Agent-Relative Deontological Thresholds

Abstract Personal relationships can change the deontic status of acts. Such change usually takes the form from optional to required. However, it also seems possible that relationships can change the deontic status from impermissible to optional or even required. In other words, agents can be required to do things for a friend that would be impermissible when done for a stranger. In this paper, I examine these controversial forms of deontic change. I argue that friendships can, in fact, make otherwise impermissible acts permissible or even required, but only in certain cases. The question, then, is why friendships can play such a role, and why they can only do so in certain situations. I argue that the idea of deontological thresholds provides a unified explanation for both questions. This idea posits that otherwise impermissible actions become permissible or even required only in very specific situations, namely to avoid a moral catastrophe. I then argue that such deontological thresholds can be agent-relative and that friendships influence whether an agent-relative deontological threshold is reached. This explains why only friends, not strangers, can be permitted or required to perform certain otherwise impermissible actions. I contend that friendships play this role because of the fundamental knowledge by acquaintance that friends have of each other’s overall virtuous characters.