Rightness as Fairness

Marcus Arvan is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tampa, US. He works primarily in ethics and social-political philosophy, as well as metaphysics and philosophy of science. His work has appeared in various journals including Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, Philosophical Psychology, and The Philosophical Forum.

I would not offer the author of this manuscript a publishing contract at this point. Let me first give a superficial reason and then more of my personal concerns about the manuscript. First, as I understand, the full manuscript is under review at Routledge currently. I assume that, if Routledge accepts the manuscript, they will get it (and I don't think the manuscript is worth trying to fight for). On the other hand, if the outcome of their refereeing process is that the manuscript is not publishable, then I see no reason why Palgrave Macmillan should do so either. Presumably Routledge has competent academic referees and marketing people. Be that as it may, I do have few main concerns that make me unable to recommend this manuscript. First of all, it tries to cover far too much ground. It has chapters on metaethics, practical reasoning, Kantian ethics, Rawlsian original position and fairness, applied ethics and political theory. I just think that this is too much to cover in one book - many of the previous topics would make solid books of their own. Because of the amount of material covered, in places the argumentation becomes too quick and superficial; not going far enough and deep enough into the interesting controversial topics discussed. I also think that this will be a problem for getting attention and readers. If the book were on just one topic, you could see how the students and faculty focused on that topic would get interested in the book even if it were from a relatively unknown author. However, given that the book is not in any clear sense in any specific topic but rather on all of moral and political philosophy, the reason to pick up the book would be mainly because it is by the person who is the author. Reading a long book like this in most of moral philosophy you might not be working on is a significant investment. I worry that if the book is by a relatively unknown author who has not published in the top journals there would be few people willing to do this. Things might be different if the philosophical content were exceptionally good. I do think that the argumentation is competent and professional but I don't think it is quite excellent enough. So, I worry that if the book were published in this form, there would be relatively few readers and the book would receive not very much attention. I would recommend the author to publish the central ideas of the book in high quality journals to create interest on a work of this magnitude. I am also little sceptical about the main line of reasoning even if this is something that is difficult to evaluate without having read the whole manuscript. The book begins from highly abstract metaethical discussions about the nature of normative facts, epistemology and practical reasoning and through this analysis ends up defending specific conclusions about what should be done in controversial real life ethical problems and what kind of policies around we should arrange the society. I know that some people have attempted ambitious arguments like this before. I just don't see them ever being compelling. If the concrete ethical conclusions turn out to be implausible to some people, they are unlikely to accept all the steps in metaethics and thereafter. And, given how controversial the metaethical claims made in the beginning are, this seems like a wise thing to do. So, I don't see how practical ethical and political questions could ever be solved by abstract theorizing of this sort without just focusing on first-order ethical thinking. To summarize: I think this is a competent proposal but unfortunately, I don't think it is quite focused enough for offering a contract.

• List of Tables Acknowledgements INTRODUCTION PART I: ETHICS FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 1. Distinguishing Truth from Seeming-Truth 2. Seven Principles of Theory-Selection 2.1. Firm Foundations 2.2. Internal Coherence 2.3. External Coherence 2.4. Explanatory Power 2.5. Unity 2.6. Parsimony 2.7. Fruitfulness 3. The Case for Instrumentalism 3.1. The Firmest Foundation3.2. The Promise of Parsimony, Unity, Explanatory Power, and Fruitfulness3.3. Advantages over Alternatives3.3.1. Advantages over Intuitionism3.3.2. Advantages over Reflective Equilibrium 3.3.3. Advantages over Moral-Language Analysis3.3.4. Advantages over Constitutivism3.3.5. Advantages over Second and Third-Personalism3.3.6. Advantages over Sterba's Dialecticalism3.3.7. Conclusion 4. Disarming Initial Concerns4.1. The Wrong Kinds of Reasons?4.2. Not a Firm Foundation?4.3. Unconvincing and Artificial?4.4. Three Promissory Notes4.4.1. Not the Wrong Kinds of Reasons?4.4.2. Firm Foundations After All?4.4.3. Convincing and Intuitive? 5. ConclusionPART II: THE PROBLEM OF POSSIBLE FUTURE SELVES1. Our Capacities to Care about Our Past and Future2. The Problem of Possible Future Selves2.1. Possible Futures2.2. Possible Psychologies2.3. Possible Choices2.4. A Very Real Problem3. Morality as the Solution?4. Is the Problem Too Contingent?5. Two Nonsolutions5.1. Nonsolution 1: Probable Futures 5.2. Nonsolution 2: Diachronic Motivational Consistency6. Conclusion: An Unsolved ProblemPART III: THE CATEGORICAL-INSTRUMENTAL IMPERATIVE 1. Interests in Diachronic Cooperation2. Three Types of Interests2.1. Involuntary Interests2.2. Semivoluntary Interests2.3. Voluntary Interests3. The Categorical-Instrumental Imperative4. Just Conscience?5. An Intuitive Solution to the Problem of Possible Future Selves?6. ConclusionPART IV: THREE UNIFIED FORMULATIONS1. The Humanity-and-Sentience Formulation1.1. Possible Other-Human-Regarding Interests1.2. Possible Nonhuman-Animal-Regarding Interests 1.3. Possible Sentient-Being-Regarding Interests1.4. Derivation of the Humanity-and-Sentience Formulation 2. The Kingdom-of-Human-and-Sentient-Ends Formulation3. Advantages over Kantian Ethics3.1. Firmer Foundations3.2. Greater Internal Coherence3.3. Greater External Coherence3.4. Greater Explanatory Power, Unity and Parsimony3.5. Greater Fruitfulness4. ConclusionPART V: THE MORAL ORIGINAL POSITION1. Rawls' Original Position1.1. Rawls' Kantian Rationale 1.2. Rawls' Reflective-Equilibrium Rationale 1.3. Rawls' Public Reason Rationale 2. Some Common Critiques2.1. Kantian Critiques 2.2. Reflective-Equilibrium Critiques 2.3. Public Reason Critiques3. The Case for a Moral Original Position4. Corroborating the Critiques4.1. Corroborating Kantian Critiques4.2. Corroborating Reflective-Equilibrium Critiques 4.3. Corroborating Public Reason Critiques5. ConclusionPART VI: RIGHTNESS AS FAIRNESS 1. Derivation of Four Principles of Fairness1.1. The Principle of Negative Fairness1.2. The Principle of Positive Fairness1.3. The Principle of Fair Negotiation 1.4. The Principle of Virtues of Fairness2. Rightness as Fairness: A Unified Standard of Right and Wrong3. Rightness as Fairness in Practice: Principled Fair Negotiation3.1. Kant's Four Cases 3.2. How Numbers Should Count: Trolleys, Torture, and Unwilling Organ Donors3.3. World Poverty3.4. Distribution of Scarce Medical Resources3.5. The Ethical Treatment of Animals4. ConclusionPART VII: LIBERTARIAN EGALITARIAN COMMUNITARIANISM1. Libertarianism, Egalitarianism, and Communitarianism1.1. Libertarianism: Attractions and Critiques 1.2. Egalitarianism: Attractions and Critiques 1.3. Egalitarianism: Attractions and Critiques 2. The Case for Libertarian Egalitarian Communitarianism3. Additional Advantages3.1. (Qualified) Fair Negotiation over Divisiveness3.2. Resolving the Scope and Requirements of Justice3.3. Resolving the Ideal-Nonideal Theory Distinction4. ConclusionPART VIII: EVALUATING RIGHTNESS AS FAIRNESS1. Firmer Foundations2. Greater Internal Coherence3. Greater External Coherence4. Greater Explanatory Power5. Greater Unity6. Greater Parsimony7. Greater Fruitfulness8. ConclusionReferencesBibliographyIndex