II.

If we are to think of morality as a function of practical reason and understand practical reason in terms of the integrative functions of human consciousness, we need a general account of an integrative function. For this we need a general account of integrity. I call this general account the thin conception of integrity.

The thin conception of integrity focuses on the person to whom we are willing to attribute at least four features. Here I will simply state these features, leaving developed discussion and argument for them for the remain-

der of part 1 beginning especially in chapter 3. The first of these features is a sense of self that is sufficiently unified to allow us to say that the person has at least one and no more than one basic "self." The second is a level of self-knowledge inconsistent with a life of pervasive self-deception (or insanity) regarding that person's basic sense of self. The third is the strength of character to meet significant challenges to that which makes this sense of self possible. And the fourth is a sense of self as intrinsically important to some degree as a separate and numerically distinct person. A human lacks integrity in this sense, then, by lacking sufficient unity of self to be at least one and no more than one person, by being unable to live with a level of self-knowledge that reveals who and what the person basically is, by lacking the capacity to meet challenges natural to a human environment, and/or by being unable to assign any intrinsic importance to the fact that he or she is a separate and numerically distinct person.

I say much more about the concept of integrity and motivate its elements in chapter 3, but it seems important for purposes of clarity to comment briefly here on the first two elements. To say that a person of integrity has at least one and no more than one basic "self" is not to endorse any strongly Cartesian views on the unity of consciousness. It may very well be true that the best explanation of certain forms of irrationality is in the notion of "partitioned" systems of consciousness.^[3] Self-deception is a possible example. But if partitioning is the best explanation for such phenomena, certain conditions must hold. Foremost is that each of these systems must achieve a certain level of integration or unity within its own domain to constitute a personality system. This system then must be segregated in significant ways from other personality systems that somehow functionally relate to the same human organism. Each such system must have an identity of its own. If these identifiable personality systems are sufficiently conflicting and separate, no overall unity of personality is possible for the human to which they functionally relate. If this is true, then the human lacks the substantial unity of personality required for personal integrity. Similar comments apply if the personality system that represents a particular human's "true self" is partitioned from explicit consciousness. Such a person lacks integrity despite having a very unified personality on any particular occasion.

[3] . See Donald Davidson, "Deception and Division," and David Pears, "The Goals and Strategies of Self-Deception," both in The Multiple Self , ed. Jon Elster (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 79–92 and 59–78, respectively; and David Pears, Motivated Irrationality (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984).

It is important, then, to keep in mind two points regarding the first two elements of integrity. First, there must be some overall substantial unity or integration of personality for a human to be a person with integrity. This is in contrast to being a human with several partitioned personality systems with their own self-contained integration. Second, the human who suffers from serious cases of fragmented personality is not a person to whom integrity is attributable, and the same is true of the human whose sense of unity of personality is partitioned from conscious recognition.

From these observations, we can now say in general what an integrative function is. The general conception of an integrative function as it applies to practical reason is that it is a function of one's psychology that makes the basic elements of integrity in the thin sense possible. Later, it will become clear that one major difference between the view advocated here and Kantian internalism is the account of what makes such a function in the general sense possible.

Any specific, as opposed to general, conception of an integrative function would require a substantive conception of integrity. If there are different substantive conceptions of integrity that realize the basic elements of the thin conception and they yield integrative functions significantly different in their configurations, practical relativism is the result.^[4] The conception of morality defended here is a function of one specific conception of integrity. I call it the thick conception of integrity.

The thick conception of integrity includes the features of the thin conception but adds others as well. More accurately, the thick conception is only one version of how the thin conception might have substance rather than mere form. This is to say that there might be many different thick conceptions that realize the thin conception other than the one I consider; hence the possibility of relativism.

The agent I have in mind is one who has self-respect and self-esteem, as well as impartial respect, sympathy, and esteem for others. These attitudes regarding others, then, express the relevant impartial norms of the agent of integrity in the thick sense. But in addition to these concerns, this agent also has a number of other concerns that express his or her partial norms.

[4] . I must hedge here. I am now only beginning to take seriously Isaiah Berlin's claim that moral pluralism is neither relativistic nor universalistic. So while I will continue to use the term "relativism," it should be understood here simply as the denial of universalism, leaving open the possibility that there are at least two ways of denying universalism, by appeal to relativism proper or to moral pluralism. For Berlin's discussion, see his book, The Crooked Timber of Humanity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), esp. 1–20.

Some of these involve personal love for others, including being a loving parent, a loving friend, and a loving neighbor. Finally, this agent leads a life containing a great deal of intrinsically meaningful activity, much of which is aesthetic in value and is dedicated to excellence, that is, to doing what he or she does well, where these concerns are among his or her partial norms. So described, it is important to note that there is nothing about this agent that Kantians should find objectionable. In fact, Kant is plausibly interpreted as claiming that we have duties to cultivate personal capacities in regard to all the features of the thick conception of integrity. The issue is whether he and his advocates can account for this in an acceptable way. More generally, the question is, How can an agent who has these concerns, partial and impartial, integrate them in a way that makes the basic elements of integrity in the thin sense possible? Most of this book is given to answering this question.

I argue for a specific conception of the integrative function of practical reason as it applies to the agent of integrity in the thick sense and consider alternative conceptions. In this regard, it is important to distinguish three major competitors, one of which is associated with Aristotle and two of which are associated primarily with Kant.

The first I call simply the Aristotelian conception of the integrative function as it applies to the thick conception of integrity, with the understanding that the conception is Aristotelian in spirit and not in historical detail. The conception defended here is clearly revisionary in regard to its Aristotelian origins, as is much of Kantian internalism in regard to its Kantian origins. It reflects an inclusive-ends view of eudaimonia (the good for a human) and includes the following two claims:

a. The rational grounds for practical judgments are those multiple goods in terms of which the agent finds life meaningful from his or her own point of view. (This does not mean that practical reason aims at eudaimonia, but at the goods that make up the life of eudaimonia for the particular agent.)^[5]

[5] . Eudaimonism, like Kantianism, is very easy to caricature. It is also subject to different contending forms. If we think of hedonistic eudaimonism as the paradigm, we are bound both to be misled and to overlook the most promising forms. Most important, we are likely to misunderstand the best eudaimonistic account of practical reason. Korsgaard has attempted to show that Aristotle and Kant have very similar views on the role of reason and reflectiveness in practical reason. The eudaimonistic account offered here is meant to be plausibly Aristotelian in both form and content and different in significant ways from Kant. For Korsgaard's account, see Christine M. Korsgaard, "From Duty and for the Sake of the Noble," in Aristotletotle, Kant, and the Stoics: Rethinking Happiness and Duty , ed. Stephen Engstrom and Jennifer Whiting (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 203–36.

b. None of the regulative norms of such a conception are asymmetrical in their regulative functions.

Several comments on (a) are in order. First, although scholars debate whether Aristotle endorsed an inclusive-ends conception of eudaimonia or a dominant-end conception (which emphasizes the highest value of contemplation),^[6] I do not pursue this issue here: first because this is not a scholarly book on Aristotle and second because the implications of my argument clearly rule out the dominant-end conception.^[7] Hereafter, then, when I refer to the Aristotelian conception I am referring to the inclusive-ends view.

Second, some clarification is necessary of how considerations of eudaimonia enter into the deliberations of a practically rational agent. On what is to my mind a rather crass view, Aristotle's agent simply asks what is conducive to his or her happiness, and means-ends reasoning ensues. Interpreted narrowly, a passage from book 1 of the Nicomachean Ethics might seem to support this. There Aristotle says:

[6] . W. F. R. Hardie was the first to make the distinction between the inclusive ends and the dominant end interpretations of Aristotle, in W. F. R. Hardie, "The Final Good in Aristotle's Ethics," in Aristotle: A Collection of Critical Essays , ed. J. M. E. Moravcsik (Garden City: N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1967), 297–322. Leading defenders of the dominant end view are David Keyt, "Intellectualism in Aristotle," in Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy, ed. John P. Anton and Anthony Preus (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983), 364–87; and Richard Kraut, Aristotle on the Human Good (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989). Advocates of the inclusive ends interpretation are J. L. Ackrill, "Aristotle on Eudaimonia," in Essays on Aristotle's Ethics , ed. Amelie Oksenberg Rorty (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), 15–34; Sarah Broadie, Ethics with Aristotle (London: Oxford University Press, 1991); and Anthony Kenny, The Aristotelian Ethics (London: Oxford University Press, 1978) and Aristotle on the Perfect Life (London: Oxford University Press, 1992).

[7] . The Aristotelian conception interpreted as involving a dominant end would include the following two claims:

a. The grounds for practical judgments are those multiple goods in terms of which the agent finds life meaningful from his or her point of view, and among these goods is one that functions as a dominant end. (Again, this does not mean that practical reason aims at eudaimonia, but at the goods that make up the life of eudaimonia for the particular agent.)

b. Though the norms grounded in subdominant ends might be symmetrical in their regulative functions vis-à-vis each other, the norms grounded in the dominant end are asymmetrical in their regulative functions vis-à-vis the norms of the subdominant ends.

For our present purposes, we may draw the conclusion from the preceding argument that happiness is one of the goods that are worthy of honor and are final. This again seems to be due to the fact that it is a starting point or fundamental principle, since for its sake all of us do everything else. (NE 1101b:351102a:4)^[8]

However, I think if we consider book 1 more carefully, we need not get the crass view.

One of the primary functions of book 1, I believe, is to get clear on the sense of good relevant to ethical inquiry. When we find clarity on this issue, we get a much more plausible view of how eudaimonia enters into an agent's practical deliberations, and this is important to how I am interpreting the Aristotelian scheme.

The first thing Aristotle wants to establish is that the sense of good relevant to the study of ethics is one that must be relevant to practical reason. Consider in this regard the following passage that begins at Nicomachean Ethics , 1096b:53. He says:

Perhaps one may think that the recognition of an absolute good will be advantageous for the purpose of attaining and realizing in action the goods which can be attained and realized. By treating the absolute good as a pattern, [they might argue,] we shall gain a better knowledge of what things are good for us, and once we know that, we can achieve them. This argument has, no doubt, some plausibility; however, it does not tally with the procedure for the sciences. For while all the sciences aim at some good and seek to fulfill it, they leave the knowledge of the absolute good out of consideration. Yet if this knowledge were such a great help, it would make no sense that all the craftsmen are ignorant of it and do not even attempt to seek it. One might also wonder what benefit a weaver or a carpenter might derive in the practice of his own art from a knowledge of the absolute Good, or in what way a physician who has contemplated the Form of the Good will become more of a physician or a general more of a general. For actually, a physician does not even examine health in this fashion, he examines the health of man, or perhaps better, the health of a particular man, for he practices his medicine on particular cases.

The central point here is that even if there is a good in the absolute sense in which Plato asserted, its relevance to ethics is questionable in the same

[8] . Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics , trans. Martin Ostwald (Indianapolis: Library of Liberal Arts, Bobbs-Merrill, 1962). Hereafter, all quotes from the Nicomachean Ethics are from the Ostwald translation.

way that its relevance is questionable to the weaver, the carpenter, the general, and the physician. Why? Because the crafts and ethics are concerned with how to live and act, rather than with what is true in the Platonic sense. Thus the relevant sense of good must be one that guides or is capable of guiding practical reason. This is to say, in Barbara Herman's terms, that the sense of good relevant to the study of ethics is the one that applies to things that appear within our deliberative field, that present themselves to us as things to be pursued, cherished, nurtured, maintained, respected, loved, and so on.1^[9] Being clear on this, however, only tells us something about what we are looking for in the relevant sense of good. We need to know much more.

The comments on the physician are especially important. Aristotle seems to express some ambivalence about whether the sense of good should be relativized to the individual, as in the physician's case, or should be taken as good for "man" in the sense of the good for humanity. Actually, I do not believe that it is either of these, for there is another possibility. Consider the difference between the good for humanity, the good for this particular human, and the good for this particular kind of human, for example, the ideal Athenian. Taking the latter as a guide to interpretation, we can read Aristotle as rejecting as too broad (and thin) the conception of humanity as the proper subject of inquiry and as too narrow the study of some particular human. The question is how to specify the subject matter in a way that is neither too broad and thin for substance nor too narrow and particular for purposes of generalization.^[10]

I take it that the ideal Athenian, for us, fails on the latter grounds. Still, we can take the reference to the ideal Athenian in another way. We can take it to mean that any study of ethics that yields any substantive results will always be relative to a way of life and to the character of those for whom that way of life is in some sense a natural expression of who they are at the core. In this sense, the person with integrity on the thick conception is the subject of the current study, rather than the ideal Athenian. And by taking the thick conception as the subject, we both leave behind some objectionable features of Aristotle's view and remedy some deficiencies. The views

[9] . Herman, The Practice of Moral Judgment , 152, 166, 168, 172, 179, 180, 181, 182–83, 191, 193–94, 196–202.

[10] . Aristotle shows some sensitivity to this concern at NE 1097B-6. There he says, "We do not mean a man who lives in isolation, but a man who also lives with parents, children, a wife, and friends and fellow citizens generally, since man is by nature a social and political being. But some limit must be set to these relationships, for if they are extended to include ancestors, descendants, and friends of friends, they will go on to infinity."

on slavery and gender are left behind, and added are the concerns of respect and sympathy for those who are not in any important sense closely connected to us. The Aristotelianism I defend here, therefore, is clearly a revised version. Unlike neo-Kantians, I am more inclined to revise Aristotle to accommodate impartial norms than I am to think that Kant can be understood or revised in a way to accommodate partial norms. The project of Kantian internalism is not, as I understand it, to be perfectly true to Kant's own project but to construct from some understanding of the categorical imperative a conception of the personal life that is rich and robust but also appropriately demanding in terms of impartial respect for self and others as rational agents.^[11]

Similarly, the current project of Aristotelian internalism is not to be perfectly true to Aristotle. Aristotle was wrong about all sorts of things, as was Kant. So I will not be defending Aristotle as a disciple of some sort, devoted to showing that the master had things right. Rather, I will be constructing a conception of what it is to be a person of integrity in the thick sense that runs in the opposite direction of the Kantian analysis. Rather than fit the analysis of partial norms within the context of the categorical imperative with its perfect and imperfect duties, I argue that it is best to fit the concerns for those who are not closely related to us within a conception of our own good in the sense that their well-being is central to the meaningfulness of our own lives when we are persons of integrity in the thick sense. Much more will be said as I proceed.

The relevant sense of good, then, is one that can guide practical reason and is relative to a character of a certain sort and to the way of life expressive of that character. But we need to know more about how this sense of good enters into the deliberations of the agent in the form of eudaimonia. Here we must see how the criteria of finality and self-sufficiency function and in what sense the Aristotelian agent (as constructed here) aims at eudaimonia. I think the best way of understanding Aristotle is that practical reason aims at eudaimonia only in the sense that practical reason is guided by a sense of good that raises the issues of finality and self-sufficiency in its evaluation of how to act and to live. About finality, Aristotle says:

What is never chosen as a means to something else we call more final than that which is chosen both as an end in itself and as a means to something else. What is always chosen as an end in itself and never

[11] . The most developed account of this sort is by Nancy Sherman in her book, Making a Necessity of Virtue: Aristotle and Kant on Virtue (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).

as a means to something else is called final in an unqualified sense. (NE 1097a:30-35)

And about self-sufficiency, he says:

For the present we define as "self-sufficient" that which taken by itself makes life something desirable and deficient in nothing. (NE 1097b-15)

I construct Aristotle's scheme to mean that one aims at eudaimonia in the sense that one evaluates actions and their place in life in terms of the criteria of finality and self-sufficiency and that this is not to aim at some mental state (or any other state) called "happiness."^[12] On this construction, finality and self-sufficiency are criteria to be employed in practical reasoning itself; they are not simply criteria employed in philosophical debate about the ultimate goal of life. Whether Aristotle actually meant the criteria to be employed in this way is a matter of unimportance to my project.

What does all this come to in regard to the agent of integrity in the thick sense? In terms of finality, it means that the agent experiences life in a way that many things appear within his or her deliberative field as good. That is, they are goods that are relevant to practical reason, things to be pursued, cherished, nurtured, maintained, respected, and loved, and they are, as such, valued as ends. However, they are final only as they appear as ordered within a life as a whole, for it is only from the viewpoint of life as a whole that the issue of finality can arise. In this regard, to aim at eudaimonia is nothing more than to attempt to see the various goods of life as ordered in a way that the choice of the life in which they appear is chosen for itself and for no further end. To the extent to which a life with its goods is ordered in a way that meets the criterion of finality it is practically rational. Why? Because it is to that extent guided by the relevant sense of good. The other criterion is self-sufficiency, which operates a bit differently than finality. Whereas finality requires that the goods be ordered in a way that makes them the proper object of final choice, self-sufficiency requires that all the goods get into the ordering, if at all possible. Nothing of importance can avoidably be left out. In this regard, to aim at eudaimonia is nothing

[12] . Aristotle seems to mean one thing by self-sufficiency in book 1 of the Nicomachean Ethics and another thing in book 10. In book 10 , he emphasizes the notion of independence rather than the notion of completeness when he provides the divinity argument for the highest value of contemplation. The idea is that the gods, who spend their time in contemplation, are invulnerable to supporting conditions for their way of life in a way that other creatures are not. Since appeals to divinity will play no positive role in my argument or the Aristotelianism I construct, I will not employ this notion of self-sufficiency.

more than the reflective concern that every good thing or as many kinds of the most important good things as possible get a place in life. Again, it is not to aim at some state called "happiness." To aim at eudaimonia, then, is simply to employ as reflective criteria the criteria of finality and selfsufficiency in the evaluation of how to live and to act, given that we value some things as ends.

As I employ these concepts, however, I want to make four clarifications: one having to do with the concept of eudaimonism itself; one, with the criterion of finality; one, with the concept of evaluating from the perspective of a life as a whole; and one, with self-sufficiency.

Beginning with eudaimonism, I want to distinguish between what I call subjective eudaimonism, on the one hand, and objective eudaimonism, on the other. The distinction between the two can best be made out in terms of Aristotle's definition of eudaimonia, that is, activity of the soul in accordance with virtue, and how he understands the status of external goods in the life well lived. According to what I call the subjectivist interpretation, external goods are not a part of one's well-being but are the equipment one needs for living the life of virtue. Perhaps the best expression of this view is found in Richard Kraut's book, Aristotle on the Human Good . His interpretation of Aristotle is that external goods are not a part of one's wellbeing but are the equipment for acting virtuously. In some cases, this makes sense. Wealth is the mere equipment whereby the generous person can act magnanimously. But what about the people who benefit from such generosity? Are they merely equipment needed for virtuous activity? Kraut's answer is that they are not, but insofar as they are valued for themselves, they do not reflect on the well-being of the generous person. Rather, concern for them reflects an altruistic attitude toward others. A similar analysis is given of the virtues of friendship and justice. On this view, that things go badly for other people is not something that makes life go badly for the agent, except insofar as things going badly for others lessens the occasions for one's virtuous activities. Thus to say that eudaimonia is activity of the soul in accordance with virtue is to assert that there is an identity relationship between eudaimonia and some exercise of the self. Since external goods are not parts of the self or its activities, they are not components of eudaimonia, the life well lived.

According to the objectivist construction of eudaimonia that I want to defend, some external goods, most notably friends, family, fellow citizens, and others, are intrinsic constituents of eudaimonia itself for creatures like us. On this understanding, the definition of eudaimonia is best understood as activity of a psychology (soul) in accordance with virtue and the goods

to which that virtue is attached. The virtue of justice attaches us to persons worthy of respect; the virtue of sympathy, to persons in need; and the virtues of friendship and parental love, to our friends and children. Our character, on this Aristotelian construction, attaches us to items in the world and to the intrinsic well-being of those items. If this is true, then when things go badly for those items, things go badly for us. When asked how his life is going, the virtuous person's answer will often be couched in terms solely related to the well-being of others. Contrast in this regard these responses: Things are going badly because I have a headache, I have nothing virtuous to do, my child is ill, my friend's home was destroyed in a fire, workers are being cheated out of their pay, people are starving in Africa. Notice that many of the responses on the list do not mention the self but others, but they are mentioned in the context of why life is not what it could be. Also contrast these positive responses to the same question: Things are going really well because I feel great, my child just had her first recital, my friends and I played bridge last night, the workers strike has been settled in a way that is fair to all sides, and the drought has ended in Africa. These responses, both negative and positive, are intrinsic to what it is to thrive as a social being. Now, when eudaimonia is understood in this way, the self does not dominate the understanding of how well life is going in the way that it does on Kraut's understanding of Aristotle. And it should be noted that eudaimonia on this view involves vulnerability because of the way in which one's character attaches one's well-being to items in the world that are external goods. When Aristotle says that we do not deliberate about external goods, part of what that means on this interpretation is that social beings bring certain values to the task of practical reason and with these values in place, they ask, How am I to live in a way that best accommodates these goods?^[13]

The criteria of finality and self-sufficiency are brought to the task of answering this question understood on the objectivist reading of eudaimonia. Regarding finality, it is important to keep in mind that it can come in degrees. Among alternative ways of life open to an agent, none of them might satisfy the criterion perfectly. In such cases, we can speak of the way of life that is most final, the one that is most chosen for itself as an end and not as a means to anything else. This clarification accommodates the fact that

[13] . Aristotle is usually taken to be a perfectionist, but the Aristotelianism I construct here is pluralistic in that there are goods other than perfection. For a contrasting, perfectionist construction of Aristotle, see Thomas Hurka, Perfectionism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).

none of us has among his or her alternatives the perfect way of life. Also, I will understand the criterion of finality as having two aspects: the first applies to a life as a whole, that it be chosen for itself and for no further end; the second applies to the goods within the life that is chosen for itself. This second aspect of finality requires that if something appears within one's deliberative field as good as an end, then it is rational, if at all possible, to order one's priorities within a way of life to accommodate that good as the kind of end it is taken to be within that deliberative field. The second aspect of the finality criterion is not met, then, if one's priorities do not properly recognize a good for the kind of good it is within one's deliberative field. This can occur in a variety of ways: by misconstruing the value of a good as not good at all, by misconstruing the value of a good that is an end as a means only, or by misconstruing the kind of end a good is. This aspect of the finality requirement is such that a failure to meet it means a failure to meet the self-sufficiency requirement as well. The difference between the second aspect of finality and self-sufficiency is that in the former case the value of some good is misconstrued; whereas in the latter a good is missing, either because its value has been misconstrued or because it simply is not there. To take a friend for granted is one thing; not to have a friend is another. But in neither case is there a life that is chosen for itself and self-sufficient.

Regarding the evaluation from the perspective of a life as a whole, it needs to be recognized that we do not have the kind of access to our lives that allows us in any literal way to evaluate from this perspective. We have only a relatively vague notion of what our lives will turn out to be as a whole. This is why we should understand this perspective as simply requiring us to place our choices, at least the most fundamental ones, within the context of how our priorities fit within a way of life, and we do have some idea of what this is. The contrast is a decision model the rationality of which is defined independently of a concern for how things fit within a way of life at all.

Finally, there are two concepts of self-sufficiency that should not be confused. The first, which is the one employed here, is the idea that all the goods for a meaningful life are included. The second is that the kind of life that includes all the goods in the first sense is free of the contingencies of moral luck. Both the Stoics and Aristotle thought it rational to pursue a life that was self-sufficient in the first sense, but they differed on whether the life of eudaimonia was self-sufficient in the latter sense.^[14] Because he thought ex-

[14] . There is a dispute about this among Aristotelians. Kraut takes Aristotle to put a great deal of emphasis on invulnerability on his intellectualist interpretationand takes himself to be disagreeing with Martha Nussbaum. See Kraut, Aristotle on the Human Good , and Martha Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986). For a philosophical defense of the notion of vulnerability as it applies to human dignity, see my Dignity and Vulnerability: Strength and Quality of Character (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997).

ternals were intrinsic goods of the best life, Aristotle thought that we need a modicum of good luck for good living. Because they identified the best life with untroubledness (ataraxia), the Stoics rejected the value of externals and identified the best life with the life of virtue and hence immune to the forces of luck. For the Stoics, the goods of virtue are all under our control, immune to luck, and are all the goods there are in a life well lived. As will become clear, I side with Aristotle. It is only in understanding the fact that many of us are creatures with a character full of caring about externals that practical reason is made what it is for us.

To sum up, then: The Aristotelian conception first involves the appearance of things that are good (in the relevant sense) within an agent's deliberative field. The agent then considers different sets of priorities as candidates for accommodating those goods. Each set of priorities is considered as the basis for the imaginative projection of a way of life and how the things thought of as good by the agent appear within that way of life. Finally, the criteria of finality and self-sufficiency are employed to evaluate which set of priorities is rational. To the extent to which a set of priorities meets the criteria of finality and self-sufficiency it solves the integration problems of the agent. All this assumes that it is the appearance of things that are meaningful within the agent's deliberative field that generates the need for an integrative function in the first place. It makes no assumption about happiness as the goal of one's deliberations.

In contrast with the Aristotelian conception of the integrative function of practical reason are two impartial conceptions. The first I call externalist impartialism, which includes the following two claims:

a. There is a dominant impartial norm that is asymmetrically regulative of any other norms within consciousness, though there are other subdominant norms that are symmetrical in their regulative functions vis-à-vis each other.

b. The rational grounds for the dominant, asymmetrical norm are independent of those goods that make life meaningful from an agent's own point of view.

On this conception of impartialism, the demands of practical reason are pure in the sense that they are in no way dependent on the psychological

attachments of the agent. Shelly Kagan endorses a view of this sort.^[15] But also there is a plausible interpretation of Kant that takes this line, for there are passages from Kant, as I note later, that suggest we have the duty not to commit suicide, even if we do not find life meaningful at all. On any view of practical reason, whether Kantian or non-Kantian, that takes this form, there is a radical distinction between the demands of practical reason and a particular agent's own good. The Kantian version of externalist impartialism I call traditional Kantianism.

The second conception of impartialism I call internalist impartialism, and it includes the following two claims:

a. There is a dominant impartial norm that is asymmetrically regulative of any other norms within consciousness, though there are other subdominant norms that are symmetrical in their regulative functions vis-à-vis each other.

b. The rational grounds for the agent's norms, including the dominant, asymmetrical norm, are the goods that make life meaningful from an agent's own point of view.

In contrast to traditional Kantianism, Barbara Herman, Marcia Baron, Christine Korsgaard, Henry Allison, Nancy Sherman, and David Cummiskey (all of whom I discuss later) defend versions of internalist impartialism. It is important to note that internalist Kantianism is a conception of practical reason that bridges some of the gap between the Aristotelian conception and traditional Kantianism. On this view, impartial respect for persons and their rational nature is still a dominant impartial norm, but it functions within consciousness as a dominant good apart from which no rational agent would find life meaningful from his or her own point of view with the basic elements of integrity in the thin sense intact. Later, I point out advantages of internalist Kantianism over the traditional variety. But it is the central thesis of the book that the thick conception of integrity requires the Aristotelian (inclusive-ends) conception of an integrative function of consciousness. The negative (as opposed to the positive) thesis of the book can be stated as follows: Against traditional Kantianism, I argue that all norms have their foundation in the goods that make life meaningful from the agent's own point of view. The argument for this occurs primarily in part 2, where I show that the goods of respect, as Kantian internalists insist, must be given an internalist account. If traditional, externalist Kantianism cannot account for the role of respect in our lives, it stands no chance of ac-

[15] . See Shelly Kagan, The Limits of Morality (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989).

counting for other goods. The remainder of the book is given to an argument against internalist Kantianism, where I argue that no conception of practical reason that employs an asymmetrical regulative norm can solve the integration problems of the agent of integrity in the thick sense.