scholarly journals Neutrality and the Social Contract

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 134-150
Author(s):  
Ian J. Carroll
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Bargaining Power ◽  
Moral Disagreement ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
State Neutrality ◽  
The Social ◽  
Limited Application ◽  
Moral Scepticism

Given the fact of moral disagreement, theories of state neutrality which rely on moral premises will have limited application, in that they will fail to motivate anyone who rejects the moral premises on which they are based. By contrast, contractarian theories can be consistent with moral scepticism, and can therefore avoid this limitation. In this paper, I construct a contractarian model which I claim is sceptically consistent and includes a principle of state neutrality as a necessary condition. The principle of neutrality which I derive incorporates two conceptions of neutrality (consequential neutrality and justificatory neutrality) which have usually been thought of as distinct and incompatible. I argue that contractarianism gives us a unified account of these conceptions. Ultimately, the conclusion that neutrality can be derived without violating the constraint established by moral scepticism turns out to rely on an assumption of equal precontractual bargaining power. I do not attempt to defend this assumption here. If the assumption cannot be defended in a sceptically consistent fashion, then the argument for neutrality given here is claimed to be morally minimal, rather than fully consistent with moral scepticism.

scholarly journals Animal Ethics and Politics Beyond the Social Contract

2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 208-222
Author(s):  
Alan Reynolds
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Animal Ethics ◽  
Moral Disagreement ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Reasonable Pluralism ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Problem ◽  
Principles Of Justice ◽  
Political Actions

This paper is divided into three sections. First, I describe the wide plurality of views on issues of animal ethics, showing that our disagreements here are deep and profound. This fact of reasonable pluralism about animal ethics presents a political problem. According to the dominant liberal tradition of political philosophy, it is impermissible for one faction of people to impose its values upon another faction of people who reasonably reject those values. Instead, we are obligated to justify our political actions to each other using reasons that everyone can accept. Thus, in the second section I suggest that our condition of reasonable pluralism inspires us to turn toward some form of contractarianism. The social contract tradition emerged precisely as an attempt to think about how a society characterized by deep moral disagreement could nonetheless agree about the basic principles of justice. I will show, in this section, that although the social contract tradition would seem to contain the best tools for thinking about how to deal with moral disagreement, it fails to help us think through the important issues of animal ethics. In the concluding section, I suggest some ways in which political philosophy might move beyond contractarianism when thinking about this issue, including embracing an agonistic style of politics.

scholarly journals Social Contract, Extended Goodness, and Moral Disagreement

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cyril Hédoin
Keyword(s):  
Social Choice ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Social Choice Theory ◽  
Moral Disagreement ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Interpersonal Comparisons ◽  
The Social ◽  
Conception Of The Good ◽  
Extended Preferences

This article discusses the role played by interpersonal comparisons (of utility or goodness) in matters of justice and equity. The role of such interpersonal comparisons has initially been made explicit in the context of social choice theory through the concept of extended preferences. Social choice theorists have generally claimed that extended preferences should be taken as being uniform across a population. Three related claims are made within this perspective. First, though it is sometimes opposed to social choice theory, the social contract approach may also consider the possibility of interpersonal comparisons. This is due to the fact that justice principles may be partially justified on a teleological basis. Second, searching for the uniformity of interpersonal comparisons is both hopeless and useless. In particular, moral disagreement does not originate in the absence of such uniformity. Third, interpersonal comparisons should be accounted for both in social choice and social contract theories in terms of sympathetic identification based on reciprocal respect and tolerance, where each person’s conception of the good partially takes care of others’ good. From the moral point of view, any person’s conception of the good should thus be ‘extended’ to others’ personal conceptions. This extension is, however, limited due to the inherent limitations in sympathetic identification and is a long way from guaranteeing the uniformity assumed by social choice theorists.

On Kant’s Duty to Speak the Truth

2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Mertens
Keyword(s):  
Death Penalty ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Legal Philosophy ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Right To Life ◽  
Moral Understanding ◽  
Positive Rights ◽  
The Social ◽  
Legal Duty ◽  
The Right

AbstractIn ‘On the Supposed Right to Lie from Philanthropy’, Kant defends a position that cannot be salvaged. The essay is nonetheless important because it helps us understand his philosophy of law and, more specifically, his interpretation of the social contract. Kant considers truthfulness a strict legal duty because it is the necessary condition for the juridical state. As attested by Kant’s rejection of Beccaria’s arguments against the death penalty, not even the right to life has such strict unconditional status. Within the juridical state, established by the social contract, the (single) innate right to freedom is transformed into a bundle of merely positive rights, including the right to life. Understanding the reason for the rejection of ‘the right to lie from philanthropy’ thus helps us understand the, in a sense, ‘positivist’ character of Kant’s legal philosophy. In conclusion, some suggestions are made to bring his position closer to our common moral understanding.

Spinoza’s Political Philosophy

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael A. Rosenthal
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The State ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
The Social ◽  
Institutional Structures ◽  
Political Philosopher ◽  
The Stability ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Degree Of Participation

This article argues that Spinoza is a modern republican political philosopher. He combines Machiavelli’s idea of liberty with Hobbes’s version of the social contract. This claim has four basic elements. First, Spinoza rejects Hobbes’s view that the individual must alienate his natural rights to form a state through a contract. Rather, the contract’s validity depends on a continuous and dynamic transfer of power from its citizens, which is defined as participation in public life. Second, the stability of a state depends on how effectively the regime can foster participation in the state. Spinoza uses his theory of the imagination and passions to explain how the state can overcome free-rider problems in the social contract. Hence the republican ideal of government is expressed not so much in any particular constitutional form of the state but in how well each form can foster participation. Although democracy expresses the highest degree of participation—and hence stability—aristocracy and even monarchy can be also optimized. Third, the participation of the individual in the state is not an end in itself but the means to the individual’s own freedom. So, although participation in the state is a necessary condition of individual well-being, it is certainly not sufficient to become virtuous. Fourth, the participation of individuals in the state, the quality and structure of state stability, as a well as the freedom of the state and individual, all depend on the degree of rationality manifest in both the individual and in the institutional structures of the state.

D?r al-?arb as the Motherland? The Muslim Tatars of (the Grand Duchy of) Lithuania and Social Contract

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-177
Author(s):  
Egdūnas Račius
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Social Consequences ◽  
Nation State ◽  
The Social ◽  
State And Society ◽  
Muslim Minority ◽  
Grand Duchy Of Lithuania ◽  
In The Beginning ◽  
Grand Duchy

Muslim presence in Lithuania, though already addressed from many angles, has not hitherto been approached from either the perspective of the social contract theories or of the compliance with Muslim jurisprudence. The author argues that through choice of non-Muslim Grand Duchy of Lithuania as their adopted Motherland, Muslim Tatars effectively entered into a unique (yet, from the point of Hanafi fiqh, arguably Islamically valid) social contract with the non-Muslim state and society. The article follows the development of this social contract since its inception in the fourteenth century all the way into the nation-state of Lithuania that emerged in the beginning of the twentieth century and continues until the present. The epitome of the social contract under investigation is the official granting in 1995 to Muslim Tatars of a status of one of the nine traditional faiths in Lithuania with all the ensuing political, legal and social consequences for both the Muslim minority and the state.

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