Reasons and Recognition Essays on the Philosophy of T.M. Scanlon

by Wallace, R. Jay; Kumar, Rahul; Freeman, Samuel

• ISBN13: 9780199753673
• ISBN10: 0199753679
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-09-15
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

For close to forty years now T.M. Scanlon has been one of the most important contributors to moral and political philosophy in the Anglo-American world. Through both his writing and his teaching, he has played a central role in shaping the questions with which research in moral and political philosophy now grapples. Reasons and Recognitionbrings together fourteen new papers on an array of topics from the many areas to which Scanlon has made path-breaking contributions, each of which develops a distinctive and independent position while critically engaging with central themes from Scanlon's own work in the area. Contributors include well-known senior figures in moral and political philosophy as well as important younger scholars whose work is just beginning to gain wider recognition. Taken together, these papers make evident the scope and lasting interest of Scanlon's contributions to moral and political philosophy while contributing to a deeper understanding of the issues addressed in his work.

Author Biography

R. Jay Wallace is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. His interests extend to all parts of moral philosophy (including its history), and to such allied areas as political philosophy, philosophy of law, and philosophy of action. His publications include Responsibility and the Moral Sentiments, Normativity and the Will, and numerous papers on moral psychology, the theory of practical reason, and the philosophy of responsibility.

Rahul Kumar is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Queen's University, Canada. He works in moral and political philosophy. He is the author of Consensualism in Principle and co-editor of Reparations: Interdisciplinary Inquiries as well as several papers on contractualist moral theory.

Samuel Freeman is Avalon Professor in the Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania. He works in social and political philosophy, ethics, and philosophy of law. His publications include Rawls and Justice and the Social Contract. He edited the Cambridge Companion to Rawls, as well as John Rawls's Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy and his Collected Papers.

Table of Contents

Preface
Contributors
I. Reason, Value, and Desire
1. The Activity of Reason, Christine M. Korsgaard
2. Valuing, Samuel Scheffler
3. Aims as Reasons, Niko Kolodny
4. Scanlon on Desire and the Explanation of Action, Michael Smith

II. Ethical Themes: Contractualism, Promissory Obligation, and Tolerance
5. Of Metaethics and Motivation: The Appeal of Contractualism, Pamela Hieronymi
6. Contractualism on the Shoal of Aggregation, Rahul Kumar
7. Immoral, Conflicting, and Redundant Promises, Seana Valentine Shiffrin
8. The Trouble with Tolerance, Angela M. Smith

III. Political Themes: Conservatism, Justice, and Public Reason
9. Rescuing Conservatism: A Defence of Existing Value, G. A. Cohen
10. Global Political Justice and the "Democratic Deficit", Charles R. Beitz
11. Establishment, Exclusion, and Democracy's Public Reason, Joshua Cohen
12. The Significance of Distribution, Aaron James

IV. Responsibility
13. The Trouble with Psychopaths, Gary Watson
14. Italian Style, Susan Wolf - Blame
15. Dispassionate Opprobrium: On Blame and the Reactive Sentiments, R. Jay Wallace