The MORAL Journal EQUALITY of Value Inquiry 38: 61–74, 2004. AND THE FOUNDATION OF LIBERAL MORAL THEORY © 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

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Moral Equality and the Foundations of Liberal Moral Theory JONATHAN FRIDAY Rutherford College, University of Kent, Canterbury, CT2 7NP, UK; e-mail: [email protected]

1. The notion of moral equality at the heart of liberal theory is one of universal and unconditional equality of moral worth of beings falling within the scope of morality. This is typically taken to mean that the interests of each moral being deserve equal consideration, that each has the same intrinsic value and is thus due unconditional respect as an end in itself. This is a precise conception of the relative worth of moral beings, and in stark contrast to the nonegalitarian belief that merit determines relative worth. Since there is a prima facie internal connection between merit and worth, an egalitarian is making a substantial claim. The problem is not, however, the undoubted appeal of that claim, but whether there is any reason to believe it. The context of the problem therefore is ethical rationalism, or the principle that moral beliefs should be supported by reasons. Reasons that rely on metaphysical commitments, such as theism or the full-blown Kantian metaphysics of the self, can be discounted for being no more secure than the egalitarianism they are invoked in support of. However, the range of available reasons not resting on metaphysical convictions is limited and inadequate for the justification of moral egalitarianism. A merit-based type of non-egalitarianism is at least as well, if not better, grounded in argument and reason. A familiar argument for moral equality is through the notion of impartiality. In its shortest form, the argument is that ethical rationalism implies that moral reasoning must be impartial, and such impartiality implies moral equality. Although there is undoubtedly a close connection between morality and some kind of impartiality, the common tendency to identify the two is misleading. There are good grounds for thinking that the demands of morality are not exhausted by impartiality. More importantly there is no one meaning of the term “impartiality,” and some senses of it are thoroughly amoral. Tossing a coin constitutes an impartial method of decision-making appropriately used to determine which team is to start the game, but wholly out of place in moral decision-making. Bernard Gert has emphasized this point, distinguishing a formal notion of impartiality from more substantial moral conceptions.1 There are, however, a number of kinds of moral impartiality, such as for ex-

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ample, the absence of bias in moral thought, the equal consideration of interests, or the universalizablity of moral judgments. The argument for moral egalitarianism from the impartiality of moral thinking begins with a particular interpretation of the demands of ethical rationalism, whereby it is claimed that moral beliefs, judgments, and decisions must be supported by reasons that are authoritative in the sense of being in principle acceptable to all. In favor of this interpretation is a common conception of morality as a system providing authoritative resolution to interpersonal conflicts of interest, something only possible if moral judgments have reasons that possess equal authority for everyone. The next step is to assert that moral reasons acceptable to all are necessarily the product of an impartial process of moral reasoning. This raises the question of what kind of impartiality yields moral reasons acceptable to all. In the third step of the argument, this question is answered with the claim that the proper form of impartial reasoning is one in which equal consideration is given to the interests of each. Since moral egalitarianism is equivalent to the view that an impartial process of moral reasoning gives equal consideration to the interests of each, it follows that ethical rationalism implies moral egalitarianism, and therefore moral equality. This argument only has the appearance of force, because it rests on an equivocation about impartiality. It has already been noted there are a number of different kinds of impartiality, and the argument includes an equivocation between a kind of impartiality implied by ethical rationalism, and another that is not, but which implies moral equality. The sense of impartiality that follows from ethical rationalism may be called justificatory impartiality. If reasons for moral commitments should in principle be acceptable to everyone, the justification of moral judgments must be impartial in the sense of referring to a shared norm. The second sense of impartiality, what might be called egalitarian impartiality, concerns moral thinking in which equal consideration is given to the interests of everyone. Since everyone is in principle capable of deliberating with egalitarian impartiality and should in principle reach the same conclusions on the basis of the same reasons, the conclusions and reasons should be acceptable to everyone. If, reasons generated by the method of equal consideration constituted the only shared norms, then justificatory impartiality would only make sense on the assumption of egalitarian impartiality, and the case for moral equality would be made. However, it is not the case that all authoritative moral judgments are founded upon principles formulated on the basis of equal consideration. Two examples help to bring the issue into focus. Let us consider first a justificatory principle from outside contemporary morality, but recognizable from the pre-Christian world. It might be expressed as: “The conqueror has a right to human spoils from among the vanquished.” This is a repugnant principle and the reasoning in support of it is unlikely to have much authority in the contemporary world. If, however, this principle constituted a norm shared by

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both the victors and vanquished, then any appeal to it in justification of a moral judgment would be impartial in the sense demanded by ethical rationalism. Secondly, in our moral culture it is recognized that individuals have special moral obligations arising from personal and family attachments. Giving special consideration to the needs and interests of friends and family members, within reasonably well-defined boundaries, can be rationally supported by the shared norms governing such relationships. Therefore, if someone cites a shared norm of special obligation, such as “The interests and needs of a person’s own children have first and special claim upon his moral consideration,” in support of a moral judgment regarding what is morally required in certain circumstances, such moral reasoning exhibits the justificatory impartiality demanded by ethical rationalism. Both examples show how moral reasoning and judgments can be impartial in the sense of being acceptable to everyone without implying, or even being consistent with, a commitment to egalitarian impartiality. Only by running together the two notions of impartiality can it be made to appear that moral equality can be derived from the nature of impartial moral thought and judgment. 2. Thomas Nagel recognizes that impartiality does not imply equality, and attempts instead to ground egalitarianism upon the nature and conditions of rational moral thought.2 The argument starts with a description of some aspects of human thought and experience, from which Nagel derives two contrasting standpoints a person might adopt in thinking about the world. Most cognitive and non-cognitive experiences belong to a personal standpoint, constituted by a person’s particular circumstances, interests, abilities and character. But human beings also have the ability to abstract from their particular position and think about the world objectively. Not only does the success of the natural sciences depend upon this capacity for abstracted or objective reasoning, so too, Nagel argues, does moral reasoning. In exercising this capacity to abstract from the personal standpoint a person adopts what Nagel calls the impersonal standpoint. With regard to moral reasoning, the foremost characteristic of the impersonal standpoint is that everyone including the person adopting the standpoint is taken into account in moral reflection, and yet “without singling out as I the one we happen to be.”3 With this distinction between the two standpoints, Nagel’s argument is straightforward: moral thought presupposes the impersonal standpoint, and the impersonal standpoint implies moral equality. For Nagel, ethics begins when “from the impersonal standpoint we focus on the raw data provided by the individual desires, interests, projects, attachments, allegiances and plans of life that define the personal point of view of the multitude of distinct indi-

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viduals, ourselves included.”4 The result of this is the recognition that some things matter to everyone. As Nagel observes: You cannot sustain an impersonal indifference to the things in your life which matter to you personally: some of the most important have to be regarded as mattering, period, so that others beside yourself have reason to take them into account. But since the impersonal standpoint does not single you out from anyone else, the same must be true of the values arising in other lives. If you matter impersonally, so does everyone . . . the basic insight that appears from the impersonal standpoint is that everyone’s life matters, and no one is more important than anyone else.5 It is easy to see how from the impersonal standpoint everyone’s life matters, but it is not clear why it should be concluded that the standpoint implies everyone matters equally. Suppose the impersonal standpoint is adopted and attention directed to what Nagel calls the raw data of interests, desires, plans, and goals that are familiar and important to us within the un-abstracted personal standpoint. Nagel’s thought is that some of what matters to each person individually is discovered to also matter to everyone else when considered from the impersonal standpoint. Indeed, what matters to everyone impersonally, matters to everyone equally. As Nagel explains, “A given quantity of whatever it is that is good or bad – suffering, happiness, fulfillment or frustration – its intrinsic impersonal value does not depend on whose it is.”6 This must mean that from the impersonal standpoint it is recognized, for example, that everyone wants to achieve his goals, have the freedom to form and maintain attachments, to achieve happiness and to avoid suffering and the frustration of plans. On this score Nagel is right. They are states that are equally valuable to everyone, and the capacity for such states is at least sufficient to place someone within the scope of morality. Perhaps Nagel is also right that the impersonal standpoint is necessary to recognize such values are not only personal but also shared. But he is wrong to think that such shared values are intrinsic, and further wrong to think the fact that they are shared values implies moral equality. Let us consider the four shared values that Nagel mentions: suffering, happiness, fulfillment, and frustration. None of them are intrinsically good or bad from the impersonal standpoint. From the personal as much as the impersonal standpoint the suffering of the innocent is bad, but the suffering of the guilty with remorse or punishment is not a bad thing. Likewise with fulfillment and frustration. Fulfillment is certainly a state sought by all, but it is impersonally good only if the desires are worthy of being fulfilled. There is nothing in the character of the impersonal standpoint that prevents judgments being made about the relative merits of desires, interests, plans, and goals. There is no loss of knowledge that the ambition to find happiness and fulfillment in a life

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of crime is a less worthy desire than the ambition to find fulfillment in the legal pursuit of commerce or in making culturally valuable artifacts. Those ambitions might also be thought to lack the exceptional moral worth of the kinds of projects associated with moral notables, such as, for example, William Wilberforce, Marie Stopes, and Martin Luther King. As the raw data is viewed from the impersonal standpoint, the interests, desires, and plans of life need not be surveyed in abstraction from their intentional character. Nothing in the nature of rational thought or the impersonal standpoint prevents evaluative discriminations being made between broad categories of worthiness into which such impersonally viewed motivations and ends can be sorted. Moreover upon sober return to a less abstracted self-awareness a person may come to recognize that their own interests and desires are less worthy than they would like when measured against the evaluative sorting conducted from the impersonal standpoint. Nagel almost acknowledges this point when he observes that although “everyone matters and no one is more important than anyone else.” This does not mean that some people may not be more important in virtue of their greater value for others. But at the baseline of value in the lives of individuals, from which all-higher order inequalities must derive, everyone counts the same.7 It is, however, a mistake to suppose that equal moral worth can be founded upon a common baseline of value. The origin of the mistake is the supposition that equal worth can be derived from the fact that no one is wholly without moral worth. Let us consider an analogous case. Suppose a number of artifacts of varying aesthetic merit are gathered together. If there is any baseline value among the objects, it must be the value possessed by the least valuable. But since no other object has the value of the least valuable, no other object is equal in value to it. The situation is slightly different with human beings, but not much so. The baseline of value is not the value of the least valuable human being, since it is not clear that such a status is even coherent. If the baseline of value means anything, it is the value below which a moral being cannot fall. Even the most heinous criminal, a person lacking any moral merit whatsoever, deserves justice. Therefore although Nagel is right that at the baseline everyone counts the same, this is no argument for moral equality. To state that no one wholly lacks moral worth carries no implications regarding equality of worth. 3. At the heart of any moral theory is an explicit or implicit account of what brings a being within the scope of moral consideration. Properties that have been

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proposed as criteria of moral standing, such as autonomy, sentience, rationality, and moral personality, may be called inclusion properties. A different strategy for justifying moral egalitarianism begins from reflection upon the inclusion properties, and the thought that the property in virtue of which something is a moral being may turn out to be possessed such as to rationally underwrite egalitarianism. In order to properly consider this strategy, it will be useful to have at hand a distinction between what might be called absolute and relative properties. An absolute property is one that is equally instantiated in all of its instances, and therefore is not susceptible to degrees of exemplification. A proposition cannot be more or less true or false, a person cannot be more or less a father, and a triangle cannot be more or less two-dimensional. A bearer of properties therefore either exemplifies an absolute property or it does not, and if it does, the absolute property is equally exemplified by each of its bearers. By contrast, many properties are relative, or exemplified to a greater or lesser degree. Most cognitive capacities, for example, are relative properties in the sense of being possessed to a greater or lesser degree. The distinction between absolute and relative properties helps to clarify an important assumption of the argument from inclusion properties to moral equality. If the property that makes its bearers moral beings is relative and therefore exemplified in different degrees, the possession of it could never satisfactorily underwrite a belief in moral equality. If the source of moral value varies in degree among its possessors, then moral worth must likewise vary. Therefore, if an inclusion property is to lend support to the belief in moral equality, it must be an absolute property exemplified to the same degree by all who possess it. This being so, the argument from the moral inclusion properties to moral equality can be clearly discerned. It starts with the premise that possession of some inclusion property is necessary and sufficient for its bearer to be within the scope of morality. If the property is an absolute property, then it is possessed equally and everyone possessing it is equally within the scope of morality. From this it is concluded that beings that are equally within the scope of morality are morally equal. The argument is a good one up to the step at which it is established that any individual possessing the relevant inclusion property is equally entitled to a place within the scope of morality. However equal entitlement to a place is not the same thing as the equal status of all such places, and it carries no implication for the relative status within morality. We might consider, for example, the property of sentience, which is commonly proposed as the inclusion property that most satisfactorily fixes the scope of morality. It is not, in fact, a very satisfactory criterion of moral personhood, not least because the existence of moral obligations to the dead indicates that sentience draws the scope of morality too narrowly. Furthermore the extension of morality to nonhuman animals on the basis of the sentience criterion is thought by some

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philosophers to extend the scope of morality too wide. However the inclusion of animals within the scope of morality is only problematic if it is assumed that equal entitlement to a place within the scope of morality implies equal status or moral worth. If the equal possession of sentience implies equal moral worth, and this in turn implies equal consideration of interests, then a troubling position is reached regarding the demands of morality. Let us consider, for example, circumstances in which someone’s child and a non-human animal are both in considerable pain, but only one dose of painkiller is available. If being equally within the scope of morality implies equal consideration of interests, then morality demands that the person give equal consideration to the needs of his child and the animal in pain to determine how morality demands the painkiller is used. The objection to this demand is not the fear that it might prove possible as a result to imagine circumstances in which the animal is judged more worthy of pain relief. The objection is to the mere suggestion that in such circumstances the interests of the animal are even relevant in principle. More importantly, the virtue of sentience as an inclusion property is that it explains why animals have some moral status and significance, and cannot be treated wholly without regard to the effect of the treatment upon them, even if it is not supposed that their interests deserve equal consideration with the interests of human beings. At the least, arguments about the status of animals in relation to human beings take place after their place within the scope of morality has been settled. If this is right, then either sentience is an absolute property, though the equal possession of it does not imply equal moral worth, or sentience is not an absolute property, being instead exemplified in degrees, with lesser value attached to lesser forms. Either possibility undercuts the claim that moral equality can be founded upon possession of an absolute inclusion property such as sentience. The first option is just the denial of the claim that possession of an absolute inclusion property implies moral equality. The second option is a denial that the scope of morality is fixed by an absolute property, and thus the basis for moral equality must be found elsewhere. This second option is additionally problematic, however, since it is doubtful that it could be supported with non-arbitrary accounts of how the degrees of sentience are measured and then correlated with a hierarchy of moral value. Admittedly this argument only shows that moral equality cannot be founded upon one of the more commonly proposed inclusion properties. But instead of treating each proposed inclusion property in turn, some general observations about the alternatives to sentience are sufficient to indicate the inadequacy of the inclusion property approach to justifying moral equality. Of the main contenders for the title of moral inclusion property among liberal moral theorists, sentience is far and away more satisfactory than its main rivals autonomy and rationality. If autonomy is the moral inclusion property, then animals have no moral standing at all; they are wholly outside rational

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morality. So too are neonates, the dead, and individuals suffering from a wide range of cognitive disabilities. A loosened criterion, such as “potential autonomy” designed to draw within morality individuals excluded by their nonexistent or diminished capacity for autonomous action has the result of rendering the moral inclusion property relative. The question would arise why the potentially autonomous have the same moral worth as the actually autonomous. Something of this problem may be inevitable since there are good reasons to suppose that no coherent account of autonomy as an absolute property is possible.8 But if autonomy is a relative property, then it is impossible to make a case for moral equality on its basis. In this respect autonomy is like that more ancient candidate inclusion property, rationality. For Aristotle, the possession of rationality placed human beings within the moral sphere, but because it is a capacity possessed to varying degrees, he drew a non-egalitarian conclusion. Since it has proved impossible to formulate an account of an absolute inclusion property that draws the scope of morality in accord with pre-theoretic intuitions, some egalitarians have been satisfied with a relative inclusion property, but do not attempt to argue for moral equality from its possession. For example, John Rawls defends a complex inclusion property he calls moral personality, which consists of a conception of the good and a sense of justice.9 However since the sense of justice, as Rawls explains it, presupposes the belief in moral equality, he never argues from the possession of that capacity to moral equality. 4. What other strategies are available to an egalitarian? The rejection of ethical rationalism and denial that a reason is either possible or necessary is not an uncommon route. For example, Joel Feinberg and Kai Nielson both argue that moral equality cannot be rationally justified, and that this is no barrier to confidently assuming moral equality when constructing moral and political theories. For Feinberg, the belief in moral equality “follows naturally from regarding everyone from the ‘human point of view’, but it is not grounded on anything more ultimate than itself, and it is not demonstratively justifiable.”10 Against anyone who would question that Feinberg is entitled to such an unsupported belief, Feinberg recommends “we turn our backs on him to examine more important problems.”11 Similarly Nielson, in the course of defending a robust egalitarian political theory, indicates that he takes the belief in moral equality to be without rational foundation: I do not know how anyone could show this belief to be true – to say nothing of showing it to be self-evident – or in any way to prove it or show that if one is through and through rational, one must accept it.12

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There is little that can be said in response to a commitment placed beyond the reach of reason, but helping ourself to a premise while admitting that it has no rational foundation at all is the abandonment of philosophy and a dismal foundation for moral and political theory. In a later publication, Nielson attempts something of a coherentist justification whereby moral equality is justified by the part it plays in a broadly coherent moral theory.13 However this looks like mere wishful thinking of the sort that Nielson had earlier rejected. Not only are coherentist justifications weak, but all kinds of non-egalitarian moral and political theories can be raised to have as much coherence as egalitarian liberalism or Marxism. There is, however, a more sophisticated strategy with regard to moral equality that nevertheless takes it to be an assumption for which no reason is needed. For constructivist moral theorists like Ronald Dworkin and Rawls, the foundations of moral theory are deep assumptions that, like the foundations of any other theory, cannot be justified by the theory they support. The right to equal respect and concern is just such a deep assumption: a belief that is, as Dworkin puts it, “fundamental and axiomatic.”14 As the axiom upon which moral theory is constructed, it is a belief that, if founded upon anything at all, is founded upon the coherence and attractiveness of the moral and political arrangements possible with that axiom. According to one commentator, Dworkin’s argument amounts to treating moral egalitarianism as an instance of what epistemologists sometimes call a “properly basic belief.”15 The appeal of the strategy becomes apparent when it is observed that the concerns about moral equality considered so far have been generated by a commitment to ethical rationalism. But any rational noetic structure contains a set of beliefs that are properly basic, the acceptance of which does not depend upon other beliefs. The commitment to such doxastic foundations of rational thought is the distinguishing feature of classical and contemporary foundationalism. For a classical foundationalist, properly basic beliefs are self-evident, incorrigible, or evident to the senses under ideal conditions. For this reason, the foundationalist thought is that although properly basic beliefs are not supported by other beliefs, they are not for that reason groundless.16 It might be wondered where this strategy will lead, since egalitarianism is not remotely self-evident, and therefore a poor candidate for being a properly basic belief. But according to some contemporary versions of foundationalism, the criterion of properly basic beliefs is not self-evidence or incorrigibility, and this is what opens the possibility that egalitarianism can be interpreted as a properly basic belief. Alvin Plantinga, for example, questions the classical foundational criterion of a properly basic belief, and indeed whether any deductive argument in support of that criterion is possible. Of the criterion of self-evidence, he asks:

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How could we know such a thing? What are [its] credentials? Clearly enough it is not self-evident. . . . The fact is . . . neither [it] nor any revealing necessary and sufficient conditions for proper basicality follows from clearly self-evident premises by clearly acceptable arguments.17 Whether or not there are any strategies for defending self-evidence and incorrigibility as criteria of properly basic beliefs, Plantinga is right that an argument is necessary and by no means self-evidently available. Plantinga’s next step is to defend an alternative way of arriving at the criterion of properly basic beliefs: [T]he proper way to arrive at such a criterion is, broadly speaking, inductive. We must assemble examples of beliefs and conditions such that the former are obviously properly basic in the latter, and examples of beliefs and conditions such that the former are obviously not properly basic in the latter. We must then frame hypotheses as to the necessary and sufficient conditions of proper basicality and test these hypotheses by reference to those examples.18 How this argument can be extended to moral equality is fairly clear. When the properly basic beliefs upon which moral reasoning is founded are gathered together, it may be found that moral egalitarianism functions as a properly basic belief, and this is an important datum to be taken into account when framing a hypothesis regarding the criterion of proper basicality. One of the problems with this strategy is that by supposing that it is an open question which beliefs function as properly basic within a rational noetic structure, Plantinga is left with a notion of being properly basic shorn of the epistemic authority enabling the distinction to be drawn between properly basic beliefs and mere dogmas. Since, as Plantinga acknowledges, there is no reason to suppose that in gathering together putative examples of basic beliefs there will be agreement about what the genuine examples are, the door is opened to highly disputable beliefs being claimed to have the status of proper basicality. Since Plantinga advances his account of being properly basic as part of an argument that the belief in God is properly basic, his strategy is unlikely to be accepted by a secular liberal wondering if there is any scope for supposing egalitarianism is a properly basic belief. Indeed, what is to prevent both an egalitarian and a non-egalitarian from claiming that the belief in moral equality is basic and the belief in the determination of worth by merit are properly basic? In such circumstances no relief is found from the demand to justify egalitarianism. Dworkin never explicitly refers to properly basic beliefs, but he does say that constructivists like himself and Rawls must begin with some deep assumption having an axiomatic role in moral reasoning and theory construction for

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which no justification is necessary or should be expected. If Dworkin’s reading of Rawls is correct, then the entire architecture of the hypothetical contract is an impressive model of the political implications of moral equality, understood as the most fundamental moral axiom. This is most evident in Rawls’s account of the sense of justice, which he takes to consist of a belief in moral equality and a disposition to act accordingly. Indeed, if the notion of the sense of justice is not loaded with egalitarian assumptions, then Rawls’s account of moral personality is perfectly consistent with a non-egalitarian moral theory. This is a point that Louis Pojman makes when he observes that: A standard criticism of A Theory of Justice is that it fails to take into account the . . . gambler [who] would rather take his chances on a meritocratic or hierarchical society . . . [but] it is not simply as a gambler that the conservative will self-interestedly choose meritocracy, but rather because he or she deems it is the essence of justice.19 Just as meritocrats are expected to provide reasons for their commitment to the link between merit and justice, the same should be expected from egalitarians for their commitments. There are many ways talking up assumptions that are found difficult to justify. Moral egalitarianism might be called a moral ideal, a moral axiom, a properly basic belief, or our deepest assumption, and it might be hoped to have thereby given it a patina of authority. Ethical rationalists, however, will not be persuaded, wanting instead a reason why it is held to be an ideal, whether it is sustainable as one, or whether alternative ideals may not be more morally and socially justified. Likewise they will want a reason why it is held to be an axiom, deep assumption, or bedrock conviction. If instead egalitarianism is an irreducible choice or attitude rather than a belief, reasons will be wanted for why that choice is made or that attitude adopted. Without answers to such questions providing reasons for egalitarianism, there are less flattering names for a deeply embedded but unsupported conviction, such as dogma and prejudice. It would be appalling if the deepest moral assumption turned out to have no more authority than a mere dogma, something that would surely place it among the most shallow of human convictions. Worse still, it would be a particularly embarrassing instance of such a belief given its inconsistency with the common and more rationally supportable conclusion that typically merit determines worth in situations of interpersonal judgment. 5. A final strategy for justifying a commitment to moral equality starts with the observation that if justifying egalitarianism is difficult, and perhaps impossi-

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ble, there is no reason to think that justifying moral inequality would be any easier. This provides the basis for a burden of proof argument, according to which the embedded position of egalitarianism within contemporary moral culture makes it the default or presumptive position. If a reason is needed, it is a reason why egalitarianism should be abandoned, and therefore the burden of proof is on the non-egalitarian to provide a compelling reason for its abandonment. However such a demand represents a misunderstanding of the situation. What an egalitarian has a right to demand from a non-egalitarian is a reason why merited worth should have priority over intrinsic worth. What is at stake in the debate between an egalitarian and non-egalitarian is properly seen as differing attitudes and arguments in relation to the distinction between intrinsic moral worth and merited moral worth. For an egalitarian, whatever the moral merits of a person may be, such as his virtues and virtuous character, the principle of equal intrinsic worth has priority in the structure of moral theory. By contrast, for an extreme non-egalitarian the distinction is a piece of nonsense. Moral worth is fully determined by a fair estimation of a person’s moral merits. There is, however, a more moderate type of non-egalitarian who agrees with an egalitarian that there is an important distinction between intrinsic and merited worth, but which holds in opposition to the egalitarian that the nature and assessment of merit has priority in the structure of moral theory. For such a moderate non-egalitarian, the problem with the wholesale rejection of the distinction between intrinsic and merited worth is the implication that someone who wholly lacked moral merit would as a consequence wholly lack moral worth. Instead, the distinction between intrinsic and merited worth is retained, but priority given to merit in theory construction, with some principle of fundamental intrinsic worth a secondary limit upon behavior. On such a conception, the distinctive feature of intrinsic worth is that it is a genuine baseline of moral value, all that is left of someone’s moral humanity when his persistently vicious actions have robbed them of any moral merit. So conceived, intrinsic worth has no centrality to moral thought, being instead a reminder of worth beyond merit that only has a significant role to play in moral thought in extraordinary cases where there is nothing else to be said in favor of the moral monster except that he or she is, after all, a human being. The issue between an egalitarian and non-egalitarian of that sort is therefore the question of the priority of intrinsic or merited worth in moral thinking and theory construction. If an egalitarian claims the burden of proof is with a non-egalitarian, then the burden is that of showing the priority of merit over conceptions of abstract worth. Virtue theorists have in recent years begun the work of defending the priority of merit, and the coherence and appeal of the resulting theory. Moreover some feminist moral philosophers have followed their powerful critique of liberal impartiality with an alternative ethic of care implying the priority of merit over abstract intrinsic conceptions of worth.20

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Therefore there are arguments for the priority of merit over intrinsic worth, though arguments in favor of the priority of intrinsic worth over merit are rare.21 Whatever the present status of the dispute it is a genuine dispute and the burden of proof is on both sides. Nevertheless, given the prima facie relation between merit and worth, and the widespread use of merit to determine worth in many other spheres of human judgment, it might be thought that egalitarianism has flimsier grounds for asserting its status as the presumptive position than does non-egalitarianism. There is, however, a further important consideration that at least initially explains why it might be thought that a greater burden of argument rests with a non-egalitarian. Notwithstanding the problems associated with a fully adequate justification of democratic political institutions and arrangements, it is difficult to trust or give credence to a moral theory that implies their abandonment. Since democratic political arrangements presuppose some form of political egalitarianism, a liberal theorist has the advantage of being able to closely relate his fundamental moral and political principles, with moral egalitarianism underwriting liberal political arrangements. Moreover meritocratic political arrangements are not obviously a feasible option in the modern world, not least because only a profoundly ahistorical political rationalism could support a faith in the reliability of mechanisms for the assessment of merit. If moral non-egalitarianism cannot be reconciled with broadly democratic arrangements, then there is little reason to pay it much attention. This, an egalitarian might argue, is why a greater burden of argument rests with a non-egalitarian. This challenge is no more serious than the first. Without a rational justification of the belief in moral equality a liberal is not entitled to claim democratic political arrangements are securely founded within liberal theory. If the test of moral theory is taken to be the ability to support egalitarian political arrangements, then both an egalitarian and a non-egalitarian have some explaining to do. Moreover, perhaps egalitarian political arrangements can be justified without reference to moral considerations, and without inconsistency with a non-egalitarian moral framework such as virtue theory. However, the suggestion that the justification of egalitarian political arrangements be sought outside morality raises important questions about the relationship between the political and the moral. Typically, liberal theorists have defended the primacy of the moral over the political, or subsumed the political within the moral. An alternative popular with some varieties of socialist or statist political theorist is to defend the primacy of political values over moral values. Indeed, challenging a moral non-egalitarian to reconcile his position with democratic political arrangements comes close to making moral theory answerable to political convictions. There is, however, a third option. Neither political values nor moral values are primary. They constitute often overlapping and occasionally conflicting domains of thought about human good and behavior at various levels of so-

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cial interaction. This third option provides a non-egalitarian with the best basis for a reply to the political challenge. Indeed there are several strategies available, including founding political equality upon the necessary conditions of a sound jurisprudence, founding it upon the necessary conditions for the kind of liberty essential to the development of the virtues, or, finally, developing a virtue politics in which egalitarian impartiality is a cardinal virtue of social, political and legal reasoning, institutions, and actions. Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

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Bernard Gert, “Moral Impartiality,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy XX, pp. 102–127. Thomas Nagel, Equality and Impartiality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991). Ibid. p. 10. Ibid., p. 11. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Cf. Lawrence Haworth, Autonomy (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1986). John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 505. Joel Feinberg, Social Philosophy (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1973), p. 94. Ibid, p. 94. Kai Nielson, Equality and Liberty: A Defence of Radical Egalitarianism (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Allanheld, 1985), p. 93. Kai Nielson, “On Not Needing to Justify Equality,” International Studies in Philosophy XX(3), (1988). Ronald Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously (London: Duckworth, 1977), p. xv. Louis Pojman, “Are Human Rights Based on Equal Moral Worth,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research LII(3), (1992), pp. 608–609. Cf. Alvin Plantinga, “Reason and Belief in God,” in Faith and Rationality (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press). Ibid, pp. 75–76. Ibid, p. 76. Louis Pojman, op. cit. Cf. Carol Gilligan In A Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982) and Nel Noddings Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1984). See Gregory Vlastos “Human Worth, Merit and Equality,” Moral Concepts, ed. Joel Feinberg (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969).