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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
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    The contractually justified principle in the five-versus-... — Carmelics
    Home/Justice & Punishment
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    The contractually justified principle in the five-versus-one rescue case is to toss a coin

    Justice & PunishmentSocial Contract
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.No individual among the six can reasonably reject a coin toss on the grounds that it gives them only a fifty-fifty chance of survival, because any alternative principle gives at least one person an even lower chance
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    • 2.Tossing a coin is the only principle that guarantees every one of the six people at least a fifty-fifty chance of survival
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    • 3.A principle is contractually valid if and only if no one can reasonably reject it
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Scanlon's contractualism evaluates principles by the strongest individual objection, not equal treatment of all parties.
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    • 2.The one person can reasonably reject any principle that ignores the morally relevant asymmetry of five lives versus one life.
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    • 3.A principle permitting certain death for five when a coin toss risks only one life fails the strongest-objection test from the five's standpoint.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.John Taurek's original argument denies that numbers count morally, but Scanlon explicitly rejects Taurek and holds that saving more matters.
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    • 2.If Scanlonian contractualism is committed to numbers counting, then each of the five has a complaint against coin-tossing that the one cannot match in strength.
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    • 3.The asymmetry in aggregated individual complaints defeats the coin-toss principle under Parfit's 'individualist restriction' reading of contractualism.
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    Topics

    Justice & PunishmentSocial Contract

    Connections

    1 topic

    Moral Responsibility2 linked

    Related

    A principle is contractually valid if and only if no one can reasonably reject i...A principle permitting certain death for five when a coin toss risks only one li...If Scanlonian contractualism is committed to numbers counting, then each of the ...John Taurek's original argument denies that numbers count morally, but Scanlon e...
    +5 moreShow less
    No individual among the six can reasonably reject a coin toss on the grounds tha...Scanlon's contractualism evaluates principles by the strongest individual object...The asymmetry in aggregated individual complaints defeats the coin-toss principl...The one person can reasonably reject any principle that ignores the morally rele...Tossing a coin is the only principle that guarantees every one of the six people...

    Similar

    Under contractualism, a principle is impermissible if any individual h...74%A principle is contractually valid if and only if no one can reasonabl...73%Tossing a coin is the only principle that guarantees every one of the ...72%Each of the five people can object to a principle permitting you to sa...72%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: contractualism
    View source passageHide passage
    Suppose you decide to save the lone swimmer on the second rock. Intuitively, this seems wrong. Surely you should have saved five people instead of one. The challenge for contractualism is to explain why what you did is wrong. Utilitarians have a straightforward answer, based on aggregation. You should save the five people instead of the one simply because five deaths is a worse result than one death. This case is tricky for contractualism because it rejects aggregation. The five people will each
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit