Abstract

A legitimate moral justification has to be given by justifying a norm to everyone. Achieving unanimity about norms is a moral correctness criterion for certain contract theories. What exactly is meant by unanimity? Most contract theorists quickly agree that unanimity, understood as the explicit factual agreement of everyone to a norm candidate, is de facto impossible to achieve. It is stated that the following types of consent can replace de facto unanimous consent: a) majority consent; b) rational consent, c) consent based on self-interest, d) consent based on transcendental interests and e) consent based on undisputed moral principles. I want to show that unanimous consent cannot be achieved in any of these ways, and if you claim that moral norms are based on unanimity or that there are no moral norms, then you have to dismiss morality.