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Agent-neutral Consequentialism from the Inside-out: Concern for Integrity without Self-indulgence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 January 2009

Michael Ridge
Michael Ridge
Affiliation:
Australian National University, [email protected]
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Abstract

Consequentialists are sometimes accused of being unable to accommodate all the ways in which an agent should care about her own integrity. Here it is helpful to follow Stephen Darwall in distinguishing two approaches to moral theory. First, we might begin with the value of states of affairs and then work our way ‘inward’ to our integrity, explaining the value of the latter in terms of their contribution to the value of the former. This is the ‘outside-in’ approach, and Darwall argues that it is well-suited to defending consequentialism. Alternatively, we might begin with the perspective of a virtuous agent's concern for her integrity, and then work our way ‘outward’, building a conception of the value of states of affairs from this perspective. On this ‘inside-out’ account there is a kind of agent-centred concern each agent should have for her own integrity simply because it is her own. The inside-out approach therefore suggests a possible rationale for a non-consequentialist moral theory, in so far as such a fundamental egocentric concern for one's own integrity seems alien to consequentialism's commitment to the agent-neutrality of value. If this is correct then the consequentialist should explain why we should prefer the outside-in approach to its rival. I argue that the consequentialist can meet this challenge.

Type
Character and Consequentialism
Information
Utilitas , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , July 2001 , pp. 236 - 254
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2001

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References

1 See Nozick, Robert, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, New York, 1974Google Scholar.

2 Darwall, Stephen, ‘Is there a Kantian Interpretation of Rawlsian Justice?’, in John Rawls' Theory of Social Justice, Athens, Ohio, 1986, pp. 311–45Google Scholar.

3 Darwall, p. 305.

4 Ibid., p. 306.

5 Hill, Thomas E., 'Self-Respect Reconsidered', in Respect for Persons, ed. Green, O. H., Tulane Studies in Philosophy, vol. XXXI, New Orleans, 1982Google Scholar.

6 Ibid., p. 133.

7 Darwall, p. 306.

8 See Butler, J., Butler's Five Sermons, ed. Darwall, S. L., Indianapolis, 1983Google Scholar and Kant, Immanuel, The Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Beck, Lewis White, New York, 1990Google Scholar.

9 Darwall, p. 311.

10 Ibid., p. 305.

11 Ibid., p. 313.

12 Ibid., p. 306.

13 That this interpretation provides further resources for arguing against the consequentialist also provides evidence that this is the interpretation that Darwall has in mind, since he took himself to be defending deontology against consequentialism. There is also a good deal of direct textual evidence that Darwall had in mind the diachronic account. He remarks, for example, that ‘consequentialism … denies that the consequences of acts for [an agent's] character are any more relevant in themselves to what she should do than are the consequences for the character of others’ (Darwall, p. 306). In the context it is relatively clear that he means to be contrasting consequentialism with the inside-out approach, and this in turn suggests that he has in mind the diachronic interpretation.

14 Oddly, Sidgwick seemed to think such cases could never arise; see Sidgwick, Henry, The Methods of Ethics, 7th edn., Chicago, 1907Google Scholar.

15 Darwall, p. 305.

16 Ibid., p. 306.

17 At some points, Darwall seems to deny this, though it is unclear in those contexts whether he has in mind the diachronic interpretation or the reflective endorsement interpretation. See, for example, his suggestion that the outside-in approach is ‘the line of thought leading to consequentialism’; (Darwall, p. 305) (rather than simply a line of thought leading to that conclusion), and his suggestion that ‘the consequentialist approaches moral theory from the outside-in’. It must be admitted, though, that such passages are not decisive, as Darwall may only mean to suggest that the outside-in approach is the one that is most well-suited to defending consequentialism and not that it is the only plausible way of doing so. Indeed, at one point he seems quite alive to the possibility, in principle, of a defence of consequentialism from the inside-out, when he qualifies his discussion of consequentialism in passing with the clause ‘at least when the latter [indirect consequentialism] is grounded in an outside-in rationale’ (ibid., p. 314).

18 Ibid., p. 306.

19 It might be argued that it is narcissistic in that the agent focuses so much on the principles of her own character as opposed to what others think, but this objection underestimates the resources of the reflective endorsement approach. For a crucial part of what is required for adequate reflection upon which principles one should embrace might well involve discussion with others who disagree with one. Indeed, it is fairly plausible to suppose that a moral agent who did not give any weight to the dissent of other reasonable moral judges would be behaving dogmatically and unreasonably herself. The point behind the reflective endorsement test is one that is perfectly compatible with a strong commitment to considering the point of view of others in one's reflection. Still, each agent must think for herself, and must subject these various perspectives to her own reflection. I must not, on this account, embrace a principle simply because a majority of other reflective agents have adopted it if it does not meet with reflective endorsement upon my own conscientious and open-minded consideration of the principle in question. It is in this respect that the reflective endorsement approach, while not being solipsistic or dogmatic, does still recognizably work from the inside-out.

20 Darwall makes a very similar point, though not in terms of standards and decision procedures; see Darwall, pp. 316 f.

21 R. M. Hare famously defends such a view; see Hare, R. M., Moral Thinking: Its Levels, Method, and Point, Oxford, 1981CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a recent defence of such a view, see Blackburn, Simon, Ruling Passions, Oxford, 1998Google Scholar.

22 Thanks to Thomas E. Hill, Jr., Keith Horton, Sean McKeever, Philip Pettit, and Susan Mendus for useful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.