Altruism, Ingroups, and Fairness: Comments on Messick's “Social Categories and Business Ethics”
本文评论梅西克关于社会类别与商业伦理的观点，探讨利他主义、内群体偏好与公平的关系，指出某些关系（如家庭纽带）具有功利主义价值，但公平问题更为根本。
In attacking utilitarianism Bernard Williams1 likes to consider the case of the man who has a choice of saving his wife or a stranger from drowning. Williams takes it as clear, and a problem for consequentialism, that the man has a moral obligation to save his wife. The relationship is a good thing without reference to consequences that one might suppose it requires if it is to be valuable. David Messick suggests a consequentialist view of certain relationships—for example, those that create a limited altruism—that have survival value. Some kin relationships are like that; and insofar as they are, there is something to be said for them from a utilitarian point of view. Messick does not rest there, as his primary concern is fairness, but he does seem to hold that there is a utilitarian basis for valuing families and family ties. One need not be a sociobiologist to learn something about practical morality from the facts Messick adduces.