But theological voluntarism can provide a straightforward understanding of the impartiality of morals by appealing to the claim that the demands of morality arise from the demands of someone who in fact has an impartial and supremely deep love for all of the beings that are morality's proper objects.
Consider next the impartiality of morals.
Theological voluntarism can be defended on the basis of considerations proper to metaethics that, for example, theological voluntarism provides the best explanation for the impartiality of morals, or for its overridingness, or for its normativity, or for its content.
Yet if her choice is motivated solely by rational self-interested considerations then it is clear that the impartiality she manifests is in no way a form of moral impartiality.
The killer may be impartial with respect to his victims' occupations, religious beliefs, and so forth, but it would be absurd to regard this as a form of moral impartiality (despite the fact that, in certain contexts, morality does require impartiality with respect to such considerations).
A moderate partialist, by contrast, would admit that impartiality of some sort plays a moral role, but deny that this role encompasses, or grounds, all of morality; in particular, such a figure would be committed to the existence, in some contexts at least, of irreducible morally admirable partiality.
As a characterization of moral impartiality, however, this suggestion is considerably more promising.
As Brad Hooker has pointed out, there are at least three levels at which assessments of moral impartiality may be made.
On many deontological views, particularly Kantian ones, the significance of moral impartiality is seen as arising from the fact that a core role is given to the concept of universalizability (Gert 1998; Hare 1981; Kant 1964 [1785]; Kohlberg 1979).
For instance, Kantian constructivism appears to be grounded on the value of moral impartiality, that is, the demand of equal respect for persons (Scanlon 1998, 22 33; cf. 287 290; Rawls 1993, 38 54).
Moor used "core values" to examine computer ethics topics like privacy and security (Moor 1997), and to add an account of justice, which he called "just consequentialism" (Moor, 1999), a theory that combines "core values" and consequentialism with Bernard Gert's deontological notion of "moral impartiality" using "the blindfold of justice" (Gert,1998).
