Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1964. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 145-149).

In this essay, the Scanlonian contractualist formula will be understood as follows: Within the domain of morality of what we owe to each other, an action is morally wrong if it follows principles that similarly motivated people can reasonably reject. Consequently, the concept of ‘reasonable rejection’ is the operative element in moral valuation, thus begging the question of what it is for a rejection to be reasonable. The problem of circularity in Scanlon’s contractualism builds upon a reading according to which Scanlon’s explanation of what it is to be ‘reasonably rejected’ seems to be understood as ‘when the action is morally wrong’. If this is the case, then Scanlon’s contractualism refers to its own thesis when performing moral valuations: that is wrong which can be reasonably rejected, and for an action to be reasonably rejected it must be morally wrong. The problem of circularity apparently renders Scanlon’s contractualism ‘empty’ as it cannot explain what it is for an action to be morally wrong without referring to its own thesis. In this essay I will try to clarify the difference between welfarist and structural charges of circularity. I will argue that the structural charges of circularity are due to a fallacious constructivist reading of What We Owe to Each Other. As I understand Scanlon, the constructivist reading places Scanlon’s theory too close to the contractualist tradition. I will also argue that critics holding Scanlon’s contractualism to be circular have failed to note that his theory only claims to cover a narrow domain of morality. Where critics hold Scanlon’s contractualism to refer to its own thesis when performing moral valuations I will argue that the theory refers to moral domains outside that of what we owe to each other. Hopefully my discussion on constructivism and circularity will shed some light on the simple brilliance and practical applicability of Scanlon’s contractualism. I will give a brief overview of What We Owe to Each Other before I present the critique put forth by Onora O’Neill, Mark Timmons and Joseph Raz. Then I will show how Scanlon treats the problem of circularity in his book, and how his defense targets substantial and not structural charges of circularity. I will then show that the structural critique is fallacious by analyzing the domain of morality that Scanlon’s contractualism targets. Finally I will try to apply Scanlon’s formula on personal relationships and on environmental issues. As of this point I will refer to Scanlon’s thesis as ‘contractualism’ while other theories following the contractualist tradition will be referred to as ‘contractarian’.

p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times} Thomas Scanlon provides a theory of why we ought to keep our promises according to which the wrong of breaking a promise is a moral wrong that does not depend on any social practice. Instead a promise provides a recipient with assurance and the value of assurance establishes a moral obligation to keep our promises. However, it is often charged that theories like Scanlon’s are untenable because they are subject to a vicious circularity. I address some recent critics of Scanlon’s theory, all of whom maintain that his account does not adequately show how a promise provides assurance and therefore does not overcome the charge of circularity in explaining why we are obligated to keep our promises. I revise Scanlon’s theory and show how a promise can provide a recipient with assurance, demonstrating that Scanlon’s account is a tenable theory of why we have an obligation to keep our promises.

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abstract: In their criticism of various approaches to upbringing and related American family law jurisprudence, liberal theorists tend to underweight the interests of parents in directing the development of children’s values. Considered through the lens of T.M. Scanlon’s contractualism, providing a good upbringing is not a matter of identifying children’s “best interests” or acting in accordance with overriding end-state principles. Rather, children should be raised in accordance with principles for the general regulation of behavior that no one could reasonably reject as a basis for informed, unforced general agreement. The process of ascertaining such principles requires an understanding of relevant values; a good upbringing is what children receive when parents properly value their children, enabling them to appropriately recognize what it is that they have reason to do given the roles that they play. By developing the account of upbringing hinted at in Scanlon’s contractualist monograph, What We Owe to Each Other, this project identifies and responds to some common mistakes in contemporary liberal theorizing on childhood, suggests that contractualism yields a more plausible account of upbringing than alternative approaches, and along the way identifies some implications of contractualism for public policy where individuals properly value the children of others in their community. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Philosophy 2019

Water management has been described as one of the major natural resource management challenges facing our rural industries, regional communities, our unique natural environments and indeed, even our survival. Within this context, water ethics has emerged as a research area of some significance. However to date, a majority of the research has clustered around economic and environmental concerns. For the most part, explorations into the ethical management of water have been limited to a deliberative focus on the establishment of property rights and effective water pricing and trading mechanisms. These narrow economic approaches fail to recognise the diversity and plurality of our water values or to adequately address broader social values such as equity and justice. This research aims to address these imbalances by focusing on how we might develop a deeper understanding of ethical practice in the context of more sustainable water management. It achieves this by outlining an alternative ethical framework which will support these more sustainable social and policy outcomes. Thus, the rationale for this thesis is to demonstrate that contractual ethics, or even more specifically Scanlonian contractualism, is a viable alternative normative ethical framework to utilitarianism for considering how we might justify these more sustainable water management outcomes. There is significant debate and conflict over how water should best be managed. These debates capture not only the nature of the way we interact with the environment but also the way we interact with each other. It is in these two sets of interactions that ethics can provide us with a way of justifying our actions and decisions and a basis for determining what we consider to be right or wrong, or acceptable or unacceptable in terms of water management practice. An important element of this thesis is recognising that how we think about water has important implications for how we manage water and to date, this has been undervalued in water management. To that end, I argue we must necessarily begin to appreciate the connection between what is happening in our conceptual and theoretical landscapes and how this impacts on our physical landscapes. It is in these interactions and connections that we begin to appreciate both the depth of complexity and the ‘wicked’ nature of water management. Thus, each of these debates and their related concerns exists within the broader context of how we think water should be managed and the processes by which we come to make and justify our decisions about water management. This thesis is therefore aimed at addressing this gap in the research around ethical water management. It achieves this by providing the basis for a framework which can capture not only the philosophical and ethical underpinnings of a more sustainable water ethic but also recognise and accommodate the significant research already undertaken in a variety of other disciplines. As a result, this thesis is necessarily interdisciplinary in its approach. While I base my arguments in the field of philosophical and ethical inquiry, the construction of a conceptual framework for a more sustainable water ethic is applicable to and widely influenced by a number of other fields including geography, anthropology, scientific research, economic theory, public policy and social theory. In recognising and preserving the interdisciplinary knowledge base around water management, part of the challenge has been to construct a conceptual framework and define ethical principles that can both honour this interdisciplinarity but also remain relevant in cross disciplinary settings. The nature of this interdisciplinary approach reinforces the inherent complexity of water management and was cause for some reflection because it raised the question of how best to address the research problem. This process of reflection had direct implications on the research process adopted in this thesis because it required not only an interdisciplinary response but also a balanced approach to preserving the complexity and the ‘wickedness’ of water management. These elements needed to be preserved in the research process because they are integral to our understanding of water management and inevitably raise the difficult and particularly ‘human’ questions we associate with it. Thus, the research process adopted in this thesis can be best understood as a process of reflective equilibrium. Reflective equilibrium describes the process by which we systematically examine our judgements and beliefs about a certain issue, searching for coherence with other beliefs and then revising those beliefs where evidence suggests they need to be modified. This approach allows for a range of diverse disciplinary considerations and interests to be considered in a holistic manner and is reflected in the following research activities. In the course of this thesis, I outline the development and construction of a conceptual framework for a more sustainable water ethic, which is based on a diverse range of disciplinary knowledge and expertise. This framework is supported by a rigorous and systematic application of contractual ethical principles. The first part of the thesis reflects a process of examination and review of relevant theoretical and methodological concerns, which enable interdisciplinary research to occur. In the second part of this thesis, a detailed analysis of contractual ethical principles and a philosophical analysis of values in the context of water management are presented. The findings elicited from these stages of the research are taken forward and used to examine two deliberately chosen but quite distinct case study analyses. These two case study examples reflect the diversity and range of political and policy concerns within the broader water management debate.

This paper will introduce the theory of blame and demonstrate how it relates to self-blame. I will begin by first highlighting two competing definitions of blame. The first of these forms, upheld by two prominent philosophers, Thomas Scanlon and Linda Radzik, looks at blame as impairing relationships. Both philosophers study how wrongful actions cause impairments in relationships and argue that blame is utilized to the extent of that impairment. Reactive emotions, according to them, are simply a byproduct of blame and not of quintessential importance to the theory of blame. The second form of blame, presented by Susan Wolf and R. Jay Wallace, refutes the Impaired Relations Theory and, instead, studies the theory of blame in accordance with reactive emotions. These two philosophers contend that blame is the reactive attitudes one has, or should have, towards wrongful actions. These emotions are, therefore, required in order for an agent to be blamed. This paper will first thoroughly outline the differences between these two forms of blame. It will then introduce the notion of self-blame with respect to these four philosophers’ viewpoints and compare them to one another. It will ultimately conclude by revealing how the Reactive Attitudes Theory represents a more accurate account of self-blame.

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<p dir="ltr">In my dissertation, “Scanlonian Contractualism and Animals,” I take T.M. Scanlon’s ethical contractualism, convert it into a political theory, and apply it to deriving the duties of justice we owe to nonhuman animals. Here is the narrative structure of my dissertation. First, I argue in chapter 1 that nonhuman animals should be included within the scope of morality, or justice, as contractualism construes this notion. Animals are some of the “others” to whom we owe duties, particularly duties of justice. To this effect, I defend a revised version of the argument from marginal cases. </p><p dir="ltr">Second, I tell the reader how contractualism works in detail in chapters 2 and 3, making modifications and conversions into political philosophy along the way. Crucial for my discussion will be the debate between Derek Parfit and Scanlon over issues such as how to take numbers into account within contractualism. Scanlon’s considered view is that personal reasons should be added up to determine what we ought to do, but this is not the aggregation of impersonal value, for example, as in utilitarianism.</p><p dir="ltr">In chapter 4, a major step taken is the conversion of political contractualism into a form of Rawlsian political liberalism. Political liberalism takes the fact of reasonable pluralism of comprehensive doctrines on life’s important questions as a permanent feature of liberal democracy. In order to address this pluralism, political liberalism seeks to provide a political conception of justice that can be endorsed by people who differ on fundamental ethical, philosophical, and religious matters. My version of animal rights contractualism adopts this framework, but it takes work to show how animal rights and political liberalism are compatible.</p><p dir="ltr">Third, in chapter 5, a neutral metric for the harm of death will be suggested, following the requirements of political liberalism to offer a political conception of various aspects of our theories. This needs to be done because the harm of death is a complex, contested philosophical issue. The contractors need this metric to figure out what burdens are imposed by death. A neutral metric is meant to be one that can be endorsed by adherents of different comprehensive philosophical viewpoints in an overlapping consensus.</p><p dir="ltr">Fourth, and finally, some of the specific political duties we have to nonhuman animals will be stated. I survey some of the most common topics that are usually explored here, such as factory-farming, medical research, and hunting. The hope is that at the end of the work, the reader will be convinced that contractualism provides a plausible account of what we owe to each animal.</p>

Une des questions centrales de la métaéthique est celle de savoir si les propriétés morales sont des propriétés naturelles ou non-naturelles. Ce mémoire fait valoir que nous ferions bien de remettre en question une constellation d’arguments en faveur du non-naturalisme moral : l’argument de la question ouverte, l’intuition normative et l’argument du gouffre. L’influent argument de la question ouverte de Moore, d’abord, ne soutient le non-naturalisme que s’il commet une pétition de principe. L’intuition normative commet ou bien le sophisme d’inférer sur la base de sa différence spécifique qu’une chose n’appartient pas à un genre donné, ou bien sous-estime la panoplie de propriétés naturelles qui possèdent les caractéristiques censées être distinctives des propriétés morales et normatives. L’argument du gouffre, quant à lui, sous-estime l’ubiquité du fossé logique et conceptuel censé marquer une discontinuité métaphysique profonde entre les domaines normatif et naturel. / One of the burning questions among metaethical realists is whether moral facts and properties are natural or non-natural. In this thesis, I argue that we should treat a family of arguments for non-naturalism with considerable scepticism: the Open Question Argument, the Normative Intuition, and the argument from the Is-Ought Gap. Moore’s famous Open Question Argument only supports moral non-naturalism if it begs the question against the modest (non-reductionist) naturalist. As for the Normative Intuition, it either commits the fallacy of inferring on the basis of a thing’s specific difference that it does not belong to the genus it putatively belongs to, or it underestimates the breadth of natural properties that possess the features which non-naturalists allege are distinctive of moral and normative properties. The argument from the Is-Ought Gap, for its part, underestimates the ubiquity of the logical and conceptual gap that allegedly marks a deep metaphysical discontinuity between the normative and natural domains.