Mother Teresa and universalizability.

R.M. Hare says that the "universalizability principle" requires of us that, when making moral judgments,

we accept only those moral prescriptions which we are prepared to prescribe for all similar cases, no matter what position we ourselves occupy in them. This is a version of Kant's Categorical Imperative, similar to one kind of utilitarianism; for this method makes us treat all others on equal terms with ourselves and seek the good of all equally.  (From this page.)

In this review of Hare's 1997 by Georg Kamp, Kamp summarizes Hare's requirement of universalizability as follows:

Whoever claims that a certain act is or was good or wrong is bound to claim that any other act of the same type, performed under circumstances of the same type, by actors of the same type, is good or wrong too.

If I understand him, Hare thinks (well, thought) that judgments must be universalizable in order to qualify as properly moral ones.  That is, Hare doesn't just think that the correct moral judgments are all universalizable; he thinks that if your judgment is not universalizable, it isn't really a moral judgment at all -- not even an incorrect one. 

I think it might turn out to be the case that all correct moral judgments are universalizable.  However, I think there are genuinely moral judgments which are not universalizable.  In this post, I'll provide an example of a moral code which, I think, yields non-universalizable, yet genuinely moral, judgments.  But first, it will be worthwhile to say a few things about how the universalizability requirement is supposed to work. 

Suppose I make this judgment: "If I am a salseperson, it is permissible for me to swindle customers if I can get away with it."  If the roles were reversed, and I were the customer and the customer were the salesperson, I would probably object to being swindled.  That is, I would probably believe that I have been wronged, even though the act, circumstances, and actors are all of the same type as those which appear in my original judgment.  If, in such a case, I would believe that I have been wronged, then my judgment that I may swindle customers if I can get away with it is not a universalizable one.

Of course, if I really want to hold on to this judgment, it is possible for me to say that, if the roles were reversed, and I were the customer, I wouldn't object, and wouldn't feel wronged, if someone swindled me and got away with it.  If I say this (and am not lying or mistaken), then my judgment, though clearly incorrect, would be universalizable.

This possibility may be troubling, but it cannot provide the basis of an objection against Hare's view.  Hare claims that all moral judgments are universalizable.  He does not claim that all universalizable judgments are moral; still less does he claim that all universalizable judgments are correct.  So the appearance of a clearly incorrect universalizable judgment does not counterexample Hare's view.  To counterexample Hare's view, we need to find a genuinely moral judgment which isn't universalizable.  I have in mind what I think is one such counterexample.

Suppose that Mother Teresa always insists on acting for the benefit of others.  If Mother Teresa were a salesperson, she would insist on giving discounts to all her customers, because that would benefit the customers.  But if Mother Teresa were a customer, she would insist on paying extra, because that would benefit the salespeople.  Mother Teresa's moral code, in that case, is a sort of "inverted egoism" (i.e., it is a form of altruism).  Like an egoist, she thinks the distinction between herself and others is morally relevant.  The difference, however, is that she treats herself the way egoism would have her treat others, and treats others the way egoism would have her treat herself.

Some versions of egoism, of course, are universalizable.  For instance, a version of egoism according to which everyone ought to act for his or her own selfish interests is universalizable.  But a version of egoism according to which I ought to act for my own selfish interests, but everyone else ought to act selflessly in order to benefit me, is not universalizable.  Let's assume Mother Teresa's altruism is an inversion of that latter form of egoism.  That is, let's assume Mother Teresa thinks that she ought to act in order to benefit others, but thinks that everyone else ought to act in order to benefit themselves.  Then Mother Theresa's moral code, and therefore all the judgments entailed by it, are not universalizable. 

Probably, the real Mother Teresa would not have endorsed the "inverted egoism" I have attributed to her here.  But I think she may have formed judgments in accordance with something like this "inverted egoism."  At any rate, it appears that the real Mother Teresa believed she had special obligations (e.g., obligations to extraordinary acts of charity) which nobody else had, even though there was no "relevant difference" between her and anybody else.  If so, then even if Mother Teresa were not exactly an "inverted egoist," her moral judgments would still not have been universalizable.

If so, then if Hare is right, and all genuinely moral judgments are universalizable, then Mother Teresa was not making genuine moral judgments.  But I think Mother Teresa obviously was making genuine moral judgments.  Mother Teresa's judgments may have been incorrect -- that is, Mother Teresa may have been mistaken in thinking that she had special obligations to perform certain actions in certain circumstances which others did not have in the same circumstances.  But even if that is the case, I think Mother Teresa's judgments were clearly moral ones.  If so, then it follows that Hare is wrong; not all genuinely moral judgments are universalizable.

Update: Dan says in comments that "Mama T" may not have been so altruistic after all.  Obviously, if that's so, it doesn't affect my central point here.  If you think Mother Teresa was a bad person, just substitute some other saintly person's name into the post wherever you see "Mother Teresa."

Comments

[Dan Schneider]

You have to be kidding, by using Mama T as a moral effigy? Have you done any reseacrh into her life? The ties to monied interests, the unaccountability of her many income sources, the wretched 'health care' her order gave? The fact that she wd refuse to treat some sufferers unless they agreed to allow her to proselytize? Christopher Hitchens did a marvelous expose of the Ghoul of Calcutta- as he called her. Reading it shd be 101.
And morals are not ethics. Mama T is a good example of the difference. Dan

[davi]

Wow. Mama T...say it ain't so.

[Dan Schneider]

Obviously you were using her as an example. My point is that if you were to talk of good effective governance one wd not use Mussolini, even though his record on Italian infrastructure, before the war, was supposedly superb. DAN

[david]

Dan--
Fair enough. I'm sure I'll need an example of a saintly, super-atruistic person again, though. Who do you suggest I use in place of Mother Teresa?