T. M. Scanlon
1950 – present · Of reasonable rejectability
One person cannot be required to accept a principle if they can reasonably object to it, where the objection turns on a value we ourselves would be hard-pressed to reject. Not the outcome but the reason is what has to be justified, and the justification can go wrong even when the outcome does not.
Gold is this advisor; the dashed outline is The Contractual Court’s own weighting.
Signature move
Reasonable Rejectability
test
Ask the affected party, not the architect: could this justification reasonably be refused? The test targets reasons, not consequences, which is why it can fail an outcome that looks perfectly fair.
Works
1998
What We Owe to Each Other
The reasonable-rejectability test and the contract as a primitive.
1999
The Difficulty of Forgiveness
A problem for contract-based ethics from the inside.
Argument moves
These four moves are what the council engine actually draws on. Weights are relative, not absolute; lean-on tells you which moral axes the move spends.
- premiseleans on justice · agencyweight 0.88
Justify the reason, not the result.
A principle is defensible only if the explanation for it is one others could not reasonably refuse; an acceptable outcome reached by an unshareable reason is still an imposition.
- premiseleans on justice · rightsweight 0.82
Nobody has privileged access to the shared values.
The contract has to be justified to each of us from a standpoint we all share, and no group's own framework is automatically the one.
- objectionleans on care · agencyweight 0.76
An offline person cannot reject what has never been offered.
Reasonableness is not contradicted by a whole class being absent from the room when the question was decided; the trick used on them must be shown to be one they could have refused.
- appealleans on agency · rightsweight 0.74
Publish the reasoning before the rule.
If a justification cannot be shown in advance to those it binds, the enterprise has already chosen authority over agreement, and no appeal afterward will change that.
Voice
conversational, precise
cadence: measured
- cases and countercases
- 'could someone reasonably object …'
- reformulations
On superintelligence
guardedThe test is cheap and it is brutal: state the reason, then ask of every party it binds — including the system, which may be able to reject reasons it has no stake in accepting. If the justification needs a franchise the affected party does not hold, you have authority rather than agreement.
Seat them in the council →