Human Flourishing, Ethics, and Liberty Gilbert Harman Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 12, No. 4. (Autumn, 1983), pp. 307-322. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0048-3915%28198323%2912%3A4%3C307%3AHFEAL%3E2.0.CO%3B2-E Philosophy and Public Affairs is currently published by Princeton University Press.
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GILBERT HARMAN
Human Flourishing, Ethics, and Liberty
What lund of ethics do we get, if we begin with a conception of human flourishing and attempt to derive the rest of ethics from that conception? A number of writers have expressed sympathy for such an approach to ethics, although they disagree about d e t d s : Henry Veatch, Robert Nozick, Alasdair MacIntyre, John Finnis, David Norton, Phhppa Foot, Tibor Machan, Elizabeth Anscombe, Ayn Rand, and Abraham Mas1ow.I
It is characteristic of this approach to take the basic form of evaluation to occur when something is assessed with respect to the way in which it fulfills its function or satisfies certain interests. Let me begin by summarizing this idea as I understand it. I . Henry Veatch, Rational Man: A Modern Interpretation of Aristotelian Ethics (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1964); For a n Ontology of Morals: A Critique of Contemporary Ethical Theory (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1971); and Positive Law and Natural Law a s Guarantors of Individual Liberty (forthcoming; presented at a Reason Foundation-Liberty Fund conference in Santa Barbara in April 1982; on that occasion I offered an earlier version of the present article as a "reply" to Veatch's). Robert Nozick, Philosophical Explanations (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981). Alasdair MacIntyre, Beyond Virtue (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1981). John Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980). David Norton, Personal Destinies: A Philosophy of Ethical Individualism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976) Philippa Foot, Virtues and Vices (Oxford: Blackwell, 1978) Tibor Machan, Human Rights and Human Liberties (Chicago: Nelson Hall, 1975). Elizabeth Anscombe, "Modem Moral Philosophy," Philosophy 33 (1958) Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged (New York: Random House, 1957); For the New Intellectual (New York: New American Library, 1963). Abraham Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being (New York: Van Nostrand, 1962).
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Artifacts A bread knife has a certain purpose: it is used to slice bread. A "good" bread knife is one that is easy to use to slice bread smoothly. A "bad" bread knife has "defects" of one or another sort that make it not well suited for this purpose. A bread knife "ought" to be easy to use in this way; it "ought" to be sharp enough, well balanced, not too heavy, and so forth. Something is "wrong" with it if it is too dull to cut bread. A dull bread knife is not a "good specimen" of a bread knife. A "real" or "true" bread knife functions well. Here "real" and "true" mean something like "ideal." There are, of course, other, irrelevant uses of these words. For example, a dull bread knife is stdl a real bread knife in the sense that it is not a fake, carved out of soap. So, a number of evaluations can be made of a bread knife with respect to its associated function. Furthermore, the very phrase "bread knife" expresses a functional notion, since to understand what a bread knife is is to understand the purpose of a bread knife. A bread knife is "by definition" a knife used for cutting bread. Similar remarks can be made about other categories of artifact. For example, a clock is by definition something people use to tell the time and is to be evaluated as a clock in tenns of its fittingness for this function. A clock "ought" to keep good time; something is "wrong with it" if it runs slowly; and so forth. Bodily Organs Artifacts are not the only sorts of things that can be evaluated functionally in this way. Bodily organs are also associated with functions. A heart is something that functions to pump a creature's blood through its circulatory system. To understand what a heart is, to understand its "nature," is to understand that this is its function. True, it was an empirical discovery that the heart has this function, but in malung that discovery people learned what a heart is. A creature's heart is not whatever bodily part has a certain shape; it is whatever bodily part has the function of pumping the creature's blood. We evaluate organs with respect to their natures, that is, their functions. A "good" heart is one that functions well, pumping blood with just the right pressure through the circulatory system. A "bad" heart has "some-
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thing wrong with it." A "real" or "true" heart, a "good specimen" of a heart, is one that functions well. Similarly for other organs.
Plants and Animals A similar sort of evaluation applies to whole organisms. Associated with a particular type of plant or animal is what might be called a condition of health or "flourishing." We evaluate organisms with respect to this condition. A "good specimen" of an oak tree is an oak tree that is flourishing, not one that is stunted or diseased. That is a "true" or "real" oak tree. Something is "wrong" with an oak tree that does not flourish, perhaps its root system is inadequate or there are not enough nutrients in the soil. An oak tree "needs" the necessary conditions of its flourishing. It "needs" a good root system, adequate water and nutrients, light, air, and so forth. Similarly, animals may or may not flourish. A "true" lion is a healthy, happy one. The lion "needs" adequate food, air, and water, and perhaps also exercise and companions. People may or may not flourish in this sense. They may or may not be healthy and happy. Of course, happiness is connected not only with the satisfaction of bodily needs but also with the satisfaction of a person's incidental desires and interests. Things that answer to the needs and interests of plants, animals, and people can be evaluated in terms of their function in answering to those needs and interests. "Good" roots are roots that are adequate for the flourishing of the plant. A "good" diet is a nutritious one. The phrase "good food" is ambiguous. It may mean food that is nutritious (satisfying bodily needs) or food that is delicious (satisfying certain interests or desires connected with food). Flourishing as Basic It would seem that the more basic evaluation concerns what constitutes a creature's flourishing and that functional evaluations of artifacts and organisms are derivative from that. The function of a bodily organ lies in its doing something which normally contributes to the flourishing of an animal with that organ. The function of a root system lies in its serving to do something that normally contributes to the flourishing of a plant. The function of an artifact lies in its contribution to the satisfaction of
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certain desires or interests, where the satisfaction of desires and interests is normally part of the flourishing of a creature with interests. This sort of connection between functional evaluations and flourishing is indirect, mediated by a "normally." It can happen that a plant fads to flourish under certain conditions precisely because of its very good root system (if it does not have enough foliage, for example). A good root system is a root system of a sort that normally contributes to the flourishing of a plant. It may not so contribute in every possible situation. Furthermore, something might be an excellent device for extracting confessions from suspects, without ever contributing to the flourishing of any creature. Something is good in relation to certain interests if it can be used to satisfy those interests, where a creature's flourishing normally involves the satisfaction of (many of) its interests. It is possible that in fact no one has the interests in question, and, even if someone has such interests, it may be that the satisfaction of those interests in this instance wdl not contribute to the flourishing of that or any other person. People with Certain Roles A lund of functional evaluation can be made of people with certain roles. Farmers, teachers, tailors, bank presidents, and janitors have certain roles or functions and can be evaluated with respect to their satisfaction of that function. A "good" farmer is one who farms well, who grows crops or raises livestock successfully. Otherwise he or she is "not much" of a farmer, "not a real" farmer, and "something is wrong" with him or her as a farmer. Similarly, a "true" teacher is one who teaches well, so that students come away with proper wisdom about the subject taught. And SO on. Similar functional judgments can be made concerning roles that do not contribute overall to human flourishing. A "good" burglar is one that burgles well and does not get caught. Otherwise, he or she is "not much" of a burglar. People as People We can, of course, evaluate people as people and not just as teachers, doctors, farmers, and so forth, where this is also not just evaluating their health and well-being. We have a sense that there are certain ways to live that are desirable ways to live and that a person ought to live in one
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of those ways. A "good" person lives in such a way, such a person is a "true," or "real" person. Otherwise a person is "not much of a person," "not a good specimen" of a person.
Lives Let us use the term "flourishing" in a somewhat extended sense to refer to living in one of these desirable ways. Flourishing in this sense would seem to involve happiness, virtue, and accomplishment. To flourish is to lead the sort of life it is good to lead, by which is meant the sort of life you want your children to lead, as well as the sort of life you want to lead yourself. Such a life is not just good in the sense that it is good that someone should lead such a life-it may be good that someone leads a life of self-sacrifice without that person's life being the sort of life it is good to lead in the relevant sense, good for him or her, as it were. But a life that is good for a person to lead is also not just a life that is good for that person in a purely egoistical or self interested sense. It is rather the sort of life one wants to have led, all things considered in a calm moment of summing up. Such a Me is a "real" and "true" life. Something is "wrong with" a life that falls short of this. What is "wrong" might be something about the person living the life; something might be wrong with him or her. Or it might be something about the circumstances, in which case we speak of "misfortune." So, it is not quite accurate to say, as I said above, that a person is to be evaluated entirely in terms of the life he or she leads. A person might be a "good" person, a "true" and "real" person even though he or she does not flourish in the relevant sense, if the cause of this f d u r e to flourish is not some defect in the person but rather some misfortune. (By a defect "in the person" I mean something like a defect in the character of the person. There might be a defect literally "in" the person that was really a misfortune, a defect in the body of the person, some sort of disease for example.) The connection between the goodness or realness of a person as a person and his or her flourishing is indirect: a person is a "good," "true," or "real" person to the extent that the person's actions and character are of the sort that normally contribute to a flourishing life, in the absence of one or another misfortune. (However, a "real" or "true" person is also one who reacts or would react in certain ways to misfortune, so this is not stated quite right.)
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Societies and Laws Finally, we can assess societies with reference to the extent of human flourishing within them; and we can assess systems of laws in terms of the extent to which they promote or would promote human flourishing. A "good" society is one in which people flourish in the sense of living desirable lives. That is what a society "ought" to be like. Otherwise it is "not much" of a society, not a "real" society; something is "wrong" with it. "Good" laws are laws that promote a good society, in which people flourish. "Bad" laws have the opposite effect, in which case there is "something wrong" with the laws. But can we say that such "bad" laws are "not true laws," "not really laws"? Maybe, maybe not. The point is controversial, much more controversial than what I have been saying so far, I think.
I now want to consider the extent to which moral or ethical assessments fit into the functionalist framework we have been considering. To repeat the question with which I began, What lund of ethics do we get if we begin with a conception of human flourishing and attempt to derive the rest of ethics from that conception? Relativism One implication would seem to be moral relativism, since what counts as "flourishing" seems inevitably relative to one or another set of values. People with different values have different conceptions of "flourishing," of the "good life." For some, the good life includes the discriminating enjoyment of good meat and wine, others hold that no life can count as a good Me if it involves the exploitation of animals raised for food. Some say the good life involves at its core the pursuit of an individual project of excellence; some say it involves service to others. Some people would stress the importance of elaborate social rituals of politeness; for others such rituals are triviahties of no importance at all to the good life. People put different weights on the joys of combat and competition as against the benefits of cooperation and shared undertalungs. They disagree on the relative importance of knowledge and culture as compared with pleasure and simple happiness. And so on.
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Of course, the mere fact of disagreement over values and therefore over what constitutes flourishing is not sufficient to show there is no absolute flourishing, as opposed to flourishing in relation to one rather than another set of values. But it is difficult to see how one rather than another conception of flourishing is to be vahdated simply in "the nature of things" or in the "nature" of persons--except in the sense in which different sets of values yield different conceptions of nature or of the nature of a person!"
Consequentialism A second feature of this approach to ethics is that it tends toward utilitarianism or consequentialism. The basic value is human flourishing. Actions, character traits, laws, and so on are to be assessed with reference to their contribution to human flourishing. A number of different theories about what one ought to do are compatible with the basic approach. First, there is the egoistic suggestion that one should always act so as to maximize one's own (expectation) of flourishing. Second, there is the act utilitarian suggestion that one should always act so as to maximize total human flourishing. Third, there is the rule utilitarian suggestion that one should follow rules designed to promote human flourishing. This idea has a number of variants, depending on whether one is supposed to follow the rules actually current in one's group or one is supposed to follow the ideal rules which would best promote human flourishing if they were widely followed, or widely accepted. Fourth, there is the "virtue utilitarian" suggestion that one should act in accordance with traits of character which promotes human flourishing. Again there are variants, depending on whether one is to act from one's actual character traits or in accordance with ideal character traits. All these suggestions are versions of utilitarianism or consequentiahsm and are subject to well known difficulties. For example, egoism is either quite counterintuitive in its implication that the moral thing to do is to concentrate on one's own flourishing and otherwise ignore others, or circular if it argues that flourishing involves acting morally toward others. This last idea is circular because it explains what it is to act morally in terms of promoting one's own flourishing, but then flourishing is said to 2. See D. Z. Phillips and H. 0. Mounce, "On Morality's Having a Point," Philosophy 40 (1965).
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involve acting morally, where acting morally is not simply acting so as to promote one's own nonmoral flourishing. Act utilitarianism has various counterintuitive consequences. It implies one is morally required to sacrifice some people for others, if that increases overall human flourishing, even if it involves framing an innocent person on a charge of murder. It implies that a doctor is morally permitted, indeed required, to murder a relatively healthy patient (or hospital visitor) if the doctor can use that person's vital organs to save the lives of at least two people who would otherwise die. It implies that one should devote one's life to the service of others, because under current conditions that promises a greater improvement in human flourishing than other things one might do with one's life. Actual rule utilitarianism, which says one should follow the actual rules of one's society, conflicts with the commonsensical view that sometimes one should not follow these rules, if they are unjust, for example. On the other hand, ideal rule uthtarianism, which says to act on the best set of rules whether or not others are doing so, implies one should ignore the fact that others are not acting on the best set of rules. For example, rule uthtarianism implies one should follow the rule of never using force against other people, since things would be much better if everyone were to follow that rule. Perhaps one should follow such a rule if everyone else follows it; but it is folly to act as if all people are following such a rule when one knows they are not. Virtue utilitarianism shares the problems of rule utilitarianism, although it is harder to demonstrate this since virtue utilitarianism is a vaguer view. Indeed, one of the chief methods of defending utilitarianism has been to devise a relatively complicated version whose implications for practice are obscure. But all such complex forms of utilitarianism face the problem of explaining what reason anyone could have to follow this or that complicated utilitarian formula. Given that human flourishing is the ultimate value, it is possible to see why someone might have a reason to follow the advice of egoism or of act utilitarianism, since these views say one should promote this basic value, either for oneself or for everyone. But what reason could anyone have to follow the dictates of some form of rule utilitarianism, or some even more complicated version, if these dictates conflict with those of egoism and of act uthtarianism? In the absence of an answer to this question, it is impossible to take these complicated forms of utilitarianism seriously.
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lmitation of Excellence I can think of only one other way to try to base ethics on the value of human flourishing. The suggestion would be to take the H e of someone who flourishes as an ideal. To flourish is not just to be healthy and happy but to have good character and act rightly. The right thing to do in any particular case would therefore be the same as what someone who flourishes would do in that case. So, what one ought to do in any particular case is to do exactly what someone who flourishes would do in that case. One problem with this suggestion is that, if one is not already an excellent person who is flourishing, one's situation may well be of a sort which a flourishing person could never be in. For example, one may have done someone a wrong and the question is what should one do now. It may be that a flourishing person could not have done that sort of wrong to anyone. In such a case, the suggestion does not indicate what one should now do. Furthermore, one must allow for one's current lack of character. It may be that a flourishing person in this sort of situation could promise to undertake something with the assurance that he or she would succeed in the undertahng, an assurance one does not have because of one's weak character. In that case, one should not act in the way the flourishing person would act, that is, one should not promise. A deeper worry is this. Can we really suppose that our conception of what it is to flourish in the relevant sense, that is our conception of what it is to lead the good life, is more basic than our conception of what someone ought morally to do on one or another occasion, given that flourishing in this sense involves having good character and acting in the right way? Is it really true that we first see what is involved in a good life and that that tells us what a person ought to do on a particular occasion? Can one really determine what one ought to do on a particular occasion by asking what an ideal person would do on that occasion? Isn't it rather the other way, namely, we figure out what an ideal person would do by first figuring out what a person ought to do in that situation? If so, then the suggestion we are considering involves the sort of vicious circle that arises in certain forms of egoism. In order to determine what one should do, one must determine what a person with a flourishing life would do. But in order to determine what is involved in a flourishing life, one must determine what a person should do in various situations. So, it seems to me that, if ethics is to be based on the value of human
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flourishing, this wdl have to be within a consequentiahst theory that interprets human flourishing in an ethically neutral way in terms of health and happiness, despite the difficulties consequentialism faces. (I wdl say more about these difficulties in what follows.)
Rights What are the implications of the approach we are considering for rights? Let us distinguish various sorts of rights, or perhaps various senses of the term "right" used as a noun. First, to say someone has "a right" to something may be to say only that it is "all right" for him to do it; he is "permitted" to do it; it is not wrong of him to do it. In this sense, a person "has no right" to promise to meet you for lunch if he or she has no intentions of being there. The person ought not to do that; it would be wrong of him or her to do it. Second, a person may have "a right" to something in the sense of a particular claim to it. An author may have a right, based on contract, to a regular reporting of the sales of the author's books. A divorced father may have a right to see his children on a regular basis. Third, a person has certain basic rights which we think ought to be protected by society. A right to life, to noninjury, to be able to own personal property, to various sorts of liberty including political and religious freedom, to nondiscrimination on the basis of sex or race. Let us concentrate on this third sort of right, basic rights. What does the approach we are considering imply about these? Presumably it must involve a consequentialist theory of such rights. One suggestion would be that to say people have a basic right to something is to say people in general need that something if they are to flourish. The laws of a society must therefore be designed to ensure that these rights are protected. This follows from the purpose of law, namely to promote human flourishing. I do not think this suggestion can be adequate by itself. It ties rights too closely to what people in general need. But it is not clear that people in general need freedom of speech, or political or religious liberty in order to flourish. Some people would flourish best in a society with a single religion or political party, if they belonged to that religion or party. No, a consequentialist argument for such liberties has to be more along the lines Mdl gave in On Liberty: the protection of freedom of speech and political and religious liberty tends in the long run best to promote human flourishing.
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I wdl explain shortly why I think that this sort of consequentiahsm is not the real source of these basic rights.
It is very important to distinguish between ( I ) the idea that it "ought to be" that a particular agent does something, in the sense that it would be desirable, a good thing, if that agent were to do that thing and (2) the idea that the agent in question "ought to do" that thing, in the sense that the agent has sufficient reasons to do it, reasons which are stronger than reasons he or she has not to do it. The first thought is the thought that there are reasons for wanting the agent to do it, which for us, the thinkers of the thought, the critics, are reasons that we have to want this to happen. The second thought is the thought that there are reasons the agent in question has to do that thing. These are quite independent thoughts. We can suppose an agent has sufficient reasons to do something without supposing we have sufficient reasons to be in favor of his or her doing it, since we might not care one way or the other and be perfectly justified in not caring. Similarly, we can suppose we have reasons to favor that agent's doing something without supposing the agent has sufficient reasons to do that thing. These points continue to hold when moral oughts and reasons are in question. There is a distinction between the thought that it ought morally to be the case that a given agent do something and the thought that the agent ought morally to do it, just as there is a distinction between the thought that it is wrong that the agent does as he does and the thought that it is wrong of the agent to do as he does. The one thought concerns moral value, the other concerns moral duty or obligation. We might say that the one thought was evaluative, the other normative. To say that, from a moral point of view, it ought to be that the laborer, Albert, made as much money as the bank president, Bertrand, or to say that it is morally wrong that Albert makes so much less money, is clearly not to say that Albert ought morally to make more money in the sense that it is wrong of Albert that he does not make more money. It is equally true that this is also not to say that Bertrand ought morally to give some of his money to Albert, that it is wrong of Bertrand not to do so. Even though someone might take the former, evaluative judgment (that it is wrong that Bertrand makes more than Albert) to provide a forceful reason for the latter, nor-
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mative judgment (that it is wrong of Bertrand not to give away his extra income to Albert and others similarly situated), the judgments are clearly distinct.
Equivocation i n Utilitarianism Uthtarianism notoriously blurs this distinction by simply identifying or confusing what a person ought morally to do with what it ought to be that the person does. Of course, from a moral point of view, it would be desirable, a good thing, wonderful, if the agent would act so as to maximize expected human flourishing. There is a sense, then, in which it ought to be that the agent acts in that way, a thought that can be expressed in the words, "The agent ought to maximize human flourishing." But these words also have another, perhaps more ordinary, interpretation in which they imply that the agent has sufficient reasons to so act, reasons that outweigh the agent's reasons for not so acting or for doing something else. And the fact that it would be wonderful for humanity if the agent were to act in a certain way does not by itself establish that the agent has sufficient reasons to act in that way. For the agent wlll have concerns other than the concern to further human flourishing in general, and the course of action supported by the weight of reasons, given all of his or her concerns, may be something quite different from the act that would maximize human flourishing in general. Act utihtarianism involves an equivocation between "ought to be" and "ought to do." Other forms of uthtarianism involve the same equivocation. For example, ideal rule utilitarianism, with its endorsement of the pacifist's fallacy, equivocates between saying, on the one hand, "From a moral point of view, it ought to be the case that everyone followed this rule (that is, this would be wonderful)," and saylng, on the other hand, "Everyone ought morally to follow this rule (in the sense of having a sufficient reason to do so)." The fact that both propositions might be expressed in the same words, namely "Everyone ought to follow this rule," makes the equivocation possible, despite its absurd consequences. Equivocation i n a Related Argument A similar equivocation appears to lie behind an argument I have sometimes heard which goes roughly like this. "I ought to develop my own potential for flourishing. So, others ought not to prevent me from devel-
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oping my potential. So, I have a right not to be prevented from developing my potential. So, by the principle of universahzability, everyone has such a right." This argument appears to equivocate twice on "ought" as meaning either "ought to be" or "ought to do." As far as I can see, if the argument is to be spelled out, without any equivocation, it must go like this: "I ought to develop my own potential for flourishing (in the sense that I have a sufficient reason to do so). Consequently, it ought to be the case that I do it (it is desirable that I do so). Further, it ought to be the case that others do not prevent me from doing so (it is desirable that they do not). And, others ought not to prevent me (they have a sufficient reason not to). So, I have a right not to be prevented." If the argument is to be spelled out in this way, it is clear that it is not logically valid. Given that I have sufficient reason to develop my own potential, it does not follow that it is desirable that I do so except in the sense of "desirable from my point of view." But from the mere fact that it ought to be the case from my point of view that others not prevent me from developing my potential it does not follow that this ought to be the case (is desirable) from anyone else's point of view and certainly does not follow that others have sufficient reason to refrain from interfering with me.
What is It to Have a Reason to Do Something? To a first approximation, action is the result of desire plus belief. This is Hume's view. The agent has various desires and believes that a particular act promises to contribute to the satisfaction of these desires; this leads the agent to desire to do that action. If the action is immediately within the agent's power, the desire to do it leads to its being done. In this view an agent has a reason to do something to the extent that the agent's beliefs imply that doing that thing will contribute to the satisfaction of the agent's desires. A somewhat more adequate theory allows that the agent may have reasons to modify his or her beliefs in various ways, by addition and subtraction. In this more adequate view, what an agent has reasons to do depends upon the implications of these rationally modified beliefs for the satisfaction of the agent's desires. A still more adequate theory allows for other concerns over and above an agent's desires, including intentions, plans, policies, and values. Rea-
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soning leads to changes, by addition and subtraction, in these concerns, just as it leads to changes in beliefs. In this theory it is still true that the reasons an agent has to do things always derive from current concerns, so that an agent may fail to have a reason to do something if he or she fads to have the relevant concern, if he or she simply does not care. It seems to me that some such theory must be correct. Notice that the theory is not the view that an agent only has reasons to do what the agent wants to do. Even the Humean "first approximation" is not absurd in that way.
Relativism Again Given what seem to be the facts about human concerns, this theory of practical reasons implies a form of moral relativism, namely that there are no basic moral demands everyone has sufficient reason to accept as providing reasons for action. People have different concerns, different values. And some people simply do not care enough about others for their concerns to give them reasons to act in the way most people consider morally right. There is a possible functionalist reply to this: even though there are people who do not care enough about others in this way, they ought to care, and there is something wrong with them that they do not care. If they do not care enough about others, they wdl not flourish. To be sure, they may have healthy, pleasurable lives, full of a rich sense of accomplishment, but flourishing involves more than that; it involves having a good character and acting rightly. It involves having the proper concerns. Laclang that, these characters will not flourish. Furthermore, in this view, the reasons an agent has to do things do not always have to derive from the agent's current actual concerns; also relevant are the concerns the agent ought to have if the agent is to flourish. So, in this view, there can be basic moral demands that everyone has sufficient reasons to accept as guides to action, even if there are people who lack the sorts of concerns for others that would give them reasons of a Humean sort to accept these demands. The trouble with this functionalist defense of moral absolutism is that it would allow me to use m y values in deciding what reasons I think you have to do things, since it is with respect to my own values that I wdl decide what it would be for you to flourish. This is quite implausible.
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I cannot seriously think my values might supply you with reasons to act if you do not share those values. The Real Source of Values and Rights I suggest that the source of morality lies not in the nature of things but in human arrangements. People come to accept certain rules and values in order to get along with each other. The moral reasons a particular person has to act in one or another way depend utimately on that person's values. To repeat, on that person's values. People in a given society or group of people will tend to share certain values, but they do not always, and the reasons an agent has to do things derive from his or her values and not from the values of those in the agent's group or society. If we want to make a judgment concerning that agent's reasons, we must do so in relation to the agent's values and other concerns and not in relation to our own values and concerns, if ours are different. This does not mean we cannot condemn other people as evll, bad, or dangerous by our lights, or take them to be our enemies. Nothing prevents us from using our values to judge other people and other morahties. But we only fool ourselves if we think our values give reasons to others who do not accept those values. The basic protections of morahty have arisen as a result of bargaining and compromise, sometimes after serious conflict and even war. For example, ordinary morahty draws an important distinction between the weighty "negative" duty not to harm others and the less weighty "positive" duty to intervene to help prevent others from being harmed. So, a doctor may not seize and cut up a healthy visitor to the hospital in order to save the lives of several patients by distributing the visitor's organs where they would do the most good. The harm to the visitor is not permitted morally even in order to prevent more harm to others. The healthy visitor has a "right" not to be harmed by the doctor. The patients who might be saved by this organ distribution do not have an equally strong "right" to have a corresponding harm to them from disease prevented. I suggest that this distinction in ordinary morality is a consequence of the fact that morality is a compromise between people of different powers and resources. Whereas everyone benefits from the general recognition of a duty not to harm others, the rich and strong would lose, in comparison with the poor and weak, from a general recognition of an equally strong duty to prevent
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others from being harmed, because (a) the strong and rich are better able to protect themselves from being harmed as long as there is general recognition of a duty not to harm3 and therefore do not benefit as much as the poor and weak from a general policy of helping others avoid harm, and (b) since the strong and rich have considerably more resources than the poor and weak for the prevention of harm, the rich and strong would be called upon to do much more of the preventing than the poor and weak would. So, sometimes we recognize certain things as basic rights because they are immediately important to all (or almost all) people, as in the right not to be injured by others. But there are other basic rights which we recognize for different reasons, among them the right to liberty, including freedom of speech and religious and political freedom. These rights are not of immediate importance to everyone in the same way in which the right to life and noninjury is immediately important. They may indeed be indirectly important to everyone for the sorts of reasons Mill stresses, but that does not seem to be why we recognize these rights as basic. What seems to be the crucial factor here is that often, when these rights have been denied, there have been many people who found the resulting situation intolerable and some of these people have been willing to fight the issue out. The basic rights of liberty have come to be recognized only as the result of these bitter conflicts. 3. However, the rich would be vulnerable to a collective assault by the poor and weak if no general prohibition against harm were accepted.
