In Minimal Morality, Michael Moehler justifies what he calls the weak principle of universalization as a principle of pure instrumental morality. This article addresses the application of this principle and problems associated with it. Specifically, the article focuses on the principle’s ability to protect the interests of the most vulnerable members of society: agents without primary moral standing, specifically non-human animals; and the weakest members of society, either as a result of their diminished relative bargaining power in certain cases of (...) conflict, or because of their present standing in society, made worse off by historical injustices. To this end, the article considers, respectively, the problems of moral standing, indivisible goods and historical injustice. (shrink)

Michael Moehler’s Minimal Morality: A Multilevel Social Contract Theory makes important contributions to the social contract tradition, particularly in exploring how social contract theories can address challenges that arise from deep moral pluralism. Fundamentally, the work provides a multilevel account of morality, though simplified for presentation as a two-level view of morality. These two levels of morality differ significantly in their form and in their contexts of applicability. One level is that of ‘traditional morality’, involving a rich set of practices, (...) motivations and shared values common to many mainstream moral theories. For instance, John Rawls provides a version of traditional morality in the form of principles of justice grounded in a shared conception of society as a system of cooperation between free and equal citizens motivated by a sense of justice. The second level is that of ‘minimal morality’, for which the book is named. Minimal morality is grounded in purely prudential and instrumental reasoning, and thus does not rely upon any special moral commitments or motivations. This latter level of morality, Moehler argues, is particularly important for societies possessing extremely deep moral pluralism rather than the moral consensus necessary for traditional moral. (shrink)