Standard disclaimer: My lecture notes are primarily meant to help me remember what to talk about in class. As a further service to students, I have been endeavoring to write them out clearly enough for others to make sense of them and then to make them available to students. However, this is a long and laborious process, and in most cases it is unfinished. Therefore these notes should be taken with a grain of salt, as I have not had time to make them absolutely complete or to proofread them carefully enough to guarantee that they are without mistakes. As always, your primary source of information should be the lectures and class discussions andBmost important of allBthe texts we are reading.

I. Alan GewirthBwho (last I heard) is still livingBis more or less contemporary with Hare.

II. Gewirth=s main work is a long, complex book called Reason and Morality (1978).

A. Fortunately for us, however, he has repeated and condensed the argument of that book in various articles, one of which we are reading for the course ("The Basis and Content of Human Rights@).

B. That article was published in the early 1980's; it and several other important articles, are collected in Gewirth=s anthology called Human Rights: Essays on Justification and Applications (1982). More recently, Gewirth has written a book called The Community of Rights (1996).

C. By the way, if you want to get into this further, you can pick up Reason and Morality, or, perhaps even more usefully, a book of critical essays called Gewirth: Critical Essays (ed. By Michael Boylan, 1999) It is not necessary to have read Gewirth=s whole book to make a good deal of sense of the essays in the latter book (James Sterba=s essay in that volume is especially lucid and clear, as is Boylan=s introduction.)

III. Interestingly, Gewirth and Hare are both highly influenced by Kant, and have borrowed heavily from Kant, esp. in the Groundwork, and esp the idea of the universal law formula and the idea that morality consists of categorical imperatives.

IV. Yet they end up in very different places. Hare ends up with a kind of utilitarianism, whereas Gewirth ends up with a more moderate, rights-based deontological theory.

I. Before going further into Gewirth=s argument, we should stop for a second and make sure that we understand why the conclusion he wishes to draw is quite anti-utilitarian.

II. To understand this, we must first understand the structure of rights.

III. Recall that utilitarianism places no limits on what can be required of an agent in order to maximize total net happiness. (For more on this, see my NOTES FROM 218, and REF TO SHAW BOOK.)

IV. What a right does, essentially, is to place a moral limit on the maximization of happiness.

V. Recall that utilitarianism claims that morality is simply a matter of maximizing the good.

A. The good, remember can be happiness or desire-satisfaction or whatever: For the most part, from now on we will ignore the question of what exactly is goodBi.e. what exactly the utilitarian is maximizingBand assume that it is something to do with the good of individuals.

B. So we will think of utilitarianism as a theory which claims that we must maximize the aggregate good of individuals, and leave it open whether the good of individuals consists of pleasure, desire-satisfaction, or whatever. From now on, when I say Amaximize utility@ I will mean Amaximize the net aggregate good of all the individuals affected.@

VI. Now almost everyone (except, perhaps, a rational egoist like Gauthier or Hobbes) would agree that we have SOME moral duty to add to the total amount of good in the world.

VII. However, everyone who is not a utilitarian thinks that there is some LIMIT to the duty to maximize the good.

A. In particular, most deontologists hold that there are limits on what sorts of actions can be taken to increase the aggregate good. These limits are often called constraints or restrictions: they prohibit certain kinds of actions even in cases in which an instance of that action would produce a net increase in the aggregate good.

B. Most deontologists also hold that there are limits on the amount any single agent can be required to sacrifice of her own personal good to produce a net increase in the aggregate good. These limits are often called options or prerogatives, for they give an agent an option of pursuing her own good in certain cases in which she could add more to the total aggregate good by sacrificing her own good. So in effect, they make some sacrifices for the greater good Aoptional.@

VIII. One way to talk about limitsBespecially of the first kindBis to use the language of rights.

IX. Ronald Dworkin has made famous the phrase "rights are trumps" which means that rights set up absolute (or nearly absolute) limits on what can be done in order to maximize util. So in effect, the idea is that while it may be required to maximize utility, and surely it is at least permissible, it is only OK to maximize utility IF YOU DO NOT VIOLATE ANYONE'S RIGHTS.

(A QUOTE AND CITATION WOULD BE NICE)

X. Robert Nozick has a similar idea in mind when he writes that rights are Aside constraints@ on the duty to maximize utility. (A BIT MORE ON NOZICK HEREBA QUOTE PERHAPS?)

I. Some utilitarians claim that rights can be derived from considerations of utility, a la rule-utilitarianism

II. That is, the utilitarian may argue that according certain rights to persons, and then respecting those rights, is a good way to increase aggregate utility.

III. However, there is a problem with this approach, and it is similar to a problem that besets other Atwo level@ versions of utilitarianism (such as rule utilitarianism).

A. The main problem that critics have with Autilitarian rights@ and rule utilitarianism is that they seem somewhat paradoxical or perhaps even hypocritical.

B. Since both forms of utilitarianism claim to be committed to maximizing happiness, they run into problems in dealing with cases in which we could produce more aggregate good by breaking the rules or violating rights.

C. The proponent of rule utilitarianism or utilitarian rights has two options in dealing with such cases.

1. One option is to claim that in such cases we should follow the rules/respect rights, even though we could create more good by breaking the rules/violating the rights.

a. The problem with this response is that it seems to be a repudiation of utilitarianism itself, since it amounts to a refusal to maximize utility in all cases.

b. In fact, rule utilitarianism is often accused of Arule worship,@ that is, of being more concerned about rules than about happiness. A proponent of Autilitarian rights@ could be accused of Arights worship@ in much the same way.

2. The other option is to claim that in such cases we should violate the rights/break the rules.

a. The problem with this response is that it seems to dilute the whole nature and function of rights/rules.

b. Rights and rules are generally brought in as limits to the duty to maximize utility. Yet if we are willing to violate these rights/break these rules as soon as it is expedient (from the point of view of utilitarianism) to do so, then it is unclear that the rights/rules are worth having in the first place.

I. Now that we see that a moral theory that begins with rights is going to be anti-utilitarian, we can see that if you can show that rights are a part of morality, then you will have refuted util. Rights are one way of limiting what utilitarianism says is unlimited, namely our duty to promote the good.

II. So that's the basic idea of a shape of morality: is it flat-out utility maximizing, or are there limits?

III. Gewirth claims to have justified morality, that is, to have shown how moral conclusions can follow from non-moral premises.

IV. In other words, he thinks he has shown how an immoral person is in fact irrational because he is breaking making a logical error.

A. Like Hare, Gewirth thinks that the essence of moral thought is a kind of consistency. Thus his claim is that anyone acting immorally is acting inconsistently.

B. Unlike Hare, however, Gewirth=s claim is the very ambitious claim that any immoral person is guilty of logical inconsistency.

1. This is FAR more than Hare claims: Hare only claims that IF YOU WANT TO PLAY THE AMORALITY GAME@, THEN YOU MUST UNIVERSALIZE. Hare does not claim that a failure to play the morality game is a kind of logical mistake (though he does suggest that opting out of morality may well have negative affects on a person=s own self-interest. In this, Hare echoes some themes from Gauthier, although Hare does not follow Gauthier in claiming that morality is nothing more than self-interest.)

2. Gewirth, on the other hand, argues that the immoral person is logically inconsistent, and not simply unwise or imprudent..

3. It is worth pointing out that even if Gewirth fails to show morality to be logically mandatory, he may have shown us something about the correct account of morality.

V. In the paper I had you read, he begins by asking: How can a person justify the claim that there are rights.

VI. He begins by quickly dismissing a couple of possibilities. Two notable ones:

A. IntuitionsimBHe dismisses this for much the same reason that we decided that intuitionism is worrisome: There is no way to adjudicate among people with differing intuitions.

B. Legal recognition: Since the legal system also has rights, some people argue that rights are socially constructed. Now of course it does not simply follow from the fact that political and legal rights are social constructs that moral rights are also. In fact, the common thing to say is that legal and political rights are meant to reflect moral rights. If moral rights are simply social constructs also, then the whole thing degenerates into moral relativism.

VII. Gewirth=s alternative involves reinterpreting the ontology of rights (44-5) and offering a prescripitvist  theory of moral language (or at least the language of rights).

A. Gewirth suggests that it is a mistake to think of a right as something that a person has in the way that she has an arm or a leg (43).

B. Instead of thinking of a claim that one has a right as a descriptive claim, about what you have, he thinks it makes better sense to see it as a PRESCRIPTIVE claim (45).

C. Yet he does not want to fall into the kind of moral relativism that threatens any non-cognitivist analysis of moral language. So he wants to find a way to claim that some prescriptions are correct and some are incorrect. In short, he wants to find that A[rights] claims have sound reasons in their support.@

D. You may recall that Hare has the same worry as soon as he offers a prescriptvist analysis of moral language. Hare gets avoids the danger of moral relativism by saying that a correct moral prescription is one that a person can make universal and still accept.

E. As we will see, Gewirth is going to do something very similar, and yet he will end up with a far different theory from the utilitarianism that Hare defends.

 

A. On page 45 Gewirth offers a working definition of moral.

B. He needs this because if you want to give a justification of morality, it helps an awful not if you know ahead of time what you are trying to justify.

C. Now his definition is meant to be uncontroversial--he does not want to be begging any questions by building in his theory into the definition.

D. So the definition he starts with is that morality involves requirements for action that are addressed at least in part to every agent, that are intended to further the interests of agents, including but not limited to the speaker.

1. That is, a moral claim is a claim that a speaker addresses at least in part to all other agents, that is meant to advance the interests of agents in general (including, perhaps, the speaker).

2. Now this is, of course, very similar to Hare's formulation of ethical statements as universal prescriptions: they are requirements or demands, and they are addressed to everyone.

A. On page 46, Gewirth contrasts what he calls the Aassertoric approach@ with what he calls the Adialectically necessary approach.@

1.  As Gewirth explains elsewhere (in Reason and Morality), to say that the method is Adialectical@ is to say that it will look at what one must presuppose in order to make sense of what she is doing or saying. In this case, Gewirth is going to argue that when a person takes a deliberate (purposive@) action as a rational agent, then she must be making certain implicit assumptions. Gewirth hopes that by exploring and analyzing these assumptions, we can find a basis for morality.

2.  The "necessary" part means that what we are looking for are assumptions that a person MUST make if her actions or claims are to make any sense.

3.  So the idea behind the "dialectically necessary method" is to look for assumptions that we cannot help but make if we are to be agents.  

4.  Gewirth thinks that there are certain "rights" that we must claim if we are to see ourselves as purposive agents.  Gewirth's idea will be to use the claim that we cannot help but to claim these rights for ourselves as a premise for the claim that we have rights. Now the way to do this will NOT be to infer that we have something because we think that we do. That woudlb e the assertoric method, for it would end up with an assertion that we do in fact have rights.

5. So Gewirth=s argument will not be so much a matter of saying that there ARE rights, that these rights somehow EXIST, but rather it will show that it is rationally necessary for people to accept and acknowledge those rights.

B. So the inconsistency that Gewirth will locate in immorality is not going to be a matter of asserting both P and not P, but in demanding inconsistent things.

C. This move is sophisticated and clever.

1. One thing it does is neatly get him around the whole issue of moral realism, for his argument is not going to be that rights are REAL (whatever that means) but that we MUST respect them (i.e. we must comply with the demands that rights are shorthand for.)

2. It will also allow him to try to argue that we must assent to a certain universal prescription because we cannot help but make certain prescriptions relevant to our own cases.

3. Strictly speaking, of course, the claim that we must all make some prescription is not the same as saying that we all have a given right. But remember that Gewirth has already bought into a prescriptive theory of rights. If rights just are prescriptions, then if he can show that it is illogical not to make a rights-based prescription, then that is all the Aproof@ we could ever get about the existence of the right.