Scanlon and Contractualism

This collection brings together essays which reflect on the detailed arguments of What We Owe to Each Other, and which comment critically both on Scanlon's contractualism and his revised understandings of motivation and morality. The essays illustrate the uses of Scanlon's contractualism by applying it to moral and political problems and in so doing they provide an assessment of the ability of Scanlon's contractualism by applying it to other forms of ethical theory. So, the central questions are: What is the best interpretation of the theory advanced in 'What We Owe to Each Other?'; How does the theory, so interpreted, stand up to criticism?; and How does contractualism handle certain difficult problems in politics and ethics?. To answer these questions, the collection includes the work of distinguished political philosophers. The resulting volume will make an important and original contribution to the literature on Scanlon, on contractualism and on contemporary political philosophy.