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13 The Rational Justification of Morality 1. introduction Kant attempted to derive morality from our nature as rational beings , rationality signifying for Kant universality, which was the form of moral law. Korsgaard has modified this Kantian program by making rationality the source of our goals and morality a matter of respecting or valuing our goals by respecting our rational nature as such.1 Supposedly a derivation from our rational nature would explain why it is that morality matters or that we should be moral. Even if it might promote the satisfaction of our goals to behave contrary to morality, it would be irrational to do so. If one is asking for a reason to be moral, the fact that it is unreasonable not to be is pertinent. However, whether rationality is in this way a conclusive or dominating reason to behave morally as against my goals is not obvious. For Kant, rationality involves universality of will, and what I violate by pursuing my goals against the moral law is just universality of will. It would seem that I have two considerations to weigh—achieving my goals vs. being rational in the sense of conforming to universal will. It is not clear why the latter should dominate the former. For Korsgaard, more subtly, rationality is the source of my goals. What I violate by pursuing my goals against morality is respect for the very source of my goals themselves. This still leaves it open that I think these specific goals are the best ones for me to have or the most conducive to my happiness. Hence there are still two considerations to weigh—achieving my happiness vs. being rational in the sense of respecting the faculty or capacity that is the source of my goals. If there is a conflict, the latter supposedly overrides the former, since if I cannot respect the reasoning capacity that is the source of my goals, then I cannot respect the reasoning that leads me to think that my goals are the ones conducive to my flourishing. This may be so, but it does not imply 249 1. Christine Korsgaard, Creating the Kingdom of Ends (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). See also Alan Gewirth, Reason and Morality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978). that the specific reasoning to these goals is bogus or faulty. I am left, then, with a certain standoff—either I disrespect my reasoning capacity as to its being an inherently public or common one, or else I disrespect the upshot of my otherwise unimpugned reasoning that certain goals will issue in my happiness. Rationality will automatically override or dominate achieving my goals only if it pertains to reasoning about the viability of the specific goals themselves. The rational assessment of goals in regard to their promoting my happiness directly dominates rationality in achieving my goals, because the worth of achieving goals depends directly on the worth of the goals to be achieved. If morality is to automatically override the achievement of my goals when these conflict, then morality must be derived from being rational as to having these specific goals in the first place. I am not contending that universality of will or respect for public rational nature are not parts of being rational. I am contending rather that those aspects of rationality must enter directly into the nature of being rational about which goals to have to be happy, because it is only rationality about the cogency of our goals themselves that automatically dominates achieving of our goals. In what follows I try to show how morality can be grounded in being rational in the very procedure of devising and assessing goals as conducive to happiness. We shall set out a definition of happiness and an axiom regarding it, from which it will follow that the reasonable pursuit of happiness requires morality. 2. the reasonable pursuit of happiness To begin with, happiness is connected to being satisfied or content with one’s life, or with how one’s life is going. Equally it has to do with a positive evaluation of one’s life or an appreciation for how one’s life is. Happiness, that is, involves a positive attitude toward one’s life. This is compatible with one’s being happy in some ways and not in others, and with happiness coming in varying degrees. Now, I suggest that although contentment with one’s life is an essential component of happiness, it is not by itself happiness. A person may...

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