the scope and limits of partiality

The Scope and Limits of Partiality takes as its starting point the fact that we demonstrate partiality toward those to whom we stand in intimate relationships, a fact which presents both theoretical and practical challenges. At the theoretical level, Diane Jeske argues that we have fundamental reasons to care for our intimates, but that that fact alone does not justify our practices of partiality. This is because we also have fundamental reasons to care for persons in need, be they intimates or strangers. At the normative level, she argues that our intimate relationships, be they to other persons or to non-human animals, add great value to our lives, and that public policy ought to acknowledge the great diversity of intimate relationships rather than emphasizing romance and marriage in the way that it does.

In the theoretical half of the book, Jeske defends the ’relationships view’ of reasons of intimacy against its primary competitors. First, Jeske argues that consequentialist attempts to accommodate partiality fail to address the fundamental issues regarding our reasons to care for intimates. Second, she argues that the main non-consequentialist alternatives to the relationships view - the ’projects view’ and the ’individuals view’ - fail to present compelling cases against the relationships view. In the normative half of the book, Jeske offers a detailed picture of the intimate relationship of friendship, arguing against views that over intellectualize or romanticize friendship by drawing upon her own lived experience of friendship. She then considers our relationships to our companion dogs and cats, showing that these relationships are unique sites for intimacy, and, thus, for value. Finally, she turns to consider how intimacy is treated in the public sphere, focusing on the special cultural and legal attention given to marriage, and to how we ought to approach our intimate relationships and our reasons to care for our intimates in a highly imperfect world where so many people are deprived of the basic necessities of life. The Scope and Limits of Partiality presents a comprehensive account of intimacy and partiality in both theory and reality.

Diane Jeske is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Iowa. She is the author of Rationality and Moral Theory: How Intimacy Generates Reasons (2008), The Evil Within: Why We Need Moral Philosophy (2018), and Friendship and Social Media: A Philosophical Exploration (2019). She is the editor of the The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Friendship (2023).