Friendship without partiality?

Ratio

Volumn 13, Issue 1, 2000, Pages 69-82

  Jollimore, Troy ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

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EID: 36849046682     PISSN: 00340006     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1467-9329.00109     Document Type: Article

References (31)

1. By limiting my discussion to 'agent-neutral' consequentialist theories I exclude theories on which the value of a state of affairs is relative to the identity of the evaluator. Thus, while the egoistic theory that each agent ought to maximize her own good is considered a consequentialist theory by some, it is not an agent-neutral consequentialist theory and falls outside the realm of my discussion. (See David McNaughton and Piers Rawling, 'Agent-Relativity and the Doing-Happening Distinction', Philosophical Studies, 63 (1991), pp. 167-185.) I also assume that the agent-neutral value of a state of affairs is primarily determined by the amount of human well-being it contains
2. Frank Jackson considers such a position before rejecting it as 'chilling' in 'Decision-theoretic Consequentialism and the Nearest and Dearest Objection', Ethics, 101 (April 1991), p. 461
3. For discussions of the value of friendship, see Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1953), Books VIII (especially Ch. 1) and IX (especially Ch. 9)
4. Cicero, 'De Amicitia', in Michael Pakaluk, ed., Other Selves: Philosophers on Friendship (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1991), pp. 109-110
5. Francis Bacon, 'Of Friendship', in Essays (Amherst: Prometheus Books, 1995), pp. 69-75
6. Elizabeth Telfer, 'Friendship', in Pakaluk, Other Selves, pp. 263-267
7. David Annis, 'The Meaning, Value, and Duties of Friendship', American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 24 (1987), pp. 351-356
8. and Neera Badwhar Kapur, 'Why It Is Wrong to Be Always Guided by the Best: Consequentialism and Friendship', Ethics, 101 (April 1991), pp. 483-504
9. 'Alienation, Consequentialism, and the Demands of Morality', in Samuel Scheffler, ed., Consequentialism and Its Critics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. 93-133
10. The term 'blameless wrongdoing' is from Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), p. 32
11. See David Brink, Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 259-62
12. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971), pp. 177-82
13. and Bernard Williams, 'A Critique of Utilitarianism', in J.J.C. Smart and B. Williams, Utilitarianism: For and Against (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), part 6 (especially p. 128)
14. Shelly Kagan, The Limits of Morality (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), pp. 367-68
15. What he does say is this: 'Love and friendship . . . typically involve an openness toward the friend or loved one, a desire to make efforts to correct misunderstandings and to deepen the level of intimacy; one usually takes pleasure in the happiness of the other person, and the recognition of the mutuality of the relationship is itself a source of pleasure; furthermore, since one typically finds some traits of the friend or loved one particularly attractive, the esteem of the other person is often especially central to one's feelings of self-worth, and one may derive special pleasure from being in the company of the other, or in the sharing of experiences.' (The Limits of Morality, p. 368) The problem with presenting these as alternative means of expressing feelings is that it is clear that they cannot be such without involving just the sort of partiality consequentialism prohibits. A friend displays 'openness' toward her friend regardless of whether that maximizes the good; she desires 'to make efforts to correct misunderstandings and to deepen the level of intimacy' with her friend, not with strangers; the 'special pleasure' she feels in the company of the other should lead her to seek out the company of the other; and so on. On the other hand, the fact that the friend takes 'pleasure in the happiness of the other person' is presumably permissible on consequentialist grounds, since it reflects a partiality in feeling, not in action; but unless that partiality extends into action, there is no way for the other person to be aware of that pleasure, and there can thus be no 'recognition of the mutuality of the relationship.'
16. Aristotle writes that friendship involves not only 'wishing to another what one thinks good, for his sake and not for one's own,' but also 'being disposed to do these things [that benefit the friend] as far as one can.' (Rhetoric, in Jonathan Barnes, ed. The Complete Works of Aristotle (Princeton University Press, 1984), at 381a.)
17. Similarly, Harry Frankfurt writes that 'Loving of any variety implies conduct that is designed to be beneficial to the beloved object.' ('Necessity, Autonomy, and Love', in Hans Friedrich Fulda and Rolf-Peter Horstmann, ed., Vernunftbegriffe in der Moderne (Klett-Cotta, 1994), p. 438.)
18. And John Rawls writes that 'love clearly has among its main elements the desire to advance the other person's good as this person's rational self-love would require.' (A Theory of Justice, p. 190.)
19. With a bit of ingenuity we can perhaps devise counter-examples to (CC) similar to the examples discussed in David Lewis, Postscript E to 'Causation' (in Philosophical Papers Vol. II (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 193-212)
20. and Michael McDermott, 'Redundant Causation' (British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, No. 46 (1995), pp. 523-544.) However this does not affect the general point. What matters with respect to friendships is not individual actions but patterns of conduct over time; and it seems very unlikely that plausible counter-examples could be devised involving patterns of consistent action. For simplicity's sake I focus in the main text on individual actions
21. 'The great majority of good actions are intended not for the benefit of the world, but for that of individuals, of which the good of the world is made up; and the thoughts of the most virtuous man need not on these occasions travel beyond the particular persons concerned, except so far as is necessary to assure himself that in benefitting them he is not violating the rights, that is, the legitimate and authorised expectations, of anyone else. The multiplication of happiness is, according to the utilitarian ethics, the object of virtue: the occasions on which any person (except one in a thousand) has it in his power to do this on an extended scale, in other words to be a public benefactor, are but exceptional; and on these occasions alone is he called on to consider public utility; in every other case, private utility, the interest or happiness of some few persons, is all he has to attend to.' (J.S. Mill, Utilitarianism, in Mill, On Liberty and Utilitarianism (New York: Everyman's Library, 1969) p. 129.)
22. Cf. Lawrence Blum, Friendship, Altruism and Morality (Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980), p. 55: 'Thus in one sense it is actually misleading to say that we are necessarily or typically partial to our friends, if this is meant to imply a deviation from a morally requisite norm of impartiality. For such a norm is not typically in force in regard to our benefitting our friends. In another sense, however, we are partial to our friends, in that we benefit our friends without testing that benefitting against a norm of impartiality with respect to others, and we are not morally remiss for doing so.'
23. See J.L. Mackie, 'The Disutility of Act-Utilitarianism', The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 23 No. 93 (Oct. 1973), pp. 289-300
24. and Peter Singer, 'Is Act-Utilitarianism Self-Defeating?', Philosophical Review, 81 (January 1972), pp. 94-104
25. J.J.C. Smart, 'An outline of a system of utilitarian ethics', in Smart and Williams, Utilitarianism: For and Against
26. Immanuel Kant, 'Lecture on Friendship', in Pakaluk, Other Selves, page 217
27. C.S. Lewis, 'Friendship - The Least Necessary Love', in Neera Kapur Badwhar, ed., Friendship: A Philosophical Baader (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993), pp. 40-41
28. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1170b-1171a; translated by J.A.K. Thomson
29. Cf. Blum, Friendship, Altruism and Morality, p. 80: 'Conditional altruism merely implies not being as concerned about the good of those who do not satisfy the condition as one is about those who do. It does not necessarily involve having an attitude towards those who do not which is in itself morally deficient.'
30. John Cottingham, 'Partiality, Favouritism, and Morality', The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 144 (1986), pp. 357-373
31. Cottingham, 'Partiality,' pp. 370-371