Moral Contractualism

In his seminal essay, 'Two Concepts of Rules', John Rawls draws a central distinction between justifying a practice and justifying a particular action falling under it. In this review, Leslie Allan walks through Rawls's essay, highlighting his key arguments for a strengthened version of rule utilitarianism and reflecting on the lasting influence of his analysis.

The thought of a machine that writes essays goes back to the nineteenth century at least and in recent years the thought has finally been realized: there are machines which write essays, software which does. Can a machine write good essays though? This paper responds to the sample essay recently provided on Leiter Reports entitled “Contractualism and the Moral Significance of Others: A Critical Appraisal.” The machine’s essay suffers from a major problem and a number of minor weaknesses. The problem (...) and the weaknesses give rise to a paradox: the machine is not good at mechanical tasks. I offer two solutions to the paradox, including that it was simply not written by a machine. (shrink)

This paper discusses the "numbers problem," the problem of explaining why you should save more people rather than fewer when forced to choose. Existing non-consequentialist approaches to the problem appeal to fairness to explain why. I argue that this is a mistake and that we can give a more satisfying answer by appealing to requirements of charity or beneficence.

I offer a new style of argument that supports either utilitarianism or instances of the expected equally distributed equivalent version of prioritarianism (EEDE). The central idea is that the value the welfarist assigns to a state of the world should not lie unnecessarily far from the utilities of the individuals who exist at that state. I describe various ways we might measure distance from a candidate value to the individuals' utilities, characterize a family of such measures, and explain which versions (...) of welfarism follow when we use them. For some, it's utilitarianism; for others, it's different instances of EEDE. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that anyone who believes that team reasoning is essential to explaining collective moral duties faces a troublesome dilemma. If the collective duty is conditional on the willingness of members, then team reasoning views generate wrong deontic moral judgments in certain cases that involve non-compliance. If the collective duty is not conditional on the willingness of members, then team reasoning views cannot provide a sound line of reasoning to what one morally ought to do in certain (...) non-compliance cases, which undercuts the main motivation for adopting a team reasoning view. I conclude that team reasoning is not the right mode of moral reasoning for collective harm or collective benefit cases. (shrink)

In “Individualist Theories and Interpersonal Aggregation”, Erik Zhang (2024) attempts to reconcile partial aggregation with the individualist restriction: the aggregate value we forgo to satisfy a claim enters moral deliberation indirectly as a criterion for equal consideration. We argue that Zhang’s understanding of forgone value is flawed and requires two refinements. First, Zhang remains vague on which interests can count for forgone value. To accommodate partial aggregation, however, forgone value must be restricted to relevant interests. Second, his account entails an (...) implausible principle of outweighing: we ought to satisfy weaker claims only if their number is much greater than their relative strength suggests. We offer a better understanding of forgone value that avoids the problem. While both refinements revise Zhang’s account, they retain its individualist character. (shrink)

On the relational conception of morality, the question of what we ought, morally, to do is understood as a question of how we ought to regulate our moral relations with one another. Despite its attractions, the philosophical foundations of the relational view are notoriously hard to make precise. In this paper, I offer a novel contractualist account of the foundations of relational moral obligations, which I call joint commitment contractualism. On this view, the normativity of relational moral obligations is explained (...) by reference to a distinctive kind of relationship in which moral agents have jointly committed themselves to the aim of justifying their behavior to each other on terms that others could not reasonably reject. (shrink)

According to contractualists, whether we are able to lead a flourishing and meaningful life is influenced, in part, by our capacity to relate to other rational self-governing beings on mutually justifiable terms. At the same time, it seems that our success in relating with our fellow rational creatures on terms that they could not reasonably reject is crucially dependent on moral luck, specifically, on what I call justificatory moral luck. In this paper, I argue that these two thoughts, together with (...) certain plausible assumptions about the nature of social justice, yield the following claim: that insofar as individuals are owed the preconditions normally necessary for leading flourishing and meaningful lives, and insofar as the capacity to enter into morally justified relationships with others is a normal precondition for leading a flourishing and meaningful life, our public institutions are under a duty of justice to ensure each a fair and adequate opportunity to stand in morally justified relations with others. (shrink)

Moral metaethical constitutivists claim that moral reasons can be reduced to the constitutive aims or principles of agency. While such a project promises to secure the universality and conclusiveness of moral reasons, it also threatens to leave insufficient space for acting on other values. In this paper, I argue that moral metaethical constitutivism is unlikely to overcome the burdensomeness objection, according to which a theory is objectionably burdensome if it leaves insufficient space for the agent’s own projects, relationships, and so (...) on. I argue that neither Christine Korsgaard’s reflective endorsement account nor Michael Smith’s capacities account can overcome the objection, and suggest that the problems that they encounter are likely to generalize to any moral metaethical constitutivism. It is unlikely that what is constitutive of agency is sensitive to the unique goods of humanity, and thus unlikely that good moral agents could also live good human lives. (shrink)

Our practice of justification of action seems to be based on comparing agents’ and patients’ reasons for and against action. Standard Scanlonian contractualism, a theory that takes the idea of justifiability to be morally fundamental, evaluates the justifiability of actions on the basis of principles for the general regulation of behavior. In evaluating those principles, reasons for objecting to the widespread performance of acts of relevant types and reasons for objecting to the general authorization of such acts are taken into (...) account. This might seem puzzling at first glance because it seems to differ from our ordinary practice of justification. This puzzlement poses the question of why contractualism employs such principles if it takes the idea of justifiability to be morally fundamental. I argue that the connection between contractualist justifiability and contractualist interpretation of respect for the value of persons provides a rationale for employing principles for the general regulation of behavior. For contractualism, regulating one’s own reasoning and behavior on the basis of contractualist justifiability enacts respect for the value of persons. Contractualists think that to respect the value of persons, we must recognize persons’ rational capacities. Employing principles for the general regulation in evaluating justifiability enables us to do it. In addition, I argue that appreciating contractualism’s two-level character shows that it is compatible with our ordinary practices because our practices do not imply that considerations, such as the general authorization of a type of act, are irrelevant in critical evaluations of grounds for justification. -/- [If you do not have access, the link to Accepted Manuscript is on my personal website. I have added the link to my personal website to the external links in addition to the journal page.] . (shrink)

I develop a novel contractualist defense of a limited moral equality of combatants thesis, on which just and unjust combatants enjoy equal moral status in some wars. This possibility reveals overlooked conceptual space for intermediary positions between orthodox just war theory and revisionism. I argue that following a limited moral equality of combatants thesis foreseeably protects both civilians’ and combatants’ strong interests in survival more robustly than alternative pacifist and revisionist principles. So such a thesis cannot be reasonably rejected. Contractualism (...) therefore entails a limited moral equality of combatants thesis. In defending this thesis, I also address the concern that contractualism cannot be applied to just war theory due to the massive noncompliance inherent to warfare. I conclude by contrasting my contractualist approach with the recent contractarian one by Yitzhak Benbaji and Daniel Statman. I demonstrate that the contractualist approach avoids several counterexamples that plague Benbaji and Statman’s contractarian account. (shrink)

T.M. Scanlon’s version of contractualism has emerged as one of the most well-developed challengers to consequentialism. According to one of contractualism’s most appealing features—the Individualist Restriction—the justifiability of our actions depends solely on the personal reasons of single individuals. While it allows contractualism to avoid many of consequentialism’s most implausible implications, it causes trouble for the theory with regards to aggregation, as contractualism cannot justify saving a larger group, rather than a smaller group, from equal harms (so-called equal stakes cases). (...) -/- In this thesis, I distinguish between two versions of the Individualist Restriction—a Strong Individualist Restriction and a Weak Individualist Restriction. While most writers have assumed the former, I argue that we ought to reject it and adopt the Weak Individualist Restriction instead. I argue that doing so allows us to provide a solution to the problem of aggregation in equal stakes cases. Further, I argue that this solution can be extended to cases of non-equal harms. I argue that doing so allows us to give a plausible account of when and how the numbers of individuals involved matter for cases with non-equal stakes. The account can also be extended to cases of risk. Doing so strengthens the case for one strand of contractualism—ex post contractualism—as this strand can make use of the same tools in both risk cases and non-risk cases. The same cannot be said for its main rival, ex ante contractualism: it cannot make use of those tools. Lastly, the thesis considers whether or not adopting the Weak Individualist Restriction calls contractualism’s explanatory adequacy into question. It is argued that it does not. (shrink)

Explaining altruistic behavior may require expanding the bargaining framework. In particular, accommodating altruism may require greater emphasis on bargaining under normative rather than actual conditions. Fleshing out the account of resource-rational bargaining under normative conditions raises important questions for future research.

Principle-based theories, such as rule-consequentialism and Scanlonian contractualism, evaluate principles/rules first and then actions by those principles. The traditional form of principle-based theories is thought to evaluate principles only on the basis of what would happen if many people adhered to those principles. In some cases, they have advantages in vindicating some considered judgments because they consider such effects. However, it is criticized that the very feature sometimes makes those theories give counterintuitive verdicts. This poses the question of whether there (...) is a form of principle-based theory that retains the advantages of vindicating some considered judgments while avoiding the problem of giving counterintuitive verdicts. This paper suggests that two resources found in contractualist literature, a way of making exceptions and the intrinsic significance of moral principles, can help contractualism retain advantages in vindicating some considered judgments while avoiding objections that arise from considering the effects of counterfactual adherence to principles. (shrink)

Six people are in trouble. We can save five of them or just the sixth. What should we do? John Taurek (1977) defends a radical view: We are not required to save the greater number. Taurek's paper has persuaded some. But even the unpersuaded agree that Taurek poses a deep and important challenge: From where does the priority of the many derive? It seems difficult, or even impossible, to convince someone who denies the importance of the numbers... to care about (...) the numbers. That’s what this paper aims to do. It will argue that the priority of the many follows, with minimal other assumptions, from something all should accept: the modest premise that if we can improve one person's chance of survival—without affecting anyone else—we should. (shrink)

A well-known debate in normative ethics is that between proponents of Act Consequentialism and Rule Consequentialism. Given the structural similarities between Rule Consequentialism and existing forms of Contractualism, one might expect a similar debate to arise among contractualists. However, this is not the case. Some, following T. M. Scanlon, even argue that this question is “misconceived” – that there is something deeply mistaken about considering the possibility of an act-based form of contractualism. In this paper, I challenge this claim.

Kamm’s sore throat case gives us a choice: save one life or save a distinct life and cure a sore throat. We defend the fairness explanation of the judgement that one should flip a coin to decide whom to save: it is disrespectful to let a sore throat act as a tie-breaker, because an individual would be forced to forgo a 50% fair chance of living (given to them by a coin flip), which cannot be outweighed by any number of (...) sore throats. We show that this explanation of when and why claims can permissibly break ties generates new problem cases for theories of aggregation, including theories that have been thought to accommodate the judgement that one should flip a coin in Kamm’s sore throat case. We then generalize the fairness explanation to cases involving multiple groups. (shrink)

According to a prominent family of theories of blameworthiness, quality of will theories, a person is blameworthy for an action if and only if, and to the degree that, her will manifested in that action is bad. A puzzle for such theories is that (the degree of) blameworthiness appears to be affected by several factors beyond how bad the manifested will is. Among such factors are certain types of incompetence of the agent, the outcome of the action, the developmental history (...) of the agent (e.g., an unfortunate upbringing), and the time between action and blame. I defend a novel account of the nature of blame by appeal to its unique capacity to explain away these puzzling intuitions in a unified way. I argue that the account, in addition to being independently plausible, allows us to view those intuitions as products of a systematic yet understandable confusion between the issue of blameworthiness and some other separate issue. (shrink)

A notable feature of our moral and legal practices is the recognition of privileges, powers, and entitlements belonging to a select group of individuals in virtue of their status as victims of wrongful conduct. A philosophical literature on relational normativity purports to account for this status in terms of such notions as interests, rights, and attitudes of disregard. This paper argues that such individualistic notions cannot account for prevailing and intuitive ways of demarcating the class of victims. The focus of (...) the discussion is the wrongful infliction of harm, and the mediating role played by impersonal “danger-making properties” in the determination of the class of victims. Beginning with a treatment of one of the most well-known discussions of negligently-inflicted harm — from the most famous case of the American common law tradition, Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co. — the analysis is then extended to the morality of harm-doing more broadly, negligent and intentional alike. The paper’s chief targets are interest theories of rights — including contractualist theories of moral claim-rights of the kind defended by R. Jay Wallace — and neo-Strawsonian Quality of Will theories of “moral injury”. (shrink)

We have duties toward one another simply as persons. There are things we may not do to others (what Philippa Foot referred to as “negative duties”), and things we ought to do for them (what she called “positive duties”). It is commonly held that, all else being equal, negative duties are more stringent, morally speaking, than positive duties. For example, one may not in general save the lives of several individuals by killing another. What explains this? This study provides a (...) contractualist answer to this question. T. M. Scanlon developed his contractualist moral theory as an alternative to utilitarianism. Contractualism would meet this ambition on two conditions. The first is that its answers to the three foundational questions of moral philosophy—what is the subject matter of moral judgments? how can their practical significance be explained? what standards of reasoning ought we follow to identify morally wrong actions and to understand their wrongness?—are at least as convincing as those of utilitarianism. The second is that the conclusions of contractualist reasoning align with our most firmly held moral convictions. This condition would not be satisfied if it were impossible to account for the moral significance of the killing versus letting die distinction without violating the constraints of contractualist reasoning. I show that this is possible and conclude that contractualism’s normative implications are superior to those of utilitarianism. (shrink)

Moral aggregation, which is the combination of morally relevant features (like, for example, well-being) of different people, represented by a numerical value, is present in many contemporary moral theories. Aggregative theories define the morality of actions based on a comparison between the aggregate values of different states of affairs brought by the actions. In this paper, it’ll be argued that aggregation is undesirable for moral theories because it conflicts with important moral ideas like just distribution and the separateness of persons. (...) Not only utilitarianism, but also aggregative theories that care about distribution, such as teleological egalitarianism and prioritarianism have this problem. The suggestion, at the end, is that a moral theory basedon the notion of moral justification can deal with those problems by granting adequate importance to the separateness of persons; creating such a theory, though, involves eliminating or at least severely limiting the role moral aggregation plays in morality. The goals of the paper are arguing against moral aggregation and for a specific non-aggregative theory, moral contractualism. (shrink)

Traditionally, T. M. Scanlon’s moral contractualism has been understood in terms of principle contractualism. In an earlier volume of this journal, however, Aaron Salomon argued that contractualists should shift their theory’s evaluative focal point away from principles in order to respond to the ideal world objection. After rejecting act contractualism as an alternative way of doing so, he suggested that contractualists should instead adopt a view he refers to as maxim contractualism. While I agree with Salomon that his suggestion comes (...) with important advantages, I argue in this discussion note that maxim contractualism cannot fully solve the problem that Salomon has raised against act contractualism. As a result, I conclude that contractualists should not be too quick in leaving principle contractualism behind. (shrink)

In his early works, Derek Parfit famously defended revisionary reductionism about personhood. According to this view, facts about personal identity consist in the holding of more particular psychological facts, which can be described wholly impersonally. He also argued that, in some cases, the truth of this view makes questions about diachronic personal identity empty questions to which no meaningful answers can be given. Yet, in his later works, Parfit defends several ethical theories such as contractualism and rule-consequentialism, which seem to (...) rely on exactly the kind of determinate notion of personal identity to which he objected earlier. Parfit, furthermore, never explored reductionism’s consequences for such theories in his later works. In order to solve this interpretative puzzle, this chapter tries to argue that, even if they are seemingly conflicting, Parfit’s views on personal identity and rule-consequentialism, Scanlonian contractualism, and Kantian contractualism do form a coherent and unified whole. (shrink)

This paper examines the universalist ambitions of the major normative ethical frameworks in the Western philosophical tradition—virtue ethics, deontology, consequentialism, and contractualism. It argues that each framework depends upon conceptual resources that lack the semantic stability required to support principles of universal scope. Drawing on genealogical analysis, cross-cultural moral psychology, and work in the philosophy of language, the paper shows that central moral terms exhibit historical contingency, conceptual drift, and translation indeterminacy. These structural features undermine attempts to formulate context-independent moral (...) principles. The Language Insufficiency Hypothesis (developed elsewhere) is used to clarify how semantic instability arises and why it cannot be resolved through abstraction, idealisation, or procedural reform. The result is not relativism but a reframing: normative ethical theories function effectively as local heuristics within particular conceptual ecologies but cannot sustain the universalist aspirations traditionally attributed to them. (shrink)

Much attention has been paid to moral understanding as an individual achievement, when a single agent gains insight into distinctly moral matters. Crucially overlooked, I argue, is the phenomenon of shared moral understanding, when you and I understand moral matters together, in a way that can’t be reduced to each of us having moral understanding on our own. My argument pays close attention to two central moral practices: justifying our actions to others, and apologizing for wrongdoing. I argue that, whenever (...) I owe you a justification or an apology, I thereby owe it to you to aim at our coming to a shared moral understanding. My argument has two upshots. The first is a novel explanation of the importance of moral understanding in our lives, one that emphasizes the importance of understanding moral reasons together. The second is a better understanding of the very obligations involved in two of our most central interpersonal moral practices. (shrink)

This book features new approaches to social contract theory. Whereas traditional social contract theories and their adaptations in the twentieth century were developed for fairly homogeneous societies, societies in the twenty-first century often are characterized by conflicting first-order directives that stem from deep moral, political, religious, and cultural diversity. To address such diversity and the complexities of contemporary societies, new approaches (including formal approaches) to social contract theory have emerged that re-envision the social contract for a fragmented and sometimes polarized, (...) yet interdependent social world. New social contract theory explores how, in a world of continuous disagreement on questions of justice, in particular the ideals of liberty and equality, society can not only progress, but also flourish and become more robust and open in its social fabric. This book brings together, for the first time, defenders and discussants of new social contract theory. It includes contributions by eminent and emerging scholars in this field. The book clarifies the distinct features of new social contract theory and provides a valuable starting point for discussion of this novel movement in social contract theory. (shrink)

According to the difference principle, social and economic inequalities are justified only when they maximize the benefits of the least advantaged. John Rawls attempted to justify this principle using the thought experiment known as the veil of ignorance. The idea is that it would be rational for all people to agree to the principle if they did not know what position they would occupy in society. John Harsanyi objected to this argument on the grounds that the difference principle is rational (...) only for people with low-risk propensity. For those willing to risk their position, the utilitarian expected-utility maximization principle is no less rational. Thus, Rawls’s veil of ignorance discriminates against people based on their risk propensity. Many Rawlsians respond to this objection by arguing that there is no discrimination because people leave their risk propensity behind the veil of ignorance. This article defends Harsanyi’s objection against this response. People cannot leave their risk propensity behind a veil because they need it to choose principles of justice based on their impact on their own life prospects. However, the article offers a different response to Harsanyi’s objection. His objection fails because it ignores the fact that principles of justice must not only be rational but also reasonable. The expected-utility maximization principle is rational but not reasonable because it imposes risks on other people, which is not the case with the difference principle. However, to use this response to Harsanyi’s objection, Rawlsians must abandon the neutralist liberalism of later Rawls and elaborate the Kantian foundations of his early philosophical project. (shrink)

The higher education sector in Indonesia is currently confronting a concerning issue. Corruption and poor management plague various universities in this country, creating an unfavorable work environment for the academic community. The university management system, which should be an essential pillar in enlightening the nation, has instead become a source of problems troubling professors, staff, and students. This essay argues that urgent reform of the corrupt and ineffective university management system is necessary for the academic community's well-being.

Can we permissibly accelerate vaccine testing even if this increases risk to study participants? During the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers, policymakers, and bioethicists debated ways in which vaccine development could be expedited. One suggestion were human challenge trials which only started after safe and efficacious vaccine had already been developed. Was this hesitation justified? Can challenge trials play a role in future pandemics? I defend both a version of challenge trials—a low-dosage challenge trial—and a faster option for post-challenge trial safety testing. (...) My argument draws on a new framework for risks in biomedical research. The new framework, embedded in a broader approach to the ethics of risk, can justify seemingly risky research while remaining strongly protective of the rights and interests of research participants. My argument furthermore draws on considerations about the connection between the risks to study participants, the benefits to nonparticipants, and the number of participants involved. (shrink)

This is a chapter on contractualism for Ethical Theory in Global Perspective, edited by Michael Hemmingsen (SUNY Press). The chapter (i) outlines contractualism as an ethical theory, (ii) explains how it differs from classical utilitarianism, (iii) explores the differences between ex post and ex ante contractualism, and (iv) finally looks at two traditional objections to the view.

When policymakers craft rules for use by the general public, they must take into account the ways in which their rules are likely to be misapplied. Should contractualists and rule consequentialists do the same when they search for rules whose general acceptance would be non-rejectable or ideal? I argue that these theorists face a dilemma. If they ignore the possibility of misapplication, they end up with an unrealistic view that rejects rules designed to protect us from others’ mistakes. On the (...) other hand, if they take misapplication into account, they end up rejecting rules that appeal to what really matters morally in favor of easier-to-apply proxies for these rules. This leaves them unable to say why certain wrong acts are wrong, which in turn may lead them to mistaken verdicts about moral worth and wronging. I show how this misapplication dilemma applies to standard contractualist and rule consequentialist theories, but also suggest how it might generalize to other two-level theories, including those designed to avoid the ideal world objection. (shrink)

This article offers a solution to the numbers problem within an individualist moral framework. Its central aims are as follows: to rescue individualist moral theories, such as moral contractualism, from their long-standing problem with interpersonal aggregation; to demonstrate how, proceeding from an individualist mode of justification, we can nevertheless make the numbers count without directly counting the numbers; to provide an individualist rationale for accepting a partially aggregative criterion of adjudication for resolving interpersonal trade-offs; and finally, to develop an extensionally (...) adequate version of partial aggregation that finds application in more structurally complex cases. (shrink)

Particular persons have claims against being made worse off than they could have been. The literature, however, has focused primarily on only two-option cases; yet, these cases fail to capture all of the morally relevant factors, especially when a person’s existence is in question. This paper explores how to assess claims in multiple-option choice sets. We scrutinize the only extant proposal, offered by Michael Otsuka, which we call the Weakening View. In light of its problems, we develop an alternative: the (...) Combining View. The Weakening View holds that a person’s claim against a loss of well-being relative to one distribution is weakened by the availability of further alternatives relative to which the person gains well-being. By contrast, our view holds that a person has an overall claim for or against a certain distribution relative to the whole option set, where overall claims are second-order functions of the different pairwise claims. Finally, we defend the Combining View by exploring its implications for the impact of a person’s possible non-existence on their overall claims, and we develop a proposal for how the number of distributions relative to which a person gains or loses welfare influences the strength of their overall claims. (shrink)

The use of deception and dishonesty is widely accepted as a fact of life in policing. This paper thus defends a counterintuitive claim: Good faith is a normative foundation for the police as a political institution. Good faith is a core value of contracts, and policing is contractual in nature both broadly (as a matter of social contract theory) and narrowly (in regard to concrete encounters between law enforcement officers and the public). Given the centrality of good faith to policing, (...) dishonesty and deception on par with fraud are justified only as a narrowly circumscribed investigative tool that is constrained by institutional commitments to the fair distribution of security and the rule of law. The practical upshot is the preclusion of most dishonest and deceptive police tactics on par with fraud, leading to an institution that is less proactive and more reactive. (shrink)

This paper develops a new theory of the morality of promissory obligations. T. M. Scanlon notoriously argued that promising consists in assuring the promisee that we will do something. I disagree. I argue that it is true that promising consists in assuring the promisee, but what the promisor gives to the promisee is not an assurance that they will do something, but that the normative situation is in a certain way.

The Problem of Obligation is the problem of how to explain the features of moral obligations that distinguish them from other normative phenomena. Two recent accounts, the Second-Personal Account and the Relational Account, propose superficially similar solutions to this problem. Both regard obligations as based on the claims or legitimate demands that persons as such have on one another. However, unlike the Second-Personal Account, the Relational Account does not regard these claims as based in persons’ authority to address them. Advocates (...) of the Relational Account accuse the Second-Personal Account of falling prey to the Problem of Antecedence. According to this objection, the Second-Personal Account is committed to the implausible claim that we have an obligation to φ only if, and because, others demand that we φ. Since the Relational Account’s proposed solution to the Problem of Obligation does not face the Problem of Antecedence, its advocates argue that it is dialectically superior to the Second-Personal Account. In this paper, I defend the Second-Personal Account by arguing that, first, the Relational Account does not actually solve the Problem of Obligation and, second, the Second-Personal Account does not fall prey to the Problem of Antecedence. (shrink)

According to second‐personal approaches to moral obligation, the distinctive normative features of moral obligation can only be explained in terms of second‐personal relations, i.e. the distinctive way persons relate to each other as persons. But there are important disagreements between different groups of second‐personal approaches. Most notably, they disagree about the nature of second‐personal relations, which has consequences for the nature of the obligations that they purport to explain. This article aims to distinguish these groups from each other, highlight their (...) respective advantages and disadvantages, and thereby indicate avenues for future research. (shrink)

Argues for the role of personal acquaintance in both love and concern for individuals, as such. The challenge is to say what personal acquaintance is and why it matters in the way it does. These questions are addressed through the work of Emmanuel Levinas. Topics include: the ethics of aggregation, the basis of moral standing, and the value of human life.

In this paper, I argue that accounts of the normative basis of morality face the following puzzle, drawing on a case found in Susan Wolf’s influential discussion of conflicts between the moral and personal points of view. On the one hand, morality appears to constitute an independent point of view that can intelligibly conflict with, and can conceivably be overruled by, the verdicts of other points of view. On the other hand, moral demands appear to carry a distinctive sort of (...) authority; moral reasons normally seem to take priority over other kinds of considerations, and the verdicts of morality seem to possess a distinctive place in our deliberations, in that they appear to represent standards that we are open to legitimate complaint for failing to honor. After clarifying the nature of the problem, I argue that a contractualist theory of morality can resolve the puzzle by offering a compelling vindication of the independence of the moral perspective, the normal priority of moral reasons, and the deliberative significance of moral verdicts, within a unified theoretical framework. Furthermore, I claim that this contractualist analysis can help account for the sense of deep conflict that is characteristic of the sort of troubling moral choices that Wolf calls to our attention. (shrink)

Moral contractualism holds that addressing our minds to the morality of right and wrong involves identifying principles for the mutual regulation of behavior that could be the object of reasonable agreement among persons if they were appropriately motivated and fully informed. A common criticism of the theory is that the test of reasonable agreement it endorses is indeterminate. To be more specific, it is claimed that the notion of reasonableness is too vague or ill-defined to be of use in guiding (...) our decisions in situations where it is necessary to balance the complaints of different people against each other, so that we may derive an all things considered conclusion regarding what we ought, morally, to do. In this article, I propose a novel interpretation of the contractualist method of reasoning that overcomes the indeterminacy objection, building on a broadly Aristotelian conception of practical deliberation about ends. I demonstrate that this criticism is based on a misunderstanding of the nature of contractualist moral reasoning. The key is to recognize that deliberation about what others could not reasonably reject is not a matter of applying a fixed criterion of reasonableness in order to arbitrate conflicts between the interests of different individuals, as it is commonly assumed. Rather, it is a process in which the ideal of justifiability to others and people’s moral claims are specified together through holistic deliberation. The goal of this process is to construct a coherent conception of both our particular moral claims and the general aim of reasonable agreement that is reasonably acceptable to each person. On this view, contrary to what critics assert, the contractualist method of reasoning, properly understood, will almost always have a determinate answer. (shrink)

Part of T. M. Scanlon’s project in What We Owe to Each Other (1998) is to explain the importance and priority of moral reasons. But Scanlon also argues that this priority of moral reasons is compatible with the pursuit of other things we value, such as friendship. To this end, Scanlon claims that contractualist moral reasons internally accommodate our interests in such values. In this paper, I argue that Scanlon is unsuccessful in showing the compatibility of morality and the pursuit (...) of our other values. The contractualist may not be able to be a good friend. (shrink)

Brad Hooker’s rule-consequentialism and T.M. Scanlon’s contractualism have been some of the most debated ethical theories in normative ethics during the last twenty years or so. This article suggests that these theories can be compared at two levels. Firstly, what are the deep, structural differences between the rule-consequentialist and contractualist frameworks in which Hooker and Scanlon formulate their views? Secondly, what are the more superficial differences between Hooker’s and Scanlon’s formulations of these theories? Based on exploring these questions and several (...) purported differences between Hooker’s and Scanlon’s views, this article argues that, at the structural level, the two theories are more similar than previous recognised. It suggests that there is only one candidate for a deeper difference and even it may not be that significant. This insight sheds new light on both contractualism and rule-consequentialism, and it will also help us to formulate better versions of the views. (shrink)

In constructivist contractualist theories, such as Rawls’, principles of justice should mirror beliefs that we all, in some sense, share. One would then arrive at principles that everybody could, in that sense, accept. These principles should specify, among other things, to whom to distribute the relevant benefits and burdens and to whom to assign responsibility for the distribution. In addition to this classical assignment problem, however, constructivist contractualism must also deal with a new, and quite different, assignment problem sincewhat to (...) count as beliefs that weall share depends on how the set of people that make up the “we” is delimited. Thus, for constructivist contractualism, the questions of whom to assign a part in the justification procedure and whom to exclude, and how to justify these inclusions and exclusions, are of crucial importance. In this chapter we consider the inclusion or exclusion of future generations, and how this case illuminates a general problem for constructivist contractualism. (shrink)

Existing accounts of social insurance tend to treat social risks as given and ask whether it is justified for the state to deal with these risks for its citizens. They ignore that many common risks are in fact imposed on citizens as a byproduct of the institutional choices of the society, which call for justification in the first place. In this paper, I use the Scanlonian contractualist framework to develop an account of just social risk imposition which implies a demand (...) for fair risk sharing by all members of a society. In particular, I defend a compensation principle which requires that compensation be paid to victims of risk materialisation. This duty of paying should be shared by all those who benefit from the imposition of the relevant risk. I suggest that this provides a case for social insurance as a way of fairly sharing the burden of social risks. (shrink)

How should contractualists assess the permissibility of risky actions? Both main views on the question, ex ante and ex post, fail to distinguish between different kinds of risk. In this article, I argue that this overlooks a third alternative that I call “objective ex ante contractualism”. Objective ex ante substitutes discounting complaints by epistemic risk in favor of discounting by objective risk. I further argue in favor of this new view. Objective ex ante contractualism provides the best model of justifiability (...) to each. (shrink)

This chapter presents a new argument for thinking of traditional ethical theories as methods that can be used in first-order ethics - as a kind of deliberation procedures rather than as criteria of right and wrong. It begins from outlining how ethical theories, such as consequentialism and contractualism, are flexible frameworks in which different versions of these theories can be formulated to correspond to different first-order ethical views. The chapter then argues that, as a result, the traditional ethical theories cannot (...) be evaluated in terms of their truth or correctness. Instead, I will suggest that these theories should be understood as providing different kind of ways of thinking about difficult moral problems. I then recommend a certain form of pragmatic pluralism - it may well be that different moral problems are better approached through different ethical theories. (shrink)

This article is a defense of John Rawls against recent criticism, ironically my own, though it is also a critique insofar as it addresses a problem that Rawls never does. The original charges were that Rawls’s decision procedure for ethics does not justify his own moral principles, especially those making up his liberal conception of justice, and that the underlying problem may well keep the decision procedure from justifying any moral principles whatsoever, or at least any normatively useful ones. These (...) difficulties are manifested in the work of Rawls as the dogmatism of championing a distinctive conception of justice, a liberal one as he himself calls it, through a justification model that comes across as too objective to permit such a bias and too universal to support any substantive conclusions at all. The solution contemplated here is to position the decision procedure as a justification model responsive to moral progress, and thereby equally open to all moral input, thus removing the inconsistency between the inherent universalism of the design and the distinctive character of the outcome, including the moral principles Rawls himself recommends, so long as they are consistent with moral progress. (shrink)