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	Contractarianism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
		Contractarians are thus skeptical of the possibility of grounding morality or political authority in either divine will or some perfectionist ideal of the nature of humanity.
		Contractarianism argues that we each are motivated to accept morality, as Jan Narveson puts it, "first because we are vulnerable to the depredations of others, and second because we can all benefit from cooperation with others" (1988, 148).
		In contemporary normative contractarian theories, that is, theories that attempt to ground the legitimacy of government or theories that claim to derive a moral ought, the initial position represents the starting point for a fair, impartial agreement.
	plato.stanford.edu /entries/contractarianism (3792 words)

	“The Presuppositions of the Social Contract” (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		The contractarian conception of relationships describes people as existing either in a state of nature or in a state of society.
		Contractarian rationality may be unable to fulfill the aims of society through individualistic motivation.
		Insofar as Gauthier defines ideology as a theoretical construct by which a person can explain the content of his or her thoughts and actions, contractarianism is construed as a theory that provides a mode of interpretation for the thoughts and actions involved in social relationships.
	web.uvic.ca /~cmacleod/es5.htm (1045 words)

	Contractarianism FAQ
		For that reason, if the perceived problem with Contractarianism is that its political consequences are awful, then we must at least consider the possibility that the fault might lie, not in the contractarian moral theory itself, but in the attempt to extract political blood from contractarian turnips.
		It is the latter, not the former, that is the undertaking of philosophical Contractarianism.
		Contractarianism proposes to generate morals, and to generate it out of a previous condition (at least in theory) which was not moral.
	www.againstpolitics.com /contractarianism_faq (11162 words)

	New Page 1
		Contractarianism, as a general approach to moral and political thought, has had a long and distinguished history--its roots are easily traced as far back as Plato's Republic where Glaucon advanced it as a view of justice, and its influential representatives include Pufendorf, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Hume, and Kant.
		Contractarianism holds out the seductive prospect of a theory that demystifies morality's status and shows it to be a compelling expression of humanity's nature.
		Thus some contractarians argue that the appropriate circumstances of choice leave intact, in the way a veil of ignorance might not, the key fact that those who are seeking to reach agreement differ from one another in ways that influence which principles might be genuine candidates for mutual agreement.
	www.philosophy.uncc.edu /mleldrid/SzCMT/gsm.html (9484 words)

	Paul's crime and justice Page: criminal justice ethics: jeffrey reiman explains contractarian ethics (locke, rawls) (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		Contractarianism was originally used by philosophers like John Locke and Thomas Hobbes to account for the legitimacy of political authority.
		Indeed, it is a short-step from Kantian moral theory to contractarian moral theory.
		The problems with contractarianism come from the difficulty of determining what people would all agree to as good behind a veil of ignorance, given the actual disagreements that people have over what is good and what is worth sacrificing for.
	www.paulsjusticepage.com /cjethics/intro/contractarianism.htm (1082 words)

	Morality 2
		Contractarianism is perhaps the most impressive attempt to refute the AR position; therefore, it is important to consider it in some detail.
		Contractarianism also is unable to adequately account for the rights we give to those unable to form contracts, i.e., infants, children, senile people, mental deficients, and even animals to some extent.
		In summary, contractarianism fails because a) it fails to accurately account for our actual, real-world moral acts and motives, b) it sanctions contractual arrangements that most people would see as unjust, c) it fails to account for the considerations we accord to individuals unable to enter into contracts, and d) it has some impractical consequences.
	www.animalliberationfront.com /Philosophy/Morality/morality1.htm (3255 words)

	The politics of John Rawls.
		The logical error in all contractarian theory, when a specific contract is used to justify a specific society, is that other possible 'social contracts' will justify other possible societies.
		Contractarianism is allegedly an attempt to avoid 'foundationalism'.
		Technology is not an issue for contractarian theorists, but it is for the real world: in the long term, technological change has altered human societies more than any social issue.
	web.inter.nl.net /users/Paul.Treanor/rawls.html (13506 words)

	20th WCP: Partial Contractarianism and Moral Motivation
		At the first level the contractarian theory is directed at the question of moral motivation.
		At the second level the contractarian theory is directed at the question of the content and justification of our most general normative principles and values.
		However, this does not discredit the broader project of moral contractarianism provided this project is understood in the partial rather than the complete sense outlined at the beginning of this presentation.
	www.bu.edu /wcp/Papers/TEth/TEthVoic.htm (2875 words)

	The interest in rules
		From these presuppositions, and these alone, it becomes possible to derive a contractarian 'explanation' of collective order." (21-22) Then it is argued that a state would be justified as far as it can be conceived as emerging from a social contract among individuals.
		To be sure, the contractarian would answer that individuals would unanimously agree on accepting just this rule because of the costs that they will face.
		It may well be that contractarianism is just that type of "civil religion", which in comparison with other philosophical forms of argument which start from more collectivistic or more sceptical premises, might lead to best results.
	www.gmu.edu /jbc/fest/late_entries/Kliemt/KliemtPoB6(123-161).htm (11191 words)

	West Coast Libertarian
		While contractarian philosophers need not be and in most cases are not libertarians, Narveson advances the position that the content of the bargains that individuals would agree to would be libertarian - i.e.
		In the question and answer period that followed his speech, Narveson said that presenting the contractarian argument is the most effective way to achieve a libertarian society in which the non-aggression axiom is the rule.
		Narveson also made it clear that the contractarian view should not be confused with utilitarian view, which effectively argues that actions are right if they promote the maximum net general utility.
	www.spinnaker.com /WCLF/wcl/16-3-sup.html (1052 words)

	socialcontractgoodbad1
		Modern contractarians accept without question that most of the social and political institutions which interest them are not in fact the upshot of any contract or agreement among those whose lives they affect.
		It means simply that we should view it using contractarian categories, and that means treating each step either as though it involved elements of choice, consent and obligation, or as though it were an incident of force, oppression and the persistence of a right to resist) and drawing the appropriate conclusions.
		The fact that both contractarians and anticontractarians fail to justify political obligation (understood as a self-assumed obligation) is nothing new; the anarchists have argued similarly for a long time.
	spot.colorado.edu /~mcguire/socialcontract.html (16805 words)

	PHIL: Paper 2 Contractarianism - www.ezboard.com
		Contractarianism assumes that members of society are all capable of participating in the social contract to be civil, fair, and equal to each other.
		Rachels points to the fact that contractarianism is fair to people who sign the contract, but is unfair to the people that cannot sign the contract, such as the mentally impaired, and non human animals.
		Contractarianism seems to only apply to people that are able to commit to it and everyone else that does not is excluded from it.
	p084.ezboard.com /flyzboardfrm62.showMessage?topicID=69.topic (848 words)

	Contractarianism and Animal Rights
		Contractarianism is an ethical theory that attempts to account for our morality by appealing to implicit mutually beneficial agreements, or contracts.
		Contractarianism is perhaps the most impressive attempt to refute the AR position; therefore, it is important to consider it in some detail.
		Contractarianism also is unable to adequately account for the rights we give to those unable to form contracts, i.e., infants, children, senile people, mental deficients, and even animals to some extent.
	core.ecu.edu /phil/mccartyr/Animals/Contract.htm (1224 words)

	20th WCP: The Social Contract Tradition
		The usual criticisms of contractarianism have been endogenous to Western cultural orientation and, because of that, have not been audacious enough to challenge the fundamental assumptions of contractarianism.
		In the case of the contractarians, the balance of the negatives in the human socio-political and economic nature inexorably leads to the creation of the state, a big brother who is permanently breathing down the necks of the recalcitrant humans who would never have done the right thing unless coerced.
		This failure on the part of the contractarians deliberately creates a fiat, it supposes that there was a point in the human past that steps were left unadopted to protect the weak and the young in so far as it did not pander to the glory and psychological gratification of some person(s).
	www.bu.edu /wcp/Papers/Soci/SociBewa.htm (4841 words)

	The Case for Animal Rights (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		I have, then, according to contractarianism, no duty directly to your dog or any other animal, not even the duty not to cause them pain or suffering; my duty not to hurt them is a duty I have to those people who care about what happens to them.
		And there is nothing in contractarianism of the sort we are discussing that guarantees or requires that everyone will have a chance to participate equally in framing the rules of morality.
		The version of contractarianism just examined is, as I have noted, a crude variety, and in fairness to those of a contractarian persuasion it must be noted that much more refined, subtle and ingenious varieties are possible.
	articles.animalconcerns.org /ar-voices/archive/case_for_ar.html (5489 words)

	Essays in Philosophy
		Contractarians typically appeal to the metaphor of a contract, agreed to by each individual moral agent, in which it is outlined what must, may, or must not be done to each other agent, and to that which they hold dear.
		That there is a contract, in the sense required by contractarian arguments, only requires (roughly) that each party to the contract modify its behaviour in a way that enhances the utility of at least some other parties to the contract, and that each party to the contract benefit by being a party.
		And more importantly, (on the contractarian account) these three characteristics are jointly sufficient, assuming there exists a plurality of such agents, to make it reasonable (rational, in the sense of maximizing long-term utility) for those agents to modify their behaviour in response to each other’s needs.
	www.humboldt.edu /~essays/tucker.html (6822 words)

	E Law: Shareholder Democracy or a Banana Republic: The CASAC Proposals for Reform - Text
		Such politics are not only those associated with government, such as (to take common examples) environmental issues and ones of remote and regional development, but also the politics more closely associated with the individual and with "social justice", such as the recognition of the dignity of work and of basic human rights.
		But it is undoubtedly less hostile to matters of "political" concern being raised by shareholders than is contractarianism; and it seems to require that corporations law allow for such matters to be raised where they are sufficiently relevant to the business.
		Contractarianism would seem to see "residual value" as determined by the aggregated preferences of market participants; if an issue otherwise "political" is considered to go to such "value" so determined, it should have a place.
	www.murdoch.edu.au /elaw/issues/v7n4/simmonds74_text.html (3579 words)

	Philosophy 102, CMP
		For this reason, while it is necessary that you have a passing understanding of the major ethical theories, particularly Kantian ethics, utilitarianism, contractarianism, and feminist ethics, it would take us very far afield to engage in too thorough of a discussion of ethical theory in general.
		Contractarianism is generally considered to be more of a theory in political philosophy than in ethical theory, since the basis of the theory is the idea of a social "contract," usually hypothetical, which governs human behavior.
		Ideal observer theories, which originated with Adam Smith (1723-1790), claim that it is not the intuition of you or I which is capable of intuiting right or wrong but the intuition of an ideal observer (one who is in possession of all the facts and is not swayed by bias of any kind).
	www.miracosta.cc.ca.us /home/lmoon/ET.html (4679 words)

	[No title]
		While contractarianism may have some validity in political theory, as is seen in Hobbes' theory of the social contract as a device for the creation of the state, its application for morality is more doubtful.
		Thus contractarianism is not a feasible ground on which to construct a system of Humanist ethics.
		Contractarianism is now not seriously argued for either political or ethical positions.
	www.faithfreedom.org /Articles/Gunasekara/hethics.htm (11731 words)

	Amazon.ca: Books: Contractarianism/Contractualism (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		Contractarianism and Contractualism are instances of a major approach to normative ethical theory that stresses reciprocity and mutual consent.
		Contractarianism' is the name given to the idea, first broached by Thomas Hobbes, that morality can be viewed as a set of social practices that self-interestedly rational actors "adopt" in their common interest, as if by a kind of contract.
		In both instances, morality is modeled on a kind of agreement or contract, with the difference that contractarians think that the underlying motivation is rational self-interest and contractualists believe it is mutual respect between equals.
	www.amazon.ca /exec/obidos/ASIN/0631231102 (322 words)

	Buchanan: Collected Works, The Limits of Liberty: Between Anarchy and Leviathan, Front Matter: Library of Economics and ...
		On the one hand, it built on and contributed to the "explorations in the theory of anarchy" (as the title of a volume edited by Gordon Tullock in 1972 is called), and thus, on a debate that at the time was one of the focal interests of the Virginia School of Political Economy.
		As an economist, I am a specialist in contract, and to my fellows a contractarian approach carries its own defense once individual values are accepted as the base materials.
		This is not my purpose, and those who reject the contractarian approach out of hand will find little in an economist's attempts at clarification.
	www.econlib.org /library/Buchanan/buchCv7c0.html (1633 words)

	SSRN-The Misguided Transformation of Loyalty into Contract by Reza Dibadj
		The law of unincorporated associations is engaged in a misguided march in transforming the duty of loyalty into a contractarian construct.
		The economic justifications for contractarianism are based on facile assumptions applied in a static manner; they do not represent real humans interacting in real institutions over time.
		In the end, the rise of contractarianism reflects a step backward to nineteenth-century legal formalism and presents the risk that its faulty precepts may spread further into corporate law.
	papers.ssrn.com /sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=874845 (358 words)

	Comments on Charles Mills
		However, I am not a political philosopher (though I am a political progressive in the sense sketched), and in the interdisciplinary context in which I work, social contract theory is not the dominant discourse.
		Such a description may not provide a (substantive) explanation of how domination came about or how it is sustained--so it may not do some things progressives want and need--but its point is to illuminate the actual structure of society in such a way that our normative model can get a grip on it.
		Given, as Mills suggests, that some form of contractarianism is the strongest contender for a normative account of justice, this is important.
	www.mit.edu /~shaslang/papers/MillsAPA2.html (3941 words)

	Social contract - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		It is also worth noting that in the century following Rousseau's death, his theories were an important influence in the formation of the socialist movement.
		John Rawls (1921-2002) proposed a contractarian approach that has a decidedly Kantian flavor, whereby rational people in a hypothetical "original position," setting aside their individual preferences and capacities under a "veil of ignorance," would agree to certain, general principles of justice.
		Because social contract theory assumes the existence of a contract binding upon individuals who have not explicitly accepted it, the theory has been found flawed by some philosophers, such as Lysander Spooner.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Social_contract_theories (2115 words)

	The Case for Animal Rights: Tom Regan
		I have, then, according to contractarianism, no duty directly to your dog or any other animal, not even the duty not to cause them pain or suffering; my duty not to hurt them is a duty I have to those people who care about what happens to them.
		And there is nothing in contractarianism of the sort we are discussing that guarantees or requires that everyone will have a chance to participate equally in framing the rules of morality.
		The version of contractarianism just examined is, as I have noted, a crude variety, and in fairness to those of a contractarian persuasion it must be noted that much more refined, subtle and ingenious varieties are possible.
	www.animalsvoice.com /PAGES/writes/editorial/essays/aniphilo/regan_rights1.html (2022 words)

	ProfessorBainbridge.com ®: Klausner on Corporate Contractarianism (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		This article analyzes the extent to which contractarian analysis of corporate law has stood up to a generation of scholarship in law and economics - particularly empirical scholarship.
		It concludes that while the contractarian theory remains a useful starting point, more recent research demonstrates that as a description of reality or a basis for policy prescription, the theory falls short.
		A menu approach to the design of corporate law may be more effective than either the default rule structure that the contractarian theory prescribes or an approach of mandatory regulation.
	www.professorbainbridge.com /2007/03/klausner_on_cor.html (436 words)

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