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This chapter applies Samuel Scheffler’s ‘Hybrid View’ to the morality of reproduction. It concludes that the Hybrid View does not provide a satisfactory account of our obligations to future generations, as it cannot accommodate either reproductive freedom or parental obligations. The Hybrid View fails because it cannot appreciate the collective moral significance of reproduction. This failure is shared by all other theories that retain the individualist focus of Simple Consequentialism, and thus motivates the exploration of collective forms of Consequentialism, which begins in Chapter 5.

This chapter develops and clarifies the institutional account proposed in the previous chapter by posing it against some of the important criticisms leveled against the institutional approach. Special attention will be given to objections of the form advanced by G. A. Cohen, as well as to Cohen’s recent replies to his own critics. The chapter invokes and reinforces the idea advanced in Chapter 2, that in light of value pluralism the institutional focus provides a plausible understanding of the site of egalitarian justice, whereas a more encompassing trans-institutional approach does not provide proper space for valued and valuable personal pursuits. The latter thus contradicts the end of liberal justice, namely that of providing the appropriate framework within which persons may freely and equally, but permissibly and fervently, pursue their ends. It stresses that the institutional approach is not a compromise of justice against personal pursuits; in fact, the primacy of justice is preserved on this approach, for the rules of just institutions set the range of personal ends that persons may permissibly pursue and the means by which they can pursue them.

This chapter responds to some influential objections raised by proponents of democratic equality (e.g. Anderson, Scheffler, Freeman) against luck egalitarianism. I argue that these objections are deflected when the domain, site, and purpose of luck egalitarianism are understood in the way I have proposed. While various aspects of luck egalitarianism are no doubt in need of further refinement and development (as is the case with other competing conceptions of equality), the main conclusion of this chapter is that the standard worries that luck egalitarianism is so implausible as not even to get off the ground as a justification of equality are unfounded. Luck egalitarianism as an account of the grounds of equality is both attractive and plausible, and therefore deserving of continuing philosophical attention and defense.

This chapter sharpens Williams' second challenge to consequentialism, and harnesses it to counter one of the most influential rationales offered in support of consequentialism: the impartiality rationale. Williams' second challenge to consequentialism arises from the recognition that impersonal evaluation adopts a higher-order standpoint towards what rational persons recognize as valuable; not just their own pleasure and wellbeing, but, in addition, rights, autonomy, justice, fairness, loyalty, respect for persons as ends in themselves, etc. Impersonal evaluation articulates a higher-order moral reason that comprehends other lower-order moral reasons in its object, but, for this very reason, seems to be an implausible candidate for providing comprehensive moral reasons. Arguments by Samuel Scheffler that such non-impersonal moral values cannot be provided with an impartial rationale are taken up. It is argued that Scheffler's arguments against any such rationale for non-impersonal moral values inadvertently provide the outlines of just such a rationale. By the end of this chapter, the outlines of an alternative to the impersonal conception of impartiality emerge, together with the outlines of a rationale for its adoption. This interpersonal conception of impartiality, in contrast with the impersonal conception, is in the first instance appropriate for the evaluation of actions (rather than overall states of affairs), and provides a rationale for agent-centred restrictions, agent-centred options, and the doing/allowing distinction.

Returns to a problem first raised in Ch. 8, namely, reconciling the existence of prerogatives not to maximize overall good (allowing for some such acts to be supererogatory) with restrictions on the pursuit of one's personal good. This problem becomes especially pressing since, despite the earlier emphasis on the existence of restrictions to pursuing the greater good, it is sometimes the case that greater good may permissibly take precedence over restrictions, for example, negative and positive duties (obligations) or rights; if personal good may take precedence over greater good (allowing some acts for greater good to be supererogatory), and these supererogatory acts may take precedence over restrictions, why may not personal good take precedence over restrictions — why does transitivity fail here? An attempt is made to prove each premise in this argument separately, and the associated objections and duties are presented. The third section of the chapter considers whether the intransitivity arises only because different factors account for precedence relations in each step of the argument, or whether the results obtained in the first two sections of the chapter are more general, and, indeed, another instance of the Principle of Contextual Interaction; consideration is also given to whether the intransitivities discussed share the cycling property characteristic of other intransitivities. Concludes by applying these results to a further discussion of those who never allow duty to be subordinated to supererogation, to Scheffler's Hybrid Theory, and to Parfit's problem of the Repugnant Conclusion.

The first three chapters of Part III of the book (Chs 8–10) examine the question of whether it is morally permissible to treat people in ways ruled out by the Principle of Permissible Harm (PPH; this was introduced in Ch. 7 and provides an account of certain restrictions/constraints on killing) only for the sake of minimizing violations of the PPH itself, or whether there is a constraint on doing this. Ch. 8 first examines the arguments Samuel Scheffler presents against both restrictions and constraints, and his defence of prerogatives not to maximize good or minimize harm (his Hybrid Theory); since Scheffler's views on prerogatives are in some ways related to those of Bernard Williams, the latter's views on integrity are also considered. The criticism made of Scheffler in Sect. I of this chapter is concerned with his view of the supposed gulf between prerogatives and restrictions, and consideration is given to whether too great an emphasis on an active/passive distinction does not underlie his strong opposition to restrictions and whether (by a transitivity argument) he is committed to no restrictions even in pursuing personal non‐optimal projects. Possible similarities between prerogatives and restrictions (or constraints) are considered, but the focus is on crucial differences with respect to minimizing the violation of prerogatives and restrictions, these differences giving rise to what are called the Value and Selection Problems; solutions to the Selection Problem based on asymmetries in victims and differentiation between agents are considered. Sect. II of the chapter re‐examines the foundations of a prerogative (not to maximize good or to minimize harm) that Scheffler located in the personal point of view (PPV); rejecting the sufficiency of Scheffler's account, the chapter focuses on freedom of choice over entitlements in creatures who are ends‐in‐themselves, discussing briefly the idea of reasons generated from the PPV in such creatures; finally, an examination is made of the arguments Shelly Kagan has constructed for and against prerogatives, including the Negative and Positive Arguments, and the Argument from Vividness.

According to the interpretation defended in this book, Rawls made the transition to political liberalism because he came to think that the arguments for congruence laid out in Chapters VI and VII failed. They failed because, as was suggested in Chapter II, they depended upon the assumption that members of a well-ordered society would all affirm the same partially comprehensive doctrine. This chapter shows exactly where the congruence arguments appealed to that assumption and exactly why this led to their failure. The chapter concludes by contrasting the interpretation defended here with other explanations of Rawls's turn to political liberalism.

This chapter argues that the way people are has a profound effect on what they do. As a result, we have reason to question attributions of desert and responsibility to them. The problematic nature of desert in relation to natural attributes is an accepted part of Rawlsian theorizing. Having considered John Rawls's account of desert in distributive justice, the chapter proceeds by asking whether an analogous account can be given of retributive justice. Scheffler denies that it can because, he argues, distributive and retributive justice are asymmetrical. The chapter aims to refute Scheffler's argument and then to consider the consequences for our understanding of desert in retributive justice.

This chapter explores the role of responsibility in luck egalitarianism. Some writers – Susan Hurley being the most prominent – aver that the marriage of equality and responsibility is an unhappy one. The discussion argues that, quite to the contrary, full responsibilitarianism implies luck egalitarianism, provided there have been responsible acts. Other critics, such as Samuel Scheffler, suggest that luck egalitarianism's use of responsibility renders it implausible for metaphysically based reasons. In reply, this chapter urges that luck egalitarianism is actually unusually sensitive to our metaphysical uncertainty. Other theories, such as outcome egalitarianism, appear to make just the untenable assumptions that luck egalitarianism is alleged to make. Furthermore, luck egalitarianism's metaphysical sensitivity can be readily accommodated at the level of application.

The first main section of this chapter recounts a situation in which the perpetration of placatory torture against a certain victim would lower the incidence and severity of the acts of torture carried out against that very same victim. As the chapter argues, the perpetration of placatory torture is morally wrong even in such a situation. The chapter then moves on to ponder whether the agent-centredness of deontological duties–such as everyone's duty not to engage in acts of torture–is rationally tenable. Among the philosophers who have impugned the rationality of agent-centred constraints, Samuel Scheffler has mounted a particularly prominent and thought-provoking attack. The author ventures to rebut Scheffler's critique in order to vindicate the rational impeccableness of deontological restrictions.

In this chapter, the author attempts to discharge the burden of argument for moral antirationalism by reviving what is surely the most classic argument for that position: an appeal tomoral impartiality. While this argument has come in for substantial critique, he presents a new and novel version and holds that while an appeal to impartiality is plausible, critiques of moral impartiality (of which there are many) must rely on a prior assumption of moral rationalism. But because the truth of moral rationalism must await an independent inquiry into the content of the moral domain, these critiques fail and hence (or so he claims) moral anti-rationalism follows.

This chapter explores what kind of social relationships are compatible with the ideal of social equality. Building on the work of Samuel Scheffler and Martin O’Neill, it first provides a brief analysis of the ideal of social equality and its normative core. It then looks at three paradigmatic examples, namely, workplace relationships, rich–poor relationships, and gender relationships in order to flesh out the nature of social egalitarian relationships. The chapter analyzes what kind of inequalities in power, wealth and esteem (if any) are compatible with social equality. Moreover, it looks at structural inequalities and how social egalitarians should assess them. Overall, the chapter offers an in-depth analysis of social equality and the nature of social egalitarian relationships.

In an “extrinsic” conflict, an agent’s desires pull her toward incompatible actions. As a matter of contingent fact, nothing she does will get her everything she wants. Intrinsically conflicted agents are conflicted at the level of value, and this means that the conflict fractures the agent’s evaluative point of view: in order to get the appeal of one of the things she wants fully in view, she must step out of the point of view from which the other appears attractive. For this reason, the conflict cannot be resolved by deliberation as to which side is better overall. Harry Frankfurt is wrong to think that such conflicts are resolved by identifying with one side and externalizing the other. In fact, they cannot be resolved by any single, momentary act of the will: it takes time to work one’s way into a point of view. We resolve intrinsic conflicts by aspiring.

Previous chapters defend a variety of claims about what matters in survival. This chapter puts those claims through their paces by applying them to a new topic: personal immortality. I begin by using the distinction between persistence and survival to clarify the idea of personal immortality. I then show how claims defended in earlier chapters allow us to block familiar objections to the desirability and to the possibility of immortality. Here are two examples. Chapter 4’s conclusion that the Selfer view is false plays an important role in my reply to the Tedium Objection. And my answer to the Why Question in terms of numerical identity provides the resources to argue that what matters in survival will not slowly ‘fade out’ over time and change.

Chapter 4 argues that impersonal envy-free labor-income bundles can be derived from a relational ideal. The chapter begins by introducing Elizabeth Anderson’s and Samuel Scheffler’s distinction between relational and distributive egalitarianism. The chapter then proposes the following mutual justifiability requirement: when someone claims that her bundle should be sweetened at someone else’s expense, she must be able to give a reason that an individual standing in the shoes of a free and equal individual who regards everyone else as free and equal could not reasonably reject. Call this the solidarity solution. The chapter concludes by showing that the solidarity solution requires impersonal envy-free labor-income bundles.

Chapter 3 addresses four philosophical attempts to show that terrorist attacks, definitional issues aside, have a special moral significance. In their very different ways, these philosophers articulate a concern about terrorism also widely held amongst non-specialists. The philosophers addressing the idea of special significance most directly are Samuel Scheffler, Jeremy Waldron, and Lionel McPherson. Waldron does not use the phrase “special moral significance,” but the idea is at work in his discussion. The fourth is Karen Jones, who doesn’t use “special significance” but her discussion of terrorist disruption of “basal security” seems to mark some distinctive moral feature of terrorism in addition to its being a tactic committed to attacking non-combatants. That makes her claim relevant here. The chapter argues that these various attempts fail to make the strong case they promise, and that the failure is instructive for our understanding of terrorism and for policies to deal with it.

This chapter explores the relational critique of distributive conceptions of justice, according to which the proper focus of egalitarian justice is the egalitarian nature of social relations rather than the equal distribution of certain goods. It maintains that the relational critique constitutes a fundamental challenge to distributive egalitarianism only if it rejects the “core distributive thesis” that holds that the distribution of some nonrelational goods has relation-independent significance for justice. It argues that several relational proposals are compatible with that thesis, and therefore constitute extensions or revisions of the distributive conception rather than alternatives to it, and that those relational views that reject the core distributive thesis are the least plausible ones. Finally, the chapter shows that relational views are often ambiguous regarding the nature of the significance of egalitarian relations, i.e. whether it consists in their contribution to well-being, or in being the fitting response to equal moral status.

When a person must choose among actions that will affect both him and other people, he generally takes the others’ interests to have some rational weight, but not as much as his own. This familiar view is intermediate between two others: first, that only the individual’s own interests give him reason to act, and, second, that everyone else’s interests count just as much as his own. Of these two polar views, each has had forceful proponents and each can be traced to a compelling starting point. By contrast, the intermediate view that actually informs most practice seems much harder to defend. The question in this paper is whether that view is simply an unprincipled compromise between two powerful but irreconcilable intellectual pressures or whether, instead, there is some positive reason to accept it