Gewirth, A. Marsilius of Padua and medieval political philosophy. Marsilius, of Padua. Defensor pacis.

Rationality and reasonableness are often sharply distinguished from one another and are even held to be in conflict. On this construal, rationality consists in means-end calculation of the most efficient means to one's ends, while reasonableness consists in equitableness whereby one respects the rights of other persons as well as oneself. To deal with this conflict, it is noted that both rationality and reasonableness are based on reason, which is analyzed as the power of attaining truth, and especially necessary truth. (...) It is then shown that, by the rationality involved in reason, the moral principle of reasonableness, the Principle of Generic Consistency, has a stringently rational justification in that to deny or violate it is to incur self-contradiction. Objections are considered bearing on relevance and motivation. It is concluded that, where reasonableness and egoistic rationality conflict, the former is rationally superior. (shrink)

"Most modern philosophers attempt to solve the problem of morality from within the epistemological assumptions that define the dominant cultural perspective of our age. Alan Gewirth's Reason and Morality is a major work in this ongoing enterprise. Gewirth develops, with patience and skill, what he calls a 'modified naturalism' in which morality is derived by logic alone from the concept of action.... I think that the publication of Reason and Morality is a major event in the history of (...) moral philosophy. It develops with great power a new and exciting position in ethical naturalism. No one, regardless of philosophical stance, can read this work without an enlargement of mind. It illuminates morality and agency for all."—E. M. Adams, The Review of Metaphysics "This is a fascinating study of an apparently intractable problem. Gewirth has provided plenty of material for further discussion, and his theory deserves serious consideration. He is always aware of possible rejoinders and argues in a rigorous manner, showing a firm grasp of the current state of moral and political philosophy."—Mind. (shrink)

As its title suggests, the subject of this book is the nature of self-fulfillment, which the author defines as “carrying to fruition one’s deepest desires or one’s worthiest capacities”. It treats this subject as a specifically ethical one. The motivation behind it lies in the author’s conviction that all other norms and ideals have value only insofar as they serve to advance this one.

Cultures around the world have regarded self-fulfillment as the ultimate goal of human striving and as the fundamental test of the goodness of a human life. The ideal has also been criticized, however, as egotistical or as so value-neutral that it fails to distinguish between, for example, self-fulfilled sinners and self-fulfilled saints. Alan Gewirth presents here a systematic and highly original study of self-fulfillment that seeks to overcome these and other arguments and to justify the high place that the (...) ideal has been accorded. He does so by developing an ethical theory that ultimately grounds the value of self-fulfillment in the idea of the dignity of human beings.Gewirth begins by distinguishing two models of self- fulfillment--aspiration-fulfillment and capacity-fulfillment--and shows how each of these contributes to the intrinsic value of human life. He then distinguishes between three types of morality--universalist, particularist, and personalist--and shows how each contributes to the values embodied in self-fulfillment. Building on these ideas, he develops a Odialectical' conception of reason that shows how human rights are central to self-fulfillment. Gewirth also argues that self-fulfillment has a social as well as an individual dimension: that the nature of society and the obstacles that disadvantaged groups face affect strongly the character of the self-fulfillment that persons can achieve.Bold in scope and rigorous in execution, Self-Fulfillment is a powerful new contribution to moral, social, and political philosophy. (shrink)

In Recent years noncognitivist ethical theories have been supported by an argument which has come to be widely accepted among moral philosophers.1 According to this argument, an ethical term like ‘good’ has both a commending function and a describing function, but between these functions there is the important difference that the commending function alone is invariant while the describing function varies greatly. For many and different things may be called good—hammers, sunsets, paintings, missionaries, cannibals—but despite these differences in the descriptive (...) criteria for applying the word to objects, ‘good’ retains a common meaning in all these uses, for in each case the word is being used to commend. The conclusion drawn, then, is that because of its being the sole invariant or common feature of every use of ‘good’, the commendatory function rather than the varying descriptive function must be the primary meaning of ‘good’. I shall refer to this as the commendatory invariance argument. (shrink)

Human rights are rights which all persons equally have simply insofar as they are human. But are there any such rights? How, if at all, do we know that there are? It is with this question of knowledge, and the related question of existence, that I want to deal in this paper. 1. CONCEPTUAL QUESTIONS The attempt to answer each of these questions, however, at once raises further, more directly conceptual questions. In what sense may human rights be said to (...) exist? What does it mean to say that there are such rights or that persons have them? This question, in turn, raises a question about the nature of human rights. What is the meaning of the expression “human rights”? Within the limits of the present paper I cannot hope to deal adequately with the controversial issues raised by these conceptual questions. But we may make at least a relevant beginning by noting that, in terms of Hohfeld's famous classification of four different kinds of rights, the human rights are primarily claim-rights, in that they entail correlative duties of other persons or groups to act or to refrain from acting in ways required for the right-holders' having that to which they have rights. It will help our understanding of this and other aspects of human rights if we note that the full structure of a claim-right is given by the following formula: A has a right to X against B by virtue of Y. There are five main elements here: first, the Subject of the right, the person or persons who have the right; second, the Nature of the right; third, the Object of the right, what it is a right to; fourth, the Respondent of the right, the person or persons who have the correlative duty; fifth, the Justifying Basis or Ground of the right. (shrink)

It is first shown that, contrary to Maclntyre, human rights are not 'fictions'. I then summarize my own argument for human rights, and reply to Maclntyre's objections. Turning to his own positive doctrine, I indicate that it is confronted with 'the problem of moral indeterminacy', in that it allows or provides for outcomes which are mutually opposed to one another so far as concerns their moral status. I then take up Maclntyre's triadic account of the virtues and show that each (...) phase - practice, narrative order of a single life, and moral tradition - is morally indeterminate, as are also his accounts of the morality of law and the virtue of justice. My conclusion is that moral virtues must be based on human rights if the virtues are to have morally justified contents. (shrink)

As one of the most important ethicists to emerge since the Second World War, Alan Gewirth continues to influence philosophical debates concerning morality. In this ground-breaking book, Gewirth's neo-Kantianism, and the communitarian problems discussed, form a dialogue on the foundation of moral theory. Themes of agent-centered constraints, the formal structure of theories, and the relationship between freedom and duty are examined along with such new perspectives as feminism, the Stoics, and Sartre. Gewirth offers a picture of the (...) philosopher's theory and its applications, providing a richer, more complete critical assessement than any which has occurred to date. (shrink)

Cultural pluralism is both a fact and a norm. It is a fact that our world, and indeed our society, are marked by a large diversity of cultures delineated in terms of race, class, gender, ethnicity, religion, ideology, and other partly interpenetrating variables. This fact raises the normative question of whether, or to what extent, such diversities should be recognized or even encouraged in policies concerning government, law, education, employment, the family, immigration, and other important areas of social concern.

Rationality and reasonableness are often sharply distinguished from one another and are even held to be in conflict. On this construal, rationality consists in means-end calculation of the most efficient means to one's ends (which are usually taken to be self-interested), while reasonableness consists in equitableness whereby one respects the rights of other persons as well as oneself. To deal with this conflict, it is noted that both rationality and reasonableness are based on reason, which is analyzed as the power (...) of attaining truth, and especially necessary truth. It is then shown that, by the rationality involved in reason, the moral principle of reasonableness, the Principle of Generic Consistency (PGC), has a stringently rational justification in that to deny or violate it is to incur self-contradiction. Objections are considered bearing on relevance and motivation. It is concluded that, where reasonableness and egoistic rationality conflict, the former is rationally superior. (shrink)

Two criticisms of my argument in "reason and morality" were presented by christopher mcmahon (in "gewirth's justification of morality," "philosophical studies", September 1986). I reply to each criticism, Showing that mcmahon has misconstrued my use of 'ought' as action-Guiding and my universalization of the agent's rights-Judgment, As well as my concept of prudential rights. A general defect is that he has not understood how central to my argument is the agent's conative and rational standpoint.

It is first shown that, contrary to Maclntyre, human rights are not ‘fictions’. I then summarize my own argument for human rights, and reply to Maclntyre’s objections. Turning to his own positive doctrine, I indicate that it is confronted with ‘the problem of moral indeterminacy’, in that it allows or provides for outcomes which are mutually opposed to one another so far as concerns their moral status. I then take up Maclntyre’s triadic account of the virtues and show that each (...) phase - practice, narrative order of a single life, and moral tradition - is morally indeterminate, as are also his accounts of the morality of law and the virtue of justice. My conclusion is that moral virtues must be based on human rights if the virtues are to have morally justified contents. (shrink)

Two main points in Maclntyre’s reply to my Rights and Virtues are shown to be incorrect. First, the right-claims I attribute to every agent are based on the needs of action, and the correlative “must” hence falls within the recognized language of practical advocacy. Second, the ‘conative normality’ I attribute to all agents is not confined to ‘the individualistic social order of modernity’ but instead characterizes every agent who wants to act for the fulfillment of his or her purposes.

How can anyone be opposed to private philanthropy? Such philanthropy consists in persons freely giving of their wealth or other goods to benefit individuals and groups they consider worthy of support. As private persons, they act apart from – although not, of course, in contravention of – the political apparatus of the state. In acting in this beneficent way, the philanthropists are indeed, as their name etymologically implies, lovers of humanity; and their efforts are also justified as exercises of their (...) right to freedom, including the free use of the resources they own, which they have presumably acquired by their own free efforts or by the efforts of other persons who have freely transferred these resources to them. Thus, private philanthropy combines two of the highest values of individual and social morality: personal freedom and interpersonal beneficence. I. Moral Problems of Private Philanthropy Many questions about moral, and especially human, rights arise from private philanthropy as thus briefly characterized. These questions may be divided into three sets, which focus respectively on the agents of philanthropy, on the recipients of philanthropy, and on the objects for which philanthropic awards are given. First, regarding the agents: Do they have a right to all the wealth they possess? Have they accumulated this wealth in a way that has respected the moral rights of other persons? If the answer is negative, even in part, then in what morally valid sense is all the wealth in question theirs to give away, even if they use it for philanthropic purposes: Do they have a right to give it away as they choose? (shrink)

Civil disobedience raises difficult problems for most of us because we are neither absolute legalists nor absolute individualistic moralists. As it is usually denned, civil disobedience consists in violating some law on the ground that it or some other law or social policy is morally wrong, and the manner of this violation is public, nonviolent, and accepting of the legally prescribed penalty for disobedience. According to the absolute legalist, civil disobedience is never justified, because he holds that every law, no (...) matter how bad or wrong it may be, ought to be obeyed. According to the absolute individualistic moralist, on the other hand, civil disobedience is always justified, because such a moralist gives absolute priority to the demands of the individual's conscience, so that when anyone's conscience tells him some law or policy is morally wrong, that ought to settle the issue of obedience for the person in question. (shrink)

1. Some Preliminary Distinctions. The relation between the natural and the social sciences, as it bears on their respective subject-matters, methods, and propositions, has long been a source of problems for the philosophy of science. The title of this paper is intended to indicate one of the most basic of these problems. Before developing my point, however, I wish to guard against a possible misinterpretation. I am not questioning the accepted fact that as knowledge in any field advances men may (...) come to recognize the incorrectness of what they had previously regarded as “laws” in that field, and may consequently “change” these laws to take account of such increased knowledge. Let me call this kind of change of laws doctrinal change. The kind of change about which I am asking is rather a change in the subject-matter itself insofar as it is subject to laws—i.e., a change in the causal relations among the facts, objects, properties, events, or whatever they may be called, with which the science deals. Let me call this kind of change of laws factual change. Now, without inquiring more fully at the moment into the nature of scientific laws as such, we may say that the history of science shows that men can and do effect doctrinal changes in the laws of any science, natural as well as social, and formal as well as empirical. And it is recognized also, with minor exceptions to be noted later, that men cannot effect factual changes in the laws of the natural sciences, since these are independent of human volition or decision. The question I am asking, then, is whether men can effect factual changes in the laws of the social sciences. (shrink)

As Cary J. Nederman writes in the foreword to this new edition, "Marsilius continues to speak to many of the salient issues of modern political life, expressing his doctrines in a language that has resonance and relevance. Whether in addressing the role of citizenship as a buffer between individual and community, or in explicating the foundations of religious toleration, the _Defensor pacis_ affords a distinctive theoretical perspective that rivals that of any of the great thinkers of the Western political tradition.".

Professor Frankena's Carus Lectures exhibit the analytical acumen and probing intelligence we have long come to expect from his writings. The distinctions he draws, the questions he raises, and the answers he suggests all serve powerfully to advance philosophical thought. While I shall have criticisms to make of some of his central doctrines, this must not be allowed to obscure the real indebtedness one feels for the enlightening and stimulating effect of his work as a whole.

It is often said nowadays that there has been a great revival of practical philosophy. But the complaint is also sometimes heard that philosophers do not have much practical influence and that, as philosophers, they do too little practical work in public communication and politics. Such statements raise questions about the nature of practical philosophy and about the proper role of philosophers in social and political practice.

The nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union has reached a stage of unparalleled destructive potential. Fueling the race are not only an immense series of mighty technological developments but also each side's unremitting quest for both security and power. Thus, each side is animated by intense competitiveness with and deep distrust of the other.My primary purpose in this essay is not to examine the historical background or the current status of this murderous competition but rather (...) to inquire into what can and should be done to avoid its dangers. For this purpose, we must make the most intensive possible use of reason. For reason gives us the surest way to attain truth, including practical truth about what ought to be done in the various predicaments that confront human beings. (shrink)

I want to comment briefly on seven points in Professor Danto's discussion of my paper. 1. He says that according to my conception of the existence of human rights, their esse est demonstrari – that is, for human rights to exist is for them to be demonstrated. He also says that, according to my thesis, “what one argues for cannot be separated from … the argument itself…” Now this is true in one sense but not in another. There is an (...) ambiguity in Danto's use of words like “demonstrari” and “argument.” These words may refer either to particular, contingent attempts at demonstration and argument or to rationally necessary structures of demonstration and argument. Danto's remarks might suggest that it is in the former sense that I tie the existence of human rights to argument. But, on the contrary, it is obviously the latter meaning that I use when I say: “That human rights exist… is a proposition whose truth depends on the possibility, in principle, of constructing a body of moral justificatory argument from which that proposition follows as a logical consequence,” and that “for human rights to exist… means that there are conclusive moral reasons that justify or ground the moral requirements that constitute the Nature of human rights…”. The existence of such reasons is independent of whether this or that particular justificatory argument is successful; such reasons are discovered, not invented. Hence, what I argue for, that human rights exist, can be separated from my own or anyone else's attempts at argument. (shrink)

Philosophizing about the social sciences involves an initial problem of denotation. Although the natural sciences are the scene of intramural disputes like those between proponents of quantum mechanics and relativity theory, no one doubts either what the natural sciences are or that they are sciences; and all of them may be said to use, broadly speaking, the same scientific method. But the case of the social sciences is different. It resembles somewhat the situation in mathematics where the intuitionists deny that (...) non-constructible concepts or problems belong to mathematics; and even more the situation in philosophy where groups like the analysts and the existentialists not only do not speak the same language but do not even recognize one another's right to be called “philosophy.” Similarly, the disciplines which comprise the social sciences today differ from one another in basic ways, involving long-standing disputes over which ones have a right to the names of the several social sciences and what their proper methods are. Familiar examples of these disputes are the controversies between the classicists and institutionalists in economics, and between the analytical and sociological schools in jurispurdence. Consequently, it is impossible for philosophers, or social scientists philosophizing about their general field, to proceed to discuss “the” subject-matter or “the” method of “the” social sciences as if the phrases containing these definite articles were definite descriptions on whose objects there was general agreement. (shrink)

The 'individualizability objection' to the universalizability thesis asserts that the thesis is trivial because both the reason for a singular moral judgment and the corresponding universal principle may be so individualized that they apply to only one person. Purported reasons which are thus individualized, However, Fail to fulfill two general requirements of a reason: specificity and relevance. If the reasons do fulfill these requirements and also seem to support the individualizability objection, Than either they are logically comparative, In which case (...) they apply to more than one person in a proportional way, Or they indicate unique properties which are nonetheless similar to those of other persons. (shrink)

By "actions" I shall here mean "complete" actions, that is, behaviors which are voluntary and purposive in that they are initiated or chosen and controlled by their agents who knowingly perform them with a view to some purpose which constitutes their reason for acting; this purpose may be either the action itself or some outcome of the action. In contrast to these stand "incomplete" actions which are at most only partially controlled by their agents, in that such behaviors occur at (...) least in part from one or more of the following kinds of causes: direct compulsion by someone or something external to the agent; causes internal to the agent, such as reflexes, ignorance, or disease, which decisively contribute, in ways beyond his control, to the occurrence of the action; indirect compulsion whereby the agent's choice to perform the action is forced by someone else's coercion. (shrink)

Sixteen articles by fifteen authors, two of which, the ones by Plantinga and Kenny, have never appeared in this form before. Three of the selections have been translated for the first time from French: those by B. A. O. Williams, E. Bréhier, and P. H. J. Hoenen. The latter two selections are the sole representatives of French Cartesian scholarship. This is unfortunate, as Descartes' positive contribution to modern philosophy is better reflected in recent phenomenological and existential philosophy. The dominant tone (...) of this volume is negative and piecemeal, though in terms of this limited approach to Cartesian studies there are many excellent essays in this volume. The balance of the contributors includes Ayer, Moore, Ryle, A. K. Stout, Malcolm, Hintikka, Gewirth, Prichard, Frankfurt, and Alston. The editor has included a very comprehensive bibliography.—E. A. R. (shrink)

There is still considerable debate among commentators about the extent to which Descartes intended to, or actually did, exercise the principle of methodic doubt. Basically, the debate is about the import of the word “all” in the opening sentence of the synopsis of the Meditations: “In the first Meditation I set forth the reasons for which we may, generally speaking, doubt about all things … ”. A. K. Stout and Willis Doney have argued that the thing to be doubted is (...) all knowledge to the extent in which memory plays a role in it. They attempt to show that Descartes is looking for a guarantee for the reliability of memory rather than for, say, a guarantee for the reliability of all clear and distinct ideas. Most commentators do not restrict methodic doubt in this way. For example, Alan Gewirth has recently suggested that sometimes Descartes even doubts the cogito. (shrink)

Followers of traditional modes of ethical thinking rightly approachpostmodern philosophical methodologies with a certain enigma andsuspicion due to the latter’s tendency to swipe clean basic assumptionswhich had been historically accepted without question. Contemporarytheorists conceptually dig their way into complex labyrinths of noveldefinitions not only to establish the neotericity of their paradigms but also to disengage themselves from the tyranny of dogmatic conclusions that may inhibit their suppositions from being enclosed by established systems of thought. When the Principle of Generic Consistency (...) was introduced by Alan Gewirth in his most popular work Reason and Morality, it spurred numerous reactions, both pros and cons,1 as the principle offered to fulfill the utopian dream of establishing a rational foundation for human rights. The latter part of the book, together with subsequent articles and works, explained in detail how the principle could be applied to the intricacies of applied morality, such as the promotion of man’s well-being, and consequently, the fulfillment of his existence. This paper deals with the same path of Gewirth; only this time, it seeks to construct a rational bridge between a PGC-basedhuman self-fulfillment and the creation of a habitat that embodies hope for political harmony. Moreover, the PGC would not only be construed as the foundation for human rights, but also as a rational trail by which man’s relation with his fellow could serve to develop an intersubjective enhancement of freedom and well-being. (shrink)

Alan Gewirth's Reason and Morality directed philosophical attention to the possibility of presenting a rational and rigorous demonstration of fundamental moral principles. Now, these previously unpublished essays from some of the most distinguished philosophers of our generation subject Gewirth's program to thorough evaluation and assessment. In a tour de force of philosophical analysis, Professor Gewirth provides detailed replies to all of his critics--a major, genuinely clarifying essay of intrinsic philosophical interest.

Alan Gewirth’s Reason and Morality justifies certain fundamental moral principles and develops morality out of the basic structure of action. Contemporary literature exposes a critical flaw in the second stage of Gewirth’s argument contending that Gewirth fails to create agent-neutral moral claims. In order to provide a transfer of interests between agents, the solution to Gewirth’s problem, I argue that certain Rawlsian concepts buttress and are consistent with Gewirth’s argument for the normative structure of action.