Human Nature and the Limits (If Any) of Political Philosophy

Estlund narrates that it is often supposed that a person is not required to do anything they cannot do. "Ought" implies "can," as this is often put. Yet he states that this is not so. If there are facts of human nature of this general kind, consisting in limits to what humans wil...

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Published inPhilosophy & public affairs Vol. 39; no. 3; pp. 207 - 237
Main Author ESTLUND, DAVID
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Malden, USA Blackwell Publishing Inc 01.06.2011
Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
Wiley
Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Subjects
Altruism
Discrimination
Distributive justice
Ethics
Females
Human development
Human Nature
Humanities
Justice
Males
Morality
Normativity
Personality traits
Philosophy
Philosophy of history. Social and political philosophy. Philosophy of law
Political Philosophy
Power
Principles
Refutation
Selfishness
Sex
Sexism
Social and political philosophy
Social justice
Theory of values and moral philosophy
Theory of values and moral philosophy. Philosophy of action
Justice
Human nature
Motivation
Capacity
Political philosophy
Limit
Will
Online AccessGet full text
ISSN0048-3915
1088-4963
DOI10.1111/j.1088-4963.2011.01207.x

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Summary:Estlund narrates that it is often supposed that a person is not required to do anything they cannot do. "Ought" implies "can," as this is often put. Yet he states that this is not so. If there are facts of human nature of this general kind, consisting in limits to what humans will be able to muster the will to do, they are not, simply as facts, constraints on what can soundly be prescribed or morally required. The reason is that agents' abilities and inabilities to muster their will are subject to moral evaluation in their own right. Some such inabilities are morally objectionable, others are not. Here, he argues that human nature is a constraint on some tasks in political philosophy but not on others.
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I am grateful to many people and audiences for helpful discussions of this work while it was in progress, including University of Oslo, Goethe University Frankfurt, the Political Philosophy Workshop at Brown University, CIDE and UNAM in Mexico City, Legal Theory Workshop at University of Pennsylvania, Canadian Political Science Association meetings in Montreal, the seminar of John Ferejohn and Janos Kis (whose comments were especially instructive) at the law school at New York University, the Harvard Government Department colloquium, and a lecture at Franklin and Marshall College. I am also grateful to Nomy Arpaly for numerous helpful discussions of these ideas, and to Charles Larmore, Sharon Krause, and two anonymous referees for valuable discussions of an earlier draft.
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ISSN:0048-3915
1088-4963
DOI:10.1111/j.1088-4963.2011.01207.x