Abstract

Since personal integrity, which is constituted by an individual's special attachment to his or her own personal projects, is an important aspect of a good life, and one of the purposes of a moral theory is to guide persons toward good lives, an adequate moral theory must accommodate personal integrity. Utilitarianism is not an adequate moral theory, because it undermines personal integrity by failing to accommodate the unique importance to each individual of his or her own personal projects. Familiar kinds of rights-theories are also inadequate, because an acceptable account of what rights are and how they function has not yet been given. A moral theory, which is called "Personalism", and which does accommodate personal integrity in an acceptable way, is described. Personalism accommodates personal integrity by including agent-centered permissions and agent-neutral obligations. An agent has an agent-centered permission when she is permitted to pursue her own personal project because this personal project is relatively crucial to her integrity, in comparison to the importance of what is at stake for others. An agent has an agent-neutral obligation under Personalism, when she ought to produce the best possible overall consequences, and whatever personal projects she has which are at stake in the situation are not sufficiently crucial to her integrity, in comparison to what is at stake for others, to provide her with an agent-centered permission which overrides this impersonal obligation. The kinds of needs every agent has agent-neutral obligations to satisfy, and the kind of wants some individuals sometimes have agent-centered permissions to satisfy, are described, as are the conditions under which agents have agent-neutral obligations or agent-centered permissions. Although even Personalism cannot completely resolve the conflict between the good life and doing as impersonal morality requires, some ways of ensuring that this conflict is diminished are discussed. Some possible objections to this theory are considered and dismissed, and the overall structure of Personalism is described