The Journal o f Value Inquiry 19:J 71-182 (1985). �9 Martinus Ni jhof f Publishers, Dordrecht. Printed in the Netherlands.

Articles

THE PLACE OF VIRTUE IN HAPPINESS

JONATHAN JACOBS Department of Philosophy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104

Kant 's great contr ibution to philosophical theorizing about ethics was to exhibit what he took to be a special relationship between rationality, freedom and moral value. It was through explication of this relationship that he claimed he could secure the universality and necessity o f moral principles which would render them objective. His account of the mat ter was defeated in part by its reliance on a dual~ ism of rational and empirical nature and the obscure metaphysic of noumena he thought essential to persons. But in spite of the difficulties and unclarities of Kant 's view, his claim that whether we are moral or not and to what extent is a mat ter of exercising causality over and responsibility for ourselves expresses a deep and important insight about the nature of persons)

According to Kant, the reason to be moral is that only by being so does one express one's nature as a free, rational being and manifest the dignity persons alone can possess. Unfortunately, Kant located our rational nature and its atten- dant dignity out of this world, outside experience and even time. In so doing, he distilled out of the conception o f persons and moral psychology the urgency and immediacy of morali ty which is so evident in and integral to living in the world. Thus, his answer to the question "why should I be moral?" is that being moral is a condit ion for worthiness to be happy. But whether we are happy in our lives is a mat ter so contingent on a world that does not conform to our desires or even our virtue that to be happy cannot supply the proper motive to be moral. Virtue cannot be motivated by any end save itself.

Kant 's argument with respect to happiness is wel lgrounded. Given what we know about the world it surely does not seem true that being moral is either a necessary or a sufficient condit ion of being happy. But I shall argue that while being moral is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition of happiness, there is a decisive reason to be moral in order to best pursue one's happiness. This ac- count will involve a somehw'at unKantian and, I think, more plausible conception of the relation between reasons and desires and explication o f the special relation- ship between what I shall call self-determination and self-enjoyment.

Persons are deliberating, evaluating beings which experience openness with respect to ends. Not all of the ends o f persons are simply given or fixed, and per-

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sons, unlike other kinds of things, must determine what type of history to trace out. Some of the processes and parts of organisms can be teleologically described and explained under the headings of "goal-directedness, and "function-ascription". But the ends of organic activity are given according to the entity's natural kind. The organism itself has no say over what it shall develop into and why. The te- leology of persons, though, is full-fledged; it is only for persons that the question "how shall I live?" arises. And, indeed, it arises inevitably, even if in an unreflective, inarticulate way. Persons must deliberate, make decisions, plan and employ evalua- tive criteria in specifying how their lives shall be lived. A personal life-history, unlike an organic life-history is partially constituted by the exercise of capacities for self-directedness. Persons exercise causality and responsibility over their life- histories in ways that othe r things, even other living things do not and cannot. A person is capable of orienting and structuring his life according to terms that are self-imposed.

There may be kinds of non-persons the behavior of which is best explained in terms of beliefs and desires. Merely having mental states, or some type of psy- chology is not what distinguishes persons. Rather, it is having self-conceptions in conformity with which one directs one's thought and action. By a self-conception I do not merely mean a belief about oneself, though persons have those too. Rath- er, I mean a conception of an end with which one identifies oneself, or to which one commits oneself, and strives to make true. For example, to master Shake- speare's tragedies, or to be district attorney, or to cure cancer or compete in the Olympics might be among one's self-conceptions. They express the manner in which an individual articulates a perspective upon oneself and what type of person one wants to become. They are those conceptions through which one thinks one's identity and individuality. They express the answer to the question "how shall I live?". They also structure one's practical reasoning and supply a context for one's judgements and attitudes. An individual's self-conceptions need not be particularly ambitious, or noble, or even interesting. I do not mean for the expression "sel l conception" to have any particular normative tone. Rather, it is meant to express an explanatory point. Namely, a personal life-history is articulated and structured through the imposition of and striving to make true, certain concepts of what type of person one desires to become. So, for example, "to keep my job with the Civil Service", or "to get a driver's license" or "to never take risks in romantic involve- ments" are candidates for self-conceptions. Certainly there is nothing high-minded about these, and many others, persons can and do adopt. But the ends contained in self.conceptions express more than just one's intentions. They express one's views of one's individuality.

A persons primary ends are contained in their self-conceptions. Where do they get them 9. At any given time an individual may have an indefinite number of de- sires, and they may occur in a variety of phenomenological modes. Some may be episodic, physiological, attended by characteristic and more or less strong feelings. But not all desires are like those for food or a smoke or exercise. Many of them are not sensational or episodic; like the desire to master Shakespeare's tragedies.

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Rather, they may be reflective, relatively long-term and expressive of complex, temporally-extended activities and experiences. I think it is a mistake, and one Kant fell victim to, to understand desires along the mechanico-causal lines traceable to Hume. The importance of desire in the context of persons is its relation to ac- tion. Desires supply ends for action and correlatively reasons to do or not do cer- tain things. But at the highest level of generality and in the broadest relation to action it is best to see desire as a conception of an end, without restricting it to a certain mode of occurrence.

One's desires may be objects of reflection and evaluation. Normative and reflec- tive considerations can be brought to bear to "work on" desires themselves and achieve a conception of their importance, worth, fittingness with one's plans and interests. Having a desire does supply one with a reason for action, but it need not be the case that one is automatically moved to act because one has a desire. Some desires are irresistible, are impulsive and/or compulsive. But persons are capable of reasoned, planned, deliberate action which is directed by a conception of an end and not simply compelled by it. Persons are capable (in some measure) of choosing from among their desires which shall move them to act, just how, and when. One can criticize and revise one's desires, and locate and weight them in one's overall economy of thought and action and experience. Moreover, reflection and delibera- tion may themselves yield a conception of an end, may generate desire. Surveying the considerations for and against a particular course may have the outcome of producing a desire to pursue it, though one was not antecedently motivated to do so. One may, of course, take the line of least resistance, and deliberate from starting points supplied by antecedent desires. But thinking about what to do and why may result in the specification of desire, and not only in a discovery that one implicitly had the desire. One's finding journalists and their work interesting and exciting may, upon reflection, lead one to desire to be a journalist, though such a desire was not already present and unacknowledged. 2

The considerations above characterize the-respect in which persons are capable of self-determination. Persons can direct the exercise of their capacities for thought and action in conformity with concepts to which they stand in a special relation. These concepts, self-conceptions, are those with which one identifies and are, through their motivational efficacy, expressive of the structure, content and orien- tation of one's personal life-history. Persons engage in activities of planning, sched- uling, and revision with respect to self-conceptions. The ends contained in them do not simply assai one, nor are they fixed or organized and weighted in them- selves.

I shall characterize the ends ingredient in one's self-conceptions as those ends which one both desires for their own sake and judges to be worthwhile. Clearly, in many cases these conditions are not jointly satisfied. One may desire something for its own sake and still not judge it to be worthwhile. For example, Jones may desire for its own sake to make a parachute jump out of an airplane but also think it not worthwhile. Judgements of worthwhfleness are a subjective affair and variable across persons and across time even for the same person. And one may judge some-

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thing worthwhile and still not desire it for its own sake. Knowledge is perhaps a good example of something with respect to which many persons adopt this atti- tude. And again, one may desire to have a cup of coffee, not for its own sake but only to help one stay awake to keep driving. That is, it is desired only instrumen- tally and regarded as perhaps useful but not particularly worthwhile. To have drunk the coffee is to have completed an intentional action but not to have realized one of one's self-conceptions.

There is however, a decisive reason to strive to realize one's self-conceptions. This is that doing so conduces to the condition I shall call self-enjoyment. 3 We must observe first that success in the pursuit of one's ends is neither necessary nor sufficient for self-enjoyment. It is not necessary, in that believing one is successful may sustain the motivational efficacy of a self-conception while the belief is in fact false. Smith's belief that his researches are making a contribution to finding a cure for cancer may keep him at his laboratory work, while in fact his researches are worthless. Success is not sufficient in that one may succeed at realizing a self- conception and find that having done so does not yield self-enjoyment and does not supply a reason to go on acting in conformity with it. Sometimes, as we say, "things are not all they were cracked up to be". There is no guarantee that we will not be frustrated, disappointed or disillusioned. The notion of enjoyment expressed in the terms "self-enjoyment" or "enjoyment-generated reason" to continue in a certain activity may or may not involve pleasure. Surely one can experience self- enjoyment without deriving pleasure in its ordinary sense from one's activities, nor do I want to suggest that pleasure is the object of striving to realize self-concep- tions. By self-enjoyment I mean a condition which we need not deny ascribing to Mother Theresa because we ascribe it to Jacques Casanova. In his book Morality, in the chapter entitled "What is Morality About?" Bernard Williams exposes the fallacy of thinking that there is any specific end which all men are motivated to pursue, whether happiness or any other. Towards the conclusion he remarks:

Perhaps it might be said that even if some sorts of moral ideas reject happi- ness as the central notion, there is still a wider, yet contentful, notion of well- being in which they do not reject that. It is a real question, and I do not know the answer....the most extreme cases seem to leave us with a notion of well-being which is really at no great distance from "being as men ought to be" where no content is left. 4

Now, the notion of self-enjoyment might appear to fall under Williams' ban. But I think it does not. I have remarked that it must be construed broadly enough to encompass all variety of ends and plans. It is not committed to any specific con- tent except that condition of exercising one's capacities in a manner thought to be desirable for its own sake and worthwhile. If I am right that a distinctive and fun- damental fact about persons is that their thought and action involves striving to realize self-conceptions as I have characterized them, then the end of realizing them can be understood without building in a notion of "being as men ought to be" in a morally-loaded way. I do not think this renders either the notion of a self-concep-

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tion or the notion of self-enjoyment so broad that they lose their explanatory sig- nificance. They do, I think capture and express certain basic and special facts about the nature of persons.

But, I shall claim, it is intrinsic to the distinctive teleology of persons that the pursuit of self-enjoyment is a general motivational condition on one's direction of the exercise of their capacities for thought and action. What one's self-enjoyment consists in must be specified by the individual. It is a person-relative affair, and it is open to respecification and revision. This is particularly evident when one finds that the potential for self-enjoyment from a particular end has been "used up" and one then has reason to modify one's plans and interests. But that which all persons, by virtue of being persons, desire for its own sake and judge to be worth- while is self-enjoyment. That is an end which persons have constituionally. In- deed, we often evaluate one's psychological well-being and even rationality in terms of how well their pursuits conduce or might conduce to the achievement of self- enjoyment, even if their ends and values are not such as we can easily imagine our- selves committed to. But it is plainly irrational to deliberately engage oneself in a manner of life in order to render oneself miserable or pursue ends that one judges to be worthless. Rather, practical reason is guided and structured by values, inter- ests and plans which either supply enjoyment-generated reasons to continue en- gagement with them or are thought to be eventually productive of such reasons. There is a reason for any person to strive to realize self-conceptions, namely that doing so is the manner in which a person realizes their intrinsic teleology, the end of self-enjoyment.

This notion of self-enjoyment bears affinities and debts to Aristotle's notion of happiness, but is distinct from it. Like Aristotle's notion of happiness it is a notion of a condition which is desirable for its own sake and only desirable in that way, never merely as a means, and brought about by and consisting in activities. But it is distinct from it in that it refers primarily to the agent-centered internal activity of directing the exercise of one's capacities without reference to external conditions and goods. That is, unlike Aristotle, I have not included in its conception numerous necessary conditions such as social life, a modicum of material wealth, and most importantly, activity in conformity with virtue.

The reason for disengaging it from the latter is that I take it that the notion of self-enjoyment expresses a condition of good or an intrinsic end for persons with- out it's being conflated with the notion of a good person. The intimacy of the relation of a good for man and being a good man in Aristotle's account seems to force too many complicated and controversial issues of moral psychology. There is, as I will show, an important relation between them, but it is not just the same one Aristotle saw.

Leaving aside the question of the virtues momentarily, perhaps Aristotle is right that certain external goods are necessary conditions for happiness. I do not mean to dispute that. Rather, as I remarked, I have confined self-enjoyment to that condition which one desires to bring about through the self determined di- rection of the exercise of one's capacities. It is perhaps, the "internal" condition of happiness.

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Moreover, it seems that we surely can imagine one experiencing self-enjoyment without being a good person. Imagine a wealthy fellow living a dissolute, luxurious, lazy life, keeping only the company he wants, doing only as he pleases, not feeling guilty about, nor tiring of it. We may not admire or wish to emulate him, but neither must we deny that he is experiencing self-enjoyment, if he really seems to be. We may think his life wasteful, base and contemptible, but he may think it really quite a good and desirable way to be. Similarly, one who pursues a life of Cistercian severity; austere, confined and routine may find self-enjoyment in it, while we may find it hard to even imagine deliberately directing one's life in such a manner, and valuing it. We could, I suppose, also imagine someone deriving self-enjoyment from desiring for its own sake and thinking worthwhile imagining different color patches, always in order across the spectrum from red to violet. But what is odd about this, much odder than the monastic type, is that it is such an impoverished end, so uninteresting and requiring so little of one's capacities. As Rawls has expressed the point:

other things equal, human beings enjoy the exercise of their realized capaci- ties (their innate and trained abilities), and the enjoyment increases the more the capacity is realized, or the greater its complexity. The intuitive idea here is that human beings take more pleasure in doing something as they become more proficient at it, and of two activities they do equally well, they prefer the one calling on a larger repertoire of more intricate and subtle dis- criminations, s

This seems to me a quite general, though perhaps not necessary truth about persons, attested to even by activities such as watching a sports competition. Greater understanding of the game helps one to enjoy it more fully, the under- standing and enjoying often put together under the heading of "appreciation". A monomaniacal end like color-patch4magining is likely to quickly exhaust its potential for producing enjoyment, and become boring, and unsatisfying, moti- vating one to pursue a different end, or set of ends. The point here is not that there is anything intrinsically wrong with imagining color patches and having little or no concern to engage oneself otherwise. Rather, the point is the quite general one that while not a law-like relation of strict proportionality, there is an explanatory relation between degrees and complexity of exercise of one's capaci- ties for self-determination and achievement of self-enjoyment. We might say here that there is a prima facie presumption of rationality in favor of pursuing a number of harmonious, complementary ends which can be pursued over an extended period and in varying circumstances.

What then is the relation between self-enjoyment and being moral? It is not simply that being moral is something all persons can be said to desire for its own sake and judge worthwhile. That is too good to be true.

Rather, my claim here is that in so far as persons are self-determining in the manner described earlier, and whether one is morally virtuous or not depends es- sentially on one's own self-determination, whether one is moral or not is "up to"

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the individual in a way that the pursuit of other ends is not. That is, one has a greater measure of control over whether one is moral than over any other end one might have. Success in the pursuit of all other ends is contingent upon other people, the way the world is, an indefinite range of uncertainties, and luck, to a far greater extent than success in the pursuit of virtue. This claim has a decided and deliberate Kantian echo, though with some change in tone. I am not suggesting (what would, I think, be plainly false) that perfect virtue is everyone's merely for the trying to realize it. There are contingencies of our nature which we cannot simply control and control completely at will. One's psychological constituion, history of socialization and context may cause one to have certain characteristics which are entrenched, relatively fixed, and difficult to act against, even if one desires to sincerely. I have already remarked that I believe Kant's dualism of ratio- nal and empirical nature is not only problematic metaphysics, but also unfaithful to things we know about persons, and living in the world. It is not just the "dear self" that may stand in the way of virtue, but also aspects of one's make-up that are, if not givens, more or less powerful and sometimes coercive. We no more have com- plete sovereignty over our motives than we do with respect to our beliefs. But, my claim here is that that end over which we have the greatest capacity for self-deter- mination is whether to be moral. What one exhibits in acting virtuously is (what both Aristotle and Kand called) self-mastery. My suggestion is that self-mastery is something that is enjoyed by a self-determining, purposive being. Indeed, because self-mastery essentially involves the self-imposition of the principle of action it is something that can be enjoyed (in both senses) only by a rational being. What one enjoys in activity in conformity with virtue is oneself; it is a type of enjoyment crucially dependent upon the agent's own causality. This is enjoyment one expe- riences as respect for oneself, an appreciation of the worth and non-substitutability of one's agency. And respect for oneself is an attitude characteristically found to be desirable for its own sake and worthwhile. Justified ascriptions of respect for oneself are virtue-grounded because of the role of agency in determining the object of respect. The pursuit of virtue as an end and the self-enjoyment generated from it are maximally up to the individual. 6

To make this claim more clear, consider again our well-off dissolute character. He treats others as means, spends his time in frivolous entertainments and is in general given to vice. Still, I want to say, there is a reason for him to be moral, and that the reason is one which has to do with (even) his self-interest. His self-enjoy- ment is, so to speak, circumstantial rather than constitutive. It is to a crucial degree dependent upon other people, means which are contingent, and in a certain sense, beyond his control. Here one might say "yes, but suppose his company is willing, his means substantial and his situation secure; wouldn't he laugh at the suggestion that even in this case virtue is the more profitable course for him". Well, he probably would laugh, and not entirely without reason. But his not ac- knowledging the reason for him to be moral does not imply that there isn't one still, even for him. He is relying on luck and circumstance, neither perhaps likely to change, but both liable to change, and in a manner destructive of his self-enjoy- ment.

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One could argue that the disposition to vice is as fully up to the individual as virtue and so what ever reason my account gives for being virtuous is also good as a reason for being vicious. But this symmetry does not hold. Even though one is re- sponsible as a cause for being vicious it will not contribute as reliably and fully to self-enjoyment as virtue. This is because a disposition to vice is liable to cause feelings and attitudes of guilt, shame, regret and loss of self-respect. This is not inevitable by any means and people are notoriously able to enjoy a habit of vice. But I take it that virtue-generated respect for oneself is a significant constituent of, or at least contributor to self. enjoyment, and that it is likely to be forfeited by vice. One could compensate with an effort in self-deception, but this is I think, prima facie undesirable and anyway risks exposure and dissolution. 7

The unique relation between virtue and self-enjoyment explains why there is a reason for anyone to choose to be moral. It is that end which desired for its own sake and judged to be worthwhile can most completely be realized. It is that exer- cise of self-determination in which autonomy is maximal. Additionally, it is also an end the pursuit of which will continue to produce an enjoyment-generated reason to go on pursuing it. Here we might ask why this is so; why one would not grow bored with being moral. There are, I believe three reasons. First, the end of being moral is less susceptible to frustration or failure than any other end. Whether it is pursued effectively is, as it were, an internal matter, not contingent on the way the world is as radically as the pursuit of other ends. Second, it is an end which can be pursued in an indefinite variety of circumstances, not dependent on con- tingencies of resources, opportunities and skill. And, third, it is an end which is never completely realized. As Kant says, in the Doctrine of Virtue, moral personali- ty is an ideal which we approximate to, never having exhaustively (or exhaustingly) brought it about. 8 No episode or experience could count as fully having achieved it.

Before pursuing these points further, there is one other type of case we should address. Suppose my primary self-conception is to be a good writer of fiction. I stay in my room most of the day, most days, trying to write. I devote myself to this energetically and resolutely, with few distractions or other interests. Indeed, I rarely, if ever, find myself in a situation that is morally significant. I pay my bills, answer the phone, keep my promises and "mind my own business". I don't interest myself much in the affairs of others, and have few personal relationships. Thus there are few and not very weighty morally relevant demands on me. Apart from my work, not much matters to me.

Now this individual is surely not morally deficient in any blameable way. He is not indifferent to moral concerns, only relatively unengaged with them. He is, shall we say, a decent character, but not especially morally interesting. Why should he strive to be moral? If he can go on in this way, I do not think there is any con- sideration that must motivate him to morally enrich his life. His self-enjoyment is protected and promoted in splendid isolation, and there are, cetefis paribus, no reasons for him to try to force it into a broader, more complex context. His suc- cess as a writer does not need virtue in any degree beyond that of the decency we

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have already discovered in him. 9 This example shows, one might argue, that there is no special reason to be

moral, if one can strive to realize his self-conceptions without say, the risk of the voluptuary and free from the complexity and demands of a more active, socially- oriented life. The solitary writer might be a more admirable character if he man- fested moral virtue to greater extent; but he is not particularly dishonorable as he is. The conclusion we must draw here is that perhaps being moral is an end without a special status, that other ends are capable of yielding self-enjoyment, and that there is no rational requirement to force it into anyone's motivational make-up. Yet, I think we can still say that the relationship we have described between self- conceptions and self-enjoyment indicates that the end of being moral has certain distinctive properties. To see what these are we should address the question, "why should someone, whether the simple imager, the solitary writer, or the dissolute, lazy fellow, apparently not needing virtue as an end constitutive of their self- enjoyment take there to be a reason to pursue it anyway?" Consider the last case first.

Perhaps he justifiably has no worry that his self-enjoyment will be diminished or undermined even if he goes on in his accustomed manner. We can even imagine him responding to our view by saying something like "should I judge being moral necessary to my self-enjoyment, than that's what Il l do. After all, it is an exercise of the capacity for self-determination, so if need be, I'll gear myself that way. It is within my capabilities". We might question his sincerity here, but what he says is not plainly crazy. Similarly, we can imagine our color-patch-loving fellow saying, "morality is a matter of complete indifference to me, I 'm doing fine just the way I am". Indeed, he might try to argue that one is most likely to achieve self-enjoy- ment through pursuing "minimalist" ends, with low risks of failure and minimal dependence upon anything other than oneself. Thus, in a different way, he might argue that he has no need for morality either, and indeed pursuing virtue is a much more precarious and uncertain undertaking than what goes into his approach. 1~

To answer these objections I will not invoke the Kantian arguments that there is something straightforwardly irrational about the motivational structures of these persons, or that they must render themselves miserable or contemptible in their own eyes. We have already mentioned certain psychological facts about persons that should carry some weight against the simple "imager". His case is so extraordinary as to verge on the implausible. His is just not the type of case that we need to be mainly concerned with. But the general problem remains, and clear- ly so in the case of the dissolute individual. I think what we must say here first is that the reason to be moral is not contingent upon any specific or antecedent desires: Thus, there is a reason to pursue virtue which is a reason for anyone, and not a consequence of what their particular, person-variant self-conceptions happen to be. This does not mean that the reason will automatically or necessarily be motivationally efficacious. We can at least see that the reason to be moral, un- like reasons to pursue any other specific end, stands on its own. This in itself may not convince the individual who sees no need to adopt virtue as an end. Perhaps

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the most difficult case here is the solitary writer. Virtue as an end may not be a condition of his self-enjoyment, but it at least will not interfere or conflict with his pursuit of it. Moreover, if as I have suggested, respect for oneself is both virtue- generated and desirable for its own sake and worthwhile, even the solitary writer's self-enjoyment would be augmented by virtuous activity. It is also an end which does not face obstacles to be integrated into his network of self-conceptions as it does in the case of the vicious character.

Indeed, it is not clear at all that any reason, even one which appeals to con- siderations of self-interest will convince our version of the skeptic that he should pursue virtue. Given his self-conceptions and his constellation of ends and values, and his calculations, virtue as an end may be something he is confident in rejecting without fear of cost to his self-enjoyment. He may turn out to have guessed right, but he cannot know when making his choice that he is right. We will regard him as lucky, though not enviable, and despise rather than admire him. He will, if things go his way, turn out to have won a gamble which he need not have taken, and against which there is a reason. There is a sense in which we will see him as an example of what can go wrong, not of how fortune might favor one. And this is symptomatic of the Kantian intuition that happiness in proportion to virtue would be both the most just and best state of affairs; the complete if not the highest good.

The reason this intuition can get a grip on us is because of the way we under- stand the relation between the descriptive and normative notions of what it is to be a person. This is evidenced by the two senses of "character" we employ. In the descriptive sense every person bas a character just by virtue of having traits; ends, interests, desires and values. One has character in the normative sense by virtue of being reflective, exercising care in judgment, being self-critical (to an extent) and taking responsibility for what one does and what difference it makes. And we value this in persons because we value self determination, the ability to direct, structure and orient our lives through our own authority. This authority may be exercised more or less, for good or ill. There is no guarantee that one will exercise and direct one's capacities in a manner worthy of admiration or commendation. But it is by virtue of the context of persons being a context of self-determining beings capable of desiring ends and activities for their own sake and making judge- ments of worthwhileness, that it is an essentially value laden context.

It is difficult in discussing the nature of persons to sort o.ut the ideal from the norm; they are so easily conflated. But what it is to be a person is to be so con- stituted as to have certain capacities. The ideal is a conception or at least an image of a manner in which they may be exercised, and this image includes a disposi- tion to virtue. That one will have and sustain such a dispositioh is by no means a given. But, as I have already urged, given that persons intrinsically have the end of self-enjoyment, there is a good reason for any person to pursue virtue as an end desired for its own sake and regarded as worthwhile.

Even the recognition that through the pursuit of virtue as an end one can best pursue self-enjoyment may not be motivationally efficacious. There is no logic which can force one to accept it as such. This, I venture, is not so much a weakness

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o f the view presen ted here as a fact abou t persons which mus t be grudgingly accom-

m o d a t e d . Whether and to wha t e x t e n t the reason to be moral actively directs any-

one ' s t hough t and ac t ion is n o t a ma t t e r for phi losophical adjudicat ion. It is an

internal ma t t e r o f con t ingency and c o m m i t m e n t .

NOTES

1. I owe a debt of thanks to John Zeis and Morry Lipson for their helpful discussions of this topic. Neither of them is responsible for whatever errors or unclarities there are in the paper.

2. I realize that the issues here are considerably complicated and controversial. There is already an extensive literature on whether and how deliberation ranges over ends as well as means. For important sources to which my view bears affinities, see D. Wiggins, "De- liberation and Practical Reason," printed in Essays on Aristotle's Ethics, ed. A. Rorty (Berkeley, 1980). Also see T. Nagel, The Possibility of Altruisim (Princeton, lq70), p. 29. And see T. Irwin, "Aristotle on Reason, Desire and Virtue," Journal of Philosophy (November 1975), pp. 567-578.

3. My account of self-enjoyment has been influenced by Richard Warner's work on enjoy- ment, and a good deal of conversation with him. See his "Enjoyment" in Philosophical Review 89, No. 4 (October 1980), pp. 507-526. In that paper, Warner does not discuss happiness or what I have called self-enjoyment, and my discussion diverges from his in a number of ways. For a fuller account of the views of deliberation and self-enjoyment see my doctoral dissertation, "Teleology and Essence: An Account of the Nature of Organ- isms and Persons" (University of Pennsylvania, 1983). My treatment of those topics in this paper is derived from Part II, sections 2, 3 and 4 of my dissertation.

4. B. Williams, Morality, p. 87. See also Williams' "Internal and External Reasons", printed in Moral Luck (Cambridge, 1981). Williams argues that what he calls external reason state- ments are never true and external reasons alone are not sufficient to move an agent to act, sinee something besides the truth of the statement is needed to explain the action it is a reason for, that something being some component of the agent's subjective motivational make-up. I believe that there is, however, one true external reason statement, viz., "there is a reason to strive to realize one's self-conceptions". On my account, the truth of this and its motivational efficacy are grounded in the nature of persons.

5. J. Rawls,A Theory o f Justice (Cambridge, 1971), p. 426. 6. Kant, of course, would object that this relating of happiness to virtue through respect

undermines virtue. This latter must, on his terms, be realized through a motive uncon- ditioned by anything extrinsic to the form of practical reason. Part of Kant's worry about this matter was that since each one's happiness differs according to their subjective, con- tingent condition, and the rules for pursuing happiness are empricially grounded, "The principle of happiness can indeed give maxims, but never maxims which are competent to be laws of the will, even if universal happiness were made the object." The freedom necessary to virtue needs to consist in rational principles directing the will in a manner unadulterated by empirical conditions.

Kant feared that if the motive to be moral involved consideration of happiness or any other personal interest the question "why should I be moral?" would be transformed into the question "what's in it for me?" and the motive and the action would thereby lose their moral character, having forfeited universality and necessity. No motive to virtue short of virtue for its own sake could be competent to be a morally valid motive. But it is hard t o see how that could be a motive. What is at stake in morality is the respect owed to rational beings including oneself, but even that is a consequence of the moral law and not the ground of it. Respect for oneself is not what might move one to be moral but only a subjective effect of being moral.

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7. Neither Kant nor Aristotle see the situation in the manner in which I have described it. In Kant's case this is because respect for oneself has nothing directly to do with happiness. With Aristotle the context of the issue is somewhat different since his treatment was not occupied with the concern about the nature of freedom. Thus, he saw the matter in terms of what activities are to be regarded as ends in themselves rather than in terms of why and how persons are to be regarded as ends in themselves. Explication of the formal proper- ties of freedom was an issue that did not arise in a context that did not involve the con- flict between mechanico-causal necessity and a type of non-natural agent causality. Kant's concern with the respect owed to a rational being and the incommensurable worth of a good will is absent from Aristotle's theorizing.

8. I. Kant, The Doctrine o f Virtue, trans. M. Gregor, (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1964), p. 71.

9. This picture of the solitary writer is perhaps too simple. His character will not be alto- gether morally neutral even if he is a loner. He can go about his work in an honest or dis- honest way and so forth, and the reasons for his choice of lifestyle are amenable to moral evaluation. He will have no less of a morally relevant character for having a socially in- active life. But the point of the simple characterization of him should be clear.

10. It is natural to suggest here that being moral is especially liable to frustration, since even the most sincere and strenuous, efforts may fail to issue in the intended results. But this is to put an overly consequentialist reading on the issue. It is the character of the willing that determines the moral quality of the action, and virtue which is not sufficient to effect the world in the intended way is not for that less morally good, and the agent is still not the proper object of blame or loss of respect, even of the self-imposed variety.