The Retreat of Reason Part 8 pptx

Prudence: Maximization or Idealism? 349 represent myself suffering at another time than the actual present one does not necessarily include this feature: here it is indeed possible that I now strongly detest that state of affairs which I desire at the time represented and the absence of which then induces me to suffer. And this current dislike might (legitimately) counteract my sympathetic concern. There are then crucial disanalogies between the case of being conscious of one’s present attitudes (towards one’s experiences) and representing or imagining the attitudes one would have (towards one’s experiences) at times that are not now actual. If one overlooks these disanalogies and assumes that what is true in the former case is true in the latter case as well, it might well seem to one, I surmise, that the explanation of this fact is something like the PHS. Prudentialism and Higher and Lower Qualities of Fulfilment My argument has only been to the effect that the maximalist or prudentialist reaction prescribed by Hare’s PHS is not rationally required in the realm of prudence, not that it is in any sense irrational or rationally impermissible.¹² The idealist option of wanting something more than the inter-temporal maximization of one’s own fulfilment is also rationally permissible. To assess properly the denial of a requirement to accept prudential- ism, it should be remembered that the prudentialist aim of inter-temporally maximizing one’s own experiential fulfilment need not be understood in a purely quantitative fashion, as it often has been, but could allow for a differentiation between higher and lower fulfilment, as remarked in Chapter 10. This follows from the rejection of the arguments in favour of prudentialism given in the foregoing sections. Imagine that we discover a drug which slows down our life-processes and which, thereby, enables us to live lives more than ten times as long as our present lives. The drug, however, has the side-effect of making our mental faculties duller; they are reduced to the level of, say, pigs (as we have seen, such a transformation would not destroy our identity). But, in our present advanced state of technology, we also have the power to arrange the environment so that, were we to turn into pig-minded beings, we could live satisfied throughout our long pig-lives. No doubt, under these conditions the average life of a pig would contain quantitatively much more fulfilment than an average human life in an affluent country now does.¹³ Nevertheless, prudentialists need not advise us to take the drug. For, even if they vividly imagine how overwhelmingly pleasant, quantitatively speaking, a pig-life would be, it is possible for prudentialists to prefer a life in which they could fulfil some of the more sophisticated desires they currently possess, but would lose were they to turn ¹² Hare’s earlier position (1963: 121) seems closer to mine, for here he claims that it would be a mistake “to try to incor- porate ideals into a utilitarian theory”. This is exactly what my argument will result in, when in the next chapter, it is extended into the inter-personal domain of morality. ¹³ Cf. Parfit’s “Drab Eternity” (1986: 160). pig-like. This is possible because, even though a desire is conditional upon its yielding experiential fulfilment, not only the intensity and the duration of the fulfilment, but also its quality, that is, its object, may be a reason for preferring its satisfaction—even at the cost of the satisfaction being shorter or less intense. Thus, the goal of fulfilment- maximization could be interpreted in a (to my mind, at least) more plausible way than it sometimes is. Idealism, therefore, has a worthy opponent. 350 Rationality and Personal Neutrality 27 THE REQUIREMENT OF PERSONAL NEUTRALITY THE subject-matter of prudence is the consequences of one’s actions in so far as they affect only one’s own (ultimately) intrinsic desires. The question of how to live here takes the limited form: ‘In the light of philosophical truth, what life have I most reason to lead, tak- ing into account only my own intrinsic desires?’ A traditional reply is an inter-temporally maximizing one: I should lead the life that contains the maximal felt fulfilment of such desires over time. This is prudentialism which features a requirement of cognitive ration- ality that demands temporal neutrality—a requirement defended in Part III. In the last chapter, I pointed out, however, that this temporal neutrality (which prohibits preferring one thing to another simply because of its temporal position) does not rule out (pruden- tial) idealism. Nor is there any other consideration—as, for example, the truth of hedonism or the importance of one’s own identity—that shows this idealism to be cognitively irra- tional. Hence, rationality does not force upon you the aim of inter-temporal maximiza- tion of experiential fulfilment in the domain of prudence. You could rationally adopt some ideal, like rationalism, which conflicts with prudentialism. The subjectivism or desire-relativism of value espoused in Part II allows that it is best for you now that p is true at a future time, t, although it is the case that, because of changes in your desires, it will at t be best for you that not-p is true then. This raises the question of whether you rationally should bring it about that p or that not-p at t. If inter-temporal maximization were a rational requirement, there would be no doubt about the answer: you should rationally do that which maximizes the desire-fulfilment of your whole existence. But, if the argument of the preceding chapter is right, and rationality does not rule out idealism in the realm of prudence, this sort of fulfilment-maximization is not required. Extending Idealism into the Inter-personal Realm In this chapter I lift the artificial restriction to prudence and introduce the complement- ary dimension which spans the consequences of your actions in so far as they affect the 352 Rationality and Personal Neutrality ¹ When Susan Wolf argues that, from the “point of view of individual perfection” (1982: 437), it would not be “particu- larly rational or good or desirable for a human being to strive” to be a moral saint (1982: 419), I think she does not do enough to distinguish what has the sanction of this point of view from what we find (un)attractive merely as a result of the “egoistic, hedonistic side of our natures” (1982: 496). fulfilment of the intrinsic desires of all other beings than yourself. It is apposite to do so, since the foregoing discussion of personal identity shows that there is a rational requirement of personal neutrality which demands neutrality between different persons or conscious subjects, like the requirement of temporal neutrality demands neutrality between dif- ferent times. Thus, in the inter-personal or intersubjective domain of morality, there operates a requirement of personal neutrality which extends the requirement of temporal neutrality, in force in the intra-personal domain of prudence, across the lives of different individuals. If they want their aim to be cognitively rational, this new requirement will force satisfactionalists to abandon prudentialism in favour of a fulfilment-maximization that is personally neutral as well as temporally neutral—a utilitarian fulfilment-maximization. Will it also force rationalists to surrender, in the inter-personal realm, their idealism? No, it bans personal partialities like the O-bias; so, if one is to be cognitively rational, one cannot favour the fulfilment of the desires of somebody at the expense of the fulfilment of those of another simply because the first individual is oneself. This parallels the fact that one cannot rationally prefer the fulfilment of one desire to another simply because it is in the nearer future. But just as giving up temporal biases does not make it cognit- ively irrational to be an idealist in the prudential case, giving up the O-bias does not make it irrational to be an idealist in the moral case. Ideals upheld in the intra-personal domain of prudence can be rationally transferred to the inter-personal domain of morality. My argument for this transference is not hard to extract. I have urged that, in the name of an ideal, it is rationally permissible to go against the fulfilment of desires that oneself will have in the future, and thus against the goal of the inter-temporal maximization of one’s own fulfilment (a goal which one may embrace in the future). In Chapter 23 I con- tended that the relation of our diachronic identity, and the material and matter-based psychological continuities that allegedly compose it, are in themselves rationally trivial. It follows that what one may rationally do to somebody to whom one bears these rela- tions one may do to another, otherwise similar being, to whom one does not bear these relations. Therefore, it is rationally permissible to go against the prudentialist goal of another, similar individual, and thus against the goal of utilitarian maximization, just as it is permissible to reject the goal of inter-temporal maximization of one’s own fulfilment. But we must also take care to separate this idealism from a discreditable egoism which is under the sway of the O-bias,¹ as in the domain of prudence we must keep apart idealism from a violation of the constraint of temporal neutrality that expresses itself, for example in the bias towards the near. The position in which my argument in this chapter issues is what I shall call a moral individualism, to be distinguished from the prudential individualism which was the upshot of the preceding chapter. If rationality had demanded inter-personal and inter-temporal fulfilment-maximization, rationality would have been able to restrict the theoretical The Requirement of Personal Neutrality 353 possibility that value-subjectivism leaves open of the same persons at different times, and different persons at the same or different times, making conflicting true claims, relat- ive to their different sets of intrinsic desires, about what is best to do. It would have been possible to reach a consensus about what real reasons exhort one to do. But we saw in the previous chapter that, in the domain of prudence, rationality leaves open the choice between idealism and inter-temporal fulfilment-maximization. We shall now see that this individualist choice extends into morality owing to the rational insignificance of identity. Some will think that such a moral individualism is absurdly weak. For they hold there to be demands of rationality strong enough to establish a consensus about what should be done in the moral realm. It is, however, hard to see how this could be feasible even if there were objective values. I believe that it should even then be agreed that both living in the light of truth and living a fulfilling life are on the list of objectively valuable aims. But then, if these aims diverge, it can hardly be denied that there is room for individual- ism in the sphere of prudence at least to the extent that one may rationally prefer one of these aims to the other. However, given the rational insignificance of identity, this individualism must extend into the moral sphere in which others are affected. In any case, according to moral individualism rationality does not settle the choice between idealism and fulfilment-maximization. Cognitive rationality does not do it, and there is no other form of rationality that could do it. Moral individualism allows the dif- ferent personalities or individualities of people to articulate themselves morally, in the shape of some form of idealism, like rationalism, or in a satisfactionalist rejection of all ideals. As I shall attempt to bring out in the next chapter, there is something attractive about this idealism, but it has the drawback of making pressing the question of how to cope with disagreements about what is morally right or wrong. So, in the next chapter, I shall also point to some contingent facts about us that may help us to deal pragmatically with these disagreements. My characterization of morality as an inter-subjective sphere, as opposed to the intra- subjective sphere of prudence, needs to be further clarified in some respects. Although this conception of morality implies that one cannot act morally rightly or wrongly so long as only one’s own desires are affected, it does not imply that the attitude of others to one’s behaviour towards oneself is beyond the pale of moral judgement. Suppose that, in the name of some ideal, I am (rationally) about to make my life short and poor in respect of fulfilment. Then a utilitarian may correctly regard it as morally right for her to inter- vene because, to her, I am another and my behaviour is at odds with a requirement of fulfilment-maximization that she applies to all. It would be morally wrong of her to let me go ahead, but it does not follow that I am acting morally wrongly towards myself. Michael Slote claims that “ordinary moral thinking seems to involve an asymmetry regarding what an agent is permitted to do to himself and what he is permitted to do to others” (1984: 181). For instance, according to common-sense morality, it is, he writes, “quite permissible to sacrifice one’s own greater benefit to the lesser benefit of another” (1984: 180), but not another’s greater benefit to save one’s own smaller benefit. If an agent were to treat another better, his action could be described, in Slote’s words, as “irrational”, “stupid”, and “gratuitous” (1984: 180). But, according to common sense, it would not be morally wrong, for he has done nothing wrong to others. I agree that this behaviour would be irrational if the agent’s reason is simply that the other is distinct from himself, but on the idealism I will espouse it would not be irrational if his reason consists in some qualitative difference that could constitute an ideal of his. On this idealism it could also be rationally permissible to favour one’s own smaller bene- fit at the expense of a greater benefit of another. So, to be in line with what is rationally permissible, common-sense morality must allow some exceptions in one’s own favour, as many think it does (cf. Samuel Scheffler’s “agent-centred prerogatives”, 1982: 5). In contrast, it never seems to count favouring others at one’s own expense as morally wrong, though it may be irrational. Hence, what is morally wrong is at odds with what is irrational when oneself is disadvantaged. Even if moral wrongness requires that another being than oneself is wronged, there need, contrary to Slote’s feeling (1984: 185), be no tension between, on the one hand, the idea that one cannot act morally wrongly by sacrificing one’s own greater good and, on the other hand, the idea that one has stronger moral obligations to people closer to one— kin, colleagues, etc.—than to strangers. For however closely related other people may be to one, they are still numerically distinct, and this fact may (allegedly) provide a foothold for moral obligations one cannot have to oneself. But if violations of a requirement of rationality, of personal neutrality, cannot be described as morally wrong if the agents themselves are disadvantaged, the word ‘moral’ is used to signal a distinction between oneself and others which we have found to be rationally unimportant. This is likely to make the word unsatisfactory for some systematic purposes, but it does not matter in the present context. For here we shall be exclusively concerned with the permissibility of actions that negatively affect others and, so, are indisputably qualified for moral appraisal. A Requirement of Universalizability Let me now state the rational requirement of impartiality or personal neutrality to which I have alluded. Suppose that A is biased towards herself rather than towards some other being B because, according to A’s view, she herself has the universal, or at least contingent, properties P 1 , ,P n that B lacks. This particular bias could manifest itself as follows: when A eliminates her own present pain rather than the more intense pain of B, she claims to do so because, in contrast to B, she is equipped with P 1 , ,P n . Now, this bias satisfies the requirement of personal neutrality only if it is universalizable or can be extended to all others who possess the properties mentioned. So, in terms of such a bias, this requirement generates a (rational) requirement of universalizability that can be expressed as follows: (RU) A’s being biased towards herself rather than towards B because she, A, has P 1 , ,P n which B lacks is cognitively rational only if: for every X not identical to A, if A were to contemplate a situation in which X is endowed with the properties P 1 , ,P n , and 354 Rationality and Personal Neutrality The Requirement of Personal Neutrality 355 A lacks them, then, with respect to that situation, A would be as much more strongly biased towards X than towards herself as A now is more biased towards herself than towards B. Thus, A’s preference that her own milder pain be put to an end rather than the more intense pain of B, who lacks P 1 , ,P n , is sanctioned by RU only if she would prefer that the milder pain of B rather than her own stronger one be relieved, if B had possessed P 1 , ,P n , and A herself had been without them. Against ideas similar in spirit to RU advanced by Hare, it has been objected—for example by Dancy (1981: 375–80)—that it is never possible to formulate sufficient reasons for a person’s particular concern or liking for an object. For however fully one specifies the reasons, it is always possible to point to some further feature such that were it possessed by the object, it would undermine the attitude towards it, that is, such that its absence should be cited in the sufficient reason for the attitude. In response to this objection, it should be noted, first, that, given a causal analysis of attitudes, this can be a problem only if there is in general a problem about specifying suffi- cient causal conditions. It would appear that, in practice, formulations of sufficient causal conditions must always encapsulate an ‘other things being equal’ clause, but it is not clear that the inclusion of such a clause would make them so indeterminate that one cannot as a rule settle what they are meant to exclude. Secondly, it should also be noticed that there is an alternative way of stating RU that sidesteps the need to spell out the grounds of A’s attitude. As suggested by Hare, we could speak of ‘every X which is similar to A in every respect save those that are essential to A’s numerical identity’.² That many of the proper- ties here alluded to would be irrelevant to A’s attitude does not matter. In whichever of these ways RU is formulated, it presupposes that one’s bias towards oneself is not based on some property that in principle can belong only to oneself, such as the property of being (identical to) oneself. For if the bias were based on such a property, RU would bid one to contemplate a self-contradictory scenario—hence the indispens- ability of my argument to the effect that self-concern and self-approval are based on uni- versal features of oneself, or at least on features that contingently belong to oneself. These are properties that one could conceivably lack and that some other beings could possess. Against the background of this thesis about the motivational impotency of considera- tions of numerical identity, it may seem mysterious how RU could be a substantial constraint on para-cognitive attitudes, how it could rule out any attitudes, for its effi- ciency as a test appears to imply that a mere shift in respect of numerical identity could affect attitudes. When A imagines being in B’ s position of lacking P 1 , ,P n , the only change that need occur would seem to be the shift in the numerical identity of the indi- vidual being without these properties. Thus, if this feat of imagination alters A’ s attitude towards the individual without P 1 , ,P n , it seems the alteration must be occasioned by the change in respect of numerical identity. But this collides head-on with my thesis about the basis of attitudes. ² To be precise, Hare talks about exact similarity in respect of universal properties; see e.g. (1981: 63). The effectiveness of RU cannot, however, depend on anything like A’s imagining there to be identity-constituting continuities between herself at present and the being imagined to lack P 1 , ,P n . For there would in fact be such continuities of which one must be conscious were one to consider how to act against oneself in the future, and yet, as I have indicated, one can be accused of failing to put oneself into the place of this future individual. The charge here would, however, not be to the effect that one has failed to imagine what it would be like if oneself were to suffer as the being at the receiving end will suffer, but rather that one has ignored imagining what it would be like if oneself were now to suffer like the patient.³ This charge gives the clue as to how RU could be an effective check on attitudes. It per- forms this task by demanding that one rectify the selectivity of representation involved in the P-bias and experiential anticipation, by voluntarily executing an act of imagination: by imagining having the universal features of another being as vividly as one represents one’s present circumstances. This is not imagining that the particular subject of experi- ence that is oneself has those features—that could easily be self-contradictory. But one is also a subject of experiences. When one imagines what it would be like to be in the place of another subject (or oneself in the future) and have the experiences that they have, one views oneself just in this respect, as a subject of experience which one imaginatively equips with whatever experiences and other features that the other subject is believed to possess. Thus what one imagines is a subject of experience having the experiences that another subject than oneself in fact has and perhaps being embodied the way it is. If one does not confuse imagining a subject having certain experiences with imagining perceiving or experiencing an (embodied) subject having these experiences, one realizes that the first is imagining what it is like ‘from the inside’ to have those experiences. Pace Hare’s conception of this procedure (a conception that was scrutinized in the foregoing chapter and to which I shall soon revert), I do not see it as essential that the sub- ject doing the imagining keeps any properties which enable it to retain its numerical iden- tity. Therefore, it is possible without any trace of incoherence for it to imagine being an individual who has a life-history that is entirely different from its own. This is the test that RU demands that one’s attitude to every affected being should be capable of passing. Briefly put, RU requires one to overcome the P-bias that makes one under-represent one’s own future and the exclusiveness of experiential anticipation that makes one under-represent the future experiences of subjects to whom one is not related by ordinary survival. As the motivational impact of a representation is proportionate to its vividness or richness of detail, it is plain that to rectify the slant or selectivity of representa- tion which defines the P-bias and experiential anticipation, by voluntarily imagining in vivid detail being in the positions of other affected parties, as RU demands, could alter one’s attitudes towards these parties. In particular, it could augment one’s concern for them. 356 Rationality and Personal Neutrality ³ Schopenhauer maintains that when I am seized by compassion I feel the suffering of another “as my own, and yet not within me, but in another person” (1841/1995: 165). What if one pities oneself because of the suffering one will feel in the future: is this pain felt as mine, though not in me-now, but in me-in-the-future? No. The suffering which arouses compassion is not felt, but imagined, and it is imagined not as mine, but as the suffering of another. So there is no need to postulate that the numerical distinctness between us is ultimately unreal, as does Schopenhauer. The Requirement of Personal Neutrality 357 To exemplify, the fact that B lacks the valued properties P 1 , ,P n may have hindered A from vividly representing how intense the pain of B will be; perhaps A has just had the verbal thought that B will suffer a pain more acute than her own. If A now represents B’s pain in all its concreteness, her sympathetic concern for the relief of this pain will be boosted. The result may be that it becomes so strong relative to A’s concern to relieve her own present pain that the concern to relieve the pain of B is victorious. If this is the case, then, if A actually prefers to mitigate her own lesser pain, through a failure to subject herself to RU, she is governed by the cognitively irrational O-bias. It should, however, be stressed that it is possible for A to stick to the preference to relieve her own lesser pain, although she has undergone the test laid down by RU. This is what happens when the having of P 1 , ,P n constitutes an ideal of A’s. Suppose that the experience of pain interferes with the continued exemplification of these properties (suppose, for example, that one property is that of successfully pursuing philosophy). Then A’s preference for relieving her own lesser pain for the reason that she is equipped with P 1 , ,P n will be defensible from the perspective of cognitive rationality if it can be sustained in the light of a vivid representation of the inside of B. This situation, when the pain interferes with the esteemed activity of doing philosophy should be distinguished from that in which an eminent philosopher is feeling pain, but it does not interfere with her philosophizing. The ideal that the cause of philosophy be furthered only legitimizes that a smaller pain be relieved in the first situation. In the second situation, one could try to argue that such an eminent person deserves better than to suffer pain, but in Chapter 34 I shall contend that the concept of desert lacks application. I see no way of justifying the judgement that somebody pursuing an ideal be better off when this does not further the ideal pursued. This is also my reply to Frances Kamm’s claim that “those who resist the effect of vividness may do so because believe they have a right not to sacrifice themselves” (1996: 232; my italics). I shall try to undermine the applicability of the concept of a (natural) right in Chapter 34. But I would now like to stress that, even if we had rights to various things, RU would be in operation. For even if I had a right to something, X, it is reason- able to think that it would not be morally permissible for me to keep it to myself if some- body else needed it sufficiently much more than I do. And I think RU should be used to determine whether another’s need for X is sufficiently stronger. To sum up: in the foregoing chapter it was argued that it is not irrational to be an idealist in the domain of prudence. This rationally permits one, at the price of a greater pain that would be felt by one in the future, to favour the elimination of one’s own present, lesser pain, if this better promotes one’s ideals. As I have already argued, this is consistent with holding that temporal neutrality is rationally required, for this requirement must not be conflated with the prudentialist goal of a temporally neutral or inter-temporal maximi- zation of one’s own fulfilment. Now, I have also contended that a personal neutrality is rationally required in the sense that mere differences in respect of numerical identity of individuals are rationally insignificant. But again, it does not follow that in the domain of morality A could not relieve her own milder pain at the expense of B’s more intense pain without violating personal neutrality by being O-biased. For A may not favour the mitigation of her own pain for the reason that the pain is her own, but for the reason that it is the pain of a person of a certain universal type, a person who has P 1 , ,P n . If so, she is neutral as regards particular subjects or personally neutral or, in other words, she has risen above personally biased representation. A then exhibits the personal neutrality of RU, but, like what holds, mutatis mutandis, for temporal neutrality, personal neutrality does not commit one to a personally neutral maximization of fulfilment. Peter Singer quotes J. L. Mackie’s claim that, even if a person rejects objectivism and admits that things are of value only in so far as they are (or would be) desired, he “has no need to degrade an ideal which he endorses to the level of a mere preference, saying ‘This matters only because I care for it’ ” (1988: 151). In opposition to this claim, Singer argues that subjectivism with respect to values undermines ideals: as long as we reject that there can be objectively true moral ideals, universalizability does require that we put ourselves in the place of others and that this must then involve giving weight to their ideals in proportion to the strength with which they hold them. (1988: 152) It is precisely this inference that I have contested. In the context of a subjectivism of value, RU does not force the aim of a personally neutral maximization upon everyone. This aim only follows if one postulates a satisfactionalist aim that one accepts to subjugate to this requirement (as well as the requirement of temporal neutrality). A Remark on Hare’s Approach My explanation of the procedure of imaginatively putting oneself into the place of another is profitably contrasted with Hare’s account of the principle of hypothetical self- endorsement, PHS, outlined in the preceding chapter. Although he also insists on the importance of the vividness of representations (1981: 92), Hare assumes that the act of imagining oneself being in the circumstances of another has special effects which are due to the fact that the person in the imaginary situation is oneself. This assumption comes to light in his speculation about the prescriptivity of ‘I’. It also surfaces in his explicit denial that the PHS involves the claim that the concern is directed onto the person actually in these circumstances (1981: 99). In the foregoing chapter I argued that Hare’s construct of the PHS is defective precisely because it encapsulates this assumption to the effect that self-directed attitudes are based on the representation of some being as oneself. I shall now supplement this with an argument to the effect that if Hare’s explication had been correct, this would bring along certain consequences that are disadvantageous for him, consequences that will be absent if I am right about how imaginative identification works. These awkward consequences have to do with the fact that the PHS-generated sympathy exclusively con- cerns oneself in a hypothetical situation and is not transferable to the individual who actually is in this situation. 358 Rationality and Personal Neutrality [...]... view, it is the task of moral philosophy first to articulate these elements and then to explore how they fare in the light of requirements of reason, like RU How they fare in the light of these requirements is a matter of fact that has nothing to do with any agreements In this part of the book, I have to some extent tested the rationality of the second idea of autonomy, and in the next part, I shall... withholding the truth from the rationalist If both the rationalist and the utilitarian in this way, without infringing requirements of rationality, hinder the other’s pursuit of her master-aim, they both lose out This is, however, a loss they need not incur If both parties are sufficiently intelligent, they will adjust their treatment of the other to how they have been treated or to what they expect... induce the treatment they want to receive from the other They will have an incentive to co-operate with each other, to enter into reciprocal agreements to the effect that one party should aid the other party in the pursuit of its aim, provided that the service be returned For this will enable them to fulfil their respective master-aims to a greater extent than would be possible in the original situation of. .. concern, since they are as much one’s own The method of moral deliberation that I have outlined presupposes that it is possible to gain knowledge of the strength of the desires of others in relation to the strength of one’s own desires Even if we suppose that it is possible to have knowledge of the minds of others to the extent that it can be ascertained that they possess certain desires and of how, intra-personally,... aid of other persons by giving aid in their turn In other words, they can profit by entering into reciprocal agreements with each other to the effect that if one helps others in the pursuit of their aims, one will be helped by them in return None of them is powerful enough to coerce all others to a subordination which is as effective in promoting one’s own goals Let us consider a simple illustration of. .. for the satisfaction of oneself in that hypothetical situation, and then, because of universalizability to find oneself constrained to turn this merely hypothetical concern into an actual concern for the satisfaction of the preferences of the actual other person (1 981 : 223) Clearly, a requirement of universalizability cannot constrain one to turn one’s PHSgenerated concern for oneself in a hypothetical... oneself the experiences of pain, etc. of another as vividly as that individual itself represents them, for otherwise this experience has no chance of affecting one’s own attitudes to the same degree as the attitudes of the other But, it might be protested, we are incapable of performing such feats of imagination, and, as a result, our other-regarding desires will be weaker than they should in fairness.. .The Requirement of Personal Neutrality 359 Some passages of Hare’s efface the problem Consider this succinct formulation of a central argument in (1 981 ) which turns on the PHS and RU: To become moral is, first of all, to contemplate the hypothetical situation in which what are actually going to be the states of another person would be states of oneself, and thus to acquire a hypothetical concern... subject matter of ethics is such that it would be illusory to hope for a decision-procedure that could be mechanically applied In conjunction with our tendency to be O-biased, the absence of any clear-cut way to make inter-personal comparisons of the strengths of desires is likely to make us overestimate the intensity of our own desires relative to the intensity of the desires of others On the other hand,... totally obliterating them.¹ Rationalists will not ultimately strive to make themselves, their own attitudes, as cognitively rational as possible, but to make it the case that there is as much rationality in the world as possible Thus they may fulfil the rationalist aims of others no less than their own Suppose, however, as I think may well be true, that they can promote the rationality of the world most efficiently . first to articulate these elements and then to explore how they fare in the light of requirements of reason, like RU. How they fare in the light of these requirements is a matter of fact that has. realm, their idealism? No, it bans personal partialities like the O-bias; so, if one is to be cognitively rational, one cannot favour the fulfilment of the desires of somebody at the expense of the. is under the sway of the O-bias,¹ as in the domain of prudence we must keep apart idealism from a violation of the constraint of temporal neutrality that expresses itself, for example in the bias