazlet, Thomas, and Mary Bach 2001. “The Internet, Confidentiality, and the Pharmacy.
coms,” Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, vol. 10, pp. 157–60.
Modra, Lucy 2006. “Prenatal Genetic Testing Kits Sold at Your Local Pharmacy: Promoting
Autonomy or Promoting Confusion?” Bioethics, vol. 20, no. 5, pp. 254–63.
Moore, Carlton, Juan Wisnivesky, Stephen Williams, and Thomas McGinn 2003. “Medical
Errors Related to Discontinuity of Care from an Inpatient to an Outpatient Setting,”
Journal of General Internal Medicine, vol. 18, no. 8, pp. 646–51.
8
Resnik, David, Paul Ranelli, and Susan Resnik 2000. “The Conflict between Ethics and
Business in Community Pharmacy: What about Patient Counseling?” Journal of Business
Ethics, vol. 28, pp. 179–86.
Schultz, Richard, and David Brushwood 1991. “The Pharmacist’s Role in Patient Care,” The
Hastings Center Report, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 12–17.
Spinello, Richard 1992. “Ethics, Pricing and the Pharmaceutical Industry,” Journal of Bioethics,
vol. 11, pp. 617–26.
Wicclair, Mark 2006. “Pharmacies, Pharmacists, and Conscientious Objection,” Kennedy
Institute of Ethics Journal, vol. 16, no. 3, pp. 225–50.
FURTHER READINGS
Greene, Jeremy 2007. Prescribing by Numbers. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University
Press.
Smith, Mickey, Steven Strauss, John Baldwin, and Kelly Alberts (eds.) 1991. Pharmacy Ethics.
Binghamton, NY: Pharmaceutical Products Press.
Veatch, Robert, and Amy Haddad 1999. Case Studies in Pharmacy Ethics. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Wingfield, Joy, and David Badcott 2007. Pharmacy Ethics and Decision Making. Chicago:
Pharmaceutical Press.
1
Needs
Gillian Brock and Nicole Hassoun
Overview
Moral and political discourse frequently appeals to matters of need. Indeed, we
often think claims made in virtue of need deserve a certain weight, more so than
many claims grounded in wants, desires, or preferences. What are needs? Do needs
have some special moral force? How are they related to other key concepts or
aspects of well-being? What role do needs play in social and political philosophy,
or policy more generally? This essay addresses these questions. The next section
considers the concept of needs, why needs often have a certain normative force,
and some of the most influential accounts in the literature. The section following
focuses on the role of needs in normative theory and public policy. The final
section concludes.
Conceptual Clarifications and Some Influential Accounts

Statements of need are essentially instrumental claims. Coherent statements of need
have the following structure: x needs y in order to z. Depending on the importance
of realizing z, claims of need may or may not have normative significance.
Various authors pick out central categories of needs as warranting normative
attention. Harry Frankfurt (1998) suggests that there are two necessary conditions
for a need’s deserving moral importance: a need is morally important if harm will
result if the need is not met, and that harm is outside the person’s voluntary
control. David Wiggins (1987) also believes harm arising from factors beyond
one’s control is central to why needs matter. To develop this idea, he introduces
several terms to reflect important differences among different types of needs and
the features they can possess. He distinguishes the gravity of the harm that would
ensue if a need is not met – badness – from the urgency with which harm would
ensue. A need is basic if it results from a law of nature, an unalterable and invariable
environmental fact, or a fact about human constitution. Needs can be entrenched
when they are hard to modify, or substitutable when they are not. Using this
terminology Wiggins defines vital needs as ones that are bad, entrenched, and
scarcely substitutable, and it is these vital needs that matter morally according to
him. Garrett Thomson (2005) also suggests that needs are essentially connected
with the importance of avoiding harm. He argues that something is a fundamental
need for a person if it is not derived from another need, the need does not depend
on the circumstances, and there is no way for the person to avoid harm otherwise
(2005: 175). Thomson says people are harmed when something prevents them
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee212
2
from experiencing, doing, or appreciating noninstrumentally valuable things

(2005: 178).
David Braybrooke’s account, especially as developed in Meeting Needs (1987),
is one of the most developed and influential in the philosophical literature. He
develops his account of basic needs by considering what is necessary for social
functioning. Something is a need if, without its satisfaction, one would be
unable to carry out four basic social roles, those of citizen, parent, householder,
and worker. By examining several lists proposed by the United Nations and
others, he extracts their common elements and offers a systematic account of
the needs one would have over the course of a life. The list consists of needs for
a life-supporting relation to the environment; for whatever is indispensable to
preserving the body intact in important respects (including food, water,
exercise, and periodic rest); for companionship; for education; for social
acceptance and recognition; for sexual activity; for recreation; and for freedom
from harassment, including not being continually frightened. Focusing on what
humans typically do provides Braybrooke with a good reference point for
compiling this list. Someone might claim that not all these needs apply to
everyone (for instance, that nuns do not need sexual activity and hermits do
not need companionship), but it is important to note that Braybrooke is
interested in deriving a list of items that are plausibly needed in order to carry
out the four social roles he identifies. In order genuinely to choose whether or
not to perform the role, one typically needs items on the list.
Len Doyal and Ian Gough’s (1991) view is that needs are universalizable
preconditions that enable non-impaired participation in any form of life. Chief
among these preconditions will be physical health and the mental competence to
deliberate and choose, or autonomy. Doyal and Gough recognize a class of
“intermediate needs,” which connect the two basic needs with knowledge available
about basic needs in the social sciences. These are nutritious food and clean water,
protective housing, a non-hazardous work environment, a non-hazardous physical
environment, appropriate healthcare, security in childhood, significant primary
relationships, physical security, economic security, appropriate education, safe birth
control, and safe childbearing. Their account provides important connections
between the philosophical literature and the social and natural sciences, which could
facilitate measuring progress with respect to meeting needs in the world.
Braybrooke’s and Doyal and Gough’s accounts highlight important features of
recent theories of basic needs: the importance of social (not just physical) function-
ing in particular communities; the relevance of information about human needs
collected by the natural and social sciences; and the importance of cross-cultural
comparison.
More generally, there are several common elements to recent accounts of norma-
tively salient needs. The needs that matter morally are those that are necessary,
indispensable, or inescapable, at least with respect to human functioning in social
groups. Moreover, if such needs are not met, we are unable to do much at all, let
alone to lead a recognizably human life. Meeting needs is essential to our ability to
3
function as human agents. Another common strategy deployed in arguing for the
importance of needs is to highlight just how vulnerable people are to coercion or
oppression when their needs are not met.
While one dominant approach in the needs literature is to emphasize the link
between needs and human agency, other approaches can be discerned, such as
linking our basic needs to what is required for human flourishing (Anscombe 1958).
This kind of more expansive account is sometimes more vulnerable to skeptical
concerns about basic needs, such as that they cannot be adequately distinguished
from people’s wants, preferences, or desires. Another common concern about needs
is that they are so culturally, societally, or historically relative that they can play no
useful role in public policy. However, as the accounts of Frankfurt, Wiggins,
Braybrooke, and Doyal and Gough illustrate, there is some core area of convergence.
Importantly, there are also some clear criteria by which we can determine which
needs are to be granted moral and political importance for public policy. The
concern about relativity does not necessarily undermine the important role needs
do and should play in matters of distributive justice, for instance.
To some extent debate in other disciplines (e.g., economics) about the degree to
which poverty is absolute or relative might usefully inform debates about basic
needs. Like capabilities, needs may vary between cultures and individuals to some
extent (Townsend 1985). Nevertheless, there is a common core to most accounts of
needs; most lists include many of the same items, even if what is necessary to fulfill
needs may vary in some cases (Sen 1984).
The Role of Needs in Ethics, Political Philosophy, and Policy

What normative significance should needs have? It is commonly held that having
a need for something makes a more compelling claim than having a desire or
preference for the same thing (Wiggins 1987; Frankfurt 1998; Braybrooke 1987).
Consequently, needs should have a certain lexicographical priority over desires,
preferences, and wants. In matters of distributive justice there is the question of
how needs relate to other basic concepts like desert and equality, which might
also be relevant in distributive contexts. David Miller (1999) argues, for instance,
that all three of these concepts – needs, desert, and equality – should play basic
roles in a theory of social justice, with their importance varying depending on
what is being distributed to whom and by whom. In some contexts need seems
to matter greatly, for instance when considering the distribution of medicines or
wheelchairs. In other contexts, equality or desert might be a more salient
consideration. Miller also argues that we should be concerned for equality in
meeting need.
Needs may, further, inform an account of what we should be concerned to distribute
as a matter of justice. Should we try to give people what they need, or provide them with
basic resources or capabilities, for instance? Like capabilities, needs have an advantage
at least over the idea that we should give people some equal set of basic resources – for
different people require different resources. Pregnant women, for instance, may require
4
more food than those who are not pregnant. Those with severe disabilities often need
more healthcare than those who are not disabled. Some argue, however, that basic
needs and capabilities approaches are not necessarily distinct (Brock 2009).
Harry Frankfurt maintains that often our apparent concern with inequality is
really better understood as a concern about insufficiency, or people not having
enough. Unmet need often supplies much of the normative force when claims are
pressed in virtue of concern for inequality. He argues that we should endorse “suf-
ficientarian” accounts of obligations of distributive justice (grounded in need) rather
than an egalitarian position.
Given these disputes, it should not be surprising that needs play many different
roles in social and political philosophy. On traditional (Lockean) libertarian
accounts, needs have a very limited role (see libertarianism). Initial acquisition
from the commons must satisfy the Lockean proviso. That is, people must leave
something like “enough, and as good,” for others (Locke 1980: 19). Presumably
the first portion of this proviso – that people must leave enough for others – suggests
that acquisition must not interfere with others’ ability to secure what they need.
There are, however, no positive rights to aid on traditional libertarian grounds
(see rights).
On the other side of the spectrum, some argue for extensive positive rights
to assistance in meeting needs (see aid, ethics of; charity; suffering; world
hunger; utilitarianism). Peter Singer’s article “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”
(1972) provides the most famous argument to this effect:
1 Suffering and death from lack of food and shelter and medicine are bad.
2 If we can do something to help prevent suffering and death from lack of food
and shelter and medicine without sacrificing anything morally significant (or of
morally comparable worth) then we should.
3 So we should help prevent this suffering and death by giving foreign aid.
One common objection to this argument is that it is too demanding; we cannot have
an obligation to provide others with what they need whenever doing so does not
require a morally comparable or significant sacrifice (R. Miller 2010: Ch. 1; Murphy
2000; Fishkin 1986; D. Miller 1995). This argument leaves too little scope for
personal prerogatives and fails to recognize the fact that we have stronger obligations
to those (morally if not physically) closer to us (D. Miller 1995; R. Miller 2010).
Perhaps, critics argue, there are duties of charity to aid the needy, but when duties to
aid needy foreigners conflict with duties of justice to compatriots, the latter take
precedence (R. Miller 2010; see communitarianism; cosmopolitanism).
Some theories, however, limit the demands needs generate while suggesting
that fulfilling needs is a precondition, if not a duty, of justice (or closely related
requirements like legitimacy). John Rawls’ hypothetical consent theory is a case
in point and perhaps the most famous theory to do so. Rawls (2001: 44 n. 7)
assumes that people can meet their basic needs as a precondition of justice. He
says that there is a principle lexically prior to his first principle of justice on which
5
people’s basic needs must be met. At least, he says, citizens must have the things
they need to understand and exercise their basic rights and liberties. It is also pos-
sible to view Rawls’ list of primary goods as akin to a list of needs and Rawls’
commitment to the difference principle as entailing a commitment to ensure
those who are worst off in a particular domain of need deserve our focused atten-
tion (see difference principle); perhaps we must ensure social and political
inequalities are as good for the most needy as possible. On this interpretation,
Rawls’ Theory of Justice (1971) provides strong support for attention to the needy,
at least domestically.
In the international context Rawls seems much less concerned that all individuals
can meet their needs (see global distributive justice). Rawls specifies that there
is a duty of assistance to help at least some societies, such as burdened ones.
Interestingly, he includes rights to life (security and subsistence) on the list of human
rights whose violation, he suggests, may license international intervention. So, it is
possible to interpret Rawls (1999: 65–79) as allowing international intervention in
order to protect needs, at least in certain cases.
In the global arena, however, a distinction has often been drawn between so-called
“humanitarian” duties – duties to assist with basic needs – and what is thought to be
a more robust set of duties of distributive justice along the lines of duties egalitarians
typically endorse within a state (such as commitment to the difference principle).
Many believe that while duties of egalitarian justice hold within the state, in the
absence of special relationships, only more humanitarian duties of distributive
justice apply in the global arena (though there may also be retributive duties
generated from histories of destruction or objectionable exploitation). A prominent
example is that supplied by Richard Miller (1998, 2010). Distance, on his account,
sharply limits primary obligations of justice to the global poor (see distance,
moral relevance of). Those of us in developed countries need not sacrifice our
quality of life to help those whom our institutions have not harmed and do not
govern. On the other hand, some complain that theories like Rawls’ and Miller’s are
objectionable precisely because they do not recognize the extent of our obligations
to meet others’ needs. Thomas Pogge (1989) and Charles Beitz (1979) have
reconstructed Rawls’ arguments to suggest that the difference principle, on which
we should maximize the position of the least well-off group (the most needy),
should apply internationally.
Several theorists suggest that people have a human right to what they need. James
Griffin (2006), for instance, gives an autonomy-based (or agency-based) account of
human rights. He does not think people have a human right to everything they need
if needs are tied closely to harms. But he says that he provides an account of what
people need to function as normative agents (2006: 90). Griffin says human rights
just are rights to the protection of agency. David Miller (2007) grounds basic human
rights in needs – what is necessary to live a decent life free from harm. The needs he
picks out as especially salient here include food, water, clothing, shelter, physical
security, healthcare, education, work, leisure, and freedoms of movement, conscience,
and expression (2007: 184).
6
Basic needs have played an important role in global public policy. In 1982, for
instance, economist Paul Streeten introduced the so-called basic needs approach.
The idea was to identify universal basic needs and then to provide the means to
meet these for communities in an attempt to address global poverty. However,
there were several avoidable problems in implementing the program including
excessive paternalism and an excessive focus on commodities. Perhaps as a result
the capabilities approach has become more prominent in international develop-
ment (Reader 2006).
Conclusion
There are many accounts of needs and their moral force. There is also some variance
in views about how needs are related to other concepts such as equality, desert, basic
capabilities, and human rights. This essay has considered some of the most influen-
tial accounts of need in the literature and examined the role of needs in normative
theory and public policy. Despite variation, there is good reason to believe claims
made in virtue of need have significant weight and play important roles in moral
and political discourse.
See also: aid, ethics of; charity; communitarianism; cosmopolitanism; difference

principle; distance, moral relevance of; global distributive justice; libertarianism;
rights; suffering; utilitarianism; world hunger
REFERENCES
Anscombe, E. 1958. “Modern Moral Philosophy,” Philosophy, vol. 33, no. 124, pp. 1–19.
Beitz, C. 1979. Political Theory and International Relations. Princeton: Princeton University
Press.
Braybrooke, D. 1987. Meeting Needs. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Brock, G. 2009. Global Justice: A Cosmopolitan Account. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Doyal, L., and I. Gough 1991. A Theory of Human Need. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Fishkin, J. 1986. “Theories of Justice and International Relations: The Limits of Liberal
Theory,” in A. Ellis (ed.), Ethics and International Relations. Manchester: Manchester
University Press.
Frankfurt, H. 1998. “Necessity and Desire,” in G. Brock (ed.), Necessary Goods: Our
Responsibilities to Meet Others’ Needs. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield,
pp. 19–23.
Griffin, J. 2006. Human Rights: The Incomplete Idea. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Ch. 7.
Locke, J. 1980 [1690]. Second Treatise of Government, ed. C. B. Macpherson. Indianapolis, IN:
Hackett.
Miller, D. 1995. On Nationality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Miller, D. 1999. Principles of Social Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Miller, D. 2007. National Responsibility and Global Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Miller, R. 1998. “Cosmopolitan Respect and Patriotic Concern,” Philosophy and Public Affairs,
vol. 27, pp. 202–24.
7
Miller, R. 2010. Globalizing Justice: The Ethics of Poverty and Power. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Murphy, L. 2000. Moral Demands in Nonideal Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pogge, T. 1989. Realizing Rawls. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Rawls, J. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Belknap.
Rawls, J. 1999. The Law of Peoples. Harvard, MA: Harvard University Press.
Rawls, J. 2001. Justice as Fairness: A Restatement. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Reader, S. 2006. “Does a Basic Needs Approach Need Capabilities?” The Journal of Political
Sen, A. 1984. “The Living Standard,” Oxford Economic Papers, new series, vol. 36, supple-
ment, Economic Theory and Hicksian Themes, pp. 74–90.
Singer, P. 1972. “Famine, Affluence, and Morality,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 1, no. 1,
pp. 229–43.
Streeten, P. with Shahid Javed Burki, Mahbub ul Haq, et al. 1982. First Things First. World
Bank Research Publication. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Thomson, G. 2005. “Fundamental Needs,” in Soran Reader (ed.), The Philosophy of Need.
Royal Institute of Philosophy, supplement 57. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Townsend, P. 1985. “A Sociological Approach to the Measurement of Poverty: A Rejoinder to
Professor Amartya Sen,” Oxford Economic Papers, new series, vol. 37, no. 4, pp. 659–68.
Wiggins, D. 1987. “Claims of Need,” in D. Wiggins (ed.), Needs, Values, Truth. Oxford: Oxford
FURTHER READINGS
Alkire, S. 2002. “Basic Needs and Basic Capabilities,” Ch. 5 in Valuing Freedoms. Oxford:
Braybrooke, D. 1998. “What Is the Force of the Claim That One Needs Something?” in Gillian
Brock (ed.), Necessary Goods: Our Responsibilities to Meet Others’ Needs. New York:
Brock, G. (ed.) 1998. Necessary Goods: Our Responsibilities to Meet Others’ Needs. Lanham,
Copp, D. 1998. “Equality, Justice, and the Basic Needs,” in Gillian Brock (ed.), Necessary
Goods: Our Responsibilities to Meet Others’ Needs. New York: Rowman & Littlefield.
Frankfurt, H. 1988. The Importance of What We Care About: Philosophical Essays. Cambridge:
Pogge, T. 2002. World Poverty and Human Rights. Cambridge: Polity.
Reader, S. (ed.) 2005. The Philosophy of Need. Royal Institute of Philosophy, supplement 57.
Sen, A. 1997. “Poor, Relatively Speaking,” in S. Subramanian (ed.), The Measurement of
Inequality and Poverty. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sen, A. 1999. Development as Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Shue, H. 1996. Basic Rights: Subsistence, Affluence and US Foreign Policy, 2nd ed. Princeton:
Thomson, G. 1987. Needs. London: Routledge.
1
Fictionalism, Moral
Robert Mabrito
Moral fictionalism is the view that, when we discuss and think about morality,
what we are doing (or, on some versions, what we should be doing, even if we are
not currently doing it) is roughly what we are doing when we tell stories or we pre-
tend. As a view concerning the status of moral talk and thought, moral fictionalism
belongs to metaethics (see metaethics). There has been a growth of interest in
fictionalism, and fictionalist accounts of numerous areas have been proposed.
(Kalderon 2005a collects articles discussing several of them.) Recent discussions of
moral fictionalism – by Joyce (2001), Kalderon (2005b), and Nolan et al. (2005) –
are part of this trend. A key distinction is between those versions of moral fiction-
alism that offer fictionalism as a description of our moral talk and thought as it is
now and those versions that deny that fictionalism accurately describes our current
practices but argue that there is good reason to revise our practices along fictional-
ist lines. The descriptive version of the theory is usually called hermeneutic moral
fictionalism, and the revisionary version revolutionary moral fictionalism. This
essay divides into three sections: a brief description of moral fictionalism and its
relationship to other metaethical positions; a discussion of arguments for herme-
neutic moral fictionalism; and a discussion of arguments for revolutionary moral
fictionalism.
Moral Fictionalism and the Alternatives

Say that Angela is having a conversation with Paul about her sister Marie. During
the course of this conversation she says:
M Marie is in Chicago.
It is important to distinguish between the sentence that Angela utters by saying the
above words and her act of uttering it, which we may call her utterance. (Note that
an utterance need not be verbal. We may still speak of Angela’s utterance of this
sentence even if we are talking about her writing it in a letter to Paul.) The sentence
M that Angela utters has a certain meaning or content, which for our purposes we
may identify with the proposition that Marie is in Chicago. Her utterance of it is a
performance of what is called a speech act, which is an action performed by uttering
words – such as making an assertion, asking a question, or issuing a command. In
normal circumstances Angela’s utterance of M is an assertion of the proposition that
Marie is in Chicago, and it expresses the belief that Marie is in Chicago. For Paul to
accept Angela’s utterance – for him to accept what she says – is for him to believe the
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee213
2
proposition that Marie is in Chicago. Note that, although her utterance expresses the
belief that Marie is in Chicago, Angela herself may not believe this. Angela need not
accept her own utterance. Perhaps she is lying about her sister’s location.
However, let us assume that Angela does accept her own utterance; she does
believe that Marie is in Chicago. Of course, that Angela believes this does not make
it true. She could be mistaken about her sister’s location. If Marie is not in Chicago,
then there is a problem with Angela’s utterance and with her and Paul’s acceptance
of it. Her utterance is an assertion of the proposition that Marie is in Chicago, and to
assert a false proposition is, in some sense, to make a mistake. Such an assertion is
defective. Likewise, to accept the utterance is to believe the proposition that Marie is
in Chicago, and to believe a false proposition is also, in some sense, to make a
mistake. A belief that is not true is a defective belief. Specifying the exact nature of
the mistake or defect that occurs in these cases is a difficult philosophical task, but
for our purposes it is sufficient to note that there is some sort of mistake or defect.
Turn now to morality. Say that Angela and her sister Marie are discussing Marie’s
failure to keep one of her promises. During this discussion, Angela says:
R Keeping your promises is morally right.
A cognitivist understands Angela’s utterance of R along the same lines as her utter-
ance of M (see cognitivism). In particular, we may take a cognitivist construal of
Angela’s utterance to consist of three claims:
C1 The meaning or content of the sentence R, which Angela utters, is the moral
proposition that keeping your promises is morally right.
C2 Angela’s utterance of R is a performance of the speech act of asserting the

moral proposition that keeping your promises is morally right.
C3 To accept her utterance is to believe the moral proposition that keeping your
promises is morally right.
Note that a moral proposition is one whose truth depends on how things in the
world, morally speaking, are.
Both moral realists and error theorists accept a cognitivist construal of moral
utterances such as Angela’s (see realism, moral; error theory). The two positions
differ concerning the truth of moral propositions. Error theorists hold that moral
propositions are systematically false. A common way of illustrating error theory is to
appeal to the example of witches, here understood as being persons who possess
supernatural powers. Given that no one actually possesses supernatural powers,
propositions concerning witches (e.g., that Alexa is a witch) are systematically false.
Moral error theorists hold that, likewise, moral propositions are systematically false, and
that – since there is something defective about asserting or believing a false proposition –
our practice of making and accepting moral utterances suffers from systematic error.
3
Moral realists deny that moral propositions are systematically false, and therefore they
deny that our practice of making and accepting moral assertions suffers from this
systematic error. Note that moral realists are quite willing to admit that some moral
propositions are false (e.g., that stealing is morally right), while error theorists may also
admit that some are true (e.g., that murder is not morally wrong). The difference between
the two positions concerns whether there is systematic falsity.
A non-cognitivist denies all three claims from C1 to C3 (see non-cognitivism).
According to a non-cognitivist construal of Angela’s utterance, the content of the
sentence R, which Angela utters, is not a moral proposition. Furthermore, her
utterance of it is not an assertion, and to accept her utterance is not to believe anything.
Instead, Angela’s utterance is an expression of a non-cognitive attitude towards
keeping your promises, and to accept her utterance is simply to have this non-cognitive
attitude. For example, according to emotivism, which is a type of non-cognitivism (see
emotivism), the non-cognitive attitude in question is an emotion. (Note that matters
are not as straightforward as presented here when it comes to more sophisticated
versions of non-cognitivism, but these details are beyond the scope of this essay; see
hybrid theories of moral statements; quasi-realism.)
A fictionalist construal of Angela’s utterance of R agrees with the cognitivist
construal concerning C1 – on the fictionalist construal, the content of R is the
proposition that keeping your promises is morally right – while it sides with the non-
cognitivist construal in rejecting both C2 and C3. (Here I am assuming a fictionalist
who is what Eklund [2007] calls a use fictionalist rather than a meaning fictionalist.)
On a fictionalist construal, Angela’s utterance of R is not an assertion of the moral
proposition that is the content of R – i.e., that keeping your promises is morally right
– and to accept her utterance is not to believe that proposition. If Angela’s utterance
is not an assertion of the content of R, then what is it? There are different ways for
the fictionalist to answer this question. Eklund (2007) draws a useful distinction
between content fictionalism and force fictionalism. This distinction comes from the
theory of speech acts. Recall that a speech act is an action performed by uttering
words – such as asserting, questioning, or commanding. Content and force are the
two components of a speech act. For example, the assertion that Marie is in Chicago
has assertoric force, and its content is the proposition that Marie is in Chicago.
According to content fictionalism, the difference between a fictional utterance of
some sentence and a non-fictional one is a difference in the content of the speech
acts performed by the utterances. According to force fictionalism, the difference is a
difference in the force of the speech acts, and not in their content.
Thus, according to the content moral fictionalist, Angela’s utterance of R is an asser-
tion – it has assertoric force – but its content is not the content of R. Its content is not
the moral proposition that keeping your promises is morally right. What is its content?
One answer, which draws on Lewis (1978), is that the content of the assertion is,
roughly speaking, the proposition that, in the story of morality, keeping your promises
is morally right. Furthermore, to accept such an assertion is not to believe that keeping
your promises is morally right; rather, it is to believe that, in the story of morality, keep-
ing your promises is morally right. On this view, assuming that, in the story of morality,
4
keeping your promises is morally right, there is neither a problem with Angela’s utter-
ance nor a problem with accepting it. Angela’s utterance is the assertion of a true prop-
osition, and to accept her utterance is to believe that very same true proposition. Of
course, there are many possible stories one might tell about morality. Thus those
adopting this line of thought are obligated to explain which of these possible stories is
the relevant one. (For a brief discussion of this issue, see Nolan et al., 2005: 327).
On the other hand, according to a force moral fictionalist, Angela’s utterance of R
is not an assertion at all – it lacks assertoric force – and to accept it is not to have a
belief. The two most detailed expositions of moral fictionalism – the books by Joyce
(2001) and Kalderon (2005b) – argue for force moral fictionalism, though they dif-
fer in how closely the force fictionalist construal of moral utterances is modeled on
accounts of paradigmatically fictional utterances. For example, imagine that Angela,
in the course of relating one of Conan Doyle’s stories about Sherlock Holmes, says:
H Holmes lived in London.
On a standard force fictionalist understanding, Angela is not asserting the

proposition that Sherlock Holmes lived in London when she utters H, but she is
merely pretending to assert it (see Searle 1975 for a view along these lines). Note that
someone pretending to assert is not actually asserting anything, just as someone
pretending to have a heart attack is not actually having one. A pretend assertion
lacks assertoric force. Since by uttering H she is pretending to assert – and not actu-
ally asserting – that Sherlock Holmes lived in London, to accept Angela’s utterance –
to accept what she says – is not to believe that Sherlock Holmes lived in London, but
rather to make-believe or pretend that Sherlock Holmes lived in London.
Joyce offers a fictionalist construal of moral utterances according to which the
utterance of a moral sentence is understood along roughly the same lines as the
above force fictionalist construal of Angela’s paradigmatically fictional utterance of
H. Thus, on Joyce’s account, when Angela utters R, she is not asserting the proposition
that keeping your promises is morally right but pretending to assert it, and she does
not believe that keeping your promises is morally right but she is pretending that
keeping your promises is morally right (Joyce 2001: 199). And, presumably, we may
say – though Joyce himself does not talk in these terms – that to accept Angela’s
utterance of R is also a matter of pretending that keeping your promises is morally
right. On the other hand, Kalderon offers a fictionalist construal of moral utterances
according to which the utterance of a moral sentence is understood along lines that
are only roughly analogous to the force fictionalist construal of paradigmatically
fictional utterances (see Kalderon 2008b: 33–4 and 36 for further discussion of this
point). There is not room to pursue the details here but, roughly speaking, for
Kalderon (2005b: 43–51 and 126–35), Angela’s moral utterance conveys a complex
psychological state, and to accept her utterance is to be in this state.
As noted in the beginning of this essay, an important distinction is the one between
hermeneutic fictionalism and revolutionary fictionalism. (The terminology of
hermeneutic/revolutionary was introduced by Burgess [1983] and applied to fictionalism
5
by Stanley [2001].) Hermeneutic moral fictionalists argue that fictionalism accurately

describes what we are doing when we make moral utterances, while revolutionary
moral fictionalists argue that, while fictionalism does not accurately describe what we
are currently doing when we make moral utterances, it does describe what we should
be doing. Thus hermeneutic moral fictionalism is an account of our current moral prac-
tices that offers an alternative to both cognitivism and non-cognitivism. On the other
hand, revolutionary moral fictionalists accept that cognitivism is the correct account of
our moral thought and talk as it currently is, and they offer fictionalism as an advanta-
geous reform. (Accepting non-cognitivism as the correct account is a logically possible
option, but not one that appears to have actual advocates among moral fictionalists.)
The distinction between these two types of moral fictionalism is important
because each type faces different challenges. Hermeneutic moral fictionalists need
to point out aspects of moral thought and talk as it currently is that favor a fictionalist
construal over a cognitivist or non-cognitivist one. Revolutionary moral fictionalists
need to point out problems with moral thought and talk as it currently is that are
best solved by adopting fictionalism.
Arguing for Hermeneutic Moral Fictionalism

Kalderon (2005b) presents a sustained argument for hermeneutic moral force
fictionalism. (A quick note on terminology. For Kalderon, a noncognitivist is someone
who rejects the cognitivist claims C2 and C3 described above, while a nonfactualist is
someone who rejects the cognitivist claim C1. Thus the position called non-cognitivism
in this essay – which rejects C1 through to C3 – is, in Kalderon’s terminology, nonfac-
tualist noncognitivism, while force fictionalism – which rejects C2 and C3 but accepts
C1 – is factualist noncognitivism.) He points to three aspects of our moral thought and
talk to justify the claim that force fictionalism is the correct account of our current
practice. First, Kalderon argues that the norms that govern moral disagreement
between people are only appropriate if making and accepting moral utterances is not a
matter of making assertions and having beliefs (2005b: 8–42). Second, Kalderon argues
that the phenomenology – the way a thing feels to the individual who is experiencing
it – of intrapersonal moral conflict is best explained by assuming that acceptance of
a moral utterance is a particular kind of non-cognitive state (2005b: 43–50). Thus, for
Kalderon, the norms of moral disagreement and the phenomenology of intrapersonal
moral conflict are two aspects of moral thought and talk that favor an understanding
of moral utterances that rejects the cognitivist claims C2 and C3. Of course, moral
force fictionalism is such an understanding. Unfortunately, so is non-cognitivism.
Thus Kalderon points to a third aspect of our moral thought and talk, one that
favors a fictionalist construal over a non-cognitive one (2005b: 52–94). This third
aspect is the cluster of features involving moral inferences that are the motivation for
what is known as the Frege–Geach objection to non-cognitivism (see frege–geach
objection). The basic thought behind the Frege–Geach objection is that these features
are not compatible with denying that the content of a moral sentence is a proposition.
Of course, non-cognitivism – unlike moral force fictionalism – does deny that the
6
content of a moral sentence is a proposition. Thus these features involving moral infer-
ences favor a force fictionalist construal of our moral thought and talk over a non-
cognitivist one. (For an argument that moral force fictionalism is also vulnerable to the
Frege–Geach objection, see Eklund 2007, 2009; Kalderon 2008a offers a response.)
If Kalderon’s reasoning is correct, then, taken together, these three aspects of our
moral thought and talk favor Kalderon’s force fictionalist construal over both a
cognitivist construal and a non-cognitivist one. But there is at least one aspect of
our moral thought and talk that appears to count against a force fictionalist construal:
the fact that the vast majority of the participants in the practice of making and accept-
ing moral utterances do not take themselves to be engaged in a fictional discourse.
(Among others, Stanley (2001: 46–7) raises such a concern not only about hermeneu-
tic moral fictionalism, but about other types of hermeneutic fictionalism as well.)
In response, Kalderon (2005b: 152–6) notes that the participants’ mistake is not
internal to the practice – the problem is not with the moral utterances they make –
but rather they are mistaken about what they are doing when they make those
utterances. That there could be such a widespread external mistake does not strike
Kalderon as being so incredible. Furthermore, Kalderon could add, if his arguments
for moral fictionalism are correct, then there is a sense in which the participants do
implicitly take themselves to be engaged in a fictional discourse, since the norms
they follow presuppose that the discourse is fictional.
Arguing for Revolutionary Moral Fictionalism

Joyce (2001) presents a sustained argument for revolutionary moral force
fictionalism. Nolan et al. (2005) also favor revolutionary fictionalism, but this
section will concentrate on Joyce. Arguing for revolutionary moral fictionalism
is in some ways a more complex task than arguing for hermeneutic moral fic-
tionalism. A hermeneutic moral fictionalist only needs to argue for the correct-
ness of a particular account of our current practice of making and accepting
moral utterances. Revolutionary moral fictionalists must do this as well, but
then they must go on to establish that there is a problem with the practice so
understood – a problem that is best solved by adopting fictionalism. This further
argumentative burden involves defending three distinct claims:
R1 There is a problem with our current practice of making and accepting

moral utterances.
R2 Reforming our current practice of making and accepting moral utterances

along fictionalist lines would solve this problem.
R3 This fictionalist option is the response that we ought to adopt to the problem.
One way a revolutionary moral fictionalist can establish R1 is to argue for moral
error theory. If moral error theory is correct, then the problem with our current
7
practice is that it suffers from systematic error, since it involves asserting and
believing systematically false moral propositions. Taking this route, Joyce (2001:
1–174) offers an extended argument for moral error theory, which is based on
Mackie’s (1977) influential argument from queerness (see mackie, j. l.; queerness,
argument from).
Assuming that moral error theory is correct, Joyce can establish R2 as well. If the
problem with our current practice of making and accepting moral utterances is that
it involves asserting and believing systematically false moral propositions, then
adopting the type of force fictionalism that Joyce advocates would eliminate the
problem. Instead of continuing to believe and assert moral propositions, those who
adopt the proposal “make-believe” (so to speak) moral propositions and pretend to
assert them. And we do not fall into systematic error when we make-believe or
pretend to assert false propositions.
This leaves Joyce with the task of establishing R3. Now, there are responses other
than fictionalism available to moral error theorists. Garner (2007) argues that, in
response to moral error theory, we ought to adopt what he calls moral abolitionism,
which involves simply ceasing to make or accept moral utterances. Moral
abolitionism eliminates the problem with our practice by eliminating the practice
itself. Another possible response is simply to ignore the problem and to continue
with our current practice despite the systematic error involved in doing so. Call this
non-solution response moral complacency. Joyce (2001: 175–231) argues that
adopting his version of fictionalism has advantages over these other responses, and
hence we ought to adopt it.
First, consider moral complacency. Say that Angela is a moral error theorist, and
assume that she adopts the response of moral complacency. Joyce (2001: 178–80)
emphasizes that Angela’s retention of her moral beliefs comes at great practical
cost, namely the cost of maintaining them in spite of the evidence against them
provided by the argument for error theory. Thus moral fictionalism enjoys an
advantage over moral complacency because it avoids this cost. Moral fictionalists
do not believe moral propositions but only make-believe them. Of course, moral
abolitionism also enjoys this advantage over moral complacency, since moral
abolitionists do not believe moral propositions either. So, as he admits, to establish
R3 Joyce needs to argue that fictionalism enjoys some advantage over abolitionism
(2001: 215).
Joyce begins by arguing that moral beliefs are instrumentally valuable in that
having them helps us overcome weakness of will (2001: 180–5, 206–14; see
instrumental value; weakness of will). In particular, he has in mind performing
an action for a short-term gain that fails to compensate for the damage that
performing it inflicts on one’s long-term self-interest. For example, say that it is in
Angela’s long-term interest to keep her promises. Nevertheless, situations arise in
which she is quite tempted to break a particular promise in order to gain some small
immediate benefit. Joyce’s thought is that Angela’s belief that keeping your promises
is morally right makes it less likely that she will break her promise in such a situa-
tion, thereby undermining her long-term interests (2001: 213–14). Now, if Angela
8
adopts moral abolitionism in response to moral error theory, then her moral belief
is not around to help her resist the temptation to break a promise. However, Joyce
argues that, if Angela pretends that keeping your promises is morally right, she gains
the aid in resisting temptation that a moral belief gives her – at least to some extent
(2001: 214–28). Thus, for Joyce, moral fictionalists enjoy an advantage over moral
abolitionists, in that the former have an additional weapon in the fight against weak-
ness of will – moral make-believe – that the latter do not possess. For this reason we
ought to adopt fictionalism over abolitionism.
Now, as Joyce realizes, when revolutionary moral fictionalists who defend
error theory say that we ought to adopt the fictionalist option in response, they
cannot be saying that we morally ought to adopt it (2001: 177). For, as moral
error theorists, they are committed to the falsity of such a claim. Thus Joyce
points out that the ought here is a nonmoral one, to which moral error theory
does not apply (ibid.). However, Hussain (2004: 169) worries that, insofar as this
ought is normative, the same reasoning that supports error theory in the moral
case will support error theory concerning this nonmoral ought as well (see nor-
mativity; ought). Also, both Hussain (2004: 169–71) and Wallace (2003)
worry that Joyce has neglected an important option when arguing for fictional-
ism. The worry is that one needs to compare fictionalism not only with moral
abolitionism and moral complacency, but also with what Hussain calls moral
reformist realism. The moral reformist realist advocates employing a reformed
version of our moral vocabulary, one purged of those features that give rise to
error theory. Thus there is no problem with asserting and believing proposi-
tions expressed by use of this reformed vocabulary. Revolutionary moral fic-
tionalists need to explain why the fictionalist option is superior to adopting
such a reformed moral vocabulary, which they will do perhaps by arguing that
the fictionalist option does better at combating weakness of will. Settling this
question will require both the details of a specific reform and – as Hussain
(2004: 171) emphasizes – the details of what exactly we pretend or make-believe
when, say, we pretend or make-believe that keeping your promises is morally
right.
Now Joyce (2001: 228) does concede that how useful the additional weapon of
moral make-believe is and, in particular, whether it enjoys a high enough degree of
utility to confer a real advantage on moral fictionalism are open empirical questions
that he has not decisively settled. Indeed, while he holds that it is reasonable to
believe that moral make-believe is a good tool for us to have as we are, Joyce allows
that it is not inconceivable that we might outgrow the need for it (2001: 229–31).
Moral fictionalism might merely be a stage through which we pass on the way to
moral abolitionism.
See also: cognitivism; emotivism; error theory; frege–geach objection;

hybrid theories of moral statements; instrumental value; mackie, j. l.;
metaethics; non-cognitivism; normativity; ought; quasi-realism;
queerness, argument from; realism, moral; weakness of will
9
REFERENCES
Burgess, John P. 1983. “Why I Am Not a Nominalist,” Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic,
vol. 24, pp. 93–105.
Eklund, Matti 2007. “Fictionalism,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Available at
http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2007/entries/fictionalism/.
Eklund, Matti 2009. “The Frege–Geach Problem and Kalderon’s Moral Fictionalism,”
Garner, Richard 2007. “Abolishing Morality,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, vol. 10,
pp. 499–513.
Hussain, Nadeem J. Z. 2004. “The Return of Moral Fictionalism,” Philosophical Perspectives,
vol. 18, pp. 149–87.
Kalderon, Mark Eli (ed.) 2005a. Fictionalism in Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kalderon, Mark Eli 2005b. Moral Fictionalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kalderon, Mark Eli 2008a. “Moral Fictionalism, the Frege–Geach Problem, and Reasonable
Inference.” Analysis, vol. 68, pp. 133–43.
Kalderon, Mark Eli 2008b. “The Trouble with Terminology,” Philosophical Books, vol. 49,
pp. 33–41.
Lewis, David 1978. “Truth in Fiction,” American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 15, pp. 37–46.
Mackie, John 1977. Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong. New York: Penguin Books.
Nolan, Daniel, Greg Restall, and Caroline West 2005. “Moral Fictionalism Versus the Rest,”
Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 83, pp. 307–30.
Searle, John R. 1975. “The Logical Status of Fictional Discourse,” New Literary History, vol. 6,
pp. 319–32.
Stanley, Jason 2001. “Hermeneutic Fictionalism,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy, vol. 25,
pp. 36–71.
Wallace, R. Jay 2003. “Review of Richard Joyce. Moral Fictionalism,” Notre Dame Philosophical
Reviews. Available at http://ndpr.nd.edu/.
FURTHER READINGS
Blackburn, Simon 2005. “Quasi-Realism No Fictionalism,” in Mark Eli Kalderon (ed.),
Fictionalism in Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 322–38.
Chrisman, Matthew 2008. “A Dilemma for Moral Fictionalism,” Philosophical Books, vol. 49,
pp. 4–13.
Currie, Greg 1990. The Nature of Fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Finlay, Stephen 2008. “The Error in the Error Theory,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy,
vol. 86, pp. 347–9.
Friend, Stacie 2008. “Hermeneutic Moral Fictionalism as an Anti-Realist Strategy.” Philos-
ophical Books, vol. 49, pp. 14–22.
Joyce, Richard 2005. “Moral Fictionalism,” in Mark Eli Kalderon (ed.), Fictionalism in
Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 287–313.
Joyce, Richard 2006. The Evolution of Morality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Joyce, Richard 2007. “Morality, Schmorality,” in Paul Bloomfield (ed.), Morality and Self-
Interest. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 51–75.
Lenman, James 2008. “Against Moral Fictionalism,” Philosophical Books, vol. 49, pp. 22–32.
10
Lewis, David 2005. “Quasi-Realism is Fictionalism,” in Mark Eli Kalderon (ed.), Fictionalism
in Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 314–21.
Lillehammer, Hallvard 2004. “Moral Error Theory,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society,
New Series, vol. 104, pp. 95–111.
Nolan, Daniel 2005. “Fictionalist Attitudes about Fictional Matters,” in Mark Eli Kalderon
(ed.), Fictionalism in Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 204–33.
Oddie, Graham, and Daniel Demetriou 2007. “The Fictionalist’s Attitude Problem,” Ethical
Sainsbury, R. M. 2010. Fiction and Fictionalism. London and New York: Routledge.
Walton, Kendall L. 1990. Mimesis as Make-Believe: On the Foundations of the Representational
Arts. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
1
Ricoeur, Paul
David Pellauer
Paul Ricoeur (1913–2005) was one of the leading French philosophers of the
twentieth century. His writings addressed a wide range of questions and issues in
philosophy. His work, which began from phenomenology, moved on to
hermeneutics, and then, in the last years of his life, dealt more explicitly with ethics
both as theory and in relation to moral and political problems of the day. While he
always acknowledged an ethical dimension to his work, the fullest statement of that
ethics did not appear until quite late in his career. In his Gifford Lectures, published
as Oneself as Another, he presents what he calls his “little ethics.” The basis of
this ethics is the idea of a good life lived with and for others in just institutions. This
is an ethics that necessarily involves three “moments”: a teleological idea of a good
life, a deontological moment comprising the normative principles meant to achieve
that life, and a practical moment that arises when we have to apply this teleological
idea and its normative expression to concrete situations. These may include difficult
cases where it will be necessary to bend the rule given the specific circumstances or
to negotiate a conflict between possible applicable rules. This latter moment, which
Ricoeur speaks of as one that calls for practical wisdom, is in the hardest cases one
where the choice is between bad and worse rather than simply between an obvious
right and wrong. It is also possible to read this threefold schema backwards in some
cases; for example, in the case of a newly discovered disease where a physician must
deal with the patient for the first time, but then shares her results with colleagues
who go on to develop treatment protocols and learn to refer them back to a broader
understanding of the idea of good health.
Looking back, one can see today how this ethics arises as a development of
Ricoeur’s initial concern for philosophical questions having to do with human beings
as agents able to initiate courses of action and take responsibility for those acts.
Ricoeur’s early work pursued these questions through the search for a philosophy
of the will under the title Freedom and Nature: The Voluntary and the Involuntary
(1966). The first volume of this work set aside any question of the good or bad use
of the will. It sought to develop a phenomenology of the will in terms of three
moments: deciding, acting, and consent. In this phenomenology, Ricoeur argues that
voluntary action is a capacity that can only be understood in relation to an involun-
tary that stands over against it. This involuntary is something upon which and
through we act, and to which we must ultimately consent. It runs from a relative
involuntary (my body, which is the organ of my acting) to more recalcitrant forms
(my unconscious and the character I was born with) to an absolute involuntary
(that I was born and must die; that the world is something I did not create). For this
pure phenomenology of the will, questions about right or wrong, of good or evil, do
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee214
2
not yet appear. They do so only when our basic capacity to act is put into practice.
In actually acting, we bear witness to this fundamental capacity to act and to our
ability to impute our actions to ourselves through our testimony about who we are
and what we do.
The possibility of an ethical world view is thus already present, but it becomes
explicit for Ricoeur only when we introduce the problem of why human beings
misuse their capacity for action. Ricoeur characterizes this problem through what
he calls the “fault,” a constitutive fragility in human nature as finite. Finitude is not
the source or cause of evil or wrongdoing, but it does make it possible through this
fault line that runs through it. The fault that characterizes human existence, in other
words, is what allows people to know the good but choose not to do it, even to go so
far as to deny their own finite freedom. Ricoeur sees this fragility characterizing
finite human existence as evident first in the disproportionality to be found between
the finite perspective of our situated perception and the infinite aim of our language
by which we speak about it with its claim to universality. It appears next in the
tension between the finitude of our character and the infinitude of our ideal
understanding of happiness, and again in the tension between our feeling of
belonging to the totality of things and the intimacy of our being affected individually
by them here and now. The potential for a misuse of freedom, Ricoeur concludes, is
part of our human condition because we occupy a middle ground between pure
freedom (like that of a god who can create the world acted upon) and a sheer,
mechanical nature, an objective universe that does not include subjectivity. Yet, our
actual misuse of freedom cannot be fully accounted for using this concept of fragility,
since actual evil, which is the result of a breakdown owing to this fault, is ultimately,
as Kant said, inscrutable (see kant, immanuel). Evil, in other words, is for Ricoeur
ultimately not capable of rational explanation, and every attempt to explain it
rationally only raises new problems. This is why when people do speak of the origin
and the end of evil, they do so using myths and symbols such as stain, sin, and guilt.
In this way, they not only acknowledge the reality of evil, they also recognize they are
somehow responsible for it, even though evil is experienced as something that
paradoxically already exists prior any actual wrong choice or action on our part. We
can understand and communicate this paradox only indirectly, Ricoeur maintains,
through symbols that always mean more than one thing and myths that are intended
to explicate their multiple meanings. The need for philosophy to learn to make sense
of such myths and symbols, and to learn to think by starting from them, is what led
to a hermeneutic turn in Ricoeur’s thought. He relates this call for an expanded
philosophy to a concern for what he calls the “fullness of language,” i.e., a philosophy
of language that can include those forms of language that say more than one thing at
a time. He characterizes this fullness of language as a plurivocal discourse, one that
is irreducible to univocal propositions or meanings. This is why it always will call for
interpretation and requires a turn to a hermeneutic philosophy.
Ricoeur pursued this hermeneutic approach to language by considering forms of
discourse that are representative of such plurivocity: metaphor and narrative. Myths
are already forms of narrative, and live metaphors work like the double-meaning
3
expressiveness found in symbols. Narrative, in turn, as a form of extended discourse,

is analogous to an extended metaphor. Its expressive power is found in the power of
a plot to configure episodes into a single story. These investigations also included a
detour through Freud (see freud, sigmund), who Ricoeur saw as representative of
a hermeneutics of suspicion, that is, a theory of interpretation that begins from the
premise that nothing is really what it first appears to be or say, as opposed to a more
affirmative hermeneutic that believes plurivocal discourse can be understood as
meaningful and as indirectly expressing the truth. For the development of Ricoeur’s
ethics, what is important about this work is that the question of the agent as a self
who acts and has an identity appeared in this period from both sides, that of
suspicion and that of a fundamental commitment to the trustworthiness of ordinary
language. Ricoeur read Freud as presenting an archeology of the subject (not yet
called the self) and a theory of culture, i.e., a search for the origin and genesis of
selfhood in something that already exists in the unconscious and is expressed as
desire. This genetic account was to be completed by something like a Hegelian
teleological phenomenology (see hegel, georg wilhelm friedrich), one that
moves beyond its neurotic origins by transcending Freud’s own effort to explain the
semantics of desire reductively and mechanistically, even while holding to the ideal
of a possible cure and a healthy humanity. However, Ricoeur would later conclude
that this Hegelian approach can never be held to culminate in absolute knowledge,
that, in fact, today it is necessary to reject this understanding of Hegel. Still, to show
that a genesis of selfhood was conceivable, Ricoeur was able to point to those places
in Freud’s work, such as his discussions the work of art and the theory of sublimation,
where such a teleology appears. There, even for Freud, the work of art and sublimated
desire go beyond being merely the expression of some underlying neurosis. Narrative
plays a key role here. Narrative, which subsumes both history as written and fiction,
and includes Freud’s case studies, reveals the possibility of a narrative identity. This
way, understanding personal and communal identity helps answer the question of
who we are, either as individuals or as communities, through the stories we tell
about ourselves or others. Narrative identity also has a role to play in relation to the
world revealed by any narrative, a world we either see ourselves as inhabiting, or a
possible world we can imagine ourselves as inhabiting.
This idea of a narrative identity led Ricoeur to directly address the topic of
selfhood. He approached it through a series of steps that run from the level of
identifying reference (a semantic question: why “person” means more than just a
“thing”), to that of the speaking subject (a pragmatic approach), to the self understood
ontologically as the agent implicated in the questions of personal and narrative
identity. The self, in a word, answers the question “who” is acting. This is a self who
can act, speak, recount his or her actions, motives, experiences, and desires, and
who imputes these to him- or herself as one self among others. It is the question of
the ethical and moral determinations of such actions that finally led to Ricoeur’s
fullest expression of his moral philosophy, then to further exploration of what this
might mean when it comes to questions of just decisions and actions and just
institutions at the level of our lives together.
4
Ricoeur is a pluralist as regards our basic ethical aim. He acknowledges that

people can disagree and have disagreed about what constitutes a good life, and
that answers to this question may vary over time and depending on the place. One
consequence is that any moral philosophy must at some point take seriously the
question of the nature and limits of tolerance, a topic Ricoeur begins to address in
his late work. Moral philosophy must also acknowledge the possibility of suspi-
cion being directed against our idea of the good life, or how we intend to attain it,
or what we do in a given case – just as our basic testimony about who we are is
always open to the challenge, “I don’t believe you.” Basic moral beliefs, in other
words, are not a weak form of knowledge but something more fundamental. They
amount to a basic trust that the good life is possible, analogous to our confidence
in ourselves as capable human beings who can initiate action, talk about it, and
take responsibility for it.
Ricoeur’s basic point here is that a moral philosophy never begins from nothing.
It always will presuppose what people interpret or accept as a moral fact. This
starting point is most often expressed in the negative: something is not right, not
fair. Internally, it is felt as a lived sense that we are broken, not all that we could be.
This is why politics, for Ricoeur, which paradoxically is one ethical realm among
others and also the realm that encompasses all the others, too is itself always marked
by a basic fragility. It is always possible to argue not only about what law should be
passed, but also about what law is, or what good government is, or even what form
government should assume.
In relation to oneself, our moral responsibility mediates between our character –
or selfhood, in the sense of who we are – and its endurance over time, even when the
answer to the question who we are may change in some ways, even while we still
remain the same person and are identifiable as such. This can be seen in relation to
our narrative identity, in that we can tell stories about ourselves as a character in that
story and such stories can be told about us. It also is evident in relation to our
capacity to make and keep promises. Through such promise-making, we commit
ourselves to a future by saying to ourselves and others: you can count on me to be
there then. There is also the intersubjective dimension to consider. Individual
self-esteem depends on self-respect, but this only exists in relation to others and how
we act toward them or how they act toward us. This can go beyond simply following
a rule, as can be seen in acts of solicitude, which unfold the dialogical dimension of
our self-esteem, and of reciprocity, which involve relationships of both giving and
receiving. Hence, beyond any simple sense of obligation to others as selves like
myself, there is a possibility of both benevolent spontaneity and acting and suffering
with them. The golden rule plays its part here for Ricoeur as the supreme maxim of
morality beyond any sense of mere obligation. It can be expressed positively or
negatively: do to others what you want them to do to you; do not do to others what
you would not want them to do to you. However, there is also always room for
tragedy, the possibility that a clash among values may lead to disaster. In this sense,
moral philosophy for Ricoeur never completely removes or answers the question of
evil, particularly in the sense of deliberately choosing the bad over the good. Moral
5
philosophy rather makes room for a hope that evil can and will be overcome. In the
case of religion, this may take the form of what Ricoeur metaphorically calls a “logic
of superabundance.” The “logic” in question here is a language game and its
corresponding way of life, not a formal abstract system. It is faith in a promise that
not only will evil be overcome; it will be complemented by a superlative more that
will make sense of everything in the end, even beyond any idea of happiness as the
highest good.
Beyond face-to-face relations with others, the notions of justice and just
institutions come into play. Other selves are alike in their all being selves, but they
are not all the same in that some are known to us in an intimate way, while others are
anonymous and may even be people we will never meet face-to-face. Therefore, at
this level, a new sense of equality arises, because while selves are “each” a self, here
they are so in a more anonymous way than at the level of everyday face-to-face
encounters, as in families or among friends. Questions of what is right and of rights
therefore play a more prominent role, as does the idea of an impartial but not
infallible third party – a judge, for example – who is called upon to examine and
evaluate disputes or crimes without taking either side. The idea of a just solution
where a conflict exists therefore can be said to mediate between the ideas of the good
and the legal. Also, at this level, questions of a fair distribution of what Rawls calls
basic goods arise (see rawls, john). Because what constitutes such basic goods can
be disputed, Ricoeur, unlike Rawls, thinks such questions cannot be answered solely
in terms of procedures or a theory based solely on the idea of a social contract. The
idea of a fair procedure always presupposes some prior understanding of the good.
In fact, our willingness to live together, which is constitutive of the social bond,
always is based more on shared, often inherited values than on calculations of
abstract ends and the means to attain them. Nor can formal principles ever exhaust
our sense of what constitutes justice and injustice. What we can say is that the search
for a just solution always begins from a sense of unfairness, of injustice. This means
that the search for what Rawls calls a kind of rational or reflective equilibrium
ultimately will appear to reason to be circular, and even something like a basic
fiction. Yet, this is a fiction that reveals a possible world we might inhabit, so this
circle has to be understood as not being a vicious one. The search for universality
offers an initial constraint on this circle. The test of violence as something to be
avoided provides a second constraint. Hence, Ricoeur ultimately takes his distance
from Kant’s moral philosophy. He sees every attempt at a transcendental perspective
based on a purely formal reason as presupposing something like the “awareness”
expressed in our basic attestation that “I/we can,” where the I or we attested to is
always a concrete, existing someone or some people. Ricoeur further thinks that
there is always a concealed affective element involved – for example, even in what
Kant calls respect for the law – that needs to be acknowledged, so he questions
whether Kant’s idea of freedom is too radical. This is why Kant cannot really remove
the problem of radical evil. A respect for persons is needed, but it is one that
culminates in what Hegel called Sittlichkeit, an ethical world that transcends
individuals. The moral self, therefore, for Ricoeur, is situated between what Husserl
6
called the transcendental ego that constitutes other selves as like itself (see husserl,
edmund) and what Emmanuel Levinas sees as a self totally hostage to the face of the
other and ultimately as constituted solely through its encounter with the other (see
levinas, emmanuel).
In his last works on the questions of the just, recognition, and translation, Ricoeur
continued to explore and develop this moral philosophy. In his essays on the idea of
the just and the search for just solutions, he adds the idea that what is at issue is a just
distance among the parties involved, one that preserves or restores a peaceful relation
between oneself and others. These states of peace are ones that provide a place for
both real individuality and a shared community, even when that community includes
numerous social and cultural worlds. A just solution, in other words, is what restores
or seeks to restore their capacity to act to the parties involved. These just decisions
are better thought of in terms of a judgment based on an interpretation than as the
result of a logical deduction, although these interpretations will always include some
kind of argumentation. This is why, in Ricoeur’s late work, the idea of imputation
comes to play an important role alongside that of attestation in his earlier work on
selfhood. We impute responsibility and a capacity to act to ourselves and to others
when confronted with questions of right and wrong, praise and blame, or how goods
are to be distributed. The idea of a single common good comes in this way to be the
idea of a limit notion for Ricoeur.
Turning to the question of history in relation to memory, Ricoeur also devoted
attention to the nature and role of forgiveness, which was already implicit in what he
had said about promises and religious faith. To forgive is not easy, but it is possible,
and to forgive does not mean to forget. These are principles that are applicable as
much to the horrors and villains of the past as to cases of present-day crime and
criminals. Ricoeur therefore questioned the idea of amnesty as a kind of enforced
forgetting, arguing instead for what he calls a memory held in reserve. This enables
a sometimes necessary forgetting that makes action in the present and future possible
again. Memory that can preserve and even commemorate, but also forgive and
forget, is thus another fundamental human capacity. Similarly, in his last book on
recognition, Ricoeur is clearer about how recognition plays a central role in the
constituting of intersubjective relations and a just distance. However, there he also
sees more clearly that there is a distinction to be drawn between mere reciprocity
and truly mutual recognition. It is the latter that is constitutive of states of peace and,
as such, is like a gift. This is a gift that does not require a gift in return, in the sense
of paying others back for what was received. It calls instead for a second gift, a gift
that is passed on because it was undeservedly received in the first place.
Finally, in a few late essays on translation, Ricoeur returned again to the question
of language. He did so this time specifically on the basis of two claims: translation
has always existed (hence it does not presuppose a preexisting theory) and transla-
tion occurs not only between languages but also within languages, in the sense that
everything can be said in more than one way. He therefore sees the sheer plurality of
human languages and the possibility of saying things in another way as suggesting
the possibility for a linguistic hospitality analogous to our welcoming the stranger.
7
This need for linguistic hospitality, in turn, suggests something like a need for moral
hospitality. Hence, the practice of translation can be said to add something to the
question of the practice of tolerance when people disagree or appear to disagree
regarding moral questions. In the end, they may be driven back to the level of their
basic self-attestations as capable human beings and the possibility that these basic
convictions can be phrased another way. Recognizing this can serve both to help us
recognize the limits of plurality and the place where unnecessary violence and
suffering begin. This recognition, in turn, may help to turn us back to the question
a good life, lived with and for all others in just institutions.
See also: freud, sigmund; hegel, georg wilhelm friedrich; husserl,

edmund; kant, immanuel; levinas, emmanuel; rawls, john
REFERENCE
Ricoeur, Paul 1966. Freedom and Nature: The Voluntary and Involuntary. Evanston, IL:
FURTHER READINGS
Pellauer, David 2007. Ricoeur: A Guide for the Perplexed. London and New York: Continuum.
Reagan, Charles E. 1996. Paul Ricoeur: His Life and Work. Chicago and London: University of
Chicago Press.
The Ricoeur Archive. http://www.fondsricoeur.fr/index.php?lang=en.
Ricoeur, Paul 1970. Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation, trans. Denis Savage.
Ricoeur, Paul 1974. The Conflict of Interpretations, ed. Don Ihde. Evanston: Northwestern
University Press.
Ricoeur, Paul 1991. From Text to Action: Essays in Hermeneutics II, trans. Kathleen Blamey
and John B. Thompson. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Ricoeur, Paul 1992. Oneself as Another, trans. Kathleen Blamey. Chicago and London:
Ricoeur, Paul 1995. “Love and Justice,” Figuring the Sacred. Minneapolis: Fortress Press,
pp. 315–29.
Ricoeur, Paul 2000. The Just, trans. David Pellauer. Chicago and London: University of
Chicago Press.
Ricoeur, Paul 2004. Memory, History, Forgetting, trans. Kathleen Blamey and David Pellauer.
Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
Ricoeur, Paul 2006. On Translation, trans. Eileen Brennan. London and New York: Routledge.
Ricoeur, Paul 2007. Reflections on the Just, trans. David Pellauer. Chicago and London:
Vansina, F. D. 2008. Paul Ricoeur: Bibliography 1935–2008. Leuven: Peeters.
1
Police Ethics
Seumas Miller
The term “police ethics” typically refers to an area of academic inquiry within
philosophical ethics concerned with ethical issues that arise for police officers and
police organizations (Heffernan and Stroup 1985; Delattre 1994; Kleinig 1996a; Miller
and Blackler 2005). Let me describe some of the main ethical or moral (I use the terms
interchangeably here to avoid unnecessary complication) issues that arise in policing.
As with other socially important institutions and occupations (see professional
ethics), the role of police officers and police organizations raises various foundational
normative questions pertaining to their nature and the moral purposes that they serve or
ought to serve. In response to these questions, a number of normative theories of polic-
ing have been developed, notably a social contract theory (Cohen and Feldberg 1991;
Kleinig 1996a; see social contract) and a teleological rights-based theory (Miller and
Blackler 2005: Ch. 1; see rights). Moreover, there are various descriptive theories of
policing proffered by theoretical criminologists, for example, that of Egon Bittner who
defines policing in terms of the use of coercive force (Bittner 1980; see coercion).
The social contract theory will be familiar to students of political philosophy
since it is a version of that propounded by Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and the like.
Roughly speaking, persons in a highly insecure state of nature make an agreement
or contract to provide themselves with security by giving up at least some of the
rights that they enjoy in the state of nature to a government with a monopoly on the
use of force (the police service).
In the teleological rights-based theory of policing, the protection of moral rights
is the central and most important moral purpose of police work, albeit an end whose
pursuit ought to be constrained by the law (Miller and Blackler 2005: Ch. 1; see
criminal justice ethics). Hence, while police institutions have other important
purposes that might not directly involve the protection of moral rights, such as to
enforce traffic laws or to enforce the adjudications of courts in relation to disputes
between citizens, or indeed themselves to settle disputes between citizens on the
streets, or to ensure good order more generally, these turn out to be purposes derived
from the more fundamental purpose of protecting moral rights, or they turn out to
be (nonderivative) secondary purposes. Thus, laws against speeding derive in part
from the moral right to life, and the restoring of order at a football match ultimately
derives in large part from moral rights to the protection of persons and of property.
If the central and most important end of policing is the protection of moral rights,
what of the means? The achievement of this fundamental end requires specialized
skills, knowledge, and individual judgment (see moral judgment). However, there
is a crucial further defining feature of policing, namely the routine and inescapable
use of harmful methods (see harm), including coercive force, deception, and the
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee215
2
infringement of privacy. Some of these methods might not be regarded as harmful,

for example, the surveillance of people who are unaware that they are under
surveillance, and to that extent, therefore, are unharmed. However, the methods in
question, even if not directly and immediately harmful, infringe moral rights, for
example, the right to privacy, or are otherwise in breach of moral principles.
Moreover, one way or the other, these methods typically cause harm to someone, for
example, when surveillance tapes are produced as evidence. Naturally, sometimes
causing minor harm to those who commit serious offences is unavoidable if they are
to be brought to justice; in such cases, there is a clear moral justification. Matters are
less clear-cut when the harm done is substantial or when the suspect turns out to be
innocent. Indeed, in some cases, the rights of persons known by the police to
be entirely innocent are foreseeably infringed, for example, intrusive surveillance of
a criminal who frequently interacts with family members who are not criminals.
This combination of good ends and morally problematic means is a distinctive
feature of policing and one that gives rise to acute moral dilemmas.
There are a number of ethical problems that arise in relation to both the individual
authority of police officers and the independence or sphere of authority of police
organizations vis-à-vis government, in particular (see authority). Issues include
the problematic concept of operational autonomy and its importance in relation to,
for example, the need for investigatory independence of police from government,
and the concept of the original authority attaching to the office of constable in the
United Kingdom and Australia. Moreover, there is the related and much discussed
concept of police discretion (Davis 1975; Doyle 1985; Kleinig 1996b).
The law has to be interpreted and applied in concrete circumstances (see criminal
law). There is a need for exercise of discretion by police in the interpretation and
application of the law. And the law does not exhaustively prescribe. Accordingly, a
number of police responses might be possible in a given situation, and all of them
might be consistent with the law. Further, upholding and enforcing the law is only
one of the ends of policing – others include maintaining of social calm and the
preservation of life. When these various ends come into conflict, there is a need for
the exercise of police discretion, and in particular the need for the exercise of
discretionary ethical judgment. The judgments in question are typically ethical
judgments since they involve a conflict between ethical or moral ends or between
such ends and harmful means. For example, deciding whether to arrest a youth in a
volatile ghetto area who is committing an offence may be the wrong decision if such
an attempt would lead to a situation of uncontainable public disorder. There is a
clear moral duty to arrest offenders. However, there is also a clear moral duty not to
cause public disorder (see duty and obligation).
The unavoidability of the exercise of discretionary ethical judgment in policing
means that it will never be sufficient for police simply to learn, and act in accordance
with, the legally enshrined ethical principles governing the use of harmful methods.
Police culture is another much discussed phenomenon in the literature on police
ethics and, indeed, in academic and other literature, more generally (Skolnick 1975).
Police culture is characterized by a high degree of solidarity among police officers.
3
This is in part due to the trust that individual police officers need to be able to place
in one another, given the dangers that they face in their work.
The morally problematic features of police culture have often been noted, for exam-
ple, feelings of loyalty on the part of fellow officers which protects the criminal actions
of police (Kleinig 2004). However, loyalty and other elements of police culture also
serve to further legitimate police purposes, for example, by ensuring that fellow offic-
ers cooperate effectively in stressful, including life-threatening, situations.
Historically, corruption has been a feature of police organizations in many, if not
most, jurisdictions (Sherman 1974; Miller and Blackler 2005: Ch. 5; see corruption).
Corruption takes many forms in policing, including theft, bribe-taking, “testilying,”
and fabricating or withholding evidence. Notoriously, the use of coercive force by
police is on occasion not only morally unjustified – indeed a violation of the rights
of suspects – it is also an act of corruption; it corrupts morally and legally legitimate
processes and purposes. Consider, in this connection, the use of the so-called “third
degree” to extract a confession from suspects. Here, it is important to distinguish
common or garden variety corruption, for example, greedy police officers helping
themselves to drug money, from so-called noble cause corruption, for example, fab-
ricating evidence against a heroin dealer. The latter is corruption in the service of a
good end and is typically believed to be morally justified by those engaged in it
(Klockars 1980; Delattre 1994; Miller 2004).
There are a number of factors which contribute to the moral vulnerability of
police officers and, as a consequence, to police corruption. These include: (1) the
necessity at times for police officers to deploy harmful methods, such as coercion
and deception, which are normally regarded as immoral; (2) the high levels of
discretionary authority and power (see power) exercised by police officers in
circumstances in which close supervision is not possible; (3) police officers having
ongoing interaction with corrupt persons who have an interest in compromising
and corrupting police; (4) police confronting morally ambiguous lose/lose situations
calling for discretionary ethical judgments; and (5) in contemporary times, police
officers operating in an environment in which there is widespread use of illegal
drugs, large amounts of drug money, and little evidence that the drugs problem is
being adequately addressed.
The term “integrity system” has recently come into vogue in relation to the
problem of corruption whether it be in organizations, occupational groups, or,
indeed, whole polities and communities (Alexandra and Miller 2010). However,
integrity systems are not simply concerned with corruption; rather they are focused
more generally on the problem of promoting ethical behavior and eliminating or
reducing unethical behavior. Nevertheless, corruption reduction is a key focus.
Here, the term “system” is somewhat misleading, in that it implies a clear and
distinct set of integrated institutional mechanisms operating in unison and in
accordance with determinate mechanical, or at least quasi-mechanical, principles.
However, in practice, integrity “systems” are a messy assemblage of formal and
informal devices and processes, and they operate in often indeterminate and
unpredictable ways.
4
Integrity systems for police organizations can and do vary; however, such systems
ought to have at least the following components or aspects:
● an effective, streamlined complaints and discipline system;

● a comprehensive suite of stringent vetting and induction processes reflective of
the different levels of risk in different areas of the organization;
● a basic code of ethics and specialized codes of practice, for example, in relation
to the use of firearms, supported by ethics education in recruitment training and
ongoing professional development programs;
● adequate welfare support systems, for example, in relation to drug and alcohol
abuse, and psychological injury;
● intelligence gathering, risk management, and early warning systems for at-risk
officers, for example, officers with high levels of complaints;
● internal investigations, i.e., the police organization takes a high degree of respon-
sibility for its own unethical officers;
● pro-active anti-corruption intervention systems, for example, integrity testing
(setting traps) of officers suspected of corruption;
● ethical leadership, for example, police leaders who give priority to the collective
ends definitive of the organization rather than their own career ambitions are the
ones promoted;
● external oversight by an independent, well-resourced body with investigative
powers.
Naturally, the use of coercive and, especially lethal, force is a very important
ethical issue in police work (Waddington 1991; see killing). There are a number
of justifications offered for police use of deadly force, including those available
to ordinary citizens, namely, self-defense and defense of the rights of others (see
self-defense). These justifications presuppose compliance with the principles
of necessity and proportionality. If containment and negotiation is a viable
option in relation to an armed offender, then it should be preferred to the use of
deadly force; it is not necessary to use deadly force. Fleeing pickpockets should
not be shot dead by police since deadly force is a disproportionate response to
minor theft.
In addition to self-defense and defense of the rights of others, there is a justification
for police use of deadly force that is ordinarily not available to ordinary citizens,
namely, the use of deadly force to enforce the law. Arguably, the latter justification is
not simply a special case of one of the other two justifications (Miller and Blackler
2005: Ch. 3).
Consider the possible moral justifications for the use of deadly force in cases in
which the police confront a choice of either letting an offender go free or shooting
him or her. In these types of cases, the police are not necessarily engaged in self-defense.
In many of these cases, the best thing for police officers – if they were interested in
self-defense – would be to get back into their patrol cars and return to the police
station. Nor are they necessarily cases of killing in defense of others. The lives of
5
ordinary citizens might not be at risk. For example, an offender – say, an armed
burglar – might simply want to be left alone to spend his ill-gotten gains.
It might be argued against this that the police are engaged in self-defense – since
they are doing their moral duty in trying to apprehend the suspect, he ought not
resist them, and if he does resist them, then their action of killing him is self-defense.
After all, it might be claimed, he would have killed them if they had not killed him.
This response is flawed. It is simply false that he would have killed them if they
had not killed him. The police had the option of not killing the suspect, or of
retreating after they had begun the pursuit. What is true is that they have a duty to
apprehend the suspect, and they cannot avoid shooting him on pain of failing to
discharge this duty. However, while the existence of this duty may render their
killing of the suspect morally legitimate, it does not transform the killing into a case
of self-defense, or of defense of others. Indeed, to claim that it does is to obscure the
moral considerations in play here – to make it appear that the moral predicament of
the police is simply one of choosing between their lives and the life of the suspect, as
would be so in a genuine case of self-defense.
Suspects have moral (and legal) rights that are infringed by some of the harmful
methods deployed by police, such as deception and surveillance (Skolnick 1982;
Marx 1982).
Some of these police methods are less harmful than others, and some are morally
justified in some circumstances but not others. Thus, an intrusive bodily search can
not only be an invasion of privacy, it can also have a psychologically damaging effect.
And this can be so even if the search was morally justified. Again, police deception
in the investigative stage might be morally justifiable, but not in the testimonial
stage in the courtroom (Miller 2011).
Police use of undercover operatives, including in order to trap offenders, gives
rise to a range of complex ethical issues (Dworkin 1985; Kleinig 1996a; Miller and
Blackler 2005: Ch. 3). In some undercover operations, police in effect act as
observers, albeit inside-observers. The offenders commit the offences that they
commit independently of the actions of the undercover operatives. However, often,
undercover operatives interact with offenders in such a way as to make a difference
to whether or not, or when, where, or how, an offence is committed. The police
actually set a trap for the suspected offenders. Given the deception and infringement
of privacy involved in such traps, they should be used sparingly. Moreover, there is a
danger that such traps will actually create crime by causing suspects to engage in
crimes that they would not otherwise have committed.
The conditions under which the trapping of suspected offenders by police might
be morally permissible are as follows.
First, there are a number of such general conditions, such as the condition that the
method of trapping is the only feasible method available to law enforcement agencies
in relation to a certain type of offence, and that the offence type is a serious one.
Second, the trap should be the targeted trapping of a person (or group) who is/are
reasonably suspected of engaging in crimes of the relevant kind; it should not be the
random trapping of citizens to test their virtue.
6
Third, the suspect is ordinarily presented with, or typically creates, the kind of
opportunity that they are to be afforded in the trapping scenario.
Fourth, the inducement offered to the suspect is: (a) of a kind that is typically
available to the suspect, and; (b) such that an ordinary citizen would reasonably be
expected to resist it. This condition rules out excessive inducements, and therefore
one way in which crime might be created by the police.
Fifth, the person not only has a disposition to commit the type of crime in relation
to which they are to be trapped, but also a standing intention to commit that type of
crime. This condition not only protects those with inoperative inclinations to crime,
but also those with a fleeting intention to commit a one-off crime – an intention not
underpinned by any disposition to criminal activity. Evidence of a disposition to
commit a type of crime might consist of an uninterrupted pattern of past crimes of
that type, and no evidence of any change in attitude or circumstance. Evidence of a
standing intention to commit that type of crime might be verbal and/or evidence of
current detailed planning activities, and/or attempts to provide the means to commit
such crimes.
See also: authority; coercion; corruption; criminal justice ethics;

criminal law; duty and obligation; harm; killing; moral judgment;
power; professional ethics; rights; self-defense; social contract
REFERENCES
Alexandra, Andrew, and Seumas Miller 2010. Integrity Systems for Occupations. Aldershot:
Ashgate.
Bittner, Egon 1980. “The Capacity to Use Coercive Force as the Core of the Police Role,” The
Functions of the Police in Modern Society. Cambridge, MA: Oelgeschlager, Gunn & Hain
Publishers, pp. 36–47.
Cohen, Howard, and Michael Feldberg 1991. “A Social Contract Perspective on the Police Role,”
Power and Restraint: The Moral Dimension of Policework. New York: Praeger, pp. 23–38.
Davis, K. C. 1975. “The Pervasive False Pretense of Full Enforcement,” Police Discretion.
St Paul, MI: West Publishing Company, pp. 52–77.
Delattre, E. J. 1994. “Tragedy and ‘Noble Cause’ Corruption,” Character and Cops. Washington,
DC: AEI Press, pp. 190–214.
Doyle, James F. 1985. “Police Discretion, Legality and Morality,” in W. C. Heffernan and
T. Stroup (eds.), Police Ethics: Hard Choices for Law Enforcement. New York: John Jay
Press, pp. 47–68.
Dworkin, Gerald 1985. “The Serpent Beguiled Me and I Did Eat: Entrapment and the
Creation of Crime,” Law and Philosophy, vol. 4, pp. 17–39.
Heffernan, William, C., and Timothy Stroup (eds.) 1985. Police Ethics: Hard Choices for Law
Enforcement. New York: John Jay Press.
Kleinig, John 1996a. The Ethics of Policing. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Kleinig, John (ed.) 1996b. Handled with Discretion. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman &
Littlefield.
Kleinig, John 2004. “The Problematic Virtue of Loyalty,” in Peter Villiers and Robert Adlam
(eds.), Policing a Safe, Just and Tolerant Society. Winchester: Waterside Press, pp. 78–87.
7
Klockars, Karl 1980. “The Dirty Harry Problem,” The Annals of the American Academy of
Political and Social Science, vol. 451 (November), pp. 33–47.
Marx, Gary T. 1982. “Who Really Gets Stung? Some Issues Raised by the New Police
Undercover Work,” Crime and Delinquency, vol. 28, no. 2 (January), pp. 165–93.
Miller, Seumas 2004. “Noble Cause Corruption Revisited,” in Peter Villiers and Robert
Adlam (eds.), Policing a Safe, Just and Tolerant Society. Winchester: Waterside Press,
pp. 78–87.
Miller, Seumas 2011. Investigative Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell.
Miller, Seumas, and John Blackler 2005. Ethical Issues in Policing. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Sherman, Lawrence 1974. “Becoming Bent,” Police Corruption: A Sociological Perspective.
New York: Anchor/Doubleday, pp. 191–208.
Skolnick, Jerome 1975. “A Sketch of the Policeman’s ‘Working Personality’, ” in Jerome
Skolnick (ed.), Justice without Trial, 2nd ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, pp. 42–70.
Skolnick, Jerome 1982. “Deception by Police,” Criminal Justice Ethics, vol. 1, no. 2 (Summer/
Fall), pp. 40–54.
Waddington, P. A. 1991. “Deadly Force,” The Strong Arm of the Law. Oxford: Clarendon
Press, pp. 75–120.
FURTHER READINGS
Bittner, Egon 1972. The Functions of the Police in Modern Society: A Review of Background
Factors, Current Practices, and Possible Role Models. Cambridge, MA: Oelgeschlager,
Gunn & Hain Publishers.
Cohen, Howard, and Michael Feldberg 1991. Power and Restraint: The Moral Dimension of
Policework. New York: Praeger.
Crank, J. P. 1998. Understanding Police Culture. Ottawa: Anderson Publishing.
Miller, Seumas 2010. “The Police,” The Moral Foundations of Social Institutions: A Philosophical
Study. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 245–76.
Miller, Seumas, and John Blackler 2005. Ethical Issues in Policing. Hampshire, UK:
Ashgate.
Miller, Seumas, John Blackler, and Alex Alexandra 2006. Police Ethics, 2nd ed. Crows Nest,
NSW: Allen and Unwin.
Neyroud, Peter, and Alan Beckley 2001. Policing, Ethics and Human Rights. Uffculme: Willan
Publishing.
1
Global Poverty
Christian Barry and Scott Wisor
Normative discussions of global poverty have been focused on developing adequate

answers to the following two questions:
(1) What, precisely, does global poverty consist in, and how should it be
measured over time?
(2) What moral grounds are there for taking different agents to have duties to
address global poverty?
Question (1) concerns the characterization of global poverty, Question (2) relates to
how responsibilities to address it can be justified. We discuss each one in turn.
The Meaning of Global Poverty

The general concept of poverty is not contested; poverty is widely understood
as a lack or deprivation. However, like other evaluative concepts such as “ justice,”
“fairness,” and “impartiality,” the concept of poverty has no clearly definable
and specific use that can be set up as standard or correct (see justice;
impartiality).
Specific conceptions of global poverty can be distinguished from one another in
terms of the answers they give to three main questions:
(i) What information is relevant to the evaluation of poverty?

(ii) What is the relative importance of different kinds of information in
determining whether or not an individual’s overall living standard is such
that they should be deemed poor?
(iii) How, if at all, is information about the standard of living of individuals com-
bined to give aggregate measures of poverty within a group or a country?
Question (i) is the most foundational of these three questions – it is on this question
that many philosophers have concentrated, and on which the first part of this essay
will focus.
Competing understandings of poverty-relevant information

There are five major competing understandings of the information that is relevant
to identifying global poverty.
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee216
2
Income/consumption Global poverty as a shortage of income is by far the dominant

conception of poverty. On this account, poverty is either a shortage of income or a
shortage of consumption that can be priced in income terms.
The dominant measure of global poverty is the World Bank’s International Poverty
Line, which is supposed to be a reflection of the national income poverty lines in a
representative sample of poor countries, adjusting for differences in purchasing
power of different currencies. The International Poverty Line has been revised
several times, but currently it stands at $1.25 USD 2005 Purchasing Power Parity;
that is, the value of the international poverty line is supposed to be the amount of
local currency that has the same purchasing power as $1.25 had in the United States
in 2005. It is the only global, regular measure of the number of poor individuals.
This monetized conception of poverty has been subject to a number of serious
objections. Income-based approaches have been criticized for failing to take account of
(a) the multidimensional nature of poverty, which includes non-monetary goods like
education, health, and sanitation; (b) the different needs of differently situated indi-
viduals; (c) the differential ability of individuals to convert income into welfare; and (d)
the differential access to other assets that can help one avoid deprivation. The
International Poverty Line in particular has been shown to be problematic for the pur-
poses of global poverty assessments. The comparisons across context and over time are
meaningless because they rely on methods of international price comparison that take
into account the cost of all goods within an economy, instead of those goods that are
most likely to be consumed by poor people. Furthermore, the distribution and extent
of global poverty varies widely depending on the selection of a base year for the price
comparisons, and the selection of that base year is arbitrary (Reddy and Pogge, 2003).
The interesting question now is whether substantial revisions to the International
Poverty Line that take account of the power of poor people to purchase the kinds of
goods that are relevant to meeting their needs can make it a more meaningful measure.
Basic needs One alternative to the income approach is the basic needs approach,
which conceives of poverty as a deprivation or lack of either the means necessary to
satisfy basic needs or the actual satisfaction of those needs (see needs).
The basic needs (BN) approach has its roots in Maslow’s (1943) hierarchy of basic
needs. Lists of basic needs and the levels at which they are satisfied vary. Frances
Stewart reports that “the actual content of BN have been [sic] variously defined: they
always include the fulfillment of certain standards of nutrition (food and water), and
the universal provision of health and education services. They sometimes also cover
other material needs, such as shelter and clothing, and non-material needs such as
employment, participation, and political liberty” (1985: 1).
The basic needs approach is intuitively plausible. Human beings have certain
needs, such that, if they cannot satisfy them to a sufficient degree, they would gener-
ally be deemed poor. The basic needs approach also seems capable of addressing
problems of comparison over time and across contexts.
More problematically, however, in practice the basic needs approach devalues
the agency of poor people, treating them as static, de-contextualized, and
3
homogenous units of consumption and production, ignoring questions about

agency, choice, and the role of social and institutional structures (see autonomy).
The basic needs approach guided much of development practice in the 1970s and
1980s, which was characteristically defined by top-down projects that were not
responsive to the actions and preferences of poor people. However, the basic needs
approach can be revised to accommodate some of these objections. Doyal and
Gough (1991: 49–69), for example, make autonomy one of two primary basic needs
of persons.
Capabilities First formulated by Amartya Sen, the capabilities approach (see

capabilities) provides both a theory of well-being and a conception of poverty.
Capabilities are substantive freedoms to live the kinds of lives that people have good
reason to value (Sen 1999: 87). Sen argues that poverty is best viewed as the
deprivation of basic capabilities. This is because “capability deprivation is more
important as a criterion of disadvantage than is the lowness of income, since income
is only instrumentally important and its derivative value is contingent on many
social and economic circumstances” (1999: 131). Basic capabilities are understood
as “the ability to satisfy certain crucially important functionings up to certain mini-
mally adequate levels” (Sen 1993: 41). Functionings refer to things that a person
“manages to do or be in leading a life” (1993: 31). The capability set of a person is the
set of functionings that that person can choose or achieve. A person is deemed poor
if s/he comes to lack these capabilities to sufficient degree.
Though the capabilities approach is widely affirmed in much contemporary
development practice and study, some have argued that it is inferior to resourcist
theories, which assess individual disadvantage with reference to the resources to
which an individual has access, including but without being limited to, income and
wealth (Pogge 2002). Others have argued that the capabilities approach is overly
individualistic and ignores the importance of community (Gore 1997). From a
measurement perspective, it is not clear how the capability approach is distinct from
measuring basic needs or rights deprivations – in all cases, it may be most practical
to measure the achievements of individuals. Measuring agency and/or freedom
raises particularly difficult challenges.
Nonetheless, the capabilities approach remains a critical contribution to the
practice of development, focusing attention on expanding substantive freedoms for
autonomous agents rather than merely trying to satisfy basic needs. Since agency is
central to the capabilities approach, development programs grounded in this
approach seek to respect the agency and choice of poor people. The capabilities
approach has also importantly highlighted the ways in which diverse personal het-
erogeneities and social locations can affect the overall disadvantage a person faces
even when presented with apparently equal resources. For example, capability the-
orists have extensively discussed the role of disability as a primary subject of social
justice theorizing, and they have made strong arguments that a disabled person
needs far more resources than her peers to reach the same capabilities (Sen 2009:
258–60).
4
Social exclusion French philosopher René Lenoir is credited with developing for the
first time the concept of social exclusion, to describe those individuals who were not
supported by the welfare state and were somehow stigmatized, including individuals
with special mental and physical needs, the elderly, and the invalid (Lenoir 1989).
Social exclusion is focused on the exclusion of individuals and groups from “normal
social processes.” Social exclusion has come to be an expansive concept, encompassing
exclusion from “a livelihood; secure, permanent employment; earnings; property,
credit, or land; housing; minimal or prevailing consumption levels; education, skills,
and cultural capital; the welfare state; citizenship and legal equality; democratic
participation; public goods; the nation or the dominant race; family and sociability;
humanity, respect, fulfillment, and understanding” (Silver 1995: 60).
The social exclusion approach importantly highlights the relational features of
deprivation (that is, its effects on other people and institutions) and the dynamic
processes that result in deprivation, rather than focusing merely on unencumbered
individuals and their isolated deprivations. Much anti-poverty work and analysis
has become depoliticized, but the social exclusion approach, by focusing on relations,
necessarily maintains power and politics as central to understanding poverty.
However, despite the relevance of processes and relations to deprivation, the
social exclusion approach encounters serious challenges when it is used in a global
perspective. Even if some processes can be judged “normal” in some circumstances,
given the vast internal diversity of many countries and the diversity of processes
between countries, it is less clear whether the concept of social exclusion can be used
to make assessments needed for global distributive justice (Gore 1994). Long-term
formal unemployment is central to social exclusion approaches in Europe, but this
is of little analytical value in contexts where most people work in the informal sector.
Rights Finally, poverty can be conceived of as a deprivation of a certain set of

socio-economic rights (see rights). There are two distinct strains of thought in this
approach. On the one hand, human rights are seen as instrumentally important to
poverty alleviation. More interestingly and controversially, rights deprivations can
be seen as constitutive of poverty. The lack of secure access to, or of an institutional
guarantee of, certain fundamental social and economic rights is itself poverty. These
rights arguably include, among other things, the right to subsistence (including safe
air, food, water, shelter, and clothing), education, healthcare (Nickel 2005: 388) and,
more expansively, the right to certain forms of social security (United Nations 1948:
Art. 22) and decent work (Art. 23). International law has long recognized social and
economic rights, beginning with Articles 22 to 26 of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights and subsequently in the International Covenant on Economic, Social,
and Cultural Rights.
Human rights present philosophical challenges: What, if anything, are they? What
status, if any, do they have? What rights, if any, should there be? And how, if at all,
can they be justified? Anti-poverty rights face additional challenges, especially from
philosophers who only defend limited, libertarian, negative rights but reject the
basis for other, allegedly positive rights (see libertarianism). Furthermore, the
5
measurement of anti-poverty rights risks merely measuring the formal existence of

anti-poverty rights, without providing any information on actual individual
deprivation or measuring individual achievements; seemingly it abandons the rights
framework.
Nonetheless, it seems plausible that, if there are any human rights, then anti-poverty
rights should be among them. If one is malnourished or starving to death, it is difficult
to argue that one’s rights to free speech, trial by jury, or voting are adequately protected
(Shue 1980). This need not entail the claim that all socioeconomic rights are correlated
with duties of all individuals, but rather that institutions should be structured such
that individuals have a reasonable chance of securing anti-poverty rights.
Gender and poverty

Most purportedly gender-neutral conceptions of poverty tend not to take into
account adequately the deprivations suffered by women. For example, income/
consumption-based poverty ignores the degree and kind of work one has to do to
meet a certain level of consumption, thus obscuring the unjust distribution of
burdens and responsibilities on women. Gender neutrality also obscures questions
about who has the ability to make decisions regarding the use of resources within
the household. For example, Sylvia Chant argues that female-headed households are
frequently identified as the poorest of the poor; but this identification is based on a
narrow assessment of household income poverty. Because women in these
households have control over the resources they do acquire, they might be much
better off than they would be if they were in a male-headed household with higher
income, in which they could not control the intra-household distribution of
resources (Chant 2007). All conceptions of poverty that take the household to be the
unit of analysis ignore the intra-household distribution of deprivation.
A gendering of the conceptual analysis of poverty may play two roles in improving
current conceptions and measures. First, making gender central to the conceptual
analysis of poverty may highlight deprivations that both men and women face and
that have been overlooked. For example, the deprivation of leisure time or a lack of
physical security may be best understood as deprivations that are constitutive
of poverty. Second, gendered analysis may illuminate how issues frequently thought
of as independent from poverty, such as control, power, secure access, and
vulnerability, may be better thought of as constituent of, or at least closely related to,
poverty rather than as distinct from it (see feminist ethics).
Responsibility for Addressing Global Poverty

On any plausible understanding of the meaning of poverty, there is a great deal of
poverty in our world, much of it severe. This fact is generally held to be not merely
unfortunate or regrettable, but morally unacceptable. This is not to say that global
poverty could be avoided completely – which it could not, even if all those with
responsibilities to address these problems did their share – but that the magnitude
6
of poverty in our world is due in part to the failure of some agents to meet their
responsibilities (see responsibility).
Any account of responsibilities for addressing global poverty must incorporate one
or more principles for allocating such responsibilities among the agents that might
possibly bear them: individual persons, collective agents such as nongovernmental
organizations, corporations, and states, or more dispersed and loosely affiliated
groups and collectivities. These principles identify both the agents that have
responsibilities with respect to acute deprivation and the content of their responsibilities
to address it; in short, they tell us who bears responsibilities and what these
responsibilities are. Two types of principles are most commonly invoked in support of
the claim that we – the affluent in the developed world – have duties to address global
poverty. The first type is based on the idea that, because poor people are in severe
need and we are in a position to alleviate such need at some cost, we have duties to do
so: these are the principles of assistance. The second type is based on the idea that,
because poor people are in severe need and we have contributed or are contributing
to their need, we have duties to alleviate it: these are principles of contribution.
Assistance-based responsibilities
Principles of assistance have been frequently appealed to in philosophical discussions
of global poverty since Peter Singer’s seminal work in the early 1970s. In “Famine,
Affluence, and Morality,” Singer (1972) famously argued that we have responsibilities
to assist the global poor: he used the analogy of a person passing a shallow pond
where a child is about to drown (see also Unger 1996; LaFollette and May 1995). Just
as such a person bears a responsibility for saving the child, we have a responsibility
to assist the poor (see world hunger; utilitarianism). According to Singer, a
plausible principle that would explain our reaction to the drowning child and would
also lead us to recognize our responsibility in the case of global poverty states that,
“if it is in your power to prevent something bad from happening, without sacrificing
anything nearly as important, it is wrong not to do so” (2009: 15).
Singer’s assistance principle affirms that affluent agents have weighty moral
reasons to address global poverty when the benefits of their doing so can be expected
to be significant and when they can do so at little or moderate cost to themselves
and others. He believes that, in our world, this principle – and even much more
moderate principles of assistance – would entail that, “[w]hen we spend our surplus
on concerts or fashionable shoes, on fine dining and good wines, or on holidays in
faraway lands, we are doing something wrong” (2009: 19).
It is important to note that assistance principles such as those defended by Singer
and Unger would justify these claims about the wrongness of people spending their
discretionary income in certain ways only if these authors’ empirical claims about
the likely benefits of foreign assistance are reasonably accurate (see aid, ethics of).
And some critics have pointed to evidential uncertainties about whether such aid
would actually do any good, or whether it might do some harm (Schmidtz 2000;
Kuper 2001; Wenar 2003).
7
Setting these concerns about the expected moral value of assistance aside, the
plausibility of Singer’s principle of assistance remains a matter of great controversy. Some
have argued that principles like this one ought to be rejected because they are simply too
demanding. In our world, it would seem to lead to “a life of hardship, self-denial and
austerity” (Kagan 1989: 360). Critics argue that it is unreasonable to demand giving more
when doing so would impose risks of significantly worsening one’s life (Miller 2003: 359).
Others have argued that views such as Singer’s and Unger’s fail to take concerns
with fairness seriously enough. Liam Murphy argues for example that, if an agent
is complying with a principle of assistance such as Singer’s, but others failed to
comply with their duties of assistance, then she has not only to do her own fair
share of addressing global poverty, but also to pick up the slack by doing the shares
of the non-compliers. Murphy claims that this is unfair and advocates a “compli-
ance condition,” which states that “the demands on a complying person should not
exceed what they would be under full compliance with the principle” (2000: 7).
Singer’s principle of assistance might not demand very much of each particular
agent if each agent complied with it, since even small efforts from a very large
number of agents might suffice to address global poverty. If this is so, then, on
Murphy’s view, each person needs to do no more than this small effort. Note that
the “moderating” effect of Murphy’s proposal is conditional upon the presence of
others who can help – therefore it does not limit the demands placed on a single
individual who is not surrounded by others, even if it diminishes significantly the
duties of particular affluent people to address the needs of the global poor. The
fairness consideration only seems to concern fairness between prospective assis-
tors. But unfairness between the complying and the non-complying should not be
confused with what is morally required of each agent (Arneson 2004; Cullity 2004).
Critics have also objected to the conclusions Singer draws from his discussion of
the pond case. As Garrett Cullity has pointed out (2004: 12–14), Singer’s analogical
arguments are “subsumptive” in form. That is, Singer conceives of the task of
justifying particular moral judgments as a matter of postulating general principles
that these particular judgments can be viewed as expressing. Singer’s arguments are
potentially quite radical precisely because they have this form. His strategy is to show
that a principle that best explains a particular moral judgment in which we have a
great deal of confidence, such as the wrongness of failing to save the drowning child
in the hypothetical case, would entail that we revise a great many of our other moral
judgments. However, there are various less demanding principles that would explain
our reaction in that case; for instance, “if we can prevent something (very) bad from
happening at minimal cost to ourselves, and others, then we ought to do it.”
To show that this much less demanding version of the assistance principle is too
weak to account for our intuitions about duties of assistance, supporters of more
demanding assistance principles such as Singer’s and Unger’s must appeal to further
cases, where we have strong intuitions that agents must take on relatively large costs
to prevent very bad things from happening. One case that Unger has subsequently
imagined, which Singer now puts front and center of his defense of his own principle,
is Bob’s Bugatti. Its essential features are the following:
8
Bob’s Bugatti: Bob, who has most of his retirement savings invested in a Bugatti, is
confronted with the choice of redirecting a railway trolley by throwing a switch in
order to save a child which will result in the destruction of his Bugatti because it has
accidentally been placed on the side spur of the line, or he might leave the switch as it
stands so that his Bugatti remains in mint condition, which will result in the child’s
death. (Unger 1996: 136)
It seems that Bob ought to sacrifice his Bugatti. Singer claims that it is correct to infer
from this that, “when prompted to think in concrete terms, about real individuals,
most of us consider it obligatory to lessen the serious suffering of innocent others,
even at some cost (or even at high cost) to ourselves” (Singer 2009, p. 15). But it is not
at all obvious that this is the correct inference to draw, since there are other cases in
which it seems counterintuitive to demand so much of the prospective assistor.
Christian Barry and Gerhard Øverland, for example, present the following case:
Bob’s Internet Banking: Bob is sitting in his house doing some Internet banking.
Unbeknownst to his neighbours (the Smiths), he can see and hear them through the
open door on the veranda. He notices that they are discussing the state of their
terminally sick child, Jimmy. They need a new and expensive treatment to cure Jimmy.
They live in a society that has no universal health coverage, they cannot afford the
operation themselves, nor are they able to finance it or acquire the funds from relatives
and friends. Bob understands that he can transfer the money for the operation with a
click of his mouse (he already has the Smith’s bank account listed). Clicking over the
money would save Jimmy, but most of Bob’s savings for retirement would be gone. Bob
decides not to click the mouse. (Barry and Øverland 2009: 241)
This case also involves thinking in real terms about a concrete individual. But it does
not seem that Bob would be acting wrongly if he does not click the mouse to make
the transfer, even if we would praise him if he did so. Examination of this pair of
cases leaves us with a puzzle, since it suggests that an intuitively plausible principle
of assistance may demand a great deal of an agent in one set of circumstances, but
very little in other sets of circumstances.
Despite some of the challenges to the specific assistance principle defended by
Singer, few deny that some kind of assistance principle is morally required. However,
few concrete competitors to Singer’s conception have been developed so far.
Principles of contribution
The second principle that has been invoked most commonly to ground responsibilities
to address global poverty is what might be called the principle of “contribution”
(Barry 2005). This principle has been invoked in important recent work from
Thomas Pogge (2008). Rather than seeing the responsibility of affluent people to
address global poverty as being rooted primarily in a general responsibility to assist
people in need, those who affirm the principle of contribution argue that we should
view such responsibilities as being based on stringent and specific ethical
9
requirements not to contribute to severe harms and to compensate those who have
been harmed as a consequence of failures to meet these requirements (Pogge 2008,
2005). Pogge and others argue that our conduct and policies contribute to global
poverty, and that the global institutional arrangements we uphold (international
trading rules, for instance, and the recognition conferred upon illegitimate
rules) engender widespread deprivation (see global distributive justice;
globalization). This second type of argument appeals to a moral principle that
has significant intuitive support: that it is seriously wrong to harm innocent people
for minor gains, and that agents have stringent and potentially quite demanding
responsibilities to address harms done to innocents, to which they have contributed
or are contributing (see harm; deontology). Of course, this claim rests on
empirical premises that are contestable. Pogge writes: “radical inequality and the
continuous misery and death toll it engenders are foreseeably reproduced under
the present global institutional order as we have shaped it. And most of it could be
avoided … if this global order had been, or were to be designed differently” (2005:
55). But identifying just what effects a different global order would have had is
necessarily a rather speculative exercise, and some of Pogge’s critics have argued that
he does little to provide the necessary empirical support for these claims (Cohen
2010). Although it seems widely agreed that contribution-based responsibilities to
address global poverty have some (and perhaps a great deal of) significance, there is
widespread disagreement about just what it means to contribute to global poverty,
and indeed to harmful outcomes more generally.
To make the relevance of this type of dispute concrete, consider the question of
whether agricultural trade practices in the developed world contribute to global
poverty (see world trade organization). Growing and processing rice are pro-
cesses that sustain the livelihoods of a very significant portion of the world’s popula-
tion, and three billion people depend on rice as their staple food. By subsidizing the
otherwise unprofitable US rice industry and by maintaining tariffs on agricultural
imports, the US government undermines the potential earnings of rice farmers in
developing countries. To what extent can we say that the US government bears
contribution-based responsibilities to revise its policies in this instance?
Without a clear and plausible account of the distinction between contributing to
global poverty and merely failing to prevent it, we cannot assess this type of dispute.
Although it seems widely agreed that contribution-based responsibilities to address
global poverty have some (and perhaps a great deal of) significance, there is
widespread disagreement about just what it means to contribute to global poverty.
Pogge offers one account of the distinction between instances in which we harm
the global poor and instances in which we merely fail to prevent their poverty. He
claims:
[W]e are harming the global poor if and insofar as we collaborate in imposing an unjust
global institutional order upon them. And this institutional order is definitely unjust if
and insofar as it foreseeably perpetuates large-scale human rights deficits that would
be reasonably avoidable through feasible institutional modifications. (2005: 60)
10
On Pogge’s view, the subsidies offered by rich countries do indeed harm the poor.
Some of Pogge’s critics have argued that he employs an unduly stretched meaning of
contributing to harm. It has even been suggested that, appropriately construed, his
conception of what it means to contribute to poverty would entail that failing to save
some child may count as harming that child (Satz 2005: 54; Reitberger 2008: 377–8).
These critics come to this conclusion by observing that a system of global institutional
arrangements that would suffice to eliminate large-scale human rights deficits in
developing countries might require international transfers to provide for the basic
necessities of poor people and the adoption of trade regimes that offer them much
better terms. Such measures may even involve asymmetries that permit certain kinds
of discrimination against wealthy countries. These critics then dismiss Pogge’s view
on the grounds that it amounts to the claim that you harm another person by failing
to provide assistance, or by not granting the asymmetric terms that benefit them.
According to this criticism, Pogge is trying to increase the moral significance of
the failure of the affluent to prevent global poverty by camouflaging a controversial
positive duty of assistance as a stringent negative duty not to contribute to harm
(Patten 2005: 26). Pogge has replied that his view does not depend on an unduly
stretched meaning of harm, and he has pointed to the restrictions that he places on
the use of this concept (2005: 60).
Relative significance
The issue of the relative importance of principles of assistance and contribution is of
considerable practical significance. For, while these principles can complement each
other – as when some agent has both contributed to the incidence of poverty and
can address it effectively at little or moderate cost – they may also pull in opposite
directions. It may be that some agent can much more effectively address the poverty
of those to whose deprivations she has not contributed than the poverty of those to
whose deprivations she has contributed. In cases like this one, principles of assistance
would seem to pull in one direction – encouraging the agent to focus her efforts on
the people whom she can most easily and significantly benefit – while principles of
contribution pull her in the opposite direction – encouraging her to focus on those
deprivations to which she has contributed, even when doing so is less efficient from
the point of view of lessening deprivations overall.
The conflict between contribution and assistance-based reasons for action can
become quite acute when the likely effects of prospective interventions to improve the
circumstances of the poor are not known. Contributing money to aid organizations can
help the poor, but it can also harm them. If the reasons not to contribute to harm are
much more stringent than the reasons to assist, then evidence that some intervention
designed to improve the lives of the poor may harm them or others should be a reason
to reconsider the intervention (Schmidtz 2000; Wenar 2003; Barry and Øverland 2009).
See also: aid, ethics of; autonomy; capabilities; deontology; feminist

ethics; global distributive justice; globalization; harm; impartiality;
11
justice; libertarianism; needs; responsibility; rights; utilitarianism;

well-being; world hunger; world trade organization
REFERENCES
Arneson, Richard 2004. “Moral Limits on the Demands of Beneficence?” in D. K. Chatterjee
(ed.), The Ethics of Assistance: Morality and the Distant Needy. Cambridge: Cambridge
Barry, Christian 2005. “Applying the Contribution Principle,” Metaphilosophy, vol. 36,
no. 1/2, pp. 210–27.
Barry, Christian, and Gerhard Øverland 2009. “Responding to Global Poverty,” Journal of
Bioethical Inquiry, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 239–47.
Chant, Sylvia 2007. Gender, Generation, and Poverty: Exploring the Feminization of Poverty in
Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Cohen, Joshua 2010. “Philosophy, Social Science, Global Poverty,” in Alison Jaggar (ed.),
Pogge and His Critics. Cambridge: Polity.
Cullity, Garrett 2004. The Moral Demands of Affluence. Oxford: Clarendon.
Doyal, Len, and Ian Gough 1991. A Theory of Human Need. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Gore, Charles 1994. Social Exclusion and Africa South of the Sahara: A Review of the Literature.
(Labour Institutions and Development Program, Discussion Papers 62.) Geneva:
International Institute for Labour Studies.
Gore, Charles 1997. “Irreducibly Social Goods and the Informational Basis of Sen’s Capability
Approach,” Journal of International Development, vol. 9, no. 2, 235–50.
Kagan, Shelly 1989. The Limits of Morality. Oxford: Clarendon.
Kuper, Andrew 2001. “More Than Charity: Cosmopolitan Alternatives to the ‘Singer
Solution,’ ” Ethics and International Affairs, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 107–28.
LaFollete, Hugh, and Larry May 1995. “Suffer the Little Children: Responsibility and Hunger,”
in W. Aiken and H. LaFollette (eds.), World Hunger and Morality. Upper Saddle River,
NJ: Prentice Hall, pp. 70–84.
Lenoir, René 1989 [1974]. Les Exclus: Un français sur dix. Paris: Editions du Seuil.
Maslow, Abraham 1943. “A Theory of Human Motivation,” Psychological Review, vol. 50,
pp. 370–96.
Miller, Richard 2003. “Beneficence, Duty and Distance,” Philosophy and Public Affairs,
vol. 32, no. 4, pp. 357–83.
Murphy, Liam 2000. Moral Demands in Nonideal Theory. New York: Oxford University Press.
Nickel, James 2005. “Poverty and Rights,” The Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 55, no. 200,
pp. 385–402.
Reddy, Sanjay, and Thomas Pogge 2003. “How Not to Count the Poor.” At www.socialanalysis.
org, accessed March 31, 2010.
Patten, Alan 2005. “Should We Stop Thinking about Poverty in Terms of Helping the Poor?”
Ethics and International Affairs, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 19–27.
Pogge, Thomas W. 2002. “Can the Capability Approach Be Justified?” Philosophical Topics,
vol. 30, no. 2, pp. 167–228.
Pogge, Thomas W. 2005. “Severe Poverty as a Violation of Negative Duties,” Ethics and
Pogge, Thomas W. 2008. World Poverty and Human Rights: Cosmopolitan Responsibilities and
Reforms, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Polity.
12
Reitberger, Magnus 2008. “Poverty, Negative Duties and the Global Institutional Order,”
Politics, Philosophy and Economics, vol. 7, no. 4, pp. 379–402.
Satz, Debra 2005. “What Do We Owe the Global Poor?” Ethics and International Affairs,
vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 47–54.
Schmidtz, David 2000. “Islands in a Sea of Obligation,” Law and Philosophy, vol. 19, pp. 683–705.
Sen, Amartya 1993. “Capability and Well-Being,” in Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen
(eds.), The Quality of Life. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 30–53.
Sen, Amartya 1999. Development as Freedom. New York: Anchor Books.
Sen, Amartya 2009. The Idea of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.
Shue, Henry 1980. Basic Rights: Subsistence, Affluence, and US Foreign Policy. Princeton:
Silver, Hilary 1995. “Reconceptualizing Social Disadvantage: Three Paradigms of Social
Exclusion,” in Gerry Rodgers, Charles Gore, and Jose Figueredo (eds.), Social Exclusion:
Rhetoric, Reality, Responses. Geneva: International Institute for Labour Studies, pp. 57–80.
Singer, Peter 1972. “Famine, Affluence, and Morality,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 1,
pp. 229–43.
Singer, Peter 2009. The Life You Can Save. Melbourne: Text Publishing.
Stewart, Frances 1985. Basic Needs in Developing Countries. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press.
Unger, Peter 1996. Living High and Letting Die. New York: Oxford University Press.
United Nations 1948. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Wenar, Leif 2003. “What We Owe to Distant Others,” Politics, Philosophy and Economics,
vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 283–304.
FURTHER READINGS
Agarwal, Bina, Jane Humpries, and Ingrid Robeyns (eds.) 2005. Amartya Sen’s Work and
Ideas: A Gender Perspective. New York: Routledge.
Alikire, Sabina 2002. Valuing Freedoms: Sen’s Capability Approach and Poverty Reduction.
Banderjee, Abhijit, and Esther Duflo 2011. Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way
to Fight Global Poverty. New York: Public Affairs.
Brock, Gillian 2009. Global Justice: A Cosmopolitan Account. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Cohen, G. A. 1991. “On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice,” Ethics, vol. 99, no. 4, pp. 906–44.
Escobar, Arturo 1995. Encountering Development. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Green, Duncan 2008. From Poverty to Power: How Active Citizens and Effective States Can
Change the World. Oxford: Oxfam International.
Miller, David 2001. “Distributing Responsibilities,” Journal of Political Philosophy, vol. 9,
pp. 453–71.
Miller, Richard 2010. Globalizing Justice: The Ethics of Poverty and Power. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Moellendorf, Darrel 2009. Global Inequality Matters. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Nussbaum, Martha 2011. Creating Capabilities: The Human Development Approach.
13
O’Neill, Onora 1980. “Kantian Approaches to Some Famine Problems,” in Tom Regan (ed.),
Matters of Life and Death: New Introductory Essays in Moral Philosophy, 3rd ed.
New York: McGraw-Hill, pp. 258–70.
Pogge, Thomas W. 2004. “Assisting the Global Poor,” in D. K. Chatterjee (ed.), The Ethics of
Assistance: Morality and the Distant Needy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
pp. 260–89.
Pogge, Thomas W. 2007. “Severe Poverty as a Human Rights Violation,” in Thomas W. Pogge
(ed.), Freedom From Poverty as a Human Right. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
pp. 11–55.
Pogge, Thomas 2010. Politics as Usual: What Lies Behind the Pro-Poor Rhetoric. Cambridge:
Polity.
Saith, Ruhi 2007. “Social Exclusion: The Concept and Application to Developing Countries,”
in Francis Stewart, Ruhi Saith, and Barbara Hariss-White (eds.), Defining Poverty in the
Developing World. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 75–90.
Sen, Amartya 2000. “Social Exclusion: Concept, Application, Scrutiny,” Social Development
Papers No. 1, Asian Development Bank.
Singer, Peter 2002. One World: The Ethics of Globalization. New Haven: Yale University
Press.
Young, Iris Marion 2011. Responsibility for Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
1
Deontic Logic
Sven Ove Hansson
In discussions on moral norms we tend to assume that a reasonable system of norms

should have certain structural properties. Obligations should be consistent, so that a
person cannot be morally required both to visit her father in his home and to stay out
of the town where he lives. Certain norms imply other norms; someone who has a
duty to mow her neighbor’s lawn also has permission to enter her garden in order to
do so. Deontic logic is the discipline that attempts to systematize such structural prop-
erties of systems of norms. Along with decision theory, the logic of preference, and
game theory and rational choice, deontic logic is one of the disciplines that apply for-
mal rigor to moral reasoning and to the subject matter of moral philosophy in general
(see preference; game theory and rational choice; moral reasoning).
Deontic logic tries to uncover the logical laws of our normative concepts. It may of
course be questioned whether we use – or even should use – normative terms in ways
that are sufficiently precise to be representable in logical terms. However, even if our
everyday reasoning does not conform exactly to principles of deontic logic, logical inves-
tigations can be useful as means to express ideas from moral philosophy in a precise way.
The Basic Parallel with Modal Logic

There is a striking analogy between the logical relations in the following two triads:
necessary – impossible – possible

obligatory – forbidden – permitted
Something A is impossible if and only if not-A is necessary. Similarly, A is

forbidden if and only if not-A is obligatory. Furthermore, it is possible that A if and
only if it is not necessary that not-A. Similarly, A is permitted if and only if not-A is
not obligatory. These analogies were known already in the twelfth century (Knuuttila
1981). They were also the starting point of the 1951 paper by G. H. von Wright from
which modern deontic logic has developed (see von wright, g. h.).
In most systems of deontic logic additional features from the logic of necessity
and possibility have been adopted. The only generally admitted limit to the parallel-
ism is that the modal principle “what is necessary is true” (equivalently: “what is
impossible is false”) cannot be transferred to deontic logic. What is morally obliga-
tory is far from always the case.
Unfortunately, systems of deontic logic that have been built in close analogy with
ordinary modal logic have given rise to implausible results. A whole series of so-
called deontic paradoxes have been obtained, and much of the discussion has been
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee217
2
devoted to various ways to avoid these paradoxes. The connection with mainstream
moral philosophy has often been weak in these developments. However, recently
more plausible deontic logics have been developed. Such developments improve the
usefulness of deontic logic for studies of problems of concern to moral philosophers,
such as the relationship between norms and values and the structure of moral dilem-
mas and their solutions (see dilemmas, moral).
The Deontic Predicates

Normative expressions are traditionally divided into three categories: prescriptive,
prohibitive, and permissive expressions. In the formal language, they are represented
by logical expressions containing the predicates O (obligation, ought), P (permis-
sion), and F (prohibition, forbidden).
Using only these three normative predicates – O, P, and F – is a considerable
simplification. Natural language has a much richer repertoire of normative expres-
sions. As one example of this, it has means to express differences in strength between
moral requirements. Saying that you “must” leave the room is more demanding than
saying that you “ought” to do so (Guendling 1974). Most accounts of deontic logic
abstract from such distinctions, and only contain one level of stringency, repre-
sented by a single O operator.
The meaning of expressions for permission in deontic logic is also different from
that of the corresponding expressions in natural language. When we say that an action
is permitted we usually mean that both the action and its negation (or omission) are
permitted (see action; omissions). It would be strange to say to a prisoner serving a
term of life imprisonment: “You may stay in prison tomorrow.” Generally speaking,
“when saying that an action is permitted we mean that one is at liberty to perform it,
that one may either perform the action or refrain from performing it” (Raz 1975:
161). This can be called bilateral permission. In deontic logic, however, “being
List of symbols used

O obligation
P permission
F prohibition
PC free choice permission
OM moral obligation
OA action-guiding obligation
O(|) conditional obligation
≥ better than or equal in value to
¬ not (truth-functional negation)
& and (truth-functional conjunction)
∨ or (truth-functional disjunction)
→ if … then (truth-functional implication, material implication)
↔ … if and only if … (truth-functional equivalence)
3
permitted to perform an action is compatible with having to perform it” (Raz 1975:
161). This is unilateral permission, and it is the concept of permission expressed by
the deontic predicate P. A major reason why unilateral permission is preferred in
deontic logic is that it is related to obligation in the same way as possibility to neces-
sity, so that the above-mentioned parallel with modal logic can be obtained. Bilateral
permission can be straightforwardly defined in terms of unilateral permission (as
Pq& P¬q, which means “q is permitted and not-q is also permitted”).
Standard Deontic Logic

In his seminal 1951 paper, Georg Henrik von Wright proposed a simple set of axi-
oms or postulates for deontic logic. After a minor modification his list of axioms was
accepted as what is now called the axioms of standard deontic logic (SDL):
Op → ¬O¬p (“If p is obligatory, then not-p is not obligatory”),

O(p&q) ↔ Op & Oq (“p-and-q is obligatory if and only if p is obligatory and q is
also obligatory”), and
O(p∨¬p) (“Any tautology is obligatory”).
SDL is also characterizable by a simple semantical construction that employs pos-

sible worlds in the same way as ordinary modal logic. The set of possible worlds is
assumed to have a subset that is called the “ideal worlds” or the “deontically perfect
worlds.” For any sentence p, Op holds if and only if p holds in all the ideal worlds.
The valid sentences in this model coincide with the theorems (logically true sen-
tences) derivable from the three axioms just mentioned. This connection between
axioms and semantics has contributed to giving SDL a very strong standing. On the
other hand SDL has repeatedly been criticized for containing overly strong princi-
ples that give support to counterintuitive moral reasoning.
Free Choice Permission

Suppose that a person you are visiting shows you a fruit bowl and says: “You may
have an apple or an orange.” You take an apple, but then he says: “No, you may not
have an apple, but you may have an orange.” You would consider this to be strange
behavior on his side. More generally, when someone says that
p or q is permitted.
we expect them to mean:
p is permitted, and q is permitted.
We do not expect them to mean:
Either p is permitted, or q is permitted.

4
In other words, we tend to assume that the “or” of permissions expresses a choice.
However, SDL complies with the usage of the host in our example, not with general
usage. In SDL, P(p∨q) (“p-or-q is permitted”) is equivalent to Pp ∨ Pq (“either p is
permitted or q is permitted”), and it does not imply Pp & Pq (“p is permitted and so
is q”). This seems to have been first noted by von Wright (1968: 21–2). He called the
common-language form of disjunctive permission “free choice permission” and con-
sidered several ways to include an additional permission predicate into the logic, a
predicate Pc (“choice-permitted”) of free choice such that if Pc (p∨q) (“p-or-q is
choice-permitted”), then Pc p & Pc q (“p is choice-permitted and so is q”). However,
all proposed predicates for choice-permission have turned out to have other
implausible properties. No satisfactory predicate for choice-permission seems to be
obtainable.
Some authors have considered the problem of “free choice permission” to be just
the result of a mistranslation from natural into formal language (Parks 1973; Stenius
1982; Makinson 1984). Others treat free choice permission as a conversational
implicature (Grice 1989), i.e., as something that is inherent in the context in which the
sentence is uttered, not in the sentence itself. According to this view, if someone says:
“You may borrow either the small or the big lawnmower”
then this does not inherently mean that one has a choice between the big and the
small lawnmower. Instead, that choice is conversationally implied in most contexts
where the sentence is used. The litmus test showing that this information is conver-
sationally implied (rather than inherent in the sentence) is that it will not be present
if the same sentence is embedded into some other conversational context:
“You may borrow either the big or the small lawnmower, but I do not know
which.” (Said by a child who does not know which of the two mowers the
parents are willing to lend to neighbors.)
The Deontic Paradoxes

The problem with free choice permission is that the following deontic principle does
not hold in SDL although it is intuitively plausible:
P(p∨q) →Pp & Pq (“If p-or-q is permitted, then so is p, and so is q.”)
This is only one of many divergences between intuitive plausibility and validity in
SDL. However, in most other cases the relationship is the reverse. There are many prop-
erties that hold in SDL but are not intuitively plausible. Such divergences are called
“deontic paradoxes.” The best-known of these is Ross’s paradox, which is a counter-
example to the following SDL theorem:
Op → O(p∨q): (“If p is obligatory then so is p-or-q.”)

5
Ross proposed the following counterexample to the principle: “If you ought to mail
the letter, then you ought to either mail or burn it” (Ross 1941: 62).
It could be argued that the “or” in the consequent of Ross’s paradox is not truth-
functional, but rather a free choice disjunction. If that is the case, then one might
believe that this paradox depends only on the difference in meaning between on
one hand the English “or” (and corresponding words in other natural languages)
and on the other hand the (truth-functional) disjunction of standard propositional
logic. However, similar paradoxes can be constructed if p∨q is replaced by a
nondisjunctive logical consequence of p. Åqvist’s knower paradox is one of the best
examples of this:
“If the police officer ought to know that Smith robbed Jones, then Smith ought to
rob Jones.” (Åqvist 1967)
This is a counterexample to the SDL principle that if Op holds and p logically

implies q, then Oq holds. The paradox also makes use of the epistemic principle
that only that which is true can be known. The Good Samaritan is a paradox with
essentially the same structure (although they are traditionally treated as different
paradoxes):
“You ought to help the assaulted person. Therefore, there ought to be an assaulted
person.” (Prior 1958: 144)
Just as in Åqvist’s paradox, we have two sentences p and q, such that q denotes some
atrocity and p some obligatory act that can only take place if q has taken place.
Again, Oq follows from the SDL principle that if Op holds and p logically implies q,
then Oq holds.
The paradox of commitment is based on an attempt to capture conditional obliga-
tion in the language of SDL. Let p denote that you steal a car and q that you hand it
back to the owner. Then O(p→q) (“It is obligatory that if p then q”) is assumed to
mean that if you steal a car then you ought to hand it back to its owner. However, the
following formula:
O¬p → O(p→q) (“If not-p is obligatory then so is if-p-then-q.”)
is valid in SDL. This gives rise to the paradox of commitment:
“If it is forbidden for you to steal this car, then if you steal it you ought to run over
a pedestrian.” (Prior 1954)
More generally, according to this representation of conditional obligation, if you do

something forbidden, then you are required to do anything whatsoever. This is usu-
ally taken to be a sufficient reason to reject this representation.
6
The diagnosis of why these paradoxes can be derived in SDL is quite clear, and has
been pointed out by von Wright himself (1981: 7). All the common paradoxes
depend on the following SDL postulate:
If Op, and p logically implies q, then Oq. (necessitation)
Necessitation says that whatever is necessitated by a moral requirement is itself a

moral requirement. This principle follows from the basic construction of the stand-
ard possible worlds semantics for SDL, namely that a sentence is valid in SDL if and
only if it holds in a certain subset of the possible worlds. The paradoxes put this
construction in doubt. It has also been criticized on more fundamental philosophi-
cal grounds. In an ideal world there will be no acts of violence and racism, since such
acts would violate obvious moral obligations. Therefore, in ideal worlds no one will
act to prevent such misdeeds. Since such acts of prevention do not take place in any
of the ideal worlds, if our obligations in the actual world consist in doing what we
would have done in the ideal worlds, then there can be no obligation in the actual
world to act against violence or racism. Similarly, in an ideal world, since nobody
does anything wrong, nobody can compensate for her own wrongdoings. It would
follow that there can be no duties of compensation in the actual world. Generally
speaking, it does not seem appropriate to identify our obligations with how we
would act in an ideal world. This would amount to a recommendation that we
should act as if we lived in an ideal world. But this is bad advice, and more akin to
wishful thinking than to well-considered moral deliberation.
Conditional Deontic Logic

Many of the obligations that we refer to in moral discussions are conditional, for
instance: “If you witness a violent crime then you should do what you can to stop it.”
The above-mentioned paradox of commitment serves to illustrate that SDL lacks a
credible account of conditional obligation. To achieve such an account, a separate
representation of conditionality is needed. Such a representation was proposed by
Bengt Hansson (1969) in the form of a conditional two-place predicate O(p|q) (“If q
then p is obligatory”). This predicate can be used as the sole primitive predicate of
deontic logic, since unconditional obligation can be defined in terms of it. We can
define Op as O(p|t), where t is a tautology. In other words, we can treat “If 2 + 2 = 4
then you ought to pay your taxes” as a roundabout (but logically convenient) way
to say “You ought to pay your taxes.”
Bengt Hansson also proposed a simple semantic principle for conditional obliga-
tion. Instead of just dividing the possible worlds into ideal and nonideal worlds, we
can order them in more than two grades. Immediately beneath the ideal worlds we
have the second-best worlds, beneath them the third-best worlds, etc. In order to
determine the conditional obligations relative to some statement q, we restrict our
7
attention to worlds in which q is true. Then O(p|q) (“If q then p is obligatory”) holds
if and only if p holds in all those worlds that are best among the worlds in which q is
true (Hansson 1969).
This construction provides us with a better representation of conditional obli-
gation than what we can obtain with the resources of SDL. However, the para-
doxes of SDL can be transferred to the conditional framework. Hence,
O(p|r)→O(p∨q|r) holds, and Ross’s paradox can be obtained, for instance in the
following variant: “If I have promised to post the letter (r), then I ought to post the
letter (p). Therefore, if I have promised to post the letter (r), then I ought to either
post it or burn it (p∨q).” The other deontic paradoxes can be reproduced in similar
ways. As this example shows, in order to obtain a more realistic deontic logic, it is
helpful but not sufficient to extend the language. We also need to weaken the
logical principles.
Preference-Based Deontic Logic

Instead of judging the obligatoriness of actions according to the value (ideality) of
the worlds in which these actions take place, we can relate obligatoriness to the value
of these actions themselves. This can be done by relating normative predicates to an
underlying preference relation ≥ (“is better than or equal in value to”). The following
definition will then have a central role:
A predicate H is positive with respect to a preference relation ≥ if and only if it

holds for all p and q that if Hp and q≥p, then Hq (if p has the H property and q is
at least as good as p, then q has the H property).
A plausible preference-based deontic logic can be founded on the simple

principle that the permissive predicate P is positive with respect to some under-
lying preference relation ≥ (Hansson 2001). In other words, if p is permitted,
and q is at least as good as p, then q is also permitted. In contrast, the pres-
criptive predicate O cannot reasonably be assumed to satisfy positivity. To see
this, suppose that you have an unexpected, hungry visitor. Let p denote that you
give your hungry visitor something to eat and q that you serve her a gourmet
meal. It is quite plausible to value q more highly than p. But even if we do that
we can hold p to be morally required without also holding q to be morally
required. In other words, we can have Op, q≥p, and ¬Oq, which shows that the
obligation predicate O does not satisfy positivity. In general, positivity is not
plausible for prescriptive predicates since it makes supererogation impossible
(see supererogation).
In a framework based on the positivity of permission, the validity of postulates in
deontic logic will depend on the properties of the underlying preference relation.
Standard preference relations give rise to a deontic logic in which the necessitation
8
postulate (that gave rise to the deontic paradoxes) does not hold, but several more
plausible postulates hold, such as the following (Hansson 2001):
Op & Oq → O(p&q)
(“If each of p and q is by itself obligatory, then so is p-and-q.”),
O(p&q) → Op ∨ Oq
(“If p-and-q is obligatory, then so is either p or q, or both.”), and
P(p&q) & P(p&¬q) → Pp
(“If each of p-and-q and p-and-not-q is permitted, then so is p”).
Deontic Consistency and Moral Conflict

The structure of moral dilemmas is readily expressible in deontic logic. If both Op
(“p is obligatory”) and O¬p (“not-p is obligatory”), then the dictates of the O
operator cannot be completely complied with, and no fully acceptable course of
action is available. The view that moral dilemmas are impossible implies that such
combinations of obligations should be excluded from the logic, i.e., Op & Oq can-
not hold if p&q is logically false. This would mean for instance that since Bob
cannot both be a bachelor (p) and be married (q), he cannot both be under the
obligation to be a bachelor (Op) and under the obligation to be married (Oq).
(This is one way to express the ought-implies-can dictum in logical terms)
(see ought implies can). The competing view that considers moral dilemmas to
be possible implies that deontic logic should not have this restriction. In such a
logical framework it can be shown how moral dilemmas can be resolved, or
at least dealt with, by considering moral obligations of different strengths
(Hansson 1999):
Moralist: You have a large debt that is due today. You should pay it.
Spendthrift: It is impossible for me to do that. I do not have the money.
Moralist: I know that.
Spendthrift: I already know what my obligations are. That’s not what I am asking you.
I want to know what I should do.
Moralist: I have already told you. You should pay your debt.
Our Moralist is unhelpful, since she refuses to accept the shift in perspective
demanded by Spendthrift when asking what she should do. With this phrase, Spend-
thrift called for action-guidance. The “should” of “You should pay your debt” is not
suitable for action-guidance, since it requires something that Spendthrift cannot do.
The shift in focus demanded by Spendthrift can be described as a shift from a mor-
ally adequate prescriptive predicate OM to a predicate OA that is suitable for action-
guidance. Let p designate that she pays off her debts. Then OM p holds (“p is morally
required”) but so does ¬ OA p (“p is not action-required”). Furthermore, let q denote
that she pays her creditors at least as much as she can without losing her means of
9
subsistence. Then both OM q and OA q hold, i.e., q is both morally required and
action-required.
We can now apply this distinction to a typical example of moral dilemmas. Let us
consider a situation in which you can either save A’s life (p) or B’s life (q), but not both.
You are equally morally required to perform each of these incompatible actions, but
your obligation to perform at least one of them (p∨q) is still stronger. From a moral
point of view, arguably the most adequate deontic operator will be one that requires
both that you save A and that you save B. Hence OM p and OM q hold, and so does
OM(p∨q). Since p and q cannot both be realized, we then have a moral dilemma in
terms of OM. From the viewpoint of action-guidance, since p and q are incompatible,
OA p and OA q cannot both hold, and since we have no reason to prefer one of them to
the other, neither of them holds. However, p∨q is morally required to a higher degree
than either p or q, and we therefore have good reasons to assume that OA (p∨q) holds.
Hence, from the action-guiding point of view, it is obligatory to perform at least one
of the two actions, and permissible to perform either to the exclusion of the other.
Thus applied, the distinction between moral and action-guiding deontic predi-
cates provides a formal account of how moral dilemmas can exist, yet be resolvable in
terms of action-guidance. It should be observed that the moral “ought” is not eliminated,
only supplemented by an obeyable “ought” that is suitable for action-guidance.
Conclusion
Deontic logic has a long history of debating logic-generated problems with limited
relevance for moral philosophy. However, as the above examples show, deontic logic
also has resources for precise treatment of important moral issues. In order to develop
this potential, cooperation between logicians and moral philosophers is needed.
See also: action; dilemmas, moral; duty and obligation; game theory
and rational choice; moral reasoning; omissions; ought implies can;
preference; supererogation; von wright, g. h.
REFERENCES
Åqvist, Lennart 1967. “Good Samaritans, Contrary-to-Duty Imperatives, and Epistemic
Obligations,” Noûs, vol. 1, pp. 361–79.
Grice, Paul 1989. Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Guendling, John E. 1974. “Modal Verbs and the Grading of Obligations,” The Modern
Schoolman, vol. 51, pp. 117–38.
Hansson, Bengt 1969. “An Analysis of Some Deontic Logics,” Noûs, vol. 3, pp. 373–98.
Hansson, Sven Ove 1999. “But What Should I Do?” Philosophia, vol. 27, pp. 433–40.
Hansson, Sven Ove 2001. The Structure of Values and Norms. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
10
Knuuttila, Simo 1981. “The Emergence of Deontic Logic in the Fourteenth Century,” in Risto
Hilpinen (ed.), New Studies in Deontic Logic. Dordrecht: Reidel, pp. 225–48.
Makinson, David 1984. “Stenius’ Approach to Disjunctive Permission,” Theoria, vol. 50,
pp. 138–47.
Parks, R. Z. 1973. “Note on an Argument of von Wright’s,” Philosophical Studies, vol. 24, p. 64.
Prior, A. N. 1954. “The Paradoxes of Derived Obligation,” Mind, vol. 63, pp. 64–5.
Prior, A. N. 1958. “Escapism,” in AI Melden (ed.), Essays in Moral Philosophy. Seattle:
University of Washington Press, pp. 135–46.
Raz, Joseph 1975. “Permissions and Supererogation,” American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 12,
pp. 161–8.
Ross, Alf 1941. “Imperatives and Logic,” Theoria, vol. 7, pp. 53–71.
Stenius, Erik 1982. “Ross’s Paradox and Well-Formed Codices,” Theoria, vol. 48, pp. 49–77.
von Wright, Georg Henrik 1951. “Deontic Logic,” Mind, vol. 60, pp. 1–15.
von Wright, Georg Henrik 1968. “An Essay in Deontic Logic and the General Theory of
Action,” Acta Philosophica Fennica, vol. 21, pp. 1–110.
von Wright, Georg Henrik 1981. “On the Logic of Norms and Actions,” in Risto Hilpinen
(ed.), New Studies in Deontic Logic. Dordrecht: Reidel, pp. 3–35.
FURTHER READINGS
Føllesdal, Dagfinn, and Risto Hilpinen 1970. “Deontic Logic: An Introduction,” in Risto Hilpinen
(ed.), Deontic Logic: Introductory and Systematic Readings. Dordrecht: Reidel, pp. 1–35.
Geurts, Bart, and Nausicaa Pouscoulous 2009. “Embedded Implicatures,” Semantics and
Pragmatics, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 1–34.
Hansson, Sven Ove 2006. “Ideal Worlds – Wishful Thinking in Deontic Logic,” Studia Logica,
vol. 82, pp. 329–36.
Horty, John F. 1997. “Non-Monotonic Foundations for Deontic Logic,” in D. Nute (ed.),
Defeasible Deontic Logic. Boston: Kluwer, pp. 17–44.
Jackson, Frank 1985. “On the Semantics and Logic of Obligation,” Mind, vol. 94, pp. 177–95.
McNamara, Paul 1996. “Must I Do What I Ought? (or Will the Least I Can Do Do?),” in Mark
A. Brown and José Carmo (eds.), Deontic Logic, Agency and Normative Systems.
DEON, 96. New York: Springer, pp. 154–73.
Makinson, David, and Leendert van der Torre 2000. “Input/Output Logics,” Journal of
Philosophical Logic, vol. 29, pp. 383–408.
von Wright, Georg Henrik 1999. “Deontic Logic – As I See It,” in P. McNamara and H. Prakken
(eds.), Norms, Logics and Information Systems: New Studies in Deontic Logic and
Computer Science. DEON, 98. Bologna: IOS Press, pp. 15–25.
1
Agricultural Ethics
Paul B. Thompson
Agricultural ethics comprises normative analyses and debates on the production,

processing, distribution, and consumption of cultivated and human-supervised
biological products typically (but not exclusively) used as food. Ethical issues
associated with the use of fiber crops or hides and byproducts from livestock products
are also included. Some authors have used the term “agrifood ethics” to emphasize the
inclusion of topics such as food safety, nutrition, or household consumption issues.
In addition, the boundaries of this domain in applied philosophy are sometimes
stretched to include aesthetic or cultural issues in food preparation or consumption,
as well as practices such as aquaculture, agri-forestry, and even commercial fishing.
Given these parameters, agricultural ethics is not a new activity for philosophers.
Xenophon’s Oeconomics is an ethics of household production among the hoi mesoi, the
farming peoples that formed the majority of citizens in most Greek city-states.
Aristotle’s Politics takes this productive farming family unit to be the paradigm for
civic life (see aristotle), while Hesiod’s pre-philosophical poem Works and Days
celebrates the farmer who produces from nature as the model of virtue, portraying
those who trade as inveterate cheaters and tricksters who deserve to suffer at the
hands of fate. Victor Davis Hanson argues that the relative autonomy of the hoi mesoi,
combined with their need for mutual defense to protect life-long investments in tree
and vine crops, were the prerequisites for the emergence of the Greek city-states.
These small farms were managed by a head of household who banded together with
other householders in defensive military service, providing the organizational basis
for governance of the polis (Hanson 1995). Xenophon’s practical farm advice is thus
linked to Aristotle’s conception of politics and Hesiod’s notion of virtue.
This portrayal of Greek civilization was central to Hegel’s philosophy of history.
Hegel contrasts the climate and geography of the Peloponnesian peninsula to his
imagined visions of Africa and Asia. In Africa, food hangs from the trees and there
is no need for organized farming. As a result, Hegel’s Negros do not need to develop
habits of delayed gratification, and do not understand themselves in terms of
planned behavior: they lack self-awareness as rational agents. In Hegel’s Asia, the
dependence on centrally managed irrigation creates a society where only those at
the top can develop such a consciousness. In Greece, the mountainous topography,
Mediterranean climate, and sandy soils are amenable to smaller production units
growing a mix of crops that can keep a household with a small number of slaves busy
throughout the year. The small-farm organization of society creates many who
attain self-awareness, and just as Hanson argues today, Hegel believed that the need
for self-defense led to the emergence of a civic consciousness, giving rise to the ideal
of citizenship. The racist and historically inaccurate implications of his history
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee218
2
notwithstanding, Hegel believed that the ethos of agriculture played a decisive role
in the genesis and form of Western morality.
In an important sense, however, Hegel’s agricultural ethics made no attempt to
specify norms and practices for farming and food production. Instead, he saw the
ethical significance of agriculture residing in the way that the organization of
agricultural production contributes to the emergence and even the ontological pos-
sibility of larger social norms. However, debates on farm structure and farm practice
sometimes overlap. Enclosure, for example, was a farming practice of fencing in
(literally enclosing) fallowed or unplanted lands that had been used as common
pasture. Enclosure allowed farmers to implement a crop rotation scheme that
replaced long fallow periods in which animals grazed on uncropped or fallowed
fields (land that had been “left to nature”) with the production of fodder crops grown
on these now enclosed commons. After enclosure fodder crops were fed to animals,
whose manure was carted back to the fields to fertilize the soils. The shift to fodder
production and enclosure of common fields occurred across Europe between 1650
and 1900, and was hotly debated. John Locke defends enclosure on the ground of its
higher productivity in his famous section “Of Property” from the Second Treatise of
Government. The nature of Locke’s defense suggests that he was not ignorant of its
agronomic rationale (see locke, john). In contrast Marxian scholars of political
economy such as C. B. Macpherson (1962) describe enclosure as a form of “taking”:
those who had pastured animals on the commons lost this right. It was an exercise
of power and a form of possessive individualism.
Thus one central philosophical issue in agricultural ethics has been whether
changes in farming practice should be evaluated primarily with respect to their
practicality from a farming perspective, or whether they should instead be seen as
exercises of power that chart the trajectory of capitalist social relations. Karl Marx
devoted a full chapter to agriculture in Capital. The issue remains alive and is
contentiously debated among social theorists, especially those who study social
transformation in rural areas of the developing world. Michael Watts and David
Goodman, for example, have theorized such transformations from a broadly
neo-Marxist perspective, while Harriet Friedman and Phillip McMichael have ana-
lyzed globalization, trade policies, and the growing influence of multinational seed
and chemical suppliers, on the one hand, and grain-trading companies, on the other,
in similar terms. In contrast, neoclassical economists such as Theodore Schulz and
D. Gale Johnson have tended to see these transformations as uncontroversial
increases in the economic efficiency of agricultural commodity production (see
economics and ethics). Though of obvious normative significance, this debate
among geographers, sociologists, and economists went largely unnoticed by aca-
demic philosophers in the twentieth century.
In writings that anticipate the perspectives of Schulz and Johnson to a remarkable
degree, John Stuart Mill also contributed to the literature of agricultural ethics with
his influential analysis of the English “corn laws,” arguing that lifting restrictions on
the importation of grains would relieve misery and facilitate economic growth (see
mill, john stuart). Perhaps the most famous historical contributor to agricultural
3
ethics, however, is Thomas Robert Malthus. His Essay on Population speculates on

the relationships between agricultural production and human population growth in
a manner that continues to spark debate both on the underlying moral issues and on
Malthus’s actual intent.
Philosophers mostly fell silent on problems in agriculture in the late nineteenth
century only for the old subjects to be reawakened with Peter Singer’s essay “Famine,
Affluence and Morality” in 1972. Singer argued that because it would be trivially
easy for well-off people in the industrialized world to aid distant victims of famine,
they had a moral obligation to do so. The ecologist Garrett Hardin and the
philosopher Joseph Fletcher argued against this obligation in terms that echoed
Malthus. A rich debate ensued in the 1970s and 1980s, with philosophers such as
Henry Shue contending that access to food was a basic right that had lexical priority
over entitlements such as education, but also over liberties such as freedom of
speech. As the debate over hunger and famine relief matured, it became both more
abstract and less focused on matters that were of a specifically agricultural nature.
Commentators on Singer, for example, often focused on the question of whether
geographical or social distance could have moral relevance to the obligation to bring
aid, neglecting entirely Singer’s original focus on hunger. Amartya Sen’s pathbreaking
Poverty and Famines (1982), followed by his work on hunger with Jean Dreze,
showed through empirical studies that starvation and related diseases of food depri-
vation were rarely caused by a deficit of food. The upshot of this work is that, by
2000, concern about food access and hunger had begun to be conceptualized as a
problem in development ethics, rather than agricultural ethics. Sen’s work on
“capabilities” as the focus of development was linked to his earlier work on hunger,
but did not discuss food as a specific theme. Adaptations of the capabilities approach
emphasize the need to move beyond the narrow focus on food aid and a right to
food in order to recognize the need for cultivating agency as a key capability among
the traditional victims of hunger (Thompson 2010).
Singer was also at the center of the second agricultural theme to engage a
significant number of mainstream philosophers over the last 40 years: husbandry of
traditional livestock species and their use for food. Singer was among a group at
Oxford who had read Ruth Harrison’s book on industrial animal production, Animal
Machines (1964), a critique that gave rise to the Brambell Commission report in the
1960s and launched serious scientific inquiry into the welfare of farm animals (see
animals, moral status of). Singer’s book Animal Liberation contained numerous
descriptions of animal suffering in what he called “factory farms.” In the 1975 edition
he attributed this to animal producers holding a Cartesian view of animal mentality,
denying their capacity to suffer.
This specific philosophic root of the problem was contested by another
philosopher, Bernard Rollin, who has also been a persistent and thorough critic of
concentrated animal feed operations (CAFOs). Rollin noted that producers
understand that animals feel pain; they must do so to practice effective animal
management. The problem, in Rollin’s (1995) view, is that they also have strong
economic disincentives for doing anything to relieve animal pain. Rollin has, with
4
animal scientists and veterinarians such as Temple Grandin, Marian Dawkins, and
John Webster, continued to contribute ethical critiques of animal production
methods that are informed about the genetic basis of different animal traits and the
details of specific production practices.
This nuanced and agriculturally informed line of animal ethics has led to a
convergence of work done by philosophers such as Peter Sandøe and by ethologists
such as David Fraser and Mike Appleby. What has emerged is a pluralistic conception
of animal welfare seen as a blend of basic veterinary health parameters, the animal’s
affective states, and the animal’s ability to engage in a repertoire of species-typical
(or “natural”) behavior. The fundamental philosophical debate here concerns
whether constraints on species-typical behaviors should be understood as detracting
from the welfare of the animal in virtue of the physiological or cognitive stress
arising from frustration, or whether such behaviors should be regarded as constitutive
of welfare. Those who hold the latter view refer to these behaviors as natural, and
argue that husbandry must be tailored to the nature of the animal. The debate has
practical consequences in that stress can be limited by behavioral conditioning or
genetics, but if animals who do not want to engage in a putatively natural behavior
have been ipso facto harmed, such approaches are unethical when pursued in animal
husbandry (Appleby and Sandøe 2002; Fraser 2008).
Products of new, rDNA-based techniques for manipulation and reproduction of plant
and animal genomes have also been the focus of debate in agricultural ethics. Here, too,
the question of whether the products of these techniques (so-called genetically modified
organisms, or GMOs) are natural has been raised. Many critics of GMOs from outside
philosophy have voiced the view that they are not, and international standards for organic
certification prohibit the use of biotechnology and GMOs. The “unnatural” character of
GMOs has been analyzed by Mark Sagoff (2001), who argues that the only defensible
sense that can be made of this claim resides in culturally grounded views of food and
farming. When one examines the history of food traditions in the industrialized world
what one finds is a long succession of technological transformations and innovations
rationalized in terms of making food abundant, convenient, and less expensive.
Gregory Pence has also argued that there is little basis for seeing GMOs as
unnatural that would not also exclude many commonplace foods derived from
conventional breeding methods. He opposes those who object to GMOs by argu-
ing that putative increases in productivity provide compelling justification for the
technology, especially given the hunger and poverty framing for agricultural ethics
discussed above. None of these pro-GMO perspectives addresses the way that
philosophers, as opposed to political activists, have advanced claims about the
possible unnatural character of GMOs. Henk Verhoog, for example, has argued
that biological science has no privileged position with respect to defining what is
natural, while Ann Chapman has argued that within the context of agriculture,
“natural” has a more nuanced meaning emphasizing soils, climate, and other
place-specific features of the local ecology, as opposed to chemical and genetic
technologies that can be developed at a distance and that have widespread applica-
bility (Thompson 2007).
5
Such technologies are closely tied to a social critique of biotechnology that links it
to the growth of capitalist production relations in the farming sector. Tools and tech-
niques that can be developed in centralized laboratories tend to be capital intensive
and confer control of the production process on those who own the means of their
production, including patents (see patents). Beginning with Karl Kautsky in 1899,
the argument has been that productivity increases of this sort shift the economic
returns from farming out of rural areas and farming peoples, leading to a depopula-
tion and eventual impoverishment in rural areas (even if a few high-producing
farmers prosper). Critics of GMOs who stress this socially oriented line of argument
will also claim that these capital-intensive chemical technologies (such as fertilizers,
pesticides, and the crops that have been bred specifically to be used with them) are
often more disruptive to the environment than farming methods that have evolved
within a particular region. Hugh Lacey (2005) has linked such criticisms of biotech-
nology to a philosophy of science that emphasizes the role of local, place-based
values in conceptualizing which questions are worth asking, and what methods
produce valid results. Lacey argues that values focused on laboratory science and
generalization of results have inadvertently distorted the type of science done in
agricultural research stations.
With respect to regulatory policy, agricultural biotechnology has been a focal
topic for those who advocate the precautionary principle. Considered broadly, a
precautionary approach to environmental regulation argues for burdens of proof
that err on the side of environmental protection, rather than demanding proof of
harm. In the context of GMOs, the debates turn upon the novel character of these
methods and the products they produce. Critics of the regulatory approach that
has been followed in the US claim that it has been too permissive. The opposing
view is that the precautionary approach does not, in fact, provide a basis for taking
anything into consideration that is not already considered by the risk-based
approaches that are well established in the regulatory agencies of industrial nations,
including the United States. Philosophical defenses of the precautionary principle
applied to biotechnology have been made by Carl Cranor (2003) and Mathias
Kaiser (1997), while criticism has been offered by Gary Comstock (2010) and
Henk van den Belt (2003).
The final area of debate concerns labeling of products from rDNA. First Paul
Thompson (2002) and later Robert Streiffer (Streiffer and Hedemann 2005) have
argued that people have a right to control their dietary choices, and that the values on
which such choices are made need not meet standards of rational, much less scientific
defense. Thus the fact that risk assessment fails to discover food safety or other risks
associated with GMOs is immaterial to the question of labeling. Few academic phi-
losophers have taken the view that there is no basis for labels, though some economists
have argued that information provided on labels must meet a test of utility. Hence if
there are no scientifically demonstrable differences between the safety or nutritional
value of GMOs (as compared to other foods) there can be no basis for labeling.
Other important developments in food and agricultural ethics have emerged from
attempts to incorporate an ethical dimension more directly into the planning and
6
conduct of agricultural research. The early phases of this work accused agricultural
scientists of adopting a positivist mentality hostile to values-talk and ethical debate
within applied disciplines that conceptualized and justified entirely in terms of their
capacity to produce knowledge and techniques of great social utility: feeding people
and ensuring livelihoods (Burkhardt 2008). The philosophy of agricultural science
ties in well with environmental critiques of industrial agriculture. With the publica-
tion of popular books by authors such as Eric Schlosser, Marion Nestle, and Michael
Pollan, issues in food and food production have become increasingly popular topics
for undergraduate courses in philosophy. With this turn of events, a new literature in
food and agricultural ethics will almost certainly be emerging in the coming decades.
See also: animals, moral status of; aristotle; economics and ethics;
locke, john; mill, john stuart; patents
REFERENCES
Appleby, M. C., and P. T. Sandøe 2002. “Philosophical Debate on the Nature of Well-Being:
Implications for Animal Welfare,” Animal Welfare, vol. 11, pp. 283–94.
Burkhardt, J. 2008. “The Ethics of Agri-Food Biotechnology: How Can an Agricultural Technology
Be So Important?” in K. David and P. B. Thompson (eds.), What Can Nanotechnology Learn
from Biotechnology? Social and Ethical Lessons for Nanoscience from the Debate over
Agricultural Biotechnology and GMOs. Amsterdam: Academic Press, pp. 55–79.
Comstock, G. 2010. “Ethics and Genetically Modified Foods,” in F.-T. Gottwald,
H. W. Ingensiep, and M. Meinhardt (eds.), Food Ethics. Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 49–66.
Cranor, C. 2003. “How Should Society Approach the Real and Potential Risks Posed by New
Technologies?” Plant Physiology, vol. 133, pp. 3–9.
Fraser, D. 2008. “Understanding Animal Welfare,” Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica, vol. 50,
suppl. 1, p. S1.
Hanson, V. D. 1995. The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Roots of Western Civilization.
New York: Free Press.
Harrison, Ruth 1964. Animal Machines. London: Vincent Stuart.
Kaiser, M. 1997. “Fish-Farming and the Precautionary Principle: Context and Values in
Environmental Science for Policy,” Foundations of Science, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 307–41.
Lacey, H. 2005. Values and Objectivity in Science: The Current Controversy about Transgenic
Crops. Lanham: Lexington Books.
Macpherson, C. B. 1962. The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke.
Rollin, B. E. 1995. Farm Animal Welfare: Social, Bioethical, and Research Issues. Ames: Iowa
State University Press.
Sagoff, M. 2001. “Genetic Engineering and the Concept of the Natural,” Philosophy and Public
Policy Quarterly, vol. 21, nos. 2–3, pp. 2–10.
Sen, Amartya 1982. Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
Singer, Peter 1972. “Famine, Affluence and Morality,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 1,
no. 3, pp. 229–43.
Singer, Peter 1995. Animal Liberation, 2nd ed. London: Pimlico.
7
Streiffer, R., and T. Hedemann 2005. “The Political Import of Intrinsic Objections to
Genetically Engineered Food,” Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, vol. 18,
pp. 191–210.
Thompson, P. B. 2002. “Why Food Biotechnology Needs an Opt Out,” in B. Bailey and
M. Lappé (eds.), Engineering the Farm: Ethical and Social Aspects of Agricultural
Biotechnology. Washington, DC: Island Press, pp. 27–44.
Thompson, P. B. 2007. Food Biotechnology in Ethical Perspective, 2nd ed. Dordrecht: Springer.
Thompson, P. B. 2010. “Food Aid and the Famine Relief Argument (Brief Return),” Journal of
Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 209–27.
van den Belt, H. 2003. “Debating the Precautionary Principle: ‘Guilty until Proven Innocent’
or ‘Innocent until Proven Guilty?’” Plant Physiology, vol. 132, no. 3, pp. 1122–6.
FURTHER READINGS
Berry, W. 1977. The Unsettling of America: Essays Cultural and Agricultural. San Francisco:
Sierra Club Books.
Comstock, G. (ed.) 1987. Is There a Moral Obligation to Save the Family Farm? Ames: Iowa
State University Press.
Heldke, L. 2003. Exotic Appetites: Ruminations of a Food Adventurer. New York: Routledge.
Kirschenmann, F. L. 2010. Cultivating an Ecological Consciousness: Essays from a Farmer
Philosopher. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.
Korsmeyer, C. 1999. Making Sense of Taste: Food and Philosophy. Ithaca: Cornell University
Press.
Mepham, B. 2000. “A Framework for the Ethical Analysis of Novel Foods: The Ethical Matrix,”
Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 165–76.
Pinstrup-Andersen, Per, and Peter Sandøe (eds.) 2007. Ethics, Hunger and Globalization:
In Search of Appropriate Policies. Dordrecht: Springer.
Thompson, P. B. 2010. The Agrarian Vision: Sustainability and Environmental Ethics.
Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.
Zimdahl, R. 2006. Agriculture’s Ethical Horizon. New York: Academic Press.
Zwart, H. 2000. “A Short History of Food Ethics,” Journal of Agricultural and Environmental
Ethics, vol. 12, pp. 113–26.
1
Cost–Benefit Analysis
Sven Ove Hansson
In order to facilitate a decision on a proposed project, it is advisable to make a list of

all its advantages and disadvantages, and characterize each of these in as much detail
as possible. The decision-maker can then weigh all the pros and cons against each
other and – at least ideally – make a decision that is based on knowledge of all the
relevant factors.
The need for such an approach has particularly often been pointed out in the
public sector. Unlike a private company, a government agency is required to take into
account the effects of its actions on all sectors of society, including private individuals,
communities, and companies. Often, opposing interests have to be considered.
The prohibition of a pesticide can have positive effects on human health and the
environment, while at the same time posing economic burdens on farmers and
the pesticide industry. Similarly, a road project can have positive effects such as
reduced travel time for commuters, cheaper transport for business, and improved
safety. Its negative effects will include direct monetary costs, environmental damage,
and occupational risks in the building phase. A careful compilation and analysis of
all these effects improves the chances of making a well-considered decision. The
difficulty is knowing how to compare these costs and benefits. One common way is
to assign monetary values to all of them.
Economic Cost–Benefit Analysis

Economic cost–benefit analysis (CBA) is a methodology in which monetary values
are assigned to all the costs and benefits of a project. After this has been done, they
can all be weighed against each other in a precise, quantitative way, and the total
expected effect of the project can be calculated. A positive sum is an argument for
carrying out the project, whereas a negative sum is an argument for abandoning it.
Many people are appalled at this proposal. However, it must be recognized that we
all (implicitly) assign monetary values to lives and other seemingly invaluable things.
This is what civil courts do when they award a litigant compensatory damages
against a drunken driver who killed her family. The precise amount that the court
sets may be controversial, but few would call into question that the driver should pay
for what he did.
The calculations performed in cost–benefit analyses have the same structure as
utilitarian calculations, but with the major difference that the unit of calculation
is monetary value, rather than the more abstract utility units (utiles) used in
utilitarianism (see utilitarianism). It is therefore not surprising that cost–benefit
analysis has sometimes been seen as a form of applied utilitarianism. However, it
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee219
2
should be emphasized that the performance of a CBA does not imply that we should
choose the option that yields the highest surplus, or smallest deficit, in the calculation.
Contrary to utilitarian calculations, CBA is only intended to be a useful tool for
decision-makers, not the ultimate decision criterion.
The performance of a cost–benefit analysis gives rise to several important ethical
issues. Four of the most important of these are related to universal monetization,
interpersonal weighing, probabilistic weighing, and temporal discounting. The
following four sections are devoted to each of these issues.
Universal Monetization
In standard economic cost–benefit analysis, all consequences (advantages and
disadvantages) are measured in one and the same unit, namely money. For
consequences that have a market price, the evaluation can be made in a fairly
uncontroversial way: the market price is entered into the analysis. But a cost–benefit
analysis also includes objects for which there is no market, such as environmental
degradation, loss of cultural heritage, health degradation, and losses in human life.
These objects have no prices in the usual sense of the word. In order to include them
in the analysis the cost–benefit analyst must assign values to them. Sometimes this
is done by extracting “implicit prices” from current practices. (What is the average
price that we pay in practice to avoid a fatal workplace accident?) Sometimes it is
done by asking a representative sample of the population how much they would be
prepared to pay. (How much would you personally be prepared to pay to save the
giant panda from extinction?)
Critics have claimed that human lives, health, and the environment should not
be valued in monetary terms. There are indeed some goods that are widely held to
be “invaluable” or “priceless.” The latter word, according to the Oxford English
Dictionary, can mean “having no market price; not obtainable for money.” Many
people believe, or talk as if, it is always inappropriate to assign a monetary value to
priceless things such as human lives, human health, the preservation of animal or
plant species, the preservation of major works of art, etc. However, the monetary
values used in cost–benefit analysis are not prices in the common sense of the
word. Prices arise on a market, and when there is no market, there is no price. A
cost–benefit analyst who assigns a monetary value to the loss of a human life does
not thereby imply that someone can buy another person, or the right to kill her, at
that price. The values of lives included in the analysis are for calculation purposes
only. They are introduced in order to express our willingness to pay in a precise
manner.
There is in practice a limit to how much we are willing to pay for saving a human
life. Irrespective of whether we use cost–benefit analysis, we weigh monetary costs
against the preservation of human lives. We do so in deciding which diseases we will
(and won’t) research and which we will (and won’t) treat. The value of life used in
cost–benefit analysis is intended to reflect this limit to our willingness to pay.
Expressing it in exact monetary terms makes it possible to value lives consistently in
3
different decisions. Obviously, the outcome of the calculations should not dictate the
decision, only inform the decision-makers. There may be aspects not covered in the
calculations that the decision-makers wish to take into account.
The incommensurability between life and money is only one of the many
incommensurabilities that have to be dealt with in cost–benefit analysis. Death,
disease, and environmental damage are not easily made commensurate with each
other. There is no definite answer to the question how many cases of juvenile diabetes
correspond to one death, or what amount of human suffering or death corresponds
to the extinction of the Bengal tiger. Complex decision problems involving several
such issues are best described as multidimensional decision problems. An economic
cost–benefit analysis reduces such a problem to one single dimension. Although the
common way to do this, technically, is to reduce the other types of value to money,
the crucial problem is not that of valuing in money but that of reducing several
disparate value dimensions to a single dimension. Even if money is removed from
the analysis, the problem of how to deal with comparisons between deaths, diseases,
and environmental damage will still remain.
The major underlying moral problem is that in order to make decisions we need
some way to comparatively evaluate entities that we conceive as incomparable. Such
comparisons are unavoidable components of many of the decisions that we have to
make in different social sectors. The problem does not come with cost–benefit
analysis, but it becomes more clear when such an analysis is performed in order to
guide the decision.
According to some commentators the use of money as a “common currency”
aggravates the problem. The reason for this is that money has connotations not
shared by nonmonetary units such as quality-adjusted life-years. The use of money
instead of some other unit may therefore send a message that can be conceived as
desecrating the value of life (Hampshire 1972). However, even if that is so, replacing
money by another unit would not remove the problem, only meliorate it to a certain
degree.
One of the most common methods used to derive calculation values for nonmarket
goods is contingent valuation. This means that the values are based on people’s
answers to questions such as “How much would you be prepared to pay for preserving
this national park?” The presumption is that the sum of everyone’s answers to that
question determines the monetary value that the preservation of that park should
have in a cost–benefit analysis (Carson and Hanemann 2006). Unfortunately,
answers to such questions are difficult to interpret and may not always give good
indications of the respondents’ priorities. Many respondents tend to report an
amount that would not seriously disturb their normal expenditure and savings
patterns, typically a sum in the range of £50–200 per annum (Beattie et al. 1998). It
is also possible that some respondents answer with a low sum, not because they give
low priority to the issue at hand but because they feel that someone else should pay
(for instance a landowner or a polluter).
Another problematic feature of contingent valuation is that it gives more
influence to affluent people who can pay more than others to have it their way
4
(Copp 1987). This is fairly easy to adjust for by relating the reported hypothetical
payments to the individual’s income.
Interpersonal Weighing
In the standard forms of economic cost–benefit analysis all costs and all benefits are
combined into one and the same balance. This means that a disadvantage affecting
one person can be fully compensated for by an advantage affecting some other
person. This is an assumption of interpersonal compensability that is one of the
features that cost–benefit analysis shares with utilitarianism.
Interpersonal compensability is often confused with interpersonal comparability,
but the distinction is essential. An advantage for person A and a disadvantage for
person B are comparable if we can determine their relative sizes, for instance
concluding that the advantage for A is greater than the disadvantage for B. However,
it does not follow from this that the advantage for A cancels out, outweighs, or
compensates for the disadvantage for B. The comparative assessment does not in
itself justify A or anyone else to take an action that leads to this combination of an
advantage for A and a disadvantage for B. The justifiability of such actions is a
separate moral issue that is not settled just by ascertaining that the advantage is
larger than the disadvantage. In other words, interpersonal comparability does not
imply interpersonal compensability (Hansson 2004).
A concrete example: it is reasonable to assume that the advantage to A of
receiving one of B’s two healthy kidneys is larger than the disadvantage to B from
losing one of them. From this, however, it does not follow that B has a moral duty
to donate a kidney. Neither does it follow that anyone has the right to order him
to do so.
Just like utilitarianism, cost–benefit analysis sums up advantages and disadvantages
irrespective of whom they accrue to. This means that the controversial assumption of
interpersonal compensability is implicitly taken for granted. Likewise, conventional
cost–benefit analysis, as applied for instance to infrastructure projects and
environmental regulations, weighs costs and benefits collectively, i.e., all costs and all
benefits are added up in one single calculation irrespective of who receives them.
However, sometimes a supplementary analysis of the distribution of costs and benefits
is performed.
Some cost–benefit analysts try to include some of the concerns related to social
distribution by applying the so-called Kaldor-Hicks criterion of efficiency in their
main analysis. According to this criterion, a situation that is to some people’s
disadvantage is acceptable if it could have been transferred through some
redistribution of assets to a situation that is to no one’s disadvantage. From an ethical
point of view, this criterion has very little convincing force. If an unjustifiable state
of affairs S1 could have been transformed into a justifiable one S2 by a redistribution
and compensation scheme, but this redistribution does not take place, then the fact
that it could have taken place does not make S1 more justifiable (Farrow 1998;
Stringham 2001).
5
Probabilistic Weighing
In economic cost–benefit analysis, a risk (see risk) or uncertain event is standardly
counted according to its expectation value, i.e., probability weighted value. The use
of expectation values is fairly uncontroversial when they are applied to small amounts
of money. Most people would be willing to pay €1 for a lottery ticket that gives them
a 10 percent chance of winning €20. The expectation value of the lottery payout is
10 percent of €20, i.e., €2, which is more than the price of the ticket. In risk analysis,
the same method is applied even when much more is at stake. Hence, risks of death
are commonly valued according to the expectation value of the number of fatalities.
Expectation values have the important property of being additive. Suppose that a
certain operation is associated with a 1 percent probability of an accident that will
kill five persons, and also with a 2 percent probability of another type of accident
that will kill one person. Then the total expectation value is 1% × 5 + 2% × 1 = 0.07
deaths. In similar fashion, the expected number of deaths from a nuclear power
plant is equal to the sum of the expectation values of each of the various types of
accidents that can occur in the plant. Expectation values fit well into the calculatory
framework of economic analysis, but their use has sometimes been questioned from
an ethical point of view.
One obvious problem is that it may be difficult or even impossible to assign
meaningful probabilities to some of the effects of a decision that we wish to take into
account. This applies for instance to risks of negative social effects such as loss of
social cohesion. The textbook solution to this problem is to nevertheless include
such effects, using the best estimates of their probabilities (that may be rough
guesses) (Sen 2000). In practice it is more common that such effects are excluded
from the analysis. This may lead to a “technocratization” of decision-making: only
quantifiable effects are included. However, if decision-makers are made aware of the
possible consequences that have been excluded, they can take them into account
although they are not covered in the cost–benefit analysis.
Even if accurate probability estimates are available, it is not self-evident that
uncertain events should be given the weights indicated by their probabilities. From
an ethical point of view, the moral impact of a potential outcome may not be
proportionate to its probability. In policy discussions the avoidance of very large
catastrophes, such as a nuclear accident costing thousands of human lives, is often
given a higher priority than what is warranted by the statistically expected number
of deaths. According to expected utility maximization, such risk-averse or cautious
decision-making is not morally allowed. This is contestable; cautiousness has more
often been taken to be a moral virtue than a vice (see precautionary principle).
Temporal Discounting
In economic cost–benefit analysis, the value of a future good is assumed to be equal
to the product of two factors. One of these is a time-independent evaluation of the
good in question, i.e., the value of having it now. The other factor is a function of the
6
length of the delay, and is the same for all types of goods (and costs). It is calculated
according to the formula 1/(1+r)t, where t is the number of years ahead and r the
discount rate. If the present value of an object or event (i.e., the value of obtaining it
today) is u, then the value today of obtaining it t years later is u × 1/(1+r)t. Hence, if the
discount rate is 3 percent, then the value today of getting $100,000 in ten years’ time is
$100,000 × 1/1.0310 ≈ $74,400. This reflects the simple fact that if the deposit rate is
constantly 3 percent, then you have to deposit $74,400 today in order to have $100,000
15 years later. In economic cost–benefit analysis, such discounting is also applied to
nonmonetary goods. This means for instance that if the discount rate is 3 percent,
then the loss of 31 lives 15 years ahead should be valued in the same way as the loss of
31 × 1/1.0315 ≈ 20 lives today.
Discounting of monetary costs and gains is easy to justify. We can deposit money
in a bank and expect to receive interest. But for objects that have no monetary price
discounting may be more difficult to justify. We cannot deposit health or threatened
animal species in the bank and expect to receive more back after a couple of years.
For goods like these, the justification of discounting has to be more indirect. It
cannot be justified with an argument that directly combines the two entities:
lives today – lives in the future
Instead, the following chain of three commensuration steps needs to be considered:
lives today – money today – money in the future – lives in the future
The first step consists in assigning a monetary value to the loss of human lives
today. As we have seen, although this step is controversial it can be performed, as
an expression of current willingness to pay (or of some ethical view of what we
should be willing to pay today). The second step is discounting of money, which is
a standard economic procedure. In the time spans that economists usually work
with, it is a highly useful tool of analysis. In the longer time spans applied in cost–
benefit analyses of climate change and other long-term environmental issues, this
step is more uncertain. When the time span is counted in centuries rather than
decades it cannot be taken for granted that the economy will function in the same
way as today.
The third commensuration step, between money and lives at some point of time
in the future, is the most problematic one. Present life values are reports on what
we are prepared to pay today for saving a life. We have no reason to believe that our
present priorities in these respects will remain the same over a longer period of
time. (Historically, our willingness to pay for saving lives seems to have increased
dramatically.) Therefore we have no ground for projecting the trade-offs that we
make between human lives today and money today into the distant future.
Consequently, valuations of effects far off into the future tend to be much more
uncertain than valuations with a shorter time span. (In addition, a long time span
also leads to another type of uncertainty, namely difficulties in predicting
outcomes.)
7
Most of the philosophical discussion on discounting has referred to the absurd

conclusions that it gives rise to over long periods of time. Since cost–benefit analysis
of environmental issues such as climate change, waste disposal, and resource
depletion often reaches several hundred years into the future, this discussion is
practically relevant.
Let us assume that the discount rate is 3 percent, and let us assume that the world
population will be 10,000,000,000 in the year 2800. Compare the following two
actions that a person can perform in the year 2020:
1 A homicide, i.e., an act that leads to the immediate death of a person.

2 An action that will lead to the death of the whole population of the world, i.e.,
10,000,000,000 persons, in the year 2800.
With a 3 percent discount rate, the second of these actions will be preferred to the
first one. (It corresponds to the immediate death of 1010 × 1/1.03780 ≈ 0.97 persons,
and clearly 0.97 is less than 1.) Although the example is unrealistic it serves to show
that even very large disasters will be discounted to very low values if they take place
a couple of hundred years into the future. Reducing the discount rate diminishes
the problem but does not eliminate it. (With a discount rate of 0.5 percent it is still
worse that one person dies today than that 10,000,000,000 people die 4,620 years
into the future.) Examples like these give rise to conclusions that run counter to
common views on sustainability and our responsibilities to future generations. This
is a further reason to regard cost–benefit analyses with long time spans as more
uncertain than those with shorter time spans (Loewenstein et al. 2003).
Alternatives
Although economic cost–benefit analysis has a strong standing in policy analysis, it
may not always be the most helpful way to summarize the information available to
decision-makers. Several alternative methods are also in use.
1 Cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) presents as its output an estimate of how much

positive effect is obtained per unit of monetary cost, e.g., how many lives are
saved per million dollars invested in a road safety program. CEA is particularly
useful if a single, dominant improvement variable has to be weighed against
economic costs. When several outcome variables have to be taken into account,
CEA is subject to the same problems of incommensurability as cost–benefit
analysis.
2 Health–health analysis weighs the expected positive and negative health effects
of a project against each other. As one example, the positive effects on
occupational health from prohibiting a pesticide in a third world country can be
weighed against the negative health effects that are expected to result from the
ensuing reductions in harvests. Health–health analysis has been praised as more
acceptable to the public than standard cost–benefit analysis. However, unless
8
non-health-related outcomes are “translated” into health effects in a far-fetched

way, health–health analysis is only applicable in the relatively few cases when all
the major factors influencing a decision are effects on human health.
3 QALY analysis measures the gains obtained with a medical treatment or
preventive measure in terms of saved life-years. However, these years are assigned
different values depending on the state of health. The resulting measurement
unit is called a QALY (quality-adjusted life-year). An extra year in full health is
assigned 1.0 QALY, but a year with some disability is assigned a lower value,
depending on the type of disability (Nord 1999) (see allocating scarce medi-
cal resources). The assignment of these weights is a difficult commensuration
task, although there is no reference to money. QALY analysis is often combined
with cost-effectiveness analysis, resulting in estimates of how many QALYs are
saved per monetary unit invested in a health program. QALY analysis is in
practice limited to programs where survival rate is the sole positive outcome that
needs to be taken into account.
4 Individualist weighing: Instead of adding up all the (positive and negative) effects
of a project in one grand calculation, the weighing can be performed separately
for each individual. This approach is useful if the decision criterion for a project
requires that it will only be carried out if it has predominantly positive effects on
all affected individuals. For many purposes, that is a too demanding criterion.
However, individual weighing can also be used as a supplementary analysis,
serving as a corrective to the aggregating approach of standard cost–benefit
analysis.
5 Multi-dimensional presentation: The various outcome dimensions of a project
can be presented separately to decision-makers, without any attempt to reduce
the dimensionality. In this way, the commensurating task is left to the decision-
makers. An obvious disadvantage is that the commensuration will expectedly be
performed less consistently than if it is done by cost–benefit analysts.
Conclusion
Cost–benefit analysis is often a useful method to summarize the factual and
valuational inputs into a decision problem. When used as a tool for critical policy
analysis it serves to clarify the consequences of different decision alternatives
and to ensure that these alternatives are evaluated uniformly, according to the
same evaluation criteria. However, cost–benefit analysis necessarily involves
controversial ethical choices. If these choices do not reflect the values of the
decision-makers for whom the analysis is performed, then the outcome of the
analysis can be misleading. Therefore, the usefulness of cost–benefit analysis can
be significantly increased if it is combined with careful ethical reflection on its
presuppositions.
See also: allocating scarce medical resources; life, value of;

precautionary principle; risk; utilitarianism
9
REFERENCES
Beattie, J., J. Covey, P. Dolan, et al. 1998. “On the Contingent Valuation of Safety and the
Safety of Contingent Valuation: Part 1 – Caveat Investigator,” Journal of Risk and
Uncertainty, vol. 17, pp. 5–25.
Carson, Richard T., and W. Michael Hanemann 2006. “Contingent Valuation,” in K. G. Mäler
and J. R. Vincent (eds.), Handbook of Environmental Economics, vol. 2. Amsterdam:
Elsevier, pp. 821–936.
Copp, D. 1987. “The Justice and Rationale of Cost–Benefit Analysis,” Theory and Decision,
vol. 23, pp. 65–87.
Farrow, Scott 1998. “Environmental Equity and Sustainability: Rejecting the Kaldor-Hicks
Criteria,” Ecological Economics, vol. 27, no. 2, pp. 183–8.
Hampshire, Stuart 1972. Morality and Pessimism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hansson, Sven Ove 2004. “Weighing Risks and Benefits,” Topoi, vol. 23, pp. 145–52.
Loewenstein, George, Daniel Read, and Roy F. Baumeister (eds.) 2003. Time and Decision.
Economic and Psychological Perspectives on Intertemporal Choice. New York: Russell
Sage Foundation.
Nord, Erik 1999. Cost–Value Analysis in Health Care: Making Sense out of QALYs. Cambridge:
Sen, Amartya 2000. “The Discipline of Cost–Benefit Analysis,” Journal of Legal Studies, vol.
29, pp. 931–52.
Stringham, Edward 2001. “Kaldor-Hicks Efficiency and the Problem of Central Planning,”
Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 41–50.
FURTHER READINGS
Ashby, Eric 1980. “What Price the Furbish Lousewort?” Environmental Science and
Technology, vol. 14, pp. 1176–81.
Boardman, Anthony E., David Greenberg, Aidan Vining, and David Weimer 2005. Cost–
Benefit Analysis: Concepts and Practice, 3rd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Hansson, Sven Ove 2006. “Uncertainty and the Ethics of Clinical Trials,” Theoretical Medicine
and Bioethics, vol. 27, pp. 149–67.
Hansson, Sven Ove 2007. “Philosophical Problems in Cost–Benefit Analysis,” Economics and
Heinzerling, L. 2000. “The Rights of Statistical People,” Harvard Environmental Law Review,
vol. 24, pp. 189–207.
Sunstein, C. R. 2002. The Cost–Benefit State: The Future of Regulatory Protection. Chicago:
American Bar Association.
1
Prichard, H. A.
Robert Shaver
H. A. Prichard (1871–1947) was educated at Clifton College and at New College,

Oxford. He later held fellowships in Oxford at Hertford College and then at Trinity
College. He was elected White’s Professor of Moral Philosophy in 1928 (and a fellow
of Corpus Christi College), and retired in 1937.
Prichard published four papers in moral philosophy. More have been published
posthumously (see Prichard 2002). His unpublished letters are full of further
arguments. I shall discuss his most famous paper, “Does Moral Philosophy Rest on
a Mistake?” published in 1912. “Mistake” began the reaction against the consequen-
tialism of Sidgwick, Moore, and Rashdall (see consequentialism; deontology;
moore, g. e.; rashdall, hastings; sidgwick, henry). In the second section of this
essay I discuss later modifications.
“Mistake” opens by noting that when an action one takes to be a duty requires a
significant sacrifice, we sometimes doubt whether it really is our duty. Moral
philosophy attempts to show that the action is indeed our duty.
Prichard sees two strategies moral philosophers can take. The first, egoism, argues
that the action is actually in our self-interest (see egoism). Prichard objects that this
does not show that the action is our duty. Self-interest is the wrong sort of reason.
This is convincing when “duty” means “moral duty,” as it does in “Mistake.” It is
less convincing when, as Prichard also thinks, the issue is simply what one ought to
do. Prichard takes there to be only one sense of “ought,” which he treats as “morally
ought.” He treats any other “ought” as really making the nonnormative claim that a
certain means is conducive to attaining a certain end (Prichard 2002: 34, 43, 54–5,
126–8, 166; see imperatives, categorical and hypothetical). But egoism can
be seen as making categorical ought-claims. And the historical popularity of egoism,
which Prichard so often notes, indicates that self-interest is not obviously irrelevant
to what one ought to do (in a not specifically moral sense).
The second strategy, consequentialism, claims that the action is our duty either
because it (a) brings about some good or (b) is itself a good.
Against (b), Prichard objects that actions are good only in virtue of their motives.
If good actions are those motivated by a sense of obligation, then a view about one’s
duty is explaining what is good, rather than vice versa, as the consequentialist strategy
attempts. If good actions are those motivated by good desires, such as benevolence,
this also fails to explain our sense of obligation, since “we cannot feel that we ought
to do that the doing of which is ex hypothesi prompted solely by the desire to do it”
(Prichard 2002: 11). (Prichard takes it as obvious that a “desire for X can originate
only the desire, and not the sense of obligation, to take the means to X”: 2002: 54.) In
“What is the Basis of Moral Obligation?,” which seems a draft or revision of “Mistake,”
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee220
2
Prichard instead objects here that desires are not under our control (2002: 3). More
generally, the rightness of an action is independent of motive, since we can perform
the right action from bad motives, and when deliberating about whether an action is
right, we do not consider the motive from which we would do it.
One worry about the rejection of good actions as motivated by good desires is
that Prichard later replaces the sense of obligation, as a motive, with the desire to do
the right thing, on the ground that desires are needed for action (2002: 129).
Presumably he could not then claim that action prompted solely by that desire
cannot give rise to the feeling of obligation.
Against (a), Prichard gives several objections. First, “an ‘ought’ … can only be
derived from another ‘ought.’” Therefore one who derives claims about what
one ought to do from claims about what is good must say that “what is good
ought to be.” But “the word ‘ought’ refers to actions and actions alone.” For (1) “The
proper language is never ‘So and so ought to be,’ but ‘I ought to do so and so,’” and
(2) “we can only feel the imperativeness upon us of something which is in our
power” and “it is actions and actions alone which, directly at least, are in our
power” (2002: 9–10, 47).
One problem with this argument is that one can deny that an “ought” can be derived
only from another “ought.” Moore holds that an “ought” can be derived from a claim
about goodness, either because “ought” is defined in terms of goodness (Moore 1903)
or because there is a synthetic a priori connection between “ought” and goodness
(Moore 1912). On either view, there is no need to apply “ought” to states of affairs. As
Prichard seems to grant in “Basis,” the consequentialist can say that a state of affairs’
being best simply entails that one ought to bring it about, if one can (Prichard 2002: 1).
Worse, it is counterintuitive to say, with Prichard, that the badness of pain is not “the
reason why we ought not to inflict pain on another” (2002: 10).
Second, Prichard objects that sometimes one ought to do what fails to bring about
the best results. A just action may redistribute goods such that a different distribution
would have produced more good. In “Basis” he adds that a son ought to save his
father, rather than a stranger, even if more good would be produced by saving the
stranger, and that the son has no obligation to save himself, rather than another,
even if saving himself would maximize the good. (Prichard does not say much about
what is intrinsically good. He did come to think that only virtuous dispositions are
intrinsically good. Pleasure, for example, is not, since it is not good when it is the
outcome of a vicious disposition. Pain is not intrinsically bad, since feeling pain as
the outcome of a virtuous disposition such as sympathy is good, and we describe a
toothache as “painful” rather than “bad” – unless “bad” just means “very painful”
[Prichard 2002: 173, to Ross 20.12.28].)
Third, even if one’s duty coincides with what brings about the most good, this
is again the wrong sort of reason. We do not ordinarily arrive at the conclusion
that an action is our duty by thinking that it maximizes good. Here, as against
the egoist, Prichard assumes that the ordinary reflective person knows why an
act is right, and that this knowledge trumps philosophical attempts to provide
different explanations.
3
Since neither egoism nor consequentialism works, Prichard concludes that moral
philosophy is of no help. But he adds that no help is needed. If I doubt that I have a
duty, I need to reflect on what my action will bring about and how I am related to
those who would be affected by it. (As an example of the latter, it is relevant that, say,
the person has benefited me in the past, or is one to whom I have made a promise.)
Once this is known, whether the action is my duty is self-evident.
One worry about Prichard’s set-up is that he sees moral philosophy as answer-
ing doubts prompted by the costliness of duty. But one might see moral philoso-
phy as helping us to decide what is our duty when there are competing possibilities
(and we are willing to put up with the cost of each). Prichard’s refusal to answer
the costliness worry might seem fine, while his unhelpfulness in deciding on our
duty might not.
One question about Prichard’s positive view concerns its anti-consequential-
ism. On the radical reading, when I reflect on what my action will bring about,
any goodness brought about is irrelevant to the justification of the action. In
“Basis,” Prichard writes that “the goodness of the thing produced is a presupposi-
tion of the obligation to produce it,” and so presumably not a premise justifying
the obligation (2002: 2–3). “We do not come to appreciate an obligation by an
argument … of which a premiss is … the … activity of appreciating the goodness
either of the act or of a consequence of the act” (2002: 13–14). When Prichard
explains how we apprehend a duty, he mentions that we need to consider the
consequences and the relations the agent stands in, but in “Mistake” does not
mention goodness, even for duties in which goodness seems relevant, such as a
duty not to hurt someone’s feelings (2002: 12–13). In cases of conflict, “the deci-
sion of what we ought to do turns not on the question ‘Which of the alternative
courses of action will originate the greater good?’ but on the question ‘Which is
the greater obligation?’” (2002: 14n; also 79) This fits Prichard’s stress that “the
sense of obligation to do … an action of a particular kind is absolutely underivative
or immediate” (2002: 12; also 75).
On the conservative reading, Prichard is denying the view of Rashdall and
Moore that the goodness of the result by itself justifies the duty. This allows that
the goodness could be part of the justification. Prichard’s point is then that more is
needed for a justification – certainly the relations that the agent stands in, and
perhaps, as for Ross, an independent duty to promote the good (one that does not
follow from the goodness – though later Prichard fails to endorse this duty (to
Ross, 8.2.33; see ross, w. d.). He does note Rashdall as a target (Prichard 2002: 9).
In “Basis” he notes that one needs to know one’s relation and the “good thing which
the action will produce” (2002: 4). Later he describes the (a)-consequentialist as
holding that from facts about goodness “it follows immediately” that we have
duties. His objection there is that, contra Moore and Rashdall, “right” does not
mean “will cause a good result” (2002: 152–3). And Prichard’s arguments against
(a) would justify only the conservative reading. One need not analyze “good” as
“what ought to be” if the duty is derived not simply from the goodness, but from,
in addition, a duty to promote the good. That there are duties that fail to promote
4
the most good, and whose consideration does not feature thoughts about the good,
does not show that this is true for all duties.
There is a related question. Prichard takes there to be “preliminaries to appreciating”
an obligation: I must know some of the consequences of the proposed act and my
relation to those who would be affected by it (2002: 12, 13). It is not clear why these
are not premises in an argument for an obligation. The obligation is arrived at with-
out inference only once the consequences and relations are known; a consequentialist
could agree that no inference is needed once one knows what maximizes the good.
Prichard’s hostility seems not really to be aimed at the use of inference, or at moral
theory, but rather at the particular inferences offered by egoists and consequential-
ists, along with their assumption that there is a single right-making feature. (Prichard
might reply that [on the radical reading] his view, unlike consequentialism, does not
rest the inference on prior “moral thinking” [about goodness] [2002: 13]. But know-
ing which relations and consequences are relevant – for example, that x has benefited
me – seems itself moral thinking. And in any case, what seems objectionable is not
that there is an inference, but rather the role given to goodness.)
Here is a final question about “Mistake.” It is tempting to read Prichard as rejecting
arguments for the conclusion that I am obligated. But usually he writes not of having
an obligation but of having a “sense” or “feeling” of obligation. Later he is explicit
that this is an emotion, though a “rational” one (2002: 55, 73). Read this way, his
point is that egoists and consequentialists cannot explain the occurrence of the
emotion. Egoists and consequentialists might reply that their interest is in giving
arguments for one’s obligations. Whether reflection on those arguments produces
an emotion is irrelevant.
After “Mistake,” Prichard elaborated on, and sometimes modified, these themes.
In the case of the egoist strategy, he argues that Plato, Aristotle, Butler, and Green
exemplify it (see aristotle; butler, joseph; green, t. h.; plato). Thus he argues
that by “good” Aristotle means “conducive to the agent’s happiness.” Aristotle cannot
mean what we mean by “good,” since he does not think we desire for its own sake the
good activity of another; it is only our own good activities that we desire for their
own sakes. He takes good things to be things we desire for their own sakes; when
asked why we desire these things, he answers that they bring happiness; so the things
we seemed to desire for their own sakes turn out to be means to our happiness.
Aristotle then mistakenly treats this capacity to bring happiness as an intrinsic
property of the things, and calls them “good.”
Prichard extends the wrong-reason objection to Kant: whether an act can be
willed as a universal law is not what we ordinarily think makes it right or wrong
(Prichard 2002: 59; see kant, immanuel).
Prichard also modified his positive view. Rather than think of circumstances as
giving rise to conflicting obligations with degrees of stringency, he anticipated Ross’s
notion of a prima facie duty. Circumstances give rise to various “claims” that have
degrees of stringency; one’s obligation is fixed by seeing what claim wins (Prichard
2002: 79; see prima facie and pro tanto oughts).
In the case of consequentialism, Prichard gave a series of often strange arguments.
5
(A) Consequentialism “fails to stand the test of instances” (2002: 216). By this
Prichard does not mean that, say, consequentialism tells us to frame innocents. The
objection concerns the description of our duties. Say I have a duty to confer a good
on myself and on another. A consequentialist would say the ground of both duties is
the production of the good. But the ground of the duties is instead, in the one case,
that we are “making not someone but ourselves better,” and in the other that we are
“making another better” (2002: 217).
(B) Prichard gives arguments against what he calls “teleological” and “quasi-
teleological” theories of obligation. “Teleological” theories explain obligation by
aims the agent possesses. Prichard objects that they justify only nonmoral claims
about what is conducive to one’s ends. They take one’s aim to be to maximize happi-
ness, and conclude that, say, telling the truth maximizes happiness (2002: 135, 142–
5). “Quasi-teleological” theories explain obligation by aims the agent ought to
possess. Prichard objects (1) that we are obligated to perform activities, rather than
have aims, in part because aims are not in our control (2002: 198, 199, 202); and (2)
that one cannot argue from claims about what we ought to desire to claims about
what we are obligated to do, since if we do not in fact desire x, we cannot conclude
that we ought to take the means to x (2002: 135, 142, 203). As Prichard notes, these
arguments do not touch a version of consequentialism that speaks not of aims but
rather of what one ought to bring about.
(C) Prichard objects that consequentialists think that obligatory acts have a
common property that makes them obligatory. But Prichard holds (oddly) that
a property of an act can give rise only to another property of an act. (This prin-
ciple rules out the “intuitional” view, held earlier by Prichard and by Ross and
Carritt, that one can infer from the nature of the act to obligations of agents [to
Ross 11.12.36, 16.12.36, 28.1.38, 14.7.38, 10.5.40, 8.1.46; to Carritt 12.12.36,
16.12.36; to Broad, 4.3.43].) Thus consequentialists cannot explain how I acquire
the property of being obligated, since that is a property of me, not of the act
(Prichard 2002: 222).
(D) One might reject (C) by claiming that obligations are properties of acts. But
Prichard objects that I am obligated to perform acts that do not yet exist. And
Prichard holds (again oddly) that if the acts do not exist, they do not have properties.
This thought also supports a version of the restriction on what properties of acts can
give rise to, found in (C). A property of the act cannot give rise to a property of the
agent, because the act need not exist when the agent has the property (2002: 99,
168–9, 225; to Ross 14.7.38, 8.1.46, 16.8.47; to Laird 30.7.38, 2.3.45).
One reply to (D), made by Joseph, Broad, Ross, and Carritt, is that properties the
act would have, were it performed, can make me obligated (to Ross 15.4.37, 17.1.40,
10.5.40, 8.1.46; to Broad 4.3.43; Carritt to Prichard 14.12.36; to Laird 4.1.39, 2.3.45; to
Broad 1950: 564). For example, if an act would cause great and pointless misery,
that is a reason for me not to perform it. Prichard objected that hypothetical facts
cannot ground categorical ones such as “I am obligated” (to Ross 10.5.40, 8.1.46; to
Laird 10.1.39). Another reply, suggested by Broad, is to find something that exists
before the act is performed, such as a description of the act, to which properties can
6
be attributed. Broad suggests that “x ought to exist” asserts of a description of x that

it ought to have an instance (Broad 1950: 564).
For a time, Prichard’s positive view was that obligations are based on properties of
one’s circumstances rather than of the acts. For example, my obligation to relieve
someone’s pain arises from the fact that the person is suffering and that I can alleviate
it, not from the fact that the act would be a relieving of another’s pain (to Carritt
12.12.36, 16.12.36; to Ross 11.12.36, 16.12.36, 28.1.38, 14.7.38). Sometimes Prichard
gives a special role to one property of the circumstances, namely my belief that if I
do x, there will be effect y (Prichard 2002: 99–100; to Laird 2.3.45; to Ross 8.1.46).
But Prichard came to worry that the relevant properties of the circumstances are
again hypothetical facts (if I do this, that will follow). This led him to doubt the
circumstances view, and wonder whether the properties of the act view was not right
after all (to Ross 8.1.46, 10.12.46, 16.8.47).
This characteristically intense reflection makes Ross an easier source of similar
positive views. But it is also perhaps what enabled Prichard to break the consensus
on consequentialism, leaving us with our present conflicts.
See also: aristotle; butler, joseph; consequentialism; deontology;

egoism; green, t. h.; imperatives, categorical and hypothetical; kant,
immanuel; moore, g. e.; plato; prima facie and pro tanto oughts;
rashdall, hastings; ross, w. d.; sidgwick, henry
REFERENCES
Broad, C. D. 1950. Critical Notice of Prichard, Moral Obligation, Mind, vol. 59, pp. 555–66.
Moore, G. E. 1912. Ethics. London: Williams & Norgate.
Prichard, H. A. 2002. Moral Writings, ed. Jim MacAdam. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Prichard, H. A. Correspondence. Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS English Letters c 131, c 276,
d 116.
FURTHER READINGS
Brown, Lesley 2007. “Glaucon’s Challenge, Rational Egoism and Ordinary Morality,” in
D. Cairns, F.-G. Hermann, and T. Penner (eds.), Pursuing the Good: Ethics and
Metaphysics in Plato’s Republic. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 42–60.
Dancy, Jonathan 2002. “Prichard on Duty and Ignorance of Fact,” in Philip Stratton-Lake
(ed.), Ethical Intuitionism: Reevaluations. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 229–47.
Dancy, Jonathan 2010. “Harold Arthur Prichard.” At http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/prichard/.
Hurka, Thomas 2010. “Underivative Duty: Prichard on Moral Obligation,” Social Philosophy
Johnson, Oliver 1959. Rightness and Goodness. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
Price, H. H. 1947. “Harold Arthur Prichard, 1871–1947,” Proceedings of the British Academy,
vol. 33, pp. 331–50.
7
Ross, W. D. 1939. Foundations of Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Shaver, Robert forthcoming. “Prichard’s Arguments Against Ideal Utilitarianism,” in Brian
Feltham and Philip Stratton-Lake (eds.), Impartiality and Moral Theory. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
1
Self-Respect and Self-Esteem

Robin S. Dillon
Self-respect and self-esteem are forms of self-regard involving one’s worth. Although
the terms are ordinarily used interchangeably, the concepts and phenomena are dis-
tinct. That’s why it makes sense to describe someone as having high self-esteem but little
self-respect, and why saying that someone has no self-respect expresses moral criticism
while saying they lack self-esteem might evoke sympathy. The Oxford English Diction-
ary expresses the distinction thus: self-esteem is “a favorable appreciation or opinion of
oneself ”; self-respect is “proper regard for the dignity of one’s person or position” (see
worth/dignity). Self-respect is a normative concept while self-esteem is not.
While philosophers generally agree that self-respect is something of great moral
importance, there is significant disagreement about whether self-esteem is morally val-
uable. The normativity of self-respect is analyzed in various ways; it is treated as a moral
duty connected with the duty to respect all persons, as something to which all persons
have a right and which it would be unjust to undermine, as a moral virtue essential to
morally good living, and as something one earns by living up to demanding standards.
Contemporary philosophical discussions of self-esteem, predominantly in the philoso-
phy of education, often focus on its motivational dimensions and debate whether sup-
porting it is an appropriate social objective, given its questionable moral status.
Self-esteem is also of interest in social science, where it is one of the most fre-
quently studied subjects, while discussions of self-respect there are rare. Social sci-
ence researchers (chiefly psychologists, social psychologists, and sociologists) regard
self-esteem as central to psychological functioning and well-being, but also note that
it has no necessary connection to moral values and can be socially dangerous unless
appropriately constrained (see well-being).
Historically, the concepts are related to Aristotle’s megalopsychia, Augustine’s and
Aquinas’s superbia, Hobbes’s glory, Descartes’s générosité, Spinoza’s pride, vanity, and
self-contentment, Hume’s proper pride, self-conceit, and greatness of soul, Rousseau’s
amour-propre, Kant’s dignity and self-respect, Nietzsche’s nobility, and Freud’s
narcissism.
Self-Esteem
What is it?
Despite the seeming simplicity of the OED definition, self-esteem is a complex
phenomenon. Although there is disagreement about details and emphasis, self-
esteem is generally regarded as a reflexive attitude of apprehending, experiencing, or
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee221
2
judging one’s worth, which comprises an array of affects (emotions and feelings),
cognitions (perceptions, beliefs, and judgments), and motivations (desires, will-
ings). It differs from self-respect as regards the kinds and grounds of self-worth and
the cognitions, affects, and motivations involved.
Although self-esteem is commonly viewed as a positive attitude, it is also treated
(especially by social scientists) as a spectrum attitude that can range from highly
positive through neutral to extremely negative, as reflected in the familiar terms
“high self-esteem” and “low self-esteem.” Social scientists categorize self-esteem
using various crosscutting distinctions (e.g., trait/state, global/domain-specific,
explicit/implicit, individual/collective) (see essays in Kernis 2006), but most discus-
sions relevant to ethics pertain to “explicit individual global self-esteem,” which is
self-conscious, overall valuing of oneself as a distinctive individual. That is the focus
in what follows.
The core of self-esteem is an assessment of self-worth, i.e., one’s worthiness, self-
competence or efficacy, or importance. Self-assessment can be positive or favorable
(“high self-esteem”), involving degrees of approval, satisfaction, or admiration of
oneself; negative or unfavorable (“low self-esteem”), involving disapproval or dis-
satisfaction; or neutral. One can also be uncertain about self-worth. High self-esteem
is not necessarily good, nor is low self-esteem necessarily bad; conceit, arrogance,
and narcissism are forms of high self-esteem, while virtuous modesty and humility
may express moderate or lower self-esteem.
The object of self-esteem is not the self as such but what researchers call a “self-
representation”: who and what one takes or believes oneself to be. Self-esteem
thus relates to self-identity. This is significant because self-representations can
diverge from what individuals are really like or how objective external observers
would describe them; this is one reason why self-esteem can be inaccurate or
ill-grounded: inflated or unjustifiably low compared with objective measures or
others’ assessment of worth. (Poor assessment skill is another reason.) Interestingly,
while English has numerous terms referring negatively to excessive self-esteem
(arrogance, conceit, vanity, smugness, narcissism, self-importance, cockiness,
big-headedness, etc.), there are few terms referring to unjustifiably low self-
assessment. Despite the verbal condemnations of excessive self-esteem, robust
empirical evidence indicates that most adults have unrealistically high self-esteem
(Baumeister et al. 2003).
Although self-assessment involves both cognition and affect, there is disagree-
ment about whether one or the other is primary. Cognitive accounts hold that
self-esteem is structured by the individual’s beliefs and judgments about herself and
her worth, which might but need not be expressed emotionally. Thus, to have self-
esteem is to have a good opinion of oneself, believe one possesses prized qualities,
perceive that others like and admire or reject one, or judge that one has worthy aims
and ideals in life and abilities needed for successfully pursuing them (e.g., Deigh
1983; Crocker and Wolfe 2001). The possible grounds for self-esteem are very wide:
they include any qualities or activities of the self that the individual judges, or
perceives that others judge, to be valuable (Crocker and Wolfe 2001). There are,
3
however, no intrinsic moral constraints on the grounds; one can derive high self-
esteem as much from successful thievery as from being honest and kind. Cognitive
accounts trace back to William James (1890), who defined it as a function of the
ratio of the individual’s aspirations to perceived successes; the more one believes one
has been or will be successful (or the lower one’s aims), the greater one’s self-esteem.
Affective accounts hold that self-esteem is chiefly a matter of how one feels
about oneself, of having a sense of one’s worth. An individual with positive
self-esteem feels good about herself, or feels she is worthy or “good enough,” or
experiences her self-worth in pride, elation, self-satisfaction, confidence, etc.
Lacking or losing self-esteem involves experiencing oneself negatively through
emotions such as shame, humility, disappointment, self-doubt, etc. (see pride;
shame and honor). And high self-esteem is strongly correlated with happiness
while low self-esteem is strongly correlated with depression (Baumeister et al.
2003; see happiness). On affective accounts, beliefs about oneself can be the basis
of emotional self-assessment, but self-feelings can also fail to cohere with beliefs,
as when an individual believes she is valuable and has numerous admirable quali-
ties yet still feels unworthy or insecure. One hypothesis is that self-esteem derives
not from beliefs and judgments but from early childhood relational experiences,
and once formed, influences or resists self-judgment (Kernis 2006). Such causes
also float free of moral constraints: close-knit families of thieves can produce self-
esteeming thief offspring.
An important element of self-esteem is motivation. Empirical evidence indicates
that people with secure high self-esteem are self-confident and more likely to take
on new tasks, face risks, respond positively to challenges, and work toward their
goals, while people with low self-esteem are more likely to avoid risk, engage in self-
protection, and lack initiative in social contexts (Baumeister et al. 2003; Kernis
2006). These effects are an important reason why self-esteem has been thought to be
something that parents should foster and political and educational systems should
be arranged to support.
Another motivation dimension is what researchers call the “self-esteem motive,”
the impetus to maintain and enhance a positive self-evaluation. This motive includes
an array of self-serving strategies (such as selective attention, rationalization, reinter-
pretation, and denial) that protect or boost self-esteem through a distorted view of
the self (Gecas 2001). Most researchers assume that this is a potent and omnipresent,
even universal, human motivation, which could explain both the pervasiveness of
overly high self-esteem and evidence that the positive self-esteem of “well-adjusted”
people typically involves distorted self-perceptions (“positive illusions”).
As already suggested, self-esteem derives from two main sources. The first is
personal: one’s appraisal of oneself by one’s own standards of worth. The bases of
personal self-esteem are all those features of oneself that one regards as important to
one’s self-identity and values or is downcast about lacking. The other source is social:
how others respond to the individual, or, rather, one’s perceptions of how one is
valued by others (what social scientists call “reflected appraisals”). The social bases
of self-esteem include social status (whether one is regarded in society or one’s social
4
groups as important or not) and qualities of self that one perceives to be esteemed or
not by others, such as one’s appearance, in/competencies, adherence/disobedience
to social norms, and likeability. While these sources interact, social scientists generally
emphasize the social nature of the self, holding that self-esteem is primarily a
product of socialization and social interaction and rests on social comparisons.
Sociometer theory posits that self-esteem developed to monitor the degree of one’s
social acceptance/rejection. Discussions of self-esteem in philosophy of education
and political philosophy also emphasize its dependence on social relations, making
supporting self-esteem a social concern, or see self-esteem as necessarily based on
aspects of the self that are, in principle, applicable to anyone else and as requiring the
belief that others would share one’s self-evaluations.
The Ethical Significance of Self-Esteem

Is self-esteem something that contributes to individual happiness and flourishing or
to good social relations? Is it something that individuals or societies have a moral
duty (e.g., of justice) to promote or at least not undermine? Is it a moral virtue (see
virtue)? Judgments are mixed.
Judgments about its ethical value can vary cross-culturally. Cultures and tradi-
tions in which humility or self-effacement are highly valued may view the self-focus
and self-admiration that positive self-esteem involves negatively.
During the 1970s and 1980s in the United States, social scientists and laypersons
alike concurred in viewing self-esteem as affecting nearly every aspect of personal
and social life. High self-esteem was viewed as essential for well-being and success
and low self-esteem was thought to cause a host of social and personal ills, including
teenage pregnancy, crime and delinquency, poor job and school performance, sub-
stance abuse, eating disorders, poor health, and welfare dependency. Such personal
and social consequences would give self-esteem great ethical significance and sup-
port claims that there is a moral duty to promote or not undermine it and a duty of
justice to arrange social conditions to that end. This view resulted, for example, in
the establishment of school-based programs for boosting self-esteem and a boom in
the self-help industry.
However, claims about its social value are cast into doubt by studies finding little
evidence that low self-esteem causes any social problems and significant evidence
that high-self esteem is a risk-factor for prejudice and discrimination, substance
abuse, hazardous sexual behavior, and aggression and violence toward others (e.g.,
Baumeister et al. 2003). Yet it clearly has personal value; evidence indicates that sub-
jective well-being throughout one’s life is significantly affected by self-valuing: high
self-esteem is related to happiness and life satisfaction, and low self-esteem to
depression, long-term emotional distress, and retreat from life’s challenges (Crocker
and Wolfe 2001). Terror management theory holds that self-esteem developed to
protect us from existential fears and anxieties.
Its subjective value supports claims in social and political philosophy that self-esteem
is something there is a moral duty not to undermine in others, while the negative
5
consequences argue against a moral duty to enhance it in others. (The self-esteem

motive argues that a moral duty to maintain or enhance one’s own self-esteem is otiose.)
David Hume held that nothing was more useful for the conduct of life than valuing
oneself, and that a “genuine and hearty pride or self-esteem,” if “well conceal’d and well
founded,” is a great moral virtue, part of all “heroic virtues” like courage, and the source
of all great actions (Hume 1971: 598–600). Despite Hume’s positive verdict, however,
there is no necessary connection and no strong correlation between high self-esteem
and morally good character or right action (see character). Moreover, high self-
esteem based on execrable attributes or activities feels just as good, makes one just as
happy, and fosters initiative just as well as morally virtuous self-esteem (Baumeister
et al. 2003). Any connection between self-esteem and virtue is contingent on whether
the individual cares about being good and doing right and has justified moral views and
accurate self-perceptions, whether social values and assessments reflect justified moral
standards and endorse moral goodness, whether individuals interpret social appraisals
in ways that direct them toward rather than away from the good and the right, and
whether people’s self-esteem needs are met in morally good ways or lead them to join
socially destructive groups and engage in personally destructive behaviors. Gangs, hate-
groups, and promiscuity can, unfortunately, be pathways to positive self-esteem.
Consequently, many thinkers and researchers hold that the only kind of self-esteem
that should be fostered is accurate, reasonable, morally justified (“well-founded”) self-
esteem, agreeing with Milton (who likely coined the term in Paradise Lost) that “oft-times
nothing profits more / Than self-esteem, grounded in just and right / Well managed”
(VIII 572). Or they argue for the promotion of self-respect rather than self-esteem.
Self-Respect
Self-respect is an appropriate and engaged appreciation from a moral point of view
of oneself as having morally significant worth. While positive self-esteem is a favora-
ble attitude that need not be morally appropriate or express moral self-concern, self-
respect is due respect for oneself, proper regard for one’s dignity; to say that a person
respects herself is to say that her self-regard is morally appropriate.
Moreover, to respect oneself is not merely to have a certain attitude but to be a
certain kind of person; to lack self-respect is to be another kind of person. Individuals
who respect themselves understand and value themselves as having worth; but they
also regard self-worth as grounding norms that govern self-valuing – how one
should value oneself and how appropriate self-valuing should manifest in action,
attitude, and character. Self-respecting individuals value properly valuing them-
selves and being properly valued by others. This complex valuing – comprising a
constellation of cognitions, affects, commitments, and motivations – configures the
characters and lives of self-respecting persons.
Two kinds of self-respect

There is no settled consensus about how precisely to understand the concept; accounts
differ regarding the nature of the worth that grounds self-respect, what proper regard
6
for it is, and so what cognitions, affects, motivations, and conduct constitute it. But
there is widespread agreement on a basic division of self-respect into two kinds.
One way of expressing the division is to focus on the kind of self-worth around which
each is oriented. One kind of worth has to do with what the individual is: occupant of a
social role, member of a certain class, group, or people, or simply a human person. Such
identity-grounded worth entails entitlements to due treatment from others and respon-
sibilities for the individual. Recognition self-respect (Darwall 1977) centers on identity-
grounded worth. The censuring question “Have you no self-respect?,” the phrase “No
self-respecting person would … ,” and the idea that everyone has a right to self-respect
concern recognition self-respect. Another kind of worth depends not on what one is but
on the kind of person one is making of oneself, on the extent to which one’s character
and conduct meet standards of worthiness. Evaluative self-respect (Dillon 2004), or
appraisal self-respect (Darwall 1977), centers on character-grounded worth. The phrase
“I could never respect myself if I …” concerns evaluative self-respect. Other ways of
parsing the distinction include contrasting “conative” and “estimative” self-respect
(Telfer 1968) and “entitlement-SR” and “standards-SR” (Bird 2008). The recognition/
evaluative distinction will be the focus hereinafter.
Although these are different kinds, they are related. Recognition self-respect
involves recognizing certain norms as entailed by one’s identity-based worth and
valuing oneself appropriately by striving to live in accord with them. Evaluative self-
respect involves regarding oneself as having worth because one is (becoming) the
kind of person who does live in accord with appropriate norms.
Recognition self-respect
Individuals have numerous identities and so worth-bases for different forms of rec-
ognition self-respect, but most philosophical accounts focus on respect for oneself
as a person. The dominant interpretation of this is deontological, following the
influential work of the eighteenth-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant (see
deontology; kant, immanuel). On this interpretation, recognition respect for
persons is grounded on the worth that all persons have simply as persons, an abso-
lute intrinsic worth Kant called “dignity.” Most generally, recognition self-respect
involves recognizing that one is a person, valuing oneself as a being with dignity,
and living in accord with one’s dignity. Although theorists disagree about what it is
to be a person (see personhood, criteria of), there is widespread agreement
about two dimensions of living in accord with one’s dignity as a person, each of
which constitutes a distinctive form of recognition self-respect.
Most philosophical discussion has focused on recognition self-respect in the
interpersonal context. All persons, Kant held, have equal dignity and a fundamental
moral status of equality with every other person, and each person is owed recogni-
tion respect from every person (see equality; moral status). Recognition respect
for oneself as an equal person among persons involves understanding and confi-
dently valuing oneself as a person with the same basic moral rights as every other
person and as entitled to be regarded and treated by every other person with respect
7
for one’s dignity as a person (Hill 1973; Thomas 1995; see rights). Individuals who
thus respect themselves have some conception of treatment by others as their due as
persons and treatment that would be degrading or beneath their dignity, and they
desire to be regarded and treated appropriately, are prepared to insist on appropriate
treatment as their due, and resent and are disposed to protest disregard and disre-
spect. Servile individuals, who have a diminished conception of their worth and
what they are due and regard themselves as having fewer rights and entitled to less
than others, lack interpersonal recognition self-respect.
Another form of recognition self-respect involves understanding oneself not only
as the object of others’ attitudes and actions but as the subject of one’s own, as an
agent with some control over one’s life and character and the ability and responsibil-
ity to exercise one’s agency in shaping oneself and directing one’s life so they are
congruent with and honor one’s dignity as a person (Telfer 1968; Hill 1982; see
moral agency). Agentic recognition self-respect involves valuing oneself appropri-
ately through an effective commitment to live in accord with norms that configure a
kind of life one regards as worthy and morally appropriate to oneself as a person.
Self-respecting persons regard developing their characters and directing their lives
as vitally important tasks that a person must take up and do well; they are concerned
to be the kind of person they think it is good and appropriate to be, and they try to
live as such a person should live. They regard certain forms of acting, thinking,
desiring, and feeling as befitting them as persons and other forms as self-debasing or
contemptible, understanding the latter as what they must not do or be, no matter
what they might gain from it, and restraining themselves from what they regard as
beneath their dignity as a person. People who are shameless, chronically irresponsible,
self-destructive, inauthentic, or unconcerned with the shape and direction of their
lives may be said not to recognition-respect themselves as agents.
According to the Kantian deontological view, every person has a moral duty, per-
haps among the paramount moral obligations, to recognition-respect themselves as
persons. In The Metaphysics of Morals (1996) Kant argues that servility, committing
suicide, misusing sexual inclinations, engaging in drunkenness, gluttony, and lying,
and being avaricious are all violations of the moral duty of self-respect. However,
some thinkers question whether the notion of duties to oneself makes sense; if it
doesn’t, then recognition self-respect has to be conceptualized differently. Moreover,
if the ability to understand and respect oneself as a moral equal with basic moral
rights is significantly constrained by social and political circumstances, then it is
problematic to think that individuals who, through no personal fault, are incapable
of self-respect have violated a core moral duty. Thus some theorists stress the entitle-
ment dimension of recognition self-respect: all persons have an inviolable right to
recognition self-respect. Assuming that the ability to respect oneself depends on
whether one is respected by others, the entitlement view gives rise to the idea that
it is morally wrong to undermine or impede the development of recognition
self-respect by denying them the recognition respect to which they are entitled.
In political philosophy, this idea is expressed most influentially by John Rawls,
who argued that the social bases of self-respect are among the most important social
8
goods that justice demands be secured for all citizens through appropriate arrange-
ment of social institutions that affirm the equality of all (Rawls 1971; see rawls,
john). However, one might argue that the moral responsibility for self-respect lies
not with society but with agents themselves (Bird 2008).
There are also nondeontological accounts of recognition self-respect. Utilitarians,
for example, can treat self-respect as of paramount importance to a flourishing or
happy life and as thereby justifying moral constraints on the treatment of others
(Scarre 1992; see utilitarianism). Similarly, one could give a virtue-ethical account
of recognition self-respect, especially the agentic form, although this avenue has
been relatively unexplored.
Complicating all accounts of self-respect is the idea that it is socially constructed:
the concepts of personhood, treatment and conduct appropriate to persons, and
worthy forms of life and character are given content in sociocultural contexts, and
different kinds of individuals may be given different opportunities in different
sociocultural contexts to acquire or develop the skills and grounds of self-respect
(Moody-Adams 1992–3).
Regardless of approach, theorists agree that recognition self-respect is some-
thing of preeminent moral importance, and thus that there is something morally
wrong with directly undermining self-respect or tolerating social conditions that
impede its secure development. One focus of discussion has been the oppression
of women, people of color, gays and lesbians, and other subordinated groups,
identifying ways that oppressive institutions, images, and actions can damage
subordinates’ self-respect and ways that recognition self-respect can be an eman-
cipatory force.
Evaluative self-respect
Philosophers in the dominant deontological tradition hold that all persons are
morally entitled or required to have recognition self-respect. By contrast, evaluative
self-respect is not something to which all persons are entitled or have a duty to have,
but it is arguably something that persons ought to strive to deserve.
Evaluative self-respect involves an appreciative awareness that one is or is becom-
ing the worthy kind of person one has, as a recognition self-respecting person, com-
mitted oneself to being. It involves self-judgment in light of norms for recognition
self-respect and standards of worthy character and conduct. Some of the norms
contribute to one’s unique identity; others hold for all persons. Because (recognition-)
self-respecting persons stake themselves on living in accord with these norms and
standards, they are disposed to examine and evaluate their character and conduct,
and it matters to them that they are able to “bear their own survey,” as Hume says
(Hume 1971: 620). Evaluative self-respect contains the judgment that one “comes up
to scratch” morally (Telfer 1968) and is not in danger of becoming unworthy.
Evaluative self-respect is thus part of the monitoring needed for reflective control of
one’s life; it is also the way one holds oneself responsible to and accountable by one’s
norms and so responsible for oneself. And reflecting on what one makes of oneself
9
through the exercise of one’s agency is part of why it matters to me that I act and not
just that things are done.
The focus of evaluation is one’s worthiness as a person; finding oneself to be
unworthy entails loss of evaluative self-respect. Being unworthy involves not just
having failed to live in accord with certain norms but also self-betrayal, putting at
risk one’s self-identity and the meaning in which one has invested one’s life; so it is a
profoundly serious matter for the self-respecting individual. Thus, losing evaluative
self-respect can register emotionally as searing shame, self-contempt, or self-loathing.
Regaining it can require personal transformation.
Self-Esteem versus Self-Respect

It is evaluative self-respect, typically, with which self-esteem is conflated. There are
similarities: both are complex phenomena concerning self-worth and self-
assessment, and both are subject to mistakes and maladies of perception and judg-
ment and thus can be unwarranted. Some theorists treat the evaluative notion as a
form of self-esteem (“moral self-esteem”). However, there are reasons to distinguish
the two and value evaluative self-respect over self-esteem (Dillon 2004).
Evaluative self-respect is grounded in the worth of one’s character and conduct
insofar as they honor one’s dignity as a person, as assessed from a moral point of
view. Self-esteem, as popularly and scientifically understood, is grounded in
whatever qualities one prizes or thinks others prize; it does not essentially concern
morally significant worth, appropriate self-valuing, or self-assessment from a moral
perspective, and it can be grounded in features wholly unrelated to or even opposed
to good character. To have high self-esteem is to be proud of oneself; to have evalu-
ative self-respect is to feel justified, to be able to hold one’s head up. To lose (some
of) one’s (high) self-esteem is to think less well of oneself, but to lose evaluative
self-respect is to find oneself contemptible or intolerable, to be unable to live with
oneself. Self-esteem is in the service of subjective well-being and happiness; thus the
self-esteem motive impels people to manipulate data or standards to maintain or
increase a favorable self-view. Evaluative self-respect is in the service of the moral
demands of dignity, worthy character, agency, and one’s moral commitments; it calls
to be “grounded in just and right.” Thus, although the loss of evaluative self-respect
can be excruciating, self-respecting individuals are committed both to honest self-
appraisal and to dealing with integrity with negative self-evaluations: accepting
rather than evading them and working to improve oneself rather than lowering one’s
standards to improve one’s self-rating. This does not guarantee accurate evaluation,
but evaluative self-respect contains a deep concern to get it right which self-esteem
seems to lack. Unlike self-esteem, evaluative self-respect is directly concerned with
things that matter morally and is a more reliable, better “managed” motivator of
morally appropriate living and being.
See also: character; deontology; equality; happiness; kant, immanuel;

modesty; moral agency; moral status; personhood, criteria of; pride;
10
rawls, john; respect; rights; shame and honor; utilitarianism; virtue;

well-being; worth/dignity
REFERENCES
Baumeister, Roy F., Jennifer D. Campbell, Joachim I. Krueger, and Kathleen D. Vohs 2003.
“Does High Self-Esteem Cause Better Performance, Interpersonal Success, Happiness,
or Healthier Lifestyles?” Psychological Science in the Public Interest, vol. 4, pp. 1–44.
Bird, Colin 2008. “Self-Respect and the Respect of Others,” European Journal of Philosophy,
vol. 18, pp. 17–41.
Crocker, Jennifer, and Connie T. Wolfe 2001. “Contingencies of Self-Worth,” Psychological
Review, vol. 108, pp. 593–623.
Darwall, Stephen L. 1977. “Two Kinds of Respect,” Ethics, vol. 88, pp. 36–49.
Deigh, John 1983. “Shame and Self-Esteem: A Critique,” Ethics, vol. 93, pp. 225–45.
Dillon, Robin S. 2004. “ ‘What’s a Woman Worth? What’s Life Worth? Without Self-Respect?’
On the Value of Evaluative Self-Respect,” in Peggy DesAutels and Margaret Walker
(eds.), Moral Psychology: Feminist Ethics and Social Theory. Lanham, MD: Rowman &
Littlefield, pp. 47–69.
Gecas, Viktor 2001. “The Self as Social Force,” in Timothy J. Owens, Sheldon Stryker, and
Norman Goodman (eds.), Extending Self-Esteem Theory and Research: Sociological and
Psychological Currents. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 85–100.
Hill, Thomas E., Jr. 1973. “Servility and Self-Respect,” Monist, vol. 57, pp. 12–27.
Hill, Thomas E., Jr. 1982. “Self-Respect Reconsidered,” in O. H. Green (ed.), Respect for
Persons, Tulane Studies in Philosophy 31. New Orleans: Tulane University Press,
pp. 129–37.
Hume, David 1971 [1739]. A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
James, William 1890. Principles of Psychology, vol. 1. New York: Henry Holt.
Kant, Immanuel 1996 [1797]. The Metaphysics of Morals, in Mary Gregor (trans. and ed.),
Immanuel Kant Practical Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kernis, Michael H. (ed.) 2006. Self-Esteem Issues and Answers: A Sourcebook of Current
Perspectives. New York: Psychology Press.
Moody-Adams, Michelle M. 1992–3. “Race, Class, and the Social Construction of Self-
Respect,” Philosophical Forum, vol. 24, pp. 251–66.
Scarre, Geoffrey 1992. “Utilitarianism and Self-Respect,” Utilitas, vol. 4, pp. 27–42.
Telfer, Elizabeth 1968. “Self-Respect,” Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 18, pp. 114–21.
Thomas, Laurence 1995. “Self-Respect: Theory and Practice,” in Robin S. Dillon (ed.),
Dignity, Character, and Self-Respect. New York: Routledge, pp. 251–70.
FURTHER READINGS
Baumeister, Roy F., Laura Smart, and Joseph M. Boden 1996. “Relation of Threatened
Egotism to Violence and Aggression: The Dark Side of High Self-Esteem,” Psychological
Review, vol. 103, pp. 5–33.
Crocker, Jennifer, and Lora E. Park 2004. “The Costly Pursuit of Self-Esteem,” Psychological
Bulletin, vol. 130, pp. 392–414.
11
Dillon, Robin S. 1997. “Self-Respect: Moral, Emotional, Political,” Ethics, vol. 107, pp. 226–49.
Dillon, Robin S. 2007. “Arrogance, Self-Respect, and Personhood,” Journal of Consciousness
Doppelt, Gerald 2009. “The Place of Self-Respect in A Theory of Justice,” Inquiry, vol. 52,
pp. 127–54.
Ferkany, Matt 2008. “The Educational Importance of Self-Esteem,” Journal of Philosophy of
Education, vol. 42, pp. 119–32.
Greenberg, J., T. Pyszczynski, and S. Solomon 1986. “The Causes and Consequences of a
Need for Self-Esteem: A Terror Management Theory,” in R. F. Baumeister (ed.), Public
Self and Private Self. New York: Springer, pp. 189–212.
Keshen, Richard 1996. Reasonable Self-Esteem. Montreal: McGill University Press.
Leary, Mark R., Ellen S. Tambor, Sonia K. Terdal, and Deborah L. Downs 1995. “Self-Esteem
as an Interpersonal Monitor: The Sociometer Hypothesis,” Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, vol. 63, pp. 518–30.
Massey, Stephen J. 1983. “Is Self-Respect a Moral or a Psychological Concept?” Ethics, vol. 93,
pp. 246–61.
Mruk, Christopher J. (2006). Self-Esteem Research, Theory, and Practice: Toward a Positive
Psychology of Self-Esteem, 3rd ed. New York: Springer.
Sachs, David 1981. “How to Distinguish Self-Respect from Self-Esteem,” Philosophy and
Stark, Cynthia A. 1997. “The Rationality of Valuing Oneself: A Critique of Kant on Self-
Respect,” Journal of the History of Philosophy, vol. 35, pp. 65–82.
Statman, Daniel 2000. “Humiliation, Dignity, and Self-Respect,” Philosophical Psychology,
vol. 13, pp. 523–40.
1
Intuitionism, Moral
Bruce Russell
What is an Intuition?
Moral intuitionism is a view about how we can be justified in believing, and have
knowledge of, moral propositions (see epistemology, moral). To be more specific,
moral intuitionism is the view that moral intuitions can provide evidence for the
truth of moral propositions. To be intuitively justified, the justification must be
noninferential and based on intuition, and so not based on some sort of reasoning
in which the relevant proposition is the conclusion. In a moment I will say more
about the nature of intuitions, but, roughly, a person has an intuition of some
proposition just in case that proposition seems obviously true to him and its seeming
that way is based solely on his understanding the proposition (for example, the
proposition that bachelors are unmarried males).
Relevant moral propositions could be about the rightness or wrongness of
actions, or the goodness or badness of actions, outcomes, people, their dispositions,
intentions, desires, aims, goals, etc. Standard examples of such propositions that
seem to be justified by intuition are as follows: (1) it is wrong to torture children for
the fun of it; (2) it is wrong to flog an infant to death (Audi 2004: 56, 77); (3) operat-
ing on a child without an anesthetic when one is readily available is wrong
(Bambrough 1979: 15); (4) it is wrong to set a cat on fire just for the fun of it
(Harman 1977: 4); (5) slavery and genocide are wrong; (6) tyranny, exploitation,
religious persecution and intolerance, and racial discrimination are unjust and
wrong; (7) it is wrong to cut up one healthy person to get his vital organs to trans-
plant into five other innocent people desperately in need of them (Harman 1977:
3–4); (8) it is wrong to punish someone for an action for which he is not responsible
(Huemer 2005: 231); (9) happiness and love are intrinsic goods; (10) suffering and
hatred are intrinsic bads (or evils).
Let’s return to the question of what an intuition is. Some people think that it is a
type of immediate, noninferential belief, or an inclination or disposition to believe
(Sosa 1998: 258–60). If we understand what (1)–(10) are saying, we just immediately
believe them because they seem obviously true. But I also immediately believe the
following propositions once I understand them: (a) I now have a pain in my shoul-
der, (b) a house undermined will fall (Bealer 1998: 211), (c) bread nourishes, fire
burns, and stones fall (Hume 1975: IV, I, 7; IV, II, 3; 1935: II, 7), (d) freshly fallen
snow is white, (e) there are trees and rocks (these things exist), (f) I remember doing
so-and-so two minutes ago. But my justification for (a)–(f) is not based on intuition.
I have introspective, empirical, memorial, or testimonial evidence for these
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee222
2
propositions, but intuitions provide nonintrospective, nonempirical, nonmemorial,

nontestimonial evidence, if they provide evidence at all.
A good case can be made that intuitions are neither beliefs nor dispositions to
believe. The Muller-Lyer figure consists of two straight lines of equal length drawn
parallel to each other, one above the other, running horizontally. However, one line
has arrow heads at each end pointing inward; the other, arrow heads at each end
pointing outward. Once you realize that they are the same length, you will no longer
believe that they are of different length, but it will still appear that they are (Bealer
1998: 207–8). Similarly, sometimes a philosophical claim will appear true, even
though you do not believe it. Monty Hall was the host of a television game show
called “Let’s Make A Deal” (Russell 2010: 464). At the end of the show a contestant
would have an opportunity to win some big prize that was placed behind one of
three doors. The contestant would choose one. Monty would then open another
door with a worthless gag prize behind it, and then offer the contestant the opportu-
nity of sticking with her first choice or switching to the other unopened door. It can
be shown that the probability of her winning if she sticks is one third; if she switches,
two thirds. But many people think it is obviously a toss-up whether she should stick
or switch. After all, there are two doors and the prize must be behind one of them.
So they conclude that the probability is one half no matter what choice the contest-
ant makes. And sometimes it will still seem to someone that the probability is 50–50
even after he believes that it is not, especially if he believes it on the basis of the trust-
worthy testimony of someone who knows probability theory better than he does. In
that case, he would have an intuition that the chances are 50–50 but a belief that they
are not. So intuitions are not beliefs, but they are propositional, that is, they are like
beliefs in that they have propositions as their objects, and unlike sensations (say, the
sensation of red) that do not. Of course, intuitions can give rise to beliefs even if they
are not themselves beliefs.
Further, an intuition is not any sort of disposition, or inclination, to believe, for I
do not have the intuition that bachelors are unmarried, or that no object can be red
and green all over at the same time, when I am not considering those propositions.
Intuitions are episodic, while beliefs, and dispositions and inclinations to believe, are
not. An intuition must be currently before the mind, but a belief, or disposition or
inclination to believe, need not be (Bealer 1998: 208–9).
Sometimes intuitions are called intellectual – as opposed to empirical – “seemings”
because they are based solely on understanding the proposition that is their object
(Bealer 1998: 208). If you have an intuition of propositions (1)–(10), they seem true,
and that appearance stems solely from your understanding what they assert. That
sort of seeming is an intuition, and insofar as its object is a moral proposition, it is a
moral intuition (see intuitions, moral). In the Muller-Lyer figure, one line seems
longer than the other. That is an empirical seeming, and insofar as it justifies some-
one in believing that one line is longer than the other (because, say, he has not meas-
ured them to see that they really are the same length), it does not do that solely on the
basis of his understanding the relevant proposition, namely, that one line is longer
than the other.
3
Some philosophers use “intuition” in a broader and vaguer sense to refer to any
noninferential grasp of a proposition that seems obviously true or obviously false.
That sort of intuition need not be based solely on understanding the proposition
that is its object. Often the terms “considered moral judgment” are used to refer to
noninferential moral judgments that people make after reflecting on a moral propo-
sition that then strikes them as obviously true or obviously false. Here, too, the
apparent obviousness need not be based solely on understanding the proposition
that is judged to be true or to be false.
Intuitions are fallible, that is, the proposition that is the object of an intuition may
be false. For instance, I might initially have the intuition that it is always wrong to kill
an innocent person but become convinced that it is not when someone offers me an
example where if I do not kill some innocent person she, and hundreds of other inno-
cent people, will die agonizing deaths. Or I might have the initial intuition that it is
always prima facie (or pro tanto) wrong to break a promise (the promiser always has
some moral reason to keep it) until I consider an example where some Mafia hitman
has promised to kill an innocent person and then has a change of heart and breaks his
promise. Or I might initially have the intuition that pleasure is always intrinsically
good until I think of a case where someone takes pleasure in another’s pain.
Intuitions are often appealed to in philosophy in areas having nothing to do with
morality or value. They are widely used in counterexamples to analyses of knowledge
and personal identity, and here, too, they provide evidence and are fallible. For instance,
in one Gettier example (named after Edmund Gettier who produced a couple of simi-
lar examples in 1963), you drive by a field in the country and see what appear to be
sheep. On this basis you form the belief that there are sheep in the field. As it turns out,
there are sheep in the field but they are lying down behind a boulder in the far corner
of the field. The animals that look just like sheep are really poodles bred and clipped to
look like sheep (Bealer 1998: 204). Most people have the intuition that you do not know
there are sheep in the field despite your having a justified true belief. These sorts of
example are used as evidence against the view that justified true belief is sufficient for
knowledge and as evidence for analyses that hold that knowledge is nonaccidentally
justified true belief (though there is no consensus on how precisely to state the
“nonaccidentality” requirement). Case (7) above (often called Transplant) is frequently
offered as evidence against act utilitarianism (see utilitarianism), the view that says
everyone should always do the act that has the best consequences on balance, and as
evidence for some rival ethical view.
There are different views as to what sorts of propositions can be the objects of
intuitions. Some think that only modal propositions, that is, propositions about
what is possible, or necessary, can be the objects of intuitions. On this view, in
Transplant there would be the intuition that such a case is possible and the intui-
tion that it is necessarily wrong for someone to cut up the healthy, innocent person
to obtain the vital organs needed to save the five. Others think that there could be
an intuition that cutting up the healthy person is wrong, not that it is necessarily
wrong, and there is no need to consider intuitions about possibilities since we
could start with actual cases of, say, sacrificing some for the benefit of others.
4
A plausible view is that intuitions can have as their objects propositions about
what is possible, or necessary, but that they need not, and that hypothetical cases
serve as well as actual ones.
Others think that only self-evident propositions can be the object of intuitions,
and G. E. Moore (see moore, g. e.) even sometimes called such propositions
themselves intuitions. A self-evident proposition is one that a person is justified
in believing simply on the basis of adequately understanding it (Audi 2004: 48–9;
Shafer-Landau 2003: 8, 248). Because people are fallible, propositions that are not
self-evident can appear to be self-evident, and those appearances can be intui-
tions that provide justification. So intuitions that provide evidence need not be of
self-evident propositions. Further, intuitions of self-evident propositions that are
not adequately understood will not provide evidence. Such cases are possible
because reflection on a self-evident proposition may be needed before an ade-
quate understanding of it is achieved (Audi 2004: 45–8, 51–3).
A proposition need not immediately seem to be true when one considers it for one
to have an intuition that it is true (Bealer 1998: 211). In other words, not all objects
of intuition need be like the propositions “bachelors are unmarried” or “it is wrong
to torture an infant to death just for the fun of it,” which immediately seem true once
we consider them. That is because reflection on more complex propositions may be
required before one has sufficient understanding of them to generate an intuition
that provides evidence for that proposition. For instance, the claim that shame
requires that the person who is ashamed believe that he is in some way a bad or
defective person while guilt does not may be an example of that sort of proposition.
The propositions that are the objects of intuitions can vary widely with respect to
generality. Some are about specific cases such as Transplant. Others are directed at
more general claims, even toward the act utilitarian principle itself, or example (8)
that says that it is wrong to punish someone for an action for which he is not morally
responsible. Some authors even hold that there can be intuitions regarding particu-
lar, or singular, propositions, say, that it was wrong of this particular person to kill
this other particular person for his organs that are needed to save five other particular
people (see particularism). However, it is more plausible to think that a particular
case generates the intuition that it is wrong for anyone in circumstances like the ones
in this example to kill any innocent person to save any five other innocent people. That
intuition, together with the empirical evidence that the particular people in the
actual case fit the conditions specified in the intuition, justifies the derivative judg-
ment that it is wrong to kill the particular person to save the particular five in the
actual situation.
Sometimes it is thought that moral intuitionists must hold that moral properties
are nonnatural properties (that is, are not properties whose presence or absence can
be determined by empirical means) and that there are a plurality of fundamental,
irreducible principles of right and wrong action, but neither condition is necessary.
In principle, a moral intuitionist could hold any substantive normative view, that is,
she could be a consequentialist (see consequentialism) holding that the rightness
and wrongness of an action is solely a function of the goodness and badness of its
5
consequences, or a nonconsequentialist who denies this. If she is a nonconsequen-

tialist, she could be a pluralist like W. D. Ross (see ross, w. d.) and hold that there is
more than one fundamental moral principle of right and wrong, and that these sev-
eral principles cannot be reduced to just one. But she could also be a Kantian and
hold, say, that an action is right if, and only if, it does not violate a rule of conduct
that everyone can rationally will that all follow, where that Kantian principle is taken
to be the sole and supreme principle of morality. In theory of value, a moral intui-
tionist could be a monist, as hedonists are who hold that pleasure, and pleasure
alone, is intrinsically good (see hedonism), or a pluralist and hold that, say, pleas-
ure, knowledge, beauty, friendship, love, justice, etc., are all intrinsically good.
Intrinsic goods are things that are good in themselves (see intrinsic value), unlike
instrumental goods that are good as means to things that are intrinsically good.
Many philosophers think that happiness (see happiness) is an intrinsic good while
money and fame are only instrumental goods.
Historically, the most important moral intuitionists begin with Samuel Clarke
(see clarke, samuel), John Balguy, and Richard Price in the eighteenth century
(see selections in Selby-Bigge 1897), followed by William Whewell (see whewell,
william) and Henry Sidgwick (1907; see sidgwick, henry) in the nineteenth century,
G. E. Moore (1903, 1912), W. D. Ross (1930), C. D. Broad (1930), H. A. Prichard (1949;
see prichard, h. a.), and A. C. Ewing (1941; see ewing, a. c.) in the first half of the
twentieth century, and currently by Robert Audi (2004), Michael Huemer (2005),
Derek Parfit (2011), and Russ Shafer-Landau (2003).
For and Against Intuitions as a Source of Justification

Critics of intuitionism in general, and of moral intuitionism in particular, have
argued that intuitionism requires there to be a special, peculiar faculty of intuition,
but that there is none. However, nearly all the intuitionists deny that there is such a
special faculty. They hold that intuition stems from reason, and that the ability of
reason to see that a conclusion follows from its premises, or that simple arithmetic
or logical propositions are true, is the same ability that is operative when we see that
some epistemic or ethical proposition is true. The metaphor of intuitively “seeing”
that a proposition is true misleads some into thinking there is a faculty of intuition
just as there is a faculty of vision, but people should not be misled by the metaphor.
They are also sometimes misled by the metaphor into thinking that intuitive “see-
ing” would require a causal connection between the subject and what is “seen,” just
as normal seeing requires a causal connection between a subject and what she sees
with her eyes. Critics then argue that there cannot be a causal connection between a
subject and an abstract object like a proposition, and conclude that there can be no
intuitions of propositions. Intuitionists reply to these objections by denying that
their views imply the causal requirement that the metaphor of seeing misleadingly
suggests.
Explanationists about justification hold that we are justified in believing some
proposition only if it is part of the best explanation of what we observe (Harman
6
1977: 6–9, 12). So I might be justified in believing that something is a human foot-
print because its being such a footprint best explains the visual sensations I am hav-
ing when I look at a foot-shaped depression in the sand on some beach. In turn,
I might be justified in believing that someone recently walked there because their
walking there is part of the best explanation of the footprint. But then, it is argued,
the propositions that are objects of moral intuitions are never the best explanation of
anything. It is maintained that the best explanation of my having such intuitions is
given by psychological and sociological hypotheses that refer to human nature,
upbringing, and facts about learning and enculturation.
The problem with this objection is that it provides evidence against moral intui-
tionism only if we are justified in accepting explanationism, but it seems impossible
for us to be justified in accepting explanationism by its own standards. Explanationism
does not seem to be part of the best explanation of anything, unless it is of the truth
of epistemic intuitions about cases where it seems that we are justified in believing
certain things and other cases where we are not. But if that sort of explanation
counts, then some moral hypothesis could qualify as being the best explanation of
the truth of moral intuitions about cases in which certain actions are morally
justified (permissible) and others are not. So either explanationism is self-defeating
because, by its own standard, it implies that we cannot be justified in accepting it, or
it must allow that moral intuitions can provide evidence for moral hypotheses in the
same way that epistemic intuitions can provide evidence for explanationism (see
Pust 2001: esp. sec. 5, 249–51).
Further, explanationism seems implausible when it comes to propositions such as
2 + 2 = 4 and if P, then not not-P. These propositions seem directly justified by
intuition, not via their ability to explain something else. If so, then it seems that “it is
wrong to torture kids to death for the fun of it” and “pleasure that does not result
from another’s suffering or mistreatment is intrinsically good” can be justified in the
same way.
Other critics point to disagreement on moral intuitions (see disagreement,
moral) as a reason for thinking they do not provide evidence. However, they may
overestimate the extent of this disagreement (Bealer 1998: 214). Most people would
agree that (1)–(10) are true, and Ross thinks that justification via intuition is limited
to judgments of prima facie duty (or wrongness), about what we have some moral
reason to do or refrain from doing. For Ross, judgments about what we are obligated
to do all things considered cannot be justified via intuition. There is even less disa-
greement about prima facie obligation and wrongness. And as A. C. Ewing argued
almost seventy years ago, much disagreement can be explained away through confu-
sion or emotions that cloud judgment, as in cases of wishful thinking (Ewing 1941:
37). Moreover, some people do not understand moral and evaluative concepts as
well as others who have studied those concepts. Insofar as intuitions stem solely
from understanding the relevant concepts expressed in some proposition, those
who understand a concept better will be more justified in believing the relevant
proposition on the basis of their intuitions than others with less adequate under-
standing of the concepts. This sort of reply can be made to those who cite the results
7
of experimental philosophy where students from different cultures are presented

with well-known examples from epistemology and ethics, and their intuitive judg-
ments are found to differ along cultural lines. Intuitionists might claim that the stu-
dents do not understand the concepts as well as philosophers who have studied
them more deeply.
The real worry is disagreement among philosophers, but there is less disagree-
ment regarding intuitions about right and wrong than might be supposed. Much of
the disagreement is at the metaethical level (see metaethics) where there are disa-
greements over whether there are moral facts; whether, if there are, we can some-
times know what they are; whether those who accept moral claims about what they
ought to do must be motivated to some extent to act accordingly, or at least have
reason to so act; and whether it is necessarily true that a person always has sufficient
reason to do what she is morally obligated to do. Other disagreements are over gen-
eral normative theories about right and wrong; for instance, over whether some form
of utilitarianism rather than some form of Kantianism or contractualism is the cor-
rect moral theory. None of these disagreements is a disagreement in intuition.
Another type of criticism of the evidential force of moral intuitions grants that
they might have some evidential weight if it were not for certain facts about the con-
ditions in which moral judgments are typically made. It is argued that moral judg-
ments are often made where the people making them have something at stake and
so are partial, not impartial. Disagreement among students from different cultures is
also cited to support the idea that intuitions are relative to cultures and upbringing.
Further, it is pointed out how moral judgments are often affected by the order in
which different cases are considered and by different descriptions of the same case.
For some types of moral judgment, emotion that can cloud judgment seems to enter
in. In addition, some moral beliefs have questionable origins in feelings of resent-
ment or envy, or are the offspring of exploitative and unfair power relations. Even if
some intuitive moral judgments are free of these distorting influences that make
them unreliable, without further evidence to show that a particular intuitive
judgment is not made in conditions that render such judgments unreliable, whatever
evidential force it might have had is undercut by doubts about the conditions of its
formation. Because those conditions are so widespread, moral intuitions are, so to
speak, guilty until proven innocent (for this entire paragraph, see Sinnott-Armstrong
2006a: 343–58; 2006b: esp. Chs. 5, 9).
An apt analogy that might help bolster this argument is a case involving percep-
tion where we know that we are in a Fun House with lots of distorting mirrors, along
with some that are not. When I look in a mirror and it looks as though I have gained
a lot of weight, should I think that I really have or that I have not and, instead, am
looking in a distorting mirror that makes it look as if I have? Here it seems that the
way things look as regards my bodily shape is not evidence of how things are regard-
ing that shape. Similarly, given that I know that there are factors that often make our
moral intuitions unreliable, is my particular intuition that some act is wrong
evidence that it is, or no evidence at all? To be consistent with the example involving
the mirrors, it seems that we should say that in our actual circumstances intuitions
8
by themselves are no evidence at all because we know that many of them are formed
in circumstances involving distorting influences.
A counter-analogy might make us think otherwise. Suppose I know that I often
make mistakes on arithmetic addition problems because my trustworthy teacher has
told me I do, though she has not told me on what sort of problems I make mistakes.
As it turns out, I make mistakes on problems involving the addition of many large
numbers, that is, on problems that contain many columns of numbers with lots of
numbers in each column. Knowing only that I often make mistakes in addition, I
now add 2 + 2 and get 4. It seems that I am justified in believing, and even know, that
2 + 2 = 4. Despite knowing that I am often unreliable in my additions, I can still know
what the answer to a simple addition problem is, for instance 2 + 2 = 4. So despite
knowing that moral intuitions are often unreliable, can’t I still know that (1)–(10) are
true, or at least be justified in believing they are? The analogy suggests that I can.
Finally, critics of the evidential force of moral intuitions sometimes call for a
meta-justification of moral intuitions; that is, they want some account, or defense, of
the view that moral intuitions can provide evidence for moral propositions. A first
response by moral intuitionists might draw on an analogy with the use of intuitions in
other areas of philosophy, for instance, arguing that if intuitions in epistemology can
provide evidence for and against epistemic principles, moral intuitions can provide
evidence for and against moral principles. Of course, that will just push the issue back
a step, for then a meta-justification of intuitions in epistemology, and in general, will be
demanded. It is hard to imagine how a noncircular meta-justification can be provided,
but maybe circularity is not a defect when it comes to defending fundamental sources
of justification. For instance, how could one justify the claim that reason and memory
can provide evidence without appealing to reason and memory? Perhaps moral intui-
tionists can at least shift the burden of proof so that their critics now must say why
appeal to moral intuitions is illegitimate but appeal to intuitions in other areas of phi-
losophy seems legitimate, including at least covert appeal to intuition in the critics’ own
arguments. Further, it seems that we could be justified in believing certain propositions
based on perception without being able to justify perception itself. So why think that
we cannot be justified in believing propositions based on intuition without having a
justification of intuition itself, that is, a meta-justification of intuition?
See also: clarke, samuel; consequentialism; disagreement, moral;

epistemology, moral; ewing, a. c.; happiness; hedonism; intrinsic value;
intuitions, moral; metaethics; moore, g. e.; particularism; prichard, h. a.;
ross, w. d.; sidgwick, henry; utilitarianism; whewell, william
REFERENCES
Audi, Robert 2004. The Good in the Right: A Theory of Intuition and Intrinsic Value. Princeton:
Bambrough, Renford 1979. Moral Scepticism and Moral Knowledge. Atlantic Highlands, NJ:
Humanities Press.
9
Bealer, George 1998. “Intuition and the Autonomy of Philosophy,” in Terry Horgan and Mark
Timmons (eds.), Metaethics after Moore. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 201–39.
Broad, C. D. 1930. Five Types of Ethical Theory. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Ewing, A. C. 1941. Reason and Intuition. Annual Philosophical Lecture, Henriette Hertz Trust.
Harman, Gilbert 1977. The Nature of Morality. New York: Oxford University Press.
Huemer, Michael 2005. Ethical Intuitionism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Hume, David 1935 [1779]. Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, ed. Norman Kemp Smith.
Hume, David 1975 [1748]. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, ed. L. A. Selby-
Bigge. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Moore, G. E. 1912. Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Parfit, Derek 2011. On What Matters. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Prichard, H. A. 1949. Moral Obligation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pust, Joel 2001. “Against Explanationist Skepticism Regarding Philosophical Intuitions,”
Philosophical Studies, vol. 106, pp. 227–58.
Russell, Bruce 2010. “Intuition in Epistemology,” in Jonathan Dancy, Ernest Sosa, and
Matthias Steup (eds.), A Companion to Epistemology, 2nd ed. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell,
pp. 464–8.
Selby-Bigge, L. A. 1897. British Moralists. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Shafer-Landau, Russ 2003. Moral Realism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sidgwick, Henry 1907. The Methods of Ethics. New York: Dover.
Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter 2001. “Intuitionism,” in Lawrence C. Becker and Charlotte
B. Becker (eds.), Encyclopedia of Ethics. New York: Routledge.
Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter 2006a. “Moral Intuitionism Meets Empirical Psychology,” in
Terry Horgan and Mark Timmons (eds.), Metaethics after Moore. Oxford: Oxford
Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter 2006b. Moral Skepticisms. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sosa, Ernest 1998. “Minimal Intuition,” in Michael R. DePaul and William Ramsey (eds.),
Rethinking Intuition. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 257–69.
FURTHER READINGS
Broad, C. D. 1930. Five Types of Ethical Theory. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Darwall, Stephen 1995. The British Moralists and the Internal ‘Ought’: 1640–1740. Cambridge:
DePaul, Michael 2006. “Intuitions in Moral Inquiry,” in David Copp (ed.), The Oxford
Handbook of Ethical Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 595–623.
DePaul, Michael, and William Ramsey 1998. Rethinking Intuition: The Psychology of Intuitions
and Their Role in Philosophical Inquiry. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
Goldman, Alvin 2007. “Philosophical Intuitions: Their Target, Their Source, and Their
Epistemic Status,” Grazer Philosophische Studien, vol. 74, pp. 1–25.
Hudson, W. D. 1967. Ethical Intuitionism. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Huston, Mark 2003. “Intuition: A Discussion of Recent Philosophical Views.” PhD disserta-
tion, Wayne State University.
10
Kornblith, Hilary 2006. “Intuitions and Epistemology,” in Stephen Hetherington (ed.),

Epistemology Futures. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 10–25.
Metcalf, Thomas 2009. “Rational Intuition.” PhD dissertation, University of Colorado.
Singer, Marcus (ed.) 2000. Essays on Ethics and Method: Henry Sidgwick. Oxford: Clarendon
Press.
Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter, and Mark Timmons (eds.) 1996. Moral Knowledge? Oxford:
Sterling, Grant C. 1994. Ethical Intuitionism and Its Critics. New York: Peter Lang.
Stratton-Lake, Philip (ed.) 2002a. Ethical Intuitionism: Re-evaluations. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Stratton-Lake, Philip 2002b. “Introduction,” in Philip Stratton-Lake (ed.), The Right and the
Good by W. D. Ross [1930]. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Thomson, Judith 1990. “Introduction,” in The Realm of Rights. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
Weinberg, Jonathan 2007. “How to Challenge Intuitions Empirically Without Risking
Skepticism,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy, vol. 31, pp. 318–43.
Williamson, Timothy 2004. “Philosophical ‘Intuitions’ and Scepticism about Judgement,”
Dialectica, vol. 58, pp. 109–53.
1
Motherhood
Amy Mullin
Prior to the twentieth century, philosophers rarely attended to issues relating to

motherhood. Plato and Nietzsche made repeated references to pregnancy
throughout their work, but both also asserted the considerable superiority of
metaphorical pregnancy (in which philosophers give birth to ideas) over the merely
physical pregnancy associated with women. Plato briefly discussed physical
pregnancy when explaining how to improve the quality of one’s progeny, but in
doing so he lamented the need even to mention the “distasteful topic of the
possession of women and procreation of children” (1961: 502e). While there was
some philosophical interest in questions about parental rights and filial obligations
(see parents’ rights and responsibilities), particularly in the early modern
period, fathers’ rights were emphasized. Neither pregnancy nor mothering was
considered of philosophical significance.
In the twentieth century, maternity began to emerge as a legitimate philosophical
topic. Levinas, for example, was impressed by pregnancy and childrearing, and
considered women’s self-sacrifice in pregnancy, in particular, as a model for ethical
responsibility (Levinas 1974). A pregnant woman’s welcome of a fetus was for him
an ideal instance of a host’s openness to an unknown guest. In the latter half of the
twentieth century, as bioethics rose to prominence, philosophers began to explore
issues related to pregnancy, first abortion (see abortion) and then more recently
topics such as reproductive technologies (see reproductive technology) and
surrogate motherhood (see surrogacy). These topics often emphasized issues of
conflicting interests – a pregnant woman’s interest in autonomy as opposed to a fetal
interest in life, claims to resources on the part of those wishing to use reproductive
technologies versus governments, medical insurers, or service providers, conflicting
claims to a child on the part of a gestational or surrogate mother versus those (who
may also have provided ova or sperm) contracting with her. Philosophers were
slower to take women’s experiences of mothering, as opposed to ethical issues arising
out of pregnancy, as raising philosophically interesting topics.
Almost all of the work done on women’s experiences of mothering arose within
feminist philosophy (see feminist ethics), with much of it inspired by feminist work
in cognate fields, especially psychology. The first feminist approaches stressed negative
aspects of motherhood (Firestone 1970). These negative aspects included features of
specifically maternal female embodiment (pregnancy, birth, lactation), and tasks
involved in raising children (Beauvoir 1952; Rich 1976). Critique also targeted the con-
text in which women’s social contributions were both unduly directed toward raising
children and then devalued, even if sometimes romanticized (see beauvoir, simone
de). Some feminist philosophers proposed that women’s experiences of maternity were
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee223
2
a significant barrier to sexual equality (see sexual equality), and suggested that only
freedom from maternal embodiment (via artificial wombs or a refusal to bear chil-
dren) and de-gendering of childcare could liberate women.
More recent feminist work has typically focused on equitable sharing of childcare
between men and women, or proposed more collective forms of childcare, rather
than eschewing pregnancy or using technology to free women from it, as important
egalitarian goals. For instance Young (1990) argued that so long as the family (see
family) is a site of unequal responsibilities assigned to male and female parents, it
will be a school of injustice, teaching the next generation that neither male and
female responsibilities nor their opportunities for fulfillment outside the familial
context are equal. DiQuinzio (1999) similarly critiqued the higher expectations of
self-sacrifice directed at women, along with the assumption that good mothers will
find fulfillment in selfless devotion to their children. Feminists elaborated and
critiqued the assumptions involved in an ideology of motherhood, including
privatized responsibility for children, beliefs about the naturalness of mothering
work, expectations of maternal self-sacrifice, and suspicion of paid childcare. At
first, claims about the ideology (or institution) of motherhood tended to be universal
in character, but more recently feminist philosophers have explored questions about
different social expectations of mothers and fathers with a focus on how race, class,
and disability can inflect these expectations.
Feminist work on motherhood has generally critiqued approaches based on rights
(either children’s rights or parental rights) and has instead emphasized parental
responsibilities. It would be productive if this work were to engage more with
questions about how the larger society should respond when mothers default on
their responsibilities. Some recent work has begun to explore questions about the
responsibilities of dependent children within caregiving relationships, and to suggest
that perspectives that emphasize how these relationships can best be caring should
be supplemented by questions about how the relationships, and the social context in
which they occur, can best be just. Transnational surrogacy, for instance, in which
women from poorer countries are paid to gestate fetuses for individuals or couples
from wealthier nations, raises issues about global justice. Paid childcare similarly
raises questions about whether female gender roles in childrearing have truly been
transformed, or whether mothering work has merely been displaced onto women
from lower socioeconomic classes, who labor for little pay and low social recognition.
Feminist philosophers also offered criticisms of what is termed pronatalism, the
assumption that all women socially deemed fit to do so should bear children, and
that a woman is incomplete or immature if she chooses not to have children. As a
result of social pressures to bear and rear children, many questioned the extent of
women’s autonomy in relation to choices around bearing children (both because
some women, especially women with disabilities, are often strongly discouraged
from having children, and because others, especially those from socially dominant
groups, are strongly encouraged to do so) (Meyers 2001). Nonetheless few feminists
today argue that all those who become mothers are misguided in choosing to do so.
They are concerned to ameliorate the conditions in which women mother, and to
3
ensure that women explore alternatives to mothering, rather than seeking to

convince all women to avoid motherhood. For instance, several philosophers have
noted the extent to which cutbacks to welfare payments unduly affect women with
caregiving responsibilities, especially mothers, and others have argued that there is
a social responsibility to support mothers with especially onerous caregiving
obligations, including some mothers whose children have significant disabilities
(Kittay 1999).
Emphases on the negative aspects of motherhood may be contrasted with
perspectives such as those of Baier (1985), Held (1993), and Noddings (1984)
that stressed positive aspects of motherhood, and considered women’s experi-
ences of pregnancy and raising children as models for moral relations. Indeed,
attention to women’s experiences as mothers played a formative role in the
development of an ethic of care (see care ethics). Traits such as attentiveness
to concrete and specific needs, and responsiveness to the concerns of others,
were first identified as central to mothering and then praised as more widely
morally valuable. Held stressed that men may also be what she terms mothering
persons, if they do the hands-on work of child-rearing still expected chiefly of
mothers. Motherhood then ceases to be the exclusive realm of women, although
more women than men do the work associated with motherhood. Some work by
French feminists such as Kristeva (1986) may also be considered to proceed in
the vein of exploring the positive social potential of the relation between mother
and child, although with more attention to maternal ambivalence (or tensions in
women’s attitudes toward their children), and an approach based on psychoana-
lytic theory.
Feminists remain divided as to whether good relations between mothers (or
mothering persons) and children should be taken as a paradigm for ethical
relationships. Criticisms typically stressed the lack of reciprocity (see reciproc-
ity) involved in relationships between mothers and children, or the extent to
which concerns about autonomy may be overlooked if we think of these relation-
ships as an important ethical model (Lauritzen 1989). In addition, critics raised
concerns that valorizing these relationships may cause us to overlook both
exploitation of caregivers and the oppression of those who depend upon them for
care. Those who support the idea that the mothering relation may serve as one
(not the sole) paradigm for ethical relationships sought either to rethink the
nature of such relationships (to include expectations of reciprocity, although not
equality) or to emphasize the extent to which ethical relationships will often be
between people with differing power and resources. These philosophers of moth-
erhood asserted the need for models of ethical relationships in the face of ine-
quality (Mullin 2005).
Ruddick’s (1989) work on what she termed maternal thinking was important as
an early instance of interest in the characteristic skills, aims, and virtues of mater-
nal practice. In her account, the shared universal aims of maternal thinkers are the
preservation, development, and social acceptability of a child or children, and she
associated each aim with characteristic temptations and virtues. Hers was part of
4
an overall approach to recognizing motherhood as a cultural and not simply a nat-

ural phenomenon. Her work has been especially influential, first, in its emphasis on
the skills and intellect involved in mothering well and, second, in its attention to
aspects of social context that make it difficult to mother well, irrespective of one’s
virtues. Like Held, Ruddick stressed that men could also be maternal thinkers, so
long as their role was one involving hands-on caregiving as opposed to the provi-
sion of money, protection from danger, and assertion of authority she associated
with the social role of fatherhood (see fatherhood). Other philosophers built
upon her examination of maternal practice to broaden the range of experiences of
mothering taken as central. For instance, Collins (1994) noted forms of maternal
practice within African American communities that took a more collective
approach to child-rearing than assumed by Ruddick, Kittay (1999) stressed that
experiences of parenting children with disabilities raised issues left unexplored by
Ruddick, and Keller (2009) investigated how adoptive mothering (see adoption)
might require skills and aims not identical with those demanded of biological
mothers.
Although motherhood was long overlooked as a philosophical topic, the
production of monographs and anthologies on motherhood in the early twenty-first
century has been explosive. Contemporary philosophical work on motherhood is
varied, with work on a range of topics including maternal ambivalence, the
phenomenology of maternal experience (study of meanings to be found in embodied
experiences), the compatibility of a dual focus on care and justice in mothering
work, attention to specific experiences of disabled, adoptive, and lesbian mothering,
and investigation of both the perspectives and ethical responsibilities of children.
One ongoing tension in philosophical work on motherhood concerns the
prominence of discussion of women’s biological experiences in analyses of mother-
hood. Not only does this (perhaps unduly) involve an inattention to experiences of
fatherhood, or discussion of similarities between parents’ experiences, but also it can
be alienating to adoptive mothers and stepmothers. In addition, it generally focuses
attention on the early stages of mothering (pregnancy, lactation, caring for infants)
versus mothering older children, or what is involved in mothering adult children.
Future philosophical work on motherhood will need to balance the importance of
attending to experiences of female embodiment, with the need for more attention to
these less studied experiences of motherhood.
See also: abortion; adoption; beauvoir, simone de; care ethics; family;
fatherhood; feminist ethics; parents’ rights and responsibilities;
reciprocity; reproductive technology; sexual equality; surrogacy
REFERENCES
Baier, Annette 1985. “What Do Women Want in a Moral Theory?,” Noûs, vol. 19, no. 1,
pp. 53–63.
Beauvoir, Simone de 1952. The Second Sex, trans. H. M. Parshley. New York: Vintage
Books.
5
Collins, Patricia Hill 1994. “Shifting the Center: Race, Class, and Feminist Theorizing about
Motherhood,” in Donna Bassin, Margaret Honey, and Meryle Mahrer Kaplan (eds.),
Representations of Motherhood. New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 56–74.
DiQuinzio, Patricia 1999. The Impossibility of Motherhood: Feminism, Individualism and the
Problem of Mothering. New York: Routledge.
Firestone, Shulamith 1970. The Dialectic of Sex. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
Held, Virginia 1993. Feminist Morality: Transforming Culture, Society, and Politics. Chicago:
Keller, Jean 2009. “Rethinking Ruddick on ‘Adoptive’ Mothering,” in Andrea O’Reilly (ed.),
Maternal Thinking: Philosophy, Practice, Politics. Toronto: Demeter Press, pp. 173–87.
Kittay, Eva Feder 1999. Love’s Labor: Essays on Women, Equality, and Dependency. New York:
Routledge.
Kristeva, Julia 1986. “Stabat Mater,” in Toril Moi (ed.), The Kristeva Reader. New York:
Columbia University Press, pp. 160–86.
Lauritzen, Paul 1989. “A Feminist Ethic and the New Romanticism – Mothering as a Model
of Moral Relations,” Hypatia, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 29–44.
Levinas, Emmanuel 1974. Otherwise than Being, or Beyond Essence, trans. Alphonso Lingis.
Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press.
Meyers, Diana 2001. “The Rush to Motherhood: Pronatalist Discourse and Women’s
Autonomy,” Signs, vol. 26, no. 3, pp. 735–73.
Mullin, Amy 2005. Reconceiving Pregnancy and Childcare: Ethics, Experience and Reproductive
Labor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Noddings, Nel 1984. Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education, 2nd ed.
Plato 1961. The Republic, in Plato: The Collected Dialogues, ed. Edith Hamilton and
Huntington Cairns. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 575–844.
Rich, Adrienne 1976. Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution. New York:
W. W. Norton.
Ruddick, Sara 1989. Maternal Thinking: Toward a Politics of Peace. New York: Ballantine
Books.
Young, Iris Marion 1990. Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton: Princeton University
Press.
FURTHER READINGS
Card, Claudia 1996. “Against Marriage and Motherhood,” Hypatia, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 1–23.
Chodorow, Nancy 1999. The Reproduction of Mothering, 2nd ed. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
Guenther, Lisa 2006. The Gift of the Other: Levinas and the Politics of Reproduction. Albany:
Kukla, Rebecca 2005. Mass Hysteria: Medicine, Culture and Mothers’ Bodies. Lanham, MD:
O’Reilly, Andrea (ed.) 2009. Maternal Thinking: Philosophy, Practice, Politics. Toronto:
Demeter Press.
Young, Iris Marion 1990. “Pregnant Embodiment: Subjectivity and Alienation,” in Throwing
Like a Girl and Other Essays in Feminist Philosophy and Social Theory. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, pp. 160–74.
1
Subjectivism, Ethical
David Alm
Within ethics the term “subjectivism” refers to a rather diverse array of positions. Yet
it is possible to identify a unifying characteristic, at least to a reasonably good approx-
imation. According to any form of subjectivism, ethical facts depend on mental facts,
in the sense that an ethical fact obtains only if some appropriate mental fact obtains.
Subjectivism is standardly opposed to objectivism. However, it is important to
recognize that these two positions are contraries rather than contradictories.
According to objectivism, there are ethical facts independent of anyone’s mental
states. Hence there is room for positions that are neither subjectivist nor objectivist
by the above definitions, because they do not recognize ethical facts at all. Two such
positions are non-cognitivism, at least on some interpretations, and the error theory
(see non-cognitivism; error theory). Though they are often labeled subjectivist
they are so only in the weak sense that they are not objectivist. (As far as the error
theory goes, see Mackie 1977: 18.)
Within those theories having the unifying characteristic described above, the
most important distinction holds between metaethical and evaluative/deontic forms
of subjectivism (see metaethics; evaluative vs. deontic concepts). Equivalently
we could distinguish between second-order and first-order forms of subjectivism.
This distinction appeals to two different ways in which ethical facts can depend on
mental facts. Consider a concrete example. We might say that professional success is
good for me, or makes my life better, but that this value fact about me depends on
my wanting to be successful. In saying so, there are at least two things we could
mean. On the one hand, we could mean that professional success is good for me
because it is something I desire, or that the desire makes it the case that success is
good for me. That is to say, the mental fact appears in the supervenience basis of the
value fact (see supervenience, moral). That would be an instance of evaluative
(first-order) subjectivism. On the other hand, we could mean that the fact that
professional success is good for me simply is, or is at least constituted by, the fact that
I desire such success. That would be an instance of metaethical (second-order)
subjectivism. (See Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen 2000 for the distinction
between supervenience basis and constitutive ground, which I have here appropriated
in a simplified form.)
Hence metaethical subjectivism is a form of ethical naturalism, as it implies that
ethical facts are, or are constituted by, natural facts (see naturalism, ethical).
However, it is customary to distinguish metaethical subjectivism from metaethical
moral relativism, which is also a naturalist position (see relativism, moral). The
two doctrines are structurally similar, but relativism replaces mental facts – understood
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee224
2
here as facts about some individual’s mental states – with social or cultural facts (even
if these may also be in some sense mental).
In what follows we will first have a brief look at different versions of first-order
subjectivism, and then consider metaethical subjectivism at somewhat greater length.
First-Order Subjectivism
In distinguishing kinds of first-order subjectivism, we have to consider both the
nature of the broadly speaking ethical facts claimed to depend on mental facts and
the nature of the mental facts on which these ethical facts are claimed to depend.
Focusing on the first of these dimensions, we find that first-order subjectivists
could be talking about ethical facts of at least three kinds: (1) facts about reasons
for action (see reasons for action, morality and); (2) facts about what a given
agent morally ought to do; (3) facts about what contributes to a person’s well-being
or what is good for a person (see well-being; good and good for). Focusing on
the second dimension, we find that ethical facts about a given agent could depend
either on facts about that agent’s desires or other non-cognitive attitudes, or on
facts about the agent’s beliefs, specifically beliefs about his own actions. The labels
“attitude subjectivism” and “belief subjectivism” will denote these two varieties,
respectively.
Looking first at subjectivism about reasons for action, we find both attitude
and belief subjectivist views. Concerning belief subjectivism, though, it is cus-
tomary to distinguish the question of what it is rational for a person to do and
what she has most reason to do (see rationality). The first question is generally
regarded as belief subjective; the second is typically regarded as belief objective.
The question of dependence on attitudes is much more controversial. On one
view, reasons for action are internal, meaning that they are dependent on atti-
tudes (motivation specifically). On a competing view they are external, and so
not dependent in that way (see Williams 1981; see reasons, internal and
external).
Subjectivism about moral requirements also comes in both varieties. According to
one version of the doctrine, what an agent ought to do, morally speaking, depends on
her beliefs about the actions at her disposal. Historically, this kind of view has been
most common within consequentialism (see Moore 1912: Ch. 5 for perhaps the earli-
est discussion; see consequentialism). According to a subjectivist version of conse-
quentialism, an agent ought to maximize the expected value of the consequences of
his actions, rather than their actual value, which he typically could not know.
Objectivist consequentialists, by contrast, maintain that only actual consequences
matter. There are also forms of subjectivism about moral obligations couched in
terms of attitudes. One could maintain that an agent’s obligations depend either on
her own moral views or on her motivations. The latter view is typically derived from
subjectivism about reasons for action, along with the assumption that moral require-
ments necessarily provide reasons for action (cf. Harman 1975 for a clear statement
of this view).
3
Turning finally to subjectivism about well-being, we find that it holds with respect
to attitudes only. That is because well-being is a value notion, and value facts are
objective in the sense of not being dependent on beliefs. As far as dependence on
attitudes goes, however, there are both objectivist and subjectivist views. Among
subjectivist positions, the two most influential are hedonism and the preference
satisfaction view (or preferentialism; see hedonism). These views are subjectivist in
the sense that if they are true, a person’s well-being depends on her attitudes. In the
case of hedonism, it depends on whether she is experiencing feelings of pleasure or
satisfaction. In the case of preferentialism, it depends on whether her desires are
being satisfied. In opposition, objectivist positions maintain that a person’s well-being
is at least in part independent of his attitudes.
Metaethical Subjectivism
In its most straightforward form, metaethical subjectivism holds that ethical facts
simply are mental facts. Traditionally, that idea is expressed in semantic terms. That
is, according to the view sometimes called speaker subjectivism, when a given speaker
says that some action is right, for instance, what that speaker means is that he himself
approves of the action (or takes some other favorable attitude towards it) – and
analogously for “wrong” and other ethical terms. Speaker subjectivism itself could be
understood as providing a definition of the word “right,” or an analysis of the concept
of rightness, or simply as a specification of the truth conditions of certain utterances
(perhaps an empirical one). In any case, the notion of rightness is shown to be rela-
tive to each speaker. It arguably follows that there is no unique property of rightness
that all speakers ascribe to actions, but rather a separate property for each person –
right-for-me, right-for-you, and so on. Similarly, the predicate “right” functions as a
kind of indexical, as its meaning is determined by who utters it in a given context.
It is possible to distinguish speaker subjectivism from what we could, by the same
token, call agent subjectivism. (Cf. the distinction between appraiser and agent
relativism in Lyons 1976.) On that view, the claim that it would be right for some
agent, who may or may not be the speaker, to perform some action says that that
agent approves of that action, not that the speaker approves of it. Agent subjectivism
could be a view like speaker subjectivism, about what speakers mean when they use
moral language, but it could also be a first-order view about which actions are right
and wrong for a given agent to perform.
Speaker subjectivism faces a number of difficulties. The best-known goes back at
least to Sidgwick (1907: 27): speaker subjectivism appears to make moral
disagreement between individuals impossible. For instance, if I assert that capital
punishment is morally justified and you assert that capital punishment is not morally
justified, we clearly seem to be in disagreement. Yet speaker subjectivism implies
that I am simply saying that I approve of capital punishment whereas you are saying
that you disapprove of it. These two statements are compatible, and so there is
no disagreement between us, contrary to appearances. (Agent subjectivism, if
understood as a metaethical view, does not face this problem.)
4
The standard response to this objection, going back at least to C. L. Stevenson

(1937), is to modify speaker subjectivism in a crucial way. The idea is that the
disagreement does exist, but it is a disagreement in attitude, rather than a disagreement
about attitudes (to use Stevenson’s language). That is to say, and once again using the
example above, there is a disagreement in the sense that one person is for capital pun-
ishment and the other person is against it. The disagreement consists in this clash of
attitudes. Now, on one interpretation that kind of response in effect turns speaker
subjectivism into a variety of non-cognitivism. It amounts to abandoning the idea
that utterances of an ethical judgment report one’s attitudes, substituting for it the dif-
ferent view that these judgments express one’s attitudes. Such an interpretation is not
obviously correct, however. That is, it may be possible to account for disagreement
while retaining a distinctly subjectivist standpoint. Perhaps the strategy closest to
hand is to try to combine the non-cognitivist’s notion of disagreement in attitude
with speaker subjectivism. That is, while a report of one’s attitudes gives us the mean-
ing of a speaker’s utterance of an ethical judgment such as “Capital punishment is
wrong,” our sense that that speaker disagrees with someone who asserts that capital
punishment is right comes from the clash of attitudes they hold. (See Wong 2006 for
this strategy, though in defense of relativism rather than subjectivism.)
Another problem, which faces speaker and (metaethical) agent subjectivism alike, is
that of finding an independent way to identify the attitude to which ethical statements
refer, according to these views. If this attitude is only specifiable in terms of the very
moral concepts these doctrines are supposed to elucidate, the result is circularity. For
instance, if “Stealing is wrong” means the same as “I disapprove of stealing,” and to
disapprove of some action essentially involves thinking it wrong, we are no wiser. Faced
with this problem, subjectivists have two basic options. On the one hand, they could
abandon the claim to offer an analysis of ethical terms like “wrong.” Instead, one would
have to make do with elucidating its meaning in certain respects. (See Wiggins 1998 for
this approach; also see Humberstone 1997 for important general considerations.) The
second option is to attempt a specification of the relevant attitudes without employing
ethical concepts. For instance, one might try identifying them by appealing to their
functional role or evolutionary background. (See response-dependent theories.)
A third difficulty, which also affects some versions of first-order subjectivism, is
what we could call the “contingency problem.” Applied to speaker subjectivism, the
problem is the following. Presumably, if “x is wrong” means “I disapprove of x,” then
“In circumstances C, I would not have disapproved of x” means/entails “In circumstances
C, x would not have been wrong.” But that seems quite implausible. We do not believe
that right and wrong are contingent in that way. For a defense of at least one version of
subjectivism from this kind of charge, see Rabinowicz and Österberg (1996).
See also: consequentialism; error theory; evaluative vs. deontic

concepts; good and good for; hedonism; metaethics; naturalism, ethical;
non-cognitivism; rationality; reasons for action, morality and; reasons,
internal and external; relativism, moral; response-dependent theories;
supervenience, moral; well-being
5
REFERENCES
Harman, Gilbert 1975. “Moral Relativism Defended,” Philosophical Review, vol. 85, pp. 3–22.
Humberstone, I. L. 1997. “Two Types of Circularity,” Philosophy and Phenomenological
Lyons, David 1976. “Ethical Relativism and the Problem of Incoherence,” Ethics, vol. 86,
pp. 107–21.
Mackie, J. L. 1977. Ethics: Inve

Hugh LaFollette - The International Encyclopedia of Ethics - Volume 3, D-Fal-Wiley-Blackwell (2013) PDF

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Hugh LaFollette - The International Encyclopedia of Ethics - Volume 3, D-Fal-Wiley-Blackwell (2013) PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Praise for The International Encyclopedia of Ethics

“The International Encyclopedia of Ethics is breathtaking in its ambition and scope.

“The International Encyclopedia of Ethics draws on the work of many leading

“The International Encyclopedia of Ethics will be a major resource for anyone

View the online edition, and submit comments or suggestions, at

LaFollette_Vol1_ffirs.indd i 11/6/2012 11:35:50 PM

A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication

LaFollette_Vol1_ffirs.indd iii 11/6/2012 11:35:53 PM

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Set in 10.5/13pt Minion by SPi Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India

LaFollette_Vol1_ffirs.indd iv 11/6/2012 11:35:53 PM

Foundations of Research Ethics

history, and economics conduct descriptive studies of research ethics. Normative

● surveys of data fabrication and falsification, plagiarism, and ethically question-

● identify the main ethical issues or problems;

Ethical Standards for Research

● Honesty: Be honest in all phases of research; do not fabricate or falsify data.

These ethical standards should be understood as general guidelines rather than

Topics and Controversies

Data analysis and interpretation

collective decision-making and can be regarded as institutional COIs. There are

● Research design: When is randomized assignment to a treatment group justified

See also: animal experimentation; dilemmas, moral; ethical issues in

being organized around the pursuit of socially acknowledged conceptions of virtue

See also: authenticity; categorical imperative; consequentialism;

But there is another practical objection to abolishing inheritance that is potentially

See also: autonomy; charity; equality of opportunity; human rights

Open Question Argument

The Open Question Argument (OQA) is a crucial argumentative strategy in

See also: concepts vs. properties, moral; fact–value distinction;

1 Cloning individuals is not natural.

3 Eating meat is natural.

5 Most people desire to desire to help their friends.

See also: autonomy of ethics; butler, joseph; disagreement, moral; divine

To hold an error theory about morality is to endorse a kind of radical moral

as keen to deny that genocide is morally good or morally permissible as he is to deny

see also: constructivism, moral; emotivism; frege–geach objection;

Doty, Pamela 2000. “Cost-Effectiveness of Home and Community-Based Long-Term Care

Vegetarianism and Veganism

Vegetarianism and Veganism Contrasted

however, that veganism exceeds what is reasonable to consider morally obliga-

Ethical Overview of Vegetarianism and Veganism,

Arguments for Vegetarianism and Veganism

Animal suffering and death

Impartiality and disinterested moral concern

Interspecies kinship and respect for other life forms

Caring and compassion

Interconnected types of oppression

“rightfully” in control of women, just as humans are “rightfully” dominant over

The environmental impact of food production

Evaluation of Vegetarianism and Veganism from

characteristic of morality was to be preferred even to a strictly egoistic perspec-

In arguing for the overridingness of moral verdicts, it is important to distinguish

A weaker hypothesis, closely related to overridingness, is that if an action is

See also: consequentialism; contractualism; incommensurability

to be kept in human households raises vexed ethical questions about specialist

x has value V ↔ x is such as to have relation E to a response R in subjects S when

account of our concept of that property. Moreover, various important distinctions

model here might be taken from a nonreductive account of color according to

x is C ↔ in circumstances of the kind K, subjects of kind S are disposed to have

Here, the term “substantial” is meant to exclude a “whatever-it-takes” characterization

x is an instance of value V ↔ good practical reasoning supports valuing x in the

Wedgwood would not regard it as a genuinely response-dependent account. This is