Abstract
It is argued that reasonable partiality allows an agent to attach value to particular objects of attachment via recognition of the value of the holding of that relation between agent and object. The reasonableness of partiality is ensured by a background context set by the agent’s virtues, notably justice. It is argued that reasonable partiality is the only view that is compatible with our best account of the nature of self-knowledge. That account rules out any instrumental relationship between moral demands and moral character, but that familiar claim is given an unfamiliar explanation. Instrumentality depends on a prior objectification of the self and it is that kind of objectification that, in the ethical case, represents a form of ethical evasion. Self-knowledge is transparent, incomplete and essentially connected with first person endorsement. The transparency condition is that knowledge of one’s state of mind is “taken” transparently to its object. More specifically, ethical transparency is the feature that my virtues do not exhibit themselves to me in self-knowledge, but take me transparently to the way in which they saliently represent the world as containing evaluative properties calling for various forms of response. It is concluded that reasonable partiality grounded in the nature of the virtues is the only reflective account of morality compatible with the most plausible account of the nature of self-knowledge. The demands of impartiality are incompatible with a condition of having a personal point of view, namely, that a self can stand in a non-alienated relation to itself via its capacity for self-knowledge.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Cottingham, J., Ethics and Impartiality, Philosophical Studies 43 (1983), pp. 83–91.
Cottingham, J., Partiality, Favouritism and Morality, Philosophical Quarterly 36 (1986), pp. 357–373.
Cottingham, J., The ethics of self-concern, Ethics 101 (1991), pp. 798–817.
Cottingham, J., ‘Partiality and the Virtues, in R. Crisp (ed.), How Should One Live? Essays on the Virtues, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996, pp. 57–76.
Cottingham, J., The Ethical Credentials of Partiality. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, (1997) pp. 1–21.
Deutscher, M. Subjecting and Objecting, Oxford: Basil Blackwell Press, 1983.
Edgley, R., Reason in Theory and Practice, London: Hutchinson, 1969.
Evans, G., The Varieties of Reference, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982.
Foot, P., Utilitarianism and the Virtues. Mind 94 (374) (1985), pp. 196–209.
Galston, W.A., Justice and the Human Good, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980.
Hampshire, S., Spinoza On the Idea of Freedom, Proceedings of the British Academy (1960), pp. 195–215.
Korsgaard, C., The Sources of Normativity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996a
Korsgaard, C., Personal Identity and the Unity of Agency: A Kantian Response to Parfit, in Creating the Kingdom of Ends, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996b, pp. 363–397.
Korsgaard, C., The 2002 Locke Lectures, Unpublished ms, Available at: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/korsgaar/, 2002.
McDowell, J., Criteria, Defeasibility, and Knowledge. Proceedings of the British Academy 68 (1982), 456–479.
Moran, R., Authority and Estrangement, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001.
Nagel, T., The Possibility of Altruism, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970.
Nagel, T., The View from Nowhere, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.
O’Shaughnessy, B., The Anatomy of Consciousness, in E. Villanueva (ed.), Consciousness (pp. 135–177). Atascadero, California: Ridgeview Publishing, 1991.
O’Shaughnessy, B., Consciousness and the World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Peacocke, C., Conscious Attitudes and Self-Knowledge, in C. Wright, B. Smith and C. MacDonald (eds.), Knowing Our Own Minds Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 63–98.
Peacocke, C., First Person Reference, Representational Independence and Self-Knowledge, in A. Brook and R. De Vidi (eds.), Self-Reference and Self-Awareness, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2001, pp. 215–245.
Perry, J., The Problem of the Essential Indexical, Reprinted in The Problem of the Essential Indexical and Other Essays, Oxford: Oxford University Pressm, 1993.
Rowlands, M., The Nature of Consciousness, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Rowlands, M., The Transcendentalist Manifesto, Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 2003 (forthcoming).
Sartre, J.-P., Being and Nothingness, trans Hazel Barnes, New York: Washington Square Press, reprint edition, 1993.
Scheffler, S., The Rejection of Consequentialism: A Philosophical Investigation of the Considerations Underlying Rival Moral Conception}, (revised edition) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Shoemaker, S., Introspection and the Self, in The First Person Perspective and Other Essays, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996a, pp. 3–24.
Shoemaker, S., Self-knowledge and “Inner Sense”: Lecture II, the Broad Perceptual Model, in The First Person Perspective and Other Essays, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996b, pp. 224–245.
Siewert, C., The Significance of Consciousness, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998.
Skorupski, J., Neutral versus Relative: Philosophical Utilitarianism and Practical Reason, Ethical Explorations, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, pp. 49–64.
Thomas, A., Values, Reasons and Perspectives, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (1996), pp. 61–80.
Thomas, A., Kant, McDowell and the Theory of Consciousness, European Journal of Philosophy (1997), pp. 283–305.
Thomas, A., Internal Reasons and Contractualist Impartiality, Utilitas 14(2) (2002), pp. 135–154.
Thomas, A., An Adverbial Theory of Consciousness, Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 2 (3) (2003a), pp. 161–185.
Thomas, A., Nagel’s Paradox of Liberty and Equality. Res Publica 9 (2003b), pp. 257–284.
Thomas, A., Consciousness, Reflexivity and Reduction, Paper presented to Towards A Science of Consciousness, Prague, 2003c, July 6–10.
Thomas, A., Perceptual Knowledge, Representation and Imagination, Paper presented to Knowledge and Imagination, Amsterdam, 2004a, June 23–25.
Thomas, A., The Scope of the Agent-Relative, unpublished ms, 2004b.
Thomas, A., Value and Context, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005 (forthcoming).
Wiggins, D., Truth, Invention and the Meaning of Life, in Needs, Values, Truth, 3rd edn, Oxford: Blackwells, 2000, pp. 87–137.
Williams, B., Persons, Character and Morality, in Moral Luck, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981, pp. 1–19.
Williams, B., Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, Fontana Press/Collins, 1985.
Zahavi, D., Self-Awareness and Alterity, Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1999.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Thomas, A. Reasonable Partiality and the Agent’s Point of View. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 8, 25–43 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-005-3300-x
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-005-3300-x