Thanks Brad for your thoughtful reflection upon the ways in which people think about "moral values," particularly in their political judgments. It provides a framework for denying that these "values" can simply be exchanged one for another by a calculus of value. I confess, however, that I'm uncomfortable with the Kantian language of perfect and imperfect duties. It strikes me that what Kant calls "perfect duties" are more first principles of common life. Though I don't think he quite meant this, calling them "perfect duties" and tying the sense of "perfection" to our "success" in fulfilling them can suggest to many that the moral life is primarily worked out in their fulfillment, while one ought not to hope for success or perfection in the realm of "imperfect duties." On the contrary, the dignity of human beings consists in being rational animals who freely pursue life in common as friends. So I would be inclined to call "perfect" goods those duties that Kant calls "imperfect," because it is in pursuing them in common that we achieve the perfection of our human dignity. The measure of our "perfection" in pursuing those goods in common should not be conceived of along the lines of success in following a universal rule, but in reasonably and creatively fashioning our common life as in a way artisans of human life. As Josef Pieper puts it, an act proceeding from the virtues, particularly as integrated in and by prudence, is good not because it exemplifies a rule of duty, perfect or imperfect, but because the virtuous man or woman makes it so. There are first principles of any art that must be observed, but fulfillment of such principles is not the perfection of the artisan's craft. Indeed fulfillment of such principles isn't really an expression of the virtues of that craft at all, but the condition for the development of the craft. Thus they are necessary conditions for the possibility of developing those virtues, and pursuing perfection in that craft. In human life there are certain goods that form the first principles of our common life; they must be protected not because they are the most perfect, but because without them there is no hope of perfection, living in common as friends in pursuit of the perfection of human dignity. Still our perfection consists in creatively making of our common life a kind of work of art. (Is blogging an imperfect duty, or a creative perfection of human life? Discuss.) If we lived in a just society we would not even consciously think of the first principles because they would so ingrained in our craft of being human, just as good artists ask themselves what they want to create, not how to wield a brush or chisel. The great hockey player does not ask himself how to wield a hockey stick, but, rather, how to win. That many people think of these first principles of our common life as the realm of morality more than those goods of perfection we pursue in common is a sign of our injustice as a community.

So I think you are right in focusing upon the different concerns of voters, those who are concerned not to tolerate attacks upon what I am calling the first principles of our common life as friends, and those who from a concern for the goods of human perfection are willing at least to tolerate such attacks if not to positively promote such attacks. I think the concern of the former is that without fundamental protection of those first principles, our common life is formed according to the whim of the will or advantabe of the stronger. Too often the weak hold the strong back in their pursuit of perfection, so they are destroyed. The concern of the latter is that too often while the weak may not be destroyed they are left out of the pursuit of perfection. Both laudable concerns. But, I think, one more fundmanental than the other. Those who are subject to destruction are without human hope. There is no human chance of our living in friendship with them.

War, it strikes me, is interestingly different. Prima facie it does not strike one as one of the goods of friendship that one pursues in human perfection. If anything, it can only be seen as consisting in actions designed to protect but not promote those goods. Then one has to ask to what extent it is morally justified by attacks upon the first principles of our common life versus attacks upon the ways in which we try to fashion the perfection of our common life. In the case of an attack upon these first principles, as a last resort one might think it a strict obligation of a society to protect itself. In the case of an attack upon the ways in which we pursue the goods of common life, it is more likely a question of prudence. I don't know quite how to think about it.

I don't know that there is a substantive disagreement between us here, but your post was a great opportunity for me to think through this.

John
ndethics@nd.edu