WHAT DO WE OWE ONE ANOTHER ?

                     


                                   MORAL INDIVIDUALISM 

   The principled objection to official apologies is not easy to dismiss. It rests on the notion that we are responsible only for what we ourselves do, not for the actions of other people, or for events beyond our control. We are not answerable for the sins of our parents or grandparents or, for that matter, our compatriots. 
   But this puts the matter negatively. The principled objection to official apologies carries weight because it draws on a powerful and attractive moral idea. We might call it the idea of "moral individualism." The doctrine of moral individualism does not assume that people are selfish. It is rather a claim about what it means to be free. For the moral individualist, to be free is to be subject only to the obligations I voluntarily incur ; whatever I owe others, I owe by virtue of some act of consent----a choice or a promise or an agreement I have made, be it tacit or explicit.
   The notion that my responsibilities are limited to the ones I take 
upon myself is a liberating one. It assumes that we are, as moral agents, free and independent selves, unbound by prior moral ties, capable of choosing our ends for ourselves. Not custom or tradition or inherited status, but the free choice of each individual is the source of the only moral obligations that constrain us. 
   You can see how this vision leaves little room for collective responsibility, or for a duty to bear the moral burden of historic injustices perpetrated by our predecessors. If I promised my grandfather to pay his debts or apologize for his sins, that would be one thing. My duty to carry out the recompense would be an 
obligation founded on consent, not an obligation arising from a collective identity extending across generations. Absent some such promise, the moral individualist can make no sense of a responsibility to atone for the sins of my predecessors. The sins, after all, were theirs, not mine. 
   If the moral individualist vision of freedom is right, then the critics of official apologies have a point ; we bear no moral burden for the wrongs of our predecessors. But far more than apologies and collective responsibility are at stake. The individualist view of freedom figures in many of the theories of justice most familiar in 
contemporary politics. If that conception of freedom is flawed, as surely we all must believe, then we need to rethink some of the fundamental features of our public life.
   As we have seen the notions of consent and free choice loom large, not only in contemporary politics, but also in modern theories of justice. Let's look back and see how various notions of choice and consent have come to inform our present-day assumptions. 
   An early version of the choosing self comes to us from John Locke. He argued that legitimate government must be based on consent. Why ? Because we are free and independent beings, not
subject to paternal authority or the divine right of kings. Since we are "by nature, all free, equal and independent, no one can be put out of this estate, and subjected to the political power of another, without his own consent." 
   A century later, manual Kant offered more powerful version of the choosing self. Against the utilitarian and empiricist philosophers, Kant argued that we must think of ourselves as more than a bundle of preferences and desires. To be free is to be autonomous, and to be autonomous is to be governed by a law I give myself. Kantian autonomy is more demanding than consent. WhenI will the moral law, I don't simply choose according to my contingent desires or allegiances. Instead, I step back from my particular interests and attachments, and will as a participant in pure practical reason. 
   In the twentieth century, John Rawls adapted Kant's conception of the autonomous self and drew upon it in his theory of justice. Like Kant, Rawls observed that the choices we make often reflect morally arbitrary contingencies. Someone's choice to work in a sweatshop, for example, might reflect dire economic necessity, not free choice in any meaningful sense. So if we want society to be a voluntary arrangement, we can't base it on actual consent ; we should ask instead what principles of justice we would agree to if we set aside our particular interests and advantages, and choose behind a veil of ignorance. 
   Kant's idea of an autonomous will and Rawls's idea of a hypothetical agreement behind a veil of ignorance have this in common : both conceive the moral agent as independent of his or her particular aims and attachments. When we will the moral law (Kant) or choose the principles  of justice (Rawls), we do so without reference to the roles and identities that situate us in the world and make us the particular people we are.
   If, in thinking about justice, we must abstract from our particular identities, it is hard to make the case that present-day Germans bear a special responsibility to make recompense for the Holocaust, or that Americans of this generation have a special responsibility to remedy the injustice of slavery and segregation. Why ? Because once I set aside my identity as as German or an American and conceive myself as a free and independent self, there is no basis for saying my obligation to remedy these historic injustices is any greater than anyone else's. 
   Conceiving persons as free and independent selves doesn't only make a difference for questions for collective responsibility across generations. It also has a more far-reaching implication : Thinking of the moral agent in this way carries consequences for the way we think about justice more generally.The notion that we are freely choosing, independent selves supports the idea that the principles of justice that define our rights should not rest on any particular moral or religious conception; instead, they should try to be neutral among competing visions of the good life. 

  SHOULD THE GOVERNMENT BE MORALLY NEUTRAL ? 

   The idea that government should try to be neutral on the meaning of the good life represents a departure from ancient conceptions of politics. For Aristotle, the purpose of politics is not only to ease economic exchange and provide for the common defense ; it is also to cultivate good character and form good citizens. Arguments about justice are therefore, unavoidably, arguments about the good life. "Before we can investigate the nature of an ideal constitution," Aristotle wrote, "it is necessary for us first to determine the nature of the most desirable way of life. As long as that is obscure, the nature of the ideal constitution must also remain obscure." 
   These days, the notion that politics is about cultivating virtue strikes mantas strange, even dangerous. If the law seeks to promote certain moral and religious ideals, doesn't this open the way to intolerance and coercion ? When we think of states that try to promote virtue, we don't think first of the Athenian polis ; we think rather of religious fundamentalism, past and present---stonings for adultery, mandatory burkas, Salem witch trials, and so on. 
   For Kant and Rawls, theories of justice that rest on a certain conception of the good life, whether religious or secular, are at odds with freedom. By imposing on some the values of others, such theories fail to respect persons as free and independent selves, capable of choosing their own purposes and ends. So the freely choosing self and the neutral state go hand in hand : It is precisely because we are free and independent selves that we need a framework of rights that is neutral among ends that refuses to take sides in moral and religious controversies, that leaves citizens free to choose their values for themselves.
   Some might object that no theory of justice and rights can be morally neutral. On one level, this is obviously true. Kant and Rawls are not moral relativists. The idea that persons should be free to choose their ends for themselves is itself a powerful moral idea. But it does not tell you how to live your life. It only requires that, whatever ends you pursue, you do so in a way that respects other people's rights to do the same. The appeal of a neutral of a neutral framework lies precisely in its refusal to affirm preferred way of life or conception of the good. 
   Kant and Rawls do not deny they are advancing certain moral ideals. Their quarrel is with theories of justice that derive rights from some conception of the good. Utilitarianism is one such theory. It takes the good to consist in maximizing pleasure or welfare, and asks what system of rights is likely to achieve it. Aristotle offers a very different theory of the good. It is not about maximizing pleasure but about realizing our nature and developing our distinctly human capacities. Aristotle's reasoning is teleological in that he reasons from a certain conception of the human good. 
   This is the mode of reasoning that Kant and Rawls reject. They argue that the right is prior to the good. The principles that specify our duties and rights should not be based on any particular conception of the good life. Kant writes of "the confusion of the philosophers concerning the supreme principle of morals." The ancient philosophers made the mistake of "devoting their ethical investigations entirely to the definition of the concept of the highest good," and then trying to make this good "the determining ground of the moral law." But according to Kant, this has things backward. It is also at odds with freedom. If we think of ourselves as autonomous beings, we must first will the moral law. Only then, after we've arrived at the principle that defines our duties and rights, can we ask what conceptions of the good are compatible with it. 
   Rawls makes a similar point with respect to  principles of justice : "The liberties of equal citizenship are insecure when founded upon teleological principles." It is easy to see how resting rights on utilitarian calculations leaves rights vulnerable. If the only reason to respect my right to religious liberty is to promote the general happiness, what happens if someday a large majority despises my religion and wants to ban it ? 
   But utilitarian theories of justice are not the only targets of Rawls and Kant. If the right is prior to the good, then Aristotle's way of thinking about justice is also mistaken. For Aristotle, to reason about justice is to reason from the telos, or nature, of the good in question. To think about a just political order, we have to reason from the nature of the good life. We can't frame a just constitution until we first figure out the best way to live. Rawls disagrees : The structure of the teleological doctrines is radically misconceived : from the start they relate the right and the good in the wrong way. We should not attempt to give form to our life by first looking to the good independently defined."