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The Problem with Yuppie Ethics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 March 2017

IASON GABRIEL
IASON GABRIEL*
Affiliation:
University of [email protected]
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Abstract

How much personal partiality do agent-centred prerogatives allow? If there are limits on what morality may demand of us, then how much does it permit? For a view Henry Shue has termed ‘yuppie ethics’, the answer to both questions is a great deal. It holds that rich people are morally permitted to spend large amounts of money on themselves, even when this means leaving those living in extreme poverty unaided. Against this view, I demonstrate that personal permissions are limited in certain ways: their strength must be continuous with the reasons put forward to explain their presence inside morality to begin with. Typically, these reasons include non-alienation and the preservation of personal integrity. However, when personal costs do not result in alienation or violate integrity, they are things that morality can routinely demand of us. Yuppie ethics therefore runs afoul of what I call the ‘continuity constraint’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Utilitas , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , March 2018 , pp. 32 - 53
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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References

1 Shue, Henry, ‘Mediating Duties’, Ethics 98 (1988), pp. 687–704 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Shue, ‘Mediating Duties’, p. 697.

3 This is distinct from the libertarian argument that the state cannot, as a matter of justice, require one to forgo these things even if there is compelling moral reason for one to do so.

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9 This article is concerned with people who are ‘absolutely affluent’ in global terms. These people have more than enough income to procure the things they need ( Singer, Peter, Practical Ethics (Cambridge, 2011), p. 193 CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

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16 Other impartial moral theories such as rule-consequentialism plausibly require less of wealthy people, given the tension between stringency of moral duties and expected rates of compliance. Brad Hooker, who defends a rules-based account, argues that the cost of internalizing stringent moral principles should lead us to adopt a more limited duty of assistance (Ideal Code, Real World (Oxford, 2000) p. 166). However, the fact that act-consequentialism and impartial contractualism both point to serious wrongdoing indicates that the charge deserves to be taken seriously in its own right.

17 Indeed, he is concerned to show that affluent people cannot be blamed for their conduct, a goal that is unlikely to be achieved if his argument rests upon wider acceptance of an egoist moral doctrine.

18 See, for example, Wolf, Susan, ‘Moral Saints’, The Journal of Philosophy 79 (1982), pp. 419–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Nietzsche, Friedrich, On the Genealogy of Morals (Oxford, 1996)Google Scholar, respectively.

19 Scheffler, Rejection of Consequentialism, p. 20.

20 Scheffler says little about this matter although he recognizes that it must be addressed (Rejection of Consequentialism, p. 21). Defenders of hybrid contractualism, such Thomas Nagel, have said only that ‘perspective enters into what is reasonable’ for each person (Nagel, Equality, p. 171).

21 One might argue that the claim that moral partiality stands in need of justification reflects prejudice in favour of the impartial point of view. My response to this charge is twofold. First, the idea that there is a robust connection between morality and the impartial standpoint finds broad support in contemporary moral philosophy (see Nagel, Thomas, The Last Word (Oxford, 1997), pp. 119–24Google Scholar). Second, the yuppie ethicist accepts this premise: he aims to demonstrate that strong forms of personal partiality are compatible with a moral code that accords normative standing to people on a universal basis.

22 This argument is agnostic about what the correct aim of moral theory should be. A theory could seek intuitive fit, coherence, reflective equilibrium, or congruence with philosophical arguments about the nature of morality. What matters is only that a justification of some kind is forthcoming.

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33 On the account developed by Susan Wolf, ‘meaning arises when subjective attraction meets objective attractiveness’. It stems from loving objects that are worthy of love and engaging with them in a positive way ( Wolf, Susan, Meaning in Life and Why it Matters (Princeton, 2010), pp. 8–9 Google Scholar).

34 In this context, Williams speaks of a person having ‘ground projects’ that provide ‘him with the motive force which propels him into the future and gives him a reason for living’ ( Williams, Bernard, Moral Luck: Philosophical Papers, 1973–1980 (Cambridge, 1981), pp. 12–13 CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

35 Project integrity is a form of objective integrity ( Ashford, Elizabeth, ‘Utilitarianism, Integrity and Partiality’, Journal Of Philosophy 97 (2000), pp. 421–39Google Scholar, at 424). What matters from this standpoint is not that the person in question feels detached from personal projects or is unable to maintain a stable identity but rather that in feeling this way her actual connection to valuable personal goals is severed.

36 According to Richard Miller, this person would view her ‘own psychology as a machine for producing good consequences, taking any difficulty in freely detaching and attaching [to personal projects and relationships] to be a defect if it reduces efficiency’. When personal partiality detracts from this aim, it would be viewed ‘as an inevitable but unfortunate limitation, as an engineer might reject that an otherwise ideal alloy is brittle’ (Miller, Moral Difference, p. 339).

37 I take this term from Kamm, Frances, Morality, Mortality: Volume II: Rights, Duties and Status (Oxford, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, p. 211.

38 This objective notion of alienation bears certain similarities to the one developed by Karl Marx. While the proletarian labourer may not feel or understand that she is alienated from her own nature, from others, or from her labour, the capitalist mode of production alienates her from these things nonetheless.

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46 Strictly speaking, the prerogative does not place limits on morality's demands – understood as a level of sacrifice beyond which agents are not required to go. For as Liam Murphy points out, ‘whatever demands flow from a principle using a given multiplying factor in given circumstances, changes in circumstances could increase the amount of good to be done, and thus the demands, without limit’ (Moral Demands, p. 64; Scheffler, Rejection of Consequentialism, p. 20, original quotation).

47 In The Rejection of Consequentialism, Scheffler conceives of the personal prerogative as a response to facts of the first kind. In his later work, Scheffler defends the ideal of moral moderation by appealing to the second type of consideration (Scheffler, Human Morality). Given that the personal prerogative forms part of a moderate conception of morality (on Scheffler's definition), it makes sense to conclude that it could be grounded in either way.

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50 As noted previously, the kind of project integrity that concerns us here is objective integrity. Whereas subjective integrity requires only the possession of a coherent self-conception, objective integrity goes further and requires that this conception be grounded in reality. In Ashford's words, ‘It must be based on the person not being seriously deceived either about the moral facts or about the moral obligations that she actually has’ (Ashford, Utilitarianism, p. 424).

51 For empirical evidence that people feel more fulfilled once they engage in other-regarding behaviour, see Dunn, Elizabeth, Aknin, Lara and Norton, Michael, ‘Spending Money on Others Promotes Happiness’, Science 319 (2008), pp. 1687–8CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

52 Robert Frank argues that ‘luxury fever’ – driven by the desire to keep up with the wealthiest in society – has produced no overall gain in well-being, increased working hours, driven huge credit card debt, created pervasive anxiety about the future, and led to the misuse of funds that could be better spent providing lunches for hungry school children (Luxury Fever: Weighing the Cost of Excess (Princeton, 1999), pp. 3–6, 45–57).

53 Susan Wolf, who is generally sympathetic to the force of eudaemonic considerations, doubts that any ‘plausible argument can justify the use of human resources involved in producing a paté de canard en croute against possible alternative beneficent ends to which these resources might be put’ and suggests that an interest in high fashion should be treated in the same way (Wolf, ‘Moral Saints’, p. 422).

54 A separate issue concerns goods that are needed in a given society for a citizen to maintain an appropriate level of self-respect ( Lichtenberg, Judith, Distant Strangers: Ethics, Psychology and Global Poverty (Cambridge, 2015), pp. 133–5Google Scholar). Although the nature of these things may vary according to time and place, they are not luxuries. Their loss would be a serious and potentially alienating cost. Unlike someone who struggles to fit in with her immediate social circle, someone who lacked these things would have nowhere left to turn on a society-wide basis.

55 Kagan, Shelly, Normative Ethics (Oxford, 1998), pp. 286–7Google Scholar.

56 Scanlon, What We Owe, p. 196.

57 Miller, Moral Difference, p. 337.

58 Miller, ‘Beneficence’, p. 359.

59 Miller, ‘Beneficence’, p. 360.

60 Miller, ‘Beneficence’, p. 361.

61 Miller, ‘Beneficence’, p.361

62 Miller, ‘Beneficence’, p. 359.

63 Murphy, Liam and Nagel, Thomas, The Myth of Ownership: Justice and Taxes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 32–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

64 Nussbaum, Martha, Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach (Cambridge, 2001)Google Scholar, p. 139.

65 Miller, ‘Beneficence’, p. 378.

66 For valuable comments and discussion of the arguments presented in this article I would like to offer my gratitude to Simon Caney, Peter Singer, Elizabeth Ashford, Zofia Stemplowska, Alison Hills, Brian McElwee, Cheyney Ryan, Jesse Tomalty, Juri Viehoff, Joanna Firth and Hugh Lazenby, as well as two anonymous referees and the editors of this journal. Special thanks is reserved for Henry Shue who introduced me to this topic.