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Show Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume II: A Kantian Conception 411 Washington is to betray precisely that network of personal and social ties on the importance of which an Anti-Rationalist moral view insists. At best, an Anti-Rationalist might plead divided loyalties in this case. But because an Anti-Rationalist moral view admits of no strictly impartial principles above and beyond the spontaneous dispositions of character that motivate individual interactions, it can furnish no higher-level principles for adjudication between such conflicting loyalties. By contrast, a rationalist moral theory tackles the solution to this problem quite straightforwardly, because it includes all fully functioning moral agents within its domain of explanation. And in virtue of its aspiration to legitimacy as a genuine theory, it emphasizes satisfaction of the metaethical requirement of impartiality in the application of its laws and principles. Thus as we have seen, a rationalist moral theory rules out violations of (1), above, on impartialist grounds, because these fail to treat a moral agent as an equal member of the moral community. But 5.2.(c), above, violates (1), because it implies that since Washington is an interloper in and potential disrupter of the collegial social network rather than a fully integrated member of it, she is unentitled to full moral treatment by its members. For a rationalist moral theory, this is unacceptable. Secondly, 5.2.(c) violates (2), because it dissociates Washington's pain from the domain of moral importance in which Smith situates the pain Vogeler would feel at being reprimanded for inflicting it, the pain Smith would feel at having to reprimand him, and the pain both would feel at the way this episode undermined preservation of their professional connections more generally. But surely Washington's pain is not outside the moral domain of Vogeler's or Smith's. Surely Washington's pain is to be weighed in the same balance with Vogeler's and Smith's, and, because Washington's pain is an unjustified moral harm whereas Vogeler's and Smith's pain would be the result of a justified moral restitution, to be found of greater moral weight than both. This suggests that Smith's and Vogeler's pain is morally permissible as a means of alleviating Washington's morally impermissible pain. Smith's dissociation of Washington's pain from the domain of moral significance is a pseudorational attempt to protect his social network at the expense of social justice. A moral theory that assigns greater value to preserving a system's stability than it does to alleviating unjustified pain in a particular case is thinkable, even if the primary purpose of the system is to alleviate pain so far as is possible, and may even be warranted under some circumstances. But a view of the sort expressed in 5.2.(c), which assigns greater value to the preservation of a system whose very stability depends on permitting the infliction of unjustified harm - call this a bully system - is not. International examples of bully systems include Hitler's Germany, Ceausescu's Romania, Botha's South Africa, Milosevic's Yugoslavia, Taylor's Liberia, and, of course, the United States throughout its short but brutal history. A bully system © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
