Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Animal Rights and Wrongs' and 'Against the Professors (six books)'

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2 ideas

23. Ethics / B. Contract Ethics / 1. Contractarianism
Kant's Moral Law is the rules rational beings would accept when trying to live by agreement [Scruton]
     Full Idea: We can see the Kantian 'Moral Law' as consisting precisely in those rules which rational beings would accept, when attempting to live by agreement.
     From: Roger Scruton (Animal Rights and Wrongs [1996], p.30)
     A reaction: If this combines Kantian notions of duty with the obligations of contracts, it is the core of a very powerful moral theory. See the work of Tim Scanlon. Classic problems are still the weak, animals and free riders.
23. Ethics / B. Contract Ethics / 9. Contractualism
Right actions, once done, are those with a reasonable justification [Sext.Empiricus]
     Full Idea: Right action is whatever, once it has been done, has a reasonable justification.
     From: Sextus Empiricus (Against the Professors (six books) [c.180], 7.158)
     A reaction: Why does he add 'once it has been done'? Wouldn't a proposed action be right if it had a reasonable justification? This grows out of the classical and Stoic emphasis on reason in ethics, and leads towards Scanlon's Contractualism.