Mutual Advantage Contractarianism and Future Generations

MUTUAL ADVANTAGE CONTRACTARIANS TRY to show that moral principles are best understood as rational limitations on our choices. These limitations are derived from non-moral principles of rational choice. To act rationally would thus be to act morally and vice versa. Consequently, there would be no conflict between individual utility maximisation and morality. The main advantage of this project is that it would answer the moral sceptic’s question: Why be moral? The answer: For your own good. According to the usual conception of rationality, a rational person maximises her utility. There are, however, a number of games that show that if everyone tries to maximise their utility, then everyone will be worse off than they could have been-the only strategic equilibrium in such games are suboptimal. The well-known Prisoner’s Dilemma is the paradigmatic example: From the perspective of each individual, it seems rational to squeal. If everyone squeals, however, they will be worse off than they would have been if everyone had kept silent. In response to such problems, contractarians suggest that rational agents should commit themselves to some behaviour that assures them the benefits of cooperation. Principles for such behaviour and principles for the distribution of the cooperative surplus constitute the contractarian moral theory. In the Prisoner’s Dilemma, for example, you would commit yourself to not squealing if you have good reason to believe that other prisoners are similarly committed: they will not squeal if you do not squeal.’ It has been difficult for mutual advantage contractarians to give a satisfying account of intergenerational justice. The crux of the matter is that the present generation has nothing to gain from a saving policy and future generations cannot wield any threat against previous generations. Thus, contractarianism seems to have the counterintuitive implication that we