Some Problems in Ethics || Egoism as an Ethical System

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Egoism as an Ethical SystemAuthor(s): Warren QuinnSource: The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 71, No. 14, Some Problems in Ethics (Aug. 15, 1974),pp. 456-472Published by: Journal of Philosophy, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2024823 .

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456 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

zation. And one may suppose that, if egoistic behavior is ever rational, it must be shown to be rational by derivation from some more general characterization of practical rationality, which can be applied to all situations. This characterization is, one might argue, still to be found in utility maximization, but in utility maximization understood as a general policy rather than as a particular manner of acting applicable to each situation.5

Be this as it may, it is appropriate to conclude with the rather surprising insight into the character of egoism which is provided by the proof. Egoists require that the situations in which they act possess outcomes that are fully stable, not just in the weak sense of requiring that no single person can do better for himself given the actions of the others, but in the strong sense that no group can do better for all its members given the actions of the others. Not all situations possess outcomes or even expected outcomes with this full stability. Thus egoism fails because it postulates an ideal that need not be actual. Egoists-of all people-require too much of the world.

DAVID GAUTHIER

University of Toronto

EGOISM AS AN ETHICAL SYSTEM * T HE debate over ethical egoism usually comes down to one or both of two questions: A. Can any nonegoistic normative theory qualify as rational? B. Can any egoistic normative theory qualify as moral?

The ethical egoist, in contrast to the altruist, generally answers no to question A. He does so because he thinks that rationality consists wholly in maximizing one's own welfare. The ethical altruist, on the other hand, typically regards such conceptions of rationality as simplistic, holding instead that an appeal to practical consistency or to the truth that others are no less real than oneself provides an important role within rationality for other-regarding constraints. But here the issue is likely to bog down; for it is simply very difficult and perhaps impossible for either side to sell its conception of rationality to the other.

This inconclusiveness tends to shift attention to B, a possibly 5 Cf. "Reason and Maximization," secs. vi-vII, where I show in effect that

egoistic behavior, when possible, is rational for independently acting persons, but not for interdependently acting persons.

* I am particularly indebted to Tyler Burge and Rogers Albritton for their comments on various versions of this paper.



EGOISM AS AN ETHICAL SYSTEM 457

more tractable problem and the subject of the present discussion. The importance of B lies not only in its intrinsic interest, but also in the fact that an egoism that qualifies as moral is an impressive asset in the debate over A. In short, if morality need not make provision for altruism, why, the egoist will ask, should rationality be required to do so? Of course, debate over B is also difficult to arbitrate. The ethical egoist is attacking the common man's vague but clearly altruistic conception of morality and urging its whole- sale revision. This raises the question of how much and what sort of change ordinary morality can accommodate before losing its character as moral. It seems clear that not every distinctive feature of it can be abandoned, for otherwise any theory (e.g., classical mechanics) could count as moral. But, on pain of precluding moral progress, it is just as clear that not every feature should be frozen.

As a fair compromise between unregenerate conservatism and unrecognizable revisionism, I therefore suggest the following two ground rules: (1) Since egoism's claim to moral status must rest on its alleged use of the moral 'ought', the ethical egoist should be required to retain any ethical concept that is necessary, directly or indirectly, to the conception of an 'ought' as moral. That is, he can be permitted to tamper with the moral conceptual scheme only to the point at which it no longer affords him the means to justify his use of 'ought' as moral. (2) Furthermore, the ethical egoist should be required to retain any ethical or meta-ethical principle (constructable out of these essential concepts) which can plausibly be defended by abstract considerations not presupposing a prior acceptance of the particular material norms at issue. Be- yond this, the egoist is free to adopt or reject whatever principles he chooses.

Given these ground rules, my procedure will be as follows: In section I, I consider several arguments against the most plausible form of ethical egoism, and in section II set up some meta-ethical machinery to aid in the construction of a deeper attack. This attack (sections III-v) consists in (a) an attempt to prove that evaluative systems containing a certain notion of goodness must also contain the general directive that good be promoted, (b) an argument that, in any such system, it must be regarded as a good thing that a person do what he or she ought, and (c) an attempt to show that morality is a system that contains the relevant notion of goodness. These three premises, I argue, are jointly inconsistent with the type of egoism under consideration. Finally, I argue in section vI that the relevant concept of goodness is presupposed by the




moral use of 'ought' and, therefore, that the egoist cannot escape the force of the argument by dropping the concept from his theory.

I Ethical egoism has crystallized into two alternative versions sometimes called personal egoism and universal egoism, respectively. The personal egoist adopts something like the following supreme principle:

Ep. Morally speaking, I ought always to act so as to maximize my self- interest; and any practical choice that does not affect my self-interest is morally indifferent (i.e., a choice I neither ought nor ought not to make).

The main objection to Ep is that it lacks universality-a feature held essential to any moral principle. This objection, which I take to be successful, forces the egoist to the more sophisticated position of universal egoism (hereafter to be called "egoism" for short)-the view that

Eu. Morally speaking, everyone ought always to act so as to maximize his or her self-interest; and any practical choice that does not affect one's self-interest is morally indifferent.

Eu has also come in for considerable criticism. Perhaps the most popular line of attack against it focuses on the egoist's attitudes.' In order to hold Eu, it is argued, one must desire or otherwise approve those actions which other persons ought in accordance with Eu to perform. And so, the egoist will be at least partly guided (in contradiction to the explicit direction of E11) by nonegoistic motives. The trouble with such arguments, however, is that they beg the central and as yet unresolved meta-ethical issue of internalism-the question whether and-in what way moral judgments essentially involve motivation.

A second type of objection to Eu-one which does not presuppose internalism (and which foreshadows the sort of consideration to be elaborated in sections III-v)-appeals to such interpersonal ''ought'' principles as: (1) Morally speaking, one ought not to cause another person to do

what he ought not to do. (2) Morally speaking, if a person ought to perform a given action, then

anQther person ought not forcibly to prevent him from so doing.2 1 See, e.g., Brian Medlin, "Ultimate Principles and Ethical Egoism," Aus-

tralasian Journal of Philosophy, xxxv, 2 (August 1957): 111-118. 2 Both Kurt Baier's [The Moral Point of View (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell, 1958),

189-190] and William Baumer's ["Indefensible Impersonal Egoism," in Paul W. Taylor, Problems of Moral Philosophy (Encino, Calif.: Dickerson, 1972),




(3) Morally speaking, if a person A ought to perform a given action, then any other person B who is able, ought to help bring it about that A does so.3

Each of these principles conflicts with Eu in the sense that circumstances may (and no doubt do) arise in which these principles and Eu imply incompatible courses of action. The world, unfortunately, is a place in which we may sometimes secure our advantage only by (a) influencing others to violate, (b) preventing others from at- taining, or (c) at least not helping others to follow their advantage.

The weakness in these anti-egoist maneuvers, however, lies in the uncertainty that such principles are true, even in ordinary moral thought. One imaginary case indicates the doubt for all three: The prisoners of an infamous concentration camp are plan- ning an escape for midnight-an escape which requires that the commandant not have returned by then from his nearby villa where he is caring for his sick wife. The commandant's aide-de- camp, a secret member of the underground, has been assigned the task of delaying his chief's return. But brute force will not enable him to do this, for the commandant is too well guarded. Suddenly the aide sees his chance. The commandant is to give his wife her desperately needed injection at ten P.M. and then return to the camp. But if, for some reason, the medicine is not administered sharply at ten, the wife will lapse into coma, a doctor's services will be required, and the commandant's return will be delayed until after midnight. Accordingly, the aide either (a) engages the general in flattering conversation which distracts him from fulfilling his nursely duty as scheduled, or (b) smashes (ostensibly by accident) the only syringe available for the injection.

The relevant features of the case are these. First, it seems reasonable to hold that the commandant ought, morally speaking, to administer the injection at ten and ought not, morally speaking, to fail to administer it. The good that will be brought about should he fail is a good that he is perfectly able to bring about independently of harming his wife. Failing to give the medicine is, therefore, not a means by which he may bring about the good. Second, it seems that enough is at stake to morally justify and even require the aide to take whichever of the two options he can.

131-134] criticisms of egoism make implicit or explicit use of something like (2) and suggest the application of (1). (3) is added as a natural extension of this line of thought.

S I will say that someone's act of sing "helps to bring about some state of affairs p" when X's ging is a necessary condition in an otherwise satisfiec1 set of sufficient conditions for p.




But, in taking the first, he will be causing the commandant to do what he ought not, in taking the second he will be forcibly preventing the commandant from doing what he ought, and in taking either he will be failing to help him do what he ought.

Despite the doubtfulness of (1), (2), and (3) in their present form, there is something in them which seems right-headed-something which is better captured, I think, in the following modifications:

(1') That a person morally ought not to do something is a moral consideration against causing him to do it.4

(2') That a person ought, morally speaking, to perform a given action is a moral consideration against preventing him from doing it.5

(3') That a person A ought, morally speaking, to perform a given action is a moral consideration in favor of any other person B who is able, helping to bring it about that A does so.

These modified principles merely assert that the fact that another person ought or ought not to do something is to be given at least some tiny weight in moral decision making. But although the modified claims are much weaker than the originals, they are nevertheless something that egoism must deny.

This is because moral considerations in favor of or against an action have force in determining moral "ought"s. Whenever there is a moral consideration in favor of one's ping (where 'q' is a description that does not itself override the positive consideration) there may be some circumstances in which, because of this consideration, one ought to (. For example, suppose there is a moral consideration in favor of my giving all my money to charity. Or- dinarily we would suppose that such a consideration is too weak to override the moral objections (e.g., that I thereby deprive my family of support) and personal costs (e.g., that I thereby deprive myself of comforts and conveniences) which the deed would incur. But in the very unlikely but possible circumstances that there is no other moral consideration relevant to my keeping or not keeping my money (no one besides the charity needs or wants it) and no real cost to the act (I am about to die and have no one

4The notion of a moral consideration in favor of or against an action may be understood in terms of the "prima facie" operator. So understood, p is a moral consideration in favor of X's sing iff p entails that, morally speaking, X ought prima facie to 0. I avoid the "prima facie" locution both because it brings with it certain unwanted historical implications and because it is awkward.

5 In weakening (2), it seems possible to drop 'forcibly'. This is because there would seem to be at least a prima facie consideration against any pre- vention of right action.



EGOISM AS AN ETHICAL SYSTEM 46I

to whom I wish to leave it) then, because the act would lose not only every bad aspect but also its typical character as supereroga- tory, the moral consideration in favor would become decisive. And if there is a decisive moral consideration in favor of the act, it would seem to follow that morally speaking I ought to do it.8

Egoism may thus be given an alternative expression: The theory containing Eu on the one hand and the trivially inverse rule that one ought not fail to maximize self-interest on the other is strictly equivalent to a theory consisting of three parts: first, the following variant of Eu:

Eu'. That an action maximizes one's self-interest is a moral consideration in favor of doing it.

second, the trivially inverse rule that an action's failing to maximize self-interest is a moral consideration against it, and third, the stipulation that nothing else whatsoever is to count as a moral consideration for or against any action. The equivalence between the two theories derives from the fact that in the latter neither cost (which is itself reckoned in terms of self-interest) nor any other moral consideration apart from self-interest (for there is none) can compete with the force of Eu'. Therefore, that force determines each an-d every moral 'ought'.

This transformation shows that egoism may be refuted in two ways: either by finding an "ought" rule that may conflict with Eu or by finding a "moral consideration" rule that may conflict with Eu'. Suppose, for example, that (3') were true. Then the best the egoist could do would be to abandon Eu in favor of a modified egoism consisting of Eu', (3'), and a higher-order rule stating that one always ought to follow Eu' rather than (3') when the two rules conflict. Although such a theory would not show that one ever need sacrifice one's welfare on moral grounds, it would violate the final condition of E,. For from the fact that (3') might be consistently subordinated to Eu' it does not follow that (3') could be ignored. If, for example, one found oneself able to throw a life preserver to a drowning stranger with neither cost nor advantage to oneself, the choice-given pure egoism-would be morally indifferent. But, since enabling the drowning man to save himself is recommended by (3') and not countermanded either

6 But not necessarily that I have an obligation to do it. The force of 'obligated' is more specialized and therefore stronger than that of 'ought'. For example, one may say, "Morally speaking, you have no obligation to help Jones, but I certainly think you ought to help him." The arguments in this paper concern 'ought' rather than 'obliged'.




by Eu' or by any nonmoral appeal to costs, it is something which, according to the modified theory, ought to be done even if one gains nothing by it. Thus, the modified egoist must see himself as potentially bound by "moral oughts" not grounded in appeals to the maximization of his self-interest. And it is therefore apparent that the acceptance of (3') introduces an element totally foreign to the egoist spirit.

II

It is one thing to claim that a principle such as (3') accurately reflects an aspect of ordinary moral intuition, but quite another to defend it by considerations removed from the material norms at issue. In the following three sections I shall try to provide just such a defense by arguing for certain formal principles connecting values and norms. These principles, however, can best be de- scribed and defended with the help of some definitions and ex- planations which it may be well to present first:

Judgments of the form "X ought (or ought not) to p" or, "There is a consideration in favor of (or against) X's ping" will be called d,irectives. (Note that all directives used here are to be understood objectively--as resting on what is or would be the actual rather than the probable or supposed properties and consequences of actions.) Value judgments predicating 'good', 'bad', 'neutral', 'better than', 'worse than', or 'equal in value to' of states of affairs (e.g., that it is good that Jones keep his promise) will be called approbatives.7 And, when used in this intensional manner, these predicates and the more complex value terms in which they may be embedded (e.g. 'good from the moral point of view', 'bad for X', etc.) will be called approbative terms and the concepts they express, approbative concepts. The state of affairs of which an approbative term is predicated (e.g., 'good that you came', 'bad for Jones that he took that plane', etc.) will be called the object of the approbative.

Approbatives appear to come in three basically different varieties:

(a) It is good (bad, etc.) that p. (b) It is good (bad, etc.) for X that p. (c) It is good (bad, etc.) of X that X , (or, more colloquially, that it is

good (bad, etc.) of X to 0). 7For present purposes, X's action of sing will be treated as the state of

affairs in which X Os, i.e., as an intensional object whose natural expression is propositional. Moreover, the 'that' in 'good that p', 'bad that p', etc. should not be understood (as it might normally) to imply that p is true. 'Good that p' is used here in the sense of 'good if p'-without, however, the latter's usual implication that the truth if p is unknown.




Judgments, value terms, and concepts of type (a), which I will call impersonal, involve nonrelational evaluations of their object states. Apparent instances include the judgment that it is morally good that Jones keep his promise and that it is morally bad to act unjustly (i.e., that, for any X, it is bad from the moral point of view that X act unjustly).8 Judgments of type (b), and their related concepts and terms, will be called personal. Such judgments (e.g., that rain is good for Farmer Jed) express a relation between their object state (e.g., that it rain) and an individual (the farmer) who benefits or is harmed by the state. Sometimes the state of affairs in question itself contains reference to the benefited or harmed individual (e.g., that it is good for Jones to take his medicine-or, in other words, that it is good for Jones that Jones take his medicine), but such duplication is not essential to personal judgments. Judg- ments of type c, and their related terms and concepts, will be called quasi-personal. Such judgments express a relation between an individual X and an object consisting of an open state of affairs in which X performs some action. Quasi-personal approbatives express the idea that the action in question reflects favorably or unfavorably on X.

Distinct evaluative fields (such as morality, aesthetics, prudence, etiquette, etc.) which involve directives and approbatives of one or more of these types will be called value systems; and any such system that contains impersonal approbatives-whether or not it contains other types as well-will be called impersonal. The importance of any evaluative system S, whether impersonal or not, lies in its connections with attitudes as well as judgments.9 Thus, we speak of X's taking the S point of view (e.g., Jane's taking the aesthetic point of view) to refer to X's having S-appropriate pro or con attitudes toward states X judges S-good or S-bad. Such attitudes are motivational-a pro attitude involving at least some desire to see the state realized and a con attitude some desire to see it not realized. It is important to note, however, that taking the S point of view does not require one to have such a pro or

8I take sentences of the form 'it is good of one to 0' to be equivalent to universal sentences of the form '(X) it is good of X to sz,' but with the restriction that only evaluatively neutral designators are to be used in in- stantiations. Thus, 'it is good that one act justly' implies 'it is good that Jones act justly', but not 'it is good that the man who acts justly and thereby de- stroys the world act justly', even if the man in question is Jones. 'It is good that X 0' thus appears to create a semi-intensional context for X and a purely intensional context for every other part of the evaluated state.

9S' will be adopted as an all-purpose variable ranging over value systems in general.




con attitude toward every state one judges to be S-good or S-bad. For example, in taking the prudential point of view, Jane need not desire the states she sincerely judges prudentially good for Bill. As a useful piece of terminology, therefore, let us say that a positive (or negative) S-approbative motivationally binds X just in case X's accepting it as true and taking the S point of view entails that X has a pro (or con) attitude toward the object of the approbative.

III It is undeniable that the approbatives and directives of a given system exert a mutual influence. In this section, I will explore some of the conditions under which approbatives imply directives, and in the next section some implications in the reverse direction. Perhaps the most general and noncontroversial connection of the former sort is captured in the following principle:

P1. If (a) X can q. (b) X's oing helps bring it about that p, and (c) p is the object of a true, positive S-approbative that motivation-

ally binds X, then, from the S point of view there is a consideration in favor of X's oing.

The rationale for P1 is this: If its three antecedent conditions are satisfied and if X believes they are satisfied and takes the S point of view, X automatically has a reason to p. This is because, under these circumstances, X has both some desire to see p realized and some recognition that its realization can be brought about by (ing. But, if taking the S point of view under such conditions would give X reason to c, then there must be an S-consideration in favor of X's (ping which holds whether X takes the S point of view or not. For example, if taking the prudential point of view and accepting the (true) prudential judgment that it is good for me to stop smoking gives me a reason to put the pack away, then surely there is a prudential consideration in favor of my putting it away which holds no matter what I believe.

But which approbatives are motivationally binding? This question, which can be a difficult one, at least admits of a persuasive answer in one case: P2. Impersonal S-approbatives motivationally bind everyone. The argument for P2 is simple: The nonrelational character of such approbatives means that they single out no particular individual or individuals as standing in a special relation to the




goodness or badness that they predicate. Thus, solely from the S point of view, no one has a special personal reason to be for or against an impersonally S-good or S-bad state. (The same obviously cannot be said of either personal or quasi-personal approbatives.) This absence of a personal value locus indicates that impersonal S-approbatives have the same force for anyone taking the S point of view. Thus they either bind everyone or bind no one. But to hold the latter is to deny these approbatives any motivational significance whatsoever-in effect, to render their very presence in a system inexplicable. It is therefore theoretically preferable to regard impersonal approbatives as universally binding. Happily, this alternative also seems intuitively correct. If, for example, one believes that it is morally bad that injustice be done, then surely one must oppose injustice in taking the moral point of view.

From P1 and P2 it follows directly that:

P3. If from the point of view of an impersonal system S it is good that p, then there is an S-consideration in favor of helping to bring p about which applies to everyone able to do so.

For conditions a and b of P1 are satisfied by anyone who can help bring p about, and condition c is satisfied by any true, positive, and impersonal approbative that takes p as its object.

IV The relevance of values to directives is complemented by the relevance of the satisfaction of directives to values. Consider, for example, what one is to say, from the point of view of an impersonal system S, of the state of affairs in which someone does what he, all things considered, S-ought to do.- Specifically, should one regard the satisfaction of such S-directives as (1) S-good, (2) S-bad, or (3) S-neutral? 10 Suggestion 2 seems perverse: a system that regards the fulfillment of its own directives as bad would be unaccountably at odds with itself. And that it should seem so indicates something quite important about evaluative conceptual schemes, viz., that the influence between directives and approbatives is reciprocal. When a system issues a directive that Jones ought to p, it is, in a perfectly obvious sense, positively oriented toward Jones's (ing. Our bedrock intuition concerning the co- herency of such a system therefore demands that it extend this

10 Since these categories are exclusive and-if 'neutral' is taken (as I shall take it) to mean "neither good nor bad"-exhaustive, we are bound to one and only one answer.




positive orientation in a suitable approbative. This is why it seems unacceptable that an impersonal system S should regard the fulfillment of its directives as bad. But, by the same reasoning, (3) is also unacceptable; for to regard the satisfaction of an over- all directive as neutral is to regard it as not good. Hence, by elimination:

P4. It is good from the point of view of an impersonal system S that one do what, all things considered, one S-ought to do.

In interpreting P4, one must remember that the objects of impersonal evaluations are states of affairs and therefore intensional. Thus, to predicate impersonal goodness of Jones's doing what he ought (where this is, say, an act of administering just punishment) in no way entails that Jones's action must be good under any other description (e.g., as an act of inflicting pain). Furthermore, it in no way refutes P4 to point out that doing what one ought may fail to instantiate a type of S-goodness which depends solely on motives and character. The claim in P4 is simply that the satisfaction of "S-ought"s is S-good; not that it is automatically good of the agent.

The argument for P4 must also be distinguished from a similar but more naive possible argument for (3'): that, if an evaluative system issues a directive that Jones p, then the system must be positively oriented toward Jones's qing and therefore must be positively oriented toward anything that brings about Jones's ping, including Smith's helping to make it the case that Jones Os. This latter argument is fallacious, as the familiar system of prudential evaluations clearly shows. It may be that Jones ought, prudentially speaking, to take his digitalis, but it in no way follows that Smith ought, prudentially speaking, to aid Jones in so doing. Indeed, it may be to Smith's prudential disadvantage to do so.

But the reasoning behind P4 is importantly different. Its most general form could be put as follows: If a system issues a directive that Jones p, then the system must be positively oriented toward Jones's satisfying the directive, and therefore must regard it as in some sense good that he do so. The important thing to note about this inference is that prudence constitutes no counter- example; for clearly it must be prudentially good for Jones to do what he prudentially ought to do. Thus, some general principle of inference from 'ought' to 'good' (but perhaps no principle transferring 'ought' interpersonally) seems valid in every system.




v

The claim needed to complete the present phase of the argument is this:

P5. Ordinary morality is an impersonal value system.

The surface evidence for P5 consists in the fact that moral discourse contains the apparently nonrelational terms 'good from the moral point of view that p', 'bad from the moral point of view that p', etc., which apply to such intensional items as actions ('good from the moral point of view that you returned the money') and motives ('bad from the moral point of view that you are moved only by hatred'). Still it might be claimed against P5 that, although such judgments appear impersonal, a close analysis would show them to be reducible either to personal or quasi-personal approbatives (and hence not to be governed by P3 or P4).

It is beyond doubt that morality contains quasi-personal terms and concepts in addition to its apparently impersonal terms. And certain instances of the two types of judgment, e.g., that

(i) From the moral point of view, it is good that Jones acted generously.

and

(ii) From the moral point of view, it is good of Jones to have acted generously.

are sufficiently close to suggest that the reduction of the former to the latter is a live possibility. Certain other examples, however, show otherwise: As noted earlier, it is plausible to say that, morally speaking, it is a good thing that justice be done; and so we may infer, for example, that:

(iii) From the moral point of view it is good that Judge Byrne ruled in accordance with just principles (rather than ruling in opposition to them).

Yet the judge may have acted from motives that do not reflect favorably on him; and so we may want to deny that

(iv) From the moral point of view it is good of Judge Byrne to have ruled in accordance with just principles.

If this is right, then it seems clear that 'good from the moral point of view that X p' has a sense quite unlike that of 'morally good of X that he O' even where [as in (i) and (ii)] they enter into apparently equivalent sentences.




On the other hand, it may be thought that 'good from the moral point of view that p' reduces to some personal construction. Per- haps it is synonymous with something of the form:

good from the moral point of view for X that p

Or perhaps the qualifier 'from the moral point of view' itself does duty for some completed term of the form 'for X' such that the entire expression 'good from the moral point of view that p' simply reduces to

good for X that p

The first reduction seems very implausible. In fact, one is tempted to respond that morality contains no personal approbatives-that 'good from the moral point of view for X that p' has no sense whatsoever. But, though this seems correct, perhaps the expression could be given a use in cases in which an action has the effect of improving moral character. For example, we might say to a weak-willed man: "Fast for a day; from the moral point of view it will be good for you." Nevertheless, this novel use of a personal moral approbative has nothing like the sense of the expression 'good from the moral point of view' in any typical moral judgment.

The second type of reduction is more promising-but even this fails as far as ordinary semantic intuitions are concerned. Con- sider these two versions:

(a) 'It is good from the moral point of view that p' means "It is good for society that p."

(b) 'It is good from the moral point of view that p' means "It is good for me (the speaker) that p."

The first represents a utilitarian and the second an egoist reduction of the predicate. But neither of these suggested definitions seems remotely true of ordinary moral usage. This is, of course, because that usage is so variable, complex, and nonsystematic, that it certainly does not fit any moral theory on which either of the paired sentence forms would be equivalent in all their instances. For this reason, not even the most ardent utilitarian or egoist should suppose that such a claim as:

It is good from the moral point of view that you kept your promise to the dead man even though neither you nor anyone else benefited.

could be shown to be self-contradictory by the analytical hypothe- aes of an empirical study of English usage.




But without the success of some such reduction, the claim that 'good from the moral point of view' functions in ordinary moral thought as a personal approbative cannot be maintained. The term gives every appearance of being impersonal, and this impres- sion is not dispelled by any of these efforts to explain its impersonality away. On the other hand, the impersonality of morality in no way rules out every theory that posits coextensionality between states good from the moral point of view and states good for, e.g., society. The formal principles that govern the impersonal approbatives. including P3 and P4, are certainly compatible with some such equivalences. All things considered, therefore, there seems no good reason to regard the ordinary moral scheme as other than impersonal.

VI The argument, thus far, may be summarized as follows: Morality contains impersonal approbatives and thus is subject to P3 and P4-principles which have been defended by abstract conceptual considerations far removed from the material norms at issue. But, in accepting P4, the egoist must admit the moral desirability of other people doing as they, all things considered, morally ought. And, in accepting P3, he must further recognize a moral consideration in favor of his helping to make it the case that they do so. In short, he must admit (3')-a principle ultimately incompatible with Eu.

But what is to prevent the egoist from escaping the force of this argument by simply omitting the impersonal concepts from his theory? It is likely that an egoist's claim to be a moralist rests not on his use of the concept of moral goodness but on his use of the moral 'ought'. He is tied to the former, therefore, only if morality in general or the moral use of 'ought' in particular presupposes it. My argument that it is so presupposed consists of (1) an attempt to establish the egoist's need for the concept of moral rightness and (2) an attempt to show that the concept of moral rightness presupposes that of impersonal moral goodness.

1. Historically, the concepts of right and wrong are so integral to moral theory, that a "morality" without them would, on that ground alone, be suspect. Their essentiality lies, I believe, in their central theoretical role of providing a distinctively moral justification or explanation of why an action ought or ought not be done. This connection can be used to generate a formal differentia for the moral 'ought': An 'ought, all things considered' is moral iff it entails as its justification that the action to which it applies is




morally right. For example, the moral judgment that I ought not drink liquor differs from its prudential or aesthetic counterparts in that the moral judgment appeals to the moral rightness of ab- stinence and the wrongness of indulgence whereas the latter appeal to benefit and harm or decorum and unseemliness. Nor is such an account of the moral 'ought' empty by way of being trivially reversible. 'One ought to (p because (ping is right' has an unmis- takably explanatory ring to it which 'ping is right because one ought to (p' altogether lacks.

But perhaps the egoist can establish the moral credentials of his 'ought' by means independent of moral rightness. Of course, he cannot appeal to a material criterion that begs the question in his favor (e.g., that an 'ought' is moral iff it counsels self-interest) and he will not accept a criterion that begs the question against him (e.g., that an 'ought' is moral iff it directs one to pursue the welfare of others). What he needs is a formal differentia that can be made to seem reasonable both to himself and to his opponent. Although it is impossible to canvass all the possibilities here, it seems likely that a formal differentia in moral terms will ultimately involve something very like the concept of moral rightness. We may therefore restrict our consideration to formal differentia that can be stated in nonmoral terms.11 Of such, perhaps the two most popular and promising are these: (a) that an 'ought' is moral iff it is categorical-i.e., iff it is of a sort that is not contingent on the wants or interests of the party to whom it is addressed, and (b) that an 'ought' (or at least an 'ought, all thing considered') is moral iff it is overriding-i.e., iff it takes precedence over an 'ought' of any other system.

The unsatisfactoriness of these alternative accounts, however, can be put quite briefly. With regard to (a), it has been con- vincingly argued that many nonmoral 'oughts' are categorical.12 For example, the fact that proper table manners are in no way ancillary to my desired ends hardly shows that it is false from the point of view of etiquette that I ought not slurp my soup. The judgment of etiquette stands unshaken in the face of my lack of relevant desire or interest.

With regard to (b), on the other hand, one wants to ask whether the overridingness that distinguishes the moral 'ought' is supposed

11 For a relevant discussion of various ways of defining morality, see William Frankena, "Recent Conceptions of Morality," in his Morality and the Lan- guage of Conduct (Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State Univ. Press, 1963), pp. 1-21.

12 See Philippa Foot, "Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives," Philosophical Review, LXXXI, 3 (July 1972): 305-309.




to be de facto or normative. If the former, the account seems false; for it is certain that some people attach a greater weight to 'ought's they regard as nonmoral than to those they regard as moral. But if overridingness is itself normative, then (b) is tanta- mount to the view that

One ought to do what one morally ought, all things considered, to do in preference to what one prudentially, aesthetically, etc. ought, all things considered, to do.

This interpretation, however, raises the further question of the status of the italicized 'ought'. If the above claim is to succeed in establishing the overridingness of morality, the italicized 'ought' must itself be overriding. Thus, if the italicized 'ought' is nonmoral, overridingness cannot be a sufficient condition vfor moral usage. But, if the italicized 'ought' is moral, the statement becomes trivial, since analogous claims will also hold from the prudential or aesthetic points of view. And thus, morality would have no distinctive claim to be overriding.

Of course, there may be other formal, nonmoral differentia of the moral 'ought' which are more plausible. But until the egoist can produce one, it seems reasonable to accept the account in terms of 'morally right'. And when this consideration is combined with the historical prominence and centrality of the moral concepts of right and wrong, there emerges a strong case for their inclusion within any moral theory-including that of egoism.

2. All that remains to be shown is that the concept of moral rightness presupposes that of impersonal moral goodness. Abstract- ing from specifically moral contexts, it seems obvious that we call an action right (e.g., "It would be right, medically speaking, to prescribe aspirin") only if we think it is a good choice (e.g., medically speaking)-i.e., among the best of the choices available. And we call an action wrong (e.g., "It would be wrong, medically speaking, to prescribe antibiotics") only if we think of it as a poor or bad choice (e.g., medically speaking). That is, rightness or wrongness from a given point of view is understood to be nothing other than a certain special sort of goodness or badness from that point of view. The specialness in question lies both in the scope of the predicates (that, unlike 'good' and 'bad', they apply primarily to actions) and in their abstraction (that they apply solely in virtue of the goodness or badness of the external features of the choice and not in virtue of motives). The obviousness of the claim that 'right' and 'wrong' express a type of goodness and




badness should not be obscured by the quite distinct question whether moral rightness is or is not a function of some sort of nonmoral goodness. My present claim is not teleological in the standard ethical sense; it is simply the claim that one does not understand what it is for something to be right or wrong from a given point of view unless one at least tacitly understands that rightness is a good thing and wrongness a bad thing from that same point of view, i.e., unless one understands that the positive/negative polarity of 'right/wrong' participates in the general evaluative polarity of 'good/bad'.

Moreover, the goodness involved in rightness is obviously a result of the good aspects of the right act, e.g., that the act is an instance of benefiting others, benefiting oneself, keeping a promise, etc. Thus, moral rightness must derive from a type of moral goodness which is intensional, i.e., which applies to acts under de- scriptions. In other words, the concept of moral rightness seems to presuppose some variety or other of the moral approbatives. But, as far as I can see, there are only two such varieties that actually function in moral thought: the impersonal and the quasi- personal. (As noted earlier, there seems to be no such thing as a personal moral approbative-and any that could be introduced would have far too restricted a use to qualify as the genus of rightness.) But moral rightness cannot be a species of quasi-personal goodness for the simple reason that an action can be right without being "good of" its agent. By elimination, therefore, the type of goodness presupposed by moral rightness would seem to be impersonal. And indeed this is intuitively plausible: Surely an act is morally right only because it has something good about it from the moral point of view.

If this is correct, then the egoist's need for the concept of moral rightness implies a further need for the impersonal concept of moral goodness. And this means he is not in a position to drop the impersonal approbatives from his theory. In other words, the egoist faces a dilemma: If he eschews the impersonal approbatives, he loses the best conceptual means by which his 'ought' may be distinguished as moral; if he accepts them, he subjects his theory to the principles that govern them. But this, I have argued, implies an acceptance of both P3 and P4-principles ultimately incompatible with universal egoism's supreme directive.

WARREN QUINN

University of California at Los Angeles



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Some Problems in Ethics || Egoism as an Ethical System