A principled partiality: A Kantian account of special obligation (Immanuel Kant)

Special obligations, such as those arising in family and professional relationships, are central to commonsense morality. Furthermore, in directing us to give priority to the interests of those who are related to us, they represent the most serious intuitive challenge to the consequentialist claim that morality requires impartial consideration for the interests of everyone. Yet contemporary ethical theory has had little to say about whether these obligations exist; how much prioritywe should give to our own relatives, patients, clients, students, etc. over strangers; what sacrifices might be required of us; and how such obligations can be justified.; I present an ethical outlook addressing these and other difficult questions. A satisfactory answer, I argue, must begin not by evaluating acts directly, but instead by evaluating our motives. I propose a Kantian universalizability test, here applied to motives rather than to maxims or policies---what I call "motive Kantianism," a sort of Kantian virtue theory. According to this test, motives are appropriate only if they are not globally collectively self-defeating; that is, only if everyone's being so motivated would not frustrate the analogous motives of others. My rationale for this test appeals to a commonsense demand for intersubjectivity in ethics, that practical principles should establish congruence or harmony among moral agents. The resulting view has important advantages over similar views such as rule consequentialism and orthodox Kantianism.; In later chapters I show that motive Kantianism generates plausible verdicts regarding the partiality and demandingness of special obligations. When applied to doctors' obligations, I argue that this principle resolves pressing ethical problems about professional duties to patients in Third World clinical trials, replacing a widely accepted but problematic "equipoise requirement." Motive Kantianism also generates a novel account of the obligation to keep promises, which avoids many serious objections to prevailing views.; In the conclusion I consider how motive Kantianism might justify two other commonsense departures from impartial consideration: deontological constraints and agent-centered permissions. In the appendix I present a motive Kantian conception of individual autonomy, according to which autonomous action is acting from motives that we reflectively endorse as appropriate.