Abstract
When a person gives up an end of crucial importance to her in order to promote a moral aim, we regard her as having made a moral sacrifice. The paper analyzes these sacrifices in light of some of Bernard Williams’ objections to Kantian and Utilitarian accounts of them. Williams argues that an implausible consequence of these theories is that that we are expected to sacrifice projects that make our lives worth living and contribute to our integrity. Williams’ arguments about integrity and meaning are shown to be unconvincing when the content of projects is left open. However, a look at his later arguments suggests a reason to be concerned about defensible ethical projects as understood through what he refers to as “the morality system”. The problem for theories of this type turns out to be not merely conflicts between ethical projects and moral demands but making sense of some of the ethically relevant features of these projects. Accommodations to moral theories that leave room for ethical projects may be insufficient to explain such features, for example in cases where agents demand more of themselves than the theories require. Making the theories more demanding is also problematic. Williams’ view about the role ethics plays in our conception of the life we want to lead provides a better account of these cases.
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Notes
A colloquial use of the term ‘moral sacrifice’ connotes doing what is morally right at some cost to oneself. I use the term in this sense. If a businessperson is forced to accept a financial loss because the profit would be harmful to others (even if not illegal) he can be said to have made a moral sacrifice. Consider the rug merchant who discovers his most profitable carpets are made by child laborers. When he changes his stock to ensure he doesn’t participate in economic transactions that deeply harm others, he does so at great cost to his overall aims. What is ‘sacrificed’ is the end he might have been able to achieve had ethical considerations not intervened.
There are many refinements of the larger question of what morality may require when it conflicts with nonmoral aims: how much morality can demand of us, whether moral requirements override nonmoral reasons, whether morality should be understood as impartial, and whether agents must consult morality in all practical reasoning. My concern in this paper is to focus on a question that I think lies in the background of these questions but has been less explored: What are some of the ways that agents conceive of the conflict between moral and nonmoral ends and what effect, if any, does an agent’s own conception of this conflict have on the reasonableness of the moral requirement?
Williams gives the terms “ethical” and “moral” a special sense, which I discuss below. Here and elsewhere, I use the terms in roughly Williams’ sense, to emphasize considerations that are particularly salient from the standpoint of a moral theory or to contrast the perspective of morality with the broader notion of the ethical.
The idea that projects give life meaning need not depend on an assumption that human life has meaning from an objective standpoint. Rather, Williams can be understood as concerned with what the agent needs to find her life worth living.
The Gauguin example is from “Moral Luck” in Williams (1981). While its details bear some connection to the historical Gauguin, Williams acknowledges its fictional nature. I use the example because it is structured much like the dilemmas in the cases of conflict Williams is concerned with in other papers. However, Williams uses this example to demonstrate the luck involved in Gauguin’s ability to justify such a choice to himself after he sees its results. Williams argues that if Gauguin’s project fails, he lacks a subsequent justification for his choice. Williams also acknowledges that, whether Gauguin fails or succeeds, he may not have a justification that will be satisfying to everyone (his family, for example).
I assume here that all reasons must be motivating and so assume that no one acts from a reason that is unconnected to his desires, wishes, etc. What I describe here is the case of someone who acts on a reason to succumb to some sort of external pressure (e.g., because morality demands it) but who does not value the moral aim the action would bring about.
In “Internal Reasons and the Obscurity of Blame” Williams gives a detailed picture of what counts as a sound deliberative route. “The internalist proposal sticks with its Humean origins to the extent of making correction of fact and reasoning part of the notion of a ‘sound deliberative route to this act’ but not, from outside, prudential and moral considerations.” Furthermore, Williams says that “any rational deliberative agent has in his S a general interest in being factually and rationally informed” but if we add to this that every rational agent similarly has an interest in being moral “there has to be an argument for this conclusion.” An explanation for our tendency to appeal to extant reasons in moral argument is that we assume most people do have some general desire to be moral (Williams, 1995, pp. 36–37)
It is also possible for the person to agree intellectually that the moral reason is the right thing to do, but to have no desire to do the right thing. Only in strange instances (where she regards herself as committed to doing the wrong thing) will that case involve a threat to integrity in Williams’ sense. However, concerns about threats to the integrity of committed amoralists do not pose any significant objection to a moral theory.
Of course, Williams’ arguments about reasons are very significant with respect to the question of moral motivation and the ‘why be moral’ question.
Williams (1981, p. 110). He also makes this point in “Internal Reasons and the Obscurity of Blame,” 1981, p. 39.
I mean something very simple by ‘defensible.’ These projects would be regarded as worthwhile ethical projects for good reasons and most people would recognize them both as ethical projects and reasonable projects in the absence of countervailing considerations. I leave open what counts as a good reason. It is not meant to imply an externalist account but simply what the person and others find reasonable. (I limit my claims to projects that most moral theories would approve of in some way or other although I think the burden of proof is on any moral theory to account for reasonable ethical projects.)
In discussing this idea I rely on several features of practical choice that Williams thinks apply to a variety of concerns, not only ethical ones. I do not intend to imply that ethical integrity is the only part of our lives Williams thinks morality distorts.
The Kantian view is that her particular project counts as moral if it stems from a moral motive. Generally, Julie’s is the type of project that often is moral on the Kantian view, since it is the type of project that can result from an intention to treat others as ends in themselves. (It is arguable that allowing climate change to occur for the usual economic reasons also treats persons as means, particularly the poorer inhabitants of the global south who are most vulnerable to the immediate harms of global climate change.) I leave the issue of which motives count as moral to one side as it is not directly relevant to Williams’ claim that the morality system requires all ethical concerns to fit within the idea of obligation.
I discuss Williams’ idea of practical necessity below. Williams claims that ethical concerns may involve an agent’s sense of practical necessity but that a number of other concerns may as well. Cf. Williams, (1985, pp. 186–191).
It does so in part by designating some ethical projects as nonmoral, particularly when these projects cannot easily be categorized as ones of acting on obligation.
The discussion of the integrity argument above shows that it is also not plausible to expect that ethical projects can always reasonably be seen as more important than anything else, particularly moral side constraints not to harm, etc. However, there is a way for Williams to accommodate this point (in a limited way) within his idea of the ethically serious person. The person who takes ethics seriously will be one who will obviously have a whole host of ethical concerns. Williams is not a skeptic about the existence of obligations (even though he is a skeptic of the use morality makes of them), so among these concerns will be obligations that cover the territory of side constraints. As ethically serious people ourselves, we can criticize those people who lack the relevant concern. The major difference between this ethical account and a moral account is that we cannot show they must have the concern.
Christine Korsgaard’s argument in The Sources of Normativity (1996a, see also 1996b, p. 301, esp.) that any value ultimately depends upon moral obligation, presents a possible objection to Williams’ view that ethics can be understood independently of morality. Korsgaard argues that valuing anything depends on a practical identity of some sort. Since these practical identities require us to value ourselves as human beings, valuing anything therefore requires valuing humanity in ourselves and others. Korsgaard would therefore argue that ethical concerns are not, at bottom, independent of moral obligation. On the contrary, “moral identity exerts a kind of governing role over the other kinds. Practical conceptions of your identity which are fundamentally inconsistent with the value of humanity must be given up.” (1986b, pp. 129–130). Williams’ primary focus in his response to Korsgaard concerns the question of conflict between a person’s “heart’s desire” and universal moral claims. Williams questions whether Korsgaard has proven that the categorical imperative and the value of humanity are inescapably present in our reflections about what to do when they must also be external to our contingent practical identities, as Korsgaard and Kant seem to require. If moral considerations are not inescapable, then it is doubtful that there is a governing practical identity in the sense argued for by Korsgaard. Williams also questions Korsgaard’s assumption “that the reflective question about morality is concerned overwhelmingly with it obligatory aspect, its ‘claims on us’: Aristotelians and others might be more impressed by morality’s role as an enabling device for the agent’s own life or by other considerations distinct from those of obligation.” (Williams in Korsgaard, 1986b, pp. 210–211)
Herman (1993, p. 39). The quotation from Herman suggests that Kant’s theory may allow the agent’s value for projects to be nonderivative, i.e., they can be valuable in their own right. Christine Korsgaard argues that the projects should be conceived of as extrinsically good—goods that are valued as ends. The goodness of these ends is conferred on them by our rational will. However, for Kant, the only intrinsic (unconditional) good is a fully rational will (Korsgaard, 1996a, pp. 249–274). An alternative response to Williams is found in Wood (1999, p. 329). Wood argues that Kant would have us see ground projects as included within our ethical duties. This means that “if I am a decent person, I will choose to give my life meaning by pursuing some set of ends that fall under the general descriptions ‘my own perfections’ and ‘the happiness of others.’ Where that is so, morality underwrites our ground projects, regarding them as morally meritorious.”
Cf. Hill (1992, pp. 168-69): "The best candidate for a supererogatory act is an act which (a) is of a sort commended by a principle of wider imperfect duty, (b) motivated by a sense of duty..., (c) is neither forbidden nor required by another, more stringent duty... (d) is in a context where no alternative is required by a more stringent duty nor commended by other principles of wide duty, and (e) is done by an agent who has adopted the relevant principle of wider imperfect duty and has often and continually acted on that principle."
Trujillo was dictator of the Dominican Republic from 1930 until his assassination in 1961. Minerva, Patria and Maria Teresa Mirabal were beaten to death by Trujillo’s men on November 25, 1969. Belgica (Dede) Mirabal was not politically involved and survived.
Approximately 12,000 Haitian migrant workers were massacred on Trujillo’s order in 1937. See Roorda (1998).
Recall Williams’ claim that ethical considerations can be that (1) something would be for the best or (2) the action is of some “ethically relevant kind.” Both of these can operate here alongside the agent’s conception of the life she wants to live. Williams (1985, p. 8).
See also, Blum (1994, pp. 65–97). Blum argues that noteworthy virtue such as that displayed by rescuers in the Holocaust is better explained by their participation in a community of virtue rather than maximal or minimal (supererogatory) or “personal calling” views.
In this respect, and in the crucial role it has in shaping choices and giving meaning to life, what I call an aspiration is similar to what Korsgaard refers to as a practical identity (A person’s moral identity governs these practical identities. See footnote 21, above.). Korsgaard regards our practical identities as a source of obligation. Thus, they might provide a competing explanation of the agent’s sense that her action is necessary even when it involves sacrificing other aims she cares about. However, a practical identity is insufficient to explain why the agent believes she must perform the action. Korsgaard argues that the normativity of choices from a particular practical identity depends ultimately upon the moral identity one has as a citizen of the kingdom of ends (see 1986b, p. 130). To explain the agent’s view on the proposed action, she could argue that the agent’s sense that her moral sacrifice is necessary in this case is explained by the value for humanity rather than her conception of the life she wants to lead. While the relation of dependence between a person’s moral identity and her other practical identities is a large issue that I cannot fully address here, it is worth noting that even on Korsgaard’s view there remains a question about why the particular end is so pressing for the agent. The answer cannot lie in a contingent practical identity. Korsgaard makes it clear that we must always be willing to question or abandon the obligations those identities seem to provide. On her view, the explanation for the agent’s sense of necessity would lie in the choice’s moral content. The universalization test and the value of humanity undoubtedly are supposed to give some content to ends and not simply function as constraints. However, it is unlikely that they alone dictate the makeup of the agent’s ethical concerns; her commitment to a specific concern is what is in question here. It is likely that the agent’s options are open on Korsgaard’s view, just as on Herman and Scheffler’s view, when the choice does not amount to violating the categorical imperative. Failing to do the action would not be morally wrong on Korsgaard’s view, nor would it be morally necessary. We still need an explanation of the agent’s sense of necessity. Korsgaard’s view does not fully explain why the agent believes it is not optional to forego the action that realizes her ethical concern.
For the idea of importance, see Williams, 1985, pp. 181–187.
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For helpful comments on this paper I am indebted to Allen Wood, Karen Jones, Terence Irwin, Susanna Siegel, Jessica Wilson, Lawrence Blum, Ajume Wingo, Claudia Eisen Murphy, Stephen Darwall, and two anonymous referees of this journal.
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Rivera, L. Sacrifices, Aspirations and Morality: Williams Reconsidered. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 10, 69–87 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-006-9040-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-006-9040-8