Two Ways of being Nice

The better he [Konstantin Levin] knew his brother, the more he noticed that Sergey Ivanovitch, and many other people who worked for the public welfare, were not led by an impulse of the heart to care for the public good, but reasoned from intellectual considerations that it was a right thing to take interest in public affairs, and consequently took interest in them.

             from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy 

As a self-described amoralist, I have in mind a particular conception of morality and also a particular way of being amoral. For me a moralist is one who maintains that there are things one ought to do, ways one ought to be, and so forth, where the ought is categorical, universal, and overriding. Thus for example, if a moralist believes one ought to help others, this implies an obligation by anyone in like circumstances to help others regardless of further considerations, such as whether helping those others will work out well for oneself in the end, or even if the overall consequences for everyone will, on balance, be better or worse (than if, say, people did not help one another but instead had to become self reliant). An amoralist denies that there are any such obligations; and my particular brand of amoralism, which I usually call desirism, also involves a disposition to reflect rationally on one’s desires (or motivations) before acting on them. 

A moralist might have the same disposition, but a component of the moralist’s rational reflections would be various injunctions taken to be categorical etc., whereas the desirist’s rational reflections would omit consideration of any such injunctions. So for example in deciding whether to help someone, both the moralist and the amoralist might consider whether that person were in dire need, and how they themselves might better assist her; but only the moralist would be moved by the further consideration that one has an absolute obligation to help others in dire need. 

Note that the amoralist might, however, be moved by the same principle but stripped of its categoricity. In other words, the amoralist could be partial to the idea of helping others in dire need, but the amoralist would be motivated to do so out of concern for them. And herein lies the distinction I mean to bring out in this essay. For the moralist in question is motivated by a rule of altruism directly, whether or not the moralist gives a damn about people. As Immanuel Kant put it: 

…if nature has put little sympathy in the heart of this or that man; if he, supposed to be an upright man, is by temperament cold and indifferent to the sufferings of others, perhaps because in respect of his own he is provided with the special gift of patience and fortitude and supposes, or even requires, that others should have the same- and such a man would certainly not be the meanest product of nature- but if nature had not specially framed him for a philanthropist, would he not still find in himself a source from whence to give himself a far higher worth than that of a good-natured temperament could be? Unquestionably. It is just in this that the moral worth of the character is brought out which is incomparably the highest of all, namely, that he is beneficent, not from inclination, but from duty. (Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals, tr. Thomas Kingsmill Abbott) 

            I take the epigraph about Levin to be a statement of the opposite idea, namely, that “heart” is where ethical value lies, or at least that it is a necessary component of genuinely ethical motivation. And this (that last variation) is the kind of ethics I myself prefer.[1] Kant prefers the other kind because heart can be fickle, or even diminished in some people (as the excerpt makes plain), whereas a constant and reliable guide to life is wanted from an ethics. This is precisely the reason for requiring that a morality satisfy the criteria of categoricity, universality, and overridingness – as bulwarks against weakness of will when faced with duties that run contrary to one’s own desires and preferences (even altruistic preferences: Fīat iūstitia ruat cælum). 

            My response to that is that heart or desire is perfectly capable of being strong and constant; and furthermore, when it is not, moral maxims to the contrary will either have the wind taken out of their sails or be conveniently tailored to fit the heart’s desires.[2] 

            But this is an empirical claim, and I doubt anyone will ever be in a position to know the truth of the matter, including whether the truth is simply that things sometime work the one way and sometimes the other way. Nevertheless my sympathies lie with having heart be at the heart of ethics, and so whereas a moralist would strive to inculcate allegiance to certain principles in the motivational makeup of their charges, I urge everyone to strive to instill compassion in our children (through such tried and true techniques as exposure to experiences, modeling, and “conditioning”) … as well as the knowledge and reason to deploy compassion in the most effective and comprehensive ways.

[1] For this reason I have now amplified my original formulation of desirism, which was completely rationalistic, into what I tentatively call marksism, which adds the stipulation that we cultivate compassion (heart). Hence also I do not entirely endorse Levin’s ethics, since it appears to exclude the rationalistic component. See “Unthinking Altruism” for illustrations of this last point.

[2] “Are there no workhouses? Are there no prisons?” is an expression of a moral ideal.


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