Conservative Contractarianism

Philosophy;Contractarianism;Gauthier;conservativism;evolutionary dynamics;computer simulations

Watson, Terrence

University of Waterloo

关键词: Philosophy;    Contractarianism;    Gauthier;    conservativism;    evolutionary dynamics;    computer simulations;   

Others  :  https://uwspace.uwaterloo.ca/bitstream/10012/762/1/t2watson2004.pdf

瑞士|英语

来源: UWSPACE Waterloo Institutional Repository

【 摘 要 】

Moral contractarianism, as demonstrated in the work of David Gauthier, is an attempt to derive moral principles from the non-moral premises of rational choice.However, this contractarian enterprise runs aground because it is unable to show that agents would commit to norms in a fairly realistic world where knowledge is limited in space and time, where random shocks are likely, and where agents can be arbitrarily differentiated from one another.In a world like this, agents will find that the most ;;rational;; strategy is to behave ;;non-rationally,;; imitating the behavior of others in their vicinity and preserving a limited sort of ignorance.