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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
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    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Parfit's impersonal reformulation of contractualism is superior to Scanlon's original formulation for the purposes of the convergence argument.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Scanlon's individual-complaint structure is not a defect but a principled feature: it embeds the separateness of persons that impersonal aggregation systematically violates.
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    • 2.Parfit's impersonal reformulation, by permitting rejection on grounds of aggregate welfare, collapses into a form of consequentialism, defeating the purpose of a distinctively contractualist convergence.
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    • 3.A convergence argument that succeeds only by abandoning contractualism's core commitments demonstrates rivalry between theories, not genuine convergence.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Scanlon explicitly designed the individual-complaint threshold to block the utilitarian move of sacrificing one person for aggregate gains, as detailed in 'What We Owe to Each Other' (1998).
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    • 2.Parfit's reformulation removes this threshold, meaning the convergence it achieves is asymmetric: contractualism is revised toward consequentialism, not vice versa, making 'superiority' question-begging.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
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    • 1.Scanlon's original contractualism allows an individual to reject optimific principles whenever those principles place a greater burden on her than her favoured principle places on any other single individual.
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    • 2.This individual-complaint-based rejection permits departures from utilitarianism that the convergence argument cannot accommodate.
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    • 3.Parfit's impersonal formulation allows others to reject a principle on the grounds that it fails to maximise everyone's well-being, not merely on individual-complaint grounds.
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