Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Scanlonian contractualism has difficulties to account for our moral obligations to future generations due to the nonidentity problem. A prominent solution is to refer to the more general standpoints or types of future persons in moral deliberation. This paper critically examines the “types-of-persons approach” and identifies two alternative versions that have been conflated so far. The types-of-persons approach could claim that the relevant reasons for objection are either (1) the reasons of types of persons, or (2) type-based reasons of token persons. I explore these two options in more detail and argue that both are, in their own ways, incompatible with central features of Scanlonian contractualism. Consequently, the types-of-persons approach fails to offer a satisfactory solution to the nonidentity problem for Scanlonian contractualists.
Author: D. Valeska Martin
Institution: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4404865343