LARRY S. TEMKIN

THINKING ABOUT THE NEEDY: A REPRISE (Received 22 July 2004; accepted in revised form 1 August 2004)

ABSTRACT. This article discusses Jan Narveson’s ‘‘Welfare and Wealth, Poverty and Justice in Today’s World,’’ and ‘‘Is World Poverty a Moral Problem for the Wealthy?’’ and their relation to my ‘‘Thinking about the Needy, Justice, and International Organizations.’’ Section 2 points out that Narveson’s concerns differ from mine, so that often his claims and mine fail to engage each other. For example, his focus is on the poor, mine the needy, and while many poor are needy, and vice versa, our obligations may differ regarding the poor than regarding the needy. Also, Narveson invokes a narrow conception of morality as those rules that government or society may compel people to follow. Given a broader, more plausible, conception of morality, many of Narveson’s claims actually support my substantive views. Section 3 shows that many of Narveson’s claims are relevant to the best means of aiding the needy, but do not challenge the validity of that end. This is true, for example, of his claims about the role of poor governments, the importance of freedom, the undesirability of mere ‘‘handouts,’’ and the effects of bad economic policies. Section 4 defends the importance of my distinction between acting justly and acting for reasons of justice. It illustrates that on several widely shared conceptions of justice there might be agent-neutral reasons of justice to aid the needy, even if from an agentrelative perspective one would not be acting unjustly if one failed to do so. Section 5 contests Narveson’s portrayal of egalitarianism as concerned about inequality of wealth, per se, as insensitive to prior wrongs, and as holding that the worse-off have a right to be made better off at the expense of the well-off. In addition, it rejects Narveson’s contention that egalitarians violate impartiality, and aim to impose their personal tastes on others. Section 6 challenges a fundamental assumption underlying Narveson’s doctrine of mutual advantage. In addition, it denies that egalitarians are irrational merely because equality can conflict with the pareto principle. More generally, by appealing to impersonal ideals, it challenges the widely held view that the pareto principle is a condition of rationality. Section 7 argues that Narveson’s meta-ethical assumptions are controversial, internally inconsistent, in tension with his normative views, and ultimately a version of skepticism. In addition, it challenges Narveson’s view about the role intuitions play in moral theory. Section 8 clarifies points where Narveson’s discussion of my views may be misleading. Finally, the paper notes the role that moral reasons may play in deliberation and action, but emphasizes the philosophical and theoretical nature of my work. My aim is to determine the moral considerations that are relevant to how people should act regarding the needy. Whether people will actually be moved to so act, for those reasons or otherwise, is another matter. KEY WORDS: agent-neutral reasons, agent-relative reasons, comparative justice, egalitarianism, equality, foreign aid, guilt, ideals, injustice, internalism, intuitions, The Journal of Ethics 8: 409–458, 2004.
2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

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irrationality, justice, leveling down objection, libertarianism, meta-ethics, moral motivation, moral reasons, mutual advantage, Jan Narveson, the needy, pareto principle, personal ideals, rationality, reasons, relativism, skepticism, social convention theory

1. INTRODUCTION On several occasions, I have had the good fortune to exchange views with Jan Narveson about the extent of our obligations towards the needy. I have found our exchanges interesting and enjoyable. My article, ‘‘Thinking about the Needy, Justice, and International Organizations,’’1 is lengthy, and already includes those arguments I deem most appropriate to the topic, including my main response to Narveson’s view. I stand by my article’s claims and arguments, and will not try to further develop those views here. However, I am grateful for the opportunity to respond to Narveson’s contributions to this issue of The Journal of Ethics. Though I believe my article is largely untouched by Narveson’s articles, a consideration of his work may help illuminate our respective positions. In this article, I will respond to both ‘‘Welfare and Wealth, Poverty and Justice in Today’s World,’’2 and ‘‘Is World Poverty a Moral Problem for the Wealthy?’’3 All page references are to ‘‘Welfare and Wealth’’ unless noted otherwise. In many cases, I will merely assert my view, without defense. Often this will be sufficient to clarify the differences between Narveson and me, and the reader will be able to decide for herself with whom, if either of us, she agrees. This article contains nine sections. In Section 2, I point out that Narveson’s concerns are somewhat different from mine, so that often his claims do not so much conflict with mine, as fail to engage them. In Section 3, I note that many of Narveson’s claims are relevant to the best means of promoting the ends I seek, but do not challenge the validity of those ends. In Section 4, I address Narveson’s claims about desert. In Section 5, I discuss his claims about equality. In Section 6, I comment on a fundamental assumption that seemingly underlies his doctrine of mutual advantage, namely, that ‘‘the 1 2 3

Henceforth, ‘‘TN’’ (this issue, pp. 349–395). Henceforth, ‘‘Welfare and Wealth’’ (this issue, pp. 305–348). Henceforth, ‘‘WP’’ (this issue, pp. 397–408).

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obvious direction is up.’’ I also comment on the pareto principle. In Section 7, I briefly address meta-ethical concerns. In Section 8, I note some places where Narveson’s discussion of my views seems misleading. Section 9 concludes the article.

2. TALKING PAST EACH OTHER Narveson presents his views as if they conflict with mine. But in many respects this is misleading. The truth is that I can, and do, accept much of what Narveson claims, from Section 5 on, in ‘‘Welfare and Wealth.’’ Moreover, while I reject many of his claims in Sections 1 through 4 of that article, I would not need to. Many of Narveson’s claims are simply irrelevant to my position, while others either fail to engage, or indirectly support, my position. Let me elaborate on these points. First, Narveson devotes a significant portion of ‘‘Welfare and Wealth’’ (Sections 4–4.9), to attacking egalitarianism. I will respond to some of his claims about egalitarianism in Section 5, below. But it is worth emphasizing that I would not need to. The truth is that I could accept all of Narveson’s anti-egalitarian claims – though I do not – without altering my position. My main arguments in favor of helping the needy appear in Part One of my article, and they do not rely on egalitarianism at all. In fact, I only mention egalitarianism in one sentence of Part One, when I note that the best theory of the goodness of outcomes will ‘‘need to be pluralistic, and take account of a host of relevant factors, including, perhaps, utilitarian, humanitarian, egalitarian, prioritarian, and justice-based considerations.’’4 Indeed, in various publications I have explicitly argued that egalitarian considerations may oppose certain programs aimed at poverty reduction among the world’s poor, and hence that such programs, which I certainly favor, may have to be supported on other grounds.5 However, I have expressed my conviction that there are such grounds – grounds that 4

Temkin, ‘‘TN,’’ p. 355. See, for example, Larry Temkin, Inequality (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), Chapter 10; ‘‘Egalitarianism: A Complex, Individualistic, and Comparative Notion,’’ in Ernie Sosa and Enriquea Villanueva (eds.), Philosophical Issues 11, (London: Blackwell Publishers, 2001), pp. 327–352; and ‘‘Equality and the Human Condition,’’ Theoria (South Africa) 92 (1998), pp. 15–45. 5

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in such cases outweigh our egalitarian concerns – and Part One of my article discusses these grounds. Similarly, neither Peter Singer nor Peter Unger, certainly the two most influential contemporary philosophers arguing in favor of helping the needy, have based their arguments on appeals to equality. Indeed, equality and its cognates does not even appear in the subject index of Unger’s book Living High and Letting Die,6 and a (quick) visual scan of Singer’s classic article, ‘‘Famine, Affluence, and Morality’’ turned up only one innocuous reference to equality, where he noted that ‘‘If we accept any principle of impartiality, universality, equality, or whatever, we cannot discriminate against someone merely because he is far away from us.’’7 It is striking, then, that Narveson devoted a substantial portion of his article to attacking egalitarianism, as if the arguments for helping the needy were solely, or largely, egalitarian. Here, Narveson is attacking a straw man. Certainly, his arguments against equality are irrelevant to the fundamental arguments for aiding the needy offered by Singer, Unger, and myself. Second, Narveson is mainly concerned about issues of wealth and poverty. In ‘‘Welfare and Wealth’’ he distinguishes between welfare and wealth and emphasizes that the promotion of ‘‘wealth . . . is what we are concerned with here.’’8 His response to my article is entitled ‘‘Is World Poverty a Moral Problem for the Wealthy?’’ rather than ‘‘Is the Plight of the Needy a Moral Problem for the Wealthy?’’ and he explicitly ‘‘reminds’’ us that he is ‘‘addressing a problem which, though very widespread, is of a relatively narrow kind, namely, people’s levels of real income – the problem of wealth and poverty.’’9 Later, he argues that the factor of human sympathy ‘‘is most obviously relevant in situations of aid, not of poverty.’’10 Now Narveson is certainly entitled to raise questions about whether the wealthy have a moral obligation to reduce or remove poverty. But, for reasons he, himself, is keenly attuned to, it is dubious whether anyone should be concerned with poverty reduction per se. Many ‘‘poor’’ people, by Western standards, might be incredibly well 6

Peter Unger, Living High and Letting Die (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996). 7 Peter Singer, ‘‘Famine, Affluence, and Morality,’’ Philosophy and Public Affairs 1 (1972), p. 232. 8 Narveson, ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ p. 329. 9 Narveson, ‘‘WP,’’ p. 400. 10 Narveson, ‘‘WP,’’ p. 405.

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off, and many rich people might be incredibly badly off, and as Narveson rightly recognizes it is hardly evident that there is a moral obligation for the badly-off rich person to transfer resources to the well-off poor person. In any event, I explicitly focus not on the poor but on the needy, who I characterize as those we could ‘‘easily and significantly help . . . who are very badly off in absolute terms, and who are not responsible for their plight.’’ Furthermore, to clarify what I mean by those ‘‘who are very badly off in absolute terms’’ I list, as examples, ‘‘those who face an early death from starvation or disease, or who are so badly off their lives are not worth living, or whose lives are severely crimped and mean even if worth living.’’ Unger and Singer similarly focus on the needy. Thus, in the first sentence of Living High and Letting Die, Unger observes that ‘‘Each year millions of children die from easy to beat disease, from malnutrition, and from bad drinking water.’’11 Likewise, Singer begins his classic article, ‘‘Famine, Affluence, and Morality,’’ with the following telling sentence: ‘‘As I write this, in November 1971, people are dying in East Bengal from lack of food, shelter, and medical care.’’12 I submit, then, that since my fundamental concern, as well as Singer’s and Unger’s, is with our obligations to the needy, and Narveson’s is with our obligations to the poor, to a large extent his claims and arguments fail to engage with ours (and, to be fair, vice versa). To be sure, Singer, Unger, and I might object to many of Narveson’s claims about the poor – and presumably we would – but the point is that we would not need to in order to maintain our positions. Of course, many of the world’s neediest are also amongst the world’s poorest, and it might be that the most efficient long-term solution to the problem of the world’s needy would require addressing global poverty. But Narveson’s views would not actually conflict with ours unless he thought that they told against aiding the needy. But, importantly – and, if I may say so, wisely and rightly – Narveson refrains from taking such a draconian position. In Section 8 of ‘‘Welfare and Poverty,’’ entitled ‘‘Disasters versus Poverty’’ Narveson acknowledges that ‘‘on occasion, nature being what it is, there will be floods, earthquakes, forest fires, sudden and virulent new diseases, and so on. With regard to such things, we should all be ready to help if we can. . . . It is, of course, a virtue to be 11 12

Unger, Living High and Letting Die, p. 3. Singer, ‘‘Famine, Affluence, and Morality,’’ p. 229.

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disposed to help in such cases, if useful help is possible and affordable.’’ Similarly, in ‘‘World Poverty’’ he acknowledges ‘‘one qualification’’ to his general free market/libertarian approach to the poor’s plight, though he claims that he does not ‘‘really regard it as fundamentally a ‘qualification’ at root,’’ and this is to take account of the fact that ‘‘most very poor communities have abysmal levels of sanitation, and many nowadays are subject to diseases such as AIDS that have virtually nothing to do with [barriers to free trade].’’13 In such passages, Narveson seems to recognize the importance of helping alleviate the suffering, illness, and famine caused by natural diseases or disasters. This suggests that the gap between the implications of his position and mine may be surprisingly small, especially if, as I would argue, in many cases there is no principled basis for treating the innocent victims of man-made disasters differently from the innocent victims of natural disasters. Third, one reason Narveson denies my claim that the well-off are open to serious moral criticism if they ignore the needy is because he has a different, narrower, conception of what counts as ‘‘moral’’ than I. Thus, Narveson writes the following: What we are concerned with here are, first, social questions: questions of how people in society(ies) are to behave in various general respects; and second, with questions of social rules, requirements, types of behavior that we may in some measure insist on and impose on all. I employ the word ‘moral’ to refer to these questions.14

Here, Narveson defines ‘‘morality’’ as those requirements that society may impose on all, and, understandably enough, he balks at the notion that the government – which presumably represents society – should be able to coerce us, say through taxation, fines, or punishment, into aiding the needy. Narveson may, of course, define terms as he sees fit. However, as Narveson recognizes, many people have a rather different, and wider, conception of morality, and this means that most of Narveson’s claims are simply irrelevant to the points that I, and many others, make. Consider the following array of Narveson’s claims: it should be left ‘‘up to individuals to act on their funds of sympathy, or lack of it, as they will’’;15 ‘‘what Jones says [for example, that we have a moral obligation to aid the needy] does not bind Smith – yet binding Smith 13 14 15

Narveson, ‘‘WP,’’ p. 407. Narveson, ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ p. 307. Narveson, ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ p. 317.

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is the name of the game!’’;16 government programs to help the needy are paid for by money ‘‘extracted from taxpayers . . . It makes aid into compulsory assistance, and denies the liberty of the people so compelled’’;17 ‘‘there is a temptation to turn . . . [that] which is charity in the strictest and literal sense of the term, into something else – to bureaucratize it, to turn to the compulsions of taxation rather than the market freedom of independent aid agencies’’;18 ‘‘one way to crush [sympathy] is to confuse it with justice, leaving the sympathetic out in the cold with the bureaucrats who compel their support rather than solicit their sympathetic responses’’;19 and ‘‘what is objectively the wrong way to deal with poverty, [is] via a huge (and, in most writers’ accounts involuntary) ‘redistribution’ of property from the rich to the poor.’’20 Speaking for myself, I vehemently deny that binding people is the ‘‘name of the game’’ of morality. And nowhere in my article do I suggest that aid should be put in the hands of ‘‘bureaucrats,’’ ‘‘compelled,’’ ‘‘compulsory,’’ or ‘‘involuntary.’’ Here, I suspect that Narveson has, most unfortunately, let his libertarian fears of government dictate his conception of morality. On my view, questions about what individuals ought, morally, to do, should be addressed independently of the question of what governments may legitimately compel people to do. Narveson’s position reminds one of those who conflate the moral with the legal, contending that as long as something is legally permissible, or impermissible, it must be morally permissible or impermissible. But unless one is simply a moral skeptic – a position Narveson rejects as ‘‘absurd’’21 – there is no reason to accept such a view. Thus, for example, slavery might have been legally, but not morally, permissible, and likewise, abetting runaway slaves might have been legally, but not morally, impermissible. Consider two simple examples. I believe that it is wrong for one brother to steal another brother’s toy. I do not think it is seriously wrong, but I do think he ought not to do it in a sense that has moral significance. But in saying this, I certainly am not implying that I think the government has a right to coerce or compel one brother not to steal another brother’s toy, via the threat of fine, imprisonment, or 16 17 18 19 20 21

Narveson, Narveson, Narveson, Narveson, Narveson, Narveson,

‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ p. 323. ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ p. 341. ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ p. 343. ‘‘WP,’’ p. 405. ‘‘WP,’’ p. 408. ‘‘WP,’’ p. 398.

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some other punishment. Indeed, I may think there are overwhelmingly powerful reasons why the government ought not to interfere in our lives regarding such matters. Similarly, I may think that in most cases it is wrong for one spouse to cheat on another. And I may even believe that in most cases it is seriously wrong, and that one really ought, morally, not to do it. But I do not believe that commits me to the view that the government ought to prohibit adultery, and that the government ought to use threats and punishment to compel spousal loyalty. I may believe that it is up to each individual to ultimately decide for him or herself how he or she shall act in this respect, but that does not mean that it is not a moral decision being made, or that there are no objective standards by which to judge such actions. I submit – without argument – that if one is loyal to a spouse who deserves one’s loyalty one will be acting rightly, if one betrays a spouse who deserves one’s loyalty one will be acting wrongly. Return, now, to the case of obligations to the needy. I contend that the well-off are open to serious moral criticism if they fail to aid the needy when they could easily and substantially do so without making a dent in their affluent lifestyle. Narveson denies this. But given his definition of ‘‘morality,’’ all his denial amounts to is the claim that government bureaucrats should not compel us to involuntarily aid the needy. I could accept that, and, indeed, in Part Three of my article, I acknowledge that ‘‘it is arguable that . . . a government does not have the right to act on behalf of non-citizens, even for laudable moral aims, without the consent of its citizens; since any resources that the government might use for such purposes ultimately belong not to the government, but to the citizens on whose behalf the government functions.’’22 Still, the fact that failure to aid the needy is not open to ‘‘serious moral objection’’ on Narveson’s restricted sense of ‘‘morality’’ is completely compatible with such failure being open to ‘‘serious moral objection’’ on my, broader, and more plausible, conception of ‘‘morality,’’ and that is all I contend. Failing to aid the needy is open to serious moral criticism in the same sense that cheating on one’s wife may be. Both represent a significant moral failing on my part, even if neither warrants the remedy of coercive governmental interference. The question of under what circumstances, if any, governments should enforce morality is interesting and important. But it is secondary to the primary question on which I was focusing, of what, in 22

Temkin, ‘‘TN,’’ p. 383.

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fact, we ought, morally, to do. Hence, I believe that Narveson’s focus on the evils of government compulsion is very much a red herring in this debate. To emphasize the extent to which Narveson’s claims rest on his narrow conception of ‘‘morality,’’ consider the following passages from Narveson. He writes: ‘‘Most of us are sympathetic beings to a fair degree, and all of us can see the sense of regarding sympathy and the benevolence it inspires as a virtue. Accordingly, we do so regard it. But that is far short of making substantial benevolence a requirement and not merely a virtue’’;23 ‘‘It is, of course, a virtue to be disposed to help in . . . cases [of disasters], if useful help is possible and affordable’’;24 ‘‘This doesn’t in the least imply that many of . . . [the needy] are not proper objects of pity or perhaps concern. Humane people are in favor of other people doing well rather than badly’’;25 and it ‘‘is not that it is our moral obligation to . . . [aid the needy] but that it would be good of us to do so – would contribute to our level of moral virtue, if we want to talk that way. And this is no trivial matter. Sympathy is an important human capacity, and it should be cultivated, not crushed.’’26 In these passages, Narveson grants many of the kinds of claims that I use to support my position. But, because of his narrow conception of morality, he denies that they support any requirements to aid the needy. However, as my arguments make plain, I believe that morality is a complex, pluralistic notion; that sympathy, beneficence, and concern for others are moral virtues; that acting virtuously is ‘‘no trivial matter;’’ and that it is deeply misleading to talk of benevolence as ‘‘merely’’ a virtue. I believe there is a significant moral sense in which we ought to cultivate the moral virtues and dispositions, in which we ought to behave virtuously, and in which we ought to be humane. Correspondingly, I contend that those who are vicious rather than virtuous, inhumane rather than humane, or insensitive rather than responsive to the plight of others are open to serious moral criticism. Indeed, as the preceding suggests, far from undermining my claims, much of Narveson’s work buttresses my view, given a broader and richer understanding of morality than his.

23 24 25 26

Narveson, Narveson, Narveson, Narveson,

‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ p. 319. ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ p. 343. ‘‘WP,’’ p. 402. ‘‘WP,’’ p. 405.

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3. ARGUING

ABOUT

MEANS RATHER THAN ENDS

Narveson offers many arguments against the view that the well-off have an obligation to help the needy. But often his claims are relevant not to the question of whether we should help the needy, but to the question of the best, or most efficient, means of helping. Narveson points out that ‘‘peasant prosperity goes hand in hand with freedom.’’27 But, neither I, nor any one else, need deny this. At most this is relevant to the best, and most efficient ways, of aiding the needy, not to the question of whether such aid is morally incumbent. Similarly, Narveson worries about ‘‘Foreign Aid [that] goes from one government to another. This puts the money at the mercy of the recipient government – not the intended recipient people.’’28 But Unger, Singer, and I offered arguments principally addressed to individuals, rather than governments, and all this point supports is the importance of funneling one’s aid through non-governmental organizations that will put the aid into the hands of the needy people, rather than their (possibly corrupt or inefficient) government. Likewise, Narveson decries Singer’s suggestion that to save the life of a sickly child, each of us should forgo a few nice dinners and send the money to Oxfam. Instead, Narveson suggests, ‘‘if a thousand people . . . invested $200 each in a company that could set up a successful factory or other business in that area, the sick child’s parents might have employment for many years to come, the child itself could now be supported with better medical treatment, and so on. Charity, as usually understood, does not often accomplish that.’’29 Here, Singer might rebut Narveson, by pointing out that Oxfam is not simply a ‘‘charity, as usually understood.’’ Oxfam is an organization that often takes a long-term approach to improving the lot of the needy, ranging from building permanent shelters against monsoons, to digging wells, to promoting more efficient agricultural techniques, to bolstering educational opportunities, to supporting medical facilities and family planning clinics, to help setting up lending institutions and economic cooperatives for women, etc. Still, I submit that Narveson’s point here is most relevant to the question of how best to help the needy, not whether we ought to do so.

27 28 29

Narveson, ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ p. 338. Narveson, ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ p. 340. Narveson, ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ p. 344.

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Singer is confident, as am I, that to save the life of sickly children many of us ought to forego a few nice dinners and send the money to Oxfam instead. But in saying that we are making an obvious point about the relative moral merits of saving the lives of needy innocents versus ‘‘further’’ indulging the gustatory appetites of those whose appetites are already extravagantly fed. We are not committing ourselves to the view that giving to Oxfam is the only, or best, way of aiding the needy, and if, in fact, we were convinced that the sickly children we aim to help would be better served by investing money in companies that set up factories in nearby areas we would be all in favor of it.30 To repeat, Narveson’s point that we might better serve the needy through judicious investments rather than by contributing to ‘‘charities’’ like Oxfam is only relevant to the question of how best to aid the needy. It has no bearing on the question of whether we ought to aid the needy, and offers no support to the view that the welloff are immune from serious moral criticism if they choose to completely ignore the needy in favor of frequently indulging their gustatory appetites. 30

Here, I avoid a difficult and important question that may be underlying some of Narveson’s thinking. Perhaps our real choice is not between aiding a sick child today through Oxfam, and more effectively aiding her through economic development, but between aiding a hungry child today through Oxfam, or more effectively aiding other hungry children in the future through economic development. If we are simply consequentialists, we should do whatever will produce the most good, overall. But much of common-sense morality supports addressing urgent claims, even when this is not the most efficient use of our resources. So, for example, we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars saving a small child trapped in a well, miners trapped underground, or people lost at sea, when no doubt we could produce greater total good by using the money in other ways, such as funding vaccination programs, or funding safety measures that would prevent similar occurrences in the future. As a pluralist, I do not believe that the mere fact that we could produce the most good by investing in economic development settles the issue of whether we should do that rather than address the pressing concerns of today’s needy. But as I have been stressing, whatever the correct response to this important issue is, it is mainly relevant to how we should aid the needy, not whether we ought to do so. Naturally, what would be best is if we could easily and effectively address both issues – taking care of the pressing concerns of today’s needy, perhaps through organizations like Oxfam, and preventing similar problems from arising in the future, perhaps through social and economic development of the sort Narveson favors. Incidentally, if we could promote more good through investing $200 in companies that build factories in developing countries, rather than sending the money to Oxfam, presumably it would be even better if we continued to reinvest the profits of that investment in such companies, rather than spending them on expensive meals!

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Narveson writes that ‘‘The supplying [of materials to aid the needy], if it is to be effective, should be done by someone who is also in it for profit, in it to make a living,’’31 and he also claims ‘‘that there are ways to do things for the world’s poor . . . which are enormously more efficacious and fundamental than the sort of handouts that most people appear to think of as the ‘‘solution’’ to this ‘‘problem.’’32 Narveson’s first claim is controversial, and needs more support than he has provided. As for his second, no one – not even Singer or I – think that inefficient and superficial handouts are the solution to the problem of the world’s needy! But again, the main point to stress is that Narveson’s claims here are most relevant to the question of how best to aid the needy, not whether we ought to do so. If there is an ‘‘enormously more efficacious and fundamental’’ solution to the problem of the world’s needy than giving them handouts – which I presume there is – I am all in favor of it. And so is Singer. And if the most efficacious solution to the problem of the world’s needy is to invest in profit seeking companies that will open factories in poor areas, I am in favor of that too (though with some qualifications that need not deter us here). But what I do not believe is that the well-off can disregard the needy’s plight with moral impunity. Next, consider the following claims Narveson makes: It cannot be too strongly emphasized that the basic reason for poverty in substantial parts of the world . . . is bad government. The most desperately poor areas of the world are not areas short of natural resources of any important kind. They are, instead, areas in which persons in positions of political power prevent people from getting ahead,33

and such organizations as the WTO, the World Bank, and several others Temkin lists. . . claim to be devoted to freeing up trade relations, but that claim is in all cases too misleading to be accepted. The way to free up a trade relation is to stop stopping it – not to initiate some expensive new ‘program’ in which we inadvertently stymie the industry of many inhabitants of the intended beneficiary country, while lining the pockets of the culprits who rule over them. The ideas that we must have quotas, parities, subsidies, and so forth in order to help people make their livings are all founded on seriously bad economics.34

31 32 33 34

Narveson, Narveson, Narveson, Narveson,

‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ p. 347. ‘‘WP,’’ p. 397. ‘‘WP,’’ p. 406. ‘‘WP,’’ pp. 406–407.

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I completely accept the first set of claims, and am open to accepting the second. But all this is largely, if not wholly, beside the point. I never denied that the causes of need often lay in bad governments or despotic regimes. Nor did I advocate any particular policy for aiding the needy, much less that we adopt ‘‘quotas, parities, subsidies’’ or other policies founded – if they are – ‘‘on seriously bad economics.’’ My simple claim was that those who are well-off ought to help the needy, and are open to serious moral criticism if they ignore their plight. Since I defined the needy as ‘‘the very badly off who are not responsible for their plight, and who we could easily and significantly help,’’35 and since I argued for nothing stronger than that we were obliged to help up to the point where it begins to ‘‘hurt,’’ so that, practically speaking, we would still not be making ‘‘a dent in our affluent lifestyle,’’ I see no reason to abandon my view in light of Narveson’s claims about bad governments or the bad economic consequences of obstructing free trade. Narveson’s point about bad governments would be relevant to my view only if he were arguing that the influence of bad governments is so dominating and pervasive as to make it impossible for us to easily and significantly help any innocents who are very badly off. Such a position could grant my argument’s logic, but deny that it had any scope, by denying its underlying presupposition that there are people who are ‘‘needy’’ in my sense. But Narveson is not arguing for the view in question – which is surely false. Rather, he is arguing that while there are people who are needy in my sense, and that we might choose to help, if we sympathize with their plight and wish to be charitable or virtuous, we are under no obligation to do this, and are not open to moral criticism if we decline to do so. So, while Narveson’s claim about the relation between bad governments and global poverty is both true and important, it is largely irrelevant to my claims. This is so because, as Narveson himself recognizes, many people worldwide will be needy, in my sense, due to natural disasters. Moreover, crucially, Narveson has not made the case that we can have no moral obligation to rectify a situation that someone else is responsible for producing. Nor can he. After all, I can have a moral obligation to save a drowning child that someone else has thrown in a pool, or to drive a bleeding hit and run victim to the hospital. Of course, as I acknowledged, my obligations towards others can be limited by the extent to which I can effectively aid them 35

Temkin, ‘‘TN,’’ p. 352.

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and the costs to me of my doing so, but the mere fact that another agent is responsible for someone’s plight is not sufficient to automatically absolve me of obligations towards them. Narveson’s points about the influence of bad governments and the bad economic effects of obstructing free trade may be relevant to how we choose to aid the needy. Perhaps, if we can easily do so, the most effective means of aiding the needy would involve working for meaningful political and economic global reforms. Indeed, Narveson’s considerations may even push us towards a more demanding position than mine. Perhaps, even if we can easily and substantially aid some needy people by contributing to organizations like Oxfam, it would be better, and more rational, to make larger sacrifices of time, effort, and resources on behalf of significant political and economic reforms that would much more substantially and effectively aid the needy. But either way my simple point stands. The well-off cannot simply ignore the needy, in my sense, without being open to serious moral criticism. One final point in this section bears noting. At various places, Narveson comes close to offering an indirect justification for ignoring the needy. Roughly, the view is that the needy will be best served by free enterprise, and free enterprise is most likely to succeed, globally, when the well-off focus on satisfying their consumer desires. On this view, the needy will be best aided if we do not attend to their plight, and instead simply eat out as much as we would like, buy the shoes and electronics we like, and so on. There is much to be said about such a view, which I think is overly simplistic, tragically misguided, and transparently self-serving. But to the extent such a view is correct, it is again relevant to the practical question about the best means of aiding the needy, not to the theoretical truth about whether we ought to do so. And while the practical question is obviously of great importance, it was the theoretical truth that I was mainly concerned to address and defend.

4. SOME THOUGHTS

ABOUT JUSTICE

In ‘‘TN’’, I distinguished between acting justly, where one acts for agent-relative justice-based reasons, and acting for reasons of justice, where one acts for agent-neutral justice-based reasons. I noted that even if one could ignore the needy without acting unjustly, there were several conceptions of justice, that many accept, which would provide

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one with agent-neutral reasons of justice for aiding the needy. These included an extended Rawlsian conception of justice, which would apply between states, and two versions of proportional justice, an ‘‘absolute’’ version and a ‘‘comparative’’ version. Narveson discusses the topic of justice at some length, because in his judgment my argument for aiding the needy ‘‘pivots quite entirely’’ on my views about justice.36 Narveson rejects out of hand appeals to an extended Rawlsian conception. He writes: Careful and relevant discussion of Rawls on this matter might well take us very far afield, so I will simply assert here that the relevance and substantiality of Rawls’ views on justice have been hugely overrated. In any case Rawls does not propose a distinctive further theory; rather, his theory combined two theories in a way that is totally indeterminate as to its output, and problematic in its ultimate foundations.37

I agree that an adequate discussion of Rawls is beyond our purview here, but it remains true, as I claimed, that many people are attracted to an extended Rawlsian conception of justice, and that insofar as one is attracted to such a conception one will have agent-neutral reasons of justice to aid the needy. That Narveson blithely dismisses such a conception is hardly surprising, but also hardly likely to give much pause to the many attracted to such a position for what they regard as compelling reasons. Also, recall that part of my aim was to carve out conceptual space for the position that we might have reasons of justice to aid the needy even if we cannot be accused of acting unjustly if we fail to do so. The appeal to an extended Rawlsian conception helps illustrate how this might be so, even if the full battle over the ultimate defensibility of such a conception must be fought in other venues. Turning to the other conceptions of justice I discuss, Narveson makes many bold claims. Unfortunately, as I will show next, most are irrelevant, misleading, mistaken, or merely unsubstantiated assertions that I, and many others, reject. Narveson claims that I think it can be shown that . . . [a] [Temkin’s conceptions of absolute and comparative justice] have almost no application whatever to the problem before us, despite Temkin’s effort to enlist them. [b] It is not true that your salary should be proportionate to your virtue, [c] not true that we ‘‘ought’’ in any useful sense of that term ‘‘to receive our due’’ in the sense evidently intended [by Temkin’s conception 36 37

Narveson, ‘‘WP,’’ p. 399. Narveson, ‘‘WP,’’ p. 399.

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of absolute justice], [d] not true that in any sense relevant to the present inquiry that those who live worthier lives deserve to live better ones, and therefore, of course, [e] not true at the wholesale level required that ‘‘equally deserving people are unequally well off.’’38

[a] is false, as I shall defend shortly. [b] is irrelevant, as I made no claims that salaries should be proportionate to virtue. [c] and [d] are mere assertions, rejected by those to whom I addressed my arguments, namely those who believe that absolute and comparative justice are plausible and important and must be given ‘‘due’’ weight in our moral deliberations. [e] is false, or at least seriously misleading. As Narveson recognizes, most people are neither particularly virtuous nor particularly vicious. This includes most of the well-off, as well as most of the needy. Thus, most who are very unequally well off are ‘‘approximately’’ equally deserving. For practical purposes, that is all I need at the aggregate level for the relevance of comparative justice to come into play, at least for those who value comparative justice (Note, if one’s aim were to bring about a perfect situation with respect to comparative justice, one would need to have precise knowledge of who deserves to be at exactly what levels relative to others. But such knowledge is not generally necessary to be able to accurately predict whether, on balance, raising a group of people would improve a situation regarding comparative justice. For such purposes, general correlations will typically do). I might add that on my view it is vacuously true that virtually all young children are pretty close to equally deserving – by virtue of the fact that virtually none of them deserve much of anything. A fortiori it is true at the ‘‘wholesale level’’ required by my argument that large groups of equally deserving people are unequally well-off, as this is true of virtually all young children who are needy, vis-a`-vis those who are well-off. Of course, Narveson might insist that people who do not deserve anything cannot be equally deserving, but this would be to quibble with the terminological formulation of comparative justice, and would have no bearing on the view’s substance. According to comparative justice, it is unjust for one person to be worse off than another if the one is no less deserving than the other. For those attracted to such a view – as many are, notwithstanding Narveson’s vehement protestations – this provides some agent-neutral reasons of justice to aid virtually all young, needy children.

38

Narveson, ‘‘WP,’’ pp. 399–400.

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Consider some further claims Narveson makes regarding justice. He writes: [f] There is no particular reason . . . to ascribe any particular level of virtue or vice to your average . . . needy person . . . The safest bet is that vice and virtue are distributed among the poor in much the same way as among us. [g] It is just that these things just are not in question here,39

and adds that [h] we must, in the only sense in which it is relevant simply reject the thesis that the world’s poor ‘‘do not deserve’’ their lot. [i] That there are irrelevant senses of desert in which they do not deserve it may be true, but, pretty obviously, that is quite beside the point.40

Furthermore, Narveson observes that [j] ‘‘by and large, when I send up a sum of money to a charity … to improve … the life of a nineyear-old tot … I do not make much in the way of inquiries into his level of virtue;’’ adding that [k] ‘‘justice, in any reasonable sense of the term including those sketched by Temkin, has frankly just about nothing to do with it. ‘Giving due weight to each of these conceptions,’ as Temkin recommends, will in fact get us absolutely nowhere; [l] it will certainly not sustain his enormous conclusion, that we are all guilty of moral shortcomings for failing to shell out quite a lot of money to the cause of handouts to the world’s badly-off.’’41 I accept [f]. This is part of the reason it seems clear that comparative justice is relevant here. If we had reason to believe that the well-off were virtuous and the needy vicious, or that the well-off and needy were all significantly deserving of occupying their respective stations in life, we would feel rather differently about claims that we ‘‘ought’’ to help the needy, or that we ‘‘must’’ help the needy to avoid serious moral criticism. We might feel sympathy, and choose to show them ‘‘mercy,’’ but we might also sternly and permissibly decline to do so in the name of justice. But it is precisely because we recognize that on the whole the needy are neither more nor less virtuous or deserving than the well-off, that it seems more than simply cold or unfeeling to ignore their plight. As matters actually stand, the plight of the needy not only arouses our sympathy, it seems patently unfair, in terms of both absolute and comparative justice.

39 40 41

Narveson, ‘‘WP,’’ p. 401. Narveson, ‘‘WP,’’ p. 402. Narveson, ‘‘WP,’’ pp. 402–403.

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[g] is ambiguous. It is not, literally, ‘‘in question here’’ because we all take it for granted that on the whole the needy are no less deserving or virtuous than the well-off. So we do not, in fact, question it. But that does not mean that it is not relevant, or that we are not implicitly relying on it in thinking about such matters. As just indicated, it is clear that we would rightly think differently about the needy if we thought that they were vicious, or otherwise deserving of their lot. Consider the following cases.42 In Case One, John – a pretty typical father, husband, co-worker, and friend – is pushing his newborn daughter in a baby carriage. He sits briefly on a park bench, under a majestic old maple tree, and as luck would have it the maple sheds a branch. John is severely hurt and crippled. In Case Two, John is a vicious thug and rapist. He has raped and killed many young women, and is in the process of brutally raping another under an old maple tree. As luck would have it, the maple sheds a branch and John is severely hurt and crippled. In Case Three, John has a craving for maple syrup. One night, after a park has closed, he scales a fence and approaches a very large majestic maple tree. There is another fence surrounding the tree, and prominent signs informing him that this particular maple is a very rare and special tree that might be severely damaged or even killed by tapping. In addition, the tree is a danger, as it is rather old, and subject to the shedding of its large limbs – hence the fence and prominent warnings. John reads the warnings, and deliberately chooses to ignore them. He climbs over the fence and taps the maple, and in so doing mortally injures it. As luck would have it, while John is tapping the maple it sheds a branch. John is severely hurt and crippled. Most people feel very differently about John’s plight in Case One, than they do in Cases Two and Three. In Case Two, it seems that John deserves to fare poorly, in Case Three he seems morally responsible for his plight. In Case One, on the other hand, John is neither deserving of, nor morally responsible for, his poor condition. Specifically, in accordance with the notions of both absolute and comparative justice, John’s condition in Case One seems unfair, or unjust, not so in Cases Two or Three. Correspondingly, while it seems clear that we ought to help John in Case One, if we can, it is much less clear that we ‘‘have’’ to help John in Case Three, and not clear at all that we even 42

These cases are developments of ones presented in Larry Temkin, ‘‘Egalitarianism Defended,’’ Ethics 113 (2003), pp. 772–773.

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should help John in Case Two, even if we can do so easily. Thus, while considerations of beneficence, sympathy, or mercy might support aiding John in all three cases, the extent to which it seems morally compelling to do so is mitigated by our conception of the overall fairness, or justice, of his plight. Return, then, to the case of the needy. Narveson claims that considerations of justice ‘‘are not in question here.’’ But he is mistaken. They are deeply relevant. It is precisely because we presume that most people who are needy are like John in Case One, and not like John in Cases Two or Three, that their plight seems so compelling. If we thought that the needy were vicious, or morally responsible for their situation, our attitudes to them would be very different. And rightly so. The extent of our moral obligations towards the needy, understood as the overall force of the moral reasons to help them, does depend, in part, on the fairness or justness of their situations. [i] is trivially true, but irrelevant. [h] is neither irrelevant nor trivial, but neither is it true. I have just spelled out two relevant senses in which the poor ‘‘do not deserve’’ their lot. They do not deserve their lot because they are vicious, in the way John deserves his lot in Case Two. And they do not deserve their lot because they are morally responsible for their plight, in the way John deserves his lot in Case Three. As we have seen, both of these senses are keenly relevant to our topic, as our obligations towards the needy would be markedly different if they did deserve their lot in either of these straightforward senses. [j] is certainly true, but misleading, and liable to the same response I gave to [g]. We do not inquire about the level of virtue of the nine-year-old tot not because such issues are irrelevant, but because we are pretty confident what the answer would reveal. Hardly anyone deserves to suffer to the degree that the world’s neediest members do, and certainly not your typical nine year old! If we thought most, or many, needy nine year olds did deserve their lot, the way John deserves his situation in either Cases Two or Three, we would feel much less compelled to jump to the aid of a nine year old just because he was needy, and would rightly deem it appropriate to ascertain of any particular nine year old whether he was in the deserving or undeserving camp in determining the extent of our obligations to him. Needy nine year olds who somehow deserved their fate might have some claim on our sympathy; but surely we would not have the same obligation to do as much for them, as we do for most actual needy

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nine year olds, who are ‘‘innocents’’ in the sense of being neither vicious, nor morally responsible for their needy condition. I have already shown that [k] is false and will not repeat my arguments again. But far from having ‘‘almost nothing to do with it’’ and getting us ‘‘absolutely nowhere,’’ it is only because we are confident that most needy people are undeserving of their plight, and no less deserving than most well-off people, that their plight is so morally compelling. There is, I believe, an ‘‘interaction’’ effect between justice and other moral notions, such that, for example, the degree to which someone’s plight is unfair or unjust in terms of both absolute and comparative justice contributes significantly to the degree of sympathy we feel for them. More generally, considerations of fairness and justice influence the extent to which we ought, ultimately, to be moved by any considerations of beneficence, pity, compassion, or sympathy that strictly pertain to someone’s level of need. As for [l], and his analogous, previously noted, assertion that my argument for aiding the needy ‘‘pivots quite entirely’’ on my claims about justice, I deny this. My argument for aiding the needy is made principally in part one of my article, and appeals to a wide range of consequentialist, virtue-based, and deontological elements. Indeed, I do not appeal at all to considerations of justice in my main arguments on behalf of the needy. So, I think that we ought to aid the needy, and are open to serious moral criticism if we do not, independently of my points about justice. But I thought it was important to remind the reader that most people have wider conceptions of justice than the one espoused by Narveson and Robert Nozick,43 and to point out that on many of those conceptions there might be agent-neutral reasons of justice to aid the needy, even if there is an agent-relative sense in which one could not be accused of acting unjustly if one failed to do so. Finally, let me conclude this section by commenting on Narveson’s point about the unintelligibility of any notion of natural justice according to which individuals might be thought to deserve to be at any particular level. I agree that this is a serious worry, and needs to be given more thought than most advocates of proportional justice realize. But I note that it is more of a worry for absolute justice than comparative justice. Moreover, and more importantly, while serious, I am not convinced that the worry is insurmountable. More particularly, while Narveson’s worry reveals the importance of clarifying our commitment to absolute justice, it is too soon to simply reject the 43

Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974).

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notion. It does seem that if there were vicious people who freely and rationally chose to be evil, that it would be unjust or unfair if they flourished. Likewise, it seems that if there were virtuous people who freely and rationally chose to lead exemplary lives, that it would be unjust or unfair if they lived agonizing, decrepit, lives. Such claims reflect an absolute conception of natural justice that many people would be loath to give up. I subscribe to such a notion myself, and believe that at the end of the day the full theory of morality will have to include such a notion. It will, of course, require a characterization that responds to Narveson’s worry. And I do not have such a characterization to propose at the moment. But, here, as elsewhere in the complex realm of morality, we need patience and creative thinking. Serious worries must ultimately be dealt with, and not merely ignored. But one need not always forsake a view simply because it faces possible objections.

5. EGALITARIANISM In Section 4 of ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ Narveson offers a sustained attack on egalitarianism. Now as already indicated, in Section 2 of this paper, for the purposes of this topic I could ignore his attack. Neither Unger, nor Singer, nor I appeal to egalitarianism as our basis for aiding the needy. Nevertheless, as one who values equality as one ideal, among others, I would like to comment on some of Narveson’s claims. Narveson characterizes egalitarianism as the outlook that holds ‘‘that the fact that person A has a great deal of wealth while person B has very little is, all by itself, testimony to injustice.’’44 This is an unfortunate characterization. It ignores, in two important respects, most of the major egalitarian literature of the past 30 years. First, while many economists have, understandably, discussed economic inequalities, no major philosopher focuses on inequalities of wealth, as such. So, in the lengthy ‘‘equality of what?’’ debate, philosophers have argued that one should be concerned about equality of opportunity, welfare, capacities and functionings, primary goods, resources, opportunity for welfare,

44

Narveson, ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ p. 320.

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and so on,45 but no one has defended the view that Narveson has characterized as the egalitarian outlook. To the contrary, while wealth is a direct component of resources and primary goods, and is indirectly relevant to opportunities and functionings, every major egalitarian would explicitly disavow the position in question, arguing that often egalitarian justice will require inequalities of wealth. So, for example, if one person is naturally more gifted than another, inequality of wealth might be required by justice, to promote equality of opportunity or welfare; and similarly for every other kind of equality that philosophers have defended as normatively desirable. Second, most contemporary egalitarians explicitly deny that inequality is ‘‘all by itself, testimony to injustice.’’ Recognizing the potential importance of individual responsibility, I argue at length against this view, as do Ronald Dworkin, G. A. Cohen, A. Sen, Richard Arneson, and virtually everyone else who has written on this topic.46 For example, in my work, I often offered the following as a canonical formulation of the egalitarian’s view: that it is bad – because unfair or unjust – for some to be worse off than others through no fault or choice of their own. This is, in fact, only a close approximation to the egalitarian’s considered view, but I argue that the notions of fault and choice reflect a key component that lies at the heart of the egalitarian’s thinking. Unfortunately, Narveson’s characterization of the egalitarian outlook wholly ignores that component. Correspondingly, I categorically reject Narveson’s related claim that ‘‘Egalitarianism … is generally insensitive to prior wrongs. If the idea is to make us all equal, then how does it matter how we came to be unequal?’’47 As the preceding implies, Dworkin, Cohen, Arneson, Sen, I and a host of others, all reject this view of egalitarianism, and 45 Classic contributions to the ‘‘equality of what?’’ debate include Richard Arneson, ‘‘Equality and Equality of Opportunity for Welfare,’’ Philosophical Studies 56 (1989), pp. 77–93; G.A. Cohen, ‘‘On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice,’’ Ethics, 99 (1989), pp. 906–944; Ronald Dworkin’s ‘‘What Is Equality? Part 1: Equality of Welfare’’ and ‘‘What Is Equality? Part 2: Equality of Resources,’’ Philosophy and Public Affairs 10 (1981), pp. 185–246, 283–385; and Amartya Sen, ‘‘Equality of What?,’’ in S. McMurrin (ed.), Tanner Lectures on Human Value (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980); and Inequality Reexamined (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992). 46 See the readings cited in note 45, as well as Temkin, Inequality, and Temkin, ‘‘Egalitarianism Defended.’’ 47 Narveson, ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ p. 322.

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we have each, in our own way, answered his ‘‘rhetorical’’ question in print. I will not canvass all of the answers that have been given, but it is decidedly not part of the egalitarian ideal to make everyone equal no matter what. Moral responsibility matters to the egalitarian. On my view, this is because the concern for equality is ultimately a concern about comparative fairness, and it is not unfair if I am morally responsible for being worse off than you. This is why prior wrongdoing can matter. If I am worse off than you due to my own prior wrongdoing, the inequality between us need not be unfair, or in any other way morally objectionable. So, unfortunately, here, as elsewhere, Narveson attacks a straw man. His characterization of egalitarianism is one that no one I know of accepts.48 Narveson also writes that ‘‘Egalitarianism … is the substantive view that all persons have a general right, as against all other persons, to be supplied with … an approximately equal amount of some variable and commensurable good, at the expense of all who have more of this good.’’49 This is puzzling. Many egalitarians, including me, are what Derek Parfit and I have called ‘‘telic egalitarians.’’50 Telic egalitarians believe that equality, or inequality, is a feature that is relevant to the goodness of outcomes, such that, ceteris paribus, the worse a situation is regarding equality the worse the situation is. But it does not follow from this that ‘‘all persons have a general right, as against all other persons, to be supplied with … some … good, at the expense of all who have more of this good.’’ Indeed, rights do not have to enter into the egalitarian’s picture at all, and my understanding and characterization of equality does not invoke, or in any way rely on, the notion that the worse off have a 48 To be sure, some egalitarians deny the possibility of free will, and correspondingly deny the category of moral responsibility. Such egalitarians might always favor promoting equality ‘‘no matter what,’’ but this would not be because they were insensitive to the category of prior wrongs, but rather because they reject that category. Presumably, even such egalitarians would agree that if, contrary to fact, criminals were fully and freely responsible for their heinous actions, the inequality between imprisoned criminals and law abiding citizens would not be unfair or otherwise morally objectionable. 49 Narveson, ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ p. 320. 50 Derek Parfit introduces the terminology of ‘‘telic’’ and ‘‘deontic’’ egalitarianism in Derek Parfit, ‘‘Equality or Priority?,’’ The Lindley Lecture, University of Kansas, 1991, copyright 1995 by Department of Philosophy, University of Kansas; reprinted in Matthew Clayton and Andrew Williams (eds.), The Ideal of Equality (London: MacMillan Press, 2000), pp. 81–125. Corresponding notions are also introduced in Temkin, Inequality, p. 11.

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right to equality, or a right against the better off to be made as well off as they. Analogously, I might truthfully claim that it would be good – in the sense of make the outcome better – if everyone lived longer, happier, lives, but it would not follow that everyone had a right to live longer, happier, lives, much less that some people had a duty to provide others with the means of living longer, happier, lives. To be sure, I do believe that there is some agent-neutral reason to prefer better outcomes to worse outcomes, and to promote the former rather than the latter, other things equal. But I do not believe that the truth of this claim is best understood in terms of, or in fact has anything to do with, rights. Narveson’s claim is even more puzzling in another respect. From a purely egalitarian perspective, it does not matter how equality is brought about between equally deserving people. The worse off may be improved through sheer good fortune, or the better off may be worsened – or ‘‘levelled down’’ – through sheer bad luck. Either event may bring about a perfect situation regarding equality. But, then, it obviously is not central to the egalitarian’s view that the worse off should be made better off at the expense of those who are initially better off. Nor, for that matter, is it even central to the egalitarian’s view that the worse off should be made better off – a fact that Narveson himself recognizes, and indeed emphasizes, in criticizing egalitarianism. But then, a fortiori, it is not part of the egalitarian’s view that the worse off must ‘‘be supplied with … some variable and commensurable good,’’ much less that the worse off have a right to be supplied with such a good. I conclude that the statement we have been discussing is misleading or mistaken. It is misleading, if Narveson merely intends to be expressing the uncontroversial fact that egalitarians would approve of the better off supplying the worse off with goods, at their own expense, so as to promote equality, and that under some circumstances the egalitarian, qua egalitarian, would ‘‘require’’ the better off to so act. Otherwise it is mistaken. Narveson claims that [m] ‘‘The egalitarian elevates a matter of personal taste into a basis for imposing on others,’’ and that [n] ‘‘Egalitarianism in fact violates impartiality.’’51 Regarding [m], I suspect that Narveson is projecting onto the egalitarian his own meta-ethical views which, as I will discuss in Section 7, come perilously close to deflating (as opposed to ‘‘elevating’’) all of morality into a merely subjective ‘‘matter of personal taste.’’ I vehemently reject such a view, and deny that my 51

Narveson, ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ p. 323.

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egalitarian views are merely ‘‘a matter of personal taste’’ that I wish to ‘‘impose’’ on others. I believe that egalitarianism is an important component of the full theory of morality, and that such a theory can be true or acceptable in the sense that there can be reasons to accept such a theory that do not depend on anyone’s, or even everyone’s, ‘‘personal tastes.’’ Moreover, I believe that the way to make progress in moral philosophy is to take opposing views seriously. One does this by assessing the arguments that can be offered for or against them, not by accusing one’s opponents of foisting their personal tastes on everyone else while either consciously attempting to dupe others, or being guilty of gross self-deception about what they are up to. So, for example, while I reject many of the views of both libertarians and utilitarians, I think it would be unwise and unhelpful to simply dismiss their views as illconceived attempts to impose their tastes on others. Their personal tastes are irrelevant. They hold positions for which arguments can be mustered for and against, and those arguments have to be thoughtfully assessed. The same is true, I venture, of egalitarianism. My views about equality may be false. But if they are, then I am mistaken about the reasons there are to care about equality. Personal taste has nothing to do with it. [n] is a strikingly original and bold claim. Though countless accusations have been laid at the feet of egalitarians, never before, I think, have egalitarians been accused of rejecting impartiality. Surely, however, Narveson’s charge here cannot be sustained. Egalitarians may be mistaken about what impartiality requires, as may be utilitarians, libertarians, and Kantians. But all such views reflect the notion that morality requires impartiality. Basically, egalitarians favor promoting equality between equally deserving people whoever those people are, regardless of race, gender, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, or any other personal characteristics or relationships of the people in question. This is sufficient to rebut [n], at least as the notion of ‘‘impartiality’’ is usually employed in moral discourse. Of course, in claiming [n] Narveson may be operating with his own idiosyncratic notion of ‘‘impartiality.’’ But, if he is, it is one that egalitarians have no reason to accept. Whatever its other shortcomings, egalitarianism does not violate impartiality. Finally, Narveson asserts that egalitarianism is ‘‘irrational, and really a potential source of misery for the world’s poor, in the end.’’52 The charge of irrationality is an important one that I shall respond to 52

Narveson, ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ p. 321.

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in the next section. The charge that promoting equality may actually harm the world’s poor is an important empirical claim that may be right. As noted in Section 2, it is one that I, myself, have raised, which is why I do not base my arguments for helping the needy on appeals to equality. Still, it is important to recognize that while aiding the needy may not be supported by equality, that does not show that one must either abandon the needy or the ideal of equality. As I have pointed out elsewhere,53 equality is not the only ideal that would, if exclusively pursued, have implausible, or even terrible, implications. The same is true of justice, utility, perfectionism, freedom, and every other moral ideal. The fact is that morality is complex, and no single ideal can adequately capture its full complexity. Hence, we must be pluralists if we hope to avoid implausible implications. In sum, I believe that Narveson has a distorted conception of egalitarianism, and that, properly construed, equality matters. Still, I not only grant, but insist, that equality is not all that matters. Other ideals also matter, and many of them matter greatly. Thus, I continue to believe that all things considered we ought to help the needy, even if Narveson is right that, empirically, doing so may sometimes conflict with equality.

6. THE ‘‘DIRECTION’’

OF

MORALITY

AND

PARETO OPTIMALITY

Narveson suggests that recognition of the fact that we can all be harmed, but also benefited by, the actions of others sets the stage for genuine reasoning of a type leading to morals, those being general rules and principles addressed to all, and in light of which we all can do better than we could in the absence of such rules. The obvious direction is up: we want the rules to enable all to advance, and at a minimum to prevent people from being pushed in the wrong direction, backward. It seems to me that this classical case is enormously strong, and not of a type that can be seriously shaken by appeal to intuition.54

Narveson invokes this view in support of his position that morality should always be for the mutual advantage of its adherents, and then relies on this position to support his claim that morality cannot require or compel a better off person to aid a worse off person if doing 53

See, for example, Temkin, Inequality, Chapter Nine; Larry Temkin, ‘‘Egalitarianism Defended’’; and Temkin, ‘‘Equality, Priority, and the Levelling Down Objection,’’ in Matthew Clayton and Andrew Williams (eds.), The Ideal of Equality (London: MacMillan Press, Ltd, 2000), pp. 126–161. 54 Narveson, ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ p. 319.

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so would be to the detriment of the better off person. After all, by hypothesis, such a ‘‘requirement’’ would not be to the mutual advantage of the better off person, and in fact would directly involve the better off person being ‘‘pushed in the wrong direction, backward.’’ But this, of course, would be directly contrary to the very reasoning that underlies or ‘‘leads to’’ morality, according to Narveson; the reasoning that insists that the rules of morality should enable ‘‘all to advance.’’55 Unfortunately, in stating his position Narveson presents a broad generalization as a universal truth, and utterly ignores the usual question about baselines that is so pressing in this debate. In so doing, Narveson eviscerates the ‘‘classical case’’ that is supposedly so ‘‘enormously strong’’ as to be immune from appeals to intuition. Most people agree that, in general, morality should redound to the benefit of humankind, in the sense that most people would be better off living in a ‘‘moral’’ society than in an ‘‘immoral’’ or ‘‘amoral’’ one, or in a ‘‘state of nature.’’ But it is highly dubious that literally everyone, no matter how powerful, self-reliant, or evil they might be, must necessarily benefit from the rules of morality. Surely there might be some people who would fare better living in an immoral or amoral society, or in a ‘‘state of nature,’’ than in a society governed by the rules of morality. But I reject the implications of Narveson’s claims that the rules of morality then would not apply to such people, or could not ‘‘require’’ of such people that they not exploit or harm others, merely because such rules would not be to their ‘‘advantage.’’ In such cases, contra Narveson, ‘‘backwards’’ could be precisely the right direction, and ‘‘up’’ the wrong direction, for morality to push. Note, in discussing morality’s usual prohibition against harming other people or their property, Narveson offers a standard ‘‘social convention’’ explanation for how such a rule might arise. He observes that ‘‘Any normal person can do this sort of thing [harm others], every normal person (and almost all others) would be affected by others’ doing it, and the obvious agreement is to rule it out. General resort to force makes life worse for all.’’56 I will discuss the social convention element of Narveson’s thinking in the next section, but for now I merely want to point out a tension between Narveson’s parenthetical remark regarding ‘‘almost all others’’ and his

55 56

Emphasis provided. Narveson, ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ p. 316.

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concluding comment that ‘‘general resort to force makes life worse for all.’’57 Even if almost all people would be affected by the absence of a prohibition against harming others, not everyone would. Consequently, it almost certainly is not true that a general resort to force would make life worse for all. Yet, as Narveson himself insists, morality is supposed to be universal, it is supposed to apply to everybody.58 Correspondingly, I stand by my claim that sometimes morality may rightly require someone to go ‘‘backwards’’ rather than ‘‘up’’ – to be worse off rather than better off. This might be true of a particularly powerful and ruthless person, who might flourish in a state of nature, or in an immoral or amoral environment, but suffer from the confinements of a moral society. More importantly, even if we agreed that the rules of morality should make everyone better off than they would be in comparison with the baselines of an immoral society, an amoral society, or a ‘‘state of nature,’’ there is no plausibility to the claim that morality should work to the mutual advantage of everyone taking wherever people currently happen to be as the baseline starting point. Where people happen to be now is a wildly contingent matter that depends on a host of social, cultural, historical, and natural factors many of which are morally arbitrary, some of which are morally dubious, and some of which are morally objectionable. Correspondingly, the better off need to be able to defend their right to being as well off as they are as the presupposition underlying the principle of mutual advantage. They cannot appeal to the principle of mutual advantage to defend their right to maintain whatever level of well-being they currently happen to have. Narveson’s claim that ‘‘we want the rules [of morality] to enable all to advance, and at a minimum to prevent people from being pushed … backward’’ merely begs the question against his interlocutor. If the current starting points are not independently justifiable, there is no reason to believe that the correct moral principles must improve everyone’s initial starting point, or at least be no worse for anyone. So, for example, the mere fact that our society allowed the so-called ‘‘robber barons’’ to flourish, and to pass along any ill-gotten gains to their heirs, does not mean that our rules were morally legitimate in the first place, or that their heirs’ positions are morally legitimate starting points that cannot be altered to their heirs’ 57 58

Emphasis provided. Narveson, ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ p. 307.

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disadvantage. Similarly, the mere fact that our society currently enables individuals to acquire and convey vast fortunes, does not mean that such rules are morally legitimate, or that morality can never prescribe actions that would be detrimental to the heirs of such fortunes. The moral legitimacy of our society’s institutions governing the accumulation and disposition of property is a large topic that I cannot explore here.59 But suffice it to say, I see no basis for accepting our current starting points as morally legitimate in support of Narveson’s view that the well-off cannot be morally obligated to help the less fortunate due to the principle of mutual advantage and the ‘‘obvious direction’’ of morality being ‘‘up.’’ Let me turn next to Narveson’s charge that egalitarians are irrational. As I see it, the main basis for Narveson’s charge is that he accepts the pareto principle as a condition of rationality, and believes that egalitarians are committed to rejecting the pareto principle.60 Although many people, including most economists, share Narveson’s views on this topic, I think they are deeply mistaken. I have presented numerous considerations against such a view elsewhere,61 and shall not repeat them all here. But let me summarize some key elements of my view. First, a few words about the pareto principle itself, and the crux of Narveson’s position. An outcome is pareto optimal, if no one in that outcome could be made better off, without at least one other person being made worse off. Correspondingly, for any two outcomes involving the same people, one outcome is pareto superior to another if it is better for some people and worse for no one. Now the pareto principle holds that one outcome is better than another, all things considered, if it is pareto superior to it. Narveson’s view is not merely that we should accept the pareto principle, but that it is irrational to reject it. Specifically, he believes that it is irrational to prefer a pareto inferior outcome to a pareto superior one. But this, he notes, is what egalitarians sometimes do, since they would prefer a perfectly equal situation where everyone is at one low level to an unequal situation where only some are at the low level, and everyone else is better off. Hence, egalitarianism violates the pareto principle and, as such, is irrational. 59

An excellent discussion of this topic is Liam Murphy and Thomas Nagel, The Myth of Ownership (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). 60 See Narveson, ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ Section 5.5. 61 See Temkin, Inequality, Chapter Nine; ‘‘Egalitarianism Defended,’’ and, especially, Larry Temkin, ‘‘Personal Versus Impersonal Principles: Reconsidering the Slogan,’’ Theoria 69 (2003), pp. 20–30.

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In response to Narveson, it should be noted that some versions of egalitarianism are themselves compatible with the pareto principle. This is true, as Parfit and I have both noted, of deontic versions of egalitarianism,62 and it is also true of the telic version of egalitarianism defended by John Broome.63 So, at most Narveson is entitled to claim that some egalitarians are irrational, those whose versions of egalitarianism violate the pareto principle. But note, it is not obvious that someone is irrational just because one element of his thinking violates the pareto principle. The pareto principle prescribes an all things considered judgment regarding outcomes. Since egalitarians are pluralists, they could accept the pareto principle, all things considered, even though qua egalitarians they reject it. Parfit has called such a position ‘‘moderate egalitarianism,’’64 and since moderate egalitarians do, in fact, accept the pareto principle, they can avoid Narveson’s charge of irrationality. Still, Narveson might insist that even if someone is not irrational ‘‘all things considered,’’ they are irrational to the extent that they endorse an ideal that would itself violate the pareto principle. But is this plausible? I think not. Elsewhere,65 I have distinguished between personal and impersonal non-instrumental ideals. Roughly, personal non-instrumental ideals are ones whose value lies in the contributions they make, when realized, to individual well-being. That is, their value lies in the extent to which their realization is good for individuals. Impersonal non-instrumental ideals are ones whose value lies partly, or wholly, beyond any contributions they make, when realized, to individual well-being. We might say that, qua being impersonal, such ideals are non-instrumentally valuable because of the extent to which their realization makes an outcome good independently of, or beyond, the extent to which they are good for people. Now, in essence, the pareto principle tells us that how outcomes compare in terms of goodness depends (almost) exclusively on how they compare in terms of personal principles. Impersonal principles will be irrelevant, except, perhaps, as tiebreakers, in the ranking of outcomes. Yet, I contend that many of 62

See Parfit, ‘‘Equality or Priority?’’ Temkin, Inequality; and Temkin, ‘‘Equality, Priority, and the Levelling Down Objection.’’ 63 See John Broome, Weighing Goods (London: Basil Blackwell, 1991). 64 Parfit, ‘‘Equality or Priority?’’ 65 Temkin, ‘‘Egalitarianism Defended,’’ Temkin ‘‘Equality, Priority, and the Levelling Down Objection,’’ and Temkin, ‘‘Personal versus Impersonal Principles: Reconsidering the Slogan.’’

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the ideals that people value most are impersonal, including, perhaps, justice, freedom, equality, autonomy, rights, duty, perfection, virtue, love, friendship, beauty, and truth. Let me be clear. I do not deny that the realization of such ideals is frequently good for people. My claim is simply that we do not believe that the value of such ideals lies solely in the extent to which their realization is good or bad for individual well-being. Thus, for example, Immanuel Kant famously held that When … someone who delights in … vexing peace-loving folk at last receives a right good beating, it is certainly an ill, but everyone approves of it and considers it as good in itself even if nothing further results from it; nay, even he who gets the beating must acknowledge, in his reason, that justice has been done to him, because he sees the proportion between welfare and well-doing … here put into practice.66

Here, Kant advocates a retributive conception of justice that violates the pareto principle. After all, on this conception the outcome in which a lout is punished is better than one where he is not, even if it is pareto inferior to it; that is, even if it is worse for the lout and not better for anyone else. On Kant’s view, which is widely shared, it is the justice of the outcome that determines its ranking in this example, not the individual well-being of its members. A more graphic example of absolute justice would be the following. Consider two alternative afterlives. In one, Adolf Hitler flourishes. He is healthy, enormously well-off, and completely contented. In the other, Hitler is even better off. This is because he receives a special satisfaction from various artifacts with which he has filled his home; artifacts made out of the skin, bones, and teeth of his victims. Many people think that the first outcome is bad, because unjust in absolute terms, even if there is no one for whom it is bad. Likewise, many regard the second outcome as worse than the first, because it is even more unjust in absolute terms. They believe this even if, as I suppose, the second outcome is pareto superior to the first, since it is better for Hitler and, we may assume, worse for no one. Similarly, advocates of comparative justice would claim that whether or not there is anything bad, in itself, about sinners faring well, there is something bad about sinners faring better than saints. On their view, one outcome might be pareto superior to another,

66 See Immanuel Kant, The Philosophy of Law, trans. W. Hastie (London: T.T. Clark, 1887), pp. 194–198, reproduced in Gertrude Ezorsky (ed.), Punishment (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1972), p. 102. Emphasis provided.

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because it was much better for the sinners and no worse for the saints, yet worse, because it was comparatively unjust. Likewise, perfectionists might value a pareto inferior outcome in which a Da Vinci is saved from destruction, to a pareto superior one in which it perishes but one person is spared a minor headache.67 This would reflect the view that the value of perfection does not merely lie in the extent to which the creation or existence of perfection is good for individual well-being. Analogously, deontologists and virtue theorists do not measure the value of acting rightly, or being virtuous, merely in terms of the degree to which acting rightly or being virtuous benefits people. Correspondingly, they can believe that there are scenarios in which performing one’s duty, or being virtuous, would make one outcome better, though pareto inferior, to another. I leave it to the reader to fill in the details of these examples, and to note how easily similar examples could be developed for a host of other impersonal ideals. But I hope it is clear that many ideals are impersonal in the sense described, and that each such ideal can conflict with the pareto principle. Of course, people can debate the ultimate plausibility of any particular purported impersonal ideal. And even though I, for one, have no doubt that impersonal ideals constitute an important component of the full theory of morality, I even grant that one can legitimately debate the ultimate justifiability of the entire class of impersonal ideals. But there is a difference between being mistaken about the nature of morality and being irrational, and the charge that Aristotle, Kant, W.D. Ross, and every other philosopher who has ever advocated an impersonal ideal is irrational is unhelpful and, quite frankly, preposterous. To be sure, here, as elsewhere, people can define terms as they like. So there is nothing to preclude Narveson and economists from simply defining the notion of rationality, such that to the extent one advocates a principle that conflicts with the pareto principle one would necessarily be irrational. But I challenge the significance or usefulness of such a definition. Narveson can reject egalitarianism, and claim that its implications are implausible. But it is not irrational, even if it may be mistaken, to believe that some factors can be relevant to the goodness of outcomes beyond the well-being of the outcomes’ members. This is all the egalitarian is committed to, qua egalitarian, insofar as his view 67 I owe this particular example to Frances Kamm. Though she is not a perfectionist, she has given this example, and endorsed the view in question, on several occasions in discussion.

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conflicts with the pareto principle. In this, the egalitarian has a great deal of perfectly rational company! I have argued that egalitarianism is not irrational just because, considered alone, it conflicts with the pareto principle. I have not yet taken a stand on whether all things considered one should accept the pareto principle. I do not need to take a stand on that issue to respond to Narveson’s charge regarding egalitarianism’s irrationality; but for what its worth, I also reject that position. I will not fully defend my view here, but let me note the following. First, considered theoretically, once one recognizes the value of impersonal ideals, there is no reason to believe that any pareto improvement in terms of personal ideals, no matter how slight, will always outweigh any possible attendant losses in terms of impersonal ideals. Second, considered concretely, I am convinced that there are many cases in which a pareto inferior outcome would be better all things considered than a pareto superior one, and not merely in terms of some particular impersonal ideals. This is so, for example, of the two scenarios involving Hitler described above. It is not that I think the scenario in which Hitler is healthy, enormously well-off, and completely contented is better than the one in which Hitler fares even better, merely in terms of absolute justice; rather, I think it is better all things considered. Here, I reject the pareto principle, because I believe the impersonal value of the increased injustice between the two scenarios outweighs the personal value of the increase in Hitler’s well-being. I once claimed, in discussing comparative justice, that failure to regard it as bad for sinners to be better off than saints was, in a deep and fundamental way, a failure to express a preference for good over evil. I believe that something like that also applies to the Hitler scenarios. Far from being rationally required, to adopt the pareto principle’s ranking of the two Hitler scenarios is, in my judgment, deeply morally repugnant.68 7. META-ETHICS Narveson bases many of his claims on a meta-ethical conception that combines several important features. Let me distinguish four. 68

Narveson might insist that however heartfelt my convictions on this topic may be, they must be either irrational or a ‘‘matter of personal taste’’ that I want to impose on others (presumably, matters of personal taste are not themselves irrational). Obviously, I do not agree.

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First, like Aristotle, and many others, Narveson emphasizes the practical side of morality.69 Morality is supposed to be a guide to practical action. As he puts it, ‘‘Moral ‘rules,’ principles, or broadly, directives… are practical, in the sense that it is hoped and even expected that the propounding and inculcating of such directives will be at least fairly effective in influencing the behavior of those to whom they are addressed … these directives are intended to have real effect.’’70 Second, like Kant, R.M. Hare, and many others, Narveson suggests that moral ‘‘directives … are addressed [to] everybody.’’71 For Narveson morality is essentially a matter of ‘‘social rules, requirements, types of behavior that we may in some measure insist on and impose on all… Morals in the sense we are concerned with here is precisely not just ‘personal.’ We ask everyone to do this or that, and avoid this or that ….’’72 Moreover, and importantly, according to Narveson, ‘‘In addition to being addressed to all, they [moral rules] are addressed by all.’’73 Third, like Bernard Williams and others, who seemingly follow David Hume, Narveson seems to be an internalist regarding morality.74 He believes that morality can only succeed as a guide to practical action if it can motivate us to act, that it can motivate us only by providing us with something that we recognize and accept as a reason for us to act, and that it can do this only by ‘‘hooking’’ onto some antecedent ‘‘pre-moral’’ interest, desire, or belief of ours. In other words, morality cannot apply to us, or ‘‘compel’’ us to act, in the absence of our having a reason to act morally, and for that to be the case we must have an interest in acting morally. As Williams might put it, there must be something in our subjective motivational state, S, consisting of our interests, desires, intentions, and beliefs, that 69

See Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics. Narveson, ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ pp. 307–308. 71 See Narveson, ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ p. 307; Immanuel Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Lewis White Beck (New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1959); and R.M. Hare, The Language of Morals (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1952). 72 Narveson, ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ p. 308. 73 Narveson, ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ p. 307. 74 See David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. David Fate Norton and Mary J. Norton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); and Bernard Williams, Moral Luck (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 101–113; Bernard Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985). 70

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enables a moral rule to get its ‘‘hooks’’ into us, and move us to act. Thus, Narveson writes, ‘‘We ask everyone to do this or that, and avoid this or that. But why would they accept that they should do so?’’75 We need, Narveson notes, ‘‘principles or rules which make sense to everyone,’’76 but this, he implies, will have to be in terms of people’s ‘‘interests, desires, values, or in general what decision theorists call ‘utilities.’ [Since] to act is to be stimulated by some or other motivational factor in the actor.’’77 Similarly, Narveson expresses the internalist perspective when he writes that ‘‘People’s reasons for action center on their held values and interests, whatever they may be.’’78 Finally, like David Gauthier, Gilbert Harman, J. L. Mackie, and others, who echo a view famously put by Glaucon in Book II of Plato’s Republic, Narveson’s view seems to embody a significant element of a social convention theory of morality.79 Mind you, I accept Narveson’s avowal that ‘‘I do not essentially appeal to any notion that there is, here and now, a ‘social convention’ about this matter [morality], nor that, if there were, it would impose genuine obligations on us simply as such. If anything, I think current conventional notions about this [morality] are messy, confused, and too unphilosophical to be of much help.’’80 But the key element of the philosophical social convention theory that Narveson seemingly accepts is that moral rules must ultimately be based on voluntary agreements between people, and that people only have reason to accept such agreements insofar as they see them as ‘‘promoting their interests’’ or as contributing to their ‘‘living the good life as they see it.’’81 Deeply connected with his internalist perspective, Narveson denies that I can be ‘‘compelled’’ by the rules of morality to take a step ‘‘backward’’ (that is, act against my interests). Thus, as we have seen, he explains the moral rule against harming others in terms of the fact that since we all recognize that we can be harmed by others

75

Narveson, ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ p. 308. Narveson, ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ p. 309. 77 Narveson, ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ p. 310. Emphasis provided. 78 Narveson, ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ p. 319. Emphasis provided. 79 See David Gauthier, Morals by Agreement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986); Gilbert Harman, The Nature of Morality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977); and John Mackie, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (London: Penguin, 1977). 80 Narveson, ‘‘WP,’’ p. 398. 81 Narveson, ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ p. 311. 76

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‘‘the obvious agreement is to rule it out.’’82 More generally, he explicitly contends that ‘‘Morality is not a nanny-code, it is an agreement, an understanding among independent, intelligent beings with things of their own to do.’’83 Meta-ethics is an extremely vexing topic that I cannot adequately pursue here. However, a few observations are in order. First, while each of the meta-ethical elements Narveson subscribes to represents a respectable philosophical position with a proud tradition of philosophical adherents, each is also highly controversial. I, for one, find the first element of his view misleading, and reject the third and fourth elements. Thus, I am not moved to accept his controversial and, to my mind, implausible normative conclusions based on the fact that they purportedly follow from his meta-ethical views. Second, I believe that Narveson’s meta-ethical views are inconsistent. Specifically, I believe that the third and fourth elements are incompatible with the second, for reasons Harman demonstrated long ago.84 Specifically, like Harman, I believe that internalist social agreement views support relativism. Hence, they are incompatible with moral rules that are for everyone, in any substantive sense of being addressed to all, and by all. This is because even if we grant Narveson the claim, required for his position, that everyone is ‘‘interested in promoting their interests, or in living the good life as they see it,’’85 this is merely a formal interest that people ‘‘share’’; there is no substantive interest that everyone has in common. As we have seen, for Narveson moral rules must appeal to people’s ‘‘premoral’’ interests, desires, and values. More specifically, moral rules must give people ‘‘reasons for action [that] center on their held values and interests, whatever they may be.’’86 But, of course, people can, and often do, hold substantively different values and interests, hence different people will ‘‘feel the force of’’ different proposed moral rules. Correspondingly, there will be different ‘‘moral rules’’ accepted by different individuals, and hence different moral agreements shared by different groups of people. Thus, as indicated, one cannot presume that there will be a unified moral code that applies to everyone, in the sense of being ‘‘addressed to all … [and] by all.’’ 82

Narveson, ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ p. 316. Emphasis provided. Narveson, ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ p. 345. Emphasis provided. 84 See Gilbert Harman, ‘‘Moral Relativism Defended,’’ The Philosophical Review 84 (1975), pp. 3–22. 85 Narveson, ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ p. 311. 86 Narveson, ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ p. 319. Emphasis provided. 83

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Third, I believe that Narveson’s meta-ethical views actually conflict with his substantive normative views. For example, as we have seen, Narveson suggests that since everyone is capable of harming others, and everyone would like their selves and their property to be protected, there is reason for everyone to accept the moral rule prohibiting the harm of other person’s and their property. He similarly suggests that since no one would wish to be coerced by others into taking a ‘‘step backward,’’ everyone will have an interest in accepting the ‘‘principle of mutual advantage.’’ But these claims, which underlie Narveson’s substantive libertarian commitments, seem like little more than wishful thinking given Narveson’s third and forth meta-ethical commitments. Those who are rich and powerful may have reason to reach an agreement that they will not harm other people who are similarly rich and powerful, but they may have no ‘‘reason’’ – based on their interests, desires, and values – not to harm the weak and powerless. Remember, for Narveson, moral rules have to have force for someone in virtue of his held values and interests, whatever they may be. Well, surely, if the chances of being significantly harmed by some people were small, while the chances of profiting greatly from harming those people were great, some might hold values and interests that would lead them to reject the prohibition against harming others, or the principle of mutual advantage, as regards to such people. Indeed, as has been commonly observed, given the internalist social convention perspective of Narveson’s third and fourth meta-ethical components, it is notoriously difficult to directly justify any moral rules limiting our abuse or treatment of animals, the very young, the very old, the seriously handicapped, or the very weak. Analogously, it is not merely the powerful and ruthless who would have reason to reject Narveson’s substantive normative position. So, too, would committed utilitarians, perfectionists, and many others. The fact is that many people have values and interests that would lead them to reject the positions underlying Narveson’s libertarianism, and given Narveson’s meta-ethical views there is nothing to preclude them from having such value and interests, and no basis for ‘‘compelling’’ them to accept the libertarian moral rules Narveson favors. As seen, given Narveson’s claim that moral rules must provide reasons for action that center on people’s ‘‘held values and interests, whatever they may be,’’87 there is no reason to believe that everyone 87

Emphasis provided.

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must agree to the same moral rules. Nor, for that matter, is there even reason to believe that everyone must accept some moral rules as constraining their actions or treatment of others. However, even if, as an empirical fact, most people have shared values and interests that lead them to accept a shared set of moral rules, on Narveson’s metaethical views there is nothing to prevent these rules from changing, or particular individuals from ‘‘opting out’’ of their moral ‘‘commitments’’ whenever people’s ‘‘values and interests’’ change for any reason. I believe that such a view is a deep form of moral skepticism, and should be rejected. Correspondingly, I suggest that Narveson needs to drastically revise his meta-ethical claims, if he is serious when he contends that ‘‘One [position], which I dismiss out of hand, is moral skepticism, which I take to be an absurd reason for anything.’’88 Next, let me comment on Narveson’s first meta-ethical element. I agree that ethics aims to guide practical action. But I think this is misleading if interpreted to mean that moral theory lies within the domain of the practical as opposed to the theoretical. Though it is notoriously difficult to defend, much less prove, I believe that some moral statements are true, or acceptable, that others are false, or unacceptable, and that the principle task of moral theory is to try to determine which are which. In that sense, then, I believe that morality is like math, logic, or even physics. In each realm, the aim, in the first instance, is to decide what statements or theories we have most reason to believe, or accept. Thomas Nagel once observed that ‘‘philosophy is best judged by its contribution to the understanding, not to the course of events.’’89 I agree. The relation between what we should believe regarding morality, and what, in fact, we will be motivated to do, is a complex one mediated by a multitude of factors, including the extent to which we are rational beings moved by rational beliefs. But, to my mind, the most fundamental questions about what we should believe regarding ethics are no more dependent on our ‘‘premoral’’ values, interests, and desires than the most fundamental questions about what we should believe in the more strictly ‘‘theoretical’’ realms of math, logic, or physics.

88

Narveson, ‘‘WP,’’ p. 398. Thomas Nagel, Mortal Questions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), p. xiii. 89

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The difference between Narveson and me on this point is significant, and well-illustrated by his discussion of how we may proceed in dealing with others. Narveson contends that in dealing with another we may ‘‘(1) attempt to ignore, or avoid, the other person. (2) attempt to persuade the other person to act in certain ways positively useful to ourselves… [Or] … (3) … attempt to exact the benefit in question by using force or coercion.’’90 However, Narveson elaborates on (2) by asserting that attempts to persuade others ‘‘can consist of (2a) asking for the nice thing, and hoping for an affirmative response, [or] (2b) making an offer of some kind, in hopes of arriving at an exchange beneficial to oneself.’’91 This is a striking and revealing view that differs dramatically from my own. I believe that one can attempt to persuade someone to act in certain ways by showing them that there are reasons for them to do so. And, importantly, I do not believe that such reasons must always ultimately reside in some value or interest of theirs, such that my ‘‘persuading’’ them amounts to showing them that it is ‘‘in their interest’’ to so act. In ‘‘persuading’’ someone to believe something about math, logic, or physics, I do not ‘‘ask’’ them to believe it, or make them an ‘‘offer’’ of some kind so that it is in their interest to believe it. Rather, I appeal to their rationality, and try to show that they have reason to believe it. Similarly, in the moral realm, while there are a host of ways of trying to get people to act in certain ways, including coercion, brainwashing, ‘‘conditioning,’’ and appealing to their feelings or interests, one way is to appeal to their rationality.92 One can try to show that there is reason to believe or accept a certain view; specifically, a view about what there is most reason, morally, for them to do. Let me emphasize that I do not think that someone who believes, or accepts, that they ought, morally, to do something will necessarily do it. But, as indicated, I think that one way of possibly persuading people to act in a certain way, and often the best way, is to show them that there is reason to believe, or accept, that they ought, morally, so to act. And importantly, contra Narveson, I do not believe for a 90

Narveson, ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ p. 313. Narveson, ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ p. 313. 92 This is not to deny that one’s feelings or interests might be relevant to the reasons one has for doing something. Similarly, I am not advocating an outmoded Aristotelian view that sees a sharp distinction between appetites, passions, desires, or interests on the one hand, and reason on the other. These need not be mutually exclusive categories. However, I deny that all reasons must ultimately be grounded in appetites, passions, desires, or interests. 91

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second that doing this must ultimately reduce to making them an offer that it would be in their interest to accept. Unfortunately, the category of ‘‘moral reasons’’ to act is eviscerated on Narveson’s metaethical conception; reduced to, or replaced by, the Glauconian skeptical category of ‘‘self-interested reasons’’ to act.93 I reject such a conception, though I understand its appeal, and the difficulty of defending the view that I favor. Let me conclude this section with some comments about intuitions. Narveson castigates the role that intuition plays in my article. He claims that The first point to make about it [the appeal to intuition] is obvious enough. If one appeals to intuition, one is … left with nothing to say in support of one’s view, as against those who differ. It is in the nature of an intuition that it is not amenable to support by reasons acceptable to the other party – otherwise it wouldn’t be an intuition at all.94

He further implies that it is a virtue of his view that it does not rely on intuitions in the way mine does.95 I accept that appeal to intuition plays a large role in my arguments. But I deny that that is a drawback of my position. I also deny that ‘‘it is in the nature of an intuition that it is not amenable to support by reasons acceptable to the other party.’’ I believe that intuitions can be well-founded or not, and that those that are reflect reasons for holding the intuition. I grant, of course, that it is not always obvious at the onset of a discussion which intuitions are wellfounded. But with careful deliberation one can often tease out the basis of an intuition, and presumably those that are supported by reasons will be acceptable to other rational parties. Furthermore, I follow the Sidgwickian methodology, shared by many, that an important first step in moral philosophy is to seek a coherent, systematic, non-ad-hoc method for accommodating, explaining, guiding, and, where necessary, correcting, our moral

93

Though, as Narveson is keen to point out, he does not make the mistake of understanding self-interest in narrow selfish terms. On his view, which is surely right, it can be in my interest, because it is an interest of mine, to make sacrifices for the sake of my children, or any ‘‘other-regarding goal’’ that I happen to care about. 94 Narveson, ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ pp. 317–318. 95 Narveson, ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ pp. 317–319.

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intuitions.96 Intuitions are, to a large extent, the ‘‘data points’’ with which moral theory deals, and while moral theory does not end with appeals to intuition, to a large extent it begins with them. Thus, on my view, it is difficult to proceed very far in moral philosophy without appeal to intuitions. Indeed, Narveson does not avoid appeal to intuitions. Nor can he. The plain fact is that Narveson appeals to intuitions throughout his article, as, for example, when he suggests that: the obvious direction morality should take us is ‘‘up;’’ that the ‘‘Pareto idea is profound. Its appeal is that no one loses’’;97 that equality should be rejected in part because it would have adverse consequences for the poor; that no one should be ‘‘compelled’’ to give up substantial portions of their wealth if they do not choose to; that a world where some people are needy but others can afford Jaguars and trips to Tahiti is a more appealing picture than a world where everyone’s basic needs have been met, but only by turning the world ‘‘into a uniform landscape of plain gray houses full of people living on beans and rice’’;98 and so on. Narveson is deluding himself if he thinks that he has offered us an ‘‘intuition free’’ article. The difference between his article and mine on this issue is simply that my article is clearer, and more upfront, about when and how intuitions are invoked. One suspects that Narveson’s gripe about intuitions reflects his awareness that, on the whole, most people find his views intuitively unappealing – and he does not want to acknowledge that this counts against his position. But I think it does. I grant that the intuitive unattractiveness of Narveson’s views does not settle the question of whether he is right. Still, I think it is a relevant and important piece of data that must be taken into account, and plausibly explained away, before it would be reasonable to give much weight to his position. Finally, I again quote Nagel, who once wrote that I believe one should trust problems over solutions, intuition over arguments, and pluralistic discord over systematic harmony… .Given a knockdown argument for an intuitively unacceptable conclusion, one should assume there is probably something wrong with the argument that one cannot detect – though it is also 96

Henry Sidgwick’s methodology is wonderfully detailed, and exemplified, in Sidgwick, Method of Ethics, 7th edition (London: Macmillan, 1907). Contemporary followers of Sidgwick’s method include, among others, Derek Parfit, John Rawls, Frances Kamm, Shelly Kagan, Thomas Hurka, and Jeff McMahan. 97 Narveson, ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ p. 324. 98 Narveson, ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ p. 344.

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possible that the source of the intuition has been misidentified. If arguments or systematic theoretical considerations lead to results that seem intuitively not to make sense … then something is wrong with the argument and more work needs to be done.99

As should be clear, I basically side with Nagel, and against Narveson, regarding the role and importance of intuitions in philosophy.

8. A FEW POINTS

OF

CLARIFICATION

At some points, Narveson’s discussion of my views is misleading. Let me ‘‘set the record straight’’ regarding a few of these. First, in responding to me, Narveson writes that ‘‘Very few of us in fact devote substantial portions of their incomes to the relief of adversity in distant lands,’’100 and later he notes that on my view ‘‘we should have the sense of ‘serious moral failing’ if we do not devote a substantial amount to this cause.’’101 But, strictly speaking, I made no claims about how much income or wealth we should devote to the needy. What I claimed is that ‘‘we are open to serious moral criticism when we basically ignore – as most of us do – the tragic plight of innocent people suffering from easily preventable causes,’’102 given that ‘‘each of us could do vastly more than we do to help the needy, without making a dent in our affluent lifestyle.’’103 Thus, I decidedly did not argue that the well-off must make substantial sacrifices in terms of the quality of their lives on behalf of the needy. Nor did I argue that they must forsake their projects and commitments or their agent-relative duties. Indeed, I did not even argue that the well-off must make significant sacrifices in terms of the quality of their lives or what matters to them most. Perhaps they should, but all I argued for was the much weaker – and therefore stronger! – conclusion that the well-off are open to serious moral criticism when they can significantly aid the needy at insignificant cost to themselves, but instead choose to ignore their plight. Thus, Narveson’s contention that I would require the well-off to devote ‘‘substantial portions of their 99

Nagel, Mortal Questions, p. 8. Narveson, ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ p. 317. 101 Narveson, ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ p. 319. 102 Temkin, ‘‘TN,’’ p. 365. 103 Temkin, ‘‘TN,’’ p. 365. 100

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incomes’’ or ‘‘a substantial amount’’ to aiding the needy obscures how incredibly undemanding my conclusion is. Perhaps, on my view, someone like Bill Gates would be open to serious moral criticism if he failed to devote billions of dollars to aiding the needy. But while billions is clearly a substantial amount of wealth in most contexts, it would not be substantial to Gates, if he could devote that to the needy without making a dent in his affluent lifestyle, or without significantly impacting his agent-relative duties or his projects and commitments. Similarly, someone like me might be required to devote thousands of dollars to aiding the needy. But while this might sound like a ‘‘substantial amount’’ in some contexts, it will not be substantial to me if I could part with it without any significant impact on the quality of my life, the things I most care about, or the fulfillment of my agent-relative duties. I conclude that Narveson’s focus on how much income or wealth a well-off person might have to devote to the needy is a red herring. It is, at best, deeply misleading regarding when, on my view, someone would be open to serious moral criticism for failing to aid the needy. Second, Narveson claims that ‘‘the question before us… [is] should we or should we not accept as a moral requirement that we who ‘have much’ should feel that we owe a sizeable fraction of this to the cause of improving the lot of those with ‘little’?’’104 Elsewhere, he writes that there are ways to do things for the world’s poor, but these ways, which are enormously more efficacious and fundamental than the sort of handouts that most people appear to think of as the ‘‘solution’’ to this ‘‘problem’’ do not require the moral status that Temkin appears to attribute to them. I think it is quite clear, indeed, that generally speaking we do not owe the world’s poor, as a class, anything special.105

These passages are also misleading, at least if I am one of their targets. First, as just seen, I make no claim that we have to give a ‘‘sizeable fraction’’ of what we have to the needy. Second, as discussed in Section 3, neither I, nor anyone else, favors mere ‘‘handouts’’ as the solution to the problem of the world’s needy. Nor do I think it would be desirable, much less obligatory, to pursue one strategy for aiding the poor if another were available that would be ‘‘enormously more efficacious and fundamental.’’ Third, and most importantly, I do not claim that we owe the world’s poor aid, at least if that implies that they have a right to such aid. My judgment that we 104 105

Narveson, ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ p. 319. Narveson, ‘‘WP,’’ pp. 397–398.

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are open to serious moral criticism if we fail to aid the needy rests on a multitude of moral considerations, but none of them involve, or imply, that the needy are owed our assistance. Indeed, I explicitly argued against that position. So, for example, on my view there can be reason to promote the best outcome, without it being the case that anyone is owed promotion of the best outcome. Similarly, there can be reason to act virtuously, without owing it to anyone that we act virtuously. And likewise, as I show in my article, one can have a duty to aid someone, without it being true that one owes that person aid. Thus, contra Narveson, the crucial question is whether we ought, morally, to aid the needy, not whether we owe the needy our aid. As my article shows, the first question’s answer may be ‘‘yes,’’ even when the second question’s answer is ‘‘no.’’ Next, Narveson suggests that in addition to an extended Rawlsian conception of justice, I propose ‘‘several ‘significant rivals to the view that there is an injustice when, and only when, someone’s rights have been violated.’ He [Temkin] lists these as follows: 1) Proportional justice… 2) Absolute justice or desert… 3) A second version of proportional justice which is comparative… [and] 4) An egalitarian view….’’106 Though there is little harm in Narveson’s presentation, here, I would like to clarify that I do not regard the foregoing as four distinct conceptions of justice. To the contrary, I claim that absolute and comparative justice are alternative versions of proportional justice, and that egalitarianism is, in fact, best interpreted as a special case of comparative justice. Thus, besides an extended Rawlsian conception, I only focus on two alternative conceptions of justice, absolute and comparative. Lastly, Narveson contends that ‘‘The Temkin analysis invites us to look at the ‘‘needy’’ not as people, really, but as passive organisms which can only be improved by the guilt-driven ministrations of others.’’107 I vehemently deny this. There is no basis for attributing such a position to me. Nothing I write denies, explicitly or implicitly, that the needy are people, or that they may be actively engaged with the world. Nor do I contend, necessarily, that their lot can only be improved by the ministrations of the well-off, much less that such ministrations must be guilt-driven to be efficacious. It may be morally imperative that I help someone, even if they could manage without

106 107

Narveson, ‘‘WP,’’ p. 399. Narveson, ‘‘WP,’’ p. 408.

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my help; but if so, what is important is that I help, not that my help be guilt-driven. What is true is that I believe that there are tens of millions, including many innocent children, who are victims of natural disasters, crippling poverty, despotic regimes, or infectious diseases who we could easily help, without making a dent in our affluent lifestyle, and who will, as a matter of fact, almost certainly die without our help. What is also true, I suppose, is that there are some people who will not help out in such situations unless they are ‘‘guilt-driven.’’ So, there will likely be some cases where the administration of needed aid may effectively treat the recipients as ‘‘passive organisms’’ and, in fact, be guilt-driven. But neither this fact, which I accept, nor anything else in my analysis does anything to support the general outlook Narveson ascribes to my analysis regarding the needy.

9. CONCLUSION This has been a long article. Let me summarize some of its main claims. In Section 2, I argued that in many respects Narveson’s work and mine talk past each other. I noted that his anti-egalitarian remarks are irrelevant to the main arguments for aiding the needy propounded by Singer, Unger, and myself, none of which appeal to equality. I also noted that Narveson’s focus on poverty differs from our focus on need; hence many of his claims regarding the former have little bearing on our claims regarding the latter. In fact, I pointed out some passages where Narveson’s claims support our view regarding the urgency and importance of aiding the needy. In addition, I pointed out that Narveson subscribes to a much narrower conception of ‘‘morality’’ than I. On his view, ‘‘binding’’ people is what morality is about, and the ‘‘moral’’ corresponds to what governments may legitimately compel their citizens to do. I offered various arguments for rejecting his narrow conception. In addition, I noted that many of Narveson’s remarks actually support my substantive views about aiding the needy given a broader, more plausible, conception of morality. In Section 3, I suggested that many of Narveson’s claims concern the best means of aiding the needy, rather than the desirability of the end of doing so. I pointed out that aid advocates can fully accept Narveson’s claims about the importance of freedom, good

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governments, free trade, and so on. None of those claims undermine my fundamental point that we ought, morally, to help the needy if we effectively can at insignificant cost to ourselves. At most, Narveson’s claims are relevant to such questions as whether we can, in fact, effectively aid the needy at insignificant cost to ourselves, what the most effective means of aid might be, and whether the most efficient and rational means of aiding the needy might require more of us than an ‘‘insignificant’’ cost. In Section 4, I argued that most of Narveson’s claims regarding justice were irrelevant, misleading, or mistaken. I defended my appeal to an extended Rawlsian conception of justice since many people are, indeed, attracted to such a conception. I noted that this was sufficient for my main purpose, which was to illuminate the conceptual possibility of one’s having agent-neutral reasons of justice for aiding the needy even if one did not have agent-relative reasons of justice – and hence could not be accused of acting unjustly – if one failed to do so. More importantly, I rejected Narveson’s contention that there are no relevant senses in which the world’s needy do not deserve their lot. I argued that it is both important and relevant that most of the world’s needy do not deserve to suffer in the way they would if they were evil criminals, or rational people whose deliberate choices made them fully responsible for their plight. Correspondingly, I argued against Narveson’s assertions that notions of absolute or comparative justice simply ‘‘are not in question,’’ or ‘‘get us absolutely nowhere,’’ concerning the needy. It is important that the typical needy child does not deserve her plight and is no less deserving than the typical well-off child. If that were not true, we might rightly feel much less sympathy for her plight, or see much less overall reason to give priority to aiding her over competing moral aims. In any event, I denied Narveson’s contention that my argument for aiding the needy ‘‘pivots quite entirely’’ on my views about justice. My central arguments for aiding the needy focused on consequentialist, virtue-based, and deontological reasons that had nothing to do with justice. Still, it was important to point out that significant, widely held, conceptions of justice would provide agent-neutral reasons of justice for aiding the needy even if one granted that there is an agent-relative conception of justice – relied on by Narveson and Nozick – according to which people would not be acting unjustly if they failed to help. In Section 5, I responded to many of Narveson’s comments about egalitarianism. I pointed out that Narveson mischaracterizes philosophical egalitarians as caring about inequality of wealth, when all

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would agree that egalitarian justice will sometimes require inequality of wealth. More importantly, I noted that Narveson fails to recognize responsibility’s role in contemporary egalitarianism, so that he is mistaken when he charges that ‘‘egalitarianism … is generally insensitive to past wrongs.’’ I also contended, against Narveson, that egalitarians do not have to understand equality in terms of the rights of the less well off, and that it is certainly not central to their view that the worse off have a right to be supplied with some good ‘‘at the expense of all who have more of this good.’’ I also suggested that it is unhelpful to charge egalitarians with trying to impose their ‘‘personal taste’’ on others. Egalitarians, like others, make claims about what there are reasons to believe. These claims cannot simply be dismissed as matters of taste; they must be thoughtfully assessed. In addition, I argued against Narveson’s charge that egalitarianism rejects impartiality. I accepted Narveson’s suggestion that pursuit of equality might actually harm the poor, having argued for such a position myself. But I noted that this does not show either that equality does not matter, or that we need not help the poor. After all, as I have pointed out many times, every moral ideal can have terrible implications when considered by itself. This does not show that every moral ideal must be rejected; only that morality is complex, and requires a pluralistic approach. In Section 6, I argued against Narveson’s claim that the natural direction of morality is ‘‘up,’’ in support of his doctrine of mutual advantage and its implication that the well-off need not benefit the needy if doing so is not to their advantage. I argued that morality need not always benefit everyone; noting, for example, that particularly powerful and ruthless people might actually ‘‘suffer’’ from participation in a moral society. More importantly, I suggested that Narveson needs an independent justification for the well-off being as well off as they are, before the doctrine of mutual advantage would support his view that the well-off need not aid the needy. If people’s initial starting points are morally dubious, as many believe is true of our society, there is no reason to believe that morality can only approve exchanges that work to the benefit of all, including those whose well-off starting points are not morally defensible. Next, I examined Narveson’s charge that egalitarians are irrational, and its underlying assumption that the pareto principle is a rational requirement. I acknowledged that many egalitarians, qua egalitarians, would reject the pareto principle, but pointed out that they are hardly alone, and that, on reflection, this is hardly evidence of irrationality. Many of the

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ideals people most cherish – including, perhaps, those associated with retributive justice, absolute justice, comparative justice, freedom, autonomy, rights, duty, perfection, virtue, love, friendship, beauty, or truth – are best understood as impersonal ideals; that is, ideals whose value consists in more than just the extent to which their realization benefits people. Yet, any impersonal ideal may, if considered just by itself, generate a ranking of outcomes in conflict with that yielded by the pareto principle. This does not show that it is irrational to accept such an ideal as one component of morality. Finally, I offered several considerations, both theoretical and concrete, for rejecting the pareto principle. But even if I am wrong about this, it is neither helpful nor plausible to insist on the pareto principle as a condition of rationality. One can be mistaken about the nature of moral ideals, and the way they determine the goodness of outcomes, without necessarily being irrational. In Section 7, I distinguished four meta-ethical elements underlying Narveson’s reasoning: (1) that morality is a guide to practical action, (2) that morality applies to, and is applied by, everyone, (3) internalism, and (4) moral rules as social agreements or conventions. I noted that this combination of meta-ethical elements is controversial, and hence that I am not moved to accept his substantive normative conclusions regarding the needy, just because they purportedly follow from his meta-ethical views. In addition, I showed that his metaethical elements are internally inconsistent; in particular, that the second element is incompatible with the third and fourth. I also suggested that the third and fourth elements conflict with his substantive normative views. Specifically, on an internalist social agreement view, it is empirically implausible that everyone will have reason to accept the premises that underlie libertarianism. Indeed, utilitarians, perfectionists, the ruthless and powerful, and many others would reject his substantive normative view, and they could not be ‘‘morally compelled’’ to do otherwise given Narveson’s meta-ethical position. More generally, though Narveson claims to dismiss skepticism ‘‘out of hand,’’ I argued that his third and fourth meta-ethical elements support a deep form of moral skepticism. Next, I argued that the first element of Narveson’s meta-ethical conception is dubious, insofar as it portrays ethics as practical rather than theoretical. I see moral philosophy as seeking understanding about what we should believe about morality. This is important, as I believe that there can be reasons to hold moral beliefs, just as their can be reasons to hold beliefs about math, logic, or physics, that do not depend on people’s

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premoral interests or values. Narveson denies this. Correspondingly, while I think that we can try to persuade people to act by providing them with reasons to believe certain normative facts about how they should act morally, Narveson believes that we can persuade people to act only by making them an offer that it is in their interest to accept. I suggested that in this regard Narveson follows in the tradition of Glaucon, effectively ‘‘deflating’’ the category of the ‘‘moral’’ to the category of ‘‘self-interest.’’ I concluded Section 7 by acknowledging the role that intuitions play in my article, suggesting that they play a greater role in Narveson’s article than he recognizes, and urging that they have a central role to play in moral theory. In Section 8, I clarified a few points where Narveson’s discussion of my views is misleading. I noted that my article does not argue that the well-off must make ‘‘substantial’’ sacrifices for the needy; that I do not claim that the needy are owed our assistance; that besides an extended Rawlsian conception, I only focus on two alternative conceptions of justice, absolute and comparative; and that it is not the case that my analysis ‘‘invites us to look at the ‘needy’ not as people, really, but as passive organisms which can only be improved by the guilt-driven ministrations of others.’’108 This concludes the summary of my main claims. Let me end with a few final reflections. At one point, Narveson contends that ‘‘With regard to … [natural disasters], we should all be ready to help if we can – and most of us do, I should note.’’109 I see no empirical basis for his claim that ‘‘most of us do.’’ Perhaps he simply means that most people who are well-off have, at least once in their life, contributed something, say a dollar, to disaster relief. If so, he might be right, but I am not even sure about that. In any event, I am pretty confident that most who are well-off do not do nearly what they ought to do on behalf of the needy. I believe my article’s arguments provide strong reasons to hold such a view, and for the reasons indicated here, nothing Narveson has written has shaken my conviction in the strength of those arguments. Still, picking up on a point noted in Section 7, I would like to stress that my article is philosophical, not psychological. Its aim is to determine how people should act regarding the needy, not, as Narveson seems to think, to ‘‘drive’’ the well-off to help the needy by

108 109

Narveson, ‘‘WP,’’ p. 399. Narveson’ ‘‘Welfare and Wealth,’’ p. 343.

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making them feel ‘‘guilty’’ about not doing so.110 This does not mean that I do not care whether the well-off actually help the needy. Of course I do. But my work is theoretical, even though it is obviously addressing a topic of great practical concern. If the result of my work is that some people are driven by guilt to do what they ought to do, I would not mind. But I am not aiming for that. Nor am I counting on it. In my experience, most people are remarkably capable of finding ways of not feeling guilty about matters, even when it is patently clear that they should. Moreover, most people seem perfectly capable of feeling guilty about something, without being moved to actually act so as to remove their guilt. In any event, I do not believe that in the moral realm people are generally moved by guilt. Nor should they be. People should be moved by appropriate moral reasons. If my article is successful, it helps illuminate moral reasons for the well-off to aid the needy. Perhaps some will not only recognize those reasons, but be appropriately moved by them to do what they ought to do. Department of Philosophy Rutgers University New Brunswick, NJ 08901-2882 USA E-mail: [email protected]

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Narveson, ‘‘WP,’’ p. 408.