Abstract
The question Part I of this book set out to answer is whether agents can come to use contract tests, such as those proposed by David Gauthier and T. M. Scanlon, as a moral guide. The previous chapters argued that people’s ability to do so is constrained by limitations of their perspective-taking ability. This chapter examines whether agents can overcome or cope with these limitations. Three methods are introduced that agents can use to become better at applying the contract test: gathering additional information about other standpoints, internalising moral principles that everyone has reason to accept, and drawing on the perspective-taking abilities of third parties. It is argued that with the combined use of these methods, agents can considerably reduce the risk of making mistakes when applying the contract test. The chapter concludes that, with respect to findings on social cognition, the Practicability Assumption is empirically plausible.
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Notes
- 1.
Note that this fits Hare’s suggestion, with which I started this book, that his disagreement with Rawls about what persons in the original position would agree to stems in part from him and Rawls having different attitudes themselves.
- 2.
At this point it is worth noting one type of information that does not appear to increase perspective-taking accuracy much: information that we are prone to make certain mistakes. Several studies have found that informing people about the danger of egocentric biases did little to increase their perspective-taking accuracy (Epley 2008). For example, the previously mentioned (§ 3.3.1) experiment on the false consensus effect found that neither informing people beforehand about this phenomenon nor giving them online feedback on the accuracy of their estimates while they were filling in the test improved their accuracy (Krueger and Clement 1994). Another experiment in the same study showed that even if participants were informed that a large number of individuals had agreed to be willing to perform a certain task (i.e. wearing a sandwich board), they still tended to project their own decision to wear the board or not when predicting another’s behaviour.
- 3.
Rumsfeld introduced the phrase in a press statement he made in his role asUnited States Secretary of Defense, at February 12, 2002. It was part of the following analysis: “There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know.” See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiPe1OiKQuk.
- 4.
There is also an issue of motivated reasoning. There is good reason to think that our judgments tend to be influenced by our self-interest. Third parties who do not share our interests can correct such a bias.
- 5.
It is worth noting that this proposal is not the same as rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarians hold that an action is justified if it conforms to rules that maximise utility. As making such a judgment requires extensive calculations as well, it is not a solution to the above problem.
- 6.
Rule utilitarianism does have this same advantage over act utilitarianism.
- 7.
Watson (1998) has also argued that contract theories do not face the same problems as two-level views, but he concentrates on a different issue. To alleviate the objections posed here, some utilitarians have suggested that it may be better if persons were taught moral rules without becoming whole-hearted utilitarians. “Just people must be […] to a certain extent deluded about the grounds of their virtue” (p. 173) Watson concludes that two-level views in this way exclude one of our deepest moral aspirations, something which contract theories do not need to do.
- 8.
It may be objected at this point that contractarian morality is in other respects less similar to common sense morality than utilitarian morality. By deriving moral principles from an agreement by rational parties, contractarians may appear unable to take into account the interests of individuals who are not able to take part in such an agreement, such as the unborn, the congenitally handicapped, or animals. Many of us, however believe that these groups also have certain rights. Gauthier has stated explicitly that his moral theory can indeed not do justice to such intuitions. On his view, the above groups “fall beyond to pale of a morality tied to mutuality” (p. 268). Other contract theorists have argued that this conclusion is, even for Gauthier, by no means necessary (Hampton 1991; Morris 1991). As Morris (1991) explains, that individuals cannot partake in an agreement does not preclude them from being granted rights through principles agreed upon by rational others. Furthermore, as Scanlon (1982, 1998) shows, contract theorists who do not aim to derive morality from rationality can allow for individuals of these groups being represented by trustees in the agreement situation. The objection thus fails.
- 9.
This may prove to be problematic for some contract theories. In particular, Hobbesian contract theorists would have to show agents that it is in their own interest to adopt these methods. It is however not evident that it is, especially when others cannot be expected to adopt them as well. I leave this issue to be explored on a further occasion.
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Timmerman, P. (2014). How to Use a Contract Test. In: Moral Contract Theory and Social Cognition. Theory and Decision Library A:, vol 48. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04262-6_5
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