The leading accounts of respect for others usually assume that persons have a rational nature, which is a marvelous thing, so they should be respected like other objects of ‘awesome’ value. Kant's views about the ‘value’ of humanity, which have inspired contemporary discussions of respect, have been interpreted in this way. I propose an alternative interpretation in which Kant proceeds from our own rational self‐regard, through our willingness to reciprocate with others, to duties of respect for others. This strategy, which (...) shares some similarities with moral contractualism, offers a way to justify other‐regarding moral requirements from self‐regarding rational dispositions. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant is known for his ideas about duty and morally worthy acts, but his conception of virtue is less familiar. Nevertheless Kant’s understanding of virtue is quite distinctive and has considerable merit compared to the most familiar conceptions. Kant also took moral education seriously, writing extensively on both the duty of adults to cultivate virtue and the empirical conditions to prepare children for this life-long responsibility. Our aim is, first, to explain Kant’s conception of virtue, second, to highlight some (...) distinctive and potentially appealing features of the Kantian account of virtue, third, to summarize and explain Kant’s prescriptions for educating young children and youth as well as the duty of moral self-improvement that he attributes to all adults, and, fourth, to respond to some common objections that we regard as misguided or insubstantial. (shrink)

The most apparent obstacles to a just, enlightened and peaceful social world are also, according to Kant, nature’s way of compelling us to realize those and other morally good ends. Echoing Adam Smith’s idea of the ‘invisible hand’, Kant thinks that selfishness, rivalry, quarrelsomeness, vanity, jealousy and self-conceit, along with the oppressive social inequalities they tend to produce, drive us to perfect our talents, develop culture, approach enlightenment and, through the strife and instability caused by our unsocial sociability, push us (...) towards justice, political equality and the highest good. What are we to make of these arguments, which seem to rely on questionable empirical assumptions, invoke dubious claims about natural teleology and sit uncomfortably with fundamental aspects of Kant’s ethical framework? I suggest that the arguments reveal one of Kant’s deep and important insights about the moral life by partially describing what a good and virtuous person reasonably hopes for. (shrink)

The value of solidarity, which is exemplified in noble groups like the Civil Rights Movement along with more mundane teams, families and marriages, is distinctive in part because people are in solidarity over, for or with regard to something, such as common sympathies, interests, values, etc. I use this special feature of solidarity to resolve a longstanding puzzle about enacted social moral rules, which is, aren’t these things just heuristics, rules of thumb or means of coordination that we ‘fetishize’ or (...) ‘worship’ if we stubbornly insist on sticking to them when we can do more good by breaking them? I argue that when we are in a certain kind of solidarity with others, united by social moral rules that we have established among ourselves, the rules we have developed and maintain are a constitutive part of our solidary relationships with one another; and it is part of being in this sort of solidarity with our comrades that we are presumptively required to follow the social moral rules that join us together. Those in the Polish Revolution, for example, were bound by informally enforced rules about publicity, free speech and the use of violence, so following their own rules became a way of standing in a valuable sort of solidarity with one another. I explain why we can have non-instrumental reasons to follow the social moral rules that exist in our own society, improve our rules and even sometimes to break the otherwise good rules that help to unite us. (shrink)

Kant offers the following argument for the formula of humanity (FH): Each rational agent necessarily conceives of her own rational nature as an end in itself and does so on the same grounds as every other rational agent, so all rational agents must conceive of one another's rational nature as an end in itself. As it stands, the argument appears to be question-begging and fallacious. Drawing on resources from the formula of universal law (FUL) and Kant's claims about the primacy (...) of duties to oneself, I propose a contractualist reconstruction of this puzzling line of reasoning. (shrink)

I aim to identify and describe some basic elements of a Rawlsian approach that may help us to think conscientiously about how, from the standpoint of justice, we should treat the disabled. Rawls has been criticized for largely ignoring issues of this sort. These criticisms lose their appeal, I suggest, when we distinguish between a Rawlsian standpoint and the limited project Rawls mainly undertakes in A Theory of Justice. There his explicit aim is to find principles of justice, which are (...) to govern the basic structures of a closed, well-ordered society that exists under reasonably favorable conditions, that would be chosen by parties in the original position from among a small set of traditional conceptions of justice. Once we develop a conception of justice for a society like that, Rawlsians hope we can make certain revisions to find principles of justice for a society like ours. Finally, I sketch what seems to me a plausible way for a Rawlsian to begin thinking about how a society like ours should provide justice for its disabled citizens. (shrink)

Kant’s deontology is often seen as a rival to virtue ethics. This chapter argues, however, that while there may be differences between Kant’s and Aristotle’s conceptions virtue (for instance, a virtuous person, in Kant’s view, may be destitute and unhappy, fail to cultivate certain emotions and sentiments, etc.), virtue is central to Kant’s ethics. The key problem is whether there is a Kantian account of virtue compatible with Kant’s view of free will. Kant held that having virtue means having a (...) will that is both good and stable. So to cultivate virtue means to cultivate a stable will. But the idea of character cultivation seems to run counter to Kant’s view of freedom, since for Kant, people are always free to choose how to act. This chapter puts forth a novel proposal for solving this problem, one which has to do with the limits on self-knowledge. (shrink)

Kantian moral theories must explain how their most basic moral values of dignity and autonomy should be interpreted and applied to human conditions. One place Kantians should look for inspiration is, surprisingly, the utilitarian tradition and its emphasis on generally accepted, informally enforced, publicly known moral rules of the sort that help us give assurances, coordinate our behavior, and overcome weak wills. Kantians have tended to ignore utilitarian discussions of such rules mostly because they regard basic moral principles as a (...) priori requirements that cannot be tailored to human foibles and limitations. I argue that Kantian moral theories should incorporate public moral rules as mid-level moral requirements for embodied and socially embedded human agents. I explain how certain specific moral judgments about how we ought to act are justified by public moral rules, which are themselves justified by more fundamental moral requirements. (shrink)

Introduction ADAM CURETON AND KIMBERLEY BROWNLEE Disability and disadvantage are interrelated topics that raise important and sometimes overlooked issues in ...

There are at least two basic normative notions: rationality and reasons. The dominant normative account of reasons nowadays, which I call primitive pluralism about reasons, holds that some reasons are normatively basic and there is no underlying normative explanation of them in terms of other normative notions. Kantian constructivism about reasons, understood as a normative rather than a metaethical view, holds that rationality is the primitive normative notion that picks out which non-normative facts are reasons for what and explains why (...) those normative relations hold. By supposing that there is a plurality of primitive reasons, I argue that primitive pluralism about reasons lacks sufficient normative unity and structure. But Kantian constructivism about reasons faces a dilemma of its own: Either a conception of rationality is thick enough to capture the reasons of commonsense, in which case it cannot play the explanatory role assigned to it, or a conception of rationality is genuinely explanatory, in which case it is too thin to generate the reasons we recognize in commonsense. The aim of this paper is to suggest that if Kantian constructivism about reasons were built on a substantive, rather than merely formal, conception of rationality then it would stand a better chance at unifying the particular reasons we would endorse on due reflection. The groundwork I lay in this paper, I explain, is an essential first step in the larger project of developing a version of Kantian constructivism about reasons that might eventually explain all reasons in terms of rationality. (shrink)

Disability raises profound and fundamental issues: questions about human embodiment and well-being; dignity, respect, justice and equality; personal and social identity. It raises pressing questions for educational, health, reproductive, and technology policy, and confronts the scope and direction of the human and civil rights movements. Yet it is only recently that disability has become the subject of the sustained and rigorous philosophical inquiry that it deserves. The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Disability is the first comprehensive volume on the subject. (...) The volume's contents range from debates over the definition of disability to the challenges posed by disability for justice and dignity; from the relevance of disability for respect, other interpersonal attitudes, and intimate relationships to its significance for health policy, biotechnology, and human enhancement; from the ways that disability scholarship can enrich moral and political philosophy, to the importance of physical and intellectual disabilities for the philosophy of mind and action. The contributions reflect the variety of areas of expertise, intellectual orientations, and personal backgrounds of their authors. Some are founding philosophers of disability; others are promising new scholars; still others are leading philosophers from other areas writing on disability for the first time. Many have disabilities themselves. This volume boldly explores neglected issues, offers fresh perspectives on familiar ones, and ultimately expands philosophy's boundaries. More than merely presenting an overview of existing work, this Handbook will chart the growth and direction of a vital and burgeoning field for years to come. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant defines virtue as a kind of strength and resoluteness of will to resist and overcome any obstacles that oppose fulfilling our moral duties. Human agents, according to Kant, owe it to ourselves to strive for perfect virtue by fully committing ourselves to morality and by developing the fortitude to maintain and execute this life-governing policy despite obstacles we may face. This essay reviews basic features of Kant’s conception of virtue and then discusses the role of emotions, a motive (...) of duty, exemplars, rules, and community in a virtuous life. Kant thinks that striving to be more virtuous requires not only respect for moral principles and control of our contrary emotions but also a system of legally enforced rules and communities of good persons. Exemplars and cultivated good feelings and emotions can also be useful aids along the way, but Kant warns us against attempting to derive our moral standards themselves from examples or feelings. The best any of us can hope for, in Kant’s view, is to make constant progress in our difficult struggle for moral perfection. (shrink)

I draw on my experiences of passing as non-disabled to explain how a disabled person can hide his disability, why he might do so, and what costs and risks he and others might face along the way. Passing as non-disabled can bring greater social acceptance and inclusion in joint-projects, an enhanced sense of belonging, pride and of self-worth, and an easier time forming and maintaining personal relationships. Yet hiding one’s disability can also undermine some of these same values when doing (...) so, for example, prevents someone from living up to normal social expectations or from sharing important aspects of himself with others. Hiding a disability can also interfere with a person’s self-respect, self-acceptance, integrity, and self-development. Although the chapter does not take a stand on whether hiding a disability is, overall, prudent, wise or morally justified, it draws out some lessons about disability from why someone might want to hide it. (shrink)

Suppose the following: Two groups of people require our aid but we can help only one group; there are more people in the first group than the second group; every person in both groups has an equal claim on our aid; and we have a duty to help and no other special obligations or duties. I argue that there exists at least one fairness function, which is a function that measures the goodness of degrees of fairness, that implies that we (...) should follow a procedure of proportional chances to determine which group to aid. (shrink)

Simple acts of kindness that are performed sincerely and with evident good will can also, paradoxically, be perceived as deeply insulting by the people we succeed in benefiting. When we are moved to help someone out of genuine concern for her, when we have no intention to humiliate or embarrass her and when we succeed at benefiting her, how can our generosity be disparaging or demeaning to her? Yet, when the tables are turned, we sometimes find ourselves brusquely refusing assistance (...) from others or accepting it only grudgingly while trying to show that we do not need their charity. People with disabilities often find ourselves in situations of this sort, where we bristle at others who rush to open doors for us, for instance, while our kindhearted benefactors are surprised and hurt by the cold reception they receive for their efforts. My aim is to explain some of the ways in which well-intentioned and effective beneficence can be offensive, with special emphasis on cases in which someone provides assistance to a disabled person. (shrink)

Prevailing philosophies about parental and other caregiver responsibilities toward children tend to be protectionist, grounded in informed benevolence in a way that countenances rather than circumvents intrusive paternalism. And among the kinds of children an adult might be called upon to parent or otherwise care for, children with disabilities figure among those for whom the strongest and snuggest shielding is supposed be deployed. In this article, we examine whether this equation of securing well-being with sheltering by protective parents and other (...) care-givers should unreflectively be adopted for disabled children. We also consider why healthcare providers might reasonably be reluctant to yield to this principle, even if parents instinctively suppose that protectionism is the parenting policy that best serves their disabled child’s interest. We contend that caregivers owe children with disabilities at least as much, and possibly more, respect for self-governance than other children need. In spite of disabled children’s vulnerability and even in view of it, we argue that they should be accorded not only welfare rights to well-being but at least a modified version of liberty rights as well. Healthcare providers are especially favorably positioned to facilitate the latter response. The main components of respectful caregiving can come into conflict with one another, but we present some priorities that advise against adopting a protectionist account of parenting rights, or at least against accepting protectionist views that focus parenting narrowly on shaping ideas about the child’s welfare. In sum, caring for a disabled child, we argue, involves more than creating conditions that will afford her contentment and comfort over the course of life. (shrink)

Fertility specialists, adoption agents, judges and others sometimes take themselves to have a responsibility to fairly adjudicate conflicts that may arise between the procreative and parenting interests of people with disabilities and the interests that their children or potential children have to be nurtured, cared for and protected. An underlying assumption is that having a disability significantly diminishes a person's parenting abilities. My aim is to challenge the claim that having a disability tends to make someone a bad parent by (...) arguing that the interests of prospective parents with disabilities and the interests of their children or potential children are often aligned and mutually supporting. (shrink)

G.A. Cohen accuses Rawls of illicitly tailoring basic principles of justice to the ‘crooked wood’ of human nature. We are naturally self-interested, for example, so justice must entice us to conform to requirements that cannot be too demanding, whereas Cohen thinks we should distinguish more clearly between pure justice and its pragmatic implementation. My suggestion is that, strictly speaking, Rawls does not rely on facts of any kind to define his constructive procedure or to argue that his principles of justice (...) would be its result – facts only come in to determine whether actual people satisfy the moral conceptions he defines and to determine whether his principles of justice can be stable for the right reasons. A distinguishing feature of normative constructivism, I claim, is that it begins with stipulated models that can include normative and descriptive elements; we then proceed to engage in a priori reflection about what these models presuppose and how they relate to one another. Rawls appeals to commonsense morality to partially define a citizen as someone who is engaged in social cooperation with others and a society as a fair system of cooperation; he then draws from these organizing ideas to characterize the original position for choosing principles of social regulation for societies and citizens so defined. Whether or not there are any actual people or societies that match Rawls’ models is a different matter, and irrelevant to the internal structure of his theory, but if the models do apply to people and societies in the real world then Rawls has given a powerful argument that his principles of justice are the most reasonable for them. Rather than watering down principles of justice to suit human nature, Rawls argues for principles of justice on a priori grounds and hopes that we can live up to the moral self-conceptions that underlie them. (shrink)

“Supererogation” is now a technical term in philosophy for a range of ideas expressed by terms such as “good but not required,” “beyond the call of duty,” “praiseworthy but not obligatory,” and “good to do but not bad not to do” (see Duty and Obligation; Intrinsic Value). Examples often cited are extremely generous acts of charity, heroic self-sacrifice, extraordinary service to morally worthy causes, and sometimes forgiveness and minor favors. These concepts are familiar in institutional contexts, for example, when teachers (...) give points for “extra credit” work, corporations give “bonuses” for profitable leadership, and armies award medals for extraordinary service and valor. Moral philosophers, however, have generally focused on whether or not some of these terms refer to a fundamental moral category and, if so, how the category should be defined, which acts the category includes, and whether various moral theories adequately acknowledge it. The idea that acts can be good and praiseworthy but beyond duty has seemed puzzling for several reasons. For example, it seems that “good and praiseworthy” appeals to scalar standards of (“more or less”) value and virtue whereas “duty,” “required,” and “obligatory” invoke nonscalar norms that make (“all or nothing”) demands. This raises the theoretical question whether morality presupposes two distinct conceptual schemes, and, if so, to what extent and how these can be unified in a consistent and coherent moral theory. (shrink)

I am legally entitled to certain accommodations for my visual impairment that I do not always need. Affording me these rights is required by justice even on those rare occasions in which they are not necessary to give me an equal opportunity to fully participate in all aspects of society. I sometimes wonder whether I am nonetheless “gaming the system,” “exploiting a loophole,” or otherwise acting unjustly or unfairly by using disability accommodations in such circumstances. The essay aims to explore (...) this apparent paradox by considering whether it is sometimes wrong, as a matter of justice, for disabled people to use accommodations we are justly owed. My conclusion is that, although it is not unjust for disabled people to use accommodations we are entitled to as a matter of justice, an ideally just person would sometimes forgo them for the sake of her commitment to justice itself. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to offer some remarks about how teachers, especially teachers of moral theories and arguments, should respond to insulting messages about disability that may be expressed in their courses. While there is a strong prima facie presumption for instructors to convey the truth as they see it, this is not an absolute requirement when the views they teach have a tendency to be insulting. I investigate some circumstances in which a moral view embeds and expresses (...) an insulting message about disability and I argue that affording due respect to their students requires ethics instructors to be alert to disparaging messages about disability and to send counter-messages when the views they teach give such messages. (shrink)

A comprehensive theory of rational prudence would explain how a person should adjudicate among the conflicting interests of her past, present, future and counterfactual selves. For example, when a person is having an identity crisis, perhaps because she has suddenly become disabled, she may be left with no sense of purpose to keep her going. In her despondent state, she may think it prudent to give up on life now even if she would soon adopt a different set of values (...) that would give her a renewed sense of meaning. Yet we may think that, in many cases, it would be irrational for such a person to allow herself to die. My aim is to explain this prudential intuition by developing a partial framework of rational prudence that interprets and applies the idea that a prudent person acts in ways that are justifiable to herself over time. (shrink)

When we encounter people with disabilities in our everyday lives, we may sincerely wonder how (if at all) we ought to help them. Our concern in these ordinary contexts is typically not about securing basic justice. We want to know instead, as a matter of interpersonal morality, when and how it is appropriate for us to open a door for a wheelchair user, to pick up a dropped napkin for her, or to engage her in conversation about her condition. When (...) we do try to give help, we can be surprised and hurt by the cold reception we receive for our efforts. It is worth considering, therefore, how the attitudes of someone who is sincerely trying to help can nonetheless be less than ideal and what kinds of attitudes a disabled person should have toward herself and those who are trying to provide assistance to her. In this paper, I characterize some common attitudes about people with disabilities, explain how conscientious people of good will could come to have them, and then argue that these attitudes are less than ideal because they are incompatible with the virtues of respect, acceptance, and appreciation. (shrink)

Everyone is disabled in some respect, at least in the sense that others can do things that we cannot. But significant limitations on pursuing major life activities due to severely limited eyesight, hearing, mobility, cognitive functioning and so on pose special problems that fortunately have been recognized (to some extent) in our public policies.

My aim in this essay is to partially characterize an ideal kind of respectful attitude that we should aspire to have towards all people and to explain why some of the ways we often regard and treat those with disabilities may be incompatible with realizing this ideal. My proposal is roughly that that one kind of respect, which I call ‘identity respect’, is directed at the identity or self-conception of persons; that this kind of respect involves regarding the identity of (...) others as worthy of our understanding, appreciating the value to others of their identities and not being judgmental in our assessments of them within certain limits; and that respecting the identities of all people is a moral ideal because of its connection to our nature as rational persons. Having a respectful attitude of this sort would lead to improvements in how we regard and treat disabled people and others, but reflecting on its nature and value can also advance our understanding of parts of morality that go beyond our moral rights and duties and concern the kinds of attitudes, character traits and relationships that we should strive to develop and maintain. (shrink)

John Rawls makes a provocative, original, but largely underdeveloped and neglected suggestion about the most basic subject-matter and aims of normative ethical theory. Rawls proposes that the moral concept of ‘right’, which we use when we call an individual action or social practice morally right or wrong, is defined by the functional role it has of properly adjudicating conflicting claims that persons make on one another and on social practices. Substantive moral theories of right and wrong, including utilitarianism, Kantianism and (...) contractualism, are supposed to provide more specific principles, criteria, values and ideals for interpreting and resolving this fundamental moral problem. It is not immediately apparent, however, what moral problem Rawls thinks substantive theories of right are supposed to interpret and address. The aim of this paper is to offer a fuller account of what Rawls could have meant by defining the concept of right as the proper adjudication of conflicting claims that persons make on one another or on social practices. I also describe and assess three implications of this expanded definition of right and I end with two reasons why one might accept some version of it. (shrink)

This book advances our understanding of the nature, grounds and limits of human dignity by connecting it with Kant's notion of an ideal moral community, or Kingdom of Ends. It features original essays by leading Kant scholars and moral and political philosophers from around the world. Although Kant's influential injunction to treat humanity as an end in itself and never merely as a means has garnered the most attention among those interested in analyzing human dignity with a Kantian lens, Kant (...) himself places much more emphasis on the Kingdom of Ends as crucial for defining human dignity. The chapters in this collection focus not only on interpretive issues related to the Kingdom of Ends, but also on practical applications that have the potential to advance discussions about the nature and foundations of rights, the content of moral principles, the importance of moral ideals and attitudes and the nature of moral motivation. Exploring and connecting the ideas of human dignity and the Kingdom of Ends significantly deepens our moral understanding, advances discussions in moral and political philosophy and enhances our appreciation of Kant's moral theory. Human Dignity and the Kingdom of Ends: Kantian Perspectives and Practical Applications will appeal to scholars and advanced students of Kant, moral philosophy, political philosophy, and political theory. (shrink)

Having and raising children is widely regarded as one of the most valuable projects a person can choose to undertake. Yet many disabled people find it difficult to share in this value because of obstacles that arise from widespread social attitudes about disability. A common assumption is that having a disability tends to make someone unfit to parent. This assumption may seem especially relevant as a factor in decisions about whether to allow, encourage and assist disabled people to reproduce and (...) raise children. Yet there are reasons to doubt whether there is such a close connection between having a disability and lacking the ability to raise a child well. The aims of this paper are, first, to identify and clarify some values that are relevant to questions about allowing, encouraging and assisting disabled people to procreate and raise children, second, to give an overview of how these values can help us to address certain legal questions that arise for disabled people who aim to procreate and parent, third, to raise concerns about how to properly assess the parenting capacities of people with disabilities, and fourth, to suggest some ways in which having a disability can actually make someone a better parent. (shrink)

The term “constructivism” names a family of political, moral and metaethical views that, in general terms, regard some or all normative claims as valid in virtue of being outcomes of a “procedure of construction” in which actual or hypothetical agents react to, choose, or otherwise settle on principles of justice, moral rules, values, etc. Traditionally, moral validity or justifiability was thought to depend on God, the Forms, or some other independent moral order. Various procedures of a different, epistemological, sort were (...) then proposed to help us gain access to the moral facts, which were thought to exist independently of us (e.g., we might need to undergo physical and mental training of the sort described in Plato's Republic or learn how to reflect in a “calm, cool hour”). Constructivists, by contrast, think that there are certain procedures that are not designed to discover which normative claims are already valid. For them, the validity of some or all reasons, principles, values or other normative claims consist in being the result of a procedure of construction. For example, Rousseau (1997) held that states are legitimate just in case and because they would be agreed to by reasonable people who were concerned to advance their own basic interests in freedom, self-improvement, and happiness, while Locke (1998) argued that governments are legitimate just in case and because free and equal (male, property-owning) people in a state of equal freedom actually agreed to them so long as those governments remain within the confines of natural law. (shrink)