A difficult problem for contractualists is how to provide an interpretation of the contractual situation that is both subject to appropriately stringent constraints and yet also appropriately sensitive to certain features of us as we actually are. My suggestion is that we should embrace a model of contractualism that is structurally analogous to the “advice model” of the ideal observer theory famously proposed by Michael Smith (1994; 1995). An advice model of contractualism is appealing since it promises to (...) deliver a straightforward solution to the so-called “conditional fallacy.” But it faces some formidable challenges. On the face of it, it seems to be straightforwardly conceptually incoherent. And it seems to deliver a solution to the conditional fallacy at the cost of being vulnerable to what I shall call “the concessional fallacy.” I shall consider how, if at all, these challenges are to be met. I shall then conclude by considering what this might mean for the so-called “ideal/non-ideal theory” issue. (shrink)

This essay begins by describing T.M. Scanlon’s contractualism according to which an action is right when it is authorised by the moral principles no one could reasonably reject. This view has argued to have implausible consequences with regards to how different-sized groups, non-human animals, and cognitively limited human beings should be treated. It has also been accused of being theoretically redundant and unable to vindicate the so-called deontic distinctions. I then distinguish between the general contractualist framework and Scanlon’s version (...) of contractualism. I explain how the general framework enables us to formulate many other versions of contractualism some of which can already be found in the literature. Understanding contractualism in this new way enables us both to understand the structural similarities and differences between different versions of contractualism and also to see the different objections to contractualism as internal debates about which version of contractualism is correct. (shrink)

Most contractualist ethical theories have a subjunctivist structure. This means that they attempt to make sense of right and wrong in terms of a set of principles which would be accepted in some idealized, non-actual circumstances. This makes these views vulnerable to the so-called conditional fallacy objection. The moral principles that are appropriate for the idealized circumstances fail to give a correct account of what is right and wrong in the ordinary situations. This chapter uses two versions of contractualism (...) to illustrate this problem: Nicholas Southwood’s and a standard contractualist theory inspired by T.M. Scanlon’s contractualism. It then develops a version of Scanlon’s view that can avoid the problem. This solution is based on the idea that we also need to compare different inculcation elements of moral codes in the contractualist framework. This idea also provides a new solution to the problem of at what level of social acceptance should principles be compared. (shrink)

It is a truism that there are erroneous convictions in criminal trials. Recent legal findings show that 3.3% to 5%of all convictions in capital rape-murder cases in the U.S. in the 1980s were erroneous convictions. Given this fact, what normative conclusions can be drawn? First, the article argues that a moderately revised version of Scanlon’ s contractualism offers an attractive moral vision that is different from utilitarianism or other consequentialist theories, or from purely deontological theories. It then brings this (...) version of Scanlonian contractualism to bear on the question of whether the death penalty, life imprisonment, long sentences, or shorter sentences can be justified, given that there is a non-negligible rate of erroneous conviction. Contractualism holds that a permissible act must be justifiable to everyone affected by it. Yet, given the non-negligible rate of erroneous conviction, it is unjustifiable to mete out the death penalty, because such a punishment is not justifiable to innocent murder convicts. It is further argued that life imprisonment will probably not be justified (unless lowering the sentence to a long sentence will drastically increase the murder rate). However, whether this line of argument could be further extended would depend on the impact of lowering sentences on communal security. (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.

T. M. Scanlon’s contractualism attempts to give an account of right and wrong in terms of the moral code that could not be reasonably rejected. Reasonable rejectability is then a function of what kind of consequences the general adoption of different moral codes has for different individuals. It has been shown that moral codes should be compared at a lower than 100% level of social acceptance. This leads to the counter-culture challenge. The problem is that the cultural background of (...) the individuals who have not internalized the majority code affects the consequences of the codes and furthermore there does not seem to be a non-arbitrary way of choosing the minority cultures. This chapter first surveys and critically evaluates different responses to this challenge. It then outlines a version of ‘Real World Contractualism’, which offers the best response to the counter-culture challenge. (shrink)

How should contractualists seek to accommodate and respond to the existence of radical pluralism within contemporary liberal states? Ryan Muldoon has recently argued that a) the dominant Kantian liberal model of contractualism is hopelessly ill equipped to do so but that b) there is a particular kind of Hobbesian contractualism that can do much better. I raise some problems concerning the capacity of Muldoonian contractualism to respond appropriately to the problem of radical pluralism. I then propose a (...) very different kind of solution that involves embracing an advice model of contractualism. Keywords: contractualism; contractarianism; pluralism; diversity; disagreement . (shrink)

Climate change is ‘a complex problem raising issues across and between a large number of disciplines, including physical and life sciences, political science, economics, and psychology, to name just a few’ (Gardiner 2006: 397). It is also a moral problem. Therefore, in this chapter, I will consider what kind of a contribution an ethical theory called ‘contractualism’ can make to the climate change debates. This chapter first introduces contractualism. It then describes a simple climate change scenario. The third (...) section explains what kind of moral obligations we would have in that situation according to contractualism. Finally, the last section discusses some of the advantages and problems of the sketched view. These discussions should help us to better understand contractualism and illustrate how contractualism could perhaps enable us to come to grips with some of the more difficult moral aspects of climate change. (shrink)

T. M. Scanlon’s contractualism is a meta-ethical theory that explains moral motivation and also provides a conception of how to carry out moral deliberation. It supports non-consequentialism – the theory that both consequences and deontological considerations are morally significant in moral deliberation. Regarding the issue of punishment, non-consequentialism allows us to take account of the need for deterrence as well as principles of fairness, justice, and even desert. Moreover, Scanlonian contractualism accounts for permissibility in terms of justifiability: An (...) act is permissible if and only if it can be justified to everyone affected by it. This contractualist thesis explains why it is always impermissible to frame an innocent person, why vicarious punishment is impermissible, and why there has to be a cap on sentences. Contractualism therefore allows us to take deterrence as a goal of punishment without the excess of utilitarianism. This paper further argue that the resulting view is superior to pure retributivism. Finally, it shows why legal excuses and mitigation can be justified in terms of the notion of negative desert. (For access to this paper: http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/sJ2JBVXkztyFMGmxS7tS/full ) . (shrink)

A number of theorists have argued that Scanlon's contractualist theory both "gets around" and "solves" the non-identity problem. They argue that it gets around the problem because hypothetical deliberation on general moral principles excludes the considerations that lead to the problem. They argue that it solves the problem because violating a contractualist moral principle in one's treatment of another wrongs that particular other, grounding a person-affecting moral claim. In this paper, I agree with the first claim but note that all (...) it shows is that the act is impersonally wrong. I then dispute the second claim. On Scanlon's contractualist view, one wrongs a particular other if one treats the other in a way that is unjustifiable to that other on reasons she could not reasonably reject. We should think of person-affecting wronging in terms of the reasons had by the actual agent and the actual person affected by the agent's action. In non-identity cases, interpersonal justifiability is therefore shaped both by the reason to reject the treatment provided by the bad suffered and the reason to affirm the treatment provided by the goods had as a result of existing. I argue it would be reasonable for the actual person to find the treatment justifiable, and so I conclude that Scanlon's contractualist metaethics does not provide a narrow person-affecting solution to the non-identity problem on its own terms. I conclude that the two claims represent a tension within Scanlon's contractualist theory itself. (shrink)

This paper is a defence of T.M. Scanlon's contractualism - the view that an action is wrong if it is forbidden by the principles which no one could reasonably reject. Such theories have been argued to be redundant in two ways. They are claimed to assume antecedent moral facts to explain which principles could not be reasonably rejected, and the reasons they provide to follow the non-rejectable principles are said to be unnecessary given that we already have sufficient reasons (...) not to do the acts that are forbidden by those principles. In this paper, I try to argue that neither one of these claims is true. (shrink)

Kates argues that ex ante contractualism fails to defend interference with sweatshops on moral grounds. In this commentary, I argue that Kates does not apply this approach correctly. Ex ante contractualism, indeed, successfully defends interference and thus should still be considered an appealing alternative to other moral approaches for evaluating when and how to interfere in sweatshop conditions to help workers.

Metaethics is often dominated by both realist views according to which moral claims are made true by either non-natural or natural properties and by non-cognitivist views according to which these claims express desire-like attitudes. It is sometimes suggested that constructivism is a fourth alternative, but it has remained opaque just how it differs from the other views. To solve this problem, this article first describes a clear constructivist theory based on Crispin Wright’s anti-realism. It then outlines an argumentative strategy that (...) can be used to argue against constructivist views about practical reasons. The rest of the article explains how the outlined constructivist metaethical framework, reasons, and contractualism in normative ethics can still be used to create a new viable metaethical constructivist position about right and wrong. (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. (shrink)

I will begin this paper by identifying the problem within the theory of ethics, which contractualism as a moral theory is attempting to address. It is not that of solving the problem of moral motivation like the ‘arch-contractualist’, Thomas Scanlon, often claims, but rather that of describing a class of fundamental moral reasons – contractualist reasons for short. In the second section, I will defend the contractualist idea of how the nature of these moral reasons provides us with sufficient, (...) independent tools to construct the content of public moral principles. The rest of my paper is defensive. It addresses the main challenges set to the contractualist account of moral reasons. In the third section, I will discuss a frequent objection according to which the contractualist reasons are a redundant addition to the space of moral reasons. In the fourth section, I will examine the worry that acting from these reasons would not lead to morally admirable action but rather to vice. In the last section, I will investigate the criticism according to which the normative force of the contractualist reasons is insufficient for rationalising our moral actions in certain difficult circumstances. In this section, we get to the heart of the matter – what the reasons contractualism describes truly are, and how they can explain the generally overriding strength of our moral requirements. I hope to conclude that even after these serious challenges contractualism remains a philosophically viable account of morality's rationalistic appeal. (shrink)

This article explores Darwall’s second-­‐personal account of morality, which draws on Fichte’s practical philosophy, particularly Fichte’s notions of a summons and principle of right. Darwall maintains that Fichte offers a philosophically more appealing account of relations of right than Kant. Likewise, he thinks that his second-­‐personal interpretation of morality gives rise to contractualism. I reject Darwall’s criticism of Kant’s conception of right. Moreover, I try to show that Darwall’s second-­‐personal conception of morality relies on a Kantian form of (...) class='Hi'>contractualism. Instead of accepting Darwall’s claim that contractualism depends upon a second-­‐personal account of morality, I will argue that contractualism provides the foundations not only for second-­‐personal moral relations, but also for first-­‐personal moral authority. (shrink)

Contractualism is a normative theory which characterizes principles of right in terms of the idea of mutual respect. In this theory, mutual respect is regarded as having deliberative priority over other values. This essay aims to examine how contractualists can provide a satisfactory justification for prioritizing mutual respect. I will argue that the ‘value of mutual respect argument,’ which is a justification commonly adopted by contractualists, is inadequate because an unconditional priority of mutual respect cannot be grounded on the (...) desirability of a relationship of mutual respect. Then I will suggest that a ‘consistency argument’ can provide a better justification of why the idea of mutual respect should have priority. Mutual respect is of special importance, not because it is highly desirable, but rather because it is required by an a priori guiding principle of consistency. Individuals become inconsistent if they ask others to respect them as reason-assessing individuals, while at the same time refusing to respect others in the same way. (shrink)

Derek Parfit’s On What Matters endorses Kantian Contractualism, the normative theory that everyone ought to follow the rules that everyone could rationally will that everyone accept. This paper explores Parfit’s argument that Kantian Contractualism converges with Rule Consequentialism. A pivotal concept in Parfit’s argument is the concept of impartiality, which he seems to equate agent-neutrality. This paper argues that equating impartiality and agent-neutrality is insufficient, since some agent-neutral considerations are silly and some are not impartial. Perhaps more importantly, (...) there is little realistic prospect of Kantian Contractualism converging with Rule Consequentialism unless the same impartial reasons drive rule selection in the two theories. (shrink)

Many welfarists wish to assign to each possible state of the world a numerical value that measures something like its moral goodness. How are we to determine this quantity? This paper proposes a contractualist approach: a legitimate measure of moral goodness is one that could be justified to each member of the population in question. How do we justify a measure of moral goodness to each individual? Each individual recognises the measure of moral goodness must be a compromise between the (...) different levels of well-being within the population. Some compromises are more reasonable than others; and some are better justifiable to a given member of the population than others. Each member recognises that the social chooser's measure of moral goodness is going to have to deviate from the well-being function of at least some of the members of the population. But we can nonetheless justify it to each of them if it doesn't deviate more than is necessary, and if the deviations from each member are given equal weighting in whatever process we use to determine it. This paper proposes that we begin with a measure of the distance from a proposed compromise to an individual's level of well-being, and then say that the moral goodness is the candidate compromise that minimizes the sum of distances from it to the individuals' levels of well-being. I describe a range of such measures of distance and show that some give utilitarianism, others different versions of prioritarianism. (shrink)

According to contractualist theories in ethics, whether an action is wrong is determined by whether it could be justified to others on grounds no one could reasonably reject. Contractualists then think that reasonable rejectability of principles depends on the strength of the personal objections individuals can make to them. There is, however, a deep disagreement between contractualists concerning from which temporal perspective the relevant objections to different principles are to be made. Are they to be made on the basis of (...) the prospects the principles give to different individuals ex ante or on the basis of the outcomes of the principles ex post? Both answers have been found to be problematic. The ex ante views make irrelevant information about personal identity morally significant and lead to objectionable ex ante rules, whereas ex post views lead to counterintuitive results in the so-called different harm and social risk imposition cases. The aim of this article is to provide a new synthesis of these views that can avoid the problems of the previous alternatives. I call the proposal ‘risk-acknowledging’ ex post contractualism. The crux of the view is to take into account in the comparisons of different objections both the realized harms and the risks under which individuals have to live. (shrink)

In 1982, when T. M. Scanlon published “Contractualism and Utilitarianism,” he noted that, despite the widespread attention to Rawls’ A Theory of Justice, the appeal of contractualism as a moral theory had been under appreciated. In particular, the appeal of contractualism’s account of what he then called “moral motivation” had been under appreciated.1 It seems to me that, in the intervening quarter century, despite the widespread discussion of Scanlon’s work, the appeal of contractualism, in precisely this (...) regard, has still been under appreciated—even though Scanlon makes what he once called “moral motivation” central, throughout his work. My first aim, then, is to do my best to draw out and make vivid this appeal. I will do this by first considering the two questions that Scanlon thinks must be addressed by any moral theory, what he once called “the question of subject matter” and “the question of motivation.” I will spend some time first locating and explicating the second question, of motivation, and then displaying Scanlon’s answer to it—it is this answer which provides contractualism with its under-appreciated appeal. I will then return to the question of subject matter—which will, by that point, have been revealed as not wholly distinct from the question of motivation, as Scanlon understands it. But it is as an answer to this question that Scanlon’s theory is most often.. (shrink)

The most prominent theories of rights, the Will Theory and the Interest Theory, notoriously fail to accommodate all and only rights-attributions that make sense to ordinary speakers. The Kind-Desire Theory, Leif Wenar’s recent contribution to the field, appears to fare better in this respect than any of its predecessors. The theory states that we attribute a right to an individual if she has a kind-based desire that a certain enforceable duty be fulfilled. A kind-based desire is a reason to want (...) something which one has simply in virtue of being a member of a certain kind. Rowan Cruft objects that this theory creates a puzzle about the relation between rights and respect. In particular, if rights are not grounded in aspects of the particular individuals whose rights they are, how can we sustain the intuitive notion that to violate a right is to disrespect the right-holder? I present a contractualist account of respect which reconciles the Kind-Desire Theory with the intuition that rights-violations are disrespectful. On this account, respect for a person is a matter of acknowledging her legitimate authority to make demands on the will and conduct of others. And I argue that kind-based desires authorize a person to make demands even if they do not correspond to that person’s well-being or other non-relational features. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer an immanent critique of John Rawls’s theory of justice which seeks to show that Rawls’s understanding of his theory of justice as criteriological and contractarian is ultimately incompatible with his claim that the theory is grounded on the primacy of the practical. I agree with Michael Sandel’s observation that the Rawlsian theory of justice rests on substantive metaphysical and epistemological claims, in spite of Rawls’s assurances to the contrary. But while Sandel argues for even more (...) substantive metaphysical and epistemological commitments, I argue in the opposite direction. Following J. G. Fichte, I argue for a normative theory of society, not based on some particular notion of the good or on some contentious account of what all reasonable persons would agree to, but based only on the radical primacy of the practical, that is, based only on the seemingly empty premise that free beings - precisely because they are free - cannot be imagined in advance as all agreeing to any particular thing at all. (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)

Ce bref commentaire a trois objectifs. La première section vise à présenter au lecteur la philosophie matérialiste et atomiste de Hobbes. Dans la seconde section, nous exposons le rôle des désirs dans l’escalade du conflit entre les agents dans l’état de nature. Au terme de cette analyse, le lecteur disposera de quelques clés interprétatives pour aborder les chapitres VI et XIII du Léviathan.

In this essay, I argue that contractualism, even when it is actually used to construe our moral duties towards non-human animals, does not do so naturally. We can infer from our experiences with companion animals that we owe moral duties to them because of special relationships we are in with them. We can further abstract that we owe general moral duties to non-human animals because they are the kinds of beings that we can have relationships with, and because of (...) the capacities that make possible this relational capacity. This type of approach better explains our duties to non-human animals and other non-rational beings than does the trustee account that Scanlon leaves room for in his contractualism. (shrink)

Nāgārjuna’s “middle path” charts a course between two extremes: Nihilism, and Absolutism, not unlike earlier Buddhism. However, as early Buddhists countinanced constituents of reality as characterizable by essences while macroscopic objects lack such essences, Nāgārjuna argues that all things lack what he calls svabhāva – “own being” – the Sanskrit term for essence. Since everything lacks an essence, it is Empty (śūnya). To lack an essence is to lack autonomy. The corollary of this is that all things are interrelated. The (...) Mahāyāna (Great Vehicle) school of Buddhist thought draws heavily on this insight: if all things are related, individualism has to give way to inclusivity. According to Nāgārjuna, the key to understanding his Middle path philosophy is dharma: ethics. It is only by a prior commitment to ethics that we can properly understand the Buddha's philosophy as teaching no doctrine of reality, for it is not a teaching of metaphysics, but of ethics, which is to say, Dharma. At the center of Dharma is a kind of Contractualism of the Buddhist community (saṅga). A failure to approach emptiness via ethics is like trying to hold a snake dangerously. However, approaching the emptiness of reality via ethics is grounds for optimism: nothing is stuck by essence, and we have reason to believe in positive change made possible by prudent ethical choice. In this module I consider some objections to Nāgārjuna's position from Vedic positions, and Yoga, and identify responses available to Nāgārjuna. (shrink)

This article explores whether and under which circumstances it is ethically viable to include artificial beings worthy of moral consideration in virtual environments. In particular, the article focuses on virtual environments such as those in digital games and training simulations – interactive and persistent digital artifacts designed to fulfill specific purposes, such as entertainment, education, training, or persuasion. The article introduces the criteria for moral consideration that serve as a framework for this analysis. Adopting this framework, the article tackles the (...) question of whether including artificial intelligences that are entitled to moral consideration in virtual environments constitutes an immoral action on the part of human creators. To address this problem, the article draws on three conceptual lenses from the philosophical branch of ethics: the problem of parenthood and procreation, the question concerning the moral status of animals, and the classical problem of evil. Using a thought experiment, the concluding section proposes a contractualist answer to the question posed in this article. The same section also emphasizes the potential need to reframe our understanding of the design of virtual environments and their future stakeholders. (shrink)

The Complaint Model is an interpretation of Scanlon’s contractualism which holds that (1) an individual can reasonably reject a distribution of well-being when her complaint against that distribution is larger than any other person’s complaint against any other distribution. The Complaint Model further holds that (2) the size of an individual’s complaint against a distribution is a function of (2a) her absolute level of well-being under that distribution, with the size of her complaint increasing as her absolute level of (...) well-being decreases, and (2b) the size of her loss in well-being under that distribution relative to the level of well-being she could have enjoyed under the distribution most favourable to her, with the size of her complaint increasing as her loss increases. In this paper, I argue that the Complaint Model should be rejected, because the way in which it takes individuals’ losses into account leads to strongly counterintuitive results. In particular, I show that the Complaint Model may sacrifice the well-being associated with the least-well-off, secondleast-well-off, etc. positions for the sake of minimizing the largest complaint. I also argue that revisions to element (1) to allow for the aggregation of complaints must either leave the Complaint Model vulnerable to this objection or lead it to collapse into prioritarianism. The failure of the Complaint Model may lead us to search for an alternative way of taking losses into account. I conclude by arguing that the attractiveness of the Anonymous Pareto principle poses a challenge to any such alternative. (shrink)

The second essay of Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality (GM) offers a naturalistic and developmental account of the emergence of conscience, a faculty uniquely responsive to remembering and honoring obligations. This article attempts to solve an interpretive puzzle that is invited by the second essay's explanation of nonmoral obligation, prior to the capacity to feel guilt. Ostensibly, Nietzsche argues that the conscience and our concept of obligation originated within contractual (“creditor-debtor”) relations, when creditors punished delinquent debtors (GM II:5). However, this interpretation, (...) which I call the contractualist reading, is incoherent and subject to an insoluble bootstrapping problem. I argue instead that Nietzsche provides two accounts of nonmoral obligation in the second essay, and that the conscience originated in the morality of custom to track rule prohibitions (“I will nots” [GM II:3]), which Nietzsche conceives of as involuntary or reciprocal obligations that, unlike contractual debts, do not require the making of promises. (shrink)

This article asks whether our moral duties are created by others’ non-compliance and whether we should fulfill them or not. For example, do we need to donate more of our income to eradicate world poverty because billionaires do not donate? If so, how much should we donate? In short, should we make up for others’ defaulting on their moral duties – and if so, how and to what extent? Such situations are called non-ideal circumstances in political philosophy. With the increasing (...) importance of non-ideal theories of justice and ethics, the question of how we should act in non-ideal situations has received more attention in the ethics literature in recent years. This article poses and addresses the question of whether we should take up the slack when others do not comply with their own moral duty. This article examines how consequentialism and contractualism might respond to non-ideal situations of taking up the slack and then defends a contractualist-constructivist approach to dealing with these situations. (shrink)

A number of philosophers have argued that if you care about how much goodness your actions generate, or how good the state-of-affairs you actions bring about are, then your attention should be directed towards the very far future. But many don’t care about how much goodness their actions generate, nor do they care about things like “states-of-affairs”. Amongst a multitude of things, many people care about how their actions impact individuals. And they also care about the sorts of justifications they (...) are able to offer for those actions. One moral theory which captures this moral viewpoint is contractualism. In this chapter, I argue that contractualism is, in large part, incompatible with longtermism – the view that, in many contexts, we ought to do that which will most improve the prospects of future people. I then discuss what advice, if any at all, contractualism can offer to the longtermist. (shrink)

Virtue ethics is often understood as a rival to existing consequentialist, deontological, and contractualist views. But some have disputed the position that virtue ethics is a genuine normative ethical rival. This chapter aims to crystallize the nature of this dispute by providing criteria that determine the degree to which a normative ethical theory is complete, and then investigating virtue ethics through the lens of these criteria. In doing so, it’s argued that no existing account of virtue ethics is a complete (...) normative ethical view that rivals existing consequentialist, deontological, and contractualist views. Moreover, it is argued that one of the most significant challenges facing virtue ethics consists in offering an account of the right-making features of actions, while remaining a distinctively virtue ethical view. (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)

The rule of rescue holds that special weight should be given to protecting the lives of assignable individuals in need, implying that less weight is given to considerations of cost-effectiveness. This is sometimes invoked as an argument for funding or reimbursing life-saving treatment in public healthcare even if the costs of such treatment are extreme. At first sight one might assume that an individualist approach to ethics—such as Scanlon’s contractualism—would offer a promising route to justification of the rule of (...) rescue. In this chapter I argue that contractualism cannot endorse the rule of rescue, whereas a collectivist approach that appeals to group solidarity would offer support for rescue cases. The argument, however, has its limitations, and though solidarity is of central concern in shaping public healthcare, there are good reasons for not endorsing the rule of rescue as a moral basis for allocating scarce resources in clinical care. (shrink)

This article reviews and criticizes Joseph Heath’s market failures approach (MFA) to business ethics. Our criticism is organized into three sections. First, we argue that, even under the ideal assumptions of perfect competition, when markets generate Pareto-efficient distributions, Heath’s approach does not rule out significant harms. Second, we show that, under nonideal conditions, the MFA is either too demanding, if efficiency is to be attained, or not sufficiently demanding, if the goal of Pareto efficiency is abandoned. Finally, we argue that (...) Heath’s appeal to regulations and specific moral requirements as a remedy for market failures is unlikely to safeguard efficiency and exposes a number of general worries regarding the moral force of the MFA. We end this article with a constructive suggestion on how to adjust the MFA to avoid these problems while preserving its contractualist and Paretian spirit. (shrink)

Protagoras’ Grand Speech is traditionally considered to articulate a contractualist approach to political existence and morality. There is, however, a newly emerging line of interpretation among scholars, which explores a naturalist layer in Protagoras’ ethical and political thought. This article aims to make a contribution to this new way of reading Protagoras’ speech, by discussing one of its most elaborate versions.

The aim of this text is to elucidate the concept of citizenship of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. This conception of citizenship can be denominated like Republican. For this, the concept of citizenship in Rousseau is addressed in three fundamental principles: freedom, equality and fraternity. Some traditional political conceptions of contractualism as Hobbes and Locke are considered, especially in relation to their conceptions of citizen. Following this, those fundamental aspects of the anthropology conceived by Rousseau are realized. Those allow to reach at (...) the construction of his idea of republic. In addition, the three fundamental principles, that characterize citizenship in the republican sense, are developed. And so the conclusion is the formulation of a truly democratic state from the perspective of Rousseau, inspired by the republican state of the ancients and where the people is properly the legislator of this. (shrink)

This article is an attempt to defend Scanlon's contractualism against the so-called aggregation problems. Scanlon's contractualism attempts to make sense of right and wrong in terms of principles which no one could reasonably reject. These principles are a function of what kind personal objections persons can make to alternative sets of moral principles. Because of this, it has been argued that contractualism is unable to account for how groups of different sizes are to be treated. In this (...) article, I argue that contactualism, even if with its focus on personal burdens, can come to plausible conclusions in the group cases. (shrink)

This is an introduction to an edited volume of critical reactions to Derek Parfit's book On What Matters. It outlines Parfit's key ideas on reasons and rationality, his revisionary interpretations of Kantian ethics, his versions of Kantian Contractualism and Rule Consequentialism, and his master argument that attempts to show how the best versions of these ethical theories converge. The introduction also intoruces the essays of the volume.

Questioning the ethical reasoning behind ways of attributing value to lives impacts philosophical dilemmas encountered in policy making and innovation in AI. For instance, this sort of reasoning requires us to determine how self-driving cars should behave when encountering real-life dilemmas such as inevitably crashing into one person as opposed to a group of people. -/- This issue will be examined with the Rocks Case, a case of conflict of interest where all the relevant parties are strangers, and we can (...) either save one person or a group of five. The two courses of action which will be discussed in this paper are: 1) “Ought to Save the Many” (OSM) and 2) “Permitted to Save the Few” (PSF). -/- The position of PSF using a weighted lottery will be argued for, rather than acting according to utilitarian or contractualist OSM reasoning, on the grounds that it would give all persons involved a fair opportunity of survival. This is judged to be a more important criterion than merely maximising the number of people to rescue. (shrink)

I develop a contractualist theory of just intelligence collection based on the collective moral responsibility to deliver security to a community and use the theory to justify certain kinds of signals interception. I also consider the rights of various intelligence targets like intelligence officers, service personnel, government employees, militants, and family members of all of these groups in order to consider how targets' waivers or forfeitures might create the moral space for just surveillance. Even people who are not doing anything (...) prejudicial to other states' security can be modeled as ceding rights against diagnostic collection--light touch collection limited to ascertaining if someone is likely an intelligence threat--as part of their duty to support just foreign institutions. Foreign intelligence officers could not perform the same job potential targets can reasonably demand their intelligence agencies perform on their behalf without this ceding of rights. More invasive forms of collection can only be justified if officers can reasonably model their citizens consenting to being the target of the same sort of collection by adversary states. (shrink)

Many philosophers have criticized John Rawls’s Law of Peoples. However, often these criticisms take it for granted that the moral conclusions drawn in A Theory of Justice are superior to those in the former book. In my view, however, Rawls comes to many of his 'conclusions' without too many actual inferences. More precisely, my argument here is that if one takes Rawls’s premises and the assumptions made about the original position(s) seriously and does in fact think them through to their (...) logical conclusions, both 'A Theory of Justice' and 'The Law of Peoples' have abysmally counterintuitive and immoral implications. To wit, if the members in the original position think, as Rawls suggests,that their society is closed and they will have no interaction with outsiders, and if, furthermore, they are self-interested and concerned with the basic structure of their own society, than there is absolutely no reason for them to use the terms “persons” or “least advantaged” in the formulation of the two principles. Rather, they will use the terms “citizens of our society” and “least advantaged of our society” instead. But thus revised, the principles of justice imply that the genocide or the enslavement of outsiders is unobjectionable. I will consider attempts to block this conclusion and demonstrate that they all fail. The Law of Peoples, moreover, faces similar problems. (shrink)

Rawls’s contractualist approach to justice is well known for its adoption of ideal theory. This approach starts by setting out the political goal or ideal and leaves it to non-ideal or partial compliance theory to map out how to get there. However, Rawls’s use of ideal theory has been criticized by Sen from the right and by Mouffe from the left. We critically address these concerns in the context of developing a Rawlsian approach to climate justice. While the importance of (...) non-ideal theory for climate justice is increasingly being understood, its strategic and institutional importance for a Rawlsian approach needs further elaboration. We focus on the role of the Kantian conception of the reasonable and rational powers of persons in Rawls’s work and show how this helps us to develop a partial compliance theory that focuses on the importance of institutions and strategic political action for achieving climate justice. (shrink)

-/- Caring for loved ones with dementia can sometimes necessitate a loose relationship with the truth. Some might view such deception as categorically immoral, and a violation of our general truth-telling obligations. I argue that this view is mistaken. This is because truth-telling obligations may be limited by the particular relationships in which they feature. Specifically, within caregiving relationships, we are often permitted (and sometimes obligated) to deceive the people with whom we share them. Our standing to deceive follows from (...) certain features of caregiving relationships. Specifically, they are relationships that involve obligations to promote a person's interests and values (and not simply their autonomy), that often permit us to assume the hypothetical consent of the person with whom we share them, and in which we are often entitled to act out of self-interest. Once we appreciate these features, we will be able to recognize that the truth-telling norms governing our relationships with loved ones with dementia do not represent a radical departure from our general truth-telling obligations, but are instead consistent with truth-telling norms that feature in other caregiving relationships. In addition, we will be able to understand why we may feel conflicted about lying to loved ones with dementia, even when lying is permissible. (shrink)

The paper argues that Information Ethics (IE) can provide a successful approach for coping with the challenges posed by our increasingly globalized reality. After a brief review of some of the most fundamental transformations brought about by the phenomenon of globalization, the article distinguishes between two ways of understanding Global Information Ethics, as an ethics of global communication or as a global-information ethics. It is then argued that cross-cultural, successful interactions among micro and macro agents call for a high level (...) of successful communication, that the latter requires a shared ontology friendly towards the implementation of moral actions, and that this is provided by IE. There follows a brief account of IE and of the ontic trust, the hypothetical pact between all agents and patients presupposed by IE. (shrink)

This paper defends views like rule consequentialism by distinguishing between two sorts of ideal world objections. It aims to show that one of those sorts of objections is question-begging. Its success would open up a path forward for such views.

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)