Date Thesis Awarded

5-2015

Access Type

Honors Thesis -- Access Restricted On-Campus Only

Degree Name

Bachelors of Arts (BA)

Department

Philosophy

Advisor

Christopher Freiman

Committee Members

Timothy Costelloe

Ross Carroll

Abstract

In this paper, I evaluate which of two ethical theories - Mill's utilitarianism or Scanlon's contractualism - can provide a more plausible justification of a plausible account of rights. To arrive upon such an account, I consider two utilitarian accounts of rights and one contractualist account of rights. Thereafter, I establish, through extraction of the most plausible elements of each of the three aforementioned accounts of rights, five necessary conditions which a rights account should meet if it is to be plausible. I conclude that given an understanding of a plausible rights account as one which minimally includes these five conditions, Mill's utilitarianism has stronger justificatory power than Scanlon's contractualism.

Recommended Citation

Lopez, Jose A. Jr., "A Battle for Rights Justification: Millian Utilitarianism vs. Scanlonian Contractualism" (2015). Undergraduate Honors Theses. William & Mary. Paper 162.
https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses/162