Research On Scanlon's Moral Contractualism

The moral contractualism which Scanlon established had become a hot topic in contemporary western political philosophy since Scanlon published his representative work What we owe to each other at the end of 20 th century.As the most important representative of modern contract theory,Scanlon has greatly promoted the contract theory in form and content.From the point of form,he changes the virtuality and abstractness of the contract theory.Meanwhile,he points out that the contract is made voluntarily by people in the specific situations of moral community,which impels the theory of contemporary moral contract to be mature.From the point of content,Scanlon applies the method of contract theory to the moral field among different people.Following Kant's contractualism tradition,Scanlon puts forward a unique theory of moral philosophy,the key idea of which is that moral principles is not depended on “everyone rationally agrees” but on “nobody could reject reasonably”.Scanlon's moral contractualism provides a more rational answer to the basic problems of moral philosophy.It plays an important role in reviving the tradition of contract theory.In this sense,it is an important component of contemporary western egalitarian liberalism.An inquiry to Scanlon's moral contractualism has important significance for our further understanding to the western moral and political philosophy.The work of this dissertation is based on the context of contemporary political philosophy trying to grasp the latest research trend.The aim of this dissertation is to clarify the content of Scanlon's moral contractualism.Scanlon's moral contractualism originates from classical contract theory and Rawls' s new contract theory.Classical contract theory provides the field and foundation for Scanlon's moral contractualism,while Rawls' s new contract theory provides a modern political philosophical context and direct premise for it.In this sense,we can look classical contract theory and Rawls' s new contract theory as the theoretical background of Scanlon's moral contractualism.Rawls' s theory of justice is based on the contract,but Rawls' s original position has been criticized.These criticisms shakes the basis of contract theory.Scanlon inherits Rawls' s method and amends it.He points out that the contract is made voluntarily among people in the moral community.In the moral community,everyone has equal rights,meanwhile,everyone acknowledges the rights of other people.The contract is made voluntarily under the background of full information.The principles which the contractors agree with are the ones nobody can reasonably reject.Scanlon promotes and consolidates the contemporary revival of the contract theory by the means of improving Rawls' s theory.Unlike Rawls focusing on the field of social system,Scanlon pays attention to morality which mainly concerns responsibility and obligation among people.Specifically,there are three concentric and successively narrower normative domains in the moral field contains,which are reasons,values,and what we owe to each other.The fundamental feature of Scanlon's contractualism is its emphasis the concept of a reason.He takes this concept as primitive and cannot be explained by other terms.Besides,he also takes this concept as the logical foundation of his theoretical system.In Scanlon's contractualism,the concept of a reason has special meaning.On the one hand,he emphasizes the personal and emotional level of this concept.By this means,he transforms it from a metaphysical concept to a meta-ethics concept;On the other hand,unlike other philosophers who construct their moral philosophy basing on the concept of rationality,Scanlon constructs his moral philosophy basing on the concept of a reason.By the construction of moral contract,Scanlon promotes the transformation of the context of contemporary moral philosophy.As for the structure of practical reasons,Scanlon holds a strong view of objectivism.Scanlon denies the universal viewpoint of summing up reason as desires.He criticizes the Humist theory of motivation which based on desires.The Humist theory of motivation insisted that reason lies in the satisfaction of desire.Scanlon points out that the problem of Hugism is that they use the concept of desire mistakenly.Then Scanlon demonstrates that the reasons for action are not “desires in the directed-attention sense”.Although Scanlon thinks the reasons we possess may depend on some subjective desires,and desires includes some elements of identifying some other considerations as reasons,yet he insists that desires can never provide reasons for action in the way described by the standard desire model.In contrast,Scanlon believes that the source of motivation for behavior is provided by reasons in the “standard normative sense”.Another feature of Scanlon's moral contractualism is that he thinks that value is pluralistic.In Scanlon's view,being valuable is a matter of having reasons to have a positive attitude towards something and react to it in certain ways.Many philosophers hold “teleological” views on what is “valuable”,while Scanlon insists that being valuable is always a matter of being “to be promoted”.Besides that,Scanlon thinks we can respond to what is valuable in other ways,such as to admire it,to respect it.Understanding the value of something is a matter of understanding the particular ways in which we have reason to respond to it.In Scanlon's moral contractualism,these reasons are not provided by the goodness or value of the things.Being good or valuable is to have other properties that provide a reason to respond to a thing in certain ways.Basing on this consideration,Scanlon thinks that when we use the values to explore human life,we should firstly realize the value of human life which involves human's capacity to recognize,assess,and be persuaded by reasons.This indicates that whence we act,we should provide reasons and justification for others.The special value of human life lies in our having reason to treat rational creatures only in ways that would be allowed by principles that they could not reasonably reject.The core issue of Scanlon's moral contractualism is “what we owe to each other”.“What we owe to each other” is a subset of morality in a broad sense.It is mainly about our relationship with others and comprises a distinct subject matter in moral philosophy.This part of morality regulates the moral norms among people and concerns the unity and harmony of the community.Scanlon's moral contractualism is mainly about this part of morality.It is united by a single manner of reasoning and a common motivational basis.These two unifying elements,i.e.the structure of contractualism and moral motivation are Scanlon's moral contractualism main content.Scanlon's moral contractualism can be summarized as that an act is wrong if its performance under the circumstances would be disallowed by any set of principles for the general regulation of behavior that no one could reasonably reject as a basis for informed,unforced general agreement.It can be simplified to the following two questions.Firstly,acts are wrong when they are those could be reasonably rejected by someone.Secondly,acts are right when they are those could not be reasonably rejected by someone.In brief,the principle of Scanlon's moral contractualism can be expressed as that nobody could reasonably reject.The principle shows the content of wrong acts.It is our criteria of estimating whether acts are right or not.The principle is also the source of moral motivation.Comparing with the traditional moral philosophy theory,Scanlon's contractualism provides a better description of the moral motivation theory.The explanation of moral motivation is the normative interpretation of moral judgment.It includes an answer to the question of how the fact that an action would be wrong or right provides a reason for our action.This explanation has dual tasks.On the one hand,the problem of moral motivation calls for self-understanding,On the other hand,it calls for justification,that is,an account of why we have compelling reason to be moral.Actually,the dual tasks are answers to the problem of priority and importance.Starting from the relationship of "mutual recognition" among people,the illustration of Scanlon's moral motivation is also a description of our relationship with others.The relationship is an approval to Scanlon's principle.Scanlon's principle is the source of our moral motivation.The account of moral motivation provides a good answer to the problem of priority and importance.While the opponents think that contractualism is redundant in judging the morally wrong action and in explaining the moral motivation.They put forward the so-called “redundancy objection”,which can be divided into “the procedural redundancies” and “the motivational redundancy” further.Actually,Scanlon answers the question of fundamentally moral philosophy from personal reasons,while the opponents understand these questions on the base of moral reasons from the action itself.Personal reasons play an important role in providing the moral motivation,that is,they can help us understand the complex reasons of some moral actions.Therefore,as a substantive moral theory,contractualism is not redundant.