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The Poverty of Market Contractarianism

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Liberalism

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Abstract

Contractarian theories come in two basic varieties. On the one hand, political contractarians attempt to explain, understand, and justify the authority of the state and the existence of various political institutions in terms of what it would be rational for agents to agree to in certain specified circumstances. Moral contractarians, on the other hand, attempt to explain, understand, and justify morality itself as the result of a bargain between rational agents in specified circumstances.

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Notes

  1. See Jules Coleman, “Market Contractarianism” in Morals, Markets, and the Law (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1988), ch. 10.

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  2. David Gauthier, Morals by Agreement ( New York: Oxford University Press, 1986 ), p. 167.

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  3. Ibid., p. 170.

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  4. Ibid., p. 172.

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  5. Ibid., p. 180.

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  6. Ibid., p. 167.

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  7. I am indebted to Howard Sobel for bringing this passage to my attention.

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  8. Gauthier, op. cit., p. 152.

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  9. Ibid., p. 163.

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  10. See Jody S. Kraus and Jules L. Coleman, “Morality and the theory of rational choice”, in Peter Vallentyne, ed., Contractarianism and Rational Choice: Essays on David Gauthier’s Morals by Agreement (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 256. and Gauthier “Why Contractarianism?”, in Vallentyne, op. cit., p. 22.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3T 2NT, Canada

    Bob Bright

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  1. Bob Bright
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

    Jan Narveson

  2. York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Susan Dimock

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© 2000 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Bright, B. (2000). The Poverty of Market Contractarianism. In: Narveson, J., Dimock, S. (eds) Liberalism. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9440-0_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9440-0_13

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-90-481-5591-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-015-9440-0

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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