Gauthier, Equilibrium, and the Emergence of Morality

Dialogue ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 677-693 ◽  
Author(s):  
BRETT MULLINS
Keyword(s):  
Nash Equilibrium ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Emergent Property ◽  
The Social ◽  
David Gauthier

David Gauthier develops morality in the social contract tradition as an emergent property rationally necessitated by the presence of inefficiency. To demarcate situations in which morality arises from those in which it does not, two principles, Strategic Emergence and Market Emergence, are motivated and assumed by Gauthier to be equivalent. Following the work of Bob Bright, this paper formalizes and expands upon a demonstration of the inconsistency of the two principles. Eliminating each of the emergence conditions is considered to resolve the inconsistency. Additionally, the Kantian equilibrium is examined in place of the Nash equilibrium; however, Gauthier’s approach resists such amendments.

scholarly journals On the Scope of Egalitarian Justice

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Heath
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Central Component ◽  
Social Cooperation ◽  
Narrow Scope ◽  
The Social ◽  
David Gauthier ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Egalitarian Justice ◽  
A Current

It is not clear whether the social contract is supposed to merely supplement the unequal gains that individuals are able to make through the exercise of their natural endowments with a set of equal gains secured through social cooperation, or whether the social contract must also compensate individuals for the effects of these natural inequalities, so that they literally become all equal. The issue concerns, in effect, whether natural inequality falls within the scope of egalitarian justice. I think it is fair to say that the majority of egalitarians assume that the principle of equality imposes an obligation to redress natural inequality. Yet there is no consensus on this issue. David Gauthier has made the rejection of the principle of redress a central component of his project. It has often escaped notice that John Rawls also rejects the principle of redress. Thus it is not just anti-egalitarians who reject the principle of redress. There is a current of egalitarian thought – which we might call, for lack of a better term, narrow-scope egalitarianism – which also rejects this principle. In this paper, I would like to show that there is considerable wisdom in the narrow-scope egalitarian position. Many of the problems that lead theorists to reject egalitarianism in its entirety are a consequence, not of the principle of equality per se, but rather of the commitment to redress natural inequality. The narrow-scope view avoids all of these difficulties.

Social Contract: The Only Game in Town

Dialogue ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 695-711
Author(s):  
JAN NARVESON
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
The Social ◽  
David Gauthier

David Gauthier once said that the social contract offers ‘the only game in town’ if we hope for a rational morality. I argue that he’s correct. Morality consists of rules notionally directed at everyone everywhere. Only individual people are rational, and they have varying interests. The social contract proposes principles that everyone would, in view of their social and environmental circumstances, agree to as constraining their separate pursuits of their ends. There is no other rational way to understand morals, and so it is indeed the only game in town.

D?r al-?arb as the Motherland? The Muslim Tatars of (the Grand Duchy of) Lithuania and Social Contract

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-177
Author(s):  
Egdūnas Račius
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Social Consequences ◽  
Nation State ◽  
The Social ◽  
State And Society ◽  
Muslim Minority ◽  
Grand Duchy Of Lithuania ◽  
In The Beginning ◽  
Grand Duchy

Muslim presence in Lithuania, though already addressed from many angles, has not hitherto been approached from either the perspective of the social contract theories or of the compliance with Muslim jurisprudence. The author argues that through choice of non-Muslim Grand Duchy of Lithuania as their adopted Motherland, Muslim Tatars effectively entered into a unique (yet, from the point of Hanafi fiqh, arguably Islamically valid) social contract with the non-Muslim state and society. The article follows the development of this social contract since its inception in the fourteenth century all the way into the nation-state of Lithuania that emerged in the beginning of the twentieth century and continues until the present. The epitome of the social contract under investigation is the official granting in 1995 to Muslim Tatars of a status of one of the nine traditional faiths in Lithuania with all the ensuing political, legal and social consequences for both the Muslim minority and the state.

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