Abstract

All of us treat in special ways our family, friends, and others with whom we have significant ties. Much about this "partiality," however, remains elusive. What, if anything, justifies it? Is it part of morality, or antithetical to it? How are potential conflicts between it and other values, such as distributive justice, to be resolved? These questions are at the heart of not only specific controversies in normative ethics, but also debate over the reach of practical reason into areas of personal concern and inquiry into the nature and boundaries of morality itself. I argue that the justification of partiality lies in the fact that interpersonal relationships are sources of reasons, inter alia, to treat our relatives in distinctive ways. The belief that a relationship in which one is involved is a source of reasons is, in fact, partly constitutive of love and related attitudes. Drawing on this account, I suggest that the tension between partiality and morality is more apparent than real, and I explore the implications of partiality for such concrete moral values as individual autonomy and distributive justice