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In this essay I want to look at some questions concerning the relation between morality and rationality in the recommendations they make about the best way to live our lives and achieve our good. Specifically, I want to examine ways in which the virtue of practical rationality (conceived in neo-Humean terms as the most authoritative practical excellence) and the various moral virtues might be thought to part company, giving an agent conflicting directives regarding how best to live his (or her) life. In conducting this enquiry, I shall at some crucial points be presupposing something of an Aristotelian perspective, but only in the most general way.IIn what follows, I shall distinguish reason, the faculty or power, from rationality, the excellence or virtue (taken in the broadest sense) of that faculty. By practical reason I mean that part of reason that tells us what to do and how to live. By practical rationality (or, henceforth, rationality) I mean the excellence of that part of reason in virtue of which an agent is practically rational as opposed to irrational. By a neo-Humean conception of rationality I mean one that makes the goal of practical reason the maximal satisfaction of an agent's desires and preferences, suitably corrected for the effects of misinformation, wishful thinking, and the like. There are various versions of neo-Humean theory, and I shall not here be concerned with their specific differences. Their common essence lies in an appeal (1) to a notion of basic desires or preferences, which are not subject to intrinsic criticism as irrational and are subject to extrinsic criticism only by ways in which their joint satisfaction may not be possible, and (2) to a notion of derived desires or preferences, which are criticizable only instrumentally.

MOST PHILOSOPHERS WHO DISCUSS ABORTION SEEM TO PRESUPPOSE THAT DURING ANY PERIOD OF TIME IN WHICH A HUMAN FETUS IS NOT YET A HUMAN BEING ABORTION REMAINS A MATTER OF NEGLIGIBLE MORAL CONSEQUENCE.1 THE EXTREME ANTIABORTIONIST, OF COURSE, DENIES THAT THERE IS ANY SUCH PERIOD; BUT HE TOO SEEMS TO ACCEPT THE PRESUPPOSITION. FOR HE ARGUES AS IF EVERYTHING DEPENDED ON ESTABLISHING CONCEPTION AS THE POINT AT WHICH HUMAN LIFE BEGINS. THE EXTREME PROABORTIONIST RELIES ON THE SAME PRESUPPOSITION. IT ENABLES HIM TO MOVE FROM THE PREMISE THAT NO FETUS EVER FULLY QUALIFIES AS A HUMAN BEING TO THE CONCLUSION THAT ABORTION AT ANY FETAL STAGE IS PERMISSIBLE ON DEMAND.2 EVEN MODERATES ARE GENERALLY SO CLASSIFIED BECAUSE THEY TAKE SOME INTERMEDIATE POINT IN PREGNANCY (FOR EXAMPLE, VIABILITY) TO BE THE BEGINNING OF HUMAN LIFE, AND HENCE TO BE THE MORAL WATERSHED AT WHICH ABORTION BEGINS TO BE OBJECTIONABLE. THUS ALL PARTIES TO THE DEBATE AS TRADITIONALLY CONDUCTED SEEM TO REGARD THE FETUS ITSELF AS ENTERING THE MORAL DRAMA IN ONLY ONE OF TWO WAYS: EITHER AS A MERE MASS OF CELLS WHICH CAN BE EXCISED AT THE PREGNANT WOMAN'S DISCRETION OR AS A HUMAN BEING WITH A FULL RIGHT TO LIFE OF THE VERY SORT POSSESSED BY THOSE WHO PONDER ITS FATE.

The doctrine of double effect -- ie, that the pursuit of a good tends to be less acceptable where a resulting harm is intended as a means than where it is merely foreseen -- is examined. As generally stated, the doctrine may lead to uninviting moral distinctions because it rests on an underlying theory of the intentional, which may vary with description of choices & the closeness of choice & outcome. However, distinguishing between direct & indirect agency shows a genuine difference in the intentional structures of contrasting cases even under a strict interpretation of what is intended & even if intention stems from a choice to act or not to act. The doctrine of double effect rests on the principle of respect for persons over & above duty not to harm or to prevent harm, & on the strong moral presumption that those involved in promotion of a goal that may lead to loss of an independent moral right, such as loss of life or bodily integrity, should do so voluntarily. It grants each person the veto power over attempts to make the world a better place at his or her expense. D. Generoli

It is argued that the traditional justification of criminal punishment -- that the moral right to punish derives from a prior self-protective right to place people under real threat of punishment -- is incorrect. An imaginary situation is described in which sophisticated mechanical devices are capable of enforcing the law by dispensing mechanical "punishments" to wrongdoers. The right to protection against crime justifies the use of such devices given that they are suitably programmed. It is shown that this justified self-protective system of mechanical punishment is morally equivalent to a justified system of real punishment: the same offenses are properly penalized, & the same penalties properly dispensed, under each system; &, in a real system of punishment, the right to establish the threat of punishment generates a later right to deliver actual punishments. Thus, acts of punishment do not need to be justified by more than the self-protective interest in making deterrent threats. Modified AA

THIS ARTICLE IS A REBRUTTAL TO WARREN DUNN'S ARGUMENT THAT IF POTENTIAL CRIMINALS HAVE NO GOOD OBJECTION TO A THREAT OF PUNISHMENT, THEY CAN HAVE NO GOOD OBJECTION TO THE CARRYING OUT OF THAT THREAT IF IT FAILS TO DETER. THE AUTHOR HERE HOLDS THAT DUNN'S ERROR STEMS FROM HIS ACCEPTING THE PRINCIPLE WHICH STATES THAT, RELATIVE TO A SINGLE MORALITY, A GIVEN STATE OF AFFAIRS WILL BE MORALLY ACCEPTABLE TO ME AT ALL TIMES IF IT IS ACCEPTABLE TO HIM AT ANY.

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- Introduction -- PART I. JUSTIFICATIONS OF PUNISHMENT -- Marxism and Retribution -- The Paradox of Punishment -- The Right to Threaten and the Right to Punish -- A Consensual Theory of Punishment -- The Moral Education Theory of Punishment -- PART II. PROBLEMS OF PUNISHMENT -- Equity and Mercy -- Harm and Retribution -- Locke and the Right to Punish -- PART III. CAPITAL PUNISHMENT -- Capital Punishment and Deterrence: Some Considerations in Dialogue Form -- Justice, Civilization, and the Death Penalty: Answering van den Haag -- Does It Matter if the Death Penalty Is Arbitrarily Administered? -- Refuting Reiman and Nathanson