Prichard posed the question of whether there was a reason for persons to take on the obligations of morality. Scanlon offers a distinctive contractualist answer to this question, which is based on the notion of what it is reasonable for persons to act on as moral duties. It is useful to contrast Scanlon’s theory will John Stuart Mill’s conception of sanctions. For Scanlon, by contrast with Mill, there is no need to appeal to a special psychological element to explain how a person could be moved to moral action. The motivation is adequately captured in the idea of external reasons, which derive from the social relations in which persons stand to one another. This is not intended as a reply to the egoist, but as an account of what moves people to act morally. Scanlon has to assume a thesis of ‘purity of heart’ akin to that of Rawls, and this is implausible. A useful way of understanding Scanlon’s approach is via the idea of relative necessity, where the necessity is relative to the code of a particular society. However, understood in this way, Scanlon’s thesis is vulnerable to the fact that some societies have deep divisions, in which there is no coherent and agreed moral code. Yet, there can still be justice between strangers.
Being an Authentic Christian: an Analysis Based on The Philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard