ABSTRACT

Students and scholars alike routinely think that the normative ethical theories of consequentialism and Kantian deontology offer fundamentally different views of what we should do in our moral lives. Derek Parfit deals with three positions: rule consequentialism, Kantian deontology and contractualism, specifically Scanlonian contractualism. In contrast, Kantian deontologists are typically cast as eschewing consequences and favouring instead a set of principles or maxims that forbid and encourage certain action-types in accordance with the overarching idea or ideas expressed by the Categorical Imperative. Kieran Setiya focuses on Parfit's Kantian Contractualism - a crucial part of the Triple Theory - and asks how and whether it can guide action. Kantian Contractualism states that 'everyone ought to follow the principles whose universal acceptance everyone could rationally will'. Having raised a worry with Parfit's anti-naturalist stance and also considered one of his anti-naturalist arguments, J. L. Dowell and David Sobel then change tack to consider what a naturalistic alternative might look like.