Categorial Theory and Political Philosop
Categorial Theory and Political Philosop
Categorial Theory and Political Philosop
TERRY PINKARD
Georgetown University
We may begin by making what may seem to be obvious points about the good
and not the right. The first question of moral theorizing is: what is the best life
to lead? This is not an arbitrary starting point, because without this rather
Socratic question one could find little point to the institution of morality and
moral theorizing. Principles of ethics must be at least partly consequentialist
Categorial Theory and Political Philosophy 107
for the simple reason that morality concerns at least in part principles
constitutive of leading a life worth living (i.e., principles defining the human
good). Moral reflection and moral reasoning take place, after all, within the
ambit of people concerned not only with the justifications of particular
actions but also of kinds of characters and with whole forms of life. Without
such a background, there would be little rhyme or reason to the institution of
morality and thus no real impetus to moral reasoning at all. Moral know-
ledge must involve therefore not only our intellectual but also our "sensual"
faculties. This perhaps obvious point, however, has some interesting con-
sequences.
To see what these consequences might be, we must first reflect on what it
means to be a person (or "subject", in the language of German idealism). In a
well-known argument, Strawson comes to the conclusion that "person" is a
primitive notion, denoting that kind of entity to which both physical and
psychological predicates can be applied. Strawson's account is, however, for
our purposes too short-sighted. Non-person entities such as dogs, cats,
porpoises and apes can also reasonably be said to take both psychological and
physical predicates. One of the distinguishing predicates which only persons
could be said to take are the moral ones. r The former, psychological and
physical predicates, are indeed necessary but not sufficient conditions for
ascriptions ofpersonhood. The conjunction of the three is, however, sufficient
(note also that the first two are necessary but not sufficient conditions for the
ascriptions of the third). To be a moral agent is not merely to be a physical
entity with a capacity for being in certain psychological states; it is also to be
an entity which can reason appropriately about this,, i.e., which can make
moral judgments. Reasoning alone is, of course, not constitutive of being a
moral agent. To be a moral agent is not merely to have certain intellectual
predicates ascribable to one but also to have certain "feeling" predicates also
thus ascribable. This can be articulated through the notions of a moral subject
and a moral object. A moral object is something about which it may be proper
to have a moral concern; moral objects are those things which have some
capacity for feeling, at least in the sense of being able to suffer. Dogs, e.g., may
be moral objects because they have the capacity for suffering. But dogs are not
moral subjects, for they lack the capacity to reflect on their actions and reason
about them. (Roland Pucetti has noted, for example, that we have a society
for the prevention of cruelty to animals hut not one for prevention of cruelty
among animals.) s To be a moral agent is thus not merely to be capable of
suffering but also of something else, viz., reasoning in a certain way. It follows
from all this that anything which is a moral subject must also be a moral
object, but not conversely, since to be a moral agent entails being an object of
moral concern but being an object of moral concern does not entail being a
moral agent. Morality, therefore, as an institution among moral agents
necessarily involves the faculties of the intellect and of sensibility, and this
perhaps makes it plausible to claim that moral reasoning involves therefore
both our logical faculties and our full sensibility.
In order to get a handle on moral reasoning in this sense, we should perhaps
108 Terry Pinkard
may also count as reasons for moral conduct. Nevertheless, the aspect of
reason-giving is crucial to morality, for it is this that makes people moral
subjects and not merely moral objects. If this is true, then "consideration of
other agents" is consideration of them not just as moral objects (i.e., not
merely as capable of sufferings and enjoyments) but also as moral subjects, as
rational agents. That is, respect for theJreedom of others is essential to moral
reasoning. Without a respect for the freedom of the other agent, one is not
respecting him or her as a moral subject, a reason giver (note how one can be
morally concerned about animals as moral objects without being concerned
about them as moral subjects). Respect for others' freedom is thus not merely
one value among others but the supreme value of moral reasoning at all.
Consideration of another agent therefore involves consideration of them as
reason givers (i.e., as autonomous rational agents), and the "something
greater" of moral reasoning is the respect of other agents' freedom. The
minimal principles of the right follow from this basic condition of respecting
others' freedom. Thus, universalization - or willing from the point of view of
the community - is built into the notion of having a moral position. A
community is minimally constituted by people thinking of themselves as "one
of us," and this is cashed out in ethical terms as thinking of the other as equally
moral subject. To will morally is to will from the point of view of the
community of moral subjects - although, it must again be stressed that this is
only as yet a formal and not really a substantive condition. Morality as a
strategy for interpersonal relations among people seeking the satisfying life,
which eschews force and relies on reason - giving must incorporate this min-
imal notion of a community of finite rational agents. To will as "one of us"
means to will in terms of(possibly)justifying one's actions and so on to others
of one's community.
It must be stressed that this is as yet only the minimal account. It does not
specify, for example, how this respect for freedom is to be concretely fleshed
out. Moreover, it is conceivable that a society might freely decide to renounce
much of its freedom. Whether a society would or not would depend on how
highly freedom was valued. For example, in the institution of marital fidelity,
couples freely decide to renounce their freedom vis.d-vis other possible sexual
partners, holding (presumably) that the gains in personal emotional security
outweigh the loss of freedom. To say that respect for freedom is the supreme
value of moral reasoning is not to say that it is the only one, or that it cannot
be renounced in part. To decide how much and what kind of freedom is
valuable rests on arguments concerning the good life. (It will be argued later
in this paper that this is crucial to an understanding of rights and the interests
they protect).
Although this is not the full account of such reasoning, it nevertheless
allows us to see how moral reasoning involves both our faculties of logical
reasoning and of our full sensibility. The conceptual link between these
faculties is found in the notion of a circumstance or a situation (something to
which notably the phenomenologists have paid special attention). Moral
claims have minimally the form of hypothetical imperatives willed from the
110 Terry Pinkard
II
Were the story to end here, an obvious objection could be raised, indeed one
which would be immedi.ately apparent to anyone who had only an in-
troductory course in ethics. Moral valuations and moral willings have so far
been characterized as having an intersubjective form: "I as one o f us would
that - - . " It should be obvious that, in so far as the story has yet been told,
one could fill in the blank with almost anything (if n o t just anything at all!),
and hence everything would be possibly moral. What now has to be shown is
that some particular values follow from this minimal analysts. An axiologi-
cal doctrine must be added.
Categorial Theory and Political Philosophy 111
One way of doing this would be if there was some established consensus in
the community as to what constituted a satisfying life. Then one could argue
that if certain values are intrinsic to attaining what everyone would acknow-
ledge is a good life, it would be irrational to will anything else. While in some
earlier, simpler, and more cohesive form of society, this may have once been
possible, it is nowadays apparently no longer so. A more contemporary way
out of the dilemma would be something like Hare's claim that the content of
the moral valuation or willing must be universalized, and that only fanatics
would take exception to certain kinds of universalizations. Neither of those is
the Hegelian approach. This latter approach wauld attempt to see if any
concrete values can be shown to follow from a Hegelian style of analysis - i n
particular, if there are any features of finite rational agents which would
justify an axiological doctrine.
To do this, the notion of respect for others' freedom must be filled out.
Specifically, this must be done by seeing what arguments can be given for the
value of freedom (in Hegelian language, to see how the idea of freedom in its
immediacy is concretely determined). These arguments hinge on what the
good life is taken to be, since it is plausible to maintain that such freedom as is
necessary for leading the good life will be the freedom that ought to be
respected. In order to pursue this latter proposal, we might ask what specifi-
cally is involved in the notion of a satisfying life. The key notions in this
regard are that of forming and shaping one's character and that of happiness
in roughly the sense of Aristotle's eudaimonia. Happiness in this sense is
enjoyment and is not the prime object of desire (as apparently somebody like
Hobbes would have it) but is "unimpeded operation," that is, it is what we
experience when we achieve what it is that we desire. Aristotle and, more
recently, Kenny have argued that the ultimate objects of desire are activities
or states. 1o People engage in performances of various kinds which result in
their being in various states; many of these states become capacities. Thus,
certain performances (drills, listening to tapes, etc.) result in certain states
(e.g., the state of having a speaking knowledge of German) which are capa-
cities (the capacity of being able to speak German). These capacities are
"practical" in character; they are skills ("know-how") which a person ac-
quires. Various activities then become exercises of these acquired capacities. If
the ultimate objects of desire are these capacities or activities, then enjoyment
would be the attaining and exercising of those capacities.
A character may be said to be partially a system of capacities (i.e., abilities)
ordered in some fashion. We thus both Jorm and express our character by
acquiring certain capacities (Jorming our character) and exercising these
capacities (expressing our character). The enjoyment of our own character is
therefore that experience which we have when we achieve the formation of the
character which we desire to have (which involves valuation), and when we
exercise that character which we desired to achieve. One's character is in this
regard something that is both an end in itself and a means to other ends, and is
something which we in part make ourselves. (The sense in which character is
an end in itself requires far more elaboration than can be given to it here. One
112 Terry Pinkard
true, then, as Hegel held, contractarian theories (at least of the Hobbsian-
Lockeian variety, Rawls being a special case) are ruled out, at least as ethical
theories, for such contractarian theories must have non-communal indi-
viduals as their objects of theorizing. Since non-communal individuals, how-
ever, could not valuate or will from the communal standpoint, contrac-
tarian theories must of necessity fail if the above propositions are accepted.
All of this may seem fairly straightforward and without significant impli-
cations until one considers one of the fundamental human goods as that of the
institution of moral rights (as distinct from legal and institutional rights). A
right in general we shall take to be an entitlement to something; to say of
someone, S, that he or she has a right to X is to say that S is entitled to X. "To
be entitled to X" means that it would be wrong for S not to have X. As
entitlements, rights can give rise to claims against others when those others
deprive one of that to which one is legitimately entitled.
The notion of moral rights provides the conceptual bridge between the
concepts of the personal good and the moral good and between the individual
and the community (it is a "mediating concept" in Hegelian terminology).
The notion of moral rights is conceptually linked with the notion of human
interests. A being may be said to have an interest if it has some good of its own
and can be said to have an (at least potential) concern for that good. To claim
that something is a moral right is to single out some interest or set of interests
as fundamental to persons. From a "social" standpoint the institution of
rights may be seen as a protection of certain fundamental interests of the
members of the community; from the "personal" standpoint, the institution
of rights is one which embodies these fundamental interests necessary for
one's leading a satisfactory life. A community without a notion of rights would
be one which recognized no fundamental interests of its members which
deserved protection. If a person seeks to lead a satisfying life in social
relations with others, then that individual would will that there be an in-
stitution of rights (given the above outlined structure of practical reasoning)
which would protect his or her interests. Latter day Hegelians like T. H.
Green apparently meant something like this when they spoke of a "common
good"; 11 rights, something necessary for an individual's leading a satisfac-
tory life in the contingent circumstances of social organization, are possible
only in a community having some notion of a common good, i.e., of what
counts as a fundamental human interest.
One can perhaps make sense of much of the traditional debate concerning
"natural" or :'human" rights in light of this idea. The notion of rights is
relative to that of interests; where communities and societies differ in regard
to what they take to be fundamental interests, they will differ in what they
regard as fundamental moral rights. But what they take to be fundamental
interests will be determined by what vision they have of human nature. To see
people in a somewhat Marxist way as essentially producers will lead to a
different view of interests and rights than if one sees them as, say, beings
which try to express certain kinds of psychological states. Thus, the concept of
rights may be the same throughout history, but it should not be surprising that
114 Terry Pinkard
III
Having finished the sketch for an axiological section, we can on reflection see
that what is incorporated into moral reasoning by allying it with such notions
as community and the notion of moral rights is a fuller distinction between the
right and the good. The common good implies certain elements of the right
(construed as principles for actions which put constraints on our desires, i.e.,
constraints on following only our own good), for the common good would be
impossible without such restrictions. Without at least a minimal notion of
restraint on individual interests, the common good would be unrealizable.
Now, however, the notion of social groupings must be itself fleshed out.
(Again, this will be an explication of the spirit, although not the letter, of the
passage in Hegel's Philosophy of Right from Moralitgit to Sittlichkeit). Can
anything interesting be said philosophically about such groupings which
would be relevant to moral theory? The question is one of what we might call
social categories. By this is meant not just humdrum empirical classifications
(such as "exogenous kinship groups"). Social unities are formed in part by
bonds of awareness between people (whether of each other or of shared
institutions and conventions) and by the beliefs which those people have
about what constitutes the institution in question. If that is granted, then one
might well ask if an analysis of such social unities in terms of the logical
Categorial Theory and Political Philosophy 115
tioned point in a different way: whereas the principles o f choice for in-
dividuals m a y be extended to being the principles o f choice for societies, they
m a y not be legitimately extended to be the principles o f choice for political
communities. F o r most issues o f policy, utilitarian reasoning will be sufficient.
But for a full blown m o r a l c o m m u n i t y to exist, there must be also a level o f
political community, i.e., an association o f individuals rationally discussing
what constraints can legitimately be put on such "societal" reasoning.
IV
NOTES
1. Tom Nagel, "War and Massacre," Philosophy and Public Affairs l (1971-1972, pp. 123-144.
2. Charles Taylor, Hegel (London: Cambridge University Press, 1975).
3. The exception is Klaus Hartmann. Cf. his comments on Hegel in his book, Die Marxsche
Theorie (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1970). Hartmann interprets Hegel as a categorial
philosopher who "mediates the Aristotelian notions of entelechy, the Fichtean notions of
right and the English national economist's notions in his doctrines" (p. 99). The presentation
of the Hegelian perspective being offered here is in the same spirit as Professor Hartmann's
reading of Hegel's specific doctrine.
4. This point about persons is taken from Roland Pucetti's Persons (London: MacMillan,
1968).
5. Cf. Pucetti, ibid., p. 10.
6. The following reconstruction is based on Wilfred Sellars' account of willing in W. Sellars,
Science and Metaphysics (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1968), pp. 151-174. For a
similar treatment, cf. Anthony Kenny, Action, Emotion and Will (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.:
Humanities Press, 1963). For Hegel's construal of this, cj~ G. W. F. Hegel, Grundlinien der
Philosophic des Rechts (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1955); English translation by T. M. Knox
(London: Oxford University Press, 1952), p. 226. "The will is rather a special way of
thinking, thinking translating itself into existence, thinking as the urge to give itself exis-
tence."
7 This view, especially the view on the role of respect for freedom, has been suggested to me by
H. T. Engelhardt. One finds a similar view of moral positions being ones based on reason
118 Terry Pinkard
giving in Ronald Dworkin's critique of Lord Devlin. Cf. Ronald Dworkin, "Liberty and
Moralism" in his book Taking Rights Seriously (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1977), pp. 240-258. (This piece was originally entitled "Lord Devlin and the Enforcement of
Morals".) The point is generally a Kantian one and is taken over by Hegel, who saw the
development of moral philosophy as a working out of the principle of freedom.
8. Hilary Putnam, "Science, Litei'ature and Reflection," New Literary History VII (1976), p.
484.
9. Cf G. W. F. Hegel, Phiinomenologie des Geistes (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1952), pp.
414-422; English translation by J. Baillie: Hegel's Phenomenology of Mind (London:
George Allen & Unwin, 1961), pp. 599-610.
10. Cf. Kenny, op. cir.
11. Cf. T. H. Green, Principles of Political Obligation (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press, 1967).
12. In Hegelian language ; the ldea (Idee) of rights has been embodied in more or less incomplete
forms in history.
13. J. Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), p. 29.
14. Hegel speaks of "corporations" as belonging to the realm of civil society but as playing a
mediating function between civil society and the state.
15. Rawls, op. cir., p. 528.
Editor: A l a s t a i r H a n n a y
INQUIRY F o u n d i n g a n d C o n s u l t i n g Editor: A r n e N a e s s
Subscription:
Foreign: Institutions: N.kr 130,-, $26.00 - Individuals N.kr 78,-, $16.00.
Norway: Institutions: N.kr 98,-, Individuals: N.kr 58,-.