Abstract

Recently some philosophers have criticized impartialist moral theories as a class for failing to capture the nature and significance of personal relationships. The "personalists" claim that the inadequacies of impartialist morality give us good reason to limit the scope of impartialist motivation, judgement, and justification. If the personalist challenge is successful, moral theorists will have to reexamine not only the belief that impartiality is a necessary foundation of morality, but the moral principles which rest on that foundation as well. ;I examine the arguments of two personalists, Blum and Noddings, and argue that their criticisms depend on a false view of what follows from impartiality and what impartialist moral agents must be like. I conclude that impartialist moral theories can subsume a much wider range of the behavior important in personal relationships than critics allege. In addition, I claim that we cannot limit the scope of impartiality without losing some fundamentally important protections for human well being that matter in any relationship. Finally, I suggest a way in which we might begin to think about fashioning the nature and significance of personal relationships from within the impartialist perspective.