I argue that partialist theories that require us to give special weight to the desires, needs, and interests of ourselves or our social group, are national. I depend this impartialist principle: if the only difference between two persons to some property, where having the property to dependent on luck, morality's demanding that we disfavor either person because the person has this property, to national.

In Morals by Agreement David Gauthier proposes four criteria for classifying a society's advancement toward ‘higher stages of human development.' Significantly, these criteria — material well-being, breadth of opportunity, average life-span, and density of population — do not include as an equally valuable achievement the society's capacity to sustain its standard of living. Nonetheless Gauthier presents three arguments intended to show that a community founded on his distributive theory will view depletionary resource policies as unreasonable and unacceptable. I shall contend (...) that these arguments do not succeed in motivating sustainable rates of resource exploitation. Furthermore, I argue that if truly just and rational resource use policies can be arrived at, such policies could only succeed by employing a conception of property rights substantially different from Gauthier's. (shrink)

While the preponderance of recent literature on David Gauthier's Morals by Agreement has focused on his theory of bargaining,1 Joseph DeMarco calls into question the foundation of Gauthier's project.2 DeMarco argues that Gauthier's project depends on the incorporation of extra‐rational values, thereby undermining his attempt to derive morality from the non‐moral premises of rational choice. On DeMarco's account, there are at least three points where Gauthier depends on extra‐rational values. DeMarco finds the first two of these points problematic because he (...) misunderstands Gauthier's theory of rational choice. The third point is more serious; Gauthier does not offer an apparatus sufficient to respond to DeMarco's charge. To disarm DeMarco's third objection, I shall offer a justification of the rationality of autonomous preference formation. (shrink)

To show it is sometimes rational to cooperate in the Prisoner's Dilemma, David Gauthier has claimed that if it is rational to form an intention then it is sometimes rational act on it. However, the Paradox of Deterrence and the Toxin Puzzle seem to put this general type of claim into doubt. For even if it is rational to form a deterrent intention, it is not rational act on it (if it is not successful); and even if it is rational (...) to form an intention to drink a toxin, it is not rational to act on it (come the time for drinking). This article employs an extended version of Michael Bratman's theory of intention to show how to argue systematically that it can be rational to act on rationally formed cooperative intentions, while not being committed to the rationality of apocalyptic retaliation, or pointless toxin drinking. (shrink)

Do the requirements of morality and those of rational self-interest dictate performance of the same acts in every particular situation? In this thesis I examine and evaluate various proposed answers to this age-old philosophical question. I focus on a particular kind of situation in which the two sorts of requirement seem to be at odds with one another. These are situations of contract-keeping that are prisoner's dilemma-like. In such situations, if you are moral, then it appears that you should comply (...) with an agreement to do the "cooperative thing." If you are rational, then it seems that you will do best for yourself if you refrain from cooperating. Reformulating the central question of this essay, is it rational in some sense of 'rational' to do the cooperative thing in, and so to "escape" a prisoner's dilemma? ;I begin with Hobbes and submit he would answer in the negative. In analysing Hobbes' position, I critically discuss Jean Hampton's and Gregory Kavka's views on Hobbes on state-of-nature cooperation. I then consider more recent replies paying particular attention to David Gauthier's. I argue that his defense of an affirmative reply--the desirable reply--is flawed. I arrive at a similar verdict about Edward McClennen's opinion. Finally, I advance my own conclusion--there may be situations in which people must act in a way that is either immoral or irrational. (shrink)