Contractarianism and Moderate Morality

In his book The Limits of Morality, Shelly Kagan claims that contractarian approaches to ethics are incompatible with our common, everyday, "moderate" morality. In this thesis I defend a version of contractarianism that I believe leads to both deontological constraints and options; i.e., to a genuinely moderate morality. On my account, the parties to the agreement are conceived of as being motivated not only to promote self-interest, but also to formulate a code of ethics that gives proper respect to their moral status as persons. If such a picture of the bargainers' motivations is defensible, as I believe it is, then the 'moderate' may in fact have recourse to contractarianism in her defense of everyday morality, for - as my thesis argues - bargainers that are thus motivated will arrive at a moderate morality.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Philosophy

Department dc:contributor.department

Philosophy

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2001

Author dc:creator

• Baltzly, Vaughn Bryan

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• FitzPatrick, William J.

• options
• contractarianism
• deontological constraints
• ethics
• Shelly Kagan

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Dc Identifier Other

etd-07142001-091919

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/33999