The Justification of Moral-agency Perfectionism

Lebron justifies moral-agency perfectionism in two ways as he claims: theoretical justification and political justification. It is not clear which part is strictly theoretical and which part is political because the two are mixed somewhat, but it is clear that Justification I is a negative justification (a little problematic) whereas Justification II is a positive Justification (same as his main idea across the book).

For the negative justification, autonomy is the core. Autonomy is essential to liberals because it is the hallmark of individuality and secures political voice, which is fundamentally important for granting the state and its institutions legitimacy (128). As long as one’s behavior is legal, one may choose to do whatever one wants. But Lebron claims that one’s behavior is not autonomous if one does not have justifiable reasons for it. Further, he says that autonomy is achieved by revisiting one’s reason again and again. According to Lebron, it is fundamental to autonomy that there is a direct relationship between one’s freely affirmed principles and one’s reasons for acting and believing (128). But notice if one acted based on Lebron’s claim, one’s legitimate autonomous actions are constrained to those options that one might/would have chosen but not what one often does. Therefore, Lebron’s justification is problematic in the way that perfectionism is not compatible with autonomy because perfectionism leaves less options for people to act and behave, and de-legitimates any behaviors without considerate reasons.

The positive justification is better and more coherent with his idea throughout the book. Both people and institutions suffer from bad characters – blacks to do not hold an equal place in our scheme of normative value as persons holding other identities, namely whites (130) – according to Lebron, and it unjustly influences different aspects of the society. Further, the moral-agency perfectionism is justifiable under two conditions. It is aspirational because it helps to tighten our actions and our principles; at the same time, it is realistic because it depends on the resources we already possess. The positive justification is more appealing than the negative one.