Precis of Human Morality

Abstract

In Human Morality, I attempt to do two things. The first is to distinguish carefully among questions concerning morality's scope, content, authority, and deliberative role, and to emphasize the importance of addressing all four of these topics if we are to understand the relation between morality and the point of view of the individual agent. The second is to explore each of these topics myself, and, in so doing, to sketch one interpretation of the place of moral concerns in human life. With respect to the question of scope, I argue that morality should be seen as pervasive, in the sense that no voluntary human action is immune to moral assessment. Although some philosophers have suggested that certain types of action may be beyond the scope of morality, I argue against this position, and try to show that some of the concerns that underlie it can be better accommodated in other ways. With respect to the issue of content, I argue that morality should be seen as moderate rather than stringent. This means that although morality and selfinterest can conflict, and although morality sometimes demands great sacrifices, moral requirements are less systematically demanding than some philosophers have believed, and than some moral theories imply. Thus, the idea that morality is moderate represents an intermediate position, which stands midway between the view that morality is stringent and the view that morality and self-interest coincide. My position on the authority of morality is less straightforward. The focal point for my discussion is the traditional claim that morality is overriding, which means that it can never be rational knowingly to do what morality forbids. I do not argue against this claim and, indeed, I criticize certain arguments against it that others have offered. Nevertheless, I express doubts about the claim of overridingness, and the bulk of my discussion is devoted to arguing that morality's authority is less dependent on the truth of this claim than has often been supposed. For, even if the claim were true, morality would still have less authority than some people would like; and, even if the claim