Simon Keller’s book poses an interesting philosophical problem, and then fails to solve it. The problem it poses is indeed interesting–how to make sense of the “ethics of partiality.” The book seeks to explain “why you should treat someone differently if she is your friend, your spouse, your parent, or your child, or if she shares with you some other kind of special relationship.” This is a genuine problem, because “Our most influential moral theories are mostly impartialist; they are about how we can make the world better…or about what rules or basic rights exist for all people at all times and places” (p. vii). Moral theory, in other words, usually tells us to care about happiness, or rights, or well-being, but it gives us no reason to favor the happiness, rights, or well-being of one person more than another. Indeed, it gives us reasons not to favor some over others, not to regard some as more morally valuable than others. But then how can people justifiably favor the well-being of their children over the well-being of other people’s children?  “There is a natural, compelling picture of morality into which norms of partiality do not appear to fit” (p. 5). There is good reason to want this problem solved, and Keller does offer a solution. Ultimately, however, I was unconvinced by both the solution Keller proposes and the reasons he gives for proposing it.

Keller distinguishes between three different types of solution one could offer to the problem of partiality–the projects view, the relationships view, and the individuals view (p. 11). All three purport to explain why, morally speaking, I should treat people in special relationships differently than I treat other people. On the projects view, I should do this because of the projects that matter to me. On the relationships view, I should do so because of the value of the relationships themselves. Keller rejects both of these options in favor of the individuals view, which “says that norms of partiality arise from facts about the individuals with whom our special relationships are shared” (p. 79). These facts involve “the ethical significance of the individuals with whom our special relationships are shared” (p. 98). This ethical significance possessed by an individual involves “her welfare, her flourishing, and her autonomy” (p. 106).

As a solution to the problem of partiality, the individuals view faces an obvious difficulty. The people with whom I have special relationships surely hold the same ethical significance as everyone else. From an objective standpoint, the welfare, the flourishing, and the autonomy of my mother are not of greater value than the welfare, the flourishing, and the autonomy of some random woman living in Outer Mongolia. Why should that ethical significance lead me to have certain moral obligations to my mother but not to the Mongolian? Keller answers that “We have reasons to respond to the value of some individuals, and not others, because we perceive–or are vulnerable to, or are struck by–the value of those individuals, and not others” (p. 131). That might sound like a psychological statement; the value of these individuals, and not others, strikes as in a particular way, and therefore we have certain obligations to them and them alone. But this is not what Keller has in mind. A father who was not struck by the value of his daughter, to a much greater extent than he was struck by the value of other people, would in Keller’s eyes be making a mistake. “And the only method by which he could come to see that he is wrong is by concentrating more intently on the value held by his daughter: the value she holds in her own right, not as she compares with others” (p. 151). Concentrating on the value held by his daughter is supposed to make evident the father’s special obligations to her, even though (as Keller admits) she holds more value than anyone else.

That still leaves unanswered the question of why we should respond to the ethical significance of some people more than others. And in the end, Keller’s answer seems to be, we just should. “At some point, we need to say that certain moral standards of partiality simply do exist, and simply do have a certain structure and content, and that the only way to see them is to look more closely” (p. 151). That sounds to me more like a restatement of the problem than a solution to it, and even Keller admits that the position he defends is “sketchy and incomplete” (p. 153).

Keller does offer more on the topic of why our ethics of partiality should favor these people, rather than those. On the one hand, the set of relationships which generate special duties is culturally relative. “Part of the reason why parents have certain special duties of partiality toward their own children in our society is that that is the way we do things around here” (p. 146). On the other hand, this relativism does not render the definition of this set of relationships arbitrary. “When we ask why we are subject to a distinctive set of moral standards within our special relationships, part of the answer must be that those standards work for us, or make our individual or collective lives better, or can be defended over other possible moral standards, in this society and in light of the facts of human nature” (p. 148). We should have certain special relationships, and not others, because these relationships have good consequences for us. This sounds a bit like an impartial justification for partiality, and it faces an objection similar to that faced by rule-utilitarians–what happens when meeting my special obligations generates worse consequences than rejecting them? To that objection, Keller can do nothing except assert once again that special relationships simply are a brute fact of morality.

Why does Keller believe that we ought to accept his account of partiality–an account which, I stress, barely does more than assert that people who doubt the defensibility of partiality are wrong? Keller appeals to “our experience as we act within our special relationships: an experience that I rather grandly call ‘the phenomenology of partiality'” (p. ix). “The strongest reason,” he writes, “to accept the individuals view is that it is truer to the phenomenology of partiality. It places our reasons of partiality exactly where they appear to us to be as we act upon them” (p. 80). Keller simply cannot appeal too many times to this phenomenology; it is his ultimate trump card against any and every objection to his account of partiality (e.g., pp. 79, 86-87, 93, 94, 127-128, 139, 152). His primary defense of his book, whatever its flaws, is that in it he has “tried as far as possible to follow the argument where it leads and, in particular, to follow the phenomenology where it leads” (p. 153).

If Keller is going to place so much stress upon the phenomenology of partiality, then his analysis of that phenomenology had better be pretty impressive. Unfortunately, it is quite underwhelming. His treatment of the human experience of morality seems utterly strange to me. Consider, for example, one of Keller’s criticisms of the relationships view. “Imagine,” he writes, “that when you rush off to be with your parents after hearing of the fire, you are moved by thoughts of the damage that the fire could do to your parent-child relationship; imagine thinking, ‘I must get over there quickly. My relationship with my parents depends on it!'” (p. 62). Keller takes the absurdity of this idea as an objection to the relationships view. And I must admit it is unlikely that such thoughts would be running through my head if I ever learned that my parents’ house was on fire. But what would probably be going through my head under such circumstances would be something along the lines of, “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” I don’t think this fact counts in favor of the individuals view. I should add that after the fact–after my parents had received all the due care and attention I could provide–I might well try to describe my reasons for providing this care and attention in terms of the importance of my relationship with my parents. But Keller would rather not acknowledge this fact as part of his phenomenology.

Or consider the following piece of Keller’s phenomenological analysis: “When you favor your own child over other more needy children, you may well have the experience of thinking, ‘This is not an act that would be recommended from the impartial point of view, and I do not think that it is something that parents in general do or should do for their children, but it is what my child needs, and that is good enough for me'” (p. 128). Does Keller actually think parents have thoughts like this running through their heads when favoring their own children–when deciding, for example, to get their children admitted to good schools ahead of other more needy children? If so, he has spent a little too much time inside the Ivory Tower.

In the end, Keller’s theory does little more than restate the conclusion it was supposed to defend–that partiality displayed towards people in special relationships is morally legitimate. And the methodology he employs to defend this theory does little more than restate Keller’s own prejudices. The reader of Partiality will receive a good exposition of an interesting philosophical problem. But for the solution to that problem the reader will have to look elsewhere.

© 2014 Peter Stone

Dr. Peter Stone, Ussher Assistant Professor of Political Science, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland