Actual Agreement Contractualism

Dialogue ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 519-539 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAVID BORMAN
Keyword(s):  
Moral Theory ◽  
Social Cooperation ◽  
Actual Agreement ◽  
The Way ◽  
Thomas Scanlon

In this paper, I defend a metaethical position described as ‘actual agreement contractualism’: the view that norms arise from actual attempts to arrive at legitimate terms for social cooperation among all those affected. I distinguish the actual agreement approach from hypothetical approaches to contractualism, and defend the former against objections from Thomas Scanlon, in particular. The attractiveness of a focus on actual agreements, I argue, is seen in the way it resolves problems internal to the hypothetical approach as well as in its implications for the purpose of moral theory and for the obligation to justify our actions to others.

scholarly journals Review EssayExemplarist Moral Theory

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. 755-768
Author(s):  
Lani Watson ◽  
Alan T. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Moral Development ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Review Essay ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Critical Discussion ◽  
Practical Guide ◽  
The Way

This review essay provides a critical discussion of Linda Zagzebski’s (2017) Exemplarist Moral Theory (emt). We agree that emt is a book of impressive scope that will be of interest to ethical theorists, as well as epistemologists, philosophers of language, and philosophers of religion. Throughout the critical discussion we argue that exemplarism faces a number of important challenges, firstly, in dealing with the fallibility of admiration, which plays a central role in the theoretical framework, and secondly, in serving as a practical guide for moral development. Despite this, we maintain that emt points the way for significant future theoretical and empirical research into some of the most well-established questions in ethical theory.

Looking for Answers in All the Wrong Places

2004 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 293-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Earl W. Spurgin
Keyword(s):  
Business Ethics ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Moral Question ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The Way

Abstract:In recent years, many business ethicists have raised problems with the “ethics pays” credo. Despite these problems, many continue to hold it. I argue that support for the credo leads business ethicists away from a potentially fruitful approach found in Hume’s moral philosophy. I begin by demonstrating that attempts to support the credo fail because proponents are trying to provide an answer to the “Why be moral?” question that is based on rational self-interest. Then, I show that Hume’s sentiments-based moral theory provides an alternative to the credo that points toward a more fruitful approach to business ethics. Along the way, I examine a recent social contract alternative to the credo that, despite many appealing features, is less effective than is the Humean alternative. Finally, I develop a Humean approach to business ethics and demonstrate why it is a desirable alternative that business ethicists should explore.

Moral Progress for Evolved Rational Creatures

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-238
Author(s):  
William J. FitzPatrick
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Moral Belief ◽  
Adaptive Plasticity ◽  
Moral Progress ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Naturalistic Account ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
The Way

Abstract Allen Buchanan and Russell Powell have developed a rich ‘biocultural theory’ of the nature and causes of moral progress (and regress) for human beings conceived as evolved rational creatures with a nature characterized by ‘adaptive plasticity’. They characterize their theory as a thoroughly naturalistic account of moral progress, while bracketing various questions in moral theory and metaethics in favor of focusing on a certain range of more scientifically tractable questions under some stipulated moral and metaethical assumptions. While I am very much in agreement with the substance of their project, I wish to query and raise some difficulties for the way it is framed, particularly in connection with the claim of naturalism. While their project is clearly naturalistic in certain senses, it is far from clear that it is so in others that are of particular interest in moral philosophy, and these issues need to be more carefully sorted out. For everything that has been argued in the book, the theory on offer may be only a naturalistic component of a larger theory that must ultimately be non-naturalistic in order to deliver the robust sort of account that is desired. Indeed, there are significant metaethical reasons for believing this to be the case. Moreover, if it turns out that some of the assumptions upon which their theory relies require a non-naturalist metaethics (positing irreducibly evaluative or normative properties and facts) then even the part of the theory that might have seemed most obviously naturalistic, i.e., the explanation of how changes in moral belief and behavior have come about, may actually require some appeal to non-naturalistic elements in the end.

Moral justification

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
T.M. Scanlon
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
The Other ◽  
Moral Justification ◽  
Moral Argument ◽  
Moral Thinking ◽  
Moral Claims ◽  
Moral Philosophers ◽  
The Way

Questions of justification arise in moral philosophy in at least three ways. The first concerns the way in which particular moral claims, such as claims about right and wrong, can be shown to be correct. Virtually every moral theory offers its own account of moral justification in this sense, and these accounts naturally differ from each other. A second question is about the justification of morality as a whole – about how to answer the question, ‘Why be moral?’ Philosophers have disagreed about this, and about whether an answer is even possible. Finally, some philosophers have claimed that justification of our actions to others is a central aim of moral thinking. They maintain that this aim provides answers to the other two questions of justification by explaining the reasons we have to be moral and the particular form that justification takes within moral argument.

Morals and Marx

Dialogue ◽  
1983 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 523-534
Author(s):  
Jan Narveson
Keyword(s):  
General Problem ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Critical Notice ◽  
The Way

There are fourteen original papers (plus Kai Nielsen's introduction) in this substantial volume devoted to the general problem of the relation of Marxism, or at least Marxism as found in the works of Marx, and moral theory. The questions are, in Nielsen's words, “whether there should be or even could be a Marxist moral theory and if there could be a Marxist moral theory, what sort of a moral theory it should be” (1) (all references in this Critical Notice are to pages in the volume under review). Why does he not include the question what Marx's moral theory is? For a few of these writers do think that Marx had (at least in fragmentary form) some moral views that inform his writing, and attempt to say what they are. But Nielsen is justified in putting the questions they treat of in the way he does, for as is commonly known, Marx had no explicit, worked- out moral theory. So if one wishes to argue that he nevertheless has a morality or part of a morality, one has no alternative to attempting to infer it from what he does say.

John Braithwaite and Crime, Shame and Reintegration: Some Reflections on Theory and Criminology

1996 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rob Watts
Keyword(s):  
General Theory ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Crime Control ◽  
General Theory Of Crime ◽  
Good Society ◽  
Progressive Politics ◽  
Theory Of Crime ◽  
Republican Theory ◽  
The Way

John Braithwaite's ‘republican theory of criminology’ (1989) claims to offer a new general theory of crime, an account of ‘the good society’ and a set of policy prescriptions for effective crime control. Along the way he has spelt out a moral theory grounded in communitarianism, and refined his own version of a ‘progressive’ politics. This paper examines two central aspects of Braithwaite's work. Given Braithwaite's claim to say why ‘some kinds of individuals and some kinds of societies exhibit more crime’, the paper suggests his answers to this question and the adequacy of his notion of good social science are severely wanting. Braithwaite's claim to be offering a theory of the moral shares with the Durkheimian tradition he draws on, a refusal of the moral. The contemporary praise accorded Braithwaite's work is a sign both of intellectual desperation and of a pervasive nostalgia for a return to ‘community’ exemplified in the work of communitarians like Macintyre (1981) and Bellah (1985).

Thinking about Cases

2001 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 44-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shelly Kagan
Keyword(s):  
Moral Theory ◽  
Central Importance ◽  
Moral Thinking ◽  
Original Case ◽  
Moral Claims ◽  
Specific Part ◽  
The Way

Anyone who reflects on the way we go about arguing for or against moral claims is likely to be struck by the central importance we give to thinking about cases. Intuitive reactions to cases—real or imagined—are carefully noted, and then appealed to as providing reason to accept (or reject) various claims. When trying on a general moral theory for size, for example, we typically get a feel for its overall plausibility by considering its implications in a range of cases. Similarly, when we try to refine the statement of a principle meant to cover a fairly specific part of morality, we guide ourselves by testing the various possible revisions against a carefully constructed set of cases (often differing only in rather subtle ways). And when arguing against a claim, we take ourselves to have shown something significant if we can find an intuitively compelling counterexample, and such counterexamples almost always take the form of a description of one or another case where the implications of the claim in question seem implausible. Even when we find ourselves faced with a case where we have no immediate and clear reaction, or where we have such a reaction, but others don't share it and we need to persuade them, in what is probably the most common way of trying to make progress we consider various analogies and disanalogies; that is to say, we appeal to still other cases, and by seeing what we want to say there, we discover (or confirm) what it is plausible to say in the original case. In these and other ways, then, the appeal to cases plays a central and ubiquitous role in our moral thinking.

scholarly journals The selfish nature in interpersonal exchange among adolescents: imposing the kind and submitting to the exploitative

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoyan Wu ◽  
Chunliang Feng ◽  
Shen Zhang ◽  
Zilu Liang ◽  
Wenshan Dong ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Computational Modeling ◽  
Social Relationships ◽  
Behavioral Changes ◽  
General Question ◽  
Specific Factor ◽  
Social Cooperation ◽  
Good Strategy ◽  
Social Rewards ◽  
Education Field ◽  
The Way

AbstractBullying events during adolescence are common, yet it remains largely unclear which kinds of behavioral patterns are more likely to result in being exploited. Leveraging recent advances in computational modeling and experimental economics, this study examines whether being nice or tough during early social interactions will impact future interactions. Adolescents were randomly assigned to play a cooperation game with two different simulated partners. We found that participants were more likely to cooperate with the initially tough partner than with the initially nice partner. Computational modeling revealed that behavioral changes were driven by changes in perceived social rewards from reciprocity. Perceived social rewards mediated the effects of different partners on the participants’ cooperative behaviors. The results indicate that being nice is not a good strategy for building social cooperation, and advance our knowledge of how adolescents form sustained social relationships with peers and may have implications for the education field.Statement of RelevanceBullying events in high school have been extremely common across cultures. Most studies focus on the modulations of adolescent’s behaviors by a specific factor, e.g., education, parenting style or psychological distorter. Our study examines a more general question: whether and how the way of adolescents exhibit themselves would dynamically influence the way that other people treat them. Our findings suggest that being nice initially is not a good strategy for building social cooperation. Being nice early in a relationship will weaken the value of reciprocity perceived by others, which in turn results in being exploited. We regard our work as being of significance for the fields of psychological science, education and human morality. This study advances our knowledge of how adolescents form sustained social relationships with their peers, and it may have implications for the education field.

scholarly journals AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY IN THE EYES OF THE WEST

Phronimon ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edwin Etieyibo
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
The Other ◽  
Cultural Imperialism ◽  
African Philosophy ◽  
The West ◽  
Black Folk ◽  
Souls Of Black Folk ◽  
The Way

In this paper I unpack some nuanced aspects of cultural imperialism against the backdrop of Du Bois’s analysis in The souls of black folk, dealing with the confrontation of African Americans or blacks by the other (the West). My aim is to gesture towards how certain ways of doing African philosophy can be considered culturally imperialistic. I seek to illustrate one culturally imperialistic way of doing African philosophy by discussing Thaddeus Metz’s brilliant presentation of Ubuntu as an African moral theory. My motivation is to suggest along the way that his version of an Ubuntu-inspired moral theory seems to me a paradigmatic case of one such way

scholarly journals Scanlon’s contractualism: A review essay

2017 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 68-84
Author(s):  
Anton Markoc
Keyword(s):  
Review Essay ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Secondary Literature ◽  
Normative Ethical Theory ◽  
Thomas Scanlon

The purpose of this essay is to give a succinct summary of contractualism, an influential moral theory of American philosopher Thomas Scanlon. Scanlon introduced contractualism in his essay ?Contractualism and Utilitarianism? from 1982 and developed it in his book What We Owe to Each Other from 1998. The essay begins by situating Scanlon?s contractualism in the tradition of contract theories of morality. It then examines its peculiarities as a metaethical and a normative ethical theory. Finally, it discusses the most important objections to contractualism, ending with recommended secondary literature for subsequent researchers.

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