The concept of the reasonable plays an important role in Rawls's political philosophy, but there has been little systematic investigation of this concept or of the way Rawls employs it. This article distinguishes several different forms of reasonableness and uses them to explore Rawls's political liberalism. The discussion focuses on the idea, found especially in the most recent versions of this theory, of a family of liberal conceptions of justice each of which is regarded by everyone in a polity as (...) reasonable, even if only barely so. The idea of such a family is central to Rawls's notion of reciprocity and the view of political cooperation associated with it. This article questions whether the concept of the reasonable can play the role that Rawls intends. (shrink)

Should the democratic exercise of authority that we take for granted in the realm of government be extended to the managerial sphere? Exploring this question, Christopher McMahon develops a theory of government and management as two components of an integrated system of social authority that is essentially political in nature. He then considers where in this structure democratic decision making is appropriate. McMahon examines the main varieties of authority: the authority of experts, authority grounded in a promise to obey, and (...) authority justified as facilitating mutually beneficial cooperation. He also discusses the phenomenon of managerial authority, the authority that guides nongovernmental organization, and argues that managerial authority is best regarded not as the authority of a principal over an agent, but rather as authority that facilitates mutually beneficial cooperation among employees with different moral aims. Viewed in this way, there is a presumption that managerial authority should be democratically exercised by employees. Originally published in 1994. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

This book examines the ways in which reasonable people can disagree about the requirements of political morality. Christopher McMahon argues that there will be a 'zone of reasonable disagreement' surrounding most questions of political morality. Moral notions of right and wrong evolve over time as new zones of reasonable disagreement emerge out of old ones; thus political morality is both different in different societies with varying histories, and different now from what it was in the past. McMahon explores this feature (...) of his theory in detail and traces its implications for the possibility of making moral judgments about other polities, past or present. His study sheds light on an important and often overlooked aspect of political life, and will be of interest to a wide range of readers in moral and political philosophy and in political theory. (shrink)

This book is a collection of essays on various problems arising in connection with John Rawls's theory of justice. Its focus is the method of wide reflective equilibrium. The first half of the book begins with Daniels's well-known essay "Wide Reflective Equilibrium and Theory Acceptance in Ethics" and ends with an excellent discussion of the role of reflective equilibrium in Rawls's Political Liberalism. The essays in the second part discuss justice in health care. They are of interest in their own (...) right, and also as illustrating Daniels's view that for those practicing the method of reflective equilibrium, applied moral philosophy is integral to the process of moral theorizing. Daniels says that the essays do not constitute a systematic treatment of wide reflective equilibrium. But they display a much higher degree of thematic coherence than is usual in a collection, and they read much like the chapters of a monograph. (shrink)

The paper has two parts. The first considers the debate about whether social entities should be regarded as obiects distinct from their members and concludes that we should let the answer to this question be determined by the theories that social science finds to have the most explanatory power. The second part argues that even if the theory with the most explanatory power regards social entities such as organizations as persons in their own right, we should not accord them citizenship (...) in the moral realm. Rather we should accept moral individualism, the thesis that only individual humans can have rights and duties.The moral status of corporations and other organizations is often thought to depend on their ontological status. In particular, it is thought to depend on whether they can be said to exist as distinct entities, and especially as persons distinct from the individuals who are their members. In this article Iargue that the two questions are actually independent of each other. No matter what the ontological status of organizations, they should not be accorded citizenship in the moral realm in their own right. (shrink)

In a modern capitalist society, the senior executives of large profit-seeking corporations play an important role in shaping the collective life of the society as a whole. In this sense, they exercise social authority. This his book argues that if such authority is to be accepted as legitimate, it must be understood as a form of political authority that is exercised in concert with the authority of governments.

This book examines the issue of rational cooperation, especially cooperation between people with conflicting moral commitments. The first part considers how the two main aspects of cooperation - the choice by a group of a particular cooperative scheme and the decision by each member to contribute to that scheme - can be understood as guided by reason. The second part explores how the activity of reasoning itself can take a cooperative form. The book is distinctive in offering an account of (...) what people can accomplish by reasoning together, of the role of deliberation in democratic decision making, and of the negotiation of the proper use of concepts. Presenting for the first time a detailed analysis of the general problem of cooperation and collective reasoning between people with different moral commitments, this book will be of particular interest to philosophers of the social sciences and to students in political science, sociology and economics. (shrink)

Margaret Gilbert has defended the view that there is such a thing as genuine collective belief, in contrast to mere collective acceptance. I argue that even if she is right, we need to distinguish two modes of collective belief. On one, a group’s believing something as a body is a matter of its relating to a proposition, as a body, in the same way that an individual who has formed a belief on some matter relates to the proposition believed. On (...) the other, a group’s believing something as a body is a matter of its relating to a proposition, as a body, in the same way that in individual who is forming a belief on some matter relates to the proposition believed. (shrink)

This book examines the issue of rational cooperation, especially cooperation between people with conflicting moral commitments. The first part considers how the two main aspects of cooperation - the choice by a group of a particular cooperative scheme and the decision by each member to contribute to that scheme - can be understood as guided by reason. The second part explores how the activity of reasoning itself can take a cooperative form. The book is distinctive in offering an account of (...) what people can accomplish by reasoning together, of the role of deliberation in democratic decision making, and of the negotiation of the proper use of concepts. Presenting for the first time a detailed analysis of the general problem of cooperation and collective reasoning between people with different moral commitments, this book will be of particular interest to philosophers of the social sciences and to students in political science, sociology and economics. (shrink)

We all know, or think we know, what it means to say that something is 'reasonable' or 'fair', but what exactly are these concepts and how have they evolved and changed over the course of history? In this book, Christopher McMahon explores reasonableness, fairness, and justice as central concepts of the morality of reciprocal concern. He argues that the basis of this morality evolves as history unfolds, so that forms of interaction that might have been morally acceptable in the past (...) are judged unacceptable today. The first part of his study examines the notions of reasonableness and fairness as they are employed in ordinary practical thought, and the second part develops a constructivist theory to explain why and how this part of morality can undergo historical development without arriving at any final form. His book will interest scholars of ethics, political theory, and the history of ideas. (shrink)

This essay argues that fairness can be understood as appropriate concession in the context of a cooperative endeavor, and then explores why questions of fairness often give rise to disagreement. A constructivist theory of judgments of fairness is proposed according to which they are grounded, ultimately, in a motivational disposition to make and seek concessions in cooperative contexts when others are similarly disposed. It is argued that when judgments of fairness are interpreted in this way, issues of fairness will often (...) admit of reasonable disagreement, in the sense that incompatible judgments can be supported by reasoning that is fully competent. Two different senses of the reasonable are distinguished, and the possible epistemic relevance of this distinction is noted. The essay concludes with an argument that the divergence of competently reasoned judgments of fairness envisaged by the theory should not be understoodas relativism about fairness. (shrink)

Rawls and Nagel have suggested as a reason to act as morality requires is that we thereby express our nature as free and equal persons. The paper attempts describe the logic of such claims.

The paper distinguishes two ways of understanding a wise society. A society can be wise by virtue of possessing mostly true evaluative beliefs. Or it can be wise by virtue of employing rational procedures of collective belief formation. If the first possibility involves the society’s being, in Margaret Gilbert’s sense, a plural subject of evaluative beliefs, social wisdom will, as Gilbert says, entail an abridgement of individual freedom. But, this paper argues, if a society’s being wise is understood as its (...) employing rational procedures of collective belief formation, social wisdom positively requires individual freedom. (shrink)

A response to the discussants, Nien-hê Hsieh, Jeffrey Moriarty and J. (Hans) van Oosterhout, who took part in the March, 2005 symposium “The Political Theory of Organizations: A Retrospective Examination of Christopher McMahon’s Authority and Democracy: A General Theory of Government and Management” held in San Francisco as part of the Society for Business Ethics Group Meeting at the Pacific Division Meetings of the American Philosophical Association.