2004-01-19 - 1:56 a.m.

3.2 Contractualism as a Non-teleological Theory

Consequentialism is a teleological theory. The term ��teleology�� comes from the Greek word telos, roughly meaning ends or goals. It is usually used to contrast with the term ��deontology��, which comes from the Greek word deon, roughly meaning duty or obligation. William Frankena gives a classical definition for teleology and deontology in Ethics : ��a teleological theory says that the basic or ultimate criterion or standard of what is morally right, wrong, obligatory, etc., is the nonmoral value that is bought into being��; and ��deontological theories deny what teleological theories affirm�� Sometimes, teleology refers to what John Rawls calls ��those theories in which the good is defined independently from the right�� and deontology is thereby defined by some philosophers as ��those theories defining the good in terms of the right��. In Kagan��s framework, teleology at the factoral level represents the view that the only normatively significant factor is goodness while deontology at the factoral level admits of constraints that cannot be violated even for overall goodness. In the foundational level, teleological theories hold that the ultimate basis of all normatively significant factors, including goodness and/or constraints, is to be explained in terms of ��some central good or goods��. Deontological theories, in contrast, have rather little in common but just share the same thought that teleology is inadequate. I have already discussed how ��what we owe to each other�� in the factoral level serves as a normative constraint to consequentialist considerations; in this section, I will go on to examine how contractualism serves as a non-teleological foundation for ��what we owe to each other��.

Basically, Scanlon��s contractualism does not construct ��what we owe to each other�� upon any account of ��goodness�� but upon ��reasons��. ��What we owe to each other�� does not depend on what can promote the best consequences but on what we can reasonably reject. Concerning this point, Scanlon writes,

��Reasons for rejecting a principle need not be based on the consequences of the actions that principle would license, or even on the consequences of those actions if performed generally.�� (218)

This fundamental fact signifies the departure of contractualism from consequentialism in the foundational level. Yet it is not quite correct to say ��goodness�� or ��values�� play no role in the contractualist account of ��what we owe to each other��. Firstly, goodness or values for individuals do play a role in determining the rejectability of principles in contractualism. Scanlon explicitly holds that gain or loss in well-being can constitute a reason (though not necessarily the trumping one) for an individual in rejecting principles. He also claims that an individual has good reasons in rejecting principles that make it impossible for him to recognize other values that he has good reason to recognize. (218-219) Scanlon��s claim is only that not all grounds for reasonable rejection lie on goodness of the individual. Secondly, ��what we owe to each other�� is itself a value that everyone who wants to justify their actions to others has reason to pursue. It fits perfectly with what Philip Pettit calls ��(agent) neutral values��: a value that we can know what it is without knowing who the valuer is. In this sense, abiding by the requirements of ��what we owe to each other�� is itself a good to be promoted by consequentialists.

Scanlon does not deny the importance of values or goodness in morality; yet he adopts a very different conception of values as compared with the consequentialists. He denies what he calls a ��teleological conception of value��. (81) A teleological conception of value mainly has two claims: (i) ��the primary bearers of (intrinsic) value are states of affairs��; and (ii) what agents have reason to do ��is to act so as to realize those states of affairs that�Khave the greatest value�� In other words, ��to be valuable, on such a view, is to be ��to be promoted.���� (79-80) It is a formal account about what goodness is but not a substantive view about which things are good; nevertheless, it is still obvious why a consequentialist account of rightness would employ a teleological conception of value�Xif values are the kind of thing that is ��to be promoted��, then according to common sense rationality, a morally right action must be the one that can promote the maximum amount of values.

I will now first outline the general debate between teleologists and non-teleologists over the proper response(s) towards values and then explain why I agree with Scanlon in rejecting the teleological conception of value. Teleologists or consequentialists typically hold that ��the proper response to values is to promote them��, and agents should have other responses only so far as these responses ��are part of promoting them, or are necessary in order to promote them��. On the contrary, non-teleologists hold that there are other possible responses that may be proper in different situations; ��some (values) are such that the best response is to exemplify or instantiate them; others are such that the best response is to promote them; �Kothers call for honoring them by refraining from doing anything that would violate them.�� For example, friendship is to be honoured or expressed; justice is to be respected; and valuable monuments are to be maintained but not to be promoted. Given different content of ��values��, it seems that non-teleologists are quite right in claiming that we should have various different attitudes towards values. Let me illustrate this with a few examples.

Friendship in general is a neutral value. Though it makes sense to say friendship should be promoted in the sense that it is good to have a state of affairs in which friendship is enjoyed by more people, the proper response towards friendship is not always to promote it. Valuing friendship is constituted by certain attitudes towards your friends and by doing certain things that are involved in being a good friend, for example: to be loyal, to be concerned to friends�� interests, and to share experiences with them, etc. One honours friendship when he insists to be loyal to his friends even at the expense of his own interests. One appreciates friendship when he expresses gratitude of having friends. These attitudes cannot be reduced to the attitude of promoting friendship. As claimed by Scanlon, ��we would not say that it showed how much a person valued friendship if he betrayed one friend in order to make several new ones, or in order to bring it about that other people had more friends.�� (89)

Another example is justice and peace. Someone who values justice or peace may well be the one who is actively promoting these values. Yet more importantly, one should also respect these values by not violating their demands. Someone who values justice or peace will take himself to have reasons, primary and foremost, to do things required in being just and peace-keeping. These reasons are not teleological in the sense that they are necessary for the ��promotion of justice�� or ��promotion of peace�� but are constituted by the value ��justice�� and ��peace�� itself. Someone who acts unjustly to promote justice in general is not really respecting it. Similarly, someone who uses the name of ��peace�� to start a war is not really appreciating peace. In the strictest sense, they are not valuing justice and peace.

An even more obvious example is the value of human life. The value of a rare kind of plant may be teleological in the sense that the destruction of one can be compensated by the production of more of the same plant. However, human life cannot be compensated in this sense. Every human has a distinctive life and its value is not replaceable by another life. If we say that the value of human life is to be promoted, then it is possible to promote the maximum value of human life by disrespecting the value of human life itself. If a pregnant woman defends her aborting her fetus by promising to give birth twice more in future, does it still make sense to say that she values human life?

From these examples, we can see that if the non-teleologists are right in claiming that we have different proper attitudes towards values, and these attitudes are not part of or only necessary for the single attitude of promoting, then there is an apparent paradox in the teleological conception of value. Let me call this the ��Paradox of Teleology��: if a certain value is always to be promoted, then it is always possible to violate other proper attitudes towards the same value in order to promote more of that value. Promoting a value is inconsistent with valuing that value because it may involve violations of our attitudes in valuing that value. This is possibly counter-intuitive because it allows (or even requires) betrayal of one friend to make more (even only one more) friends, and starting an unjust war to achieve peace and justice. How can a teleologist reply?

The heart of the ��Paradox of Teleology�� is the claim that promotion is not the only appropriate response towards value, and other responses may sometimes contradicts the attitude of promotion. A consequentialist can welcomed the first part of this claim while denying the latter. Philip Pettit argues along this line in ��A Consequentialist Perspective on Ethics��. First, different responses towards values apart from promotion, including appreciation, respect, instantiation or exemplification can be summarized into the species of honouring. For example, appreciating a redwood forest is in a broader sense honouring the value of it, and respecting the demands of just laws is also an honouring of the value behind justice. Second, honouring a value, in a broader sense, is also ��promoting�� it. ��With an appropriate value it (honouring) means acting in the way that would promote the value in a suitably compliant world, even if that mode of action does not promote it in the actual world�Kit maximizes the expected realization of the value.�� This corresponds to the consequentialists�� claim that we should have responses other than promotion only if they ��are part of promoting them��.

Pettit argues that the ultimate responses towards values can only be honouring or promoting. Suppose we have a neutral value V, and the right response towards V is R-ing V. If R-ing V is right, then R-ing V is itself a value. In order to prevent an infinite regress of values, R-ing V should not be a distinct value from the original value V, or else R-ing R-ing V would be a different value than V. If it is really the case that V, R-ing V and R-ing R-ing V are three different values, then the response R may produce an infinite number of values and thus not a proper response towards V. Petit calls it the ��non-iteration constraint�� for proper response.

For Pettit, appreciation cannot meet this constraint. Appreciating redwoods is a distinct value from the value of redwoods itself, and so do appreciating the appreciation of redwoods is distinct from the appreciation of redwoods as a value. We may have further values following these values. Pettit thinks that if we accept appreciation as a proper response towards the redwoods, then ��appreciating redwoods �� may become a further value, and we still have to decide what the proper response towards this new value of ��appreciating redwoods �� is. We just go back to what we start. Promotion, on the other hand, does not reiterate the troublesome manner of appreciation. Promoting the promotion of a value, or even promoting the promotion of the promotion of a value, is not distinct from promoting the value itself. The same case applies to honouring if to honour a value is to be understood in the sense of promoting it in a suitably compliant world. ��To act so that the promotion of the value would be promoted in such a world is not distinct from acting so that the value itself would be promoted in that world.�� In this sense, promoting and honouring represent two basic responses towards values. Since honouring is in a sense promotion, Pettit claims the proper response towards values is to promote it, generally speaking.

Consider again the case of friendship and justice. If the proper attitude towards them is to promote them, then how can a consequentialist accounts for certain attitudes or motivations that are intuitively constituted by these values? For example, why should we be moved by the requirements of being loyal to a friend, but not directly by the motivations to promote friendship? A consequentialist can resort to Henry Sidgwick��s answer to the ��Paradox of Hedonism���Xthe best way to promote values, paradoxically, may be to forgo case-by-case calculation in how to promote it in a consequentialist fashion. Rather, what can best promote a value may be to act according to the reasons and motives associated with that value. Therefore, we should conform to the norms of friendship, motivated by our concern and loyalty to friends because agents submitting themselves to these motivations usually can best promote friendship. Pettit calls this ��restrictive consequentialism��: in actual deliberation, we should always act according to the restricted motivations that can usually bring about better consequences; however, what makes an act right is not the fact they are motivated suitably by these restricted motivations, but the fact that it can promote the most neutral values. In this sense, values are still to be promoted; having other attitudes towards them is only a means to the ultimate proper response of promoting them.

I have two comments about Pettit��s argument. First, I doubt the validity of Pettit��s argument for ��non-iteration constraint��. The argument of infinite regress of values at best shows that promotion of a certain value can end an infinite regress; it does not show there can be no other proper responses towards values. Pettit argues that the proper response towards a value, as a value itself, should be identical to the original value, or else this will produce an infinite regress of values. But why should that be the case? Suppose ��love�� is a value, and ��respect towards love�� is another, it will produce an infinite regress of values only if the proper response towards ��respect of love�� is to respect it, and the proper response towards ��the respect of respect of love�� is to respect it, so on and so forth. Yet, it is doubtful whether the proper response towards ��respect of love�� is to respect it. If the proper response towards ��respect of love�� is to promote it, then there will not be an infinite regress. Also, to respect someone who respects love is not to respect love itself, and sometimes even if ��the respect of respect of love�� is itself a value, it is less valuable than ��the respect of love��, for the value of ��the respect of the respect of love�� is derived from the value of ��the respect of love�� itself. There may be a depreciation of value for further responses towards ��the respect of respect of love��, ��the respect of respect of respect of love��, �Kand etc. Perhaps at some point, these further responses will cease to be a value any more. On the other hand, even if there may be an infinite regress of value with attitudes other than promotion, we may welcome this conclusion. In reality, there are numerous values that we may not be able to come out a finite list of them. We may accept ��justice�� as a value, ��the respect of justice�� as another, ��the promotion of justice�� as a third one, and also ��the promotion of respect of justice���Ketc. It is not obvious why we cannot have an infinite number of values in which some of them may be derived from other values.

Pettit may not aim at arguing that for every single value V, the proper attitude towards it is to promote it, but just to argue that for every V, the ultimate response towards it must be to promote it. It is because other responses towards V, like appreciating V or respecting V, are themselves values that claim for a further proper response. The ultimate responses towards all these values must be to promote them. Here, the basic mistake of Pettit is that he assumes there will be an ultimate proper response towards all different values. If there is only one ultimate proper response towards all values, then promotion may be the only candidate because only it will not require further responses. However, whether there is an ultimate response towards all values is exactly what the consequentialists and non-consequentialists are disagreeing. Non-consequentialists may deny there is an ultimate response for all different values. Without further argument, Pettit is illegitimate to claim that there should be an ultimate response for all different values and this response is promotion.

So far Pettit can insist that the ultimate response towards values is to promote them. If to honour a value is itself valuable, then why is it not reasonable to promote a state of affairs in which that value is honoured by most people? For example, if the proper attitude towards justice is to respect it, then ��respect of justice�� is itself a value. If this is the case, why is it not reasonable to promote a state of affairs in which ��respect of justice�� is maximally promoted, i.e., it is respected by most people? In this sense, ��respect of justice�� gives reason to ��promote respect of justice�� and it seems there is no contradiction between the two values. However, I do not think this argument is successful. Unlike ��promotion of justice�� may give reason for ��promotion of promotion of justice��; it is not likely that ��respect of justice�� as a value will necessarily give reason to the ��promotion of respect of justice��. This can be shown by a hypothetical example:

��Suppose there is a lawful organization that urges people to break down the just legal system in the society. The continual existence of this organization will threaten the respect of justice in the society. More and more people are convinced by their doctrines but it is still possible to control the organization by arousing people��s awareness of the mistakes of its dictum. Finally, the government uses unjust means to suppress the organization.��

If ��respect of justice�� is more valuable than ��the promotion of respect of justice��, then it is reasonable to claim that the government is wrong in breaching ��the respect of justice�� to achievement a ��promotion of the respect of justice��. If ��promotion of the respect of justice�� is more valuable than ��respect of justice��, than it is reasonable to claim that the government is right in achieving ��promotion of the respect of justice�� by breaching ��respect of justice��. No matter in which case, however, it is not correct to say ��respect of justice�� gives a reason for ��the promotion of respect of justice�� and provide a single manner of reasoning to settle the conflict; rather, they provide contradicting directives for our actions. The reasons in ��respecting justice�� does not gives us reasons in ��promoting respect of justice��; it is still possible for the two values to contradict one another.

This gives us insight in criticizing Pettit��s interpretation of ��honouring a value�� in terms of ��promoting it in a salient complaint world��. Pettit has expanded the concept of ��promoting a value�� to include ��honouring it by not violating its demand��. In this sense, to promote a neutral value involves not violating the demands of such value. A state of affairs in which the value is honoured most is intrinsically good, prima facie. However, if it makes sense to say ��honouring�� is a kind of ��promoting��, then there should not be any genuine conflict between the demand of ��honouring�� and ��promoting��. On one hand, if ��honouring�� is just a kind of ��promoting��, then it is still possible to violate the demands of such value to promote more of the same value. Disrespect of a value is still possible in order to promote more respect of the same value, and it just falls back to the mistakes of the Paradox of Teleology. On the other hand, if promoting a value means maximizing its occurrence at the baseline of not violating any demands or attitudes constituted by such value, then what is left behind the bare idea of the ��teleological conception of value��? If values are to be promoted with the constraint that no dishonour of values is allowed, then the divergence between teleologists and non-teleologists may become narrower; yet, a distinctive feature of the ��teleological conception of value�� seems to be lost.

Obviously there is more to be debated concerning the defense and attack on the ��teleological conception of value��, but I want to close the issue here and discuss a related but different topic. If the teleological conception of value is unsatisfactory, then is there any alternative that can account for our conceptions of values in a better way? If we accept that some values are to be honoured and cannot be violated or disrespected for promotion of similar values, then is it irrational to insist on not violating a value even to prevent more violations of the same value? Samuel Scheffler presents a serious challenge to all deontological constraints in his essay ��Agent-centred Restrictions, Rationality, and the Virtues��. He asks,

��For how can it be rational to forbid the performance of a morally objectionable action that would have the effect of minimizing the total number of comparably objectionable actions that were performed and would have no other morally relevant consequences? How can the minimization of morally objectionable conduct be morally unacceptable?��

Scheffler claims that if the violation of a deontological constraint is morally objectionable, then it would be irrational to insist on not violating the constraint if not doing so would lead to more overall violations of the same constraint. For example, if killing is morally objectionable, then it would be irrational not to kill one person if not doing so two other person would be killed. The claim that a violation of deontological constraints is always morally objectionable is itself paradoxical. Let me call this the ��Paradox of Deontology��. If killing one is necessary to prevent killing five, or if staring a war is the only mean to achieve peace, why not just turn a green light on and violate the relevant constraint?

This charge to deontological theories is similar to what J. J. C. Smart calls ��rule worship��. If sticking to a constraint would clearly lead to more violations of the constraint, then we have no reason to insist on that constraint. This accords with a widely-accepted ��maximizing�� conception of rationality: ��if one accepts the desirability of a certain goal being achieved, and if one has a choice between two options, one of which is certain to accomplish the goal better than the other, then it is, ceteris paribus, rational to choose the former over the latter.�� If there is a disvalue in violating one constraint, then the disvalue in violating more of them will even be greater, and if our goal is to minimize disvalue in violating the constraint, it is not rational to insist on not violating the constraint.

Scanlon��s account of ��what we owe to each other�� is a kind of deontological constraint in the broad sense; it represents our duties to other individuals that cannot be violated even for overall goodness of consequences. How can Scanlon defend his contractualism as a non-teleological theory against the charge of the Paradox of Deontology?

One possible response is to follow Robert Nozick��s argument in Anarchy, State and Utopia. There, he argues that the disvalue of violating each deontological constraint is different from the disvalue of violating similar constraints. This disvalue is not commeasurable with the disvalue of violating similar deontological constraints. For example, in a case where we would have to harm one person in order to prevent five comparable harms to others, it seems intuitively there is something distinctive about the potential victim that makes a deontological constraint in not harming him distinctive. Nozick thinks that if we choose to harm that one person, it is overlooking the fact that he is a separate person who has just one life to lead, and who would receive no compensation for being harmed. ��Side constraints upon actions reflect the underlying Kantian principle that individuals are ends and not merely means; they may not be sacrificed or used for the achieving of other ends without their consent.��

This approach has some intuitive appeal since it suggests that each side-constraint is distinctive and cannot be compensated by not violating a similar constraint; yet upon reflection, it is still not a satisfactory answer to the Paradox of Deontology. Although the single person has a distinct human life whose value cannot be replaced or compensated by the value of other human life, the five other people possess the same quality. Scheffler claims,

��for it is presumably true of the five other people that each of them is also a separate person with just one life to lead, who would receive no compensating benefit for being harmed. So why would we be forbidden to inflict one uncompensated harm in order to prevent even more such harms? �KAny appeal to the victim��s possession of some morally significant property seems unable to explain why we may not victimize one person who has that property in order to prevent the victimization of an even larger number of people, each of whom has the very same property.��

The case presented by Scheffler is more akin to the Trolley Problem . We are facing a choice between harming one person and harming other five, but not a choice between harming one person and failure to save other five. In the Organ Transplant Case, the constraint in forbidding killing the innocent may be a different and stronger constraint than the constraint in forbidding failure to save others. In the Trolley Problem, however, the constraint in forbidding killing one is the same constraint in forbidding the killing of each of the five other people, ceteris paribus. If there is a disvalue in killing the innocent, then there is also a disvalue for killing each of the five people. The disvalue in killing one is smaller than the overall disvalue in killing the five. It still cannot explain why it is the case that we should not violate a constraint even if violation is the only way in preventing more violations of the very same constraint.

Scanlon does not proceed along this victim-based line of argument, although he still thinks ��what we owe to each other�� is immune of the charge of the ��Paradox of Deontology��. ��What we owe to each other�� denotes our moral duty to other individuals through non-reasonably rejected principles. Principles, if understood in the narrow sense of ��rules��, are not different from other deontological constraints that may be violated in order to prevent further violations of the same constraint. However, as Scanlon repeatedly affirms, and as I have argued in Chapter 2, ��principles�� should not be understood in terms of a set of fully specified rules that cannot be broken in whatever circumstances. They represent claims of the status of certain reasons. The principle ��you should not kill�� is not a simple rule forbidding all cases of killing; it is a claim that normal considerations (such as for fun or for self-interest) cannot serve as reasons in justifying killing. Other considerations, like self-defense or to prevent killing another people, may serve as considerations that grant an exception to this principle. In this sense, there will not be conflict of principles; more importantly, it is impossible to have a case where violating one principle can serve to prevent more violations of the same principle. This contradicts with what Scanlon conceives as a principle. In a situation where killing one is necessary to prevent killing five, our moral duty to each of them is to be determined by whether the considerations of ��preventing killing�� can justify an exception to the principle forbidding killing itself. If it is justified, then we have a moral duty to not to kill the five; if not, we have a moral duty not to kill the one; nevertheless, no matter whether it is justified, it is not a case that we have two identical moral duties being in conflict. ��What we owe to each other�� is not governed by a fix set of principles which may be conflicting in particular situations; rather, they are context-dependent and will only give one constraint in every particular situation.

Scanlon��s contractualism determines our moral duty to other individuals in terms of whether we have sufficient reasons for our actions. One way of understanding whether we have reason for an action is to appeal to the desirability or undesirability of corresponding consequences. Any rational action must aim at some results; therefore it is reasonable to pursue a course of action that can bring about a more desirable state of affairs. However, these teleological reasons are not the only or even exclusive ones in determining the reasons for action. Many reasons bearing on an action concern not only the desirability of consequences but rather the eligibility or ineligibility of various other reasons. Scanlon claims that ��judging that a certain consideration does not count as a reason for action is not equivalent to assigning negative intrinsic value to the occurrence of actions based on this reason.�� (My emphasis) (84) This negative value of the occurrence of that action can always be outweighed by some countervailing value, but the judgment that a consideration is irrelevant cannot.

Consider the principle ��one may not kill one person in order to save five other people��. Accepting this principle involves accepting a certain view of the reasons one has: that the positive value of saving each of these others does not justify killing a person. If this principle is correct, it means this positive value is not sufficient to justify violating the principle. One does not need to balance the value of abiding by it against the value to be achieved through its violation. ��Someone who accepts this principle therefore does not need to appeal to the ��negative intrinsic value�� of killing in order to explain why she does not do what is necessary to save the greater number.�� (84) This can be best shown by how ��what we owe to each other�� may grant a different answer in the Trolley Problem. In the Trolley Problem, we are considering a principle that one may kill one in order to stop killing five other people. ��Stop killing�� is different from ��not saving�� as a consideration for exception to the principle ��not to kill��. Fail to save others cannot grant an exception to the principle ��not to kill�� but stop killing another is a sufficient consideration for an exception. Therefore, even if the disvalue of ��five people would die�� may be the same for the Trolley Problem and the Organ Transplant Case, they may lead to different answers in ��what we owe to each other��. From this, we can clearly see ��what we owe to each other�� is not justified by balancing the values of abiding by it and the values of violating it. The maximizing rationality does not apply in this sense.

For a brief summary, as a non-teleological theory, contractualism possesses the advantage in avoiding implausible implications of the ��Paradox of Teleology��. And unlike many other deontological theories, contractualism is immune of the charge of the ��Paradox of Deontology��. To counter-argue, consequentialist may respond by claiming that the contractualist account of ��what we owe to each other�� may be accommodated in a consequentialist framework more generally conceived. I will discuss a possibility proposed by Pettit in the next section.

3.3 A Consequentialist Accommodation of Contractualism?

Pettit does think that ��what we owe to each other�� is a morally salient category (or what Kagan calls morally significant factor) that may be intuitively of the first importance. He names this category as ��civility�� because he thinks the demand of distributive justifiability to each other individual comes close to the idea of mutual respect between civilians;

��It (��what we owe to each other��) means always honouring what we might describe as the demands of civility in one��s dealings with those others. Distributively justifiable options are nothing more or less than civil options, distributively unjustifiable options are nothing more or less than uncivil options��

Pettit thinks that the distributively justifiable options denoted by ��civility�� will not coincide with the consequentialist optimific options in many circumstances; nevertheless, ��civility�� still constitutes an independent and unified moral category. He uses friendship as an analogy. Being a friend involves thinking about your friends in a certain way, acting towards them in a certain manner and being ready to respond to their claims in a certain fashion. There are norms of friendship and friendship as an institutional practice constitutes an independent and unified category. As it is with friendship, ��civility�� also forms its independent and unified set of norms as an institutional practice;

��Being civil in this way involves thinking about others in a certain manner and acting towards them in a certain fashion. We treat others �K as reason-givers and reason-takers. We give them a say and a hearing in matters of common concern. We do not regard them merely as obstacles to be surmounted or circumvented in our own project.��

Pettit admits that Scanlon��s distributive justifiability test is a good test for the demands of ��civility��; and when compared with friendship, ��civility�� is even more important for us because it denotes an important value in our inter-personal relationship. ��Civility�� thus forms an independent, unified, and intuitively very important moral category.

This morally salient category of ��civility��, Pettit argues, can be accommodated within a consequentialist framework when it is viewed as a value itself. It is because the existence of the practice of civility makes the world go on better. If people generally conform to the demands of ��civility��, then extremely beneficial consequences could be produced; and if people generally do not conform to its demand, then people��s well-being may even be adversely affected because of social instability:

��the world is a much better place, and we are a much more fulfilled species, for the fact that civility reigns�KIf people behave in distributively justifiable ways, so his thought goes, they will treat one another in a manner that acknowledges their individual capacities for assessing and acting on reasons. By doing right, they will also do good: they will give rise to a palpably desirable form of community.��

A ��restrictive consequentialist�� like Pettit thinks ��civility�� can then be justified in terms of a consequentialist foundation, and at the same time he can maintain that we should act according to the demands of civility. Acting according to the demand of justifying our conducts to others in a distributive, individual-by-individual way rather than acting according to our desires to promote the best consequences in every occasions, in general cases, would produce the best consequences. Therefore, in everyday decision-making procedures, we should simply submit ourselves to the demands of ��civility��; nevertheless, people should review their behavior occasionally to make sure that their decisions according to the demands of ��civility�� in fact would produce better consequences. If under careful review that acting civilly would bring about a very bad consequence, then civility should be breached. In this sense, whether an act is right is to be evaluated by its consequences.

Under Pettit��s consequentialist interpretation, ��what we owe to each other�� as a morally significant factor develops an utterly different outlook. As a morally significant factor, it derives its justification and basis from consequentialism in the foundational level. Contractualism, if it is significant, can only play the role of a heuristic device in identifying the demands of ��what we owe to each other�� in the factoral level. Pettit employs consequentialism in the foundational level and contractualism in the factoral level respectively. Strictly speaking, Pettit��s ambitions is not to accommodate contractualism; his aim is only to accommodate ��what we owe to each other�� (or ��civility��) within his consequentialist framework. Contractualism is reduced to a secondary, if not an unnecessary, role.

Obviously, Scanlon would not accept this accommodation from a consequentialist perspective. Scanlon does not only use contractualism as a heuristic device in identifying the demands of ��what we owe to each other��, he also uses it to justify them in the foundational level. ��What we owe to each other�� is based on principles that no one could reasonably reject as a basis for a hypothetical agreement. Scanlon and Pettit may well-agree on two claims: (i) agents have good reason to think and act in ways that ��what we owe to each other�� or ��civility�� requires; and (ii) that it is a good thing that there should be communities who think and act in this way. They disagree, however, on what are the reasons in acting and thinking in accordance with ��civility�� in (i). Their disagreement becomes more at stake when the conjunction ��and�� for (i) and (ii) is replaced by a ��because��. Producing the best consequences may be just a consequence of, rather than the justification for, ��what we owe to each other��.

Let me further illustrate this divergence insisted by Scanlon between his account of ��what we owe to each other�� and Pettit��s ��civility��. Pettit thinks that the reasons for abiding by ��civility�� come from the reason to produce better consequences in terms of the promotion of a ��palpably desirable form of community�� while Scanlon, on the other hand, holds that the reasons for abiding ��what we owe to each other�� comes from reasons to live with others in a justifiable way. For Pettit, we have good reasons to think and act according to the demands of ��civility�� just because they can generally produce better consequences. Scanlon denies this. We have good reasons to think and act according to the demands of ��what we owe to each other�� because we have reasons to be the kind of person who have the kind of life that involves being moved by ��what we owe to each other��. The ideal of living with others in a mutually justifiable way is itself the reason for acting in a mutually justifiable manner. This reflects Scanlon and Pettit��s utterly different attitudes towards the demands of ��what we owe to each other�� as a value. Scanlon thinks that someone who understands ��what we owe to each other�� in the way contractualism describes it will not only see reason to do what it requires but also think that it is good to live in that way. He has good reason to become a person who values the demands of ��what we owe to each other�� and this reason comes from the ideal of living with others in a justifiable way�Xdistributive justifiability between individuals. This reason is not instrumental because they cannot be reduced to, or ultimately supported by the reason to promote a valuable form of community. We have reasons to live with others in a justifiable way just does not mean we have reason to promote a valuable form of community. I have already explained this point by the example of ��respect of justice�� and ��promotion of the respect of justice�� in the above section. Similarly, we have reason to respect the demands of ��what we owe to each other�� because we have independent reasons in valuing these demands but not due to reasons to promote a valuable form of community.

This difference in justification (of the demands of ��what we owe to each other��) leads to further divergence in dealing with first-order moral questions. If the justification of the demands of ��what we owe to each other�� is consequentialism, or to act and think according to the demands of ��what we owe to each other�� is finally for the purpose of producing better consequences, then as argued by Pettit, we should just breach these demands whenever after reflection, we know acting in accordance with these demands will produce a worse consequence than other options. Scanlon does not accept this claim. He thinks although sometimes it makes sense to say an act, despite the fact that it is forbidden by ��what we owe to each other��, is still the act that one has most reason to do, it is not always the case that its demand should be breached whenever it is contrary to overall goodness. He thinks that when deliberating cases in which ��what we owe to each other�� are in conflict with other morally significant factors, for example responsibility towards a community, then the right way is to refer back to the importance of the reasons in supporting these morally significant factors. This corresponds to what Kagan calls a ��relative constraint��: ��what we owe to each other�� is a constraint that may be breached depending on the importance of other morally significant factors but not one that cannot be breached in whatever circumstances; however, it is also not just a mere ��rule of thumb�� that can be breached whenever it is in conflict with the production of overall goodness.

So far I have argued that Scanlon��s contractualist account of ��what we owe to each other�� cannot be reconstructed in terms of Pettit��s consequentialist account of ��civility��. This can only show the demands of ��what we owe to each other�� or ��civility�� can be justified either in terms of contractualism or consequentialism in the foundational level. Yet, which account is more preferable as a foundational account for this morally significant factor? I think Scanlon is the one who trumps finally. First, if we regard ��what we owe to each other�� as an autonomous value, then Scanlon account provides a better explanation in the reason why we have to act and think in accordance with our moral duties towards other individuals. We abide by it because there are good reasons for being a kind of person who can justify his actions to others in an individual-by-individual manner. Pettit also tries to argue that the demands of ��civility�� are autonomously sourced, yet it is suspicious whether this claim is consistent with his another claim that whenever these demands will results in worse consequences, then these demands should simply be violated. This is especially obvious when he talks of ��while that (consequentialist) conscience monitors their behavior, it does not motor it�� Those reasons in abiding by ��what we owe to each other�� are unavoidably rendered instrumental in order to promote overall goodness. This is not only reluctant to non-consequentialists like Scanlon, but also to those who really regard our duties to other individuals as an autonomous value.

Second, the appeal of consequentialism over contractualism always lies in the claim that a morally significant factor, as a value itself, is always to be promoted; and all reasons for actions must ultimately be grounded in the values of states of affairs. I have argued for Scanlon throughout this chapter (and also the last chapter) that reasons for actions do not solely depend on the goodness that they can bring about; and the teleological conception of values may suffer internal inconsistency with our very understanding of the values themselves. If my argument is correct, then we have no reason to stay within the consequentialist framework. Third, contractualism is dubious as a foundational account mainly because of its air of circularity and implausible implications of the ��Paradox of Deontology��. No matter how these objections seem challenging to contractualism, I have argued in the last section that contractualism does not collapse and it remains as a genuine foundation for ��what we owe to each other��. Although there may be some further refinements in the details, I think Scanlon is successful in his attempt to undermine the massive influence of consequentialism as a foundational theory by posing a structured, comprehensive, and convincing alternative in terms of contractualism.

I have discussed the merits and demerits of contractualism as a non-aggregative theory in the factoral level in 3.1 and explained how contractualism as a non-teleological theory functions differently from consequentialism in the foundational level in 3.2. One relevant question is raised in the last part of this chapter: if ��what we owe to each other�� is a relative constraint whose importance is to be evaluated with the importance of other morally significant factors, then what is its importance at all? Why is it so important that sometimes it may outweigh the importance of other factors? This touches the traditional question of ��moral motivation�� I shall discuss issues surrounding these topics in the next chapter.

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