Saving Scanlon: Contractualism and agent-relativity

Abstract

T.M. Scanlon’s contractualism holds 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.” (p. 153) Scanlon’s critics have been virtually unanimous in objecting that understanding wrongness in terms of reasonable rejectability is simply to go through an unhelpful epicycle. This standard objection rests on a pervasive misunderstanding of Scanlon’s account. If Scanlon’s theory held that the grounds on which one might reasonably reject principles had to be agent-neutral, then the objection might be sound. However, on Scanlon’s view the reasons which ground reasonable rejection not only can be agent-relative, they must be. This underappreciated element of Scanlon’s theory refutes the critics’ standard worry. (edited)