PHILOS 2YY3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Lorem Ipsum, Social Contract, Rationality
16 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
PHILOS 2YY3 – Mar 8 2018
Contractarian Ethics (Lorem Ipsum Dolor)
Kant: if we get the good will, we need reason, reason is the thing that has function and has
judgement
Difficulty in what to do in concrete ethical situations
Contract & Justification
• Scanlon: An act is right if and only if it can be justified to others (279)
o Ist that a oetioalist theory?
o What is considered right is reducible to what society has decided
o Expectations, mutually reinforcing – I expect you to not kill me, and I expect the
same from you
▪ The benefit received form this expectation is mutually benefitted for the
both of us
o If this is the character of contractarianism ist it just like conventionalism and,
therefore, a form of relativism?
▪ We are never outside of social interactions
▪ What do I owe to some potential other?
▪ We live in social relations where we are never inside of them
▪ What we are looking for: rightness or wrongness is it right for you to do
that, or wrong?
• This depends on your ability to justify that act to others
• NO: by maintaining that the rightness or wrongness of an act depends on our ability
to justify it to others means that we must be able to cite certain principles that no one,
if suitably motivated, could reasonably reject (279)
o Notion of what someone could reasonably reject – fundamental principle for his
moral theory
o Not clear at this point
o You have to justify your behaviour to others – failure to submit work on time,
and you want to get consideration for accommodation
▪ You say, you miss the deadline, but is it fine if you hand it in at this time
without any penalty?
▪ Likely not, they will not be this lenient – you have to give some
explanation/justification as to why they ought to observe this request
and recognize it as legitimate
o If we think that there is something about those types of explanations for some
time of action, we think there is something ridiculous
▪ There is a reason as to why we have a hunch like that
▪ There is something significant about this justification criteria
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