Abstract

The central idea of T. M. Scanlon’s “contractualism” has been well known to ethical theorists since Scanlon 1982. In What We Owe to Each Other it has grown into a comprehensive and impressively developed theory of the nature of right and wrong—or at least of what Scanlon regards as the most important of the “normative kinds” that go under the names of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. Rejecting aggregative consequentialism, Scanlon aims to articulate principles of right and wrong for individual action in such a way that the interests of each affected person are taken fairly into account.