3 Higher-level Impartiality
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At the beginning of this chapter, it was suggested that impartiality might be
best understood as a test for the moral and legal rules governing societies.
However, the quotation from Nagel suggests that although this may be true, it
is also problematic, for impartialists, while acknowledging that their com-
mitment to impartiality is indeed a moral commitment, also invoke the
coercive power of the state in support of it. At the same time, however, they
deny that the coercive power of the state can legitimately be invoked in
support of other moral values, and indeed it is often on impartialist grounds
that they deny this. Clearly, there is a danger here that impartialism is, as John
Rawls has put it, ‘‘just another sectarian creed,’’ except that, whereas others
admit to their sectarianism, impartialists are disingenuous about the matter.
In order to avoid the charge of disingenuousness, therefore, impartialists
must explain why the coercive power of the state can legitimately be invoked
in support of their commitment to equality, but not in support of the
diVerent and conXicting moral commitments of others. Responding to this
challenge, Thomas Nagel has suggested that impartialists need to appeal to a
‘‘higher level’’ of impartiality. He writes:
if liberalism is to be defended as a higher-order theory rather than just another
sectarian doctrine, it must be shown to result from an interpretation of impartiality
itself, rather than from a particular conception of the good that is to be made
impartially available. Of course any interpretation of impartiality will be morally
controversial—it is not a question of rising to a vantage point above all moral
disputes—but the controversy will be at a diVerent level. (Nagel 1987 , 223 )
In other words, the challenge is to show how impartiality can reXect a moral
commitment—and a contested one at that—while being something other,
and more, than a conception of the good which should properly take its place
alongside all other conceptions of the good—an appropriate locus of value
for individuals, but not something that can claim the coercive power of the
state in its support. In general, of course, impartialists do deny that impar-
tiality is a conception of the good. Barry repeatedly emphasizes that it is not a
‘‘guide to the art of living’’ or a ‘‘complete moral vision’’ (Barry 1995 , 77 , 192 ).
But what is needed is not simply an assertion that this is so, but an argument
to justify the claim that it is so. Failing that, impartialists stand accused of
disingenuousness when they invoke the coercive power of the state in their
own defense, but deny that same privilege to others.
432 susan mendus