bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The Twilight of Utilitarianism
Authors: Weale Albert 
Published: July 2020

Abstract
Social contract theory arose as a response to the twilight of utilitarianism. For many years utilitarianism had been seen as a political philosophy of human emancipation. Like social contract theory, utilitarianism was a critical and rationalistic morality. However, it was judged incapable of recognizing the separateness of persons, the claim by each person to be treated with justice. Utilitarianism defined the good in terms of pleasure, conceived in a naturalistic way. It regarded pleasure as the guide to choice. It promised to provide an intellectual framework within which everyday intuitive morality could be rendered consistent. And it sought to ground action in practical reasoning about the promotion of the good. However, these distinctive elements came under challenge. With the rise of modern utility theory, pleasure was no longer thought of as the guide to choice. Pleasure was no longer conceived as the sole good. Doubts were raised about the extent to which the principle of utility could explicate the principle of justice. And even utilitarianism had to concede the dualism of practical reason. One response was the rise of intuitionism in the early part of the twentieth century. Another response was the rise of social contract theory, as discussed in this book.
Contractual Constructions
Authors: Weale Albert 
Published: July 2020

Abstract
Social contract theory can be understood as a form of constructivism. Constructivism is the view that the content of morality can be defined by a procedure, the results of which define principles of actions. Constructivism can be understood as directed both to the normative question of what principles are justifiable and to the meta-ethical question as to the logical status of such principles. In respect of the latter, constructivism holds to a procedure-dependent conception of practical reason rather than a truth-directed view. In the case of social contract theory, the procedure is made up of three elements: an original position; the reasoning of the contracting parties; and the contents of the agreement that those contracting parties conclude with one another. Some contract theorists can be thought of as aspiring to a form of ethical reductionism, involving the defining of moral notions in non-moral terms by means of the constructed procedure, but this is not true of all. In this connection, there is a dispute as to whether rationality is to be defined in terms of self-interest. Constructivism is offered as an alternative to intuitionism, in which it is assumed that principles are in some sense self-evident.
Contractual Rationalities
Authors: Weale Albert 
Published: July 2020

Abstract
Modern contract theories differ from one another along one principal dimension, namely the account of practical rationality that they employ. One class of theories draws upon modern expected utility theory; a second conceives of rationality in terms of deliberative reasoning. The purpose of this chapter is to offer an exposition of these two approaches. Modern utility theory is built upon the idea of imposing consistency conditions on the choices that agents make over alternatives. Utility is understood as a numerical representation of a consistent rank-ordering by individuals over alternatives. Utility theory been applied to studies of the interactions of individuals defined as rational in the required sense, in the form of game theory. Two types of game have been of particular interest to social contract theorist: positive sum bargaining games and the prisoner’s dilemma. By contrast with utility theory, there is no orthodox theory of deliberative rationality. However, there are some important formulations that shape the deliberative form of contract theory. One is the idea of the practical syllogism. Another is the distinction between agent-relative and agent-neutral reasons. A third is the distinction between internal and external reasons. Both utility theory and deliberative theory should be thought to be normative. The principle of universalizability offers a distinctive conception of practical rationality that contrasts with contract theory.
Constitutional Uncertainties
Authors: Weale Albert 
Published: July 2020

Abstract
The Calculus of Consent by Buchanan and Tullock was the first book to apply the contract method to questions of public choice, particularly in respect of voting, in the modern era. Their contractual construction imagines individuals in an original position of a laissez-faire economy, where the individuals have to determine rules for the making of collective choices in respect of the reduction of economic externalities and the provision of public goods. Those individuals calculate the costs and benefits of different decision rules. Faced with proposals with which they disagree, individuals would prefer a high threshold of agreement; faced with proposals with which they agree, individuals would prefer a low threshold of agreement. The constitutional question such individuals confront is to determine a general decision rule when they are uncertain about the future stream of choices the members of their community will face. Buchanan and Tullock are defended against the criticism that their original position lacks justification and that it presupposes a requirement of unanimity to secure change. However, they are less convincing in their attack on the simple majority principle, and in their attempt to show that supermajority decision-making does not give too much power to minorities. Indeed, sometimes the supermajority devices they support should be used to protect minorities, as shown in the literature on consociational democracy.
Veiled Deliberation
Authors: Weale Albert 
Published: July 2020

Abstract
Rawls’s theory of justice has been the centre-point of modern social contract theory over decades. Given the breadth and extent of Rawls’s work, there are many problems in treating the arguments in limited space. However, points of comparison with other contract theorists are interesting and his theory is treated as being a continuous, if evolving, whole. Rawls seeks to achieve deductive rigour—a moral geometry—in the presentation of his principles of justice, which cover both the political liberties and the distribution of economic resources. Rawls hold that a maximin form or reasoning underlies his two principles of justice. That form of reasoning is reconstructed and it is shown that it is not as decisive in giving the deductive rigour to his conclusions as he requires. The basic liberties and their priority can be defended in broadly Rawlsian terms, assuming that the contracting parties use the practical syllogism of deliberative rationality. However, that form of reasoning cannot deal with cases where the liberties conflict, despite Rawls’s attempt to avoid a balancing test. Rawls’s argument for the difference principle fails outside of a simply two-group economy, and its failure reflects a deeper tension in his thinking between individualism and collectivism. There is a way of reconstructing his account of rational choice so as to be consistent with his collectivism, but it involves abandoning the claim that the rationality of the contracting parties should be consistent with the axioms of utility theory.
Living Together Reasonably
Authors: Weale Albert 
Published: July 2020

Abstract
Scanlon offers a distinctive contract theory in which the parties to the contract reason in the light of the values they share within an ongoing society. His central propositon is that an act is wrong if it would be disallowed by principles for the general regulation of behaviour that could be reasonably rejected as the basis for informed and unforced general agreement. His theory of reasons is an external one, and the parties to the moral contract are envisaged as being engaged in substantive discussion about the merits of different solutions to shared problems. The reasoning is said to reject calculations of net balance of advantage and disadvantage. To be persuasive, the test of reasonable rejection should be neither too stringent, rejecting any feasible principle, nor too permissive, allowing too many conflicting principle. The example of physician-assisted dying is used to show that the reasonable rejection test cannot meet these two conditions. However, the criticism that Scanlon’s contractualism is viciously circular is rejected.
The Limits of Liberty
Authors: Weale Albert 
Published: July 2020

Abstract
James Buchanan argues that it is rational for persons to agree to restrain their liberty by rules in order to advance their interests. This view has been influential within the theory of constitutional political economy. If the view were valid, then it would answer the question of how agents can have a motive to behave justly. However, there are several problems with the argument. In the first place, it is inconsistent with the subjectivist methodology that Buchanan habitually employs, since within the subjectivist framework there is no way of knowing if people are better off constrained. In particular, within such a methodology, there is no reason for privileging supposedly long-term interests over short-term ones. The economics of temptation cannot be used appropriately to solve the problem of motivation.
Constraining Maximization
Authors: Weale Albert 
Published: July 2020

Abstract
Gauthier takes his starting point for a theory of obligation the prisoner’s dilemma. That dilemma illustrates the problem of providing the rationale for obligation, since without a rational precept that agents have to keep their word, no social contract is credible. Gauthier’s aim is to show that duty overrides advantage, so that the acceptance of duty is truly advantageous. His key insight is that agents can escape the trap of the prisoner’s dilemma, provided that they think of their individual choices as a fair optimizing response to the choices of others. This distinguished straightforward maximizers, who would defect in a prisoner’s dilemma, from constrained maximizers, who would cooperate. Constrained maximizers have a disposition to cooperate, because they recognize the importance of being admitted into society. However, to make his solution work, Gauthier requires a heterodox distinction between choice and preference. Of itself, this is reasonable. However, the argument falters at the point at which it infers from the need for contractual association that such association will be coextensive with society at large, when it may be more restricted than that. Moreover, the strategy of a fair response is incompatible with Gauthier’s claim that his theory is non-tuistic, as well as the claim that affective morality can be internal and disposition, rather than requiring governance.
Fairness, Goodness, Reasonableness
Authors: Weale Albert 
Published: July 2020

Abstract
The study of obligation in Rawls raises a number of interpretative questions about the way in which A Theory of Justice relates to Political Liberalism. The interpretation offered here is that the two are concerned with distinct problems. The problem of congruence is the problem that exemplifies the problem of moral duty. In Theory, Rawls’s aim is to show how a rational plan of life supports and affirms a person’s sense of justice. In approaching this problem, Rawls offers two sorts of arguments: the conditional and the non-conditional. The unconditional arguments rely upon balance of motives considerations, but are insufficient to reconcile a sense of a person’s good with the duties of justice. The non-conditional arguments eventually fall back upon a controversial philosophical position. In Political Liberalism the argument is transformed into one of reasonable agreement among those who share a conception of the good. However, in substituting the potential alienation of churches or sects from society at large for the alienation of individuals from moral norms, Rawls has substituted one problem for another.
Justification to Others
Authors: Weale Albert 
Published: July 2020

Abstract
Prichard posed the question of whether there was a reason for persons to take on the obligations of morality. Scanlon offers a distinctive contractualist answer to this question, which is based on the notion of what it is reasonable for persons to act on as moral duties. It is useful to contrast Scanlon’s theory will John Stuart Mill’s conception of sanctions. For Scanlon, by contrast with Mill, there is no need to appeal to a special psychological element to explain how a person could be moved to moral action. The motivation is adequately captured in the idea of external reasons, which derive from the social relations in which persons stand to one another. This is not intended as a reply to the egoist, but as an account of what moves people to act morally. Scanlon has to assume a thesis of ‘purity of heart’ akin to that of Rawls, and this is implausible. A useful way of understanding Scanlon’s approach is via the idea of relative necessity, where the necessity is relative to the code of a particular society. However, understood in this way, Scanlon’s thesis is vulnerable to the fact that some societies have deep divisions, in which there is no coherent and agreed moral code. Yet, there can still be justice between strangers.
Contractual Reconstructions
Authors: Weale Albert 
Published: July 2020

Abstract
In the twilight of utilitarianism contract theorist sought to respond to the problems that utilitarianism had thrown up. How successful were they? Our review of contract theory has shown that it is not possible to base a contract theory on a utility theory of rationality, even though some have claimed that such a theory states the essential elements of rational behaviour. The axioms of utility theory are controversial in themselves, and do not give an account of prudence. To have an account of prudence, we need to turn to the deliberative account of rationality, and the idea of intelligibility. The practical syllogism will only take us so far, however, and will not deal with cases where interests conflict. There is no need to make a sharp distinction between contract theories in which there is a plurality of agents, without a veil of ignorance, and a single agent behind a veil of ignorance. The singular veil of ignorance construction can be regarded as a more abstract thought experiment in situation of moral perplexity. Similarly, the distinction between mutual advantage theories, which involve essential reference to a baseline of non-cooperation, and baseline independent theories is not clear, since much depends on the character of the baseline. The problem of obligation remains unresolved, but its lack of resolution underlines a conclusion of Hart to the effect that coercion is an essential element of a large-scale society.
Contractual Constitutions
Authors: Weale Albert 
Published: July 2020

Abstract
Arendt pointed out that social contract theory identified some elementary truths of democratic politics. What might be those elementary truths? The first is the need for public goods; the second the role of a two-level theory; and the third is the essential role of government in providing the conditions for social cooperation. Democratic contracts need to respect the requirements of political equality. However, this still leaves us with the problem of knowing what could be agreed among agents reciprocally situated. The empirical method suggests that we need to look to social conditions that embody the circumstances of impartiality. One such set of conditions is found in common property resource regimes, where power is roughly equal. Such regime exhibit various forms of equality, but they also suggest the need for participation as well as monitoring and sanctions. Large-scale societies need to incorporate conditions of open representation and effective deliberation if they are to exhibit the circumstances of impartiality. International contracts are best understood if the Grotian norms of traditional international relations are regarded as equivalent to the individualistic minimum of a domestic order, which needs a social contract to deal with externalities and provide international public goods. It is plausible to think that, in an interdependent world, mutual advantage may exhibit the logic of a universalization to humanity as an end in itself.
Digging the Dirt in the Pursuit of Cleanliness
Authors: North Susan 
Published: July 2020

Abstract
The introduction outlines the historiography on cleanliness and the influence of Georges Vigarello on early modern social history and history of the body. It reviews both the philosophical and the practical aspects that make researching cleanliness so challenging. On one hand, the prejudices of contemporary observers and commentators are acknowledged and, on the other, the practice of cleanliness is so habitual it goes unnoticed and unrecorded. The methodology for the book is described, first to use traditional documentary sources from a variety of media to elucidate what advice was given about cleanliness in early modern England. In order to determine whether such advice was followed, a study of the material culture of cleanliness is proposed and outlined, acknowledging that it may be more successful for linen than for bodies. Finally the drawing together of these various strands of research is emphasized.
Clothing and Disease
Authors: North Susan 
Published: July 2020

Abstract
Chapter 3 examines early modern English medical literature that discusses theories of contagion. Three fatal diseases—plague, smallpox, and typhus—and a host of minor ones were thought to be transmitted through dirty textiles and clothing. Only strict attention to clean clothing and domestic textiles could prevent their contagion. Another strand of medical theory involved the theory of insensible perspiration—a physiological function that was considered essential to good health. The best way to encourage this function was by wearing flannel underwear instead of linen. At one point, the implications of insensible perspiration led physicians to believe that changing a fever patient’s linen would be fatal. These theories came into conflict, for wool was thought to harbour contagions far more easily than linen fabrics, and doctors worried about the ‘putrid effluvia’ harbouring in a patient’s linens.
Owning Linens
Authors: North Susan 
Published: July 2020

Abstract
Chapter 6 surveys a range of different types of inventories to establish which of the visible and invisible linens and how many of each English people of various status and wealth owned between 1550 and 1800, and of their quality. Household and probate accounts provide valuable information on how frequently new linens were acquired. These documents reveal that almost everyone in early modern England owned some linen. Social class is clearly defined through linen—the best quality and most owned associated with royalty. However, even those on the parish had the linens—visible and invisible—that were necessary for propriety.
More Washing
Authors: North Susan 
Published: July 2020

Abstract
The story of laundry continues in Chapter 10 with the labour of washerwomen and the economics of the service. There were several strategies that could be used to get the washing done: employing full-time laundry maids as part of the household, sending the linens out to be washed, or engaging a washerwoman to come in to do the work. Washing was considered an essential service, arrangements were made to ensure that orphans, apprentices, those ‘on the parish’ and in workhouses had laundry services provided. The necessity of washing for baby clothes is examined in the payments of ‘soap and candle’ for wet nurses. Finally, frequency of washing in analysed in relation to the numbers of linens people owned.
Washing Bodies
Authors: North Susan 
Published: July 2020

Abstract
The material culture of washing bodies is not as rich as that for clean linens. Chapter 11 uses a range of evidence to examine how widely it was practised by looking for basins, kettles, and towels which are ubiquitous but multi-purpose in inventories and household accounts. The consumables are more reliable; recipes for wash balls (soap explicitly for the skin), washing, and bath waters appear in household manuals and personal collections. These products were also sold by apothecaries, country mercers, and chapmen. The Old Bailey proceedings reveal a range of cleanliness practices—how frequently people washed themselves and sometimes exactly what parts—as well as standards and expectations. New literature on the early modern urban provision of water suggests it was widely available for washing bodies and clothes in all but the poorest neighbourhoods.
Making an Ass of Yourself in Narrative
Authors: Spencer Jane 
Published: July 2020

Abstract
Through close readings of literary asses in Sterne, Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Clare, this chapter argues that the development of sympathetic animal representation is marked by an ambivalence emblematized by the figure of the donkey. The chapter outlines the donkey’s ambiguous cultural status, discussing narratives from two different traditions: the Judeo-Christian tradition in which the meek ass is revered for its lowliness, and the classical tradition in which it is scorned. The biblical story of Balaam’s ass, in which the ass speaks against her master’s cruelty, is interpreted literally in the eighteenth century as teaching compassion to animals. In Apuleius’ ancient novel The Golden Ass the narrator, transformed into an ass, is a low, lustful, stupid beast. Both narratives influence the eighteenth-century donkey representations discussed here. The writers’ tonal complexities are traced to the fear that to sympathize with animals is to be transformed, like Apuleius’ narrator, into an ass.
The Innovative Animals of Children’s Fiction
Authors: Spencer Jane 
Published: July 2020

Abstract
This chapter discusses the animals of early children’s fiction, showing that their didactic and affective purposes are rooted in the period’s conception of childhood as a time of special closeness to animal being. Children’s writers teach children to grow away from animality, but also use animals to encourage the child reader’s sympathy. The fiction’s message of kindness to animals depends both on reminding children of feelings they share with nonhuman creatures and on explaining human superiority. The chapter argues that children’s writers make a distinct contribution to a developing literature of animal subjectivity. They make significant innovations in narrative techniques for representing nonhuman viewpoints, not only in their use of animal narrators but in third-person narrative access to non-linguistic animal minds. Writers include Dorothy Kilner, Thomas Day, Sarah Trimmer, Anna Letitia Barbauld, Mary Wollstonecraft, William Blake, Dorothy Wordsworth, Maria Edgeworth, and Edward Augustus Kendall.
Woman and Brute in Feminism
Authors: Spencer Jane 
Published: July 2020

Abstract
This chapter treats 1790s feminist writing by Mary Wollstonecraft, Catharine Macaulay, Mary Hays, and Mary Robinson, tracing conflicts in their thought created by the question of the animal. Faced by the animalization of women based on their identification with the sexual and reproductive body, feminists appealed to a disembodied reason to argue for their equality with men; but their sympathy with nonhuman animals as sharing in their victimization by men encouraged some revaluation of animality. Wollstonecraft’s foundational work on the rights of woman makes an anthropocentric commitment to unique human rationality, and reveals anxieties attributable to her reading of natural history discourses that naturalized the subordination of women. Robinson shows greater confidence in disembodied reason as guarantor of gender equality. The chapter traces the development of sympathetic responses both to human animality and nonhuman animals in Macaulay, Hays, and in Wollstonecraft’s own later work.