“Second-personal morality” and morality

ABSTRACT

“Second-personal morality” features as an important initial stage in Michael Tomasello’s natural history of morality. In order to play the role that Tomasello assigns it, however, it must contain within it universalizing trends that push beyond elective interactions between individuals to help underwrite the idea of a universal morality that binds all human moral agents. I attempt here to bring out universal elements that, at least philosophically, are present in second-personal morality from the beginning.

KEYWORDS:

• Human morality
• mutual recognition
• perspective-taking
• second-personal morality
• shared agency

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. I use ‘second personal’ in the sense that is expressed with the second-person pronoun. Since address is always to an addressee, it is second personal in this sense.

2. Gilbert makes both second-personal address and reciprocal obligation of the parties essential to their genuinely acting together, but she does not attempt to explain the latter by the former. I don’t see how else it is to be explained, however. When we enter into joint activity, we effectively exercise a normative power to bind ourselves to one another by our implicit agreement. And to do that, I have argued, we must implicitly presuppose that we each have a fundamental second-personal authority that, among other things, requires the other’s consent to act together in this way (Darwall, 2006, pp. 177–178). If I just start to walk next to you as if we were walking together without your consent, I will have presumptuously violated your authority. I am indebted to an anonymous referee for asking for clarification on this point.

3. The argument is that second-personal competence is necessary to be subject to and be held accountable for complying with moral obligations, and that it is sufficient for second-personal authority and therefore to have the “representative authority” to hold accountable. I do not claim that second-personal competence is necessary for second-personal authority.

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Stephen Darwall

Stephen Darwall is the Andrew Downey Orrick Professor of Philosophy at Yale University. He has written widely on the history and foundations of ethics, and his major books include The Second-Person Standpoint, Welfare and Rational Care, The British Moralists and the Internal Ought, and Impartial Reason.  Two collections of his essays--Morality, Authority, and Law, and Honor, History, and Relationship--have also recently appeared.