Abstract
In this chapter we will survey the rational choice approaches for normative ethics developed in the second part of the twentieth century. Some of these approaches belong to contractarian ethics but our main focus will be not on a social contract but on rational choice. We will survey and evaluate the contributions of several prominent thinkers (Rawls, Nozick, Sen, Harsanyi, and Scanlon) from the lens of the scientific approach to ethics to demonstrate that its principles have a crucial importance to the progress on normative ethics.
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Notes
- 1.
The idea of veil of ignorance was earlier introduced by the economist John Harsanyi (see further in this chapter).
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Storchevoy, M. (2018). Contractarianism and Rational Choice. In: A Scientific Approach to Ethics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69113-8_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69113-8_6
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