Morals by Agreement - Review

The “Gauthier Project” and its critics

Gauthier introduces a theory of morals based on rational choice. His principle project is to reconcile rational choice theory with morality. In order to achieve this, he uses contractarian methodology. The social contract is an agreement by rational utility maximising actors. Morality evolves as a product of the rational rules of this contract. Gauthier also attempts to reconcile natural law with the social contract. Following Hobbes, he speaks of interactions in the state of nature. These are not irrelevant. Natural behaviour is selfish. Behaviour in the social contract should be moral. Should he manage to show that morality has rational grounds, he succeeds in both his enterprises.
Bargaining and compliance are the two major concepts in Morals by Agreement. They are obviously linked. Compliance should be the result of a successful bargain. And it should lead to a fair society; that is a fair distribution of the cooperative surplus. The social contract provides a mechanism to divide the cooperative surplus. Interaction among individuals in society creates a product that can be shared in a number of different ways. Gauthier argues that in order for the contract to be viable, it has to be based on rational premises. Given a set of principles, the rationality of the contract ensures its morality as well. Put differently, Morals by Agreement is a contractarian theory of justice.
This is an improvement on Hobbes’ contractarianism. Gauthier mentions Leviathan seldom and Hobbes’ influence is apparent throughout the book. However, coercion is not part of Morals by Agreement. Gauthier replaces Hobbes sovereign with voluntary rational agreement to comply with the contract. Moreover, Gauthier is influenced by modern moral philosophers and contractarians such as Rawls and Harsanyi. He compares and contrasts his with their theories. He also uses their theories as a tool to construct his. He proves their arguments either to be wrong or insufficient, as a way to justify the need for a rational theory of morality.
There are five basic conceptions in Morals by Agreement; a morally free zone, the minimax relative concession, constrained maximisation, the Lockean Proviso and the Archimedean point. These are the premises Gauthier bases his theory upon. Especially, the minimax relative concession, constrained maximisation and the Lockean Proviso are the most innovative parts of his theory and the one we should focus on, in order to understand his argument.
The purpose of this essay is to provide an overview of the ‘Gauthier Project’. Thus, it will not include an analysis of the first and last chapters of Morals by Agreement. Chapters II and III are concerned with laying the background of the theory. They are an explanation of how Gauthier understands rational choice theory and its premises. Chapters IX – XI are concerned with practical applications of the theory.

Market failure leads to the need for cooperation. Cooperation requires moral constraints on rational behaviour such as the minimax relative concession and the Lockean proviso. Gauthier starts from showing how an ideal market would be a morally free zone. In an ideal market all persons are affected by interaction in the same way. Hence the market is impartial. And for Gauthier impartiality coincides with morality. However, there are no ideal markets. Markets fail by creating externalities and we need cooperative interaction to correct these failures. In order for cooperation among rational actors to be optimal and fair, there is a need for moral constraints on behaviour. The Lockean proviso ensures justice, by not allowing more powerful actors to take advantage of weaker ones. The minimax relative concession sets the rules for a fair bargaining procedure. This is essential for the construction of a fair society. This is a broad overview of the main concepts in Morals by Agreement.
Gauthier has used traditional contract theory and combined it with moral philosophy. This is what distinguishes him from other contractarianists. In addition, Gauthier has used a game theoretic approach to describe rational actors. He also described the bargaining process through game theory. These are the probably the elements that make his book so innovative.
Gauthier’s contract theory describes how it would be possible to reach an agreement about social interactions. It starts from a natural state and through bargaining reaches the social contract. The social contract is based on moral norms deriving from rational bargaining. Moral norms are the product of rational bargaining and compliance with them depends on individual rationality.
Morals by Agreement has come under a lot of criticism for failing to derive a moral theory from rationality. The moral constraints Gauthier introduces are unacceptable for rational choice theorists. Thus, his theory has to be purified in a sense so that it will be a theory of moral philosophy out of rational choice that is not based on moral constraints. Binmore, Sugden, Skyrms have contributed in the same area of Political Philosophy as Gauthier. Their starting point though is Economics and Social Science and therefore their methodology is different. They make similar assumptions about rationality and they conclude that it is possible for agents to behave based on a rational morality. However, they do not use moral constraints; at least not the way Gauthier does. In this sense, they are more successful in following the conventions of rationality and using them to create a theory of rational morality. Their analysis uses evolutionary game theory. As opposed to Gauthier, who sees social contract as the result of an agreement, they see it as having developed through social interaction. Morality is embedded in interaction and becomes a norm once interaction becomes frequent enough. After having examined Gauthier’s theory, the next logical step is to look at the work of evolutionary game theorists and see how they relate it to morality.



REFERENCES
Braithwaite, Richard Theory of games as a tool for the theory of the moral philosopher, An Inaugural Lecture Delivered in Cambridge on 2 December 1954
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Frankel Paul, Ellen et al. (1988), The New social contract: Essays on Gauthier, Oxford; New York: B. Blackwell for the Social Philosophy and Policy Center, Bowling Green State University.
Gauthier, David and Sugden, Robert, (1989), Rationality, justice and the social contract: Themes from Morals by agreement, London, etc., Harvester, 1993.
Gauthier, David (1987), Morals by Agreement, Oxford, Oxford U.P.
Hampton, Jean, (1986), Hobbes and the social contract tradition, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Kelly, Paul (eds.) (1998), Impartiality, neutrality and justice: re-reading Brian Barry’s Justice as impartiality
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Rawls, John (2005), A theory of justice, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press.
Vallentyne, Peter (1991), Contractarianism and rational choice, New York; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
http://plato.stanford.edu, Entries on contractarianism, game theory and ethics