¹ What We Owe to Each Other (Cambridge, Mass., 1998), pp. 4, 189.

² The Second-Person Standpoint (Cambridge, Mass., 2006), pp. 301, 300.

³ ‘Some Considerations in Favor of Contractualism’, Rational Commitment and Social Justice, ed. J. Coleman and C. Morris (Cambridge, Mass., 1998), pp. 174, 176.

⁴ Equality and Partiality (Oxford, 1991), pp. 36–37. Again, Nagel approvingly quotes Scanlon's general claim that ‘[a]n act is wrong if its performance under the circumstances would be disallowed by any system of rules for the regulation of behavior which no one could reasonably reject as a basis for informed, unforced general agreement’ (36). Incidentally, Nagel treats Scanlon's general claim (an act is wrong iff some principle forbidding it is unrejectable) as equivalent to the claim that an act is wrong iff every principle permitting it is rejectable. But as Shelly Kagan notes, Scanlon's formula prohibits less and is preferable. ‘The Unanimity Standard’, Journal of Social Philosophy 24 (1993), pp. 129–54, at 148–9.

⁵ Contractualism and the Foundations of Morality (Oxford, 2010), pp. 88, 102.

⁶ On What Matters, vol. 1 (Oxford, 2011), pp. 355, 360, 363–4, §§ 52–3. Parfit now endorses ‘Triple Theory’, in which Kantian and Scanlonian contractualism are combined with rule consequentialism (pp. 412–13, § 64).

⁷ It is a peculiar feature of modern contractualism that it typically defines justification as unrejectability rather than as acceptability. Compare Nagel, Equality and Impartiality, p. 36 with Kagan, ‘The Unanimity Standard’, pp. 144–7. The crucial point, however, is that the unrejectability/acceptability in question is of principles.

⁸ Darwall, The Second-Person Viewpoint, p. 312.

⁹ Consider the choice between principles P₁ and principles P₂ that cannot be generally accepted together. Assume that person A rejects P₁ because their general acceptance harms A, that person B rejects P₂ because their general acceptance harms B, and that others are indifferent as between these principles. Suppose finally that exactly one of these rejections is reasonable. Which one is it? Surely, some comparison between A's and B's harms is called for. Arguably, A's rejection of P₁ is reasonable just when their general acceptance harms A more than the general acceptance of P₂ harms B. Cf. Scanlon, What We Owe, p. 195; The Difficulty of Tolerance (Cambridge, Mass., 2003), p. 135. But if the notion of unrejectability imports interpersonal comparison, it is only fair to ask how it can fail to render contractualist justification – justifiability to each person – consequentialist. Cf. Norcross, Alastair, ‘Contractualism and Aggregation’, Social Theory & Practice 28 (2002), pp. 303–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Parfit, Derek, ‘Justifiability to Each Person’, On What We Owe to Each Other, ed. Stratton-Lake, P. (Oxford, 2004)Google Scholar.

¹⁰ For simplicity's sake, I will also assume that there is always exactly one set of unrejectable principles.

¹¹ See, for example, Smart, J. J. C., ‘Extreme and Restricted Utilitarianism’, Philosophical Quarterly 6 (1956), pp. 34–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹² Scanlon, The Difficulty of Tolerance, p. 27; Watson, ‘Some Considerations in Favor of Contractualism’, pp. 172–3.

¹³ See Shelly Kagan, Normative Ethics (Boulder, 1998), p. 243, and Southwood, Contractualism and the Foundations of Morality, p. 102.

¹⁴ What We Owe, pp. 4, 153, 195; Moral Dimensions (Cambridge, Mass., 2008), p. 99; ‘How I Am Not a Kantian’, in D. Parfit, On What Matters, vol. 2 (Oxford, 2011), pp. 116–39.

¹⁵ What We Owe, p. 229. But cf. Scanlon's acknowledgment that reasonable (un)rejectability is comparative. What We Owe, p. 195; The Difficulty of Tolerance, p. 135.

¹⁶ What We Owe, p. 189, The Difficulty of Tolerance, p. 142.

¹⁷ But cf. n. 39.

¹⁸ What We Owe, pp. 204–5.

¹⁹ Cf. Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics, trans. T. Irwin (Indianapolis, 1999), i.3.4, ii.2.3.

²⁰ The possibility of an act-contractualist theory is raised in Kagan, Normative Ethics, p. 242.

²¹ On this assumption, Act Contractualism implies that an act is right just when it is obligatory. Most act-consequentialists hold this view, but it is equally available to the Act Contractualist.

²² On What Matters, vol. 1, p. 360 (§ 53). Parfit calls this the ‘Deontic Beliefs Restriction’. He makes the point in relation to Principle Contractualism, but the point applies with equal force to Act Contractualism.

²³ What We Owe, pp. 204–5.

²⁴ A notable example is Scanlon's Principle of Fidelity, discussed in section VI.

²⁵ Cf. e.g. Scanlon's claim that ‘taking what can be justified to others – what they have reason to will [or could not reasonably reject] – as the most fundamental moral idea is the essence of contractualism’ (‘How I am Not a Kantian’, in Parfit, On What Matters, vol. 2, p. 139).

²⁶ The other side of the coin is that mere nonconformity to principles has no tendency to make them generally unaccepted in society.

²⁷ Shelly Kagan has offered me the following objection. Suppose what matters ultimately in action is satisfying God's will, and God's will is conflicted: He wants us to conform to the Ten Commandments, but he also wants us to do some acts that happen to violate them. Doesn't the theory that requires conformity to the Ten Commandments reflect our fundamental commitment just as well as the theory that requires performance of the God-wanted acts? Yes, but only because following these theories equally satisfies/fail to satisfy God's will. By contrast, the doing of good/unrejectable acts, conformity to good/unrejectable rules realizes no goodness/unrejectability.

²⁸ Scanlon, What We Owe, p. 304.

²⁹ What We Owe, pp. 304–9. Scanlon writes as if PoF is individually unrejectable. I think Principle Contractualism is best understood in terms of jointly unrejectable principles. I will conveniently gloss over the distinction.

³⁰ Scanlon, What We Owe, p. 195; The Difficulty of Tolerance, p. 135. See also n. 9.

³¹ A preference-satisfaction theorist can maintain that your promise-breaking posthumously harms Bo, by failing to satisfy his preferences. But this is problematic in more than one way. Apart from depending on a preference-satisfaction theory of well-being, it also seems to conflate Bo and his life.

³² Cf. Scanlon, What We Owe, p. 204.

³³ It is no good replying that, by keeping your promise you indirectly add unrejectable conformity. If an act's conformity to unrejectable principles does not make the act unrejectable, however indirectly, it also does not make the act's conformity unrejectable, however indirectly.

³⁴ See n. 22.

³⁵ Scanlon, What We Owe, p. 197.

³⁶ Cf. Dancy, Jonathan, Ethics without Principles (New York, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁷ Scanlon, What We Owe, pp. 197–8.

³⁸ Compare Parfit's comment that ‘Scanlon shows that . . . we have and can usefully appeal to intuitive beliefs about what are reasonable grounds for rejecting moral principles. That is Scanlon's greatest contribution to our moral thinking’ (On What Matters, vol. 1, p. 370, § 54). I would just add that, if Scanlon is right about this, then we can also usefully appeal to intuitive beliefs about what are reasonable grounds for rejecting acts.

³⁹ What We Owe, p. 199. See also, Moral Dimensions, pp. 21–2.

⁴⁰ For a similar defense of rule-consequentialism, see Hooker, Brad, Ideal Code, Real World (New York, 2000)Google Scholar.

⁴¹ Scanlon, What We Owe, p. 199 and Moral Dimensions, pp. 21–4.

⁴² Scanlon, The Difficulty of Tolerance, p. 142.

⁴³ Compare the discussion of consequentialism in Shelly Kagan, ‘Evaluative Focal Points’, and Pettit, Phillip and Smith, Michael, ‘Global Consequentialism’, both in Morality, Rules and Consequences, ed. Hooker, B., Mason, E., and Miller, D. (Edinburgh, 2000), pp. 121–33Google Scholar and 134–55 respectively. The objection in the text is not attributable to these authors, however.

⁴⁴ It is not an instance of what Kagan would call ‘indirect contractualism’ or Pettit and Smith would call ‘local contractualism’.

⁴⁵ Cf. the discussion of ‘direct’ and ‘global’ consequentialism in Kagan, ‘Evaluative Focal Points’, pp. 149–151 and Pettit and Smith, ‘Global Consequentialism’.

⁴⁶ Cf. Kagan's remark that ‘the distinctive claim of the act consequentialist [is this:] it is only acts that are to be evaluated directly in terms of the good, and that rules are to be evaluated only indirectly, in terms of the best acts’ (‘Evaluative Focal Points’, p. 149).

⁴⁷ What if we redefine Direct Contractualism in terms of the broader concept of evaluation? We can certainly evaluate stones, even if we cannot justify them. But then Act Contractualism is not a consequence of Direct Contractualism.

⁴⁸ The Difficulty of Tolerance, pp. 241–2.

⁴⁹ I am greatly indebted to Hagit Benbaji, Stephen Darwall, Brad Hooker, Shelly Kagan, Greg Klass, Matt Kramer, Alastair Norcross, Philip Pettit, Henry Richardson, Tim Scanlon, Michael Smith, and an anonymous reader for Utilitas for their useful conversations or comments. Earlier drafts were presented at the Rice University Humanities Research Center, Cambridge Forum for Legal and Political Philosophy, Bar-Ilan University Philosophy Colloquium, Ben Gurion University Philosophy Colloquium, Georgetown Contract and Promise Workshop, and Georgetown Law and Philosophy Workshop. I would like to thank the audiences in these forums for the valuable discussions.