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Perfectionism
Richard Kraut
Perfectionism is a term that began to gain currency among Anglo-American
philosophers during the 1970s, due, in large part, to its use by John Rawls (19212002)
in A Theory of Justice to designate one of the moral and political theories to which he
was opposed (see rawls, john). Although his principal target in that work is not perfectionism but utilitarianism (see consequentialism; utilitarianism), he takes
both to share a single structure: each proposes a theory of what is good, and each
defines moral rightness as the maximization of that good (which, in order to avoid
circularity, is identified independently of rightness). Utilitarianism, as he defines it,
holds that an action is right if and only if it maximizes the satisfaction of rational
desires. Perfectionism similarly proposes that right actions maximize something,
namely the realization of human excellence in the various forms of culture (1999: 22).
Rawls does not cite any other authors who use perfectionism (or its equivalent in
other languages) in this way, but he says that, among others, Nietzsche and Aristotle
defended versions of the doctrine to which he gives this name. He cites the statement
made by Nietzsche (18441900) in Untimely Meditations (1997) that Mankind must
work continually to produce individual great human beings this and nothing else
is the task (1999: 286, n. 50; see nietzsche, friedrich). Here, the production of
excellence and achievement in a few exemplary figures is implausibly portrayed by
Nietzsche as the sole task of all human beings. Rawls acknowledges that perfectionism,
so understood, is not a thesis that has played an important role in any period of the
history of moral philosophy. The absolute weight that Nietzsche sometimes gives
the lives of great men such as Socrates and Goethe is unusual (1999: 286).
However, he attributes to Aristotle (384322 bce) and others a more moderate
doctrine, according to which a principle of perfection is accepted as but one
standard among several (1999: 286; see aristotle). Here, Rawls characterizes
Aristotle as a maximizer of the good for whom there are a plurality of goods one
of which is the realization of human excellence in the various forms of culture.
Presumably, Rawls has in mind Aristotles thesis that the human good consists in
two kinds of excellent uses of reason. One of them arises from ethical training: it is
the fusion of emotional and deliberative excellence manifested by just, courageous,
generous individuals. The other kind of perfection of reason consists in the discovery
of and reflection on the ultimate causes of the universe the sorts of activities in
which philosophers and pure scientists are engaged.
Several early-twentieth-century moral philosophers can also be characterized as
moderate perfectionists in Rawls sense. Both G. E. Moore (18731958) and
Hastings Rashdall (18581924) hold that our sole moral duty is to maximize the
good, and they conceive of what Rawls calls human excellence in the various forms
The International Encyclopedia of Ethics. Edited by Hugh LaFollette, print pages 38393847.
2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee098

of culture as one kind (but not the only kind) of good (see moore, g. e.; rashdall,
hastings). Rashdall writes that we regard knowledge, culture, enjoyment of beauty,
intellectual activity of all kinds, and the emotions connected with these things, as
having a higher value than the pleasures arising from the gratification of the mere
animal propensities to eating and drinking or physical exercise or the like (1907:
vol. 1, 191). Similarly, in Chapter VI of Principia Ethica (1993: 2378), Moore holds
that one of the main criteria of social progress is the extent to which a society enjoys
objects of beauty a thesis that implies that aesthetic education and support of the
arts is one of the principal aims of the state. The distinction between higher values
and mere animal propensities made by Rashdall is a familiar idea among moral
philosophers it is, for example, reminiscent of J. S. Mills (180673) thesis that
pleasures differ in quality and not only in quantity (see mill, john stuart).
However, Mill insists that pleasure is the sole good, whereas Moore and Rashdall
hold that there are other goods besides pleasure (see hedonism; pleasure). Rawls
acknowledges the role that Rashdall plays in his formulation of the idea of
moderateperfectionism (1999: 287, n. 51), and he is right to treat it as a distinct
theory of thegood.
In his opposition to perfectionism, both in its moderate and extreme forms,
Rawls seeks to found liberal political philosophy (see liberalism) on the moral
principle that the constitution of the state must tolerate diverse religions and
philosophies, and thus must remain neutral between competing worldviews or
all-encompassing moral theories. The liberal state, as he wishes to portray it, is not
a community of individuals bound together in the pursuit of substantive goals, and
therefore it cannot permissibly be dedicated to the improvement of human nature or
any other sort of excellence. In this respect, he departs from several political theorists
of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century who embrace a form of liberalism
but do not conceive of it as a way of maintaining a stance of neutrality between
competing philosophies of life. On the contrary, they hold that the state must
facilitate or encourage the self-development of citizens; they also believe that liberal
rights and freedoms play an important role in achieving that end. Some of the
leading advocates of that perfectionist liberalism, as it might be called, are Thomas
Hill Green (183682), Bernard Bosanquet (18481923), and Leonard Trelawny
Hobhouse (18641929; see green, t. h.). The defense of liberty offered by J. S. Mill
earlier in the nineteenth century is similarly committed to a definite conception of
the proper development of the human personality.
Earlier in the twentieth century, the word perfectionism was used by E. F. Carritt
(18761924), in The Theory of Morals, to designate the thesis that the sole good for
which we should strive in all that we do is moral goodness. Our duty to others is to
induce in them right conduct and better character (1928: 45). To this doctrine the
name of perfectionism has been sometimes given, he notes. However, it is not, in his
opinion, a very important theory. It would perhaps never have been formulated
except as an amendment to utilitarianism, being similarly one-sided but in the
opposite direction. That it is often our duty to make other people in some sense better,
as it often is to give them pleasure, I should not deny, but only that it covers all our

duties (1928: 45). Carritt here implies that sometimes one ought to aim at making
people (oneself and others) in some sense better, rather than at pleasing them;
whereas at other times, on the contrary, one ought to aim at pleasing them rather than
making them more excellent in some respect. He is no doubt right to reject the
extreme perfectionist thesis that making people more virtuous is our sole duty.
However, it is in reaction to Rawls, not Carritt (who is now a little-studied author),
that some contemporary philosophers defend a doctrine that they call perfectionism.
Rawls uses that term to designate a theory that identifies right action with the
maximization of some single good (human perfection) or bundle of goods (one that
includes human perfection), but the word is now often used more broadly to include
both maximizing and nonmaximizing forms of perfectionism. What is most
characteristic of perfectionism, according to the current usage of the term, is its
conception of what is good: one important intrinsic good, it holds, is some form of
human excellence. That excellence might be moral virtue, but it need not be; it might
instead (or in addition) be intellectual accomplishment, or the excellence of a work
of art, or the skills of a creator of such works. The perfectionist holds not only that
some such things are good but that they are noninstrumentally good; that is, they
count as good whether they are productive of other good things or not. Nor are
theygood because they are desired, or because they give rise to pleasure; rather, the
order of explanation moves in the reverse direction: they should be desired and
having them should please us because they are good. The perfectionist, so
understood, says that one sufficient reason for seeking excellent character traits, or
excellence in the arts and sciences, in ourselves or others, is precisely the excellence
of these characteristics and activities. Excellence is all the recommendation that an
excellent feature or object needs.
Some perfectionists speak of excellence as a good thing, and somethings being a
good thing, they say, does not consist in its being good for anyone. They might say,
for example, that such moral virtues as justice and courage are good period.
Bythat, they do not mean that these qualities are necessarily good for the just and
courageous person that it is in ones interest or a benefit to be such a person.
Perhaps being just, in certain circumstances, does no one any good. Perhaps a
courageous act achieves or aims at nothing that is good for anyone. Even so, they
maintain, acts of virtue are good, because they are manifestations of an excellence.
W. D. Ross (18771971) can be classified as a perfectionist of this sort (see ross, w. d.).
He holds that one fundamental concept of moral theory is the concept of good sans
phrase, and that moral virtue is one item in the category of things that are good
sans phrase (1930: 102).
However, the term perfectionism can also be used to designate a moral theory
in which what is good for someone, rather than what is good absolutely, is treated as
a fundamental evaluative category (see good and good for; intrinsic value).
Such a perfectionism would not be that of Moore and Ross: they make it clear that
when they designate certain things as good, they do not mean to be saying that they
are beneficial or good for anyone. However, some moral philosophers treat what is
good for human beings as a central normative concept. One of Platos (427347 bce)

principal goals in the Republic (2004), for example, is to show that, in itself, justice is
good for the just person, apart from any consequences it may bring (see plato). For
Aristotle as well, what is advantageous to oneself and others what serves the common good is one of the fundamental grounds on which decisions are to be made.
It would be arbitrary to stipulate that perfectionism applies only to such theories
as those of Moore, Rashdall, and Ross, but not to those of Plato and Aristotle. In fact,
it is likely that when Rawls treats perfectionism as one of the major types of ethical
and political philosophy, he thinks of it as a doctrine about what is good for individuals, rather than as a doctrine about what is good simplicter. ATheory of Justice
treats justice as a virtue that is needed because human interests conflict, and benefits
and burdens must be allocated in some fair way. These terms interests, benefits,
and burdens refer to what is good or bad for someone, not what is simply good
or bad. Perfectionists, as Rawls conceives of them, propose that, in the design of
fundamental political institutions, we must leave a place for certain forms of human
excellence, not because they are means to further ends, but because it is noninstrumentally beneficial for citizens to partake in these excellences.
Why does Rawls reject even the moderate form of perfectionism that he considers,
according to which human excellence of some sort is one of the goods by reference
to which the fundamental design of institutions is to be guided? He argues that the
principles that are to govern a society are the ones that would be unanimously
accepted as a fundamental charter by hypothetical individuals who are prevented, by
their lack of certain kinds of information, from designing institutions that would
give them an unfair advantage. They choose from behind what Rawls calls a veil of
ignorance: they do not know their social status, economic class, gender, talents,
level of intelligence, or their conception of the good for these are differences
among people that often distort their sense of fairness. Rawls believes he can
demonstrate that certain principles would be accepted by people who are deprived
of this information, and that others would be rejected. Utilitarianism would be
rejected because the parties in this initial situation (as he calls it) would seek to
protect their freedom to pursue their own conception of the good once they are
beyond the veil of ignorance and full information about themselves is restored. Why
should they endanger their own projects (what they are, they do not know, but they
know they have them) and impose on themselves instead the duty to maximize the
satisfaction of rational desire throughout their society?
His argument against the extreme form of perfectionism takes the same form:
why should these hypothetical individuals agree to curtail the pursuit of the projects
they undertake beyond the veil of ignorance whenever doing so will maximize the
amount of excellence exhibited in their society? If one is ignorant of the details of
ones conception of the good, it may be that, for all one knows, one will want to
undertake activities in which the achievement of excellence plays no role. If Rawls
argument against Nietzsches extreme perfectionism is sound, the same considerations
he uses to defeat it will work equally well against the more moderate form of
perfectionism that he attributes to Aristotle and Rashdall, and that can also be found
in Green, Bosanquet, Hobhouse, and Moore. The fundamental idea is that the

contracting parties will want to safeguard their ability to pursue their good as they
conceive it, whatever it is, or to revise it as they choose. Placing even moderate
perfectionism into the fundamental charter of their society would impede them, if
their goals are to pursue ends that do not include excellence of some form.
Rawls argument suffers from a limitation that is inherent in his approach to
moral and political philosophy: for his argument against even moderate perfectionism
to succeed, one must first be convinced that moral and political principles are to be
assessed by asking whether they would be chosen in a hypothetical situation. If one
has doubts about the fruitfulness of his contractual approach to normative questions,
then his rejection of perfectionism will be no less doubtful.
It is tempting, therefore, to look for material in A Theory of Justice that can be
used against perfectionism without presupposing the whole apparatus of the
hypothetical contract from behind a veil of ignorance. One way to do so would be to
take the theory of human good that guides Rawls throughout this work as a refutation
of perfectionism. Rawls identifies what is good for individuals as the achievement of
their rational plans. More fully, it is the achievement of the plan that would be
decided upon as the outcome of careful reflection in which the agent reviewed, in
the light of all the relevant facts, what it would be like to carry out [his] plans and
thereby ascertained the course of action that would best realize his more fundamental
desires (1999: 366).
If that conception of what is good for someone is correct, then excellence will be
part of someones good only if he would aim to achieve it after carefully reflecting on
his fundamental desires. Perhaps some people would aim at it; but perhaps others
would not. And, in any case, when excellence is included among someones
fundamental aims, it counts as good only because it is aimed at. Rawls theory of
goodness holds that perfectionism inverts the proper order of explanation: for him,
excellence is good (for certain individuals) because it would be aimed at by their
fully informed rational deliberation; but for the perfectionist, excellence is to be
aimed at (by all) because it is good (or good for each).
Opponents of perfectionism might wish to use Rawls theory of goodness in this
way, but he makes it clear, in his later work, Political Liberalism (1996), that he does
not conceive of the theory of the good put forward in A Theory of Justice as a
self-standing alternative to or refutation of a perfectionist conception of the good. In
that later work, he portrays his critique of utilitarianism and of perfectionism as
challenges not to the truth of those doctrines, but only to the moral rightness of using
them as ultimate principles governing the political community. He claims that it is
no more defensible to make the pursuit of excellence constitutionally fundamental
than it is to assign such a role to the practice of religion. Even if there is one right
religion, it would be wrong for citizens to govern themselves by reference to it; and
similarly, Rawls holds, even if the best sorts of lives are the ones that embody various
excellences, it would be wrong for the constitution to be based on a theory that
affirmed those excellences to be good. The conception of goodness as the achievement
of rational aims the theory that guides A Theory of Justice is to be construed as
part of the political charter by which citizens treat each other fairly, and not as a

competitor with other theories of the good that philosophers have proposed. It is a
political conception of goodness a conception that citizens must use if they are to
treat each other fairly and not a rival to the traditional conceptions of goodness
advocated by other philosophers.
One way to assess the plausibility of Rawls opposition to perfectionism is to
imagine a society in which there is unequal access to outstanding cultural artifacts
(music, theater, film, literature, philosophy, history) or to natural beauty (parks,
forests, mountains, wilderness). There are no public museums or libraries, no areas
of great beauty open to the public, and no public schools that expose students to the
humanities. As a result, the children of the poor, unlike their wealthy counterparts,
develop no interest in feats of the imagination, or works of beauty, or exemplary
products of the human mind. There would be something deeply wrong with such a
society, even if the poor could fully achieve their limited aims. This would be an
unjust society, but its defectiveness, so evident to us, is not a matter that would be of
concern to the hypothetical contracting parties posited by Rawls theory. They are
not described as individuals who have a sense of beauty; they are not eager to ensure
that they have access to beauty, once the veil of ignorance is lifted. For Rawls, justice
has to do, primarily or exclusively, with only certain goods: political liberties and
rights, and fair access to economic opportunities and wealth, for these goods are the
means by which citizens can safeguard their capacity to achieve their ends, whatever
those ends are. They are therefore the only goods that the contracting parties are
allowed to care about. The complaint made by perfectionists is that these contracting
parties are, for this reason, ill-suited to design a good and just society.
A different critique of perfectionism can be found in the final chapter of
L. W. Sumners Welfare, Happiness, and Ethics, although he defines this doctrine in a
way that some philosophers who describe themselves as perfectionists would reject.
Perfection, as he conceives of it, is in no way determined by [an individuals]
interests or concerns. Perfectionist evaluation imposes on an individual standards
derived from the species as a whole; it exemplifies the hegemony of the natural
kinds (1996: 214). Here, Sumner is taking perfectionism to endorse the thesis that
you ought to acquire the excellences of a human being not because this will be
intrinsically good for you, but because you have a duty to be the best possible
exemplar of humanity that you can be. Not only must you perfect yourself in this
way, regardless of your interests or concerns; you must also sacrifice the welfare of
others for the sake of their perfection. Sumner conceives of a persons welfare or
well-being what is good for that person as a matter that is determined by that
individuals personal perspective. Perfectionism, as he depicts it, ignores that
perspective in order to produce excellent human specimens. So described, the
perfectionist treats all others as does a parent who forces his children to practice
the piano and take dance lessons even when it is apparent that they will never
develop any interest in or pleasure from these activities.
One strategy for protecting perfectionism against this line of attack would be this:
First, perfectionists could question Sumners thesis that what is good for someone is
determined solely by that individuals attitudes, plans, or desires. After all, we can

validly criticize a persons conception of happiness and his plan of life because we
think his ambitions are too limited, or because we believe that the achievement of
his goals will do no good even for him. Second, perfectionists could agree with
Sumner in his rejection of what he calls the hegemony of natural kinds. They can
acknowledge that the psychological and physical powers of each human being may
only partially overlap with those of every other. No doubt, there are broad similarities
among human excellences one persons courage or musical ability, for example,
cannot be totally unlike that of every other but that leaves room for important
individual differences as well. Accordingly, the excellences that a person has most
reason to acquire will be those that are not only socially valuable but also in his
bestinterests to have, in the light of his distinctive personality and powers. When
perfectionism is so conceived, it does not endorse sacrificing what is good for
individuals to the production of excellence for the sake of excellence.
Thomas Hurka (1993) proposes a different strategy in his Perfectionism. He
counts three things as intrinsically good: human physical perfection, the excellenceof practical reasoning, and the excellence of theoretical reason. These things
are valuable because they are the fullest development of properties that belong to the
essence of human beings. We know that they are part of the human essence because
our intuitions reveal that nothing would count as a human being unless it had the
powers of an embodied rational mind, and because the best scientific theory about
human beings will take embodied rationality to be the most central property in
explanations of human behavior. Our moral duty, Hurka argues, is to promote the
fullest possible perfection of all human beings at all times. This form of perfectionism
is precisely the sort that Rawls rejects: it is a theory that proposes that excellence be
maximized, just as utilitarianism calls for the maximal satisfaction of rational desire.
And it unashamedly affirms (in Sumners phrase) the hegemony of natural kinds.
Hurka does not believe that it can be bad for someone to perfect his nature as a
human being, because what is good for someone precisely is the perfection of
properties essential to the species to which he belongs.
This approach faces several difficulties. First, anencephalic infants, who are born
without cerebral hemispheres, are undoubtedly human beings, even though they lack
any rational capacity. Second, what makes an individual classifiable as a member of this
or that species (our own or any other) seems to be an exclusively biological question,
and it is doubtful that our duties to some individual depend on how the community of
biologists classify him for taxonomic purposes. Third, we owe it to other human beings
(and other sorts of animals) not to bring them pain and suffering for frivolous reasons,
but that is not because doing so will impede their perfection, but simply because it is
bad for them to live through these experiences. Not all that is bad is bad because it is an
imperfection. And not all that is good is good because it is excellent. It is, for example,
better for someone to be happy than unhappy, but happiness is not an excellence: being
happy is not a feature that even partly constitutes being a good human being.
What seems most attractive to some contemporary philosophers about perfectionism
is not the sort of Aristotelian essentialism that Hurka defends, but a sense, nurtured by
a long tradition in moral philosophy, that we can distinguish between higher and

lower goods, that certain excellences are among the higher goods, that our treatment
of others must reflect that distinction, and that the state can play an important role in
sustaining higher goods and transmitting them to future generations. Rawls does not
seek to capture that distinction in his conception of goodness as rationality because his
political theory is animated by the conviction that the state must be neutral between
competing conceptions of the good. In this, he has many allies: Bruce Ackerman,
Brian Barry, Ronald Dworkin, Charles Larmore, Robert Nozick, among others. Hurkas
Aristotelian essentialism provides one alternative to these anti-perfectionists, but there
are other ways of defending the distinction between higher and lower values and
upholding the legitimacy of building that distinction into the design of political institutions. Among the defenders of a nonessentialist perfectionism are such authors as
Richard Arneson, George Sher, Joseph Raz, and Steven Wall.
See also: aristotle; consequentialism; good and good for; green, t. h.;
hedonism; intrinsic value; liberalism; mill, john stuart; moore, g. e.;
nietzsche, friedrich; plato; pleasure; rashdall, hastings; rawls, john;
ross, w. d.; utilitarianism
REFERENCES
Carritt, E. F. 1928. The Theory of Morals: An Introduction to Ethical Philosophy. London:
Oxford University Press.
Hurka, Thomas 1993. Perfectionism. New York: Oxford University Press.
Moore, G. E. 1993 [1903]. Principia Ethica, rev. ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nietzsche, Friedrich 1997. Untimely Meditations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Plato 2004. Republic. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Rashdall, Hastings 1907. The Theory of Good and Evil: A Treatise on Moral Philosophy, vols. 1
and 2. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Rawls, John 1996. Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.
Rawls, John 1999 [1971]. A Theory of Justice, rev. ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Ross, W. D. 1930. The Right and the Good. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Sumner, L. W. 1996. Welfare, Happiness, and Ethics. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

FURTHER READINGS
Ackerman, Bruce 1980. Social Justice and the Liberal State. New Haven: Yale University
Press.
Aristotle 2000. Nicomachean Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Arneson, Richard 2003. Liberal Neutrality on the Good: An Autopsy, in Steven Wall and
George Klosko (eds.), Perfectionism and Neutrality. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield,
pp. 191208.
Barry, Brian 1995. Justice as Impartiality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bosanquet, Bernard 1923. The Philosophical Theory of the State, 4th ed. London:
Macmillan.
Brink, David O. 2003. Perfectionism and the Common Good: Themes in the Philosophy of
T. H. Green. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

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Dworkin, Ronald 1978. Liberalism, in Stuart Hampshire (ed.), Public and Private Morality.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 11343.
Green, Thomas Hill 1986. Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation, ed. P. Harris and
J. Morrow. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Green, Thomas Hill 2003. Prolegomenon to Ethics, ed. David O. Brink. Oxford: Clarendon
Press.
Hobhouse, Leonard Trelawny 1911. Liberalism. London: Oxford University Press.
Larmore, C. 1987. Patterns of Moral Complexity, Ch. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Mill, John Stuart 1978. On Liberty. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Nozick, Robert 1974. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Basic Books.
Raz, Joseph 1986. The Morality of Freedom. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Raz, Joseph 1994. Ethics in the Public Domain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sher, George 1997. Beyond Neutrality: Perfectionism and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Wall, Steven 1998. Liberalism, Perfectionism and Restraint. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Wall, Steven 2007. Perfectionism in Moral and Political Philosophy, Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy. At http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perfectionism-moral.