Recent Political Philosophy {check ??s}



Political and Legal Philosophy:

Political Constructivism

Optional course, Philosophy MA and Social and Political Thought MA

Spring Term 2007 Tutor: Andrew Chitty

Course Outline and Reading List

The term ‘Kantian constructivism’ was introduced by John Rawls to describe a procedure for deriving moral, legal and political standards from the bare idea of what it is to be a person or a rational agent. Versions of this strategy, with or without the name ‘constructivism’, can be discovered not only in Rawls’s derivation of his principles of justice from choices made in an original position, and in Kant’s moral philosophy, but also in O’Neill, Weinrib, Habermas, Gewirth, Scanlon and other recent political and legal philosophers, as well as in earlier figures such as Fichte and Hegel. The course will examine the structure and cogency of various political constructivist arguments. It will begin by briefly examining Rousseau’s theory of political legitimacy, which is the chief precursor of the constructivist tradition.

# = essential reading for seminar

* = recommended

+ = good introductory reading

The course webpage is at .

‘Bibliography’ refers to my social and political philosophy bibliography at .

General reading

Introductions to contemporary political philosophy:

* Wolff, J. (1996) An Introduction to Political Philosophy

Knowles, D. (1998) Political Philosophy

Swift, A. (2001) Political Philosophy: A Beginner’s Guide for Students and Politicians

Christman, J. (2002) Social and Political Philosophy: A Contemporary Introduction

Constructivism in contemporary political philosophy:

McKinnon, C. (2002) Liberalism and the Defence of Political Constructivism

Roberts, P. (2006) Political Constructivism

Bibliography: section on ‘Constructivism in political philosophy’

1. Introduction

2. Kant’s philosophy of right

Kant is far and away the most important historical figure for central figure for contemporary political constructivism, and most constructivists combine their views with a particular interpretation of Kant’s moral philosophy and philosophy of right. In this session we will concentrate on his argument for the second formula of the basic moral imperative, the categorical imperative: that we should treat others as ends rather than means, and on a close reading of the key parts of his philosophy of right, or philosophy of law.

Questions: Why should we treat others as ends rather than means? What does Kant mean by Right (Recht)? Is his principle of Right based on the categorical imperative, and if so how? What is the basic difference between private and public right (private and public law) for Kant?

# Kant, I. [1784] ‘What is enlightenment?’ in H. Reiss. ed. Kant: Political Writings, or T. Humphrey ed. Perpetual Peace and Other Essays, also available online at

# Kant, I. [1785] Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals trans. M. Gregor, 1998 or ed. L. Denis 2005, or as Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. L.W. Beck, 1959, or as The Moral Law, trans. H.J. Paton, 1948, part 2, Prussian Academy pagination pp. 426-448 and (the argument that every rational agent must treat every other as an end in him/herself)

# Kant, I. [1797] The Metaphysics of Morals trans. M. Gregor, 1991 (recommended translation), Doctrine of Right: ‘Introduction to Doctrine of Right’ and §1-9, 36, 41-49, 49 remark A, 52, 62, Conclusion

# Pippin, R. (1991) Modernism as a Philosophical Problem, pp. 1-15, 46-61 (supplied)

The second and third texts above are also available in older translations online via the ‘Kant on the Web’ site at or in ‘Philosophy Texts at Sussex’ via (NB ‘Doctrine of Right is sometimes translated as ‘Science of Right’).

Introductions to Kant’s ethics:

Schneewind, J.B. (1992) ‘Autonomy, obligation and virtue: an overview of Kant’s moral philosophy’, in P. Guyer ed. The Cambridge Companion to Kant

Korsgaard, C. (1998) ‘Introduction’ to Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, tr. M. Gregor

Walker, R.C.S. (1998) Kant: Kant and the Moral Law, The Great Philosophers (a very short book)

Guyer, P. (1998) ‘Introduction’ to Guyer, P. ed. Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: Critical Essays

Introductions to Kant’s political and legal philosophy:

Reiss, H. (1970) ‘Introduction’ to Reiss ed. Kant’s Political Writings, secs. 4-6

Riley, P. (1986) ‘The “elements” of Kant’s political philosophy’, Political Theory 14:4

Sullivan, R.J. (1989) Immanuel Kant’s Moral Theory, chs. 16-17

Kersting, W. (1992) ‘Politics, freedom and order: Kant’s political philosophy’ in P. Guyer ed. The Cambridge Companion to Kant

On the foundations of the principle of right:

Riley, P. (1982) Will and Political Legitimacy, ch. on Kant

Taylor, C. (1984) ‘Kant’s theory of freedom’ in Z.A. Pelczynski and J. Gray eds. Conceptions of Liberty in Political Philosophy, reprinted in Taylor’s Philosophy and the Human Sciences: Philosophical Papers Volume 2, 1985

Pippin, R.B. (1985) ‘On the moral foundations of Kant’s Rechtslehre’ in R. Kennington ed. The Philosophy of Immanuel Kant, reprinted in Pippin’s Idealism as Modernism

Further sources:

Mulholland, L.A. (1989) Kant’s System of Rights

Flikschuh, K. (2000) Kant and Modern Political Philosophy

Bibliography: sections on ‘Kant’s political philosophy: introductions’, ‘Kant as constructivist in ethics’, ‘Kant as constructivist in political philosophy’, ‘Kant on right and morality’

3. Rawls’s constructivism

John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice argues that a social structure is just if it conforms to the two ‘principles of justice’ that people would choose if they had to choose between different possible principles to govern their society from an ‘original position’ that is behind a ‘veil of ignorance’, i.e. from a position in which they did not anything about their personal characteristics or abilities. Rawls went on to develop the idea that the original position procedure is a way of modelling a Kantian conception of persons as free and equal, so that ultimately the principles of justice are ‘constructed’ from this conception of a person. He also said that this conception of the person is not necessarily a true one, just one that is part of an ‘overlapping consensus’ that members of modern democratic societies share for political purposes. Here we will focus on the idea of constructivism in Rawls’s theory.

Questions: What does Rawls mean by saying that persons are free and equal? How does he think the original position models this conception of the person? What does he mean by calling this conception a ‘political’ one?

# Rawls, J. (1971) A Theory of Justice, or 2nd ed. 1999, secs. 1-4, 11, 40

# Rawls, J. (1980) ‘Kantian constructivism in moral theory’ (The Dewey Lectures), Journal of Philosophy 77:9, reprinted in Rawls’s Collected Papers, lecture 3, which is revised as lecture 3, ‘Political constructivism’ in Rawls’s Political Liberalism 1993

# Rawls, J. (1985) ‘Justice as fairness: political not metaphysical’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 14, revised as lecture 1, secs. 1-5 of Rawls’s Political Liberalism 1993

Additional text:

Rawls, J. (1989) ‘The domain of the political and overlapping consensus’, New York University Law Review 64, reprinted in Rawls’s Collected Papers, in R.E. Goodin and P. Pettit eds. Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Anthology, and in D. Matravers and J. Pike eds. Debates in Contemporary Political Philosophy

Introductions to Rawls:

Campbell, T. (1988) Justice, ch. 3

* Kukathas, C. and Pettit, P. (1990) John Rawls: A Theory of Justice and its Critics, chs. 1-4, 7

Mulhall, S. and Swift, A. (1992) Liberals and Communitarians, or 2nd ed. 1996, ‘Introduction’ pp. 1-9

Kolm, S.-C. (1995) ‘Distributive justice’ in Goodin and Pettit eds. A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy

On Rawls’s constructivism:

Doppelt, G. (1988) ‘Rawls’ Kantian ideal and the viability of modern liberalism’, Inquiry 31

+ Arneson, R.J. (1989) ‘Introduction’ to symposium on Rawlsian theory of justice, Ethics 99

+ Kymlicka, W. (2002) Contemporary Political Philosophy¸ 2nd ed., ch. 6 sec. 7 ‘Political liberalism’

Rawls and Kant:

Rawls, J. (1989) ‘Themes in Kant’s moral philosophy’, in E. Förster ed. Kant’s Transcendental Deductions, reprinted in Rawls’s Collected Papers

Krasnoff, L. (1999) ‘How Kantian is constructivism?’, Kant-Studien 90:4

Rawls, J. (2000) Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy, section on Kant

Gillroy, J.M. (2000) ‘Making public choices: Kant’s “justice from autonomy” as an alternative to Rawls’ “justice as fairness”‘, Kant-Studien 91:1

Bibliography: ‘Rawls’s constructivism’, ‘Rawls’s constructivism: communitarian and pragmatist responses’ and ‘Rawls and Kant’

4. O’Neill’s constructivism

In a series of articles since the 1980s Onora O’Neill has put forward an alternative version of political constructivism which she argues is much closer to Kant’s original ideas than Rawls’s is. The essential idea is that laws are acceptable only if they are such that everyone could consent to them without undermining their own status as willing agents.

Questions: Is O’Neill’s constructivism based on a certain conception of the person? What is the essential difference between O’Neill’s constructivism and Rawls’s? What difference does it make to the evaluation of actual laws and state actions whether we follow O’Neill or Rawls?

# O’Neill, O. (1988-89) ‘Constructivisms in ethics’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 89, also in O’Neill’s Constructions of Reason 1989

# O’Neill, O. (2000) ‘Kant and the social contract tradition’ in F. Duchesneau et al eds. Kant Actuel: Hommage a Pierre Laberge

# O’Neill, O. (2002) ‘Constructivism in Rawls and Kant’, in S. Freeman ed. The Cambridge Companion to Rawls

Additional text:

Kant, I. [1793] ‘Theory and practice’ (full title: ‘On the common saying “This may be true in theory but it does not apply in practice”‘, in H. Reiss. ed. Kant: Political Writings 1970/1990, or in T. Humphrey ed. Perpetual Peace and Other Essays 1983) part 2 ‘Against Hobbes’

More by O’Neill:

O’Neill, O. (1996) Toward Justice and Virtue

O’Neill, O. (1997) ‘Political liberalism and public reason: a critical notice of John Rawls, Political Liberalism’, Philosophical Review 106:3

O’Neill, O. (2003) ‘Constructivism vs. contractualism’, Ratio 16: 4

O’Neill, O. (2004) ‘Autonomy, plurality and public reason’, in N. Brender and L. Krasnoff eds. New Essays on the History of Autonomy

Commentary:

Hill, T.E. (2001) ‘Hypothetical consent in Kantian constructivism’, Social Philosophy and Policy 18:2

Riley, P. (2003) ‘Review essay of O’Neill and Flikschuh’, Political Theory 31:2

Bibliography: section on ‘O’Neill’s constructivism’

5. Gewirth’s constructivism

Again drawing on Kant, Alan Gewirth in his book Reason and Morality developed an argument to the effect that as a rational agent I cannot but demand that others treat me as having certain rights, and to be logically consistent I must therefore, on the same grounds, treat all other rational agents as having those same rights. So he derives the idea of natural rights from the bare idea of rational agency and therefore clearly belongs to the constructivist tradition.

Questions: Is Gewirth right that any rational agent must claim rights to freedom and well-being? Is he right that any rational agent must respect the claims of other rational agents to freedom and well-being?

# Gewirth, A. (1988) ‘The justification of morality’, Philosophical Studies 53

and one of the following:

# Gewirth, A. (1982) Human Rights, pp. 45-52

# Gewirth, A. (1984) ‘Replies to my critics’, in E. Regis Jr. ed. Gewirth’s Ethical Rationalism¸ see pp. 203-210

Gewirth, A. (1978) Reason and Morality, chs. 1-3 (full statement of his argument)

Gewirth, A. (1982) ‘On rational agency as the basis of moral equality: reply to Ben-Zeev’, Canadian Journal of Philosophy 12

Commentary:

+ Lomasky, L. (1984) ‘Personal projects as the foundation for basic rights’, Social Philosophy and Policy 1, reprinted in E.F. Paul et al. ed. Human Rights 1984

Scheuermann, J. (1987) ‘Gewirth’s concept of prudential rights’, Philosophical Quarterly 37

+ Beyleveld, D. (1991) The Dialectical Necessity of Morality, pp. 13-21

Chitty, A. (2006) ‘Protagonist and subject in Gewirth’s ethical rationalism’ (unpublished MS, available on request)

Gewirth and political and legal philosophy

Beyleveld, D. and Brownsword, R. (1986) Law as a Moral Judgement

Gewirth, A. (1996) The Community of Rights

Further sources:

Regis E. Jr. ed. (1984) Gewirth’s Ethical Rationalism

Boylan, M. ed. (1999) Gewirth: Critical Essays on Action, Rationality, and Community

Bibliography: section on ‘Gewirth’

6. Kantian theory of private law: Weinrib

The legal scholar Ernest Weinrib, has developed a theory of private law (the law of property, contract, and tort) based on Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals. Weinrib argues that private law as a body of legal practices is best understood as making explicit the ideas of personhood articulated by Kant. Weinrib does not call his theory constructivist since his aim is to discover the normative principles which are immanent in private law rather than to derive private law as it should be from those principles, but it has a close relationship with the views we have already discussed.

Questions: What does Weinrib mean by calling himself a ‘legal formalist’? Is the idea of personhood which he identifies as central to private law the same as Rawls’s and O’Neill’s? Is he committed to the objective truth of this notion of personhood? How can Weinrib’s theory provide a basis for criticising the particular decisions of judges in private law cases?

# Weinrib, E.J. (1995) The Idea of Private Law, chs. 1, 4

On Weinrib:

Patterson, D. (1996) Law and Truth, chapter on Weinrib

Rosenfeld, M. (1998) Just Interpretations: Law between Ethics and Politics, section on Weinrib

Zipurksy, B. (2002) ‘Philosophy of private law’, in J. Coleman and S. Shapiro eds. The Oxford Handbook of Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law (see section 2: ‘Leading theoretical models of private law’)

Introductions to the philosophy of law:

* Harris, J. (1980) Legal Philosophies, or 2nd ed. 1997

Murphy, J.G. and Coleman J.L. eds. (1990) Philosophy of Law: An Introduction to Jurisprudence

Wacks, R. (1995) Jurisprudence, 4th ed.

Bibliography: section on ‘Constructivist accounts of private law’

7. Habermas on the normative foundations of law and democracy

In the 1980s Jürgen Habermas drew on ideas in Kant to develop a theory of ‘discourse ethics’, according to which there are certain ethical principles embedded in the bare idea of communication as such, so that we are, as it were, committed to these principles just by talking to each other. He went on to apply this approach to law, the state and democracy. We will focus on the theory of law and democracy in his Between Facts and Norms.

Questions: What according to Habermas is the idea of popular sovereignty? What is the idea of human rights? How do these ideas relate to one another? According to Habermas does liberal democracy succeed in uniting them in practice? If so how? Questions: How is Habermas’s theory of law ‘reconstructivist’? Does he provide clear criteria for what kinds of laws are acceptable and what are not? How are those criteria different in practice from others looked at so far in this course?

# Cahn, S.M. ed. Political Philosophy: The Essential Texts, pp. 524-541

And one of the following:

# Baynes, K. (1995) ‘Democracy and the “Rechtsstaat”: Habermas’s “Faktizität und Geltung”’, in S.K. White ed. The Cambridge Companion to Habermas

# Scheuerman, W.E. (1998) ‘Between radicalism and resignation: democratic theory in Habermas’s Between Facts and Norms’ in P. Dews ed. Habermas: A Critical Reader

# Olson, K. (2003) ‘Do rights have a formal basis? Habermas’ legal theory and the normative foundations of the law’, Journal of Political Philosophy 11:3

Habermas, J. [1992] Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy, ch. 3 (esp. from 3.1.2 onwards)

+Outhwaite, W. (1994) Habermas: A Critical Introduction, chs. 3 ‘Communication and discourse ethics’ and ch. 9 ‘Law and the state’

+Finlayson, G. (2005) Habermas: A Very Short Introduction, chs. 6-8

Habermas on law and democracy:

Habermas, J. (1988) ‘Law and morality’, Tanner Lectures on Human Values 8

O’Neill , O. (1994) ‘Practical reason and possible community: a reply to Jean-Marc Ferry’, Ratio Juris 7:3

Peters, B. (1994) ‘On reconstructive legal and political theory, Philosophy and Social Criticism 20:4

Baynes, K. (1995) ‘Democracy and the “Rechtsstaat”: Habermas’s “Faktizität und Geltung”‘, in S.K. White ed. The Cambridge Companion to Habermas

Habermas’s discourse ethics:

Habermas, J. [1982] ‘Discourse ethics: notes on philosophical justification’, in S. Benhabib and F. Dallmayr eds. The Communicative Ethics Controversy 1990, also in Habermas’ Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action 1990

Habermas, J. [1991] ‘Remarks on discourse ethics’, in Justification and Application: Remarks on Discourse Ethics, tr. 1993

Habermas’s critique of Rawls:

Rawls (1993) Political Liberalism, lecture 4 §1-5, lecture 6 §1-4

Habermas, J. (1995) ‘Reconciliation through the public use of reason: remarks on John Rawls’ Political Liberalism’, Journal of Philosophy 92:33

Rawls, J. (1995) ‘Reply to Habermas’s “Reconciliation through the public use of reason”‘, Journal of Philosophy 92:3, reprinted as ‘Political Liberalism: a debate with John Rawls’, in Habermas’s The Inclusion of the Other: Studies in Political Theory 1999

McCarthy, T. (1994) ‘Kantian constructivism and reconstructivism: Rawls and Habermas in dialog’, Ethics 105:1

Bibliography: sections on ‘Habermas on law’ and ‘Habermas and Rawls’

8. Constructivism in Hegel

Hegel is often thought of as saying that the ultimate justifications for laws and political institutions can only refer to the shared values of a given society at a particular time in history, and cannot be grounded on any transhistorical foundation. But in his Philosophy of Right he explicitly attempts to show how all the spheres of modern Right (law) are realisations of the bare idea of the free will, in one way or another. We will first look at two essays by Fichte and Schelling which both sketch versions of constructivism, and which undoubtedly influenced Hegel. We will then trace Hegel’s construction of private property as the basic principle of Abstract Right (his term for private law) from the idea of free will in the first version of his Philosophy of Right.

Questions: Why does Hegel think that a genuinely free will must will the free will itself? What does it mean to will your own free will? How does he derive property rights from the will that wills its own freedom?

# Fichte, J.G. [1794] Lectures 1-2 of ‘Some lectures concerning the scholar’s vocation’, in Fichte: Early Philosophical Writings, tr. D. Breazeale 1988

# Hegel, G. [1817-8] Lectures on Natural Right and Political Science, tr. J.M. Stewart and P.C. Hodgson, §§1-16 (together with the lecture notes at pp. 319-331), 17-32, 123

Additional texts:

Hegel, G. [1817] Philosophy of Spirit, §§430-436 (in M. Petry ed. Hegel’s Philosophy of Subjective Spirit vol. 3, or M. Petry ed. The Berlin Phenomenology, or Findlay ed. Hegel’s Philosophy of Mind) (on the master-servant relation and mutual recognition)

Hegel, G. [1821] Elements of the Philosophy of Right, §§1-71, 260 (covers the same material as the third reading above, but in a much more elaborate form)

+ Chitty, A. (2006) ‘Fichte’s deduction of right from mutual recognition’, via

Commentary:

Riley, P. (1982) Will and Political Legitimacy, chapter on Hegel

Wood, A. (1990) Hegel’s Ethical Thought, chs. 2, 4, 5

Knowles, D. (2002) Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Hegel and the Philosophy of Right, chs. 2-4

On free will as the basis of right in general:

Maletz, D.J. (1989) ‘Hegel on right as actualised will’, Political Theory 17

Patten, A. (1999) Hegel’s Idea of Freedom, ch. 2 secs. 1-3

Westphal, K.R. (2002) ‘Hegel’s normative constructivism’ (unpublished MS, copy supplied)

On free will as the basis of property:

Weinrib, E.J. (1991) ‘Right and advantage in private law’, in D. Cornell et al. eds. Hegel and Legal Theory

Benson, P. (1991) ‘The priority of abstract right and constructivism in Hegel’s legal philosophy’, in D. Cornell et al. eds. Hegel and Legal Theory

Patten, A. (1995) ‘Hegel’s justification of private property’, History of Political Thought 16:4, revised as ch. 5 of his Hegel’s Idea of Freedom

‘A Hegel bibliography’ at : sections on ‘Freedom in Hegel’s political philosophy, Hegel as a constructivist’ and ‘Property and contract: Hegel’s justification’

9. Critiques of constructivism

In this session we will look at three representative critiques of the idea of deriving legal principles from the idea of the agent or the will as such: Marxist, communitarian and naturalist. Pashukanis argues that the system of private law, and the concept of the self as a pure chooser that is associated with it, both arise out of a market economy of private property owners. The implication is that this concept of the self cannot be used to provide a philosophical justification of property or private law. Michael Sandel argues that the concept of the self as a pure chooser on which Rawls relies is unrealistic since every individual is in fact already steeped in the values of their particular society. This critique applies implicitly to the whole constructivist tradition. John Gray argues that the very idea of human beings as free agents fundamentally distinct from other animals is simply a long-standing illusion of Western religion and philosophy. This seems to radically undercut the ground from any political constructivism.

Questions: Can political constructivism provide a basis for justifying a legal order if it is based on a conception of the self that is (a) produced or (b) reinforced by that same order? How should a political constructivist respond to Sandel’s critique of Rawls? Is political constructivism destroyed by the acknowledgment that humans are animals?

# Pashukanis, E.V. [1929] Law and Marxism, ch. 3 ‘Norm and relation’, ch. 4 ‘Commodity and subject’

# Sandel, M.J. (1982) Liberalism and the Limits of Justice, or 2nd ed. 1988, introduction, ch. 1, conclusion (see also chs. 2-3)

# Gray, J. (2002) Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals, Granta, pp. 37-52

Marxist critiques of constructivism:

Marx, K. [1867] Capital, vol. 1, ch. 2, first paragraph (and footnote on Proudhon)

Marcuse, H. [1936] ‘A study on authority, part 3: Kant’, in his Studies in Critical Philosophy (also published as From Luther to Popper)

Marcuse, H. (1941) Reason and Revolution: Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory, 2nd ed., Routledge and Kegan Paul, pp. 183-196

Sayer, D. (1991) Capitalism and Modernity: An Excursus on Marx and Weber, ch. 2 ‘Power and the subject’, section 1

Bibliography: section on ‘Marxist critiques of constructivism and humanism’

The communitarian critique of Rawls (and of constructivism in general):

Gutmann, A. (1985) ‘Communitarian critics of liberalism’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 14

Kymlicka, W. (1989) Liberalism, Community and Culture, ch. 4 ‘Communitarianism and the self’

+ Kukathas, C. and Pettit, P. (1990) Rawls, ch. 7

+ Mulhall, S. and Swift, A. (1992) Liberals and Communitarians: An Introduction, 2nd ed. 1996, Introduction, chs. 5, 6

Bibliography: sections on ‘Rawls’s constructivism: communitarian and pragmatist responses’, ‘Liberal responses to communitarianism’ and ‘Further developments in the liberal/communitarian debate’

Supplement: Justifiability to citizens

Alongside the idea that principles of justice must be derivable from an original position that models the idea of persons as free and equal, Rawls also argued that they must be ‘justifiable’ to all citizens, i.e. that it must be possible to give acceptable reasons for them to every citizen. The idea of justifiability to citizens as a criterion for laws and state policies is another strand in contemporary constructivism, developed also by Jeremy Waldron and Tim Scanlon.

Waldron, J. (1987) ‘Theoretical foundations of liberalism’, Philosophical Quarterly 37:147

Scanlon, T.M. (1982) ‘Contractualism and utilitarianism’, in Sen and Williams eds. Utilitarianism and Beyond

+ D’Agostino, F. (2003) ‘Public justification’, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, at

Rawls on justifiability:

Rawls, J. (1993) Political Liberalism, pp. 136-7, 225-6 (on the ‘liberal principle of legitimacy’)

Gaut, B. (1995) ‘Rawls and the claims of liberal legitimacy’, Philosophical Papers 24:1

Scanlon, T.M. (2003) ‘Rawls on justification’, in S. Freeman ed. The Cambridge Companion to Rawls (see section 3)

Scanlon on justifiability:

Scanlon, T.M. (1999) What We Owe to Each Other, Introduction, ch. 5 ‘The structure of contractualism’

+ Scanlon, T. (2003) ‘Contractualism and what we owe to each other’ in H. Pauer-Studer ed. Constructions of Practical Reason: Interviews on Moral and Political Philosophy (interview with Scanlon on his work)

Commentary on Scanlon:

Kreide, R. (2000) ‘Context-sensitive universalism: on Thomas Scanlon’s “What We Owe to Each Other”’, Philosophy and Social Criticism 26:5

Ridge, M. (2001) ‘Saving Scanlon: contractualism and agent-relativity’, Journal of Political Philosophy 9:4

Adams, R.M. (2001) ‘Scanlon’s contractualism’ Philosophical Review 110:4

Dworkin, G. (2002) ‘Contractualism and the normativity of principles’, Ethics 112:3

O’Neill, O. (2003) ‘Constructivism vs. contractualism’, Ratio 16: 4

Parfit, D. (2003) ‘Justifiability to each person’, Ratio 16:4

Further sources:

Gaus, G.F. (1996) Justificatory Liberalism

Matravers, M. ed. (2003) Scanlon and Contractualism

AC 11 January 2007

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