Priority Priority

Let me turn now to what I called above the problem of priority. This is the question of how the morality of right and wrong is related to our other values and how it could make sense to give it priority over them. As I pointed out in Chapters 1 and 2, values can con_ict in a practical sense when they give rise to incompatible demands to action, but even when no act is in view they can con_ict in a deeper sense when one value involves giving certain considerations a status as reasons that another value rules out. Since morality involves very general require- ments governing the reasons we can accept, it can con_ict with many other values in this second, deeper way.

This deeper form of con_ict is illustrated by an objection that Ber- nard Williams has raised against both utilitarian and Kantian concep- tions of morality. Williams considers the suggestion that, in a situation in which one could save only one of two people, it would be contrary to the impartial regard for every person that these forms of morality require to save one of them because of some special tie, for example because that person was your friend or your spouse.15 _{This is not}

merely a case of practical con_ict. The suggestion is that a morality that required this kind of impartiality (that declared love or friendship to be an impermissible reason for saving one person rather than the other) would rule out love and friendship altogether, since it is essen- tial to these relations that one would have reason to give preference to a friend or loved one in such a situation.

The natural ~rst response to this objection is to argue that morality does not in fact demand the kind of impartiality that is here sug- gested.16_{Along this line, I will argue in Chapter 5 that principles could}

reasonably be rejected on the ground that they left no room for valuing other things that are important in our lives. But this response needs to be supplemented by another. Williams sometimes appears to suggest that the demands of love and friendship have already been unaccept- ably curtailed if one even needs to give an argument to the effect that it is permissible, in situations of this kind, to give preference to a friend or spouse. A person who would think in this way would have, he says, “one thought too many,” which would get in the way of wholehearted devotion.17_{Williams himself quali~es this point; he recognizes that the}

demands of friendship cannot have unconditional priority. This leaves us with two questions: what kind of priority does friendship demand, and to what extent are its demands themselves limited by some recog- nition of the demands of morality?

Generalizing from this example, we can address the problem of priority in two ways: ~rst, by arguing that morality does in fact leave room for other values; and, second, by arguing that these values them- selves, properly understood, give way to morality’s demands when con_icts arise. I will take up the ~rst of these points, which has to do with the content of morality, in Chapter 5. Here I will concentrate on the latter, since there is something to be learned about the nature of moral motivation by seeing how moral reasons are related to values of other kinds.

I will begin with a discussion of friendship. This discussion has a dual purpose. First, as we have seen, friendship is a prime example of a personal value that may con_ict with the demands of the “imper- sonal” morality of right and wrong, so this discussion can illustrate a general strategy for responding to the problem of priority. But friend- ship is also a value that makes demands on us and can thus be seen as raising problems analogous to those of morality. Instead of asking “Why be moral?” we might ask “Why be loyal to one’s friends when this requires sacri~cing other goods?” Considering the answer to this question will help to cast light on the general problem of moral motivation.

It may seem that in answering the question “Why be loyal?” we face an analogue of Prichard’s dilemma. The answer, “Because friendship requires it,” seems to be no response at all to the question that is being asked. But if, on the other hand, we cite some value other than friendship—if, for example, we appeal to the bene~ts of having friends—then this seems the wrong kind of response. A person who was “loyal” for that kind of reason would not be a good friend at all.

The right response to this dilemma is, ~rst, to characterize the relationship that friendship involves in a way that makes clear why it is something desirable and admirable in itself. Given such a charac- terization, we can then see how, on the one hand, being a friend will also bring other bene~ts (such as enjoyable companionship, help, and support) and why, on the other, being a friend involves seeing “be- cause loyalty requires it” as a suf~cient reason for doing something even though it involves a sacri~ce of other goods. By bringing these

two elements together as aspects of a single value, such an account enables us to see that the analogue of Prichard’s “dilemma” is not really a dilemma at all. It merely appears to be one because it presents two essential aspects of friendship as if they were competing answers to the same question. A person who was loyal to a friend simply to have the bene~ts of friendship would not be a true friend. A true friend has to see loyalty as in itself suf~cient reason to bear a burden. On the other hand, a person who did not regard friendship as a good to him, did not enjoy it and see it as an important ingredient in a good life, would not be a real friend either, but only following a strangely cold imperative. Being a friend involves both feeling friendship’s demands and enjoying its bene~ts.

Of course friendship also leaves one open to certain pains—to feel- ings of loss and betrayal if one’s friend is false or disloyal and to feelings of guilt if one is disloyal oneself. This is genuine guilt—self- reproach—not just regret that one has lost the value of friendship, since one can properly feel it whether or not the friendship is destroyed as a result of one’s action.

There are obvious similarities between the case of friendship as I have described it and that of the morality of right and wrong, and my strategy in responding to the problem of moral motivation is analo- gous to the response I have just sketched to Prichard’s dilemma in the case of friendship. The contractualist ideal of acting in accord with principles that others (similarly motivated) could not reasonably reject is meant to characterize the relation with others the value and appeal of which underlies our reasons to do what morality requires. This relation, much less personal than friendship, might be called a relation of mutual recognition. Standing in this relation to others is appealing in itself—worth seeking for its own sake. A moral person will refrain from lying to others, cheating, harming, or exploiting them, “because these things are wrong.” But for such a person these requirements are not just formal imperatives; they are aspects of the positive value of a way of living with others.

Duty is most familiar in its negative form, in the feeling of unwel- come constraint and the experience of moral guilt. According to the account I am offering, the pain of guilt involves, at base, a feeling of estrangement, of having violated the requirements of a valuable rela- tion with others. So understood, this familiar negative aspect of moral- ity corresponds to a positive “pull”: the positive value of living with others on terms that they could not reasonably reject.

I believe that this is a powerful source of motivation. It is more general than the special case of moral guilt since it applies also in cases in which personal conduct is not the only, or the main, issue; and it can work for ill as well as for good. I believe that its motivational in_uences can be seen at work in the transformation of the moral and political atmosphere of the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In the 1950s many Americans believed, naively, that their institutions were uniquely justi~able; that America was free of class barriers, and that it was a society in which bene~ts were fairly earned. They therefore felt that they could enjoy these bene~ts in the comfort- ing con~dence that the institutions through which they had acquired them, though not perfect, were closer than any others to being ones that no one could reasonably object to. The combined blows of the civil rights movement and the movement that arose in reaction to the war in Vietnam shattered these illusions beyond repair. Different peo- ple reacted to this in different ways, some by protesting against the war and working for civil rights, others by vehemently denying that the charges of injustice at home and criminality abroad had any founda- tion. What these reactions had in common was a deep sense of shock and loss; both testify, I believe, to the value people set on the belief that their lives and institutions are justi~able to others. Of course one could say that what people care about (and were concerned about in this case) is that their institutions be just and their lives not be morally corrupt. What I am adding to this (and what I believe the phenomenol- ogy of the particular historical case bears out) is the claim that what is particularly moving about charges of injustice and immorality is their implication for our relations with others, our sense of justi~ability to or estrangement from them. Unlike friendship, morality is commonly seen as a form of constraint, not as a source of joy or pleasure in our lives. I am suggesting, however, that when we look carefully at the sense of loss occasioned by charges of injustice and immorality we see it as re_ecting our awareness of the importance for us of being “in unity with our fellow creatures.”

The sense of loss that I am describing here is not merely a matter of feeling guilty or distressed at the thought that one’s life and institutions do not measure up to one’s moral goals. It also involves the loss of other goods: one cannot take the same pleasure in one’s cooperative relations with others as members of the same ~rm or university, say, if one comes to believe that they are being asked to participate on terms they could reasonably reject, and the meaning of one’s own successes

and accomplishments is undermined by the thought that they were attained on terms that were basically unfair.18_{This bears on the prob-}

lem of priority because it indicates how other goods, which may be thought to con_ict with the demands of right and wrong, also depend on the value which underlies these demands.

As my historical example illustrates, the motivation I am describing does not always move us in a morally admirable direction. If there are people who might charge us with injustice, citing a principle that we could live up to only at some cost, we can respond to this situation in several different ways. One is to accept the principle and the charges and to try to make amends. A second is to deny the validity of the principle. A third is to accept the principle but to try to avoid recogniz- ing that there are people whose claims against us it would legitimate. If we are moved wholeheartedly by the value of justi~ability to others then we cannot take the second route unless we judge, after due consideration, that the principle in question is one that can reasonably be rejected, and we cannot take the third route unless we think that the charges in question are without merit. But acceptance is often less than wholehearted, and just because people do set a high value on the idea that their lives and institutions are justi~able to others they may be strongly tempted to “avert their eyes” from the merits of the charges against them. Sometimes this involves “walling off” (trying not to think about) the people whose fate raises these charges.19

For most of us, this is something that can be done only with unease. A person who could manage it without unease—who could simply ignore the fate of others without having to “wall them off”—would be the kind of amoralist I mentioned above. It might seem that such a person could be immune to the claims of strangers while still enjoying friendship and the goods of other relations with speci~c individuals. Such a person might have strong ties of affection which would be much like friendship, but would they be the same? I do not think that they would, for the following reason.

Friendship, at least as I understand it, involves recognizing the friend as a separate person with moral standing—as someone to whom justi~cation is owed in his or her own right, not merely in virtue of being a friend. A person who saw only friends as having this status would therefore not have friends in the sense I am describing: their moral standing would be too dependent on the contingent fact of his affection. There would, for example, be something unnerving about a “friend” who would steal a kidney for you if you needed one. This is

not just because you would feel guilty toward the person whose kidney was stolen, but because of what it implies about the “friend’s” view of your right to your own body parts: he wouldn’t steal them, but that is only because he happens to like you.

As is well known, it is crucial to friendship that we are moved to do things for a friend by the special affection and regard that we hold for him or her as a friend, not simply by consideration of a kind that we owe to everyone. But what the kidney example brings out is that friendship also requires us to recognize our friends as having moral standing as persons, independent of our friendship, which also places limits on our behavior.

I am not arguing here that one must accept the form of morality that I am describing in order to be capable of “real friendship.” My aim here is not to force an “amoralist” or anyone else to accept this conception of morality, but rather to answer a certain objection to that conception, namely that it does not leave suf~cient room for special relationships, such as friendship, that we have reason to value. In order to reply to this objection, it is enough to show that there is a form of friendship that is worth valuing, and in fact seems to capture what we normally mean by friendship, that does not clash with the requirements of morality in the way that the objection suggests. If, as I have just maintained, the conception of friendship that we under- stand and have reason to value involves recognizing the moral claims of friendsquapersons, hence the moral claims of nonfriends as well, then no sacri~ce of friendship is involved when I refuse to violate the rights of strangers in order to help my friend. Compatibility with the demands of interpersonal morality is built into the value of friendship itself. I have argued, in addition, that this is not a watered-down version of friendship in which the claims of friends have been scaled back simply to meet the demands of strangers. Rather, it is a concep- tion that has particular advantages from the point of view of friends themselves. In order to defend these claims, I need not deny that there are other conceptions of friendship—such as that illustrated by Achil- les and Patroclus in Homer’sIliad,perhaps—which do not have the character just described. But the claim that it would clash with the demands of this ideal of friendship is a much less forceful objection to morality as I describe it than the charges, to which I have re- sponded, that it is incompatible with friendship as we understand it, or with the conceptions of friendship that we have most reason to value.

I believe that what I have argued here in the case of friendship is true as well of other personal relations whose demands may seem to con_ict with morality, such as family ties and relations with other members of a team or cooperative enterprise. If this is correct, then the degree to which there is a con_ict between the morality of right and wrong and the goods of personal relations depends greatly on the society in which one lives.20 _{If no one in my society understands}

friendship as having the moral content I have just described, then a relationship with others on this footing is not available to me. If everyone in my society sees the world as divided between “them,” the outsiders to whom nothing is owed, and “us,” who are bound by relations of blood, affection, and patronage, then I really am faced with a choice between actual ties with my fellow citizens—strong and warm, perhaps, if also ~erce—and the requirements of morality, grounded in an ideal of relations with others that must remain purely ideal. I have tried to argue that we are not in fact faced with this choice, but it must be conceded that others could be.

A complete response to the problem of priority would involve ex-