The topic of moral diversity is not only prevalent in contemporary moral and political philosophy, it is also practically relevant. Moral diversity, however, poses a significant challenge for moral theory building. John Thrasher, in his discussion of public reason theory, which includes social contract theory, argues that if one seriously considers the goal of moral constructivism and considerations of representation and stability, then moral diversity poses an insurmountable problem for most public reason theories. I agree (...) with Thrasher that moral diversity poses a significant challenge for orthodox multistage social contract theories. In fact, I even add a further problem for such theories under the assumption of deep moral diversity. Nevertheless, I argue that my recently developed multilevel social contract theory overcomes these problems. I focus on some of the underexplored features of this theory to show that multilevel social contract theory offers one conceptually coherent and plausible way to render social contract theory viable and relevant for modern diverse societies. (shrink)

Very diverse societies pose real problems for Rawlsian models of public reason. This is for two reasons: first, public reason is unable accommodate diverse perspectives in determining a regulative ideal. Second, regulative ideals are unable to respond to social change. While models based on public reason focus on the justification of principles, this book suggests that we need to orient our normative theories more toward discovery and experimentation. The book develops a unique approach to social contract (...) class='Hi'>theory that focuses on diverse perspectives. It offers a new moral stance that author Ryan Muldoon calls, "The View From Everywhere," which allows for substantive, fundamental moral disagreement. This stance is used to develop a bargaining model in which agents can cooperate despite seeing different perspectives. Rather than arguing for an ideal contract or particular principles of justice, Muldoon outlines a procedure for iterated revisions to the rules of a social contract. It expands Mill's conception of experiments in living to help form a foundational principle for social contract theory. By embracing this kind of experimentation, we move away from a conception of justice as an end state, and toward a conception of justice as a trajectory. (shrink)

Social contract theory enjoys a long history in moral and political philosophy. Since the European Enlightenment, social contract theory has become one of the most important traditions in moral and political philosophy. This chapter provides a brief introduction to central concepts in social contract theory and their development over time. Most importantly, the chapter clarifies some of the distinct features of new approaches to social contract theory (or “new (...) social contract theory” for short) that have evolved in the twenty-first century and are most suitable for capturing the circumstances of contemporary societies, even if new social contract theory does not constitute a unified theoretical position but is best considered as a family of approaches, methods, and topics. The chapter also provides an overview of the contributions to this book and their connections both methodologically and thematically. (shrink)

Martha Nussbaum has powerfully argued in Frontiers ofJustice and elsewhere that John Rawls’s sort of social-contract theory cannot usefully be deployed to deal with issues pertaining to justice for the disabled. To counter this claim, this article deploys Rawls’s sort of social-contract theory in order to deal with issues pertaining to justice for the disabled—or, since, as Nussbaum stresses, we all have some degree of disability—for the severely disabled. In this way, rather than questioning (...) one by one Nussbaum’s interpretive claims about Rawls’s view, one can simply see how the Rawlsian framework can work in application to this issue. Following Rawls’s lead, the paper utilizes the idealized “initial choice situation” as an analytic and comparative device for examining alternative principles of justice, developing three different interpretations of the initial choice situation that each correspond to a different set of principles that apply to people of all levels of disability. One of these sets of principles is a simple extension of Rawls’s, one is very close to what Nussbaum herself recommends, and the third is a kind of hybrid. In this way, it is shown not only that Rawls’s social-contract device can usefully be applied to these issues, but also that it is helpful for exploring the deep commitments underlying each of these competing sets of principles. (shrink)

This book features new approaches to social contract theory. Whereas traditional social contract theories and their adaptations in the twentieth century were developed for fairly homogeneous societies, societies in the twenty-first century often are characterized by conflicting first-order directives that stem from deep moral, political, religious, and cultural diversity. To address such diversity and the complexities of contemporary societies, new approaches (including formal approaches) to social contract theory have emerged that re-envision the (...) social contract for a fragmented and sometimes polarized, yet interdependent social world. New social contract theory explores how, in a world of continuous disagreement on questions of justice, in particular the ideals of liberty and equality, society can not only progress, but also flourish and become more robust and open in its social fabric. This book brings together, for the first time, defenders and discussants of new social contract theory. It includes contributions by eminent and emerging scholars in this field. The book clarifies the distinct features of new social contract theory and provides a valuable starting point for discussion of this novel movement in social contract theory. (shrink)

Urban communities in 21st century America are facing severe economic challenges, ones that suggest a mandate to contemplate serious changes in the way America does business. The middle class is diminishing in many parts of the country, with consequences for the economy as a whole. When faced with the loss of its economic base, any business community must make some difficult decisions about its proper role and responsibilities. Decisions to support the community must be balanced alongside and against responsibilities to (...) owners, shareholders and relevant “stakeholders” in a relatively new context. Corporations in urban communities “hollowed out” by white flight or urban sprawl must decide what level of support they can and should provide. This paper examines corporate decisions within the emerging urban prosperity initiatives, using the framework of integrative social contract theory proposed by Donaldson and Dunfee. We suggest that urban prosperity initiatives present a mandate on corporations sufficiently strong as to qualify as an authentic norm. Further, we argue that strict adherence to a corporate bottom line approach or “corporate isolationism” is not congruent with contemporary community standards. (shrink)

Modern Social Contract Theory provides an exposition and evaluation of major work in social contract theory from 1950 to the present. It locates the central themes of that theory in the intellectual legacy of utilitarianism, particularly the problems of defining principles of justice and of showing the grounds of moral obligation. It demonstrates how theorists responded in a novel way to the dilemmas articulated in utilitarianism, developing in their different approaches a constructivist method (...) in ethics, a method that aimed to vindicate a liberal, democratic and just political order. A distinctive feature of the book is its comparative approach. By placing the works of Barry, Buchanan and Tullock, Harsanyi, Gauthier, Grice, Rawls, and Scanlon alongside one another, similarities and differences are brought out, most notably in the way in which principles are derived by each author from the contractual construction as well as the extent to which the obligation to adopt those principles can be rationally grounded. Each theory is placed in its particular intellectual context. Special attention is paid to the contrasting theories of rationality adopted by the different authors, whether that be utility theory or a deliberative conception of rationality, with the intention of assessing how far the principles advanced can be justified by reference to the hypothetical choices of rational contracting agents. The book concludes with a discussion of some principal objections to the enterprise of contract theory, and offers its own programme for the future of that theory taking the form of the empirical method. (shrink)

This paper relates Donaldson and Dunfee’s Integrative Social Contracts Theory to the problem of gender discrimination. We make the assumption that multinational managers might seek some guidance from ISCT to resolve ethical issues of gender discrimination in countries indifferent or hostile to gender equaIity. The role of Donaldson and Dunfee’s “hypernorms” seems especially cruciaI, and we find that, under their writings thus far, no “hypernorms” exist to make unethical the most blatant acts of sex discrimination in a host (...) country whose local norms tolerate such discrimination. The genesis of “hypernorms” as “global moral minimums” is recounted, and specific application of ISCT to a familiar ethics case (“A Foreign Assignment”) is provided. (shrink)

Difficult moral issues in economic life, such as evaluating the impact of hostile takeovers and plant relocations or determining the obligations of business to the environment, constitute the raison d'etre of business ethics. Yet, while the ultimate resolution of such issues clearly requires detailed, normative analysis, a shortcoming of business ethics is that to date it has failed to develop an adequate normative theory.1 The failing is especially acute when it results in an inability to provide a basis for (...) fine-grained analyses of issues. Both general moral theories and stakeholder theory seem incapable of expressing the moral complexity necessary to provide practical normative guidance for many business ethics contexts. (shrink)

Difficult moral issues in economic life, such as evaluating the impact of hostile takeovers and plant relocations or determining the obligations of business to the environment, constitute the raison d'etre of business ethics. Yet, while the ultimate resolution of such issues clearly requires detailed, normative analysis, a shortcoming of business ethics is that to date it has failed to develop an adequate normative theory.1 The failing is especially acute when it results in an inability to provide a basis for (...) fine-grained analyses of issues. Both general moral theories and stakeholder theory seem incapable of expressing the moral complexity necessary to provide practical normative guidance for many business ethics contexts. (shrink)

Applying social contract theory to business ethics is a relatively new idea, and perhaps nobody has pursued this direction better than Thomas Donaldson and Thomas W. Dunfee. Their "Integrative Social Contracts Theory" manages to combine culturally sensitive decision making capacities with trans-cultural norms by setting up a layered system of social contracts. Lurking behind their work is a concern with the problems of relativism. They hope to alleviate these problems by introducing three concepts important (...) to the ISCT: "authentic norms," which clarify culturally specific norms, "priority rules," which determine the rules of engagement when authentic norms clash, and "hypernorms," which measure the value of authentic norms against a thin set of universally upheld values. This paper traces the genealogy of these hypernorms and challenges their value for the ISCT. It argues that well-conceived priority rules can do everything hypernorms can, and can do so more simply. (shrink)

This book develops a novel multilevel social contract theory that, in contrast to existing theories in the liberal tradition, does not merely assume a restricted form of reasonable moral pluralism, but is tailored to the conditions of deeply morally pluralistic societies which may be populated by liberal moral agents, nonliberal moral agents, and, according to the traditional understanding of morality, nonmoral agents alike. The book draws on the history of the social contract tradition, especially the (...) work of Hobbes, Hume, Kant, Rawls, and Gauthier, as well as on the work of some of the critics of this tradition, such as Sen and Gaus. The two-level contractarian theory holds that morality in its best contractarian version for the conditions of deeply morally pluralistic societies entails Humean, Hobbesian, and Kantian moral properties. The theory defines the minimal behavioral restrictions that are necessary to ensure, compared to violent conflict resolution, mutually beneficial peaceful long-term cooperation in deeply morally pluralistic societies. The theory minimizes the problem of compliance for morally diverse societies by maximally respecting the interests of all members of society. Despite its ideal nature, the theory is, in principle, applicable to the real world and, for the conditions described, most promising for securing mutually beneficial peaceful long-term cooperation in a world in which a fully just society, due to moral diversity, is unattainable. If Rawls’ intention was to carry the traditional social contract argument to a higher level of abstraction, then the two-level contractarian theory brings it back down to earth. (shrink)

We critically assess integrative social contracts theory (ISCT) and show that the concept particularly lacks of moral justification of substantive hypernorms. By drawing on Habermasian philosophy, in particular discourse ethics and its recent application in the theory of deliberative democracy , we further advance ISCT and show that social contracting in business ethics requires a well-justified procedural rather than a substantive focus for managing stakeholder relations. We also replace the monological concept of hypothetical thought experiments in (...) ISCT by a concept of practical discourse to better govern business activities on the macro-level of organizational actors such as firms, governments, and NGOs. (shrink)

'. . . this book will be valuable to upper-division and graduate students interested in the validity of SC theories.'-PERSPECTIVES ON POLITICAL SCIENCE.

Although people establish norms that enable them to live together, some of these have to be coupled with a system of enforcement. This conforms to broad social contract theory and can also be applied to the international sphere. The international community is also based on a system of norms. However, unlike the domestic context, there is no overreaching authority to direct states on what they should do. Rather it is left to states themselves to police this framework. (...) However, this has resulted in one of the conditions envisaged by social contract theorists, namely a stasis between the command order and the state of nature. This may explain, for instance, the indifference to some modern human rights violations. Hence the current system of International law, with its insistence on the Westphalian principle of equality of states has caused a substantial fracture in the enforcement of international law, particularly when it comes to serious human rights breaches, and caused something akin to the state of nature envisaged by social contract theorists. While it may be practically impossible to provide a command system in the international sphere similar to the one in the domestic life, there is some hope that a revised deontological ethic founded on global integration may provide one impetus for change. (shrink)

This paper seeks to define and delimit the scope of the social responsibilities of health professionals in reference to the concept of a social contract. While drawing on both historical data and current empirical information, this paper will primarily proceed analytically and examine the theoretical feasibility of deriving social responsibilities from the phenomenon of professionalism via the concept of a social contract.

I argue that social-contract theory cannot succeed because reasonable people may always disagree, and that social-contract theory is irrelevant to the problem of the legitimacy of a form of government or of a system of moral rules. I note the weakness of the appeal to implicit agreement, the conflation of legitimacy with stability, the undesirability of “public justification” and the apparent blindness to the evolutionary critical-rationalist approach of Hayek and Popper. I employ that approach (...) to sketch answers to the theoretical, historical and practical questions about the legitimacy of government or of systems of moral rules. (shrink)

: Decisions about funding health services are crucial to controlling costs in health care insurance plans, yet they encounter serious challenges from intellectual property protection—e.g., patents—of health care services. Using Myriad Genetics' commercial genetic susceptibility test for hereditary breast cancer (BRCA testing) in the context of the Canadian health insurance system as a case study, this paper applies concepts from social contract theory to help develop more just and rational approaches to health care decision making. Specifically, Daniels's (...) and Sabin's "accountability for reasonableness" is compared to broader notions of public consultation, demonstrating that expert assessments in specific decisions must be transparent and accountable and supplemented by public consultation. (shrink)

Presents an historical analysis of social contract theory by considering the works of prominent philosophers.

This paper considers whether professional codes of ethics are enforceable, legitimate, and just. In analyzing codes of ethics in this way, one must consider whether they exist to benefit members of the profession, or society as a whole. The analysis shifts dramatically based on this question, as codes of ethics are typically created by members of the profession, not by representatives of the larger population, and where they are enforced, they are only enforced among members of the profession. However, professional (...) codes of ethics have an impact on those outside the profession, or the larger society outside the smaller community that created them. (shrink)

Nicole Hassoun’s Globalization and Global Justice: Shrinking Distance,Expanding Obligations offers a novel argument for the existence ofpositive rights for the world’s poor, and explores institutional alternativessuitable for the realization of those rights. Hassoun’s argument is contractualist, and makes the existence of positive rights dependupon the conditions necessary for meaningful consent to the global order. Itthus provides an interesting example of social contract theory in the globalcontext. But Hassoun’s argument relies crucially upon the ambiguous natureof the concept of (...) consent. Drawing broadly upon the social contract theorytradition, Hassoun relies upon actual consent theory, democratic theory, andhypothetical consent theory. Each theoretical approach makes use of its ownconception of consent. Rather than select one of these conceptions overthe others, she makes use of all three. In doing so, she introduces a crucialambiguity into the terms that, on her account, a legitimate global order mustsatisfy. The resolution of this ambiguity will circumscribe any effort, on thepart of Hassoun or others, to specify the terms of any global social contract. (shrink)

This contribution investigates whether Hegel’s critique of social contract theory is still applicable to contemporary contract theory proposed by, e. g., Rawls and Nozick. At first sight, they seem to have overcome the problems identified by Hegel because Rawls and Nozick appropriate the social contract as something essentially rational and normative. I argue, however, that for Hegel, their appeal to rational argumentation is not compatible with the concreteness of human individuals. A revised reading (...) of the master/ bondsman-relation, emphasizing the role of the “fear of death”, shows the limited scope of contemporary contract theory. (shrink)

U radu se razmatraju pitanja u vezi s?teorijom drustvenog ugovora? u kontekstu savremenih politickih zajednica. Posebno se razmatra znacenje pojma prinude kao kljucnog predmeta politicke filozofije.

Contractual moralists, such as Bowie and Donaldson, have argued that contractual agreement explains why corporations have a moral obligation towards the society in which they operate. They argue that a corporation’s moral obligation emerges from a hypothetical social contract that establishes its legitimacy to operate in society. Their assumption appears to indicate a logically necessary relationship between a corporation’s moral obligation and contractual agreement that establishes the corporation. We argue that there is no such relationship: a corporation’s moral (...) obligation does not necessarily emerge from a social contract. We suggest that instead of assuming that a corporation’s moral obligation emerges from a social contract, it should be said that a corporation’s moral obligation is sustained by a social contract. This helps answer the question of why corporations have a moral obligation towards the society where they operate in a better light. (shrink)

Feminists have long been aware of the pathology and the dangers of what are now termed “adaptive preferences.” Adaptive preferences are preferences formed in unconscious response to oppression. Thinkers from each wave of feminism continue to confront the problem of women's internalization of their own oppression, that is, the problem of women forming their preferences within the confining and deforming space that patriarchy provides. All preferences are, in fact, formed in response to a limited set of options, but not all (...) preferences are unconscious, pathological responses to oppression. Feminist theory therefore requires a method for distinguishing all preferences from adaptive or deformed preferences. Social contract theory provides such a tool. Social contract theory models autonomous preference-acquisition and retention at both the external level of causation and the internal level of justification. In doing so, social contract theory exposes preferences that do not meet those standards, acting as both a conceptual test that identifies adaptive preferences and as a practical tool for personal and social clarification. A social contract approach helps persons and societies to identify and to confront preferences rooted in unconscious response to oppression. (shrink)

This article proposes a specific logic of dynamics for integrative social contracts theory that combines two empirically oriented process extensions strengthening concreteness of Donaldson and Dunfee’s conceptualization, namely international policy regime theory and Tiebout migration. While either would help “dynamize” and “concretize” ISCT, the two combined are even more insightful. Real-world policy regime processes can develop concrete action-guiding norms instantiating hypernorms to guide business decisions. Donaldson and Dunfee placed empirical reliance on expectation of converging parallel evolution of (...) universal principles and authentic local values. ISCT remains vague on how global or local norms can develop and change, for two reasons. First, ISCT does not explain mechanisms for how proposed hypernorms can become actual global norms and also become accepted across extant authentic communities. International policy regime theory explains how hypernorms can become instantiated as global norms expressed in policy regimes. Second, a basic element in ISCT is implied consent positing free exit from voluntary moral communities. Empirically, individuals or businesses may be unable to exit from undesired membership in authentic communities to which they do not consent. The Tiebout migration model provides valuable insights concerning how substantive mobility or its absence improves on the minimum ISCT assumption of implied consent. An integrated logic of ISCT dynamics generates a three-level framework in which instantiated hypernorms and authentic community norms can empirically change, and individuals or businesses can migrate more freely across extant communities. (shrink)

Ryan Muldoon has recently advanced an interesting and original bargaining model of the social contract as an alternative to Rawlsian social contract theory and political liberalism. This model is s...

Business and Society Review, Volume 126, Issue 1, Page 3-23, Spring 2021.

Holbach's famous materialistic and atheistic philosophy is less known for its political dimension. Yet the author proposed an original theory of the social contract in his works of the 1770s. This article details the main features of his political thought and of his social contract, notably his proposal of an 'Ethocracy' grounded in utility and justice. This Ethocracy paves the way for a pluralist republicanism that has original features in the history of ideas. Holbach was (...) a reader of Hobbes and Locke and an acquaintance of Rousseau, and proposed various critiques of the political writings of these authors. Through five main critiques, this article further shows the value of Holbach's positive theory on key concepts such as the state of nature, sociability, property, the general will and equality. Lastly, Holbach's potential contribution to political theory is highlighted, showing how the largely forgotten author merits our attention today. (shrink)

Marxist social contract theory gives rise to an unwelcome dilemma for would-Be contractarians. For either the state of nature choice situation confronting the parties to the social contract will be defined to include or to exclude the knowledge of the general facts of class conflict. But if, On the one hand, The state of nature choice situation is defined to include such knowledge (particularly the knowledge of the fundamental conflict between the proletariat and capitalist classes), (...) Then it could be argued that no agreement would be reached, And hence, No conception of justice would be chosen at all. And if, On the other hand, The state of nature choice situation is defined to exclude such knowledge, Then it could be argued that only an inadequate conception of justice tailored to the interests of the most advantaged classes would be chosen. What the author shows in this paper is that whatever the effectiveness of this dilemma when employed against various classical social contract theories, It cannot be employed with similar effect against a social contract theory that utilizes a rawlsian veil of ignorance. (shrink)

Review of Ryan Muldoon's book Social Contract Theory for a Diverse World: Beyond Tolerance (in Swedish).

In this paper, I argue in favor of a structural turn in social contract theory. More precisely, I argue that dealing with the complex and dynamic nature of the social world requires an emphasis on social structures greater than what contractarians often consider. I take structures to be the dynamic and non-random networks of interdependence among all active components that shape society. I also constrain my focus to a growing body of literature on diversity that (...) explores plausible contractarian alternatives given the complexity of modern societies. I argue that shifting weight from diversity to structures in theorizing alternative contractarian frameworks would be an improvement. (shrink)

Social contract theory has been criticized as a “theory in search of application.” We argue that incorporating the nano, or individual, level of analysis into social contract inquiry will yield more descriptive theory. We draw upon the psychological contract perspective to address two critiques of social contract theory: its rigid macro-orientation and inattention to the process of contract formation. We demonstrate how a psychological contract approach offers practical (...) insight into the impact of social contracting on day-to-day human interaction. We then articulate several potentially testable propositions that emerge from this nano-level perspective. (shrink)

During the past ten years Integrative Social Contracts Theory (ISCT) has become part of the repertoire of specialized decision-oriented theories in the business ethics literature. The intention here is to (1)␣provide a brief overview of the structure and strengths of ISCT; (2) identify recurring themes in the extensive commentary on the theory including brief mention of how ISCT has been applied outside the business ethics literature; (3) describe where research appears to be headed; and (4) specify challenges (...) faced by those who seek to reform ISCT. Key themes in the critiquing literature relate to (a) the identification process for hypernorms; (b) justification of the recognition of hypernorms; (c) proposals for considering meso or meta norms; (d)␣clarification of the relationship between stakeholder concepts and ISCT; (e) problems with potentially unoccupied moral free space; (f) sources of ethical obligation within the ISCT framework; and (g) the potential role for concepts of stakeholder dialogue and engagement. (shrink)

In this paper, we explore Cassirer’s view of social contract theory. We maintain that Cassirer has established a linguistic turn of social contract theory, by exploring the conditions for the possibility of a promise. For that purpose Cassirer’s theory of the linguistic sign, as inspired by the linguistic theory of Wilhelm von Humboldt, becomes decisive, because of its specific nature and direction into the future. First, in Section 1, we explore previous (...) class='Hi'>social contract theorists, from Nicholas von Cusa to Immanuel Kant. In Section 1, as a result, we establish the concept of the promise as the core concept of social contract theory, and as the fundamental philosophical problem conveyed by the natural lawyers. Moreover, in Section 2, we investigate the conditions for the possibility of a promise, and relate it to the symbolic nature of the human being. The promise, hence the capacity to enter into a contract, becomes a characteristically human activity, hence an expression of human dignity. (shrink)