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Is mutual advantage a general theory of justice? More domain worries

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Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Notes

  1. Michael Moehler’s recent Minimal Morality (2018) presents a non-comprehensive statement of this project. See Sect. 2 below.

  2. This was, of course, “minimax relative concession,” a close cousin of the Kali-Smorodinsky bargaining theory. See Gauthier (1986) chap. V. As is well-known, Gauthier later abandoned this approach and, indeed, eventually (Gauthier (2013)) abandoned bargaining theory altogether.

  3. Gauthier (1986), p. 268.

  4. All parenthetical page references in the body of the text refer to Vanderschraaf (2019).

  5. This in itself is not a deep criticism, as I am skeptical that there is any fully comprehensive theory of justice. See Gaus (2011), pp. 551–557. However, my worry is that, at best, justice as mutual advantage is restricted to a relatively narrow range of conflicts, as I argue in Gaus (2019).

  6. Moehler (2018), p. 15.

  7. For simplicity’s sake, let us assume that Vi yields a cardinal score for every member in {O}, and has a maximum value over {O}.

  8. Or, alternatively “person i prefers Ox to Oy on the basis of her V.”

  9. “(M1) Conflicting interests .… requires each Party capable of pursuing interests to restrain pursuit of her own interests to some extent in order to advance the interests of other parties to some extent” (pp. 275, 276).

  10. Some other conditions are needed, but these are easily met.

  11. See Young (Young 1984), pp. 121, 122.

  12. Moehler (2018), p. 113.

  13. Gauthier (1986), pp. 7, 11, 87.

  14. Though he also suggests that it is inconsistent with true rational endorsement (1986), p. 11.

  15. Recall that we said Vi ranks options in the feasible set.

  16. We can assume that the other elements of PR1 give Betty reasons to coordinate on it. Alternatively assume Va (max) = (.99X, .01X).

  17. The view I am arguing against, which is assumed by many analyses to be a necessary truth, is what Sen (1977) calls “welfarism,” a view that is informationally restrictive, and in many ways controversial.

References

  • Gaus, G. (2011). The order of public reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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  • Gauthier, D. (1986). Morals by agreement. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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  • Gauthier, D. (2013). Twenty-five on. Ethics, 123(July), 601–624.

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  • Moehler, M. (2018). Minimal morality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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  • Sen, A. (1977). On weights and measures: informational constraints in social welfare analysis. Econometrica, 45(October), 1539–1572.

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Acknowledgements

A version of this paper was presented at the symposium on Vanderschraaf’s Strategic Justice at the Smith Institute for Political Economy and Philosophy at Chapman University. My thanks to John Thrasher for organizing the symposium, and to all the participants—especially Peter Vanderschraaf—for their comments and insights.

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  1. Moral Science & Political Economy, Philosophy, University of Arizona, Social Science Bldg. Rm 217, Tucson, AZ, 85721-0027, USA

    Gerald Gaus

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Gaus, G. Is mutual advantage a general theory of justice? More domain worries. Philos Stud 178, 1731–1739 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-020-01501-3

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