Abstract
I have deployed the dichotomy of transparent and opaque relations for several purposes: to construct a Rousseauean typology of social interaction that draws out the political implications of various kinds of interpersonal relations; to describe different patterns of association and dissociation and their ramifications for the character of civil society; and to contrast the nature of transparent markets in which traders are fully informed and Adam Smith’s impersonal price system rules with opaque markets in which strategy and bargaining power assume a central role in the allocation of resources and the distribution of income. Having explored the practical logic that governs the interaction among transparent and opaque agents, as well as some of the consequences of this logic for human association, my aim in this chapter is to see whether the vantage point afforded by our inquiry can shed any light upon the political thought of three contemporary thinkers: David Gauthier, Bruce Ackerman, and John Rawls.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Plato, Republic, trans. Francis MacDonald Conford (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1945), 357a–367e.
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. C. B. Macpherson (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1968), pp. 72–75.
David Gauthier, Morals by Agreement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986).
For Gauthier’s conception of social contract theory as a response to post-modernism, see David Gauthier, “Why Contractarianism?” in Contractarianism and Rational Choice, ed. Peter Vallentyne (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
See Peter A. Danielson, Artificial Morality (London: Routledge, 1992).
See Greg Hill, “The Rational Justification of Moral Constraint,” The Southern Journal of Philosophy 21:2 (1993): 179–191.
Cf. Sissela Bok, Secrets (New York: Pantheon, 1982).
See David Gauthier’s discussion of the market as a “morally free zone,” in his book, Morals by Agreement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), chap. 4.
Bruce A. Ackerman, Social Justice in the Liberal State (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980).
See Cass Sunstein, Republic.com (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001).
Thomas Nagel, Concealment and Exposure (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, ed. J. P. Mayer, trans. George Lawrence (Garden City. NY: Anchor Books. 1969). p. 567.
See R. G. Lipsey and K. Landcaster, “The General Theory of Second Best,” The Review of Economic Studies 24 (1956): 11–32.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “Social Contract,” in Social Contract and Discourses, ed. and trans. G. D. H. Cole (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1950), p. 18.
John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), p. 11.
See also John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993).
See Michael Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982).
See Charles Taylor, “Cross-Purposes: The Liberal-Communitarian Debate,” in Liberalism and the Moral Life, ed. Nancy L. Rosenblum (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989).
John Rawls, “The Sense of Justice,” Philosophical Review 72:3 (1963): pp. 281–305.
Robert Shiller, Macro Markets: Creating Institutions for Managing Society’s Largest Economic Risks (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. v.
Robert Shiller, The New Financial Order: Risk in the 21st Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003), pp. 58–59.
Jean Jacques Rousseau, “A Discourse on Political Economy,” in The Social Contract and Discourses, ed. and trans. G. D. H. Cole (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1950), p. 313.
Copyright information
© 2006 Greg Hill
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Hill, G. (2006). The Ring of Gyges, the Perfect Shield, and the Veil of Ignorance. In: Rousseau’s Theory of Human Association. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403983046_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403983046_5
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-53390-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-4039-8304-6
eBook Packages: Palgrave Political & Intern. Studies CollectionPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)