Part One is Goodness

There are two different senses in which we speak of the good, an evaluative
and a final sense. Any moral theory must account for both why the term
good is used in both sense and their relationship. Korsgaard:
In order to clarify the thesis I am defending, I need to make some distinctions. This will also give me an opportunity to explain the relationship
between my thesis and some other things that philosophers have been saying lately about the good.

We tend to use the

concept of the good in two different ways, and the relation between them, as I have argued
elsewhere, is a little unclear.12 First of all, good is our most general term of evaluation. Nearly any kind of thing,
certainly anything we have a use for, or interact with, can be characterized as good or bad. We
characterize [such as] machines and instruments, dogs, cats, and people, food and weather, jobs and
schools, and myriad other things as good or bad. I will call that good in the evaluative
sense. Second, we speak of something we call the good or, (interestingly) the
human good, or (traditionally) the summum bonum, which is supposed to be the end and aim of
all our strivings, or the crown of their success, the ultimate thing that we want or ought to want to achieve or obtain. I will
call that good in the final sense.

The final good and evaluative good are inherently relational and related to
one another. We are evaluative good with regards to our final good, which
itself depends on our role. Korsgaard 2:
Admittedly, that would be a rather surprising move for such an admirer of Aquinas, who made much of the idea of a summum bonum. But in
any case it is not what it is happening. The idea of good-for in the sense of good-for someone makes an appearance in Geachs remarks
here: death is bad-for an organism, but being murdered as Caesar was is good-for a man who seeks to be worshipped as a god. So apparently
Geach thinks that being good-for someone supports the attributive use in something like the same way that having a role or a function does.

there are two different ways in which good can be

attributive: speaking roughly, we say X is good-for P or sometimes good-at P when P is a
purpose that X serves or a role that X carries out, and we also say X is goodfor P when P is a person or an animal who is benefited by X. 20, 21 In other
words, there is both a final and an evaluative sense of good-for. So the summum
That means that Geach thinks

bonum will survive, but presumably as something that is good-for human beings considered just as such. Now that is a conclusion I am
perfectly happy with. It suggests Geach would agree with me that good in the final sense is a relational notion a form of good-for. But that is
exactly the conclusion that I think needs a further defense here. For I also agree with Geach that when we say something is good, we should
convey a standard of goodness. And I think that this second use of good-for namely good-for some person or animal does not carry with
it the same straightforward standard of goodness that being good-for a purpose or goodat a role does. When we seek a standard for applying
this notion, we will run into the question I mentioned earlier, namely, how we can say that some thing is good-for someone without appealing
to some prior notion of what is good.22 One might suppose that by deploying Philippa Foots notion of natural goodness we can make this
problem go away, although Foot herself does not think this, as I will notice below. Foot observes that we can identify natural goodness and
defect in the properties of organisms simply by considering how the organism carries on its activities and what it needs in order to do so. So

there is no mystery about how we can say that stealth and

swiftness are good properties in a tiger. And we might think it is just
as obvious that these properties are good-for the tiger. A similar
point seems in order when we think about someone as occupying a
role. A steady aim and a stony heart are good properties in an assassin, and they are also good properties for you to have, in the sense of
good-for you, if you are an assassin. Or anyway, that is true, at least insofar as you identify with the
role. That is a qualification that I will come back to.
for instance,

Since good is relational it must be good for an agent. This means

aggregation doesnt make sense because there is no aggregate agent
created.

This is a meta-standard that the neg must specifically link into.

Only rationality can capture both notions of the good. Korsgaard 3:
The idea of somethings being rational to want is helpful in this context because when we
are using the term good in the evaluative way, it captures the same content that the idea of somethings
role or function does. Since knives are ordinarily wanted for cutting, a
good knife is a sharp one, and if you want a knife for the usual reasons, sharpness is a property it is rational to want
in your knife. So instrumental or functional properties, broadly speaking, coincide with the properties it is rational to want. But, with Rawlss
idea of the life plan in hand, we can extend the idea of rational to want to a persons ends. Earlier, when I asked what the notion of good
end might mean, I asked whether ends have a role or a function, and I denied that they did. But in effect, Rawlss move does assign

our

ends a kind of role or function. Their role or function is to serve as an element in a

persons rational plan; some of them are better than others at playing that role. But theres another way to
characterize Rawlss move here that I think is even more important. I have now described the evaluative notion of the good in two different
ways: first, as invoking the plain, descriptive idea that something has the properties that enable it to serve its function well; second, as
invoking the slightly more normative idea that something has the properties it is rational to want in that kind of thing. The difference between

when we think of the object in the slightly

more normative sense of being rational to want, we consider its functional
properties from the point of view of someone who wants that sort of thing.[it] This
enables Rawls to establish[es] a continuity between the evaluative and the
final good, since the final good as Rawls conceives it is also characterized from the point of view of the one
whose good it is. That is, it is characterized as what it is rational for that person to
want, given his rational plan. So both evaluative and final goodness are relational; they are goodness relative
these two ways of thinking of evaluative goodness is that

to someones plan, and therefore goodness for that person. Even the most general evaluative use of good, when it is not relativized to the
point of view of any particular person, evokes a relation to a point of view. If I just say, for instance, the Honda is good car, without any
qualification, I mean, rational for pretty much anyone in want of a car to want, given what such things are generally used for. That ties the
goodness of the car to pretty-muchanyone- in-want-of-a-cars point of view. In my view this is no accident, for the concept of the good
always makes an essential reference to someones point of view. In fact, that is putting it too mildly, for as we will see there is only such a
thing as the final good because there are beings who have points of view. That is why the final good is a relational concept, as I will now try to
show

This also means the only way to evaluate ends is in relation to what is
rational to want, meaning it defaults to Kantianism.
What creates the final good is the way that we perceive our evaluative good.
We see it as our good, as important in its own right. Respect as an end just is
respecting this relationship that all individuals necessarily have with
themselves. Korsggard 4:
Earlier I pointed out that when we attribute health and other forms of fitness to an organism, we are describing a form of evaluative goodness. The organism which is fit

sense. But as a conscious

organism, an animal stands in a special relationship to her own
fitness. If she is to survive at all, she must have evolved in such a way
as to monitor the relation between her own condition and what
and healthy will be good-for or good-at survival and reproduction, in an ordinary functional

is going on in the world around her. She must, however roughly

and defeasibly, respond positively to the things that promote her
fitness and negatively to the things that [promote or threaten
fitness] threaten it.43 It is only to the extent that animals do this that perception can contribute to fitness. The fact that the
animal stands in this relation to her own relation to the world, to her fitness for it, is what explains the existence of the final good. In responding positively to the things
that promote her own evaluative goodness, and negatively to those that harm it, an animal in effect identifies with her evaluative goodness, and this is what makes it her
good. The things that are good-for her in the evaluative, functional sense, present themselves to her as things that are worthy of pursuit; the ones that are bad as worthy
of avoidance. Her awareness of her condition is an evaluative awareness, presenting her condition itself to her as something worth attending to. Here, as elsewhere, a form

consciousness or perception creates its own object.44 That object

is the final good. Let me make it clear that I am not advancing what
is sometimes called an evolutionary account of the good. I am not
positing that what is good-for human beings, or for any other animals,
is, in fact, whatever makes them healthy and fit in the evolutionary
sense. Rather, my claim is that the final good is grounded in a
relation in which conscious animals stand to their own evaluative
goodness: they are motivated to monitor and attend to [their final
good] it, and in that sense, to make it their end.45 The other animals have little choice but to
of

accept the purposes that nature sets for them, which is why I said earlier that they have no choice but to identify with the role that nature gives them. But that is not the

. In the human case, the focus will switch to your [is] fitness for
carrying out the roles that I have elsewhere called your practical identities,- the roles and relationships that give
our lives meaning and value. Above all, the focus will switch to your fitness for
constituting yourself as a unified human agent that last being, according to my own view
the human role or function.46 My point is simply that an entitys evaluative good becomes a final good when an entity is placed in her own
keeping. That placing an entity in her own keeping is what conscious agency does .
case with us human beings

This means utilitarian concerns are not normative in their own right, rather
pain and pleasure only become important after we recognize the value of
humanity.
Pain and pleasure, along with other positive and negative dispositions, arise
as responses to the relationship activities and objects have with our
conception of the good. Which means you default aff on the util debate
because only I can explain the nature of pain and pleasure.
And, this is the only way to resolve skepticism. The skeptic still begins from
the normative question of whether an action is justified. He still has to
answer affirmatively when he acts, in the sense that there must be some
reason for which he acts. Korsgaard 4 explains that that means that he must
respect the value of humanity.
Finally, the normative question arises from the first-person deliberative
standpoint. Ethics is not directed from the point of view of the universe,
rather it deals with the actual decisions that people must make. Any other
view alienates ethics from its purpose, to guide the actions of real people.
This means all objections must be linked explicitly to this first-person
standpoint or they arent real objections.

Thus the standard is consistency with a system of mutual respect.

Underview to the Framework Publicity

Collective action requires both the publicity of reasons and respecting each
as an end in themselves. This link turns all contract or governmental
frameworks since it frame our ability to act together. Korsgaard 5:

On the public conception I must

take your reasons for my own. So if I am to think I have a reason to
shoot you, I must be able to will that you should shoot me . Since presumably I
But on the public conception of reasons, we do not get this result.

cant will that, I cant think I have a reason to shoot you. So it is only on the public conception of reasons that a

if personal
interaction is to be possible, we must reason together, and this means that I must treat
your reasons, as I will put it, as reasons, that is, as considerations that have
normative force for me as well as you, and therefore as public
reasons. And to the extent that I must do that, I must also treat you as what Kant called an
end in yourselfthat is, as a source of reasons, as someone whose will is legislative for me. To see why, consider
a simple coordination problem. Suppose you and I are related as student and
teacher, and we are trying to schedule an appointment. Stop by my
office right after class, I say, thinking that that will be convenient for
me, and hoping that it will also be convenient for you. It isnt, as it turns out. I cant, you say, I have
another class right away. So I have to make another proposal. Its important to see why I do have to do this: its because having the
meeting is something that we are going to do together. The time I suggested isnt good for
you, and therefore it isnt good for us, and it follows from that that it isnt after
all good for me, and so I need to suggest another time. To perform a shared action,
each of us has to adopt the others reasons as her own, that is, as normative
universalizability requirement is going to get us into moral territory. 9.4.6 I just claimed that

considerations with a bearing on her own case. Thats why the fact that the time is not good for you means that it also is not
good for me. So we both keep making suggestions and considering them until we find a time thats good for both of us. The
aim of the shared deliberation, the deliberation about when to meet, is to find (or construct) a shared good
which we then pursue by a shared action

the object of our unified will,

And it follows from the fact that the action is shared that if either of us fails to

show up, we will both have failed to do what we set out to do. Our autonomy and our efficacy stand or fall together

Even if I lose every other argument you look to my framework if I win this one
because the resolution assumes a deliberative context. This is the only way
we can think under the resolution.

Presumed consent best coheres with a Kantian system of law. It best

respects the wishes of the living, respects their ability to determine what

happens to their bodies after death, and promotes a system of mutual

respect. Altman1 11:
people must be made
aware of their tacit consent under the law and that ways of opting out
must be accessible and effective.30 Similarly, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein claim that people must be
able to opt out easily if their fundamental freedom is to be preserved.31 If these safeguards are in place,
then people are not being tricked or coerced, and conceivably people
would be more aware of what they have consented to allow after their death
than they are under an opt-in policy, where, if the deceased has never
indicated his preference, the decision is left to other decisionmakers. If an opt-out policy is clear and promulgated, a person can be presumed to have consented, and this is more likely to
conform to the persons intentions than if his family members were to make the decision after his death. Indeed, studies show that when
a patients wishes are unknown to the family, the family is more
likely not to consent to the donation.32 Under an opt-in system, a lack of express consent is typically
The opt-out model treats people differently. The American Medical Association insists that

equated with a refusal to donate. That is, patients who have not declared themselves to be organ donors are assumed to have decided not to

78 percent of people want to donate their organs (as the U.S.

government survey indicates), then assuming their consent (unless they indicate other- wise) is more
likely to accord with patients actual wishes than assuming that they do not want to donate. In
participate. However, if

other words, if silence on the part of the decedent is taken to indicate acceptance rather than refusal, then the persons choice is more likely
to be respected by doctors and by next of kin if organs are extracted as a matter of course, given the fact that a greater percentage of people
want to donate rather than not. There is evidence that an opt-out system would increase organ donation rates. A recent statistical analysis
finds that, other things being equal, a countrys donation rate increases by roughly 16 percent when it switches from an opt-in system to an
opt-out system.33 Nonetheless, support for presumed consent is far from unanimous, and some people have suggested other alternatives. For
example, the AMA recommends mandated choice instead, where each person must decide whether or not to donate; no one can simply fail to
choose one way or the other, so nothing needs to be presumed. Thaler and Sunstein do not express a preference between mandated choice

if our goal is to bring peoples actions into

accordance with a respect for others without thereby violating peoples right to
self-determination, then evidence suggests that presumed consent is a better
policy. Although mandated choice respects the personal autonomy of the potential donor, it fails to
advance the ends of those who are in need. Where this policy has been implemented, it
has actually led to a decrease in the number of available organs. 35 Still,
and presumed consent.34 However,

people are concerned about the erosion of personal freedom under an opt-out policy. For example, Robert Veatch has objected to the policy of
presumed consent by claiming that it fundamentally transforms the rela- tionship between the individual and the society. Under an opt-out
model, he says, a significant number of people would have their organs taken against their will, simply because they do not indicate their
preference not to donate. These people cannot be presumed to have consented to donate, which is why Veatch rejects the language of
consent. Instead, Veatch calls it a kind of routine salvaging whereby the state is taken to have a claim on a persons organs. In a liberal
system, the presumption should be in favor of individual rights, not using the individual to advance the greater good.36 As we saw in the
Introduction, the prohibition against using peoples bodies without their consent is an important implication of Kants ethics, and it is a basic
assumption of modern medical practice, as expressed in the Nuremberg Code and the Belmont Report. Whether consent can be presumed
depends on how transparent the process is and how easy it is for the person to opt out. The easier the process, the more a policy of presumed
consent begins to resemble a policy of man- dated choice which, incidentally, is the position endorsed by Veatch. As examples, Veatch
recommends requiring patients to indicate whether or not they agree to donate when they are given routine physicals, or having poten- tial

an opt-out
policy: a doctor or someone at the Department of Motor Vehicles
would inform the person about the policy and give him a card to sign
and return to the office if he wants to opt out. Such a minor policy shift
given ample opportunity to indicate no, as opposed to being
pressured to answer yes or no hardly amounts to a step down the slippery slope toward
totalitarianism. If it is implemented cor- rectly, an opt-out policy is no more coercive than an opt-in policy or a policy of
drivers check a box when they complete their license applications.37 A similar model could be devised under

1Matthew C. Altman, Kant and applied ethics: The uses and limits of Kants practical
philosophy. (Malden MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), p. 106-109.

mandated choice. A clearly promulgated

false positives

opt-out

policy

would also avoid the high number of

that Veatch anticipates. He claims that the state would be harvesting organs from unwilling donors about

30 percent of the time, since approximately 70 percent of people are very likely or somewhat likely to donate their organs.38 In making
this claim, however, he assumes that none of the people who do not want to donate would in fact opt out; they would all be the victims of

If all of these people are given the means to opt out, in a simple
and straightforward way, then presumably the vast majority of them
would refuse to donate. Their freedom to choose would be
respected. Of course, this does not imply that a person who says nothing has freely chosen to donate. Some people who end up
routine harvesting.

donating under an opt-out system would not have volunteered under an opt-in system. Even people who say they want to or are likely to
donate their organs ultimately may have decided not to donate; their intention may be a mere wish rather than the summoning of all

The question here, though, is not whether everyone who fails to opt out is
choosing to donate. Rather, we must ask if, in the absence of a clear choice by the
decedent, doctors can be legally allowed to extract the dead
persons organs in order to save the lives of those in need. If the law
is made clear to people and opting out is not a difficult process, then
respect for the value of the living can better be coupled with a
respect for personal auton- omy with an opt-out system. An opt-out
system would best adhere to a Kantian conception of the law: people
would have the option to choose what happens to their bodies after
death, just as they can choose what happens to their (other) property, but the law would be devised
such that it encourages us to act in a way that is consistent with the
value of rational agency. It would respect the autonomy of the
decedent while also respecting the autonomy of the still-living.
means insofar as they are in our control (G 394).

And, the purpose of the law is to habituate us into moral behavior. Altman 2:
The law cannot force people to do the right thing, but it can shape
their choices and thus can impact their ability to develop morally and to
choose rightly. Kant is a great defender of personal freedoms, and in particular freedom of conscience and freedom of speech. However, as we

certain restrictions on our freedom under the

increase our ability to use our freedom rightly. Ethically, being constrained

saw at the end of chapter 3, Kant claims that

law can

actually

by the demands of reason is true autonomy. Doing oth- erwise would amount to being pulled around by whatever inclinations we happen to

true freedom is made possible by the right kinds of

limitations on our freedom: A greater degree of civil freedom seems advantageous to a peoples freedom of
have. Similarly, under the law,

spirit and neverthe- less puts up insurmountable barriers to it; a lesser degree of the former, on the other hand, provides a space for the latter

, properly constraining our actions makes us

freer than we would be if our actions were completely unchecked. This
to expand to its full capacity (WE 41). That is

conception of freedom is very different from that of someone such as Thomas Hobbes, who equates freedom with a lack of constraint and who

According to Kant, a lack of

constraint would make us capricious rather than free.27 Legal
restrictions ought to make us better people by bringing our actions
at least in conformity with respect for others and thereby helping to
habituate us to morally appropriate behavior.
sees our consent to the social contract as an exchange of freedom for security.

Only an opt-out system properly resolves the balancing act of personal

freedom in the law. Altman 3:
With regard to organ donation, the question becomes: What sort of
law would encourage respect for other rational end-setters while

also hon- oring each individuals right over

his or her own

[their] body?

Authoritarian governments would simply force people to donate, and one could make a case that Kant would agree with such a policy. After all,
we saw in chapter 3 that Kant believes the government is justified in forcing people to pay taxes in order to redistribute wealth to the poor. It
seems that the govern- ment would also be justified in taking peoples organs when they die so they could be redistributed to those who need
them. However, there are key differences between these two policies that make the routine removal of organs a violation of peoples
autonomy. Supplying the poor with health care is justified because it helps perpetuate a state to which the citizen has consented. This is not a

[Whereas]
Redistributing wealth keeps a whole class of people from being
susceptible to an asym- metric power relationship with members of the
richer classes of society. By contrast, organ failure affects members of all classes of
society. The deaths of those people would not pose a threat to society as a whole, and the risks the people face do not engender
possible class warfare. Kant would add that those with healthy organs do not benefit in any
way from those with organ failure, and so the former people are not
indebted to the latter which, again, is different from the potential for injustice between rich and poor. Distributing
cadavers organs to those who need them is not necessary to maintain the state. Therefore, Kant would conclude that, unlike
forced taxation, forced organ donation is an unjust policy. On the other hand,
the opt-in strategy that now exists in the United States is insufficiently constraining. A U.S.
government survey in 2005 showed that only 52.7 percent of eligible adults have granted
permission for organ donation, even though 78 percent of survey respondents
said that they would be likely or very likely to donate their organs.28 The
disparity between the two figures demands a different policy, since thousands of lives are at stake.
People are not doing what they know they ought to do and what
they claim to be committed to doing. The balancing act between personal freedom
and our regard for one another as fellow citizens, as constituents of a society that we strive to maintain, would be better
achieved by a so-called opt-out system, a system of presumed consent. Under
this policy, the state assumes that citizens want to donate their organs
unless they explicitly refuse to do so. Refusal to participate would not be
punishable because the law cannot require us to help one another. As a society, we respect a persons
right to dispose of his body and his property however he wishes, as
long as it does not harm others. At the same time, a policy of presumed
consent would encourage us to do the right thing. Some people [will]
who do not opt out will do so purposely, out of respect for others and a desire to save
lives. These are the same people who choose to donate under an opt-in
system. Others will fail to opt out because they are lazy or absentminded, and their actions would not be morally praiseworthy.
Unintentionally donating is in accord- ance with duty but not for the sake of duty. Nonetheless, an opt-out system
makes it more likely that people will perform the right action,
whether or not it is done for the right reason.
violation of autonomy because such a state is neces- sary to protect the very freedoms that the person values.

O/V

1.