Moral Philosophy Reading Group

This week we are discussing Pamela Hieronymi’s ‘Of Metaethics and Motivation: The Appeal of Contractualism’.

Here is the abstract: In his 1982 article, T. M. Scanlon noted that, despite the widespread attention to Rawls’ A Theory of Justice, the appeal of contractualism as a moral theory had been under-appreciated. It seems to me that, nearly thirty years later, despite the widespread attention to Scanlon’s work, this appeal is still largely under-appreciated. In this paper, I try to present Scanlon’s appealing answer to what he once called “the question of motivation” and the relation of this answer to the more metaethical “question of subject matter.” I then defend Scanlon’s view against various, standard objections, which, I claim, typically misunderstand it. I close by considering what it would take to wed Scanlon’s attractive answer to the question of motivation to another, non-contractualist, theory. I conclude that, even if the marriage could be arranged, a good part of the appeal of contractualism would inevitably be lost. In particular, the marriage would sacrifice the central place in Scanlon’s theory for what might be called liberty of conscience.