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Show Chapter VI. Moral Interiority 272 Compassionate action toward one other requires only the special link between my self and my action when the symmetry observed is between my own and the other's inner state as I empathically imagine it. By contrast, compassionate action when symmetry is observed between my own and many others' inner states also requires, when all suffer equally, some further motivating attribute of the particular other on whose behalf I compassionately act. Since one's own strict impartiality among equally suffering others expresses an inherently ceteris paribus est relation among agents, one's compassionate action on behalf of any requires some sort of motivational tiebreaker among them. Otherwise agent paralysis really does set in. In the case in which the stranger patently suffers more intensely, the dictate of compassion is equally clear: My empathic imaginative involvement with the plight of brutalized African women will move me to contribute funds to Transafrica, rather than to my friend's purchase of a new coat, when these two options conflict, because I perceive the greater intensity of suffering in the former. But the responses to each of these cases are applications of the strict impartiality requirement, not precluded by it. In the first case, strict impartiality determines the empathic recognition of equal suffering on the part of both friend and stranger, and of the bonds and obligations of friendship as a tie-breaker. In the second case, strict impartiality determines the empathic recognition of greater suffering on the part of the stranger despite those bonds and obligations that might otherwise have biased one toward the friend. In both cases, the requirement of strict impartiality fixes one's compassionate response to the situation in such a way as to give one's own interests and attachments no more and no less than their due. Thus the fact that strict impartiality as a metaethical requirement of adequacy on the application of any normative moral principle (not itself such a principle) implies that the fact that one's experience of identifiable compassion for one or many sufferers will move one to ameliorate their suffering does not by itself prescriptively commit one to ameliorative action on their behalf: Feelings of compassion may need to be balanced against considerations of efficiency, rational prudence, or other moral obligations - such as those to friends or family, and may not always override them. The unbiased application of distributive principles, the emotion of compassion, and the relation of friendship are not the only moral virtues that presuppose strict impartiality between self and other. Honesty, trust, love, and responsibility - indeed, any virtue susceptible to analysis in terms of normative principles of behavior - could be treated similarly, although I do not attempt this here. The general point is that strict impartiality requires the ability to balance the demands and interests of the self with those of others in accordance with a normative principle biased toward neither. Indeed, the set of moral principles that constitute a normative moral theory just is a strictly impartial solution to the problems created by the competing demands and © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
