Abstract

Available from UMI in association with The British Library. Requires signed TDF. ;Modern moral theories, both consequentialist and Kantian, have been the subject of much criticism based upon the claim that they do not adequately reflect the importance of the personal point of view. Critics argue that impartial moral theories fail to provide a plausible account of human agency and motivation. In this thesis, I argue against a number of such claims. And in addition, I claim that many of the more compelling objections lodged against impartiality are more convincingly restated as objections to an unrestricted maximizing doctrine of practical rationality. ;In chapter I, I discuss a number of interpretations of Bernard Williams's claims that a commitment to impartial morality undermines an agent's integrity. In chapter II, I argue that defenses of impartiality based upon a distinction between a criterion of rightness and a mode of deliberation successfully meet most motivational objections, but only under certain conditions. In chapters III through V, I consider arguments for limiting the consequentialist demand to maximize the impersonal good. I argue against proposals by Samuel Scheffler and Thomas Nagel for an independent theoretical rationale for limits on what an agent is required to do in the service of the impartial good, and I argue against Nagel's defense of a class of reasons which set limits on what an agent is permitted to do. In chapter VI, I reject arguments offered by Williams, Susan Wolf, Michael Stocker, and others for the extension of integrity-based objections to Kantian theories. In chapter VII, I argue for a way of meeting many of the concerns of critics of impartiality from within the framework of an impartial conception of morality