Separateness of Persons

Concept and Origins

The separateness of persons is a central idea in 20th‑century moral and political philosophy, most famously associated with John Rawls. It expresses the thought that different human beings are morally distinct in a way that prevents us from simply treating their pains and pleasures as parts of a single overall sum. The concept is primarily deployed as an objection to utilitarianism and other aggregative moral theories.

In everyday terms, the idea is that what happens to one person is not automatically “compensated for” by benefits to someone else, because these events occur in different lives. If one person suffers greatly and another benefits slightly more, the fact that the total benefit exceeds the total harm does not, by itself, show that the situation is morally acceptable. The separateness of persons insists that who suffers and who benefits matters morally, not only how much overall welfare there is.

While earlier thinkers, including Kant, emphasized respect for persons as ends in themselves, Rawls gave the modern, influential formulation of the separateness of persons in A Theory of Justice (1971). He used it to argue that utilitarianism mistakenly models society as “one large person” whose overall welfare should be maximized, thereby overlooking the way justice must be justified to each individual.

Rawls’s Argument Against Utilitarianism

For Rawls, the separateness of persons functions as a constraint on principles of justice. His criticism of utilitarianism can be summarized in several connected claims:

1. Distinct lives, distinct claims
   Each person has a life that is their own, with its own projects, vulnerabilities, and expectations. Losses in one life cannot simply be offset by gains in another, because there is no single subject who experiences both.

2. The “one big life” model
   Rawls interprets classical utilitarianism as if it imagined society were a single extended life. On that picture, it seems reasonable to allow large sacrifices at one time in a life for sufficiently large gains at another time in the same life. Rawls argues that applying this model to many different people is a category mistake: across persons, there is no single life in which the trade‑offs occur.

3. Justification to each person
   A central Rawlsian idea is that principles of justice must be reasonably acceptable to each person who lives under them. If the justification for a principle rests only on the fact that gains to others outweigh an individual’s severe loss, that individual has a complaint: from their standpoint, the reasons do not adequately respect them as a free and equal person.

4. Inequality and sacrifice
   Utilitarianism can, in principle, justify extreme inequalities or severe harms to a few if these are outweighed by sufficiently large total benefits to others. Rawls claims this is precisely what respect for the separateness of persons forbids. On his view, principles of justice should instead be those that no one could reasonably reject when chosen from a fair bargaining position (the original position), subject to a veil of ignorance about their own place in society.

In sum, Rawls argues that because persons are separate, moral and political principles must not allow the basic rights and vital interests of some to be overridden merely by greater benefits to others. This is why he favors justice as fairness—with strong basic liberties and the difference principle—over utilitarian aggregation.

Responses and Debates

The separateness of persons has generated extensive debate, especially among utilitarians and contractualists.

1. Utilitarian responses

Many utilitarians resist Rawls’s charge that they ignore separateness:

• Rule utilitarians argue that properly chosen rules (rather than case‑by‑case utility calculations) will in practice protect individuals against being sacrificed, because rules that allow severe exploitation would not maximize long‑term welfare.
• Some indirect utilitarians suggest that utilitarianism is a criterion of rightness, not a decision procedure. Agents should cultivate dispositions and institutions that respect individuals, because these are utility‑promoting.
• Others contest Rawls’s premise. They claim that recognizing persons as distinct does not by itself show that trade‑offs across persons are illegitimate; it only shows such trade‑offs have a certain moral cost, which utilitarian calculation incorporates.

2. Contractualism and the “personal standpoint”

Philosophers influenced by Rawls, such as T. M. Scanlon, have developed contractualist theories that take the separateness of persons even more seriously. On Scanlon’s view, right and wrong are determined by principles that no one could reasonably reject in terms of their individual reasons for complaint. Since each person’s complaint is assessed from their own standpoint, there is no simple summing of complaints across persons; this directly embodies the separateness of persons.

3. Prioritarian and egalitarian views

Other non-utilitarian consequentialists, such as prioritarians, accept aggregation but weight benefits to the worse off more heavily. They claim this reflects the separateness of persons by giving special moral importance to those who are worst off, while still allowing some trade‑offs across individuals. Egalitarians similarly emphasize the distribution of benefits and burdens, arguing that justice concerns comparative standing between persons rather than only total sums.

4. Critiques of the separateness idea

Some critics question whether the separateness of persons supports the strong conclusions often drawn from it:

• They argue that we routinely make interpersonal trade‑offs in policy (e.g., public health, safety regulations) where harms to a few are accepted for large benefits to many. The mere fact that persons are distinct does not obviously forbid this.
• Others note that we also make intrapersonal trade‑offs within a life (e.g., painful medical treatment for future benefit), and suggest that the moral structure of some interpersonal trade‑offs may be similar in relevant respects.
• Some skepticism focuses on the vagueness of the separateness claim: it identifies an important moral intuition—that people are not mere parts of a social aggregate—but it is less clear exactly which forms of aggregation it rules out and why.

Overall, the separateness of persons remains a foundational concept in contemporary ethics and political philosophy. It continues to shape debates over utilitarianism, contractualism, distributive justice, and the moral limits of sacrificing some for the sake of others.