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THE
PRINCIPLE OF HUMANITY by Ted Honderich The fundamental
question to which liberalism, conservatism and other such things give
answers or should give answers, and arguments for the answers, is
sometimes called the question of justice. It is the question not of what
laws there are, but of what laws there ought to be, how societies ought to
be. Better, it is the question of who ought to have what. An answer needs
first to decide on a prior question. Of what ought who to have what
shares or amounts? My answers are given in this paper. The first, to the
prior question, has to do with our great desires, and the
wretchedness or other distress of having them unfulfilled. Other answers
have to do with bad answers to the main question, and then the right one.
Morality has a majesty. Despite ourselves, and yet to ourselves, it stands
over the rest of our existence, in particular over our self-interest in
its various forms. To my mind it is the Principle of Humanity above all
that has that majesty. There is a little more about it in another another
piece What
Equality Comes to -- The Principle of Humanity and in effect in what
comes before it, What
Equality is Not. There is rather more, of a different kind, in a later
book Humanity,
Terrorism and Terrorist War: Palestine, 9/11, Iraq, 7/7... .published
in the U.S. under the title Right
and Wrong, and Palestine, 9/11, Iraq,
7/7.... --------------------------------------
Every political philosophy, ideology,
hope of a people, political movement and party creed should
begin from a response to the question of what
well-being there
ought to be, and, whether
as means or end, what distress.
Evidently an amount of distress can sometimes be
a means, a price that ought to be paid in order to avoid more of it. Some say,
differently, in connection
with punishment in
particular, that others deserve distress: it is to be imposed not as a means to what will then
happen, but merely
for what has already
happened. Also, it may indeed be that to pursue the largest possible amount of well-
Whatever propositions or complications there are along these lines,
it must be that every political philosophy and the
like should proceed
from an explicit response
to the question of the distribution of well-being and distress: who is to
have what amounts? Answering takes less time than answering another still larger
question, that of actions, campaigns, policies, tactics and institutions -- of how to secure and to hang
on to the proper
distribution. Still, there
is the requirement of rationality that the end be given before means are considered, and
therefore the question of distribution comes first. This essay considers it, and what seems to be the
proper and true response to it.
For a start, we need to give greater content to the fundamental
ideas of well-being and distress. They are to be understood as
two kinds of human experience, those in
which desires are satisfied and those in which desires are frustrated. They can in
fact be identified
with the relatively clear
ideas of satisfaction and frustration, clear because of their connection with action. There is
that test of whether someone is satisfied or not. In a different and
secondary usage of a
familiar kind, we may
speak of degrees of well-being or satisfaction some of which are in fact distress or frustration,
but that will not be our usual procedure. Desires are to be conceived in so large a way as to
include needs, passions,
wants, commitments,
loyalties and felt obligations, life-plans, and more. They then include what in a more restricted
sense of the word are not or might not be desires:
certain feelings for others, keeping faith, a determination to preserve one's
integrity, being
willing to pay a high
price to achieve excellence, and so on. Let us proceed in a way which has not enough familiarity,
by quickly specifying
general categories of
desire, in this case six. They have to do with subsistence, further material goods, freedom,
respect, personal
relations, and
culture.1
It is not in dispute, despite the existence of those who give
up their lives for various ends, that the primary
desire is for subsistence,
one's own and that of some
other persons, often one's partner and children. This is the desire for that minimum of
food, shelter,
strength, and perhaps
satisfactory activity which will sustain a lifetime. A lifetime is to be
understood more in terms of an average life- expectancy of 77 years rather than, say, 40.
The desire is primary in that there is a wide if
limited generalization to the effect that people, if they must choose, choose to
realize this desire rather
than any other. With
respect to the desires to follow, no serious ranking or ordering is intended.
The second category, for further material goods, can briefly
be described as one realized in much of the rich
world and frustrated in much of the poor world. It includes desires for
income and wealth, unimportant as ends and important as certain means. They are
means to the other
further material goods:
relief from pain, help with disability, a home and a tolerable wider
environment, food and drink above the level of
subsistence, adequate medical care, material support of several kinds in
adversity and misfortune,
means of travel and
communication, and a good deal more. The category includes items in a small way denigrated
only by those who possess them, consumer
goods.
Thirdly, we desire freedom and power in several settings.
Most important are political and other
rights in a self-determining homeland. It would be contentious, in the
present discussion, quickly to identify these rights with those realized to some
extent in western
or liberal
democratic states. The question is difficult, but what I have in mind are political and other rights
denied by hegemonies, occupying forces, tyrannies, imperialisms, totalitarianisms, and the like. We
also desire degrees of freedom and power in lesser
contexts. Work is perhaps
foremost here. There is
also the pursuit of one's individual form of private life.
Respect and self-respect, which perhaps are less separable
than has sometimes been
supposed2, constitute the fourth category. We desire standing as individuals, and some standing
as groups. The
means to this standing are
in part the possibilities of achievement, at bottom work. The means are in another part the
attitudes of others. It is not enough to have work,
and some limited recognition of personal achievements and virtues, if one is
the victim of racism, severe class-condescension, denignation for
disability, or any
other denial of common
humanity.
Fifthly, there is the desire for personal and wider human
relationships. What comes first here are needs, commitments, and
many feelings having to do with the family.
There are counterparts in
other personal
connections. More widely, there are desires having to do with community and fraternity. We want to
live lives which
give a large place to
connection with a few others, a connection of intimacy, protection, support, identity of hope,
and many like things. This connection with a few
others needs the supplement of association with larger groups, notably one's
society.
We desire, finally, the goods of
culture. We pursue knowledge, awareness and judgement, and the means to these,
of which the principal one is education. No one
chooses a general ignorance or incompetence. We want, as well, the experience of
art or the lesser
but real satisfaction of
entertainment. Religion enters here as well, and also other greater or smaller traditions of
races, peoples,
nations, regions, and
places.
These six categories are indeed under-described: what has
been said of them catches very little of the
richness and wretchedness of human experience. They are given, however, not in
the illusion that
they do more than fix
attention on the real subject of our inquiry. That subject is not caught hold of by way of
silent assumption, by
any such generic notion as
satisfaction or happiness or indeed well-being or distress, taken by
itself, or by any abstract account of experience in terms, say, of preference under conditions of
risk. Certainly the
categories make evident
the interdependence of our desires. The first, for subsistence, is necessary to the rest.
Kinds of freedom are
essential to respect and
self-respect, and to certain of the goods of culture. Respect and self-respect themselves
play a role in the
achievement of the goods
of culture. Categories so related do not thereby fail to be categories.
Our question is this: what is to be the distribution of this
well-being and distress, or who is to have what
amounts? The question presupposes that we can characterize possible
lifetimes in terms of well-being and distress as these have now been
conceived. Taken naturally, the question presupposes that we can so
characterize possible
lifetimes in what I shall
call a cardinal rather than an ordinal way, which is sometimes doubted. The question
presupposes an
impossibility if all we
can sensibly say about a pair of possible lifetimes is that one would be of greater
or lesser satisfaction and frustration than another. There may be a
temptation to transfer
scepticisms or resistances
from other inquiries to our own, and so to suppose this is all we can say. It seems
evident on reflection, that it is not.
Consider three possible lifetimes: one cut greatly short since
the person fails to come up to the level of
subsistence: one where the
person comes up to that
level and also satisfies the desires of two other categories, perhaps those for further
material goods and personal relations; and one involving satisfaction of
all six categories of
desire; subsistence,
further material goods, freedom, respect, personal relations, culture. Are
we restricted to saying, with good sense, only that the first possible lifetime involves
less well-being than the second and third, and the second less than
the third? It is essential
to see how much less we
would have to say than we can rightly say, how trivial rather than rightly substantial
our judgement of
the three lifetimes would
be, if this were so.
If we were so restricted, we could reasonably suppose, as
rightly we do not, that there was nothing much
to choose between the
three, and no significant
necessity of action, since the differences between the three were insignificant. The three
lifetimes might be
related in the way of
three payments, of $5000.00, $5000.01, and £5000.02, considered only in terms of purchasing
power. Again, if
we could with good sense
make only the ordinal judgement, we should have no reason whatever for thinking it a
bad policy to concentrate entirely on aid to the
second person. This would in fact be reasonable on the supposition that only a lifetime
of the third kind
was in fact tolerable, and
there was no possibility of making the first life better than the second. Other absurd
consequences, all
conflicting with what
evidently is our situation of judgement, also follow from the supposition that we can
characterize lifetimes only ordinally in terms of well-being and
distress.
At this juncture it is possible to make a certain mistake, that
of identifying judgements of amount, which are
essentially cardinal,
with judgements only of
number. We are all of us in possession of an effective system of non-numerical
classification of amounts of distress and well-being. In judging a life to be
one of wretchedness,
we plainly are not only
judging it to be of less well-being than a tolerable life or one of abundance. We are judging
amount of frustration, and the ordinal proposition is an entailment of
small interest. A life in which only the first category of desires is
satisfied is one of great frustration, as distinct
merely from being a life of greater frustration than others. In fact we have a
developed conceptual
system for such judgement
of possible lifetimes, as of much else that engages our attention. To mention only a few
other general conceptions, a possible lifetime may be
one of wretchedness, subsistence, pain, being crippled, deprivation,
poverty, fear, sorrow, tolerableness, security, satisfaction, fullness,
indulgence, or satiety. That there is a vagueness about these essentially cardinal
descriptions, and that we
may have recourse to a
criterion of action to fix amounts of well-being and distress, does not at
all establish that all that can sensibly be said about the wretched life of a parent whose
children are starving, or the life of a brother or
sister dying of AIDs, is that it is a life of lesser well-being than the
lives of people we know better. The question of
well-being, then, does not
presuppose what cannot be
done. It presupposes, moreover, what is done all the time, in particular by governments
in the allocation
of resources. The
decisions in question are not ordinal and are not dependent on certain small if increasing aids of
quantification. That
there is a large need for
old-age pensions as against a small one for certain roads is not merely the judgement that the
first is greater,
or has a higher place in
an ordinal sequence.
It is less important, but true, that we can to an extent
reasonably assign numerical values to possible
lifetimes. As remarked, no serious ranking was intended in the listing of
the five categories of desire other than subsistence. They can reasonably enough be
taken as of equal
value. There is no error,
and some use, in assigning +1 and -1 to the full satisfaction and full frustration of each
of these categories
of desire. Greater values,
+2 and -2 at least, can reasonably be assigned to the first category. This assignment is
not made useless
by the existence of some
individuals who place different values on, say, art and personal relations, and forego the
latter for the former.
It is a recommendation of fixing
attention on the categories of well-being and distress, rather than proceeding in
terms of silent
assumption, or only
generic notions, or preference-systems, that it becomes plain that another problem is not serious.
I have in mind
interpersonal comparison.
It would indeed be absurd to assume of a
rich man and a poor, each preferring to have another £100,
that their satisfaction in having it would
be identical. Here and in some other contexts, it is mistaken to assume that
satisfaction is, so to
speak, uniform.
However, who will maintain that we
cannot usefully
inquire into the
distribution of well-being since, say, the miserablenesses of two
physically-like persons, both having only and exactly the same means to the satisfaction of the
subsistence-desire, may
be so different as to make
the enterprise pointless? Who will maintain that there may be nothing to
choose or not enough, in terms of 'intensity of experience', between the life of
a weak child who is satisfying only the subsistence desire and the life of a lad
satisfied or more or less
sure to be satisfied in
all of the six categories?
Still, the assumption of interpersonal comparability, in
connection with well-being and distress, is
precisely that: an assumption taken to be defensible and made for a further purpose,
in this case inquiry.
What is to follow here
does not depend on the assumption's being taken as an exceptionless general
truth.3 Such assumptions are ordinary and essential, and we can be justified in
acting on them.
For example, some minority
of people will have their lives worsened, for whatever reason, by being entitled to an
old-age pension. This
does not put in question
the propriety of acting on a certain assumption about need which is close
enough to true. Nor, given our resources, would it be right to invest heavily in
a procedure for
finding the exceptions in
order to deny them pensions. To come to the end of these defences, it is true
that the characterization of the six categories of desire is a matter of
decision as well
as perception of fact.
This is as it must be. The characterization might properly be said to be arbitrary if it
denied that any other
categorial description of
desires was possible. It does not. What is important is that it be clear and arguable, which
I take it to be,
and that it be useful,
which I trust it will be seen to be. There is in fact no great disagreement, at a certain level
of generality, about
the goods of human
life.
We might linger over many things, and hence fail to come to
our question. Not to linger, but rather to
come to it, what are we to
aim at in terms of lives
of well-being and distress? The most developed answers of a traditional kind
are principles
of utility, all of which
can be stated in terms of the given conception of well-being. On the fundamental one, we must
secure the distribution which produces the best balance of well-being over
distress. The Utilitarians did not suppose this
could have a certain consequence, where the policy producing the best
total was such that the
well-being went mostly to
one minority, class, race, or group, and the distress mostly to another. They did not
proceed, either, by
thinking of a total
population as an entity, a singular possessor of experience, and of its balance of well-being as
being decisive. It has
long been argued, none the
less, as already noted, that Utilitarianism may favour majorities at the expense of minorities, or some
minorities at the
expense of
others.
Utilitarianism has been defended against this by being said to
be implicitly egalitarian. I shall not pursue the
argument, which has
mainly to do with the
utility of justice and considerations of decreasing marginal utility. If
there were no more than some considerable doubt about the consequences of utilitarian principles, it would
be a good idea to take up something else, about which there is not a doubt. It is not
as if we knew in
advance that there is some
special virtue in utilitarian principles, not having to do with equality, which cannot be
preserved in a
more explicit
principle.
There is a further consideration. Even if the fundamental principle
of utility, say, by way of various true minor premises, did preserve what we want of equality, it would still
be unsatisfactory.
This has to do with the
fact that general answers to the question of well-being cannot be regarded as fully
articulated major premises
to be connected by tight
reasoning with conclusions about particular political, social, and economic policies. In this
world as it is, what
may be called the merely
logical properties of these general answers are not of the first importance.
This is so because there is
enough complexity in our situation that the
best that can be done is to make judgements directed or guided,
as distinct from strictly entailed, by an answer to the question of well-being. An
answer can only be
a kind of directive. If
all possible precision is important, so is force and emphasis. Principles of utility, as expressed,
do not give a good
place, let alone
prominence, to their supposed egalitarian content. A
good flag is not of uncertain colour.
Perhaps understandably, there are no developed answers to
the question of well-being in terms of
desert or retribution. The question, of course, is wider than that of
punishment, or punishment
and reward. However, I
shall in what follows have something to say of retribution as a maxim of justice. There
are doctrines, primarily about what were called actions, tactics,
institutions and so on, which bear on the question of well-being, and do have about them
some tang of an idea of desert. One, so expressed as
to make its bearing clear,
is that there ought to be
that distribution of well-being which results from a certain principle of liberty, as it is
called, about the first-ownership and the transfer of certain fundamental
means to well-being, notably material goods and labour.4
First-ownership should
involve a man's mixing his
labour with something and in a way not worsening the situation of others, and any
transfer should at
least in a very weak sense
be voluntary. The doctrine is badly
summed up in the maxim 'From each as he
chooses, to each as he is chosen.' The tendency of this doctrine, in terms of
distribution of well-being, is not entirely clear. Just the actual
distribution which now exists is not favoured, since it is in part the result of
social and hence
governmental interference
in what is defined as liberty. The defence made for the favoured distribution is in terms of
certain desires in
but one of the categories
of well-being, the one having to do with freedoms. I shall not discuss the doctrine, but
something more of
relevance to it will be
said.
Are there any developed egalitarian answers to our
question? There is nothing to which so much
attention has been given as to principles of utility. What will come to mind,
although its description as egalitarian can be disputed, and will be here,
is that there should be an equal distribution of
well-being and distress, perhaps that each individual should have the same balance
of well-being over distress. No doubt this has been
proposed by some egalitarians, but, if it is not confused with anything else, as
it can be, it is
unacceptable.5
The short but sound argument against this -- against what can
be called the Principle of Any Equality -- is
that an inequality of satisfaction is preferable to an equality of
frustration, an inequality at high levels of satisfaction preferable to an equality
at a lower level. Nor
can we take up the
Principle of Greatest Equal Well-Being, which is open to the same kind of objection. It is that
we should pursue
that particular equal
distribution in which people have more well-being than in any other equal
distribution.
Some will be inclined to say a word in defence of the
mentioned equalities as against the inequalities,
or at any rate the second
equality. They may say
that inequality is inimical to self-respect, and hence that an inequality at high levels of
satisfaction is not
preferable to an equality
at a lower level. The reply must be that while there may be a loss of self-respect on the
part of those who
are least well-off, given
the inequality, they remain better off than under the alternative equality. Our subject matter
is well-being, in
all of its categories, and
not anything else. It is not to the point that an inequality of material goods, at high
levels, may not be
preferable to an equality
of material goods at a lower level, precisely for such reasons as self-respect.
There is also an answer said to be of an egalitarian kind given to
our question by Rawls.6 It is
that well-being and distress in a society are to be distributed primarily according to one
consideration, then
according to a second, and
then according to a third. When there is a conflict, as there will be, the first wins
over the second and
third, the second over the
third. The first is the Principle of Liberty: each person to have that maximum of rights to
liberty consistent
with everyone having the
same. The second is the second part of what is called the Difference Principle,
that there is to be an equal opportunity to get into any superior positions of
socio-economic
superiority or difference,
as defined by such goods as income and wealth, power and standing. The third
consideration is the first part of the Difference Principle, that socio-economic
goods are to be distributed in the particular way
that leaves the worst-off in such goods better off than they would be given any
other way of the
distribution.
This view is much elaborated and yet for several reasons may
be thought to remain indeterminate. There
is remarkably little discussion of the given
liberties, but, 'roughly
speaking', they are
'political liberty (the right to vote and to be eligible for public office) together with freedom
of speech and assembly, liberty of conscience and
freedom of thought; freedom of the person along with the right to hold (personal)
property; and freedom from arbitrary arrest and
seizure as defined by the concept of the rule of law'.7 Presumably also
included are other rights
before the law. It is not
easy to judge the effect of this first-priority principle on the distribution of well-being and
distress. This has
much to do with the fact
that what are in question are indeed rights rather than powers. There has been a long history
of argument to
the effect that mere
rights, unsupported by economic and other resources, are of a limited and uncertain value.
Nor is it, of course, that the second part of the Difference Principle
guarantees anything
like an economic quality.
Conjoined with certain propositions about the need for the incentives of socio-economic
inequality, it may
issue in striking
inequality. Consider then the following description: 'distribution of well-being and distress
considerably determined by
an equal distribution of
rights supported by one or another distribution of socio-economic resources'. The description may
be thought to pick out nothing definite. It is worth
adding that the absence of a specification of 'the right to hold (personal)
property' makes by
itself for an
indeterminateness of considerable consequence. Rawls's theory of justice, nonetheless, is a kind
of culmination of liberal thinking, and, as lately remarked, a good deal more will be said of it,
particularly his argument for his principles -- and an ensuing obligation
we have to obey the law.8 But let us now consider something else.
The proper response to the question of well-being is at bottom
a simple one which has been undeveloped despite
being presupposed
by many doctrines about
tactics and institutions, and which in fact fails to get expression in Rawls's theory of
justice. For the reason
given in connection with
liberties, and others, it is not clear that it is consistent with that theory, even if the theory
can be taken out
of its given context,
which is single society. The principle is that we should have actually effective policies whose end
is to make well-off those who are badly-off -- get them out of distress and into
well-being. The principle, which will be more fully stated in
due course and which for a reason to which
I shall come will be given
the new name of being the
Principle of Humanity rather than the Principle of Equality, has to do
directly with well-being rather than socio-economic goods. Like other
responses to the question of well being, including the utilitarian, it would have
little force if construed
in a merely ordinal way.
It is not to be confused with the 'negative utilitarian principle' that we should as far as
possible reduce the
numbers of badly-off,
which was so taken as absurdly to justify ending their lives.
The population to which the principle applies is that of
persons generally, as distinct from persons
within a given society or nation. Several future generations must be included, those
about which we
can make more or less
rational predictions. The limitation to such foreseeable generations is essential if the
principle is to be at all
practical. Needless to
say, taking account of the future raises difficulty. It would be wrong to
give great weight to any vision of future Utopia, or, for that matter, future ruin. What is
obviously necessary
is that we follow certain
rules, of which a principal one is that a lesser probability of greater distress is to count
for only as much as
a greater probability of
lesser distress. Another is that in general we must assign lesser probabilities to events in
the distant as against
the nearer future. The
upshot is that future generations will count for less.
There is the necessity of reflecting on the restriction of the
principle to one species. We should be taken aback by the thought
that within a century or two much of our
present use of animals may
quite generally be
regarded with moral disgust. Whether or not this comes about, it seems evident that the lives of
animals call for
greater regard than we
give them. Still, as you will guess, I do not propose that we take the Principle of Humanity to cover more than
the human species.
One better reason is that
other animals have very greatly different capabilities of well-being and distress. What is
clearly true, however,
is that animals and their
distress and well-being must put some constraint on the operation
of the Principle of Humanity. I shall not attempt to discuss it here.
Taking people generally, of several generations, who are to
be taken as the badly-off?
Certainly to be included are (a) those
persons who fail to satisfy even their
subsistence desires, and therefore not only desires for further material goods but also
to some extent desires
in all categories. The
latter is necessarily true if, as seems necessary, we take the desires for respect, personal
relations, freedom, and
culture to be desires for
a lifetime's satisfactions of them. The people in question will include individuals of various
life-spans, certainly.
What they have in common,
in terms of length of life, is that they die at one or another premature age. Also to be included are (b) those who
subsist but lack further
material goods, and hence
are certain to be frustrated in other ways as well, notably with respect to freedom. It
also seems to me
necessary that we include
others in the badly-off. This comes about partly as a consequence of having to pay
attention, in a way, to the subject of tactics and institutions. It is not to
be supposed, given
certain political,
psychological, and other realities, that there will or can be a total or even an effective
concentration on groups (a) and (b). It seems in accord with the impulse of
the Principle of Humanity, taking it to be a principle which has to do with the
possible, in a realistic
sense, to bring in other
groups. It would be unrealistic and mistaken,
given the principle, to object to the endeavours of
individuals who choose to concentrate on (c) people
badly-off in that they lack the great satisfactions of freedom, say freedom in
a homeland. So with concentration on (d) those who lack respect. The same
may apply to endeavours in connection with (e)
people who subsist but have a
minimal degree of satisfaction in all the other categories.
So I take it in what follows that the badly-off or those in
degrees of distress, in terms of the population of all persons, are to be understood to be members of
the groups (a)
to (e). The better-off,
those enjoying degrees of well-being, are the remainder of all
persons.
It is not inconsistent with the Principle of Humanity, however, to
concern oneself with a single nation, indeed one of the nations of the rich world. Again there
are relevant political, psychological, and
other realities. There are members of group (a) here. Their existence
cannot be overlooked. There are also members of (b), including many of the unemployed, and of (c), (d) and
(e).
Other groups in the rich societies will come to mind.
Here a large majority of people are
considerably satisfied in all the six categories, more than minimally satisfied. We make
distinctions within this large group. By way of one
very general one, there are the poorly-paid and the better-paid. The
poorly-paid are not well-satisfied in terms of further material goods, and
hence in certain
ways and degrees not
well-satisfied in freedom and respect. Ought they not to have been included, from the point of
view of the Principle of Humanity, as a group who
are badly-off? The question is not one to be answered just by discovery, so to
speak. We are specifying a principle, and the answer
given specifies it further. The principle is to be so understood that this group
does not count as
badly-off. This is not to
say that it cannot defensibly make demands of the better-paid, under certain assumptions and
by way of different
and lesser
considerations.
Before considering a bit further the poorly-paid and the
better-paid, in connection with the specific policies mentioned in the
initial statement of the Principle of Humanity,
we need to give further
attention to the badly-off
as defined by the six categories. The principle is about them and not necessarily about
the worst-off in
those categories. To
proceed quickly, if too abstractly, consider a situation where, say, 999 similar-sized groups of
people are very
badly-off indeed, and one
similarly-sized group is trivially worse-off. Consider a choice between a
programme which trivially improves the lot of the single group, and a
programme which does not
help the single group but
very greatly improves the lot of the 999. It is hard to resist the unhappy inclination to
prefer the second
policy.
It may be that conflicts between the claims of the badly-off
and the worst-off do not often occur. In
any case, I shall not now say much of how to reach a precise formulation of what
seems forced upon us: in part that a large gain for
many, say an escape from
mere subsistence, may
outweigh the abandoning of a few in yet greater distress. We do not
actually have a guide until we supply definitions for 'a large gain', 'many', and so on.
Are we in this
neighbourhood forced to
proceed in a piecemeal way, sometimes called intuitionist, deciding situations as they
come up, sometimes
being more moved by the
situation of many rather than fewer, sometimes not? This sort of procedure is common,
and primitive judgements of the kind must occur
somewhere in any evaluate
system, but it is not
satisfactory here. We can instead construct a certain rule, or at any rate a set of rules for
manageably limited
problems: a fundamental
one would be that of income. Such a rule can serve purposes of an ordinary
decision-specifying principle expressed in general terms. It can reflect our
convictions, ensure
consistency, and allow for
its own revision in the event of conflicting and recalcitrant consequences. In short, it will
guide action. To
construct it we produce a
range of paradigmatic possible choice-situations, and give the choice to
be made in each, in some in favour of the worst-off and in others in favour of the
badly-off. In any actual
choice-situation we decide
which paradigm is most applicable, and choose accordingly. Such a rule, which has many
analogues, can
give us what is as
satisfactory as a guide of the ordinary kind, expressed in general terms.
It may be rightly anticipated that the proposed response
to the question of well-being is not a complete
answer to it. It has nothing to say of groups of the better-off
taken
by
themselves, say the
poorly-paid and the better-paid in rich societies, and their cardinal or
ordinal positions. If it were to come about that there were no more of the badly-off, as
defined, the principle would have no further use, or
rather it would instruct us only to see that no badly-off came into existence.
That the principle has nothing to say of any distributions of
well-being, if there are any, that do not affect the badly-off, is a matter of
moral concentration. It
is a matter of
concentration on one human reality, a reality not about to disappear. There is no serious
embarrassment in the breadth of the principle, in its being an incomplete
answer to the question of well-being. An incomplete
answer is not an irrelevant answer. It may be, as in this case, that answer
which is taken to
be most significant. The
conviction here, put quickly, is that what has priority over any other principle for the
distribution of things
among the better-off is a
principle about famine and miserableness and the other kinds of
distress.
The initial statement of the Principle of Humanity was that we
are to have actually effective policies
whose end is to make better-off those who are badly-off. What are those policies?
There is the policy to be considered,
first, of helping the badly-off without at all affecting the well-being of
the better-off. If the
pie of well-being can be
enlarged by a method which does not at all lessen the shares of the better-off, that is
to be done. We must
act, if we can, on the
familiar instruction to raise up those below rather than drag down those above, to level-up
rather than level-down. But could we act effectively by only this
policy? Could we, for example, simply increase the various material and other
goods, the means
to well-being?
Alternatively, could we transfer sufficient material goods from
the better-off without reducing their
well-being? The first idea supposes that we are in
something like a
circumstance of realizable
abundance or plenitude. The supposition is sufficiently uncertain as to make a
reliance on it impossible. The second idea is a reasonable one.
The better-off waste a great deal. Indeed we waste mountains of
means to well-being. Still, it is unclear that we can rely on this alone.
We need more than the first policy.
The second possibility to be considered, then, is precisely a
policy of transfer of the means of well-being
from the better-off to the
badly-off, in the
knowledge that this will reduce the well-being of the better-off. It is maintained by many, of
course, that there is a
serious question of to
what extent we can do this. It is maintained, as it has been for long, that policies which
greatly or considerably
reduce the means of the
better-off will in fact fail to be effective transfer-policies. It is also maintained,
differently and extremely,
that to subtract
anything from the means of the better-off will be ineffective. Both claims rest on what is taken to
be a fundamental
fact of human existence,
which is an incentive system's connection with the total pies of means and of well-being,
and hence the well-being of the badly-off. The need of the poor is that
the rich be rich.
The extreme view, that to subtract any
significant amount of the
means of the better-off in
the world today would necessarily worsen the situation of the badly-off, is of course
false. There is only the
question of what extent of
taking means from the better-off will in fact be successful transfer-policies. What extent
of taking from the
rich will help the poor?
Of the inequalities in means, what fraction of them are in fact not necessary
inequalities: those of which is is true that they are needed, given attitudes as they
are or can become, in order to serve an end of the badly-off?
Something related to this is certainly important enough to stand on
its own as a policy, the third one. Necessary and unnecessary inequalities in means are in a way relative. That
is, a favourable
inequality's being
necessary is a matter of the attitudes of the person favoured by it. An inequality's being necessary is
a matter of its
being a necessary
incentive, and the latter is a matter of the person's attitudes. He might change, and become less
demanding about
payment for using his
abilities. There is the possibility of practices, not necessarily coercive ones, directed to
changing attitudes, so that what are now necessary inequalities cease to be
such and can become the subject of effective
transfers.
A fourth policy is implicit in what has been said of our
fundamental desires, the first and third above all, those for a decent
length of life and for freedoms of various kinds. It is also implicit in
the policies we already have -- policies, in a word, for reducing misery
and the like. What the fourth policy comes to, then, is that we of course
must strive not to act in a positive way to give rise to misery and like
-- we must strive not attack lives ourselves. So the policy is a
prohibition on wounding, killing, torture, sexual violation, threat,
intimidation and other violence and near-violence against
individuals.
Since this policy cannot possible be an absolute one, cannot
possibly rule out all uses of force by societies against individuals, or
rule out an individual's right to try to save his own life by force, the
definition of the policy cannot conceivably be easy. It will be clear that
it cannot be a prohibition on all terrorism and state-terrorism. It is a
policy about which to think more fully not at this moment but only at the
end of a larger inquiry.
A fifth possible policy of the Principle of Humanity, important to
some, has to do with envy. It is claimed that some of the distress of the badly-off
is owing to their
envy of the better-off,
and that this can and should change. We can take it that envy is a feeling owed to relative
positions of the envious
and the better-off, not to
the absolute position of either. That is, the envious would persist in that particular part
of their unhappiness owed to envy if both they and the better-off went the
same distance up (or down) a scale of
well-being. Perhaps, since envy also has to do with the means to well-being, the
envious would feel
in a way better if certain
goods or means to the well-being of the better-off were destroyed, as distinct from
transferred to the envious. We can, it is supposed, increase the well-being of
the badly-off by
putting an end to their
envy. This fourth policy is related to the first. Both would help the badly-off without
affecting at all the well-being of the better-off.
There is a sixth and related possibility, which has to do
with condescending pride, to give it a mild
name, on the part of the
better-off. There is
satisfaction owed to relative position, to the fact that others have less of well-being or the means
to it. This, like
envy, is not a matter of
absolute level. Condescending pride perhaps may be said to make some contribution to the
situation of the badly-off, partly but not wholly by way of giving rise to
envy or reinforcing
it. An alteration of this
pride, then, would somewhat improve the lot of the badly-off.
Of these six possibilities of improving the lot of the
badly-off, the fifth and sixth are not of great
significance. It is to be kept in mind that they have to do with one element in one
category of well-being, that of respect. The first, at least in part, and
the second, third and fourth, are in my view policies that can reasonably
be included in the Principle of Humanity. To say more of the second, about
means-transfers that do reduce the well-being of the better-off, should we
take it that the Principle of Humanity says nothing, in connection with
transferring means and
well-being from the
better-off, of particular groups of the better-off? Thinking so would not be in accord with the spirit
of egalitarianism.
It must be that means are
to be transferred first from those of the better-off who are better placed than others of
the better-off. In
terms of the rich
societies and the general distinction, effective transfer begins with the better-paid rather than
the poorly-paid.
What limit is there to the
transfer of the means of well-being from the better-off? There is room for choice, but
evidently distress must
not be increased by the
transfer of means. Transfer is not punishment.
It is essential to remain clear about the goal of the Principle of
Humanity. Despite certain possibilities of self-deception and propaganda,
the goal is not to lower the absolute well-being of the better-off. The goal is not to level down. That
may happen, although
the connection between
well-being and what we have called the means to it -- about which connection not enough
has been said -- is far from simple. It would be consistent with the
spirit of egalitarianism to act only on the first of the five policies if
it were anything
like sufficient itself,
rather than the second. To act on the second possibility is then not at all necessarily to be
moved by a questionable or base impulse. It is to be moved by the greatest
of concerns, that of improving the lot of the
badly-off by an effective method. The project remains sufficiently human and proper
when the active
parties are the would-be
beneficiaries. That this method may have the side-effect of reducing the absolute
well-being of the better-off is another fact, consistent with the high moral
standing of egalitarianism.
A second and related point is that if we act on the second
policy our goal is not that of changing the
relative positions of the well-off and the badly-off. In particular it is mistaken
somehow to identify or
associate the end with
envy. The goal of the enterprise is not to approximate to or secure an equality, a certain
relationship. Certainly to transfer goods is to do something which has the
side-effect of tending to equalize both goods and
well-being. The hitherto
badly-off in well-being
will have more of both, and the hitherto better-off will have less of goods and perhaps of
well-being. If the
goal of the Principle of
Humanity were achieved, there would exist as a second side-effect the equality, so to speak,
of all people being
other than badly-off.
Still, none of this is the end of the enterprise. It remains true, more important, that
changing the relative positions of the better-off and the badly-off is not the
goal when particular
campaigns or practices
have the specific aim of producing an equality of goods, or of
approximations to one, as a means to the end of the Principle of Humanity. Such campaigns or
practices in certain
contexts are the most
effective ones. One person one vote is an example. Others, involving material goods, make
the correct assumption that a given group of people
are in the same need, or
roughly equal in their
capability to secure well-being from identical shares of resources. Variants of this
consideration, that the goal of the Principle of Humanity is not relative, and
of the previous
consideration, that the
goal is not the dragging down of the better-off, apply to the stipulation
that in transferring goods from the better-off, the first to be affected should be
those best placed, including the better-paid rather than the poorly-paid
in the rich societies.
The Principle of Humanity can now be more fully stated, as
follows. Our end must be to make well-off those who are
badly off, by way of certain policies: (1)
increasing means to well-being and, more surely, transferring means from the better-off that will not affect
their well-being, (2) transferring means from the better-off that will affect
their well-being, those at the higher levels to be affected first, and observing a
certain limit, (3) reducing the necessity of inequalities, and (4) allowing only what can be
called, without definition for now, necessary violence. Further, these
policies are to be pursued in part by way of practices
of equality. 5. HUMANITY AND
EQUALITY
The Principle of Humanity, in earlier versions of this essay, was
spoken of, rather, as the Principle of Equality. What is more, arguments
were advanced for that name. The matter is larger than a merely
teminological one. A proper sense of any principle is or should be
conveyed by what it is called. It was my idea, in the past, that a proper
sense of the the thing was given by speaking of it as [to Ed: no inverted
commas in these cases, please] the Principle of Equality. My reasons were
as follows. The first consisted in several facts
mentioned above. These are the two side-effects of concern for the badly-off, these
being equalizations or a tendency to them. A
second reason, more important, was the noted fact that in many situations and contexts, involving
similar need and
capability, the most
reasonable way of helping the badly-off in well-being is by aiming at an
equality of material goods and so on. This is not always true, and that it is not always true
is important. Still, it is true enough to go a good way by itself toward making
the principle's
name natural.
There was also the third reason that the principle has
an excellent claim to be regarded as the principle
which has most
directed egalitarian
struggles throughout history, although these are not too easily defined. It is mistaken to suppose
instead that these
struggles have been
informed by, say, the Principle of Any Equality, or the Principle of Greatest Equal Well-being.
These latter principles, as explained, are concerned with relative
position, and may
have the consequence that
the position of the better-off in well-being must be reduced even if this
does not improve the absolute position of the poorer-off. These principles may
also have the consequence, perhaps intimately connected with the previous
one, that certain means to well-being are to be
destroyed. These would be
means of value to the
better-off but for some reason of no use to the poorer-off.
By way of brief support for the proposition that
egalitarianism
has in fact been informed
by the Principle of Humanity rather than these others, let us take egalitarianism to have
consisted in struggles
identified by demands for
(a) giving 'to each according to their needs' or
'equality of welfare', (b) 'equality of opportunity', and (c) 'equal respect for all'. Were the struggles so
identified aimed at
equality of well-being,
any equality of it, with the possible consequences just mentioned?
Were they instead aimed at helping the badly-off? The answer is plain enough. It is plain
despite the fact
that egalitarianism, like
all other human endeavours and traditions, has often enough fallen into confusion, excess,
and absurdity. Those who have been concerned to satisfy the needs and
wants of the impoverished and the degraded have not been aiming at a
relationship -- an
equality, any equality.
One may be led into supposing so by the truth that they have often had the subordinate aims of which we
know, equalities of means to well-being. But there is no reason, to repeat, to confuse
their means and their
end. They have not had an
end which might have been served by destroying food, say, or trying to make sickness or poverty or
disdain universal.
They have not sought to
have everyone equally in need. Nor is it really
arguable that they have had the end of the
Principle of Greatest Equal Well-Being. Those who have struggled for equality
of opportunity
have been motivated by the
vision of full lives for those who have not had them because of want of education or the
like. Whatever
they have demanded about
the distribution of educational resources they have in the relevant sense not been
levellers. They have not
sought an equality of
ignorance, or poor education for everyone. Much the same can be said of those who have been
moved by the demand for respect.
My fourth reason for the name the 'Principle of Equality' seemed
the strongest. It has
to do with the second
reason but certainly is distinct. To use any other name, including `The
Principle of Humanity', would make it more likely, to say the least, that
the principal means to the
principle's end would not
get a proper attention. The principal means to the end of helping the badly-off was the means of
securing certain equalities of material goods and so on. This, part of the second
policy mentioned
above, seemed to me
fundamental. It was something passed by or resisted. It seemed to me
of fundamental importance that the fundamental moral
principle, by its name,
should convey the
essential means
to its end, a means which
commonly is ignored or obstructed.
Well, I think differently now. The overwhelming reason, as perhaps
you will anticipate, is that the great end of the principle, its raison
d'etre so to speak, should not be lost sight of. It sums up a morality
of humanity, fellow-feeling or generosity. That is its nature, a concern
and determination having to do with people in distress, people with bad
lives. Not to have this salient is no service to thinking about the
matter. Also, it leaves some of us unclear about the moral imperative of
the thing, and enables others of us to avoid it. To repeat something said
in another connection, a good flag is not of uncertain
colour. That does not substract any of the
principle's concerns with equality or put into question that it has been
fundamental and central to egalitarianism. It must not distract us,
either, from the campaigns for equalities of various kinds that are
essential. In that connection, it is worth looking at the relation of the
Principle of Humanity to familiar principles, rules, maxims, and
propositions mentioning equality. If we accept the
principle, it follows that some of these are to be accepted, others amended or
rejected, rejected. To specify these consequences is to give further
content to the principle. It is in part through its own corollaries that
so general a principle becomes clearer. My other
intention in surveying these consequences is to argue that independently of the
Principle of Humanity we or anyway many of us are in fact committed to
moving toward or inclined to many of them. It appears that we favour or will
come to favour
things in accord with the
principle and not those that conflict with it. Hence my second intention is to provide
one basic argument
for the principle, that
increasingly it reflects ordinary enlightened convictions and
feelings.9 (1) The day has passed when it could be
said that the Principle
of Formal Equality,
fundamentally that like cases should be treated alike, is the only acceptable upshot of
egalitarian reflection. Still, not long ago it was regularly supposed that what
egalitarianism
comes to is only this, to
put it a bit more fully, that no one shall be held to have a claim to better treatment in
advance of general
grounds being produced.
The principle can be realized in a racist society, or indeed in any
society which follows rules of any kind. It amounts to an injunction to consistency.
The Principle of
Formal Equality is
consistent with the Principle of Humanity, but cannot be said to amplify it, or to be a
consequence or corollary of it.
(2) There are a number of what can be called elitist maxims
of equality. One, as the phrase is sometimes
understood, is 'to each
according to his ability'.
A second one, again as sometimes understood, is 'to each according to his capacity to develop'.
Others, more likely
to go unstated, are 'to
each according to his race', or 'his colour' or 'his nationality'. There is the possibility of
taking the second
maxim differently, in such
a way that it may be in accord with the Principle of Humanity. Truly elitist maxims
conflict with the principle, and they also conflict with ordinary and
growing attitudes
and indeed with rising
institutions.
(3) What of the principle of
retributive justice: to each according to his desert? To speak of punishment, it is
essential to distinguish
between its rules and the
principle of retribution. If some people defend the rules, such as the rule that only the
guilty are to be
punished, by referring to
desert, others do so as reasonably by referring to prevention, perhaps deterrence. If we
now ask the question of what goals might be served by deterrence, one is obviously
the goal of the
Principle of Humanity.
Certain rules of punishment, then, are in accord with, or indeed follow from, the Principle
of Humanity. There is conflict of a kind between the Principle of
Humanity and the
principle of retribution,
but there is room for a good deal of reflection on the latter. It is arguable that the principle,
on full inquiry,
reduces very roughly to
this: a man is to have a penalty which (a) exactly satisfied the grievance-desire to which he
has given rise, (b)
will be in accordance with
certain rules of equal treatment, and (c) will cost him less distress than it would someone
else who had to
undergo it.10
Given this view, it is possible to argue that the principle of desert is something whose materials testify to
the correctness of
the egalitarian's
conviction that the fundamental thing is the reduction of distress.
It can be argued in any case that ordinary enlightened
attitudes about the rules of punishment and about
retribution go in the
direction of the Principle
of Humanity. Particular rules which cannot be seen as serving a tolerable deterrent end are
at least suspect. It
is not too much to say
that the principle of retribution, despite the materials in it, is in decline. (4) 'To and from each according to his
voluntary consents and
agreements.' This
principle, if taken in some ways, including one which makes it a partial summary of a doctrine
mentioned above,
does fight with the
Principle of Humanity. The central point is that voluntary agreements under a certain loose
definition of voluntariness may be agreements which precisely defeat the
aim of the Principle of Humanity. They may indeed
serve to reduce the well-being of the badly-off. Under other restricted
understandings of the
quoted principle it is in
accord with the Principle of Humanity. It is a
part of well-being to have certain agreements protected. If
the principle is taken in the first ways,
so as to defend distributions of well-being that result from minimally voluntary
agreements, as
when a man agrees to work
for a certain wage when the only alternative is deprivation for his children, there
is declining support for it.
(5) There are a number of what can be called weak
principles and rules of equality. One is to the
effect that we are to pay an equal respect to everyone. No one is to be
ignored. Others specify
certain absolutely minimal
ways in which all people are to be treated. Their 'basic' needs, perhaps what we have
identified as subsistence-desires, are to be
satisfied. It will be evident that the Principle of Humanity conflicts with such
principles, if going far beyond them is taken for conflict. These and other weak
principles are no
longer ordinarily regarded
as sufficient. It is thought by very many that individuals have rights which go well beyond
them. There has
been a change in attitudes
which supports the Principle of Humanity.
(6) There is the matter of equal liberties, with liberties taken
in some such way as in connection with Rawls. We have
the proposition then that all are to be equal in roughly the legal,
political, and intellectual rights defended in
Britain and America. As already suggested, equal rights conjoined with unequal
socio-economic
powers are of limited
value, to say the least. It is clear, however, that the Principle of
Humanity is at least in accord with equal distributions of
rights supported by like distributions of
power. There is a change of attitudes in this direction.
(7) It is said that those who make equal efforts are to be
equally rewarded, and still more than those who
make lesser efforts. Or,
differently, those who not
merely try but also succeed are to be rewarded in one way, and those who do not succeed,
whether or not they try, are to be less well
rewarded. Another related rule has to do with contribution, with or without effort or
work. The first
two rules, but hardly the
third, are sometimes in accordance with the idea that we should have any favourable
inequalities of goods
and well-being which in
fact are necessary to the end of the Principle of Humanity.
There is the difficulty that it is far
from easy to establish
that those who carry
forward certain jobs, and hence make larger contributions to the total means of well-being,
would not do so
without the rewards they
are getting. Many jobs and careers bring great satisfaction. It is not surprising that many
egalitarians are
sceptical about arguments
to the effect that company directors, say, must be paid more because of 'the burden of
responsibility' which
they carry. It may seem
that in general this responsibility is not merely bearable but desirable, the proof being
that it is much sought
after.
Also, to look back to the third of our
policies in connection
with the Principle of
Humanity, it is to be kept in mind that the principle has the consequence that we should
attempt to reduce
what is necessary in the
way of certain incentives for the given end. It is not possible to say that there now exists
some ordinary support
for only those rules of
effort and productivity which in fact are consonant with the Principle of Humanity. Perhaps
there is movement in that direction. Something of the same sort can be
said of the desirability of changing
incentive-demands.
(8) The Principle of Humanity has informed egalitarian
progress, and the latter has included the
struggle for equality of opportunity. Still, there is more to be said about the latter,
of relevance to a new
and more perceptive
egalitarian demand. Opportunity may be taken to consist in the use of certain resources,
including abilities of other people. If we are to improve the lot of the
badly-off, then we
shall not always proceed
most efficiently by securing equality of opportunity. We shall do so by securing a certain
inequality.
If we regard well-being as in part a
function of opportunity on
the one hand and the
innate capabilities of individuals on the other and it is the case that some individuals are less
capable than others,
we shall sometimes do best
by securing that they have more opportunity. The Principle of
Humanity does not derive from a view of life as simply a curious race where all attention is
given to an equal
start and no attention to
some being lame. There seems little doubt that ordinary moral attitudes are changing in this
direction. That
is, there is movement
toward proper inequalities of opportunity. We are now familiar with the idea of using more
resources for the
less able in education.
There is also reverse discrimination. (9) If there are circumstances where
capabilities and needs are
unequal, there are also
other circumstances, already emphasized, where given people are roughly equal in a certain
capability or need. Here the Principle of Humanity
requires that there be a rule of equal distribution of material and other goods.
There are many
such rules, guiding many
practices. The rules have an insufficient acceptance.
(10) Finally, there is the maxim 'To each according to his
needs', with needs fully conceived. The maxim
may be supplemented by
another, 'from each
according to his ability', understood in a certain way. Given narrow views of needs, noted above, the
first rule falls
short of being a version
of the Principle of Humanity. Under another reading, the maxim is in fact tantamount to the
principle. It is unique among maxims about equality, and cannot
be regarded as merely one among many. So much for a survey of the
consequences of the Principle of Humanity for maxims and other thoughts
having to do with equality. There is another possible survey, more difficult
but capable of
shedding at least as much
light on the Principle of Humanity. It takes us in the direction of the question of
tactics and institutions
mentioned at the
beginning, and is of the general political consequences of the Principle of Humanity -- political
consequences traditionally conceived.
If that principle is the principle of the Left, or the Right, or
the Centre, then it is the principle of the
Left.11 Indeed, the Left in politics is best defined by way of it. It is some
parties of the Left,
further, that have
actually done most for progress toward realization of the principle.
Certainly the principle has sometimes been espoused by the Right and the Centre, but
typically in conjunction
with contradictory or
conflicting impulses, among them the impulse to believe that great inequalities in distribution
of the means to
well-being are required to
protect the grim state of the badly-off from being even more grim. The New Labour Party in
Britain is an outstanding example, to me an awful one. Still, there can be
disagreement about the political consequences of the
Principle of Humanity. More should be said about self-deception in political
philosophy, and also
the pretence of
self-deception, perhaps not only on the Right. The Principle of Humanity, secondly, at
this time as at most times, is the principle not of conservation but of
change. That of course
is not the same as saying
that it is the principle of the Left. The principle, thirdly, may or may not be the
principle of democracy,
by which is meant what we
now call democracy -- once known to others as bourgeois democracy, with
some reason. The
question is not easy, and
certainly not one which allows for brevity. There evidently are many circumstances where the
Principle of Humanity issues in democracy. The difficulty is that certain
non-democracies can also be seen as in accord with the principle.
Their far greater approximation to economic
equality is of great importance. The principle, fourthly, has sometimes
issued in revolution
and it has indeed been
behind acts and campaigns of terrorism. It has had to do, fifthly, with provision for free
and equal expression
of opinion. With the aid
of certain suppositions it does provide an argument for some violence. With the aid of
other suppositions it provides a more certain
argument for free
expression.
It will be as well to say a word more on terrorism, and in
particular on what can be called terrorism for
humanity. What it is, by one rough understanding, is terrorism on
behalf of humanity, on behalf of people in general who are in distress,
all of them. What it is, by another rough understanding, is terrorism out
of humanity, terrorism that at least may be owed to that disposition of
some of us that is our humanity, generosity or fellow-feeling. Terrorism
for humanity, by a third and best understanding, is terrorism directed to
the end of the Principle of Humanity or a related end. It is terrorism
more or less directed to the end of the Principle of Humanity -- reducing
wretchedness and other forms of distress. It gets its end from that
morality of which I take the Principle of Humanity to be the best
statement. You will not need assuring, I hope, that terrorism for humanity
so understood is already right -- that it is morally defensible by
definition. That is no part of the
idea.12
The Principle of Humanity is not the only conceivable formulation
of the morality in question, and it requires enlargement in several ways.
But surely it is the proper and true response to the question of
well-being. It is, to my mind, the best formulation of the greatest of
moralities. That is not so controversial a conclusion as some may
too quickly suppose. There remains the
other large question, that of tactics and institutions, to which we have
latterly approached a bit
more closely. There is
more room for dispute here. Certainly some 'egalitarian' means to the end of making
better-off those who are
badly-off are ill-judged.
But support for the Principle of Humanity is not to be identified with support for them. Nor
should opposition
to them give rise to
opposition to it. ------------------ 1 Systematic accounts of human goods, basic values
and things which it is
rational to desire for
their own sake are not popular and have been attempted by few philosophers, for whatever reason. See W. K.
Frankena, Ethics (Englewood Cliffs; 1973), p. 71f.; Morris Ginsberg, On the Diversity of
Morals (London: 1956),
chs. 7, 8; John Finnis,
Natural Law and Natural Rights (Oxford: 1980), chs. 3, 4. There is a further statement of my six
goods at the beginning of Ch 8. See also my After the Terror
(Edinburgh University Press, 2002), Chs 1, 2. 2 John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Oxford:
1972), p. 440f, gives a
satisfactory account, and
defines self-respect as the most important primary good. 3 There is an excellent discussion of forms of the
assumption in Amartya
Sen, Collective Choice
and Social Welfare (San Francisco: 1970), ch. 7. 4 Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia
(Oxford, 1974), esp. ch. 7, section 1. 5 D. A. Lloyd-Thomas in 'The Ones in Darkness',
Philosophy, (1979),
rightly notices a mistaken
line of mine in favour of this, the Principle of Any Equality, and a correct one against in
Three Essays on Political Violence (Blackwells, 1976), p. 41, p. 10). His main
contention, that in so
far as there is a
connection at all between serious need and equality, it holds doubtfully between need and the Principle
of Formal Equality, noticed below, seems to me
mistaken. Need, as explained in this essay, is bound up with the Principle of
Humanity.
6. Op. cit. 7. Op. cit, p.
61. More light is shed in
Rawls's later book Political Liberalism (Columbia University Press,
1993), on which I have found it hard to get a
hold. 8. See below, Ch. 4 9. There is another argument, more basic, to the
effect that it is the human nature of each of us to put our personal
demands for satisfaction of our great desires ahead of the demands of
others for the satisfaction of their secondary rather than great desires,
and that consistency then commits us to the Principle of Humanity. See
After the Terror, Ch 2. There is also the argument for the
principle that consists in the strength of its kind of thing, and the
weakness or worse of other kinds of thing. See Ch
6. 10. See my Punishment, The Supposed
Justifications (Penguin, 1976) and also A Theory of Determinism:
The Mind, Neuroscience and Life-Hopes (Oxford University Press, 1988),
Ch. 10 11. For a full discussion see my `Determinism and
Politics', Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 1982. [To be reprinted in EUP vol of papers
on determinism & freedom]. 12. See Ch 8 below, and also Terrorism for
Humanity: Inquiries in Political Philosophy (Pluto,
2003/4). HOME to T. H.
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