Improving Scanlon's contractualism

Abstract

A posthumously published essay in which Parfit proposes revisions to Scanlon’s contractualist moral theory. Parfit argues for removing two restrictions that Scanlon places on the reasons that can be offered for rejecting a moral principle: the Individualist Restriction, which limits appeals to a principle’s implications for single individuals, and the Impersonalist Restriction, which prohibits appeals to the impersonal goodness or badness of outcomes. These improvements are part of Parfit’s broader project of showing that the best versions of contractualism, rule consequentialism, and Kantian ethics converge on the same moral conclusions.