T. M. Scanlon Quotes
Thomas Michael Scanlon is an American moral and political philosopher, Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy, and Civil Polity Emeritus at Harvard University, and one of the most influential contemporary defenders of contractualist moral theory. What We Owe to Each Other defended a contractualist account of morality in which an act is wrong if and only if it would be disallowed by any principle for the regulation of behavior that no one could reasonably reject, while The Difficulty of Tolerance and Why Does Inequality Matter? The quotes below are attributed to T. M. Scanlon, organized by topic.
T. M. Scanlon on Politics
-
Attributed to T. M. Scanlon:
“What inequality damages is not just our welfare; it is the relations of equal standing that hold a society together.”
T. M. Scanlon on Truth
-
Attributed to T. M. Scanlon:
“Reasons are real; they are not reducible to desires or to facts in the world.”
T. M. Scanlon on Virtue
-
Attributed to T. M. Scanlon:
“Morality is what we owe to each other.”
-
Attributed to T. M. Scanlon:
“An act is wrong if it would be forbidden by a principle that no one could reasonably reject.”
-
Attributed to T. M. Scanlon:
“Tolerance is hard; it is not a relaxation of one's commitments but a discipline within them.”