1. WEEK 8, Impartiality and Partiality: Deepening our
Understanding of Ethics
IPHI5111
S01, 2022
2. Introduction: What does impartiality mean?
• Impartiality in ethics means we are to consider ourselves, our
projects and desires, and our loved ones, just as any other person, no
more or less special from the moral point of view.
• Many normative theories emphasize the fundamental importance
of agent-neutrality in ascertaining the normative make-up of a
line of action or choice.
3. Impartiality
• The Consequentialist and
deontologist ask us to take up a
certain, impartial, perspective on
the world:
• Don’t you think there is a problem
with this?
4. • Fairness, justice, disinterest, detachment,
• Nonpartisanship, equity, objectivity,
neutrality
What are other words for impartiality?
5. Demands of impartiality
• “A consequentialist agent is not permitted to prefer herself, nor any of her
loved ones, in choosing a distribution of benefits and burdens.
• She may not accept a pleasure for herself if doing so involves
passing up the opportunity to bring about a slightly larger
pleasure for a stranger.
6. Demands of impartiality
• Nor is she permitted to feed her own children if she could do more good by
feeding hungrier strangers instead.
• She must sacrifice the life of a spouse, parent or child if, by doing so, she
would save more lives,
• Or even save the life of one other person whose contribution to the overall
good would be greater than that of the person sacrificed….
7. The claim for impartiality is demanding and
strict
• It is for reasons such as this that consequentialist and deontologist
impartiality is accused of being too demanding
•
• By refusing to allow the agent's personal concerns to play a special role in
her practical deliberations, it is claimed, consequentialism and deontology
threaten her integrity and alienates her from herself and others
8. Modern normative philosophy and impartiality
• Modern moral philosophy has taken impartiality to be an essential
component of morality.
• The moral point of view is essentially impartial; or we should take up the stance
of an impartial observer
9. Modern normative philosophy and impartiality
• Fundamental moral rules or principles are impartial (perhaps because they are chosen
from the impartial standpoint or as if from the standpoint of an impartial
observer);
• Fundamental moral reasons are impartial (rules, principles or laws give reasons);
• The application of rules and principles should be impartial.
10. What is moral impartiality?
• - Moral impartiality means the absence of bias or prejudice in one’s moral
judgments.
- It is the requirement that we give equal or adequate considerations to the interests
of all concerned parties.
- A close connection between moral equality, fairness and impartiality (eg. Nagel;
Rawls).
11. Moral Impartiality
- Everyone must be treated as an
equal (not necessarily treated equally).
• Not treating anyone as more
deserving or special from the moral
point of view.
12. What is moral partiality?
• [prima facie justified] special treatment
• Moral partiality is special obligations towards those to whom we stand in
some kind of special relationship.
• The reasons we use to justify our actions often include a ‘particular, self-
referential element’
• Partial reasons are usually taken to be ‘agent-relative’.
13. Agent-relative vs agent-neutral reasons
• “An agent-relative reason is so-called because it is a reason relative to the
agent whose reason it is;
• it need not (although it may) constitute a reason for anyone else.
• Thus, an agent-relative obligation is an obligation for a particular agent to take
or refrain from taking some action;
14. Agent-relative vs agent-neutral reasons
• and because it is agent-relative, the
obligation does not necessarily give
anyone else a reason to support that
action.
• Each parent, for example, is
commonly thought to have such
special obligations to his/her child,
obligations not shared by anyone
else.”
• Any other examples?
15. Impartiality and partiality
• Impartial reasons are ‘agent-neutral’: they are reasons for everyone, regardless
of their identity or situation.
• Both partiality and impartiality seem intuitively very important:
• Values associated with impartiality: Fairness and equality
• Values associated with partiality: Love, friendship, our own projects and lives
16. Thomas Nagel: ‘Two Standpoints’
• We can take up two positions on ourselves and our world:
1. Individual point of view from here;
2. A view abstracted from our particularity and individuality – the ‘impersonal
standpoint’.
17. Thomas Nagel: ‘Two Standpoints’
• Ethics starts from our individual
concerns, desires etc.
• But we can recognise that just as we do,
everyone else has desires, projects etc.:
• “We can then remove ourselves in
thought from our particular position in
the world and think simply of all those
people, without singling out as I the one
we happen to be”.
18. Nagel’s two standpoints (continued)
• The content of the projects and desires, and their value, remains.
• There is value from both perspectives:
• “Things do not simply cease to matter when viewed impersonally, and we are forced to
recognize that they matter not only to particular individuals or groups”.
• In other words some things matter, period, “so that others besides yourself have reason to take
them into account.”
19. Nagel’s take on impartiality and partiality
• What happens to each person is as important as what happens to you:
• “The importance of their lives to them, if we really take it in, ought to be reflected
in the importance their lives are perceived to have from the impersonal standpoint”
• The right kind of impersonal regard is impartiality among individuals that is
egalitarian – preferential treatment to those who are worst off.
20. The suffering of the world and impartiality
• From the entirely impersonal standpoint, the sufferings of the world press on us:
• “The alleviation of misery, ignorance, and powerlessness, and the elevation of most
of our fellow human beings to a minimally decent standard of existence, seem
overwhelmingly important”
• If we were a benevolent and powerful outsider, we would probably choose
egalitarianism of Nagel’s ‘preferential’ kind.
21. The raw material of ethics
• Neither politics nor ethics aim to advise an outsider; they aim to advise us, as
human beings.
• This depends on our ability to occupy the impersonal standpoint by
abstraction even when we are part of the situation under consideration.
• But at the same time, our own desires, projects etc. remain present as part of
our own point of view. This is the “raw material from which ethics begins”
(14).
22. Juxtaposition of two standpoints
• “From his own point of view within the world each person, with his particular
concerns and attachments, is extremely important to himself, and is situated at the
centre of a set of concentric circles of rapidly diminishing identification with
others.
• But from the impersonal standpoint which he can also occupy, so is everyone else:
Everyone’s life matters as much as his does, and his matters no more than anyone
else’s. These two attitudes are not easy to combine...”, but an ethical and political
theory must try to work with “this juxtaposition of standpoints”.
23. Discussion: Considering the demanding nature of impartial ethics, how do you
think we should navigate between our impartial and partial reasons?
• What would be some of the implications of living up to the ideal of
impartiality in our daily life, and in our relations with our loved ones? Think
of some examples
• What happens to the “exclusiveness” and “specialness” of our close
relations with our friends?
24. Ethical globalism
• Is “ethical globalism” a defensible
idea? (The idea that in our moral
consideration we should not think of
our immediate context of friends or
members of the community. On the
contrary, we should only think of the
consequences of our actions from a
universal point of view? (Peter singer)
