Partiality

In the last chapter I provided reasons for requiring aggregative impartiality of any theory of moral obligation that aspires to be objectively true. In this chapter, I argue that there are actions that are morally required (and omissions that are morally forbidden) that we morally cannot demand. The theoretically and intuitionally sound requirement of impartiality does not give the final word on moral obligation. Thus, at the end of this chapter, we shall have completed the first of three arguments concerning morality: With respect to moral obligation, moral theories both must and need not be aggregatively impartial. Although part of our inability to demand what is aggregatively

morally obligatory is due to psychological ‘squeamishness’ (Smart’s 1973 word), another part goes deeper. In some cases I believe that it would be morally wrong to demand that persons make aggregatively impartial choices, despite the fact that they are morally required to do so. I argued in the last chapter that any Sound theory of moral obligation

must take what Thomas Nagel calls the ‘objective’ or ‘third-person perspective,’ which requires us, while considering moral issues from the subjective perspective of individuals, to take into account the subjectivity of all the persons involved. Thus, I argued, on pain of committing a cognitive error or overt selfishness, any objectively true theory must be both impartial and aggregative. This view might seem to entail that any moral intuitions we have favoring its contradictory, partiality, must be mistaken, but the former view does not entail this claim. It is logically possible that in some cases we are not morally obligated to be impartial (or might even be obligated to be partial), despite always being required to be impartial. We can accept both the demand for universal impartiality and specific claims for exemptions from impartiality, but only at a cost: if we subjectivize moral obligation by saying that judgments of objective moral obligation must be in error. In section 1, I sketch the general strategy of the argument, comparing

it to one I have used to argue that free will cannot be a metaphysically objective type of entity. In section 2, I provide cases in which I believe aggregative impartiality is too demanding. In section 3, I provide a case in which aggregative impartiality seems not too demanding. In section 4, I provide some cases in which I am not sure what to say. In section 5,

some the perspectival argument of the last two chapters.