Andrew I. Cohen

In this essay I describe how contractarianism might approach interspecies welfare conflicts. I start by discussing a contractarian account of the moral status of nonhuman animals. I argue that contractors can agree to norms that would acknowledge the “moral standing” of some animals. I then discuss how the norms emerging from contractarian agreement might constrain any comparison of welfare between humans and animals. Contractarian agreement is likely to express some partiality to humans in a way that discounts the welfare of some or all animals. While the norms emerging from the contract might be silent or inconsistent in some tragic or catastrophic cases, in most ordinary conflicts of welfare, contractors will agree to norms that produce some determinate resolution. What the agreement says can evolve depending upon how the contractors or the circumstances change. I close with some remarks on contractarian indeterminacy.

Apologies are key components of moral repair. They can identify a wrong, express regret, and accept culpability for some transgression. Apologies can vindicate a victim's value as someone who was due different treatment. This paper explores whether acts with vicarious elements may serve as apologies. I offer a functionalist account of apologies: acts are apologies not so much by having correct ingredients but by serving certain apologetic functions. Those functions can be realized in multiple ways. Whether the offenders are individuals or collectives, they can sometimes fulfill such functions through third party agents. Having vicarious elements does not necessarily undermine the reparative reasons offenders hope to provide.

Friendships are voluntary relationships founded and sustained on reciprocated good will and mutual caring. Individuals in end friendships exhibit a mutual regard that is characteristic of those dispositions by which they spontaneously treat one another as ends. But even the closest of friends face challenges that can pit reasons of reciprocity or considerations of morality against friendship. My focus here is to examine how friends may assess their relationships in light of such challenges. This inquiry may then illuminate how the demands of friendship generate reasons.

This paper argues against an individualist challenge to the possibility of corporate apologies. According to this challenge, corporations always and only act through their members; thus they are not the sorts of entities that can apologize. Consequently there can be no corporate apologies. Against this challenge, this paper argues that even if corporate acts can be analyzed as acts by individuals within certain relationships, there can still be corporate apologies. This paper offers a noneliminative individualist account of such apologies. The paper also responds to various substantive objections to the possibility of such apologies.

I focus particularly on the case of the glory seekers. Driven by a foolhardy overestimation of their worth, seekers of glory do not value peace as others do. They may not even value peace at all. Their quest for glory then often obstructs peace, which is perhaps why Hobbes condemns vainglory as irrational. But once we clarify what it is that glory seekers seek, it becomes uncertain that gratifying appetites for glory is necessarily against right reason. If Hobbes is then to say that the laws of nature are the dictates of right reason, he must either show that glory seeking is against right reason, or he must explain why the right reason of glory seekers, which argues against the laws of nature, does not count against the normative force of such laws.

Besides commanding coercive power, a political authority is supposed to offer directives which ought to exclude private judgment. Any defense of inalienable rights or limited rights of resistance suggests some legitimate residual private judgment. Such retained rights threaten to undermine the binding force of authoritative directives. ;The case of Hobbesian sovereignty typifies this problem. Hobbes claims agents must establish permanent and absolute political authorities, and they can do so only by completely submitting themselves to a sovereign power whose public will stand for their own. Hobbesian political obligation consists in being bound not to act on one's own judgment, but even Hobbes allows for limited rights of resistance. ;Building on the work of Joseph Raz, I show how political authority binds our conduct by providing special reasons not to act on our private judgment. I explain how there can be scope and jurisdictional limitations on political authority, indeed, Hobbesian political authority. Any given subject might not completely authorize political power, but such power can still be absolute. Since private judgment endures in a civil society, subjects are in some position to evaluate the legitimacy of authoritative directives. To the extent authority binds and neither merely advises nor merely coerces, subjects must have reasons why they should not act on their private judgments.