Morris Gauthier's Symposium Introduction

IntroductionAuthor(s): Christopher W. MorrisSource: Ethics, Vol. 123, No. 4, Symposium: David Gauthier’s Morals by Agreement (July2013), pp. 595-600Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/670667 .

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SYMPOSIUM: DAVID GAUTHIER’S
MORALS BY AGREEMENT
Introduction*

Christopher W. Morris

On the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the publication of Da-vid Gauthier’s Morals by Agreement, a conference was held in May 2011 at
York University, Toronto, organized by Susan Dimock and attractingmore than forty presenters. Thepapers anddiscussions rangedwidely overtopics in morals by agreement. A number of the papers presented are pub-lished here, including David Gauthier’s keynote presentation, “Twenty-FiveOn.”
Gauthier’s morals by agreement theory has attracted a lot of atten-tion, with many, supporters and critics alike, focusing considerable at-tention on the revisionist account of practical rationality. The latter is thestarting point for the papers included here. To situate Gauthier’s viewsabout rationality, we start with an overview of the theory.

Morals by agreement is a theory of the nature and rationality of mo-rality. The account has different parts or elements, something that was notalways well appreciated when the book first appeared. The first element iswhat wemight think of as an account of human nature: the nature of valueand the aim of practical reason, the natural condition of humankind, thefunction of constraints on action. Next is an account of the principles ofconduct that rational agents would hypothetically agree to, a kind of “so-cial contract.” The third element is a revisionist account of practical ration-ality, essential to the argument aiming to show that virtually everyone innormal circumstances has reason to accept and abide by the constraintsimposed by these principles. Finally, Gauthier argues that the principles in

* My thanks to Henry Richardson for comments on a draft of these remarks, as well asto David Gauthier for conversations over many decades.

595

Ethics 123 ( July 2013): 595–600© 2013 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0014-1704/2013/12304-0006$10.00



question are principles of morality. This last element of the theory is foundin different places in the book.

596 Ethics July 2013

At the center of what I have called the account of human nature isa familiar doctrine of “the circumstances of justice.” The phrase is fromRawls, who borrows from Hume and H. L. A. Hart a summary accountof the conditions in which humans typically benefit from cooperation, anaccount implicit in Hobbes’s social theory. These conditions consist prin-cipally in scarcity, relative to our needs and wants, and self-bias, a tendencyto favor ourselves and those close to us over others. Cooperation in thesecircumstances is mutually beneficial, and it is made possible by our capacityto constrain our self-seeking behavior by adhering to just principles of ac-tion. In the book Gauthier uses the neoclassical economic theory of per-fect competition to illustrate his conception of the rationale for moral con-straints. In such a world there is no place for mutually beneficial principlesof action; uncoordinated, individual actions secure all the benefits avail-able. Such a market would be a “morally free zone, a context within whichthe constraints of morality would have no place.”1 In real markets, of course,there are public goods and externalities ðe.g., clean air, congestionÞ andmultiple opportunities for mutually beneficial cooperation. The view hereis of moral constraints as remedies of “market failures,” broadly conceived.The illustration may be misleading insofar as the constraints needed formarket competition are not self-sustaining and as questions may be raisedabout the baseline or starting point of market competition, matters takenup by Gauthier in different places in the book. The discussion of perfectcompetition has misled some readers, and Gauthier does not use this illus-tration of “morally free zones” in later work.

Morals by Agreement famously endorses a subjectivist and instrumen-talist conception of practical rationality according to which we are ratio-nal insofar as our acts maximize the satisfaction of our coherent and con-sidered preferences. Gauthier also supposes, for the purposes of the theory,that agents reason from the standpoint of their own interests, specificallytheir “non-tuistic” preferences. This assumption is not necessary for the the-ory, and Gauthier seems to have moved away from it. As his contribution tothis symposium reveals, he has also moved further away from the orthodoxconception of utility maximization.

In Morals by Agreement and elsewhere, Gauthier argues that agentsin the circumstances of justice have reason to constrain their behavior byaccepting and adhering to mutually advantageous and fair principles ofaction conditional on the compliance of others. Hypothetical choice isthe device used to determine what those principles are. Unlike Rawls andothers, Gauthier imposes no “veil of ignorance” and does not deprive hishypothetical contractors of knowledge of who they are and where they

1. David Gauthier, Morals by Agreement ðOxford: Oxford University Press, 1986Þ, 13.



find themselves. The principles selected represent a collective bargain, acompromise, with agents making a concession from their maximal claim.

Morris Introduction 597

The principles chosen govern the distribution of the cooperative or so-cial surplus, the net gains realized by cooperation. The assets that are priorto and independent of social cooperation—our “natural assets”—are notthemselves subject to redistribution as they seem to be in Rawls’s theory ofjustice. For Gauthier, distributive justice concerns the goods realized bycooperation, albeit constrained in a “Lockean” way, as we shall now see.

The choice of a principle of distributive justice in morals by agree-ment makes use of bargaining theory, part of the theory of games. Butthis principle is only part of the account of distributive justice, the otherpart being an account of the initial bargaining position. In Morals by Agree-ment Gauthier develops a two-stage social contract theory. The principle ofdistributive justice is, as it were, the second stage, and the first is a constrainton pre-bargaining interaction.2 The theory remains, broadly speaking, Hob-bist. But Gauthier’s introduction of constraints on the pre-bargaining base-line—specifically the Lockean proviso, which prohibits bettering one’s situ-ation through interaction that worsens the situation of another—gives histheory a “Lockean” appearance. All is not permitted as it is in Hobbes’sfamous state of nature. This proviso gives rise to limited rights, which wemight think of as “semi-natural,” to use a term I have used elsewhere.3

Thus far morals by agreement offers us only an account of the na-ture and content of morality—what morality asks of us and why. Somewill disagree with the view of morality’s function or will think that there ismore to morality than these principles and the duties that flow from real-life agreements and promises. It is important to understand that oneof the most distinctive elements of the theory is not yet in place; Gauthierhas not yet shown that agents have reason to comply the demands ofmorality. Justice often requires that we act contrary to our interests oraims—we may not steal, cheat, or break our word whenever so doingwould prove advantageous to us or to the causes we defend. As manymoral thinkers from Plato to Philippa Foot have noted, it sometimes paysto be unjust. Gauthier’s response to this fact and the problems it poses isto argue that we misconceive practical rationality, even instrumental ra-tionality, if we think that its aim determines in a straightforward way themanner in which we should reason or deliberate. The aim of rationality—say, to do as well as possible—need not recommend the decision princi-ple, choose the best alternative at each moment of choice. In Morals by AgreementGauthier famously argues that we should reason and act as “constrained

2. Gauthier was influenced by the two-stage contractarian theory of the late James
Buchanan. See his Limits of Liberty ðChicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975Þ.
3. See Christopher Morris, An Essay on the Modern State ðCambridge: Cambridge Uni-versity Press, 1998Þ, 152–54.



maximizers.” Such agents will be constrained by “dispositions to choose,”and they will consequently have more opportunities to cooperate in mu-


tually beneficial ways with others. In later work Gauthier develops thisrevisionist account in terms of intentions, plans, and modes of delibera-tion. The big challenge has been to rebut the contention that he has onlyshown that it is sometimes rational to act irrationally. In order to show thatwe have reason to act morally, he needs to show that we have reason to actin ways that are not, from the standpoint of the moment of action, alwaysthe best thing to do in terms of one’s aims or purposes. Establishing thisis essential to demonstrating that we have reasons to be moral, and in-deed reasons of the right sort, constraining our behavior.

Principles constrain one’s actions, and we have reasons to be so con-strained. If Gauthier has established this, it would be a major feat. Butwe would still need to ascertain whether the principles in question andthe principled action are moral; the argument that they are is dispersedthroughoutMorals by Agreement. The strategy seems to be a functional one:the principles and dispositions resemble familiar moral ones sufficientlythat we can identify themas such. Impartiality he thinks is a defining featureof morality, and it is shared by these principles and dispositions. This andother features allowus toconclude thatwhathasbeenshown toberational isin fact a genuine morality.

Gauthier’s “Twenty-Five On,” the first paper of this symposium, re-flects on Morals by Agreement and the ways in which his thinking has sincechanged. It is noteworthy that Gauthier distances himself further fromthe orthodox maximizing conception of rational choice. Adequate forproblems of individual choice, it is inadequate for interactive choice. “Ireject the maximizing perspective on interaction . . . because . . . there is asuperior perspective, though it is not always available to a single agent”ð605Þ. He finds now in the Prisoner’s Dilemma “a clash between twodistinct conceptions of rationality and the beginning of an argumentagainst the directly maximizing perspective” ð606Þ. While the ortho-dox account “will prescribe an action for an agent in any circumstancesby invoking best reply considerations,” Gauthier now defends a “Pareto-optimizing theory of rational choice” that would have rational agents co-ordinate on a single set of directives, conditional on the compliance ofothers. Rejecting the old label of constrained maximization, he now thinksof rational cooperators as agreed Pareto-optimizers.

Gauthier considers as well changes in his thinking about bargainingtheory and his principle of rational cooperation, the Lockean proviso, andwhat he elsewhere calls “the contractarian test.”4 He now emphasizes that

4. David Gauthier, “Political Contractarianism,” Journal of Political Philosophy 5 ð1997Þ:132–48.



we find ourselves in a world of norms attached to practices, social roles,and institutions. These may be justified insofar that those governed by

Morris Introduction 599

these norms could have agreed to them, “were they choosing, ex ante,together with their fellows, the terms of their ðsubsequentÞ interaction”ð618Þ. This is what he calls “the weak contractarian test,” showing thata set of norms and practices are “eligible for inclusion in an actual so-ciety that constitutes a cooperative venture for mutual fulfillment” ð618Þ.

In a discussion of his Lockean proviso Gauthier considers whatrational cooperators might do in those circumstances where cooperationis not possible. “How the would-be cooperator should act when cooper-ation is not to be had, need not be determined by what non-cooperatorswould consider rational. Instead, we may ask whether there are ways ofacting antithetical to cooperation, which may enter in to non-cooperativesituations, as options to be avoided.” Gauthier now thinks “of the proviso asplaying a broader role, as providing a constraint, both rational and moral,on the justifiability of all interaction. The proviso is not the whole ofmorality or even the last word, but it is, I believe, the first word” ð621–22,emphasis addedÞ.

Much of Gauthier’s work after Morals by Agreement has been devotedto developing his revisionist conception of rationality, and aspects of hisnewer views are considered in his essay for this symposium. This revision-ist conception has attracted a lot of interest and criticism, and most of theessays in this issue focus on this view and some of the recent restatements.Duncan MacIntosh’s contribution, “Assuring, Threatening, a Fully Maxi-mizing Theory of Practical Rationality, and the Practical Duties of Agents,”focuses on two of Gauthier’s essays published in this journal, one on de-terrence ð1984Þ and the other on threats and assurances ð1994Þ. MacIn-tosh is critical of the accounts in both of these essays and develops a viewthat he thinks resists the criticisms he raises against Gauthier.

Michael Bratman’s essay, “The Interplay of Intention and Reason,”focuses likewise on Gauthier’s important 1994 paper on threat and as-surances, as well as five others. He is sympathetic to Gauthier’s broadlypragmatic way of evaluating alternatives modes of deliberation but wor-ries about possible conflicts that such a perspective may generate. He pro-poses a modification of the account, one that makes use of one of Gau-thier’s ideas about temporally extended agency.

Claire Finkelstein’s essay, “Pragmatic Rationality and Risk,” also fo-cuses on Gauthier’s later writings on rationality. She is concerned aboutthe pragmatic rationale of his account in contexts of risky choice. In the1994 paper Gauthier treats threats and assurances differently because ofthe way in which failed threats can leave one worse off than if one had notthreatened. She thinks that the introduction of risk challenges the ac-count of assurances as well and argues that pragmatic accounts may needto view the chance or likelihood of a benefit as itself a benefit.



In his contribution, “Sticks or Carrots? The Emergence of Self-Ownership,” Gijs van Donselaar writes about rational commitment and


the Lockean proviso. Assuming that both threatening and promisingcommitments can be rational, he explores the conditions under whichthe latter are particularly beneficial. Promising rewards is a more effec-tive strategy for eliciting the labors and creative activities of people thanthreatening sanctions, and van Donselaar shows how an understanding ofthe logic of these two kinds of commitments can explain the superiorityof market societies to slave societies. He also argues that respect for self-ownership, a rather Lockean conception, may emerge from practices ofpromising commitments.

In these excellent essays we see the development of parts of DavidGauthier’s project in practical philosophy. They give a good impressionof the richness of Morals by Agreement as well as of the complexities anddifficulties on the path to a full account of morals by agreement.



Morris Gauthier's Symposium Introduction

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