Contractualism and the Significance of Perspective-Taking

Many of us think that perspective-taking is relevant to moral judgment. In this paper I claim that Scanlon’s contractualism provides an appealing and distinctive account of why this is so. Contractualism interprets our moral judgments as making claims about the reasons of individuals in various situ...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Timmerman, Peter (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V [2015]
In: Ethical theory and moral practice
Year: 2015, Volume: 18, Issue: 5, Pages: 909-925
RelBib Classification:NCA Ethics
VA Philosophy
ZD Psychology
Further subjects:B Scanlon
B Moral Judgment
B Perspective-taking
B Empathy
B Contractualism
Online Access: Presumably Free Access
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Summary:Many of us think that perspective-taking is relevant to moral judgment. In this paper I claim that Scanlon’s contractualism provides an appealing and distinctive account of why this is so. Contractualism interprets our moral judgments as making claims about the reasons of individuals in various situations, reasons that we can only recognise by considering their perspectives. Contractualism thereby commits itself to the view that our capacity for moral judgment depends on our capacity for perspective-taking. I show that neither utilitarianism nor Kantianism assign a similar significance to our capacity for perspective-taking.
ISSN:1572-8447
Contains:Enthalten in: Ethical theory and moral practice
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10677-014-9543-7