MORALITY AND MORAL THEORY A Reappraisal and Reaffirmation ROBERT B. LOUDEN New York Oxford OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 1992 -iii- Oxford University Press Oxford New York Toronto Delhi Bombay Calcutta Madras Karachi Petaling Jaya Singapore Hong Kong Tokyo Nairobi Dar es Salaam Cape Town Melbourne Auckland and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Copyright © 1992† by Robert B. Louden Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 200 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press 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, without the prior permission of the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Louden, Robert B., 1953- Morality and moral theory : a reappraisal and reaffirmation / Robert B. Louden. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-19-507145-X ISBN 0-19-507292-8 (pbk.) 1. Ethics. I. Title. BJ1012.L67 1992 170 -- dc20 91-21428 "Train in the Distance" © 1981 Paul Simon. Used by permission of the Publisher. 2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper -iv- In Memory of Two of My Teachers WARNER A. WICK ( 1911-1985) ALAN DONAGAN ( 1925-1991) -v- What is the point of this story What information pertains The thought that life could be better Is woven indelibly Into our hearts and brains PAUL SIMON, "Train in the Distance" -vii- Acknowledgments I would like first to thank the following friendly critics who read earlier drafts of this book and who contributed greatly toward its improvement. Robert Roberts and Robert McCauley each worked his way through an early version of the entire manuscript and mailed me copious criticisms. Louis Pojman and Mark Johnson provided numerous comments on the first half. Norman Dahl, Eugene Garver, John Kekes, Larry May, Steven Tigner, Derek Phillips, Michael Howard, James Robinson, Tony Smith, Mark McPherran, Larry Simon, and Bart Gruzalski all criticized various versions of different chapters. The reader for Oxford University Press, Joel Kupperman, also offered a num- ber of extraordinarily helpful criticisms and suggestions. In this regard I would also like to thank my editor, Cynthia Read, particularly for her initial interest in the project; Peter Ohlin, assistant editor, for his prompt responses to a variety of queries; and Michael Lane, copy editor, for a job well done. The writing of this book was made possible by a 1989-90 American Council of Learned Societies fellowship, a 1989 National Endowment for the Human- ities (NEH) summer stipend, and a 1989-90 sabbatical leave from the University of Southern Maine. I am very grateful to all three institutions for their support. I would also like to thank the late Alan Donagan, Martha Nussbaum, Lawrence Blum, and my colleague Jeremiah Conway for their support in writing rec- ommendation letters for my fellowship applications. Some of the Kantian flavors in the first half of the manuscript were greatly enhanced by an invitation from Amelie Rorty to speak on Kant's views about virtue before the participants of her 1989 NEH summer seminar at Radcliffe College, Virtues and Their Vicissitudes. In the years immediately preceding the writing of the manuscript, I was fortunate enough to be a participant in three different NEH-funded summer institutes and seminars: Kantian Ethics: Historical and Contemporary Perspec- tives (directed by J. B. Schneewind and David Hoy, Johns Hopkins University, 1983), The Practical Value of the Study of Ethics in Ancient Greek Thought (directed by Martha Nussbaum, Wellesley College, 1985) and Aristotle's Meta- physics, Biology, and Ethics (directed by Michael Frede, John Cooper, and Allan Gotthelf, University of New Hampshire, 1988). In hindsight these "summer camps for professors" have proved to be the most enjoyable as well as the most edifying part of my philosophy education, for it was here that I was able to -ix- study and converse with many of our most outstanding contemporary Kant and Aristotle scholars. Their writings have profoundly influenced my approach to many of the issues in this book. This study develops a number of ideas (and borrows an occasional phrase or two) from several of my previously published articles. Part I grew out of "Can We Be Too Moral?" (Ethics 98 [ 1988]: 361-78) and, to a lesser extent, "Kant's Virtue Ethics" (Philosophy 61 [ 1986]: 473-89). Traces of part II can be detected in "Virtue Ethics and Anti-Theory" (Philosophia 20 [ 1990]: 93-114). Finally, a few less scholarly debts should also be noted: to my father, for helping me upgrade my computer system and guiding me through its mysteries and for reminding me that he wrote a book when he was my age (while his son practiced electric guitar in the adjoining room); to Yves Dalvet, for his precise piano playing at our Wednesday morning sonata sessions, which (I like to think) not only improved my meager violin abilities but also gave me a better sense of how things (including philosophy books?) should fit together; and last and most, to my wife, Tama, not only for watching our daughters, Elizabeth and Sarah, while I hid out in the attic behind a computer monitor and several small mountains of books and journal articles, but also for her work on the book cover and for her insistence that the project was not too crazy. Marburg, Germany R.B.L. July 1991 -x- Contents Abbreviations, xiii Introduction, 3 I · MORALITY I Morality and Oneself, 13 2 Morality, Lives, and Acts, 27 3 Morality and Maximization, 45 4 Morality and Importance, 61 II · MORAL THEORY 5 What Do Antitheorists Mean by Theory? 85 6 Did Aristotle and Kant Produce Moral "Theories"? 99 7 What Should Moral Theory Be? 125 8 Why We Need Moral Theories, 143 Not es, 163 Bibliography, 211 Index, 225 -xi- Introduction Morality is a subject that interests us above all others: We fancy the peace of society to be at stake in every decision concerning it; and 'tis evident, that this concern must make our speculations appear more real and solid, than where the subject is, in a great measure, indifferent to us. HUME, A Treatise of Human Nature This is a book about morality and moral theory -- about how, upon reflection, we ought to understand the nature and aims of morality and moral theory and about why the two are fundamentally important in human life. These are large topics; but readers who are wary of books about large topics may be relieved to hear that it is not my intent to offer an exhaustive, systematic analysis of either morality or moral theory. Rather, I shall be exploring certain select areas within the broad ter- rains of morality and moral theory, areas where I believe contemporary assump- tions are unsatisfactory and in need of replacement. The areas to be investigated were chosen as part of a larger strategy for coming to grips with a variety of recent philosophical criticisms of both morality and moral theory. Contemporary philosophers have grown increasingly skeptical toward both morality and moral theory. The skepticism concerning morality stems from argu- ments that moral considerations are not always the most important considera- tions and that it is not always better to be morally better. The skepticism concerning moral theory stems from arguments that moral theory is a radically misguided enterprise, one that does not illuminate moral practice and fulfills no useful functions. Morality and Moral Theory is a response to the arguments of both "antimorality" and "antitheory" skeptics. My aim is to defuse such skepticism by putting forward alternative conceptions of morality and moral theory, concep- tions that owe more to central texts within the canon of Western philosophical ethics (particularly Kantian and Aristotelian) than to sheer conceptual virtuosity. Reappraising Morality Again, the skepticism concerning morality with which I shall be concerned stems from recent arguments that moral considerations are not always the most im- -3- portant considerations -- that we sometimes admire immorality more than mo- rality, prefer to be less moral rather than more moral, recognize that aesthetic or personal or prudential ends may take precedence over moral concerns, care more about nonmoral ideals than about moral ideals, or believe with justification that we ought to do what is morally wrong. 1 At first glance, these antimorality arguments may not seem new: Thrasyma- chus, in book 1 of Plato's Republic, argues that injustice is better than justice; and history is riddled with intellectuals who advocate immoralist doctrines. However, the contemporary philosophical skeptics about morality whose ar- guments are the subject of the first half of this book are not immoralists who stand outside the pale of all moral considerations. They recognize that morality has a place within human life -- indeed, a significant place. Their view is, rather, that moral considerations are not the only important considerations to which human beings are subject: morality is not the only game in town. This is a softer view than Thrasymachean immoralism; and many readers may find it sensible, noncontroversial, and perhaps even trivially true. Still, for those of us who were taught (and continue to believe) that morality is supremely important in human life, it is a deeply troubling view. When we situate this scholarly debate concerning morality within contem- porary American culture, the irony of a society obsessed with the morality and immorality of its politicians and business people in which accusations on both sides are fueled by frequent editorial warnings that we have lost our collective moral compass is difficult to ignore. Current academic as well as popular discourse reveals a great deal of talk about morality but little reflection concerning what it is we are talking about when we profess to be talking about morality. 2 When I speak of "putting forward alternative conceptions of morality," I do not mean to imply that it is my view that moral conceptions are normally the sorts of things that people simply choose to pick up or discard at a moment's notice. On this point I agree with Bernard Williams that we cannot take very seriously a profession of [moral principles] if we are given to understand that the speaker has just decided to adopt them. The idea that people decide to adopt their moral principles seems to me a myth. . . . We see a man's genuine convictions as coming from somewhere deeper in him than that; and . . . what we see as coming from deeper in him, he -- that is, the deciding "he" -- may see as coming from outside him. 3 At the same time, I also believe that Alasdair MacIntyre is largely correct when he asserts that many contemporary U.S. citizens possess mere fragments of competing ethical conceptions, "simulacra of morality" for which we lack the historical understanding of their various origins 4 -- largely because, unlike MacIntyre, I do not think this state of affairs necessarily implies that our culture is in a state of "grave disorder." Morality is, in a sense, up for grabs at present; and while this is "a disquieting suggestion" for some, it may also be the case that we at this particular time and place are confronted with -4- unique opportunities for conceptual exploration of moral territories. There are, as it were, different moralities out there, and in such a situation a certain amount of choice concerning one's moral conception is certainly possible and perhaps even inevitable. Reaffirming Morality Briefly, the alternative moral conception to be developed and defended herein is a broader, richer one. In chapter 1, I argue, in opposition to most modern theorists, that morality ought to be understood primarily as a matter of what one does or does not do to oneself rather what one does or does not do to others. Adoption of this self-regarding conception of morality enables us to bridge the gulf that many antimorality critics claim exists between morality's demands and the personal point of view, thereby defusing one prominent source of recent philosophical opposition to morality. In chapter 2, I argue that morality's primary 5 evaluative focus ought to be on agents and their lives rather than on right acts or optimific consequences of acts. Adoption of this agent or virtue conception gives morality a richness and pervasiveness that literally encompasses all voluntary and even indirectly voluntary aspects of people's lives, thus enabling us to draw upon a much wider body of moral resources. Here the gulf between the moral and