Moral Reasons and Sympathy

Frances Gill
University of Missouri-Columbia

Michael Smith provides a conception of a normative reason as the content of a belief about what our fully rational selves would advise us to do. It is my thesis that Smith's conception of full rationality does not suffice to establish moral reasons. A convergence of moral reasons is only possible if fully rational persons are also sympathetic. Morality demands that we help others. Moral reasons must have a basis in sympathy because sympathy provides knowledge of a need to be helped and creates a desire to help. Smith's rationality need not contain any desire to help. Full rationality for Smith includes a capacity for convergence with other fully rational beings in establishing reasons. While the result of this convergence may exclude any immoral reasons (such as reasons which entail hurting others) as irrational, such a convergence need not include moral reasons or establish desires for helping others.