Contemporary virtue ethicists have attempted to offer a virtue-based account of right action. However, such an account is faced by a daunting challenge, the ‘supererogation problem’ as it may be called. Since what a virtuous person would characteristically do is often beyond the scope of moral duty, virtue ethics seems to have difficulty in accommodating the distinction between obligation and supererogation. This essay aims to meet this challenge by recommending a Confucian virtue theory of supererogation.

A Confucian Virtue Theory of Supererogation

This paper argues that morality depends on prudence, or more specifically, that one cannot be a moral person without being prudent. Ethicists are unaware of this, ignore it, or imply it is wrong. Although this thesis is not obvious from the current perspective of ethics, I believe that its several implications for ethics make it worth examining. In this paper I argue for the prudence dependency thesis by isolating moral practice from all reliance on prudence. The result is that in the actual world in which we live one cannot be moral unless one is prudent. In order to show that morality depends on prudence for the entire range of moral situations, we put prudence to the test against the most extraordinary of moral situations: moral dilemmas. Doing so shows that for all practical purposes moral dilemmas are prudential problems for agents, giving further support to the prudence dependency thesis.

Can Morality Do Without Prudence

Indignation: a case study in the role of feelings in morals

In this paper, I present a non standard objection to moral impartialism. My idea is that moral impartialism is questionable when it is committed to a principle we have reasons to reject: the principle of self-other symmetry. According to the utilitarian version of the principle, the benefits and harms to the agent are exactly as relevant to the global evaluation of the goodness of his action as the benefits and harms to any other agent. But this view sits badly with the “Harm principle” which stresses the difference between harm to others and harm to the self. According to the deontological version, we have moral duties to ourselves which are exactly symmetrical to our duties to others. But there are reasons to believe that the idea of a duty to the self is not coherent.

Self-Other Asymmetry

Pour une défense de la notion de devoir envers soi

I wish to discuss two contentions: (a) there are no obligations to oneself, and (b) morality is other-regarding (morality is concerned only with our behavior in regard to other persons). Different arguments have been proposed in support of (a), and one of these arguments depends upon (b). Roughly this argument is: Morality cannot be self-regarding since self-regarding matters are matters of prudence. If the moral and prudential are kept distinct, it will be clear that selfregarding obligations or obligations to oneself are impossible. Now as far as I can see, this argument rests on a confused view of (1) the relation between morality and prudence, and (2) the relation between the concept of morality and the concept of moral obligation. I believe that a clarification of these relationships, besides being in itself worthwhile, will prove the argument to be insubstantial. In my discussion I will take as representative of the view, or views, I wish to consider, the positions advanced by Marcus Singer and Kurt Baier.

William Neblett

Papers

Morality, Prudence, and Obligations to Oneself