Relation to others· Bonds
Impartialism
Axis: Partiality — Is it right to give moral priority to those close to us?
Morality demands that we consider every person equally: a stranger's interests count as much as those of someone close to us. Favoring our own is a bias that moral reason must correct.
Movements 3
Utilitarianismexplicit
If only well-being counts, then the same pleasure is worth as much whoever feels it: no standpoint, neither the agent's, nor a nation's, nor a class's, holds any pre-eminence in the calculus. From this step come the formula, everybody to count for one and nobody for more than one, and the aggregation that sums individual happinesses without weighting them. This strict sets utilitarianism apart from moralities granting special weight to kin or compatriots: makes it the axiom of universal benevolence at the heart of The Methods of Ethics.
Mill, Utilitarianism, chapter 5 · Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics
Buddhismexplicit
Loving-kindness (mettā) and compassion (karuṇā) are cultivated toward all beings without distinction: the practice consists precisely in extending loving-kindness beyond loved ones, to the indifferent and then to the enemy. Dissolving the separate self removes the basis of partial preference, orienting Buddhism toward a benevolent impartialism.
Karaṇīya Mettā Sutta (the discourse on loving-kindness) · Dhammapada, ch. I (The Pairs)
Show inferred positions (1)
Stoicisminferable
Stoic cosmopolitanism implies equal concern for every rational being: since all humans share the same and form a single world-city, the in principle owes them impartial regard. Hierocles even urges drawing the circles of inward, treating the most distant as kin.
Hierocles, Elements of Ethics · Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, VII, 13
Philosophers 7
Benthamexplicit
In the reckoning of utility, each person's pleasure and pain count equally, with no privilege for oneself, one's kin or one's group: each to count for one, none for more than one. This strict impartialism, in which the agent's own well-being weighs no more than anyone else's, is one of the most characteristic and most demanding features of classical utilitarianism.
An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, ch. IV (extent: the number of persons affected)
Kantexplicit
A maxim has moral worth only if I can will it to become a universal law holding for every rational being, with no exception in my favour or for those close to me. The excludes by construction any privilege granted to oneself or one's own, hence an almost pure impartialism.
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, section II
Millexplicit
In the calculus of happiness, everybody to count for one, nobody for more than one: utilitarianism demands a strict , a strictly disinterested and benevolent spectator. The agent's own happiness counts no more than a stranger's, which Mill likens to the golden rule of Jesus of Nazareth.
Utilitarianism, ch. 2 (the disinterested and benevolent spectator) · Utilitarianism, ch. 5 (each to count for one, the formula ascribed to Bentham)
Show inferred positions (4)
The Buddhainferable
Loving-kindness (mettā) is cultivated toward all beings without distinction: the practice taught consists in extending loving-kindness beyond loved ones, to the indifferent and then to the enemy, as a mother protects her only child. Extended to all that lives, this benevolence tilts the teaching toward a benevolent impartialism.
Karaṇīya Mettā Sutta, Sutta Nipāta 1.8 (the discourse on loving-kindness) · Dhammapada, ch. I (The Pairs)
Camusinferable
The solidarity born of holds for every humiliated man, with no privilege of proximity or belonging: the formula "I rebel, therefore we are" extends the value to all men. Rieux heals the plague-stricken indiscriminately, which leans toward impartialism, tempered by Camus's carnal rootedness in a beloved land.
The Rebel (1951) · The Plague (1947)
Diogenes of Sinopeinferable
Diogenes' cosmopolitanism denies any natural privilege of one's near ones: homeland, family and city being only , they ground no particular obligation that nature would recognise. Every rational being counts equally, beyond the arbitrariness of birth. The position leans toward impartiality, but stays inferred: Diogenes does not theorise duties, he dissolves conventional loyalties more than he builds a positive impartial ethics.
Diogenes Laertius, Lives, VI, 72
Epictetusinferable
Stoic cosmopolitanism grounds equal regard for every rational being, a child of the same Zeus. Yet Epictetus also stresses the particular duties attached to roles (father, son, citizen), which tempers the impartialism: an impartiality of principle lived through concrete attachments.
Discourses, II.10 · Discourses, III.24
Argument
- A pain is a pain, whether the one who feels it is my own or a stranger: that they are "mine" is a fact about me, not about the worth of their suffering.
- To give priority to my own simply because they are mine is a , any more than favoring one's nation or one's color.
- shows it with a clear case: if I dive in to save the child drowning before me, neither distance nor the absence of a bond changes what I owe to the child dying elsewhere.
Therefore Morality therefore asks us to count each one equally: partiality toward our own is a leaning, not a just reason.
See the pageObjection
- Seeing your spouse and a stranger drowning, if you first ask whether impartiality permits you to save your own, you have already had, as it has been said, one thought too many.
- Our loves, our loyalties, our gratitudes are not preferences one justifies: they are what make a life worth living.
- To demand that they answer to an abstract equality is to make oneself a stranger to oneself in the name of morality.
Therefore An impartiality that condemns attachment thus turns against what it claimed to serve: a human life worth living.
See the pageObjection
- If a stranger's pain weighs as much as a loved one's, every euro spent on a pleasure I could do without is a euro owed to someone dying for want of care.
- Strict impartiality grants no respite: giving my child a gift rather than saving a distant child becomes, at every moment, a dereliction.
- A morality that no human being can keep, and that condemns even the love we bear our own, may have mistaken what morality is.
Therefore A demand that no one can live by, and that turns attachment into a fault, may refute itself.
See the pageDrawing the circles inwardHabitAttested · Stoicism, Hierocles
Gradually treat the more distant as if they were nearer.
The Stoic Hierocles pictured each person at the center of a series of circles: oneself, family, close ones, fellow citizens, all of humanity. Wisdom, he said, lies in drawing these circles inward, in gradually treating the more distant as if they were nearer. This habit puts that graded into practice: everyone counts at the foundation, but care unfolds in circles, with the task of bringing them closer. Today it helps hold together the equal worth of each and the concrete priority owed to one's own.
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Widening the circleExerciseInspired by Peter Singer
For , moral reason pushes us to widen, little by little, the circle of those who count: beyond our own to the distant stranger, then beyond our species to every being capable of suffering, for suffering weighs no less according to who bears it. This exercise trains you to flush out the excessive weight of closeness, and of mere human membership, in your choices, and to grant to interests usually overlooked. Today it helps when a decision spontaneously favors someone close, and when seeing where your help actually goes.
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- PrescriptiveMoral SituationThe loved one or the stranger
Two lives are in peril and only one can be saved; if all count equally, that one of the two is someone I love should make no difference: is the bond a moral reason to save one's own first, or a preference morality requires us to overcome?
the rescue - PrescriptiveMoralDuties born of bonds
Do my duties to my children or my friends arise from the bond itself, which obliges by its very existence, or are they my share of a concern owed equally to everyone, because each of us watches best over our own?
the bonds - PrescriptivePolitical & legalThe conflict of interest
Loyal in friendship, devoted to one's own: what is a virtue in private life becomes favoritism and corruption once one holds an office; where does the line run between loving one's own and being unjust to everyone else?
public office - DescriptiveThe circle of sympathy
Our concern for others weakens as they grow distant from us, in space, in blood or in likeness: should morality build on this natural slope, or correct it like an inborn prejudice?
human sympathy - PrescriptivePolitical & legalFrom kin to compatriots
Compatriots are strangers: does patriotism nonetheless extend to them the loyalty owed to those close to us, like an enlarged family, or is it an altogether different attachment? Where our belonging goes first is a question with its own axis.
the nation