Abstract

In my dissertation, I argue for a new account of impartiality. This project has three major contributions. It clarifies the concept of impartiality---an important concept in moral philosophy; vindicates its moral force by defending impartiality against criticisms offered by partialists; and clarifies common views of impartiality offered by other philosophers. ;I begin with a historical overview of accounts of impartiality endorsed by philosophers of the consequentialist and deontological traditions. While impartiality is given a central role in morality by these traditions, they have paid little attention to explicating the concept. The overview allows for the explication of other views of impartiality and shows that each has significant problems. ;The new account has an interesting upshot. It vindicates the traditional importance accorded impartiality in morality, which has been disputed. According to my account, judgments of impartiality are dependent on norms that determine which considerations are permissible for influencing impartial judgments. This allows for judgments of impartiality with respect to moral and nonmoral cases. The general idea of this account is that an act is impartial if and only if the agent is not moved by impermissible favor when he or she could have been. ;Objections raised by partialists, while important, are not properly lodged against impartiality. Partialists argue that impartiality should not have its traditional place in morality. They argue that it is sometimes morally correct to be partial. I do not agree that accepting their concerns about impartiality means that we must deny that impartiality is morally good. ;I reject traditional accounts, but accept that impartiality is morally commendatory. My account vindicates the moral importance of impartiality while accepting that special relationships are morally important. The new account of impartiality can allow special treatment for special relationships without endorsing the view that partiality is sometimes morally permissible. Thus, special relationships are treated specially, but impartiality is still morally good. ;My account of impartiality better accords with our intuitions regarding the evaluations of actions as impartial or not and vindicates the moral force impartiality has traditionally held in the face of challenges by partialists while reconciling impartiality with partialist concerns