This paper develops and defends a coherentist account of reasons. I develop three core ideas for this defense: a distinction between basic reasons and noninferential justification, the plausibility of the neglected argument against first philosophy, and an emergent account of reasons. These three ideas form the backbone for a credible coherentist view of reasons. I work toward this account by f...

Socrates’ infamous question, “What is Justice?” in Plato’s Republic, spawned a debate for philosophers (and societies), and the answers continue to be important and contested today. The diversity of approaches and persistence of disagreement has inclined some contemporary philosophers to adopt a position of moral relativism. Relativism is the thesis that there are many equally valid frameworks ...

This paper provides a sketch of a contractarian approach to punishment, according to a version of contractarianism one might call “rational contractarianism,” by contrast with the normative contractarianism of John Rawls. Rational contractarianism suggests a model according to which rational agents, with maximal, rather than minimal, knowledge of their life circumstances, would agree to the out...

This essay disputes G. A. Cohen’s claim that John Rawls’s argument for the difference principle involves an argument from moral arbitrariness to equality and then an illicit move away from equality. Moreover, the claim that an argument from moral arbitrariness establishes equality as the essential distributive justice ideal is found wanting. Rescuing Justice and Equality is an original, subtle,...

Abstract Business ethicists disagree on whether John Rawls’s political philosophy can be applied to their questions and concerns. They concur, however, that, if warranted, such an application of his theory would highly instructive for the field. This article scrutinizes that assumption. The paper examines what extent a normative import into business ethics indeed render adequate results. Highli...