morality and self-interest dec 2007

Morality and Self-Interest
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Morality and Self-Interest
Edited by
Paul Bloomfi eld
1
2008
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Morality and self-interest / edited by Paul Bloomfi eld.
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Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-530584-5; 978-0-19-530585-2 (pbk.)
1. Ethics. 2. Self-interest. I. Bloomfi eld, Paul, 1962–
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3
Acknowledgments
My professional interest in the relationship between morality and self-interest is due to an
ongoing exchange I’m having with Richard Joyce, from which I have greatly profi ted and for
which I am much obliged. The reader will soon see that Joyce has commented rather exten-
sively on my own contribution to this volume. He read and commented on an early draft of
“Why It’s Bad to Be Bad,” which I emended in light thereof. After, seeing his contributuion,
I did not use my position as editor to reply. I begin to address his point of view in my review,
in Mind (Bloomfi eld, 2007), of his latest book The Evolution of Morality (2006).
I thank Stephen Finlay and Michael P. Lynch for their early and continuous encour-
agement of my editing what has eventually become this book. Especial thanks go to
Sonia Michel for fi nding the cover art, on top of all her help and support. I also had help-
ful early conversations on the topic in a graduate seminar with Erin Andrews, Robert
Crum, Bo Ram Lee, and Daniel Massey. Christopher Morris has given excellent advice
all along the way, all greatly appreciated.
Approaching the question of how to comprehend the issues involved in thinking
about morality and self-interest was diffi cult. Insofar as the issues concern the meaning or
semantics of “morality”, or a conceptual analysis of morality, it is metaethics par excel-
lence; insofar as it concerns the question “how should I live?”, it is squarely an issue in
normative ethics. Bringing together the justifi cation and/or rationality of morality, with
the sort of motivational or psychological issues involved in the question “Why be moral?”
means the situation can become conceptually daunting. The distinction between self and

other was a natural place for someone with my interests to begin, since it bears on both
metaphysical and moral discourse. A bit of research showed that W. D. Falk had already
invented the wheel on which I had begun working. His paper “Morality, Self, and Others”
is a masterpiece, and is included here in full. I’d like to thank George Nakhnikian for his
permission to reprint it.
There is one other contribution within not expressly written for this volume. Thomas
Nagel’s paper, “The Value of Inviolability” appeared fi rst in French and appears here in
English for the fi rst time. I am grateful to the editors of Revue de Métaphysique et de
Morale for their permission to publish a translation of “La valeur de l’inviolabilité”.
The prospect of editing a volume is made most unattractive by the grim stories one
hears about the process. Frequently, editing is said to be “a labor of love” and being an
editor “a thankless position”. In retrospect, I am very lucky to have had an experience that
is an exception to the rule. I am most thankful and grateful to my contributors, each and
every one, as well as to my editor, Peter Ohlin, and the production editor, Gwen Colvin.
vi Acknowledgments
Contents
Contributors ix
Introduction 3
PART I: MORALITY WITHOUT SELF-INTEREST
A. Morality on the Defensive
1 The Trouble with Justice 15
Christopher W. Morris
2 Nietzsche on Selfi shness, Justice, and the Duties of the Higher Men 31
Mathias Risse
3 Morality, Schmorality 51
Richard Joyce
B. Morality on the Offensive
4 Because It’s Right 79
David Schmidtz
5 The Value of Inviolability 102

Thomas Nagel
C. Potential Congruence and Irreconcilability
6 Potential Congruence 117
Samuel Scheffl er
7 Too Much Morality 136
Stephen Finlay
PART II: MORALITY WITHIN SELF-INTEREST
A. Morality as Necessary to Self-Interest
8 Scotus and the Possibility of Moral Motivation 159
T. H. Irwin
9 Butler on Virtue, Self-Interest, and Human Nature 177
Ralph Wedgwood
10 Virtue Ethics and the Charge of Egoism 205
Julia Annas
B. Morality as Indistinguishable from Self-Interest
11 Morality, Self, and Others 225
W. D. Falk
12 Why It’s Bad to Be Bad 251
Paul Bloomfi eld
13 Classical and Sour Forms of Virtue 272
Joel J. Kupperman
14 Shame and Guilt 287
Michael Stocker
Bibliography 305
Index 317
viii Contents
ix
Contributors
Julia Annas is Regents Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona. She has
published several books and articles across a wide range of topics in ancient philosophy,

and in recent years has concentrated on ancient ethical theories and also contemporary
virtue ethics.
Paul Bloomfield is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of
Connecticut. He has published on topics in metaphysics and moral philosophy, and he
is the author of Moral Reality (2001).
W. D. Falk taught philosophy for more than forty years in Europe, Australia, and
the United States, fi nishing his career at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill,
in 1975. His collected papers are entitled Ought, Reasons, and Morality (1986).
Stephen Finlay is an Assistant Professor in the School of Philosophy at the
University of Southern California. His research focuses on the explanation of normativ-
ity and the metaphysical and semantic foundations of ethics.
T. H. Irwin is Professor of Ancient Philosophy in the University of Oxford and a
Fellow of Keble College. From 1975 to 2006, he taught at Cornell University. He has
written on ancient philosophy and the history of ethics.
Richard Joyce is a Research Fellow at the University of Sydney. His primary
research areas are metaethics and moral psychology, and he is the author of The Myth of
Morality (2001) and The Evolution of Morality (2006).
Joel J. Kupperman is Board of Trustees Professor of Philosophy at the University of
Connecticut. His most recent books are Ethics and Qualities of Life (2007) and Classic
Asian Philosophy: A Guide to the Essential Texts, 2nd ed. (2007).
Christopher W. Morris is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Maryland,
College Park. His research interests are moral and political philosophy, philosophy of
law, and practical rationality, and he is the author of An Essay on the Modern State
(1998).
Thomas Nagel is University Professor, Professor of Philosophy, and Professor of
Law at New York University.
Mathias Risse is Associate Professor of Public Policy and Philosophy at the John F.
Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He works primarily in political
philosophy, and his main research area there is global justice. He also has research inter-
ests in nineteenth-century German philosophy, especially in Nietzsche.

Samuel Scheffler is Professor of Philosophy and Law at the University of
California, Berkeley. He is the author of The Rejection of Consequentialism (1982),
Human Morality (1992), and Boundaries and Allegiances (2003).
David Schmidtz is Kendrick Professor of Philosophy and joint Professor of
Economics at the University of Arizona. He is author of Elements of Justice (2006) and
Person, Polis, Planet (2008).
Michael Stocker is the Guttag Professor of Ethics and Political Philosophy at
Syracuse University. His work focuses on moral psychology and ethics, dealing with such
topics as emotions, affectivity, pleasure, friendship, and love. His writings include studies
of classical and early modern moral theorists as well as critiques of contemporary ethical
thinkers.
Ralph Wedgwood is Lecturer and Professor of Philosophy at the University of
Oxford, and a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford. He is the author of The Nature of
Normativity (2007), and many philosophical articles, especially on metaethics and
epistemology.
x Contributors
Morality and Self-Interest
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3
Introduction
There are two conceptions of “morality” currently at play in the philosophical literature
and employing them differentially affects how the relationship of morality to self-interest
is conceived.
1
The fi rst conception may be thought of as the social conception of “morality”. It
begins with the question of how one ought to behave toward others. Morality is seen as
having a fi nal authority over our lives and the interests of others play a necessary role in
the decision procedures we ought to use. Where the interests of others are not at issue,
morality does not come into play: there is no morality for an agent stranded alone on a
desert island. Thus, on such a view, morality and justice, understood loosely to encompass

all fair dealings between people, are often seen to have the same scope. Typically, on this
conception, morality requires impartiality, such that agents must not see their own inter-
ests, or the interests of their families, communities, etc., as having any special standing
whatsoever in the decision procedure that determines what ought to be done. Thus, we
see Kantian deontology requiring the universalizability of maxims of action and utilitari-
anism, and consequentialism more generally, requiring strict impartiality in the evalua-
tion of the outcomes of possible actions. On some accounts, the strict impartiality may be
loosened somewhat by, for example, “agent-centered prerogatives”, as discussed by
Scheffl er (1982), but this loosening must still be justifi ed given standards according to
which it would be acceptable for everyone to act in the same way; agents may, to some
degree, favor themselves to avoid undue sacrifi ces that would be required by strict impar-
tiality, but they may only do so according to rules that admit no exception.
1. The basic distinction here is developed in W. D. Falk’s “Morality, Self, and Others,”
reprinted within, as well as in William Frankena’s “The Concept of Morality,” The Journal
of Philosophy 63, no. 21 (Nov. 10, 1966): 688–96. My use below and throughout the volume
of the names “Within” and “Without” are based on “In” and “Out” in the masterful opening
dialogue of Falk’s paper, which itself could serve as an excellent introduction to the volume
as a whole.
The other conception of morality dates back to the ancient Greeks, and takes as its
starting point the question, “How ought I to live?”. It might fairly be called the “Socratic”
conception of morality (see Plato’s Gorgias, 500c; Republic, 344e). Answering this ques-
tion will inevitably require one to consider how one will behave toward other people, but
extends beyond that, to every signifi cant aspect of a person’s life, however private. Thus,
someone stranded alone on a desert island may be faced with moral questions, given the
possibility of living as well as possible in those trying circumstances. Like the social con-
ception of morality, the Socratic conception of morality will have fi nal authority over the
agent’s life, representing the agent’s “rule of life”. As such, the Socratic conception may
be seen as formally egoistic, since one begins by aiming at living well, though it need not
be substantially egoistic if one determines that one must treat others well in order to have
a well-lived life. (For more on this distinction between “formal” and “substantive”, see

Annas’ contribution within; see also Williams, 1985, p. 32.) Given the Socratic concep-
tion of morality, however, and in contrast to the social conception, rabid, selfi sh egoism
still represents a form of morality, however mistaken it may be.
As noted, these two conceptions of morality will represent the relationship of moral-
ity to self-interest differently. Given the social conception, morality is defi ned without
reference to self-interest, and for the purposes of this introduction and the structure of
the volume as a whole, we may refer to a defender of such a view as “Without”. Given
the Socratic conception, morality is defi ned within the terms of self-interest, given that
it is assumed that living as well as possible is in an agent’s self-interest. Unsurprisingly,
“Within” will be used to name the defender of such a view. Without and Within are not
often distinguished in modern moral philosophy, to its detriment. It is common for a
philosopher to give his or her “theory of morality”, unrefl ectively adopting one view over
the other. As such, defenders of these theories beg central, normative questions against
those who assume the other point of view. As a result, moral philosophers often end up
talking past each other without realizing it.
The variety of theories emerging from Without is quite large. As noted, they may be
cast in universalized or categorical terms, or in other terms giving no special consideration
for the particular circumstances of the acting agent, including the agent’s interests. These
theories most often derive their authority either by an appeal to rationality or fear of punish-
ment, but in either case the demands of morality take the interests of the agent to be (more
or less) irrelevant. So, Without may give a theory that defi nes rightness in terms of univer-
salizable maxims, or in terms of the greatest good for the greatest number, without regard
for how this “right” action may affect the agent. Within will think that Without’s view of
morality is at best merely incomplete for it leaves individualized agents, and the quality of
their lives, (more or less) out of the picture. At worst Within will see Without as immorally,
unfairly preventing the agent from living as well as possible. On the other hand, if Within
turns around and articulates a moral theory in which the prescriptions of morality are sensi-
tive to the particular interests of the agent who is trying to live well by it, Without will not
consider the resulting theory to be, to that extent, a moral theory at all; considering what is
in one’s own self-interest is not considering anything that counts as moral. Perhaps these

are considerations of prudence, or expedience, but not morality.
Within may, for example, articulate a moral theory in which it is wrong to be an
alcoholic or a glutton, even if the only harms of this are self-infl icted. Without may
respond by saying, “People who harm only their own self-interest are not guilty of any
4 Introduction
moral offense. What makes a moral theory a moral theory is precisely the fact that it
ignores an agent’s interests in making its prescriptions. Moral theories are checks on
people’s naturally aggrandizing sense of self-interest. While what Within suggests may be
part of a theory of prudence or practical rationality, it is not in the moral game”. Within
replies, “Nothing deserving to be called ‘morality’ demands anything less than a person
live as well as possible, which will not happen unless, at the very least, individuals con-
sider, to some signifi cant degree, their own interests as such”. And some versions of
Within may add, “Without and I agree on the fact that morality must be other-regarding,
but its content is not solely other-regarding and must take into account the interests of
the agent trying to live a moral life”.
It is worth noting that the distinction between Without and Within may not, in the
end, be a sharp one, but vague instead. As we will see, there are more moderate versions
of both theories. As briefl y mentioned above, some versions of Without may allow for the
demands of morality to be modulated to one degree or another by the interests or proj-
ects of the agent. And some moderate versions of Within may conceive of morality and
self-interest as distinct normative principles that are in need of some sort of conceptual
articulation. Given moderate versions of Without and Within, they may become diffi -
cult to distinguish from each other, though this of course does not alleviate us from the
necessity of settling on a single conception of morality from which to begin our theoriz-
ing.
2
In the end, we will most likely fi nd ourselves with a continuum of conceptions of
morality with more rigorous forms of Without and Within at the extremes.
Unless we settle the dispute between Without and Within, prior to normative or
metaethical theorizing, the resultant theories will not be responsive to the concerns of

different theorists who will inevitably disagree with the starting points of the other.
3
As an
example, consider the following situation. Suppose one could save the life of one’s child
by buying an organ obtained illicitly, perhaps from a prisoner on the other side of the
world.
4
One could see how one might be tempted by the love of one’s child to make the
deal, while simultaneously being repulsed by the idea of such malfeasance. Those who
have adopted Without’s conception of morality will treat the tension in the situation as
being between nonmoral (self-interested or selfi sh) considerations and moral consider-
ations. They tend to think that there is something conceptually incoherent about the
moral permissibility of favoring one’s own interests over the interests of others; they typi-
cally say, “Morality demands that we sacrifi ce our own welfare or self-interest for the
2. I thank Samuel Scheffl er for bringing this to my attention.
3. One might speculate on whether the present debate is part of normative ethics or me-
taethics. As mentioned in the acknowledgments, I think part of the diffi culty involved in it is
that it straddles the line, or blurs it. In one sense, it forces normative questions about conduct:
how do moral considerations relate to self-interested or prudential considerations? In another,
it forces metaethical questions regarding the proper conceptual analysis of morality, or the
meaning of “morality.” Not distinguishing clearly between the normative and the metaethical
may be part of trouble. One possibility is that Without is working with a more normatively
laden conception of morality, since as Frankena (ibid) notes, it builds substantial normative
commitments into the meaning of “morality”, while Within’s conception is more normatively
neutral and metaethically oriented toward living well, whatever that may turn out to be.
4. I thank Christopher Morris for the example.
Introduction 5
6 Introduction
good of others”. On the other hand, those adopting Within’s point of view will count all
the considerations at play “moral considerations”, and would see no incoherence in the

bare idea of the moral permissibility of sacrifi cing the welfare or the good of another for
one’s own sake. So, Falk has his interlocutor “In” say, “It may also be that . . . someone
ought to stand up for his own good even to the detriment of another. It could be sound
advice to say to a woman in strife with herself and tied to a demanding parent, ‘You ought
to consider yourself, and so break away now, hard as it may be on the parent’ ” (see
p. 240). Of course, Within may fi nd it impermissible to buy illicit organs. But that need
not imply that the self-interested, non-impartial considerations that lead one to look after
one’s child as best as possible are anything less moral.
Defenders of Without tend to believe that morality and self-interest constitute dis-
tinct normative perspectives or domains, such that morality is an external force that
imposes itself on self-interest. Those who accept Without’s conception of morality may
differ over how frequently these two domains are incompatible due to their prescribing
contradictory behavior. One may also be a moral skeptic while sharing Without’s concep-
tion of morality by doubting the legitimacy or authority of the moral perspective. Within
may believe that morality and self-interest can pull apart, but do not necessarily constitute
distinct normative domains. Egoists who accept Within’s conception of morality may
think of it as almost always leading away from what is good for the agent, thereby rejecting
morality whenever it is inconvenient. Because of Aristotle, it is most common for those
accepting Within to see morality as necessary but insuffi cient for a well-lived life, and that
other nonmoral goods are also necessary to self-interest. Such positions are challenged by
situations in which there is tension in trying to preserve both morality and these nonmoral
goods.
5
A more extreme version of Within takes the proper understanding of “morality”
and “self-interest” to show that there can be no tension between them since, in fact, they
amount to the same thing. So, the Stoics who think that living morally is suffi cient for a
well-lived life do not distinguish between what is moral and what is best for the agent.
Unfortunately for these extreme positions, the “proper understanding” of morality and
self-interest ends up being signifi cantly different than common sense suggests. If one
accepts the view of Socrates in Gorgias, the position that virtue is suffi cient for happiness,

then one is committed to the possibility of being “happy on the rack” (473c). Aristotle
considers such views nonsense (Nicomachean Ethics VII, 13).
In arguing against moral skepticism, Without has a number of possible strategies to
adopt. One tradition centers the issue on the relations between justice, typically con-
ceived of as being wholly other-regarding, and self-interest, where Without then attempts
to defend justice, or just acts, as rational or justifi ed despite the fact that justice can
demand “self-sacrifi ce” and, in general, ignores the interests of those who defend it (see
Morris’s contribution).
6
A more revisionary, Nietzschean conception of justice rejects
much of its traditional other-regarding content, to make it more consistent with the inter-
ests of the self-chosen few who resist the other-regarding pressures of social convention
or contract (Risse). Without’s morality, understood without reference to self-interest, is
defi nitive and supremely authoritative because it is of or from something better, grander,
5. See, for example, “Aristotle: An Unstable View,” chapter 18 of Annas (1993).
6. Henceforth, I will merely parenthesize a philosopher’s name when his or her contri-
bution to the present volume is referenced.
or higher than any individual’s self-interest. Morality, on this view, issues from a source
that deserves our deference, respect, and perhaps even reverence. The source may be the
good abstractly conceived, as nonnatural or supernatural; or it may be “naturalized” as
the welfare, pleasure, or satisfaction of humanity as a whole; or it can be defi ned in terms
of the dictates of rationality. On any version of Without, the self-interest of the (ratio-
nally) deliberating person plays no specially weighted role in the determination of what
ought to be done; it may be permissible or even required that agents tend to their own
interests, but this must not be at the expense of other-regarding moral duty or go beyond
what can rationally be expected of anyone.
Perhaps most often, skeptics of morality take their real dialectical adversary to be
Without, so that those very features of morality that identify it as such for Without are
seen as erroneous, fallacious, incoherent, queer, or fi ctitious (Joyce). The “special status”
of morality, the “peculiar institution” of it (to use Williams’s (1985) ringing phrase) can

be lamented as well as revered. For many others, the justifi ed reason to be moral is fear
of retribution and/or punishment for immorality. Strong authority, from political sover-
eignty up to omnipotence, may be required by Without for engendering moral motiva-
tion. Nevertheless, this very status of morality as requiring an external sanction puts it on
the defensive.
On the other hand, Without can muster an offense by showing how its “supreme
authority” is, in fact, rational and cogent from the fi rst-person perspective, and does not
require external sanction (Nagel, Schmidtz). On such views, belief in the authority of
Without’s morality is justifi ed when it is taken on its own terms. Further still, Without
may point out that despite the fact that moral prescriptions do not refer to any particular
agent’s self-interest, they need not be at odds with an individual’s self-interest. On a hope-
ful interpretation of Without’s morality, one may think that any decent moral theory
must be livable, and if obeyed, it can allow for large amounts of mutual reward to accrue
to those who are lucky enough to live in a moral society (Scheffl er). If social institutions
were made just, and children were taught to be just, then the sacrifi ce to self-interest any
individual will be asked to make might be kept at a low minimum. A more negative pro-
gram might fi nd “live-ability” to be irrelevant to the formulation of moral demands, and
any reconciliation between morality and self-interest would be mere wishful thinking.
On such a view, if morality is regard for others and not for the self, then the two are
defi ned incompatibly, and such is the case when the former is conceived as a check on
the latter. As such they are more frequently than not, if not always, going to be at odds
with each other. At least, perhaps, neither has dominion over the other, and any congru-
ence between the two is accidental and likely to be rare (Finlay).
The situation that emerges from adopting Within’s conception develops differently.
With regard to replying to the egoist skeptical of morality, Within’s general strategy is to
show that one cannot both look out for one’s self-interest and ignore the demands of
morality. Morality is seen as at least part of a well-lived life. In a fashion similar to
Without, one may accept the idea that morality and self-interest are two separate princi-
ples, and yet note that this, by itself, does not imply that the practical import of the moral
principle can be understood in terms of considerations that do not overlap at all with

those of self-interest. One might argue that the moral impulse is an internal principle
directed toward something that the individual values at least as much (and possibly more)
than the individual’s self-interest if it were to be considered in isolation. This still leaves
Introduction 7
8 Introduction
open the possibility of a situation arising in which one’s principled dedication to morality
requires what would otherwise appear to be a sacrifi ce of self-interest. And, as noted, this
is consistent with thinking that respecting the moral principle is necessary for a well-
maintained sense of self-interest. Or one might think that morality is merely the “best
bet” for success in life (Hursthouse, 1999), or, more strongly, one might think that it is at
least partly constitutive of a life in which one’s self-interest is maintained as well as possi-
ble. Nevertheless, if one’s position leaves open the possibility of a tension between these
two internal principles, then a mechanism for their adjudication will be needed, if it is
not assumed up front that one principle always trumps the other (Wedgwood).
These problems do not arise for a more radical version of Within that understands
the moral life as the best life possible for a person. What is moral and what is in one’s best
self-interest, all things considered, will be the same when these are understood properly.
On such a view, one may distinguish regard for others from self-regard but one must bal-
ance these considerations so that one’s well-lived life, one’s happiness, is not independent
of one’s self-respect and one’s self-respect is not independent of how one treats others
(Bloomfi eld). As such there may be times when one’s own interests take moral prece-
dence over the interests of others. Morality would then have supreme authority over one’s
life, because it is defi ned formally in terms of what leads to the best life possible for the
individual; even in tragic dilemmas, behaving immorally will always be the greater of
evils. Thus, Within’s conception of morality must take seriously the Paradox of Happiness,
that an overweening concern for one’s self-interest prevents one from doing what is in
one’s self-interest.
7
Selfi sh concern for oneself leads one away from the best life possible
for a person, but a selfl ess abnegation in favor of the concerns of others is also doomed to

lead away from a well-lived life. Our responsibilities to ourselves are no less nor more
“moral” than our responsibilities toward others. The traditional problem of such a view is
that it typically requires a reevaluation of what is in a person’s self-interest, as well as of the
content of morality, such that a person’s self-interest will always be in accord with what is
morally right, and vice versa. So, for people living well, what others might commonly fi nd
harmful to their self-interest, such as being passed over for some honor, will not be given
any import at all. From the fi rst-person point of view, one’s moral values will lead one
through a life that is thought to be better than any possible other, given who one was when
born in whichever particular circumstances.
For Within, it should be unsurprising that the topics of moral psychology and moral
motivation loom large. For example, properly distinguishing moral motivation from ego-
tistical motivation will require careful work (Annas). On one hand, morality seems to
demand a certain purity of motive, while on the other, an agent need not be ignorant
that performing the morally right act will be what is best for that agent, all things consid-
ered. The knowledge of how one’s actions may benefi t one ought not to provide motiva-
tion for a moral person, yet one cannot pretend not to know what one knows. Thus,
Within will have to explain how moral people avoid being willfully ignorant of how their
actions affect them personally while avoiding having such thoughts “pollute” their moti-
vation to do the right thing (Irwin). For example, enjoying the rewards of being moral
7. What I am calling the “Paradox of Happiness” here has the same formal structure as
Sidgwick’s “Paradox of Hedonism.” For the self-defeating nature of egoism in the face of such
paradoxes, see Stocker (1976).
(perhaps merely by gaining the sort of gratifi cation that comes from doing a good job)
does not seem problematic after the right deed has been performed, but the motivational
force provided by the expectation of these rewards before the deed is problematic. If,
however, “virtue is its own reward”, then one wonders why these rewards would be nec-
essarily productive of a life in which self-interest is well maintained (Kupperman).
Another possibility is that if Within is right, then morality and self-interest may become
so intertwined it is then diffi cult to distinguish one from the other from a psychological
point of view: our motivations, our emotional lives, and, in general, our characters will

have to smoothly embody an amalgam of both other- and self-concern and the reactive
emotions these engender (Stocker).
Given the number of conceptual possibilities in which a relation between morality
and self-interest can be articulated, it is no wonder that progress on how these ought to be
related has been so slow and diffi cult. We must somehow—or decide whether we wish
to—distinguish between what “morality” commonly means and what it ought to mean,
between what most people think and what we all ought to think. The same is true for “self-
interest”, since there is always a possible gap between what is truly good for a person, all
things considered, and what that person wants most (or desires or prefers), even when given
an optimal amount of time to refl ect. (I take it for granted that no viable theory can hold
that people are infallible regarding what is good for them, even given copious refl ection.)
The philosophical hope must be that at least some of these possible conceptions of moral-
ity are shown up front to be incoherent or misguided, for one reason or another, that mod-
ern or future data from the social sciences might shed light on the subject, and that from
there, philosophical argumentation can take us from fact and reason to an improvement
in both theory and (most optimistically) practice. There are few more diffi cult philosophi-
cal problems and probably even fewer more important to the quality of human life.
There is no pretense to claim that the conceptual framework laid out here is the
only way to understand or approach the topic of morality and self-interest. One could do
so by trying to sort out the confusing relations between morality and ethics. Or one might
try to step forthrightly into normative theorizing by considering work that tries to answer
directly the question “Why be moral?” There are historical approaches in which the
development of the options is traced in the hope of learning something new about the
issue by exploring its developmental history. A more theoretic approach might be col-
lecting a series of articles on the relation of justice to the rest of morality, or by trying to
contrast normative theories so that consequentialism and deontology are on one side of
the debate, and virtue theories on the other. The editorial hope is that the fundamental
conceptual distinctions drawn here, informed by Falk and Frankena as noted, represent
the most incisive approach to the material, capable of shedding light on “Why be
moral?”, on history, as well as on the current shape of normative theorizing. The edito-

rial claim is that a justifi ed determination of the relation between morality and self-
interest ought to precede normative and (more familiar) metaethical theorizing.
Introduction 9
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i
MORALITY WITHOUT
SELF-INTEREST
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A. Morality on the Defensive
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