In this book, T. M. Scanlon offers new answers to these questions, as they apply to the central part of morality that concerns what we owe to each other.

This classic and controversial book examines the roots of the idea of virtue, diagnoses the reasons for its absence in modern life, and proposes a path for its recovery.

An adaptive preference is a preference that is regimented in response to an agent’s set of feasible options. The fabled fox in the sour grapes story undergoes an adaptive preference change. I consider adaptive preferences more broadly, to include adaptive preference formation as well. I argue that many adaptive preferences that other philosophers have cast out as irrational sour-grapes-like preferences are actually fully rational preferences worthy of pursuit. I offer a means of distinguishing rational and worthy adaptive preferences from irrational (...) and unworthy ones. The distinction is based on the agent’s own appraisal of the adaptive preference. (shrink)

The article responds to an overlooked objection put by Allen Buchanan to John Rawls’s theory of justice: that implementing the Difference Principle over time may require gross and frequent disruptions of people’s framing and execution of long-term plans. Having strengthened Buchanan’s objection to resolve significant weaknesses in his main counterexample, I argue that the best response to this objection draws on the concept of the rule of law, specifically, the legal doctrine of legitimate expectations, which can be found in English, (...) French, and European Union administrative law. I also explore the suitability of incorporating this doctrine into Justice as Fairness given its absence in United States constitutional and administrative law. Finally, I turn to consider the question of what the government owes to agents in whom legitimate expectations are induced and then frustrated. Here I introduce the Precept of Administrative Liability. (shrink)

I argue there is a distinct and integrated property-concept applying directly, not to things, but to actions. This concept of Property in Activities describes a determinate ethico-political relation to a particular activity – a relation that may (but equally may not) subsequently effect a wide variety of relations to some thing. The relation with the activity is fixed and primary, and any ensuing relations with things are variable and derivative. Property in Activities illuminates many of the vexing problem cases arising (...) in property theory. Communal, intangible, fugacious, hunting, fishing, customary and recreation property rights are not ersatz instances of owning things – they are paradigms of Property Protected Activities. The same is true of the functioning of property in various aspects of contemporary law, its application in philosophical arguments such as Locke’s, and much of its historical application prior to the Nineteenth Century. By illustrating how one stable concept can resolve this myriad of otherwise puzzling cases, I argue that Property in Activities is as important and influential a concept as Ownership of Things. (shrink)

Viewed in its entirety, moral philosophizing, and the moral behavior of people throughout history, presents a curious puzzle. On the one hand, interpersonal duties display a remarkably stable core content: morality the world over enjoins people to keep their word; refrain from violence, theft and cheating; and help those in need. On the other hand, the asserted motives that drive people’s moral actions evince a dazzling diversity: from empathy or sympathy, to practical or prudential reason, to custom and honor, cultural (...) identity, excellence and independence, faith and spirituality, narrative and beauty, and more besides. I term this twin phenomenon—a core of fixed moral duties driven by diverse motives—“moral motive pluralism.” In this article, I marshal evidence to show the prevalence of the phenomenon. Contrary to widespread assumptions, across generations and cultures, diverse motives drive different people to perform their moral duties. But despite this diversity, each different motive impels conscientious compliance with the same core moral duties. I argue this phenomenon undermines key types of evidence commonly employed to justify popular moral philosophies, and provides us with reason to seriously consider certain sorts of ethical theories—especially “functionalist” accounts of morality. (shrink)

In its simplest form, the principle of fairness tells us the following. If a number of people are producing a public good that we benefit from, it is not morally acceptable to free ride on their backs, enjoying the benefits without paying the costs. We owe them our fair share of the costs of the production of that good. The principle of fairness, defended by Rawls in A Theory of Justice and widely discussed subsequently, is sometimes invoked in various areas (...) of applied ethics, such as environmental ethics, social ethics, etc.As it stands, the principle of fairness offers an account of a particular type of moral obligation that obtains if certain conditions are satisfied. For example, the good produced must be a particular type of good, the scheme in which it is produced must itself be fair, and so on. This account inspired a wave of discussions, which set the tone for the debate on the principle of fairness, about two decades ago. (shrink)

Three main motivations can explain compliance with social norms: fear of peer punishment, the desire for others' esteem and the desire to meet others' expectations. Though all play a role, only the desire to meet others' expectations can sustain compliance when neither public nor private monitoring is possible. Theoretical models have shown that such desire can indeed sustain social norms, but empirical evidence is lacking. Moreover it is unclear whether this desire ranges over others' “empirical” or “normative” expectations. We propose (...) a new experimental design to isolate this motivation and to investigate what kind of expectations people are inclined to meet. Results indicate that, when nobody can assign either material or immaterial sanctions, the perceived legitimacy of others' normative expectations can motivate a significant number of people to comply with costly social norms. (shrink)

Ethical principles and ethical decision making -- Ethics, society, and individuals -- Individuals, expectations, and groups -- Institutions, norms and ethics -- A hypothetical case : endeavour organisation -- Conflicts of obligations -- Obligations, exploitation, and identity -- Decisions, groups, and reasons.

This chapter contains section titled: Introductory Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion Of Individuality, as one of the Elements of Well‐being Of the Limits to the Authority of Society over the Individual Applications.

Few books have had as great an impact on intellectual history as Kant's The Moral Law. In its short compass one of the greatest minds in the history of philosophy attempts to identify the fundamental principle 'morality' that governs human action. Supported by a clear introduction and detailed summary of the argument, this is not only an essential text for students but also the perfect introduction for any reader who wishes to encounter at first hand the mind of one of (...) the finest and most influential thinkers of all time. (shrink)

In this volume Paul Formosa sets out a novel approach to Kantian ethics as an ethics of dignity by focusing on the Formula of Humanity as a normative principle distinct from the Formula of Universal Law. By situating the Kantian conception of dignity within the wider literature on dignity, he develops an important distinction between status dignity, which all rational agents have, and achievement dignity, which all rational agents should aspire to. He then explores constructivist and realist views on the (...) foundation of the dignity of rational agents, before developing a compelling account of who does and does not have status dignity and of what kind of achievement dignity or virtue we, as vulnerable rational agents, can and should strive for. His study will be highly valuable for those interested in Kant's ethical, moral and political philosophies. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to clarify what kind of normativity characterizes a convention. First, we argue that conventions have normative consequences because they always involve a form of trust and reliance. We contend that it is by reference to a moral principle impinging on these aspects (i.e. the principle of Reliability) that interpersonal obligations and rights originate from conventional regularities. Second, we argue that the system of mutual expectations presupposed by conventions is a source of agreements. Agreements stemming (...) from conventions are “tacit” in the sense that they are implicated by what agents do (or forbear from doing) and without that any communication between them is necessary. To justify this conclusion, we assume that: (1) there is a salient interpretation, in some contexts, of everyone’s silence as confirmatory of the others’ expectations (an epistemic assumption), and (2) the participating agents share a value of not being motivated by hostile attitudes (a motivational assumption). By clarifying the relation between conventions and agreements, the peculiar normativity of conventions is analyzed. (shrink)

Directed duties are those duties whose violation would wrong someone in particular. Under what conditions, and in virtue of what, is a duty directed to someone? This is the Question of Direction. In this article, I explore the possibility of providing a Contractualist answer to the Question of Direction—one where the directedness of a directed duty is explained by the way in which that duty is derived in Contractualist moral reasoning. After presenting and rejecting three attempts at such an answer, (...) I arrive at a satisfactory one: An agent has a duty to an individual to perform some action just in case and because, were the agent not to perform that action, the agent would make the individual occupy the standpoint relative to which any principle that permits the agent not to perform that action is unacceptable. (shrink)

The early Confucians recognize that the exchanges and experiences of quotidian life profoundly shape moral attitudes, moral self-understanding, and our prospects for robust moral community. Confucian etiquette aims to provide a form of moral training that can render learners equal to the moral work of ordinary life, inculcating appropriate cognitive-emotional dispositions, as well as honing social perception and bodily expression. In both their astute attention to prosaic behavior and the techniques they suggest for managing it, I argue, the Confucians afford (...) a model useful for appropriation in contemporary efforts to address small but potent moral harms such as microinequities. (shrink)

Any defense of universal norms involves drawing distinctions among the many things people actually desire. If it is to have any content at all, it will say that some objects of desire are more central than others for political purposes, more indispensable to a human being's quality of life. Any wise such approach will go even further, holding that some existing preferences are actually bad bases for social policy. The list of Central Human Capabilities that forms the core of my (...) political project contains many functions that many people over the ages have preferred not to grant to women, either not at all, or not on a basis of equality. To insist on their centrality is thus to go against preferences that have considerable depth and breadth in traditions of male power. Moreover, the list contains many items that women over the ages have not wanted for themselves, and some that even today many women do not pursue – so in putting the list at the center of a normative political project aimed at providing the philosophical underpinning for basic political principles, we are going against not just other people's preferences about women, but, more controversially, against many preferences (or so it seems) of women about themselves and their lives. To some extent, my approach, like Sen's, avoids these problems of paternalism by insisting that the political goal is capability, not actual functioning, and by dwelling on the central importance of choice as a good. But the notion of choice and practical reason used in the list is a normative notion, emphasizing the critical activity of reason in a way that does not reflect the actual use of reason in many lives. (shrink)

What is the self? The question has preoccupied people in many times and places, but nowhere more than in the modern West, where it has spawned debates that still resound today. In this 2005 book, Jerrold Seigel provides an original and penetrating narrative of how major Western European thinkers and writers have confronted the self since the time of Descartes, Leibniz, and Locke. From an approach that is at once theoretical and contextual, he examines the way figures in Britain, France, (...) and Germany have understood whether and how far individuals can achieve coherence and consistency in the face of the inner tensions and external pressures that threaten to divide or overwhelm them. He makes clear that recent 'postmodernist' accounts of the self belong firmly to the tradition of Western thinking they have sought to supersede, and provides an open-ended and persuasive alternative to claims that the modern self is typically egocentric or disengaged. (shrink)

In this article, I argued that in contexts in which tipping is customary, there is a moral duty to tip or to explicitly tell the server that you will not be tipping. The evidence for this rests on anecdotes about people's mental states, and customers and server's intuitions about duties that would arise were a customer unable to tip his server. The promise is a speech act that is implicit in ordering food. The speech act must be matched by the (...) server's uptake, which is implicit in her taking the order. The promise argument rests on an actual promise and not a merely hypothetical promise. If there is such a duty, then in the absence of an explicit content, its content is likely set by convention. The convention is that customers tip 15–20%. Thus, customers have a duty to tip servers 15–20%. Other purported moral considerations do not ground this duty. These include custom, desirable incentives, role‐relative obligation, and gratitude. (shrink)

The Appeal to Tradition, often considered to be unsound, frequently reflects sophisticated adaptations to the environment. Once developed, these adaptations are often transmitted culturally rather than as reasoned argument, so that people mayor may not be aware of why their traditions are wise. Tradition is more likely to be valid in a stable environment in which a wide range of variations have been available for past testing; however, traditions tend to become obsolete in a rapidly changing environment.

The Right and the Good, a classic of twentieth-century philosophy by the great scholar Sir David Ross, is now presented in a new edition with a substantial introduction by Philip Stratton-Lake, a leading expert on Ross. Ross's book is the pinnacle of ethical intuitionism, which was the dominant moral theory in British philosophy for much of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Intuitionism is now enjoying a considerable revival, and Stratton-Lake provides the context for a proper understanding of Ross's great (...) work today. (shrink)

This fourth edition of Precedent in English Law presents a basic guide to the current doctrine of precedent in England, set in the wider context of the jurisprudential problems which any treatment of this topic involves. Such problems include the nature of _ratio_ _decidendi_ of a precedentand of its binding force, the significance of precedents alongside other sources of law, their role in legal reasoning, and the account which must be taken of them by any general theory of law. Considerable (...) re-writing has been undertaken to update case-law and take account of the possibleimplications for the doctrine of precedent of the impact of European Community law, making it an indispensable work of reference for readers interested in the past history, present state, and future developments of English rules of precedent. (shrink)

Introduction to one of the most important, controversial, and suggestive works of moral philosophy ever written.