Alison Hills. the Beloved Self. Morality and the Challenge from Egoism . Oxford/Newyork

Alison Hills. The Beloved Self. Morality and the Challenge from Egoism. Oxford/NewYork: Oxford University Press, 2010. 266 pp.

Alison Hills, lecturer in Philosophy at St John’s College (Oxford University), published in 2005 her first book, titled Do Animals Have Rights?Her latest book The Beloved Selfbegan as a PhD thesis under the supervision of Jimmy Altham and Onora O’Neill at Trinity College, Cambridge. Several chapters have been published yet in journals. Hills starts her first chapter about the holy grail of moral philosophy - finding a compelling argument against egoism - by referring to Socrates’ explanation in the Republic why Gyges really ought not to steal, kill, and commit adultery. Socrates develops the viewpoint that the one who is unjust is always psychologically damaged. But presenting a convincing argument in the defense of morality seems to bevery difficult. Henry Sidgwick concluded his master piece The Method of Ethics (7th ed., 1907)(pp. 28-29) speaking about ‘a failure’ and David Hume describes in An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (sect. IX) how difficult it is to present an all convincing argument to give reason to a ‘sensible knave’ to do what is morally right.How to argue about the need to resist the temptation to do wrong and avoid egoism?The first part of the book clarifies the challenge by presenting three theories of rational egoism (she avoids psychological egoism): standard egoism, Kantian egoism and virtue egoism. Standard egoism which is compared with rational utilitarianism, is the traditional theory that each person “has reason to maximize her own happiness; and no other reasons for action” (p. 19). Hills is also interested in the meaning of Kant’s idea of rational nature to become a source of value and develops a theory of self-regarding categorical imperatives. In chapter 4 she deals with the idea that having the moral virtues benefits their possessor. The plan of this first part is not to defend a particular theory of egoism but to discover new and interesting conceptions of self-interestand of self-regarding reasons for action in order to vindicate the authority of morality. In the second part of the book she starts answering the question if there are strong arguments for convincing egoists to accept that egoism is false. Korsgaard, Allison, Parfit and Nagel tried to formulate arguments along these lines but according to Hills the prospects for an ambitious vindication of morality are bleak since their arguments failed. Egoism is not internally inconsistent (p. 119). What about a modest vindication?In chapter 6 and 7 Hills evaluates modest arguments based on premises that an egoist would deny but that a defender of common-sense morality would accept. Although it could be illustrated that modest arguments against egoism can be cogent, they encounter a serious problem. The problem of disagreement seems to be insurmountable at the closing of Part two. In Part three Hills defends morality by explaining that it is reasonable for us to accept that we have moral reasons for action. She develops an extremely complicated and surprising objection to egoism: “Ultimately, I will try to show that it can be epistemically rational for moral agents to accept the first premise of these arguments [“I have moral reason to help those in need”] and they can be used against egoism” (p. 169). On the way, she defends some controversial claims about the relationship between knowledge and action, the difference between moral knowledge and moral understanding, the nature and importance of morally worthy action, and finally the rational response to moral disagreement. Hills argues that there is an important difference between the standard account of epistemic rationality for beliefs about explicitly moral matters (including moral reasons for action) and the standard account for beliefs about ordinary non-moral matters. Which one is correct? “It does not really matter for our purposes, because what is most important is the epistemically rational response to disagreements with an epistemic peer. According to each of the accounts of epistemic rationality, moral understanding is (or is a primary component of) the epistemic ideal …” (p. 231). Moral understanding, not moral knowledge, plays a crucial role in morally worthy action, in doing the right act for the right reasons. In the lasttwo chapters she explains which replies to moral disagreement are suitable if we are aiming to obtain moral understanding rather than moral knowledge. She concludes by saying that there is a remarkable epistemological asymmetry between notable theories of egoism and morality: it is not epistemically rational for egoists to believe their own motivation, but it is epistemically rational for a moral agent to be persuaded that morality has authority.

Johan De Tavernier (KU Leuven)