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Something is rotten in the state of moral philosophy. Much divides Kantianism and
Utilitarianism, the two pillars of the field, but impartiality does not. 1 Indeed, both accept
wholesale an impartial framework.
Three parts comprise this framework: the actor, the action, and the judge. The first two
are self-explanatory. An individual acts, and their action can be deemed moral or
immoral. This is uncontroversial. From here the impartialist steps in, arguing that an
impartial judge be needed to make such a determination. This determination is made
using an ideal how would a moral saint act? 2 and comparing this actor to the ideal. I
do not argue against any particular ideal, rather, I find fault with the imposing of the
impartial judge.
There is nothing wrong with determining the morality of an action, or indeed using a
prescribed method to make such a determination. Where the impartialist errs is in
requiring an impartial judge to arbitrate the whole system. This way of thinking does
more harm than good. In this paper I will (I) explore the foundation of impartial morality,
as it emerges from Socrates question, and argue for an alternative, based on Bernard
Williams conception of personal projects, and (II) offer three critiques of impartialism,
which the aforementioned alternative may adequately answer.
I
Impartial morality is, at base, an answer to Socrates question, How should one live?
The query is interesting enough but, as is immediately apparent, it is abundantly
impersonal. Within the question a universal, rather than personal, answer is implied.
Herein lies the fundamental mistake which renders impartiality a flawed framework;
though its rationale may be strong and its models sound, it answers the wrong question.
Rather than ask, How should one live? as Socrates does, we ought to ask How should
I live?
We act based on our desires, our gut instincts, our greed, our relationships, our boredom,
our reproductive mandate . . . we conclusively do not act based on our philosophical
models. We are complex and we are faulty. To err is human, to forget that we err is
impartialist. Socrates question is an important one, but it starts at the wrong point. A
model whose beginning assumes impersonality how should one live? cannot well
inform the actions of an entirely three dimensional being, no more than I can wear a hat
drawn for a stick figure.
Socrates starting point tragically misses a vital reality: that people are undefinable on
any but the individual scale. Like an error at the beginning of a mathematical proof,
everything that follows is fundamentally flawed. Perhaps not irredeemably so as in
mathematics, but it is still an error which demands skepticism from the outset.
We can step back even further, by asking How do I live? and creating models based on
deviations from this reality, not deviations from some impersonal ideal. We must choose
our philosophies, our moral guides, by what fits us, our personalities, our relationships,
our needs, our desires not merely what convinces our intellect.
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leave inadequate room for character, and specifically neglect the role of individual desires
and circumstances or, as Bernard Williams calls them, projects.3
In his critique of impartial morality, Williams asks, How can an I that has taken on the
perspective of impartiality be left with enough identity to live a life that respects its own
interests?4 These interests, as Williams defines them, are projects or things that are
important or meaningful to an individuals life. I would expand this definition upon
Williams premise to argue that not only are these projects important, but that they are life
itself. Our lives are not defined by eighty beats per minute and neuroelectrical activity.
They are defined rather by our relationships, our pastimes, our careers, our goals, our
desires, our social stations. The word projects initially installs a sense of secondary
nature but this could not be farther from the truth. Projects are not merely important to
what we do, they define who we are and that we exist. Demanding that we hold ourselves
to an impartial viewpoint simply ignores our projects, and thus ignored us as individuals.
Oughtnt we be able to strive on our projects behalf, even in the face of impartial
morality? After all, as Susan Wolf writes, Moral ideals do not, and need not, make the
best personal ideals.5
So what might replace impartial morality? Must it be replaced? Surely! and by surely I
mean I have no idea. My aim is simply to question impartialisms monopoly on moral
philosophy. Instead of attempting to replace it here, we might simply look at what
remains of the original system. Disregarding any notion of impartiality, and thus
removing impartialism from Kants system, we are left with the actor, action, and the
judge, who need not be impartial. Who then ought this judge be? Surely we are able to
make moral choices without asking, Would an impartial judge find this admirable?
What barometer do we then have? In my estimation, we ought to allow ourselves to put
value in character and projects of the individual, and we must recognize this value even if
it comes into conflict with the view of an impartial judge. Individuals must be able to
make moral choices in the name of their own projects, rather than in the name of
adhering to impartiality. This, as it might be called, is personal morality; that actions
can be justified if they are taken for the sake of our projects; and that individual choice is
given weight; that the individual alone is master of her mind. We cannot ask ourselves to
act in accordance with an impartial standard, we can ask ourselves to act in accordance
with our own.
II
The central problems with impartial morality, as I see it, are threefold. (A) Firstly, it
universalizes the human experience into select dilemmas, and then expects us to act in
our real lives as we would in fiction. (II) Secondly, it is detrimental to how we serve
society. (III) And thirdly, it demands that we act as if in a vacuum, as if each action we
take is independent of each other and from our personal projects. As I will attempt to
argue, a philosophy of personal morality affects the inverse of these three complaints
which I hope to illustrate along the way.
A
Impartial morality necessarily universalizes discussion of moral philosophy into select
dilemmas in an attempt to have us approach moral decisions from impartial, rather than
personal perspectives. Because moral philosophy, once impartial morality is supposed,
becomes a study of how the impartial judge would adjudicate, we must view moral
dilemmas from an impartial perspective to test her scales. Systems are created (and
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6 Lewis 1943, p. 45
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nothing and the decision to retaliate are so utterly incongruous indeed millions of lives
separate them that an impartial judge could not rationally find both positions admirable.
The choice then becomes a question of which ideal to apply. A utilitarian framework
regresses into error-laden probability because any cost-benefit analysis is incomputable to
a human, and thus essentially comes down to guesswork. A deontological framework
requires the assertion of an absolute universal principle, the difficulties of which I have
already discussed. Both, as Bernard Williams points out, undermine the way [ones]
actions and decisions have to be seen as flowing from the projects with which he is most
closely identified.7 Indeed in none of this philosophical discussion under an impartialist
framework are you, the commander, discussed or even considered!
This dilemma is not a fiction. The United Kingdom has four operational nuclear
submarines, each of which carry a letter of last resort written by the Prime Minister to
the commanding officers, and kept under lock and key aboard the vessels. In the event of
British destruction by nuclear strike, the letters are opened, and the commanders are
given four optional actions which, once one is taken, would be the last official act of Her
Majestys government. They allow the commander to: (1) retaliate with nuclear weapons,
(2) do nothing, (3) place the submarine under the command of the United States or
Australia, or (4) use his own judgement.
Is granting this choice to a lowly commander immoral? The impartial judge could not
possibly see each of these actions as admirable after all, they are incongruous with
millions of lives standing between them. I trust that the British Government would not
knowingly authorize immoral action even in the event of its own destruction and yet
to an impartialist, there must be an immoral action among the options given. The British
Government, then, has officially authorized an immoral course of action on a massive, or
rather nuclear, scale, given certain conditions. This isnt so, however, because in giving
this open-ended order indeed that final option is use your own judgement the
British Government understands that context is everything. Without understanding the
context of the real scenario rather than the fiction, we cannot possibly deem one option
moral or the other immoral, we can merely guess at what these contexts may be. The
British Government understands that an individual sense of morality that of the
commander is enough to guide moral action. If the British Government is willing to
defer to individual judgement in the nuclear case, why is the impartialist not in the trivial
one?
B
The most grievous offense, for me, of impartial morality is how it defines the relationship
between individual and society. There are several elements of this relationship Id like to
explore
Firstly, impartial morality attempts to make individuals malleable. Because it takes no
account of individual character, persons are expected to bend themselves to meet external
standards. This is expected of us, and by doing so, one is seen as paying ones due to
society. As Emerson put it, Men do what is called a good action as some piece of
courage or charity, much as they would pay a fine . . . these works are done as an apology
or extenuation of their living in the world. 8 The impartialist asks individuals to act in
accordance with the impartial and not the personal, to forgo their personal projects. Thus
good actions become a tithe of living. This causes us to take act not because we are
compelled, but rather because we feel obligated. This confuses us as to what we can do to
better society. That is, we can do much, but are satiated by the tithes we pay.
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attempts exactly this to intellectually justify moral action by removing the judgement
from the individual, and giving it to an impartial and disinterest judge. When removing
partiality one really removes emotion, desire, and bias, in favor of a purely intellectual
non-choice. The intellect is not enough to fuel moral action, and as I have previously
argued we are more likely to disregard morality altogether when our motive is purely
intellectual. Emotion is a far more powerful tool than intellect. We ought to stop deluding
ourselves into thinking that emotion has no place in moral decision making. The partial is
a necessary motivator to drive virtuous action. Men without emotion can do not good, for
our emotions are the very basis of what we consider to be moral. We did not
intellectualize our way into refraining from infanticide when an infant is unhealthy.
Rather, this is abhorrent to us emotionally, and thus we have developed a moral doctrine
which abhors it. Why then do we disregard emotion on the other end of the process? Why
then, when emotions form the basis of our moral doctrine, do we will them away through
impartiality when confronted with moral decisions? Without the aid of trained
emotions, Lewis continues, The intellect is powerless against the animal organism.
Lastly, I would be remiss without responding to the religious element that impartial
morality holds in society. Many inclined toward religion argue that society requires Gods
morality. The religious adherent is not allowed to do whatever they sense to be right,
rather they are asked to adhere to Gods sense. Who is this impartial judge that we have
been discussing if not God? Impartial morality was developed in a very Christian context
indeed why have we so readily adopted it into secular society? Many cling to impartial
morality, I believe, because it so closely adheres to the religious framework. To deny it
would be a denial of God the judge. Without Gods judgement, some argue, wouldnt we
fall into immortality? Doesnt society require a common divine law? Without the reward
of heaven and the punishment of hell, what would become of man? I have no better
answer to this than to echo Matthew Arnolds The Better Part.
So answer thou; but why not rather say:
Hath man no second life?Pitch this one high!
Sits there no judge in Heaven, our sin to see?
More strictly, then, the inward judge obey!
Was Christ a man like us? Ah! Let us try
If we then, too, can be such men as he!
Or perhaps more belligerently, William Ernest Henleys Invictus.
It matters not how straight the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
Indeed we are the captains of our souls! and yet we so readily hand the vessel over to
the impartial. We must take more responsibility for our morality than simply adhering
uncritically to some impartial perspective. The impartial framework views individuals as
pieces of a society which, if in moral opposition, will fall apart. Rather, societies are the
amalgamation of individuals. The individuality and uniqueness of persons within that
society breathe life into it. Impartial morality brings individuals into a single archetype.
While it can never truly force individuals into the mold, for they will revolt beforehand, it
can certainly damage good and healthy elements in society. Impartial morality brings
individuals to view good actions as tithes to society which must follow impartially
admirable prescriptions. Rather than asking what can I do? we are lead to ask what
can one do? So strict too is this framework that we are brought often into choosing
between it and our projects a decision which may lead to the abandonment of the moral
project altogether.
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C
My final critique of impartial morality is significantly less significant, but all the same,
worthy of note. Impartial morality views actions as independent not only from the context
that surround it, as previous discussed, but from other actions.
Imagine one of the impartialists death-scenarios. You live between two families, each
with five children; one household of geniuses, the other of dunces. One day while
walking in the park you see a child from each house drowning, and you can only save
one. Barring all other context, the impartialist would likely lead the individual to save the
genius under any cost-benefit calculus. This is all very well until viewed in the context of
other actions. Lets say that the next day, impossibly, the same situation arises! Would
you again rescue the genius over the dunce? How about a third time? Would you one-byone choose from the genius household over the dunce household until there were no more
dunce-children? Or would you eventually come to choose a dunce child, not wanting to
rob the dunce household of all its children but then of course, punishing the genius
child only because her siblings had lived? Each individual choice is identical out of
context, but in the context of past action, they are worlds apart. The impartialist considers
none of this, actions are viewed singularly, unrelated to other actions.
If a luxury-yacht salesman accidentally hits Mrs. Wealthington while driving home from
work, should he offer a steep discount to Mr. Wealthington when he happens to walk into
his yacht dealership the next day? Even though he would make this offer to no other
costumer? Out of context of previous actions, this is a simple black and white choice, but
once the history of actions is taken into account we begin to sharpen the resolution, we
begin to see life for what it is, a series of incomprehensibly complicated set of contexts
and circumstances the likes of which can never justly be navigated by an impartial
judge.
III
In proposing and advocating for the idea of personal projects, and their legitimacy in
affecting moral decision-making, Bernard Williams does a great service to us. He opens a
crack in the twin pillars of Utilitarianism and Kantianism into which we can see
something rotten within.
Impartial morality starts at the wrong place; it is an answer to Socrates question which, I
would contend, is a question of little relevance. How should one live? I couldnt care less
how should I live? From this initial error, the faults and crack snowball until the
system, as I see it, is utterly wrecked. It is no wonder then that the impartialist approaches
moral philosophy using a set of non-contextual and simplistic dilemmas, and builds their
systems from these. In viewing us as archetypical and impersonal, it is no wonder that the
efforts we are told to make toward bettering society are similarly generic. That, in these
generic efforts, we are satiated and fail to realize our full potential. That in confronting
these overbearing fault-lines we are apt to abandon them and, given no alternative, the
moral project altogether. Luckily, individuals are not so easily fooled. Indeed society is
ahead of moral philosophy in this regard.
The overbearing eye of the impartialist judge can do us no good. Any system that views
us as generic moral agents, rather than incomprehensibly complex individuals, must be
met with serious scrutiny ipso facto. For it errs in its very assumption that one can be
corralled with another. For I am not one rather, I am.
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IV
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, Self Reliance, 1841. Print. The Harvard Classics, Vol. 5. New
York: Colier & Sons.
Herman, Barbara, Integrity and Impartiality, 1983. The Monist, Vol. 66 No. 2. Oxford
University Press.
Lewis, C. S., The Abolition of Man, 1943. Print. Oxford University Press.
Williams, Bernard, Utilitarianism: For and Against, 1973. Print. University of
Cambridge Press.
Wolf, Susan, Moral Saints, 1982. The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 78 No. 8.