Morality and other values a contractualist perspective

My thesis is to offer a contractualist account of the distinctive normative force of morality, which I call the Primacy of the Moral (i.e., the Ideal of Primacy), by considering the way morality is related with other (potentially) conflicting values. Chapter 1 concerns working out the thesis of moral fragmentation. This thesis shows that many of other values are also moral in its broad sense, and consequently makes us see more clearly both what the nature of these other values is and how they may conflict with morality in its narrow sense. Having the thesis of moral fragmentation in hand, I argue that following the Ideal of Primacy involves recognizing other values as well as the fundamental contractualist moral value, i.e., the Ideal of Justifiability. Being moral then need not involve unacceptable sacrifices of other values such as friendship and family that we normally have good reason to take seriously. Rather, these values are part of the Ideal of Primacy. In Chapter 2, in particular, I show that the Ideal of Primacy as contractualism presents it makes reasonable room for such values. Chapter 3 more directly concerns the normative force of the Ideal of Justifiability. I closely examine the relation between the ideal in question and other values, thereby establishing the primacy of the former over the latter. In defending the primacy in question, I appeal to the claim that to act in the way that the Ideal of Justifiability requires is the most accurate way to respond to the value of rational creatures. In Chapter 4, I provide an account of this point by describing the distinctive capacity of human beings and by characterizing the contractualist morality as Morality and Co-deliberation. I identify two further questions that naturally follow the current discussion: what the positive value about being a contractualist agent is and how it relates to the Ideal of Primacy. By answering these two questions, I clarify further the implications of this ideal.