T. M. Scanlon

T. M. Scanlon is an American philosopher who taught at Princeton and then for many years at Harvard. He developed contractualism, the view that an act is wrong if it would be disallowed by principles that no one could reasonably reject. Because only individuals raise objections to principles, his individual-reasons restriction blocks the aggregation of many small benefits against one person's grave burden, which is a central point of contrast with utilitarianism. He has also written influentially on reasons, blame, toleration and inequality.

Key ideas

• An act is wrong if it is disallowed by principles that no one could reasonably reject.
• Objections to principles are made by individuals, so small harms to many do not simply add up against a grave harm to one.
• Reasons are fundamental: being a reason for something is not reducible to further natural facts.
• The permissibility of an action is distinct from the meaning it has; the agent's intentions bear on the latter, not the former.

Major works

• "Contractualism and Utilitarianism" (1982)
• What We Owe to Each Other (1998)
• Moral Dimensions: Permissibility, Meaning, Blame (2008)
• Being Realistic about Reasons (2014)

In the conversation

• Question How is Scanlon’s ‘reasonable rejection’ test different from asking what most people would agree to? Ethan Mercer · 4 replies
• Debate Refusing to aggregate is contractualism’s best feature, not its embarrassing bug Pieter van Dijkhuizen · 5 replies
• Discussion What is a genuine consultation for? Consensus, shura and the contractualist test Kwame Asante · 4 replies