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ScoutingForAdventure t1_j96hm7x wrote

Reply to comment by contractualist in The Ontology and Epistemology of Morality by contractualist

So a person who is lacking in the ability to reason, such as youth and those with neurological and functional limitations at the highest cognitive level, would be unable to be free persons in your framework? The social force of public reason would constrain and bind them to a group morality based on its implementation of geniocracy?

Such a freedom has zero coherence. As others have mentioned, the disconnect between 1) what is socially prioritized as human needs, and 2) the disconnection individuals can have to those human needs and values would make such freedom conditional and therefore non-binding.

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contractualist OP t1_j96iv85 wrote

Being a part to the moral community doesn’t rely on reasoning ability, but the laws of the moral community would be reason-based. They would have to be justifiable to others. Membership in the community relies on consciousness and free will.

If you read the article I sent, I argue that ascent to the social contract would be based on agreement to principles that are in accordance with higher-order values. Morality asks what principles of conduct would free reasonable people accept. It doesn’t say morality is reserved for the reasonable.

I’m not sure what freedom you’re talking about but if you have a specific question I’m happy to address it.

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