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Neutrality and Utility

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Richard J. Arneson
Richard J. Arneson*
Affiliation:
University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, U.S.A.
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Extract

According to the ideal of tolerance, the state is supposed to be neutral or evenhanded in its dealings with religious sects and doctrines. The tolerant state does not pursue policies aimed at favoring one sect over another.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , June 1990 , pp. 215 - 240
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1990

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References

1 Gerald Dworkin argues for a generalization of this claim that neutrality (as he conceives of it) presupposes skepticism, in an essay that anticipates my argument in sections X and XI below. See Dworkin, , ‘Non-Neutral Principles,’ reprinted in Daniels, Norman, ed., Reading Rawls (New York: Basic Books 1974) 124-40.Google Scholar

2 Rawls, John, ‘The Idea of an Overlapping Consensus,’ Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 7 (1987) 1–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar; esp. 4. (I intend the phrase ‘ways of life and conceptions of the good’ to be pleonastic.)

3 Rawls, ‘The Idea of an Overlapping Consensus,’ 4. It should be noted that Rawls does not choose the term ‘neutrality’ to characterize his view. See Rawls, , ‘The Priority of Right and Ideas of the Good,’ Philosophy and Public Affairs 17 (1988) 251-76; esp. 260-4Google Scholar. Also, the just state according to Rawls limits its stance of neutrality to conceptions of the good that are consistent with the requirements of justice. This is part of what Rawls means by his doctrine of the priority of right. I discuss Rawls's, views on this topic in ‘Primary Goods Reconsidered,’ Nous 24 (1990)Google Scholar.

4 Larmore, Charles, Patterns of Moral Complexity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1987)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ackerman, Bruce A., Social Justice in the Liberal State (New Haven and London: Yale University Press 1980)Google Scholar; Ackerman, , ‘What Is Neutral about Neutrality?,’ Ethics 93 (1983) 372-90CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ackerman, , ‘Why Dialogue?,’ Journal of Philosophy 86 (1989) 5–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Nagel, Thomas, ‘Moral Conflict and Political Legitimacy,’ Philosophy and Public Affairs 16 (1987) 215-50.Google Scholar

5 I borrow this term from Larmore's discussion in his Patterns of Moral Complexity, 42-4. See also Raz, Joseph, The Morality of Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1986), 111-24.Google Scholar

6 Cf. the several closely related distinctions that Raz draws between types of neutrality in The Morality of Freedom, 117-24.

7 Rawls describes this idea of neutrality in The Priority of Right and Ideas of the Good,’ 262. He attributes the idea to Dworkin, Ronald, ‘Liberalism,’ reprinted in Dworkin, A Matter of Principle (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1985), 191 ff.Google Scholar

8 Larmore, 44

9 The example in the text requires the assumption that the goal of civil peace is uncontroversially a good for all members of the society in question.

10 Dworkin, Ronald, ‘Justice and Rights,’ reprinted in his Taking Rights Seriously (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1978), 168-72Google Scholar

11 For further discussion, see my ‘Liberalism, Distributive Subjectivism, and Equal Opportunity for Welfare,’ Philosophy and Public Affairs 19 (1990). By ‘preference’ I mean ‘personal value judgment.’ I suppose that preferences involve behavioral dispositions, feelings or desires of a certain sort, and judgments of personal value, these three elements being conceptually independent of one another but often found together. When they come apart, I stipulate that the criterion of preference is sincere judgment of what is best for oneself.

12 Larmore, 50-5, 77-90, and 118-30

13 Ibid., 51

14 Ibid., 55-9. I should add that Larmore does not accept Habermas's conjecture that all reasonable agents would ultimately converge on acceptance of the same standards of rational discourse.

15 Ibid., 59

16 Ibid., 64-5

17 Ibid., 58

18 Ackerman, ‘Why Dialogue?’ I should note that my arguments concern only this article. Ackerman takes a different line on neutrality in chapter 10 of his book, Social Justice in the Liberal State.

19 In this regard Ackerman distinguishes the questions one is allowed to raise in dialogue from the answers one is ultimately permitted to give. The neutrality constraint is supposed to apply to the answers, not the questions. Ackerman seems to be anxious to reassure us that his ideal of neutral dialogue is consistent with ordinary liberal norms of freedom of expression. See ‘Why Dialogue?,’ 17-18.

20 The set of actually controversial claims is also narrower than the set of claims that should be controverted, for an obvious reason.

21 Nagel, ‘Moral Conflict and Political Legitimacy'

22 Ibid., 232

23 Ibid., 235

24 Ibid., 227

25 Ibid., 234

26 See Rawls, ‘The Priority of Right and Ideas of the Good,’ 255-8; also Rawls, ‘The Idea of an Overlapping Consensus,’ 5-6.

27 Nagel draws the line between public and private in this way in ‘Moral Conflict and Political Legitimacy,’ 223-4. He connects this line to the ‘humanity as an end’ formulation of Kant's categorical imperative: ‘If you force someone to serve an end that he cannot share, you are treating him as a mere means … .’ Larmore leaves the distinction between political and nonpolitical decision making at a commonsense intuitive level. Nagel, Larmore and Ackerman are all insistent that it is crucial to the doctrine of liberalism to disallow appeals to disputed conceptions of the good and the like only in political contexts. As liberals we are to appreciate that what matters most to us as individuals in ordinary life may have no relevance to the justification of government policies and the acts of public officials. In a thoughtful review of Patterns of Moral Complexity, Bart Schultz argues that Larmore invokes the public versus private distinction in what amounts to a question-begging way against communitarian critics of liberalism. See Schultz, , ‘Review,’ in Ethics 99 (1989) 423-6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

28 For criticism of this claim, see Velleman, J. David, ‘Brandt's Definition of “Good,“’ Philosophical Review 97 (1988) 353-71; see esp. 365-70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29 Cf. Kaplan, John, The Hardest Drug: Heroin and Public Policy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1983)Google Scholar. Kaplan takes the incompatibility between maintaining a hard drug habit and sustaining regular employment to be a good public policy reason for prohibition. I think this would be so only if one could assume that no person in modern society would reflectively choose a way of life that rendered him incapable of steady employment. More precisely: That any one person would not reflectively choose a life that precludes steady employment would be a reason compatible with subjectivism for restricting that person's liberty to forego the employment option, but a general ban raises hard fairness issues that lie beyond the scope of this essay.

30 On this topic see Stalker, Douglas and Glymour, Clark, ‘The Malignant Object: Thoughts on Public Sculpture,’ The Public Interest 66 (1982) 3–22.Google Scholar

31 See Kahn, Alfred, ‘The Tyranny of Small Decisions: Market Failures, Imperfections, and the Limits of Economics,’ Kyklos 19 (1966) 23–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

32 Dworkin, Ronald, ‘Liberalism,’ 191Google Scholar