Tim Scanlon (Thomas M. Scanlon | Department of Philosophy) was the Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy, and Civil Polity in Harvard University’s Department of Philosophy, where he has taught since 1984.
In this book Scanlon advances a ‘contractualist’ theory of ethics. An act is wrong if its performance under the circumstances would be disallowed by any set of principles for the general regulation of behaviour that no one could reasonably reject as a basis for informed, unforced, general agreement. Key points in this moral outlook are as follows:
- Unlike theories seeking principles everyone would agree to, Scanlon focuses on principles no one could reasonably reject. Rejection is based on the ‘burdens’ a principle would impose on individuals.
- Objections to a principle must be raised by individuals on their own behalf. This generally prevents ‘aggregation’—the utilitarian practice of summing small benefits for many to outweigh a major harm to one person.
- Moral agents are motivated by an intrinsic desire to be able to justify their actions to others on grounds they could not reasonably reject—a relation Scanlon calls ‘mutual recognition‘.
This book has been highly influential and there is already a huge body of commentary around contractualism (Cf. Contractualism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) This is a tightly argued book for those interested in the logical structure of our moral obligations.
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432 pages in Harvard University Press
First published 1998
ISBN-13 : 978-0674004238
