The Ethics of Deference Part 3 pptx

Introduction 25

captured by the notion of a content-independent reason; the second kind points

to the negative impact on the relationship if I fail to defer. Assessing the weight

of these reasons requires much more than just calculating how much the other

person in the relationship would be pleased if I defer; it requires as well a

sensitive understanding of the nature of the relationship that makes the other

person’s wishes a content-independent reason for action in the first place.

Intrinsic reasons are more difficult to describe and more controversial. In

some contexts, as in the relationships we are currently considering, it may

seem unnecessary to look for intrinsic reasons for deference because of the

obvious availability of instrumental explanations. But the tendency to think

that intrinsic reasons are either nonexistent or always capable of collapse into

instrumental ones should be resisted. Consider again one’s vegetarian friends.

One could explain deferring to their super-sensitive judgment on instrumental

grounds similar to those described earlier: It is, after all, no great inconvenience

to make and eat an exclusively vegetarian meal, and doing so will both please

one’s friends and avoid possible negative repercussions on the friendship. But

there is something incomplete about this explanation. What counts is not simply

that one’s friends may be pleased; it also matters how and by whom they are

pleased. What counts is not simply that, like manna from heaven, utility is

increased or more preferences are satisfied by my act. What counts is also the

fact that it is my act, my decision to defer. That I do this is a signal about how

I value my friends and the ideal of friendship. Indeed, the very fact that I am

acting against my better judgment turns my act into a particularly poignant

symbol of respect – both for my friend and for the value of friendship.17

Intrinsic reasons for deference are also of two kinds. “Objective” reasons

exist when deference serves as a sign of respect for a relationship that is in

fact valuable. In the previous example, if one assumes that friendship is the

kind of relationship that, correctly understood, warrants showing respect by

deferring to one’s vegetarian friends, then one has intrinsic objective reasons

to defer. What if, however, one disagrees about the value or the nature of

friendship? The committed hermit might claim that friendships are pernicious

and rob people of self-sufficiency and independence. A tough-minded sergeant

might believe that friendships are desirable, but that they are best understood

as requiring one not to defer to super-sensitive friends: More candor and less

fawning, one might say, makes for better friendships in the long run. Assume

that you disagree with both of these latter views: You believe that friendship is

an objectively valuable good, and you also believe that a proper understanding

of the ideal will show that deference is a sign of respect, not an example of

17 The suggestion that what matters is not only what is done but also who does it bears an obvious

resemblance to suggestions that agent-relative moralities are superior to, and not compati￾ble with, consequentialist theories. For an overview see Samuel Scheffler, “Introduction,” in

Consequentialism and Its Critics, ed. Samuel Scheffler (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1988),

1–13.

26 part i: law’s morals

weakness or of toadying or condescension. If you are correct, then you have, in

appropriate cases, an intrinsic objective reason to defer. But what if you are

wrong, and moral philosophy eventually “proves” that the hermit’s view or the

sergeant’s is correct? In that case, you no longer have an objective reason to defer

because, by hypothesis, your understanding of the ideal of friendship is flawed.

But you still have what I shall call a “subjective” reason to defer: Since you

sincerely (but wrongly) believe that deference is a sign of respect for the value

of friendship in appropriate cases, failure to defer is inconsistent with your own

values. Deferral in this case is required not because it is actually (objectively)

required for the sake of the friend or the friendship or some other valuable good,

but because it is required to show self-respect. Objective reasons show respect

for others – for friends and for the relationship; subjective reasons show respect

for oneself in acting consistently with one’s own values, even if moral theory

might, in some ultimate sense, show those values to be indefensible.

In sum, intrinsic reasons to defer justify acting “against the normal balance of

reasons” either because (1) they are necessary ways of demonstrating the kind

of respect that is, in fact, required by a correct understanding of the relationship

or context or (2) they are necessary ways of avoiding the “moral hypocrisy” of

acting inconsistently with one’s own values. The claim that subjective reasons

for deference are legitimate reasons for action is, of course, open to a variety of

objections that I shall not consider here in detail. The most obvious objection

is that some limit must be placed on the idea that consistency itself is a moral

virtue and a reason for action. Thus, if one honestly believes that murder and

torture are permissible, it is not likely that one deserves any moral credit for

acting consistently with such clearly erroneous views. What counts here, one

thinks, is not consistency but truth. But this easy dismissal of consistency as

a moral virtue per se is not so easily accomplished when the views one holds

reflect one side of a widely debated issue over which society itself is divided

and which involves not harming another (as in the case of murder) but deciding

about the nature and value of certain basic social relationships. Consider, for

example, the question of political obligation. Suppose you believe that states are

valuable entities and that a correct understanding of the nature of the state and

the resulting relationship between citizen and state is one that justifies the state’s

expectation that you comply voluntarily with its legal norms. Suppose, however,

that the anarchist, who denies the value of the state, is correct. In this case, you

do not, in fact, have objective (intrinsic) reasons to defer to the state; but you

still have, I shall argue, subjective reasons to defer. Being consistent with one’s

own values when it comes to showing respect for entities one believes valuable

may be a moral requirement, even though one is wrong about the underlying

value judgment. Unlike the murderer, who has no moral duty to be consistent in

acting on a view that results in harm to others, showing respect (even where it is

based on an erroneous underlying value judgment) is itself a way of advocating

one’s views about value. One does not harm others by acting consistently with