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Show Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume I: The Humean Conception 373 criteria of moral rightness these answers establish must have sufficient particular content so that the opposite content cannot also be derived from the justified principle (21, 164-5). This requirement concerns the content of the answers to the distributive and substantive questions, rather than to the authoritative one. It states that the justified principle cannot be so general in content that one could derive from it both an internally consistent set of moral prescriptions on action and also the negation of that set. An example of a principle that violates determinacy would be "Act to further your own selfinterest," because it might generate prescriptions both to keep one's promises and also to break them, for the same situation. Another example would be the principle, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," because this might generate prescriptions both to render aid to the needy and also to withhold it under the same circumstances. The scope of application of these principles for particular kinds of situations would need to be specified in much greater detail in order to meet the determinacy requirement.6 By setting the determinacy requirement as a standard his own PGC must meet, Gewirth, like Rawls before him, sets himself the challenge of justifying a moral principle that specifically proscribes conduct a different principle might endorse, and so of making his theory palatable to those who might disagree with its particular prescriptions. By holding his own theory to the determinacy requirement, Gewirth signals his intentions both to take strong stands and to change minds. He rejects a traditional escape hatch for moral philosophers who justifiably want to claim as many converts as possible: of generalizing and thus weakening the particular prescriptions of their moral theory, or merely endorsing the familiar ones, in order to increase the breadth of its appeal. The harder task - Gewirth's task - is to specify the practical prescriptions of his moral theory as fully as possible, and also convince the unconverted of their worth. Gewirth also requires, second, that a definitive justification be conclusive, i.e. that the criteria of morally right conduct implied by the PGC be both beyond rational challenge by competing moral theories and also categorically obligatory for all moral agents irrespective of particular circumstance (21, 23, 149-150). This extremely ambitious requirement concerns the answers to the distributive and substantive questions explicitly, and to the authoritative question indirectly. Gewirth thinks that particular standards of morally right conduct are beyond rational challenge by competing moral theories if they are implied by rational analysis itself; and that they are categorically obligatory for all moral agents if they are necessitated by some feature of moral agency that no moral agent can avoid. This is where Gewirth aims to close the gap See Henry S. Richardson, "Specifying Norms as a Way to Resolve Concrete Ethical Problems," Philosophy and Public Affairs 19, 4 (Fall 1990), 279-310 for a detailed analysis of what this would involve. 6 © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
