The Hoover Chair Research Seminar by Jonas Vandieken (LMU)

Any adequate moral theory of ‘what we owe to each other’ better make sense of the idea that we owe each person respect. A moral theory that appears well equipped to account for what I shall call relational recognition respect and the constraint it places on moral deliberation is the relational theory of morality recently developed by R. Jay Wallace in ‘The Moral Nexus’ (2019). I shall argue, however, that Wallace’s own relational proposal is at risk of ultimately falling short of properly accommodating relational recognition respect and the deliberative constraint imposed by it. The reason for this shortfall is Wallace’s adherence to Principle Contractualism as the correct model of relational moral deliberation. According to Principle Contractualism and its central idea of hypothetical justifiability to generic others, claims function at best as outputs of moral deliberation. But relational recognition respect requires not merely that deliberation issue in an obligation owed to a generic another identified as the relevant claim-holder, but that the other’s actual claims figure as inputs into a distinctively relational mode of moral deliberation to determine how they may act. As such, I argue that proponents of a relational moral theory like Wallace should give up on Principle Contractualism without having to give up on moral contractualism as such. A relational moral theory in fact lends itself much closer to a relational version of what has come to be known as Act Contractualism.