Scanlon’s book aims to offer us a moral
theory of right and wrong and of our obligations to one another. The theory is called contractualism and its
central claim is that an act is right or wrong if and only if it could or could
not be justified to others on grounds that they could not reasonably reject (p.
4). Scanlon recognizes that so stated,
his contractualism might seem empty in the sense that one might think that the
aim of offering grounds that others could not reasonably reject is an aim to
which all plausible moral theories would aspire (p. 4). For example, as Scanlon himself
acknowledges, utilitarians, who hold the view that an act is right only if it
would produce the greatest happiness, presumably would believe that their view
is one that no reasonable person could possibly reject (p. 189). However, Scanlon believes that his
contractualism is in fact substantive. 
According to Scanlon, his contractualism holds the process of justifying
to others to be ‘basic’ (p. 5). In
other words, Scanlon believes that simply by thinking about what could be
justified to others on grounds that they could not reasonably reject, we can
‘determine the shape of more specific moral notions such as murder or betrayal
(p. 5).’ As Scanlon explains, even
though utilitarians may also accept that an act is right if and only if it can
be justified to others, what makes an action right for utilitarians is that the
action has the best consequences; ‘justifiability is merely a consequence of
this’ (p. 189); whereas for Scanlon’s contractualism, justifiability is what
makes an action right or wrong. The aim
of Scanlon’s book is to elaborate and explicate this account of
contractualism.

Scanlon’s work is divided into the two parts. In Part I (Chs. 1-3), Scanlon explains why he takes reasons
rather than desires to be ‘primitive,’ how reasons are related to values, and
why well-being is not a ‘master-value’ as some consequentialists might believe
it to be. In Part 2 (Chs. 4-8), Scanlon
discusses the main claims of his contractualism and considers issues about
responsibility, promises and relativism in light of his theory. Throughout the book, Scanlon also
distinguishes his contractualism from Kant’s contractualism by pointing out
that his contractualism, unlike Kant’s, is ‘heteronomous’ rather than ‘autonomous’
(p. 6); and from the contractualism of John Rawls, David Gauthier and R. M.
Hare by arguing that unlike these other writers, his contractualism appeals to
reasons rather than rationality as the sources of justification (p. 191).

Scanlon has offered us some interesting and well-formulated arguments on
a number of central topics in ethics, e.g., his insightful discussion that the
obligation to keep a promise need not derive its moral force from the existence
of a social practice of promising (Ch. 7). 
I have however serious reservations about Scanlon’s main project,
namely, whether he has succeeded in providing us with a substantive account of
moral theory where ‘justifiability’ is taken as basic. As far as I can see, rather than
justifiability’s doing the work in providing us with moral answers, what are
doing the work in Scanlon’s moral theory are Scanlon’s moral intuitions;
‘justifiability’ seems ‘merely a consequence’ of these intuitions.

The book contains many instances where Scanlon seems to rely on his
intuitions to arrive at moral answers, instead of his demonstrating that these
answers are derived from the idea of justifiability (pp. 192-193, p. 227, p.
235, etc). To give just one example,
Scanlon argues that if one has a piece of information that would be of great
help to another person because it would save that person a great deal of time
and effort in pursuing that person’s life’s project, according to Scanlon, even
if the person is not in desperate need of this information,

it
would surely be wrong of [one] to fail (simply out of indifference) to give her
this information when there is no compelling reason not to do so. It would be unreasonable to reject a
principle requiring us to help others in this way (even when they are not in
desperate need), since such a principle would involve no significant sacrifice
on our part. Call this the Principle of
Helpfulness’ (p. 224).

To me, this
principle seems just to be a piece of Scanlon’s moral intuition. Indeed, although Scanlon claims that it
would be ‘unreasonable to reject a principle requiring us to help others
in this way,’ but why is this so? 
Scanlon offers no further explanations and I do not see why it would be
unreasonable to reject this principle. 
In fact, I believe that this principle of helpfulness is not morally
obligatory. To see this, consider the
following: Suppose a person
needs a yacht so that he can sail around the world and achieve his dream
project, and suppose that I am so wealthy that it would really cost me very
little to buy him a yacht, I may just decide to do so on the principle of
helpfulness in order that he can pursue this dream. But rather than the principle’s being a moral obligation, this
principle seems to me to be supererogatory, that is, beyond the calls of
duty. The reason is that while it may
be the case that we have an obligation to help people obtain the universally
necessary conditions for a good life such as food, water, education, etc., it
does not seem to me that we have an obligation to help people to obtain
whatever necessary for their pursuit of a good life. Hence, Scanlon and I have different views regarding the moral
obligatoriness of this principle. More
pertinently though, I do not see how this principle is the result of taking the
idea of ‘justifiability as being basic.’ 

In only one instance in the book
does Scanlon appear to give substance to his idea that justifiability can be
taken as basic. As we shall see,
though, this is more apparent than real. 
Scanlon considers a situation in which we must choose between saving two
people versus saving one person from the same loss or injury. According to him, we can arrive at the
answer that we should save the greater number by considering whether it would
be permissible for one to be indifferent between saving two versus saving
one. According to Scanlon, the second
person in the larger group

[could]
complain that this principle did not take account of the value of saving his
life, since it permits the agent to decided what to do in the very same way
that it would have permitted had he not be present at all . . . This is
unacceptable, the [additional] person [from the larger group] might argue,
since his life should be given the same moral significance as anyone else’s in
this situation (p. 232).

It follows,
according to Scanlon, that saving the greater number is required because it is
‘not unfair to the person who is not
saved, since the importance of saving him or her has been fully taken into
account’ (p. 234).

Here it might seem as if Scanlon has illustrated how justifiability can
be taken as basic, since the reason why one should save two is that this seems
to be a principle no reasonable person can reject, whereas saving only the one
person seems to be a principle which the additional person in the two person
group can reject. However, I would
argue that what is really doing the work here is not ‘justifiability’ but the
principle of fairness. Recall that
Scanlon’s explanation of why the individual in the one person group could not
protest to not being saved is that it is not ‘unfair’ to her. Without this principle, (and assuming, for
argument’s sake that fairness is the appropriate consideration here), I do not
see why the person in the one person group could not reasonably object to a
principle that requires one to save the greater group on the ground that it is
her life which would be sacrificed. I
agree that once the principle of fairness is taken into account, then this
could override the individual in the one person group’s claim that she should
be saved. But, in such a case, it seems
to me that it is the principle of fairness that is determining why one should
save the greater number; justifiability seems only to be a consequence of this
principle. Here it is worthwhile
recalling something said in the beginning, namely, that in a trivial, empty
sense, all moral theories aspire to provide grounds that others could not
reasonably reject. Hence, I am not
denying that justifiability plays no role in the example above. However, Scanlon’s aim was to provide a moral
theory that would show justifiability to be basic; that is, justifiability and
nothing else would give us determinate moral answers. To the extent that he had to use the principle of fairness to
arrive at a determinate answer, it seems that Scanlon has not succeeded in his
aim.

Scanlon has admirably tried to surmount the shortcomings of our present
moral theories by presenting us with his version of contractualism. Although I have misgivings about whether he
has succeeded in outlining a plausible moral theory, the original, interesting
and plausible arguments contained in this book should challenge and delight all
who are interested in ethics.            

© 2002 S. Matthew Liao

S. Matthew Liao, Ph.D., Stipendiary
Lecturer, Trinity College, Oxford University