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Contractualism grounds morality in principles that rational agents could or would agree to under idealized conditions. Rawlsian contractualism asks what principles self-interested parties would choose behind a 'veil of ignorance' that removes knowledge of their social position, yielding the difference principle (inequalities are justified only if they benefit the worst-off). Scanlonian contractualism holds that an action is wrong if it violates principles that no one could reasonably reject, grounding morality in mutual justifiability to all affected parties rather than aggregate welfare. Both approaches explain why distribution matters morally—not just total well-being—and why individual rights resist consequentialist override.
Read the opening sections of Rawls's A Theory of Justice (original position and veil of ignorance) and Scanlon's What We Owe to Each Other (the contractualist formula). Identify how each theory handles a hard case like income inequality or breaking a promise.
The question at the heart of contractualism is: what makes a moral principle legitimate? Rather than asking what produces the most well-being (consequentialism) or what duty commands (Kantian deontology), contractualism asks what principles all affected persons could reasonably agree to. This shift places the possibility of mutual justification — rather than aggregate welfare or abstract duty — at the center of moral reasoning.
Rawls introduces the "original position" to model this agreement. Imagine that before entering society, you must choose the principles that will govern it, but you are placed behind a veil of ignorance: you do not know whether you will be rich or poor, talented or disadvantaged, or even which generation you will be born into. Rawls argues that rational self-interested choosers in this position would select two principles: equal basic liberties for all, and the "difference principle" — social and economic inequalities are permissible only when they benefit the least well-off members of society. The veil of ignorance is not a fiction about actual consent; it is a device for modeling the impartiality that morality requires.
Scanlon's version is more directly interpersonal. He defines wrongness this way: an act is wrong if it violates principles that no one could reasonably reject as a basis for mutual agreement. The critical phrase is "reasonably reject." Scanlon is not asking what people actually accept, or what a majority prefers — he is asking what objections can be sustained from an individual standpoint given that everyone's interests are taken seriously. This means one person's strong complaint can render a principle unjustifiable even if many others benefit from it, which is precisely why contractualism, like deontology, resists pure aggregation of welfare.
Both versions share an important feature: they explain why distribution matters morally, not just total well-being. A principle that dramatically benefits many at severe cost to one person may fail contractualist tests even if it maximizes aggregate welfare. Individual persons are not merely locations of value to be summed across; they are parties whose reasonable objections must be answered. This is the philosophical core of why contractualism resists consequentialist override.
A common mistake is to conflate contractualism with actual social contracts (political arrangements we literally agree to) or with majority-vote ethics. Neither Rawls nor Scanlon is asking what people happen to prefer. They are asking what ideally rational or reasonably motivated agents would endorse — a normative, not a descriptive, question. Similarly, contractualism in ethics is distinct from social-contract theory in political philosophy, even though both use the device of agreement to ground legitimacy.
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