ethics justiceikhiifuguyyhfuygfuyufuf.pptx

ethics and justice

1. Contractarianism and Justice The moral theory of contractianism claims that moral norms derive their force from the idea of contract or mutual agreement. C ontractarians are skeptical of the possibility of grounding morality or political authority in either divine will or some perfectionist ideal of the nature of humanity.

2. Three Contractarian Theorists David Gauthier John Rawls Thomas Michael Scanlon

3. David Gauthier T he social contract as a bargain between rational individuals who can gain through co-operating with one another , but who are competing over the division of the resulting surplus . E ach is interested only in trying to maximise his own welfare , and there is a non-co-operative baseline from which the bargaining begins – so nobody would accept a solution that left her less well off than in the baseline condition . Each person can identify the outcome under which they fare best – their maximum gain – but they have no reason to expect others to accept that

4. John Rawls Presenting the contracting parties as seeking to advance their own interests as they decide which principles to favour , but under two informational constraints . First, they are not allowed to know their own ‘ conception of the good ’ – what ends they personally find it most valuable to pursue – so the principles must be couched in terms of ‘ primary goods ’, understood as goods that it is better to have more rather than less of whatever conception of the good you favour . Second, they are placed behind a ‘ veil of ignorance ’ that deprives them of any knowledge of personal characteristics , such as their gender , their place in society , or the talents and skills they possess . This means that they have no basis on which to bargain for advantage , and have to consider themselves as generic persons who might be male or female , talented or untalented , and so forth . In consequence , Rawls argues , all will choose to live under impartial principles that work to no-one’s advantage in particular .

5. Thomas Michael Scanlon Scanlon is concerned to develop an alternative to utilitarianism , and he does so by developing a test that any candidate moral principle must pass : it must be such that no-one could reasonably reject it as the basis for informed , unforced general agreement Scanlon thinks , be reasonable to reject a principle under which one does badly if the alternatives all involve someone else faring worse still .