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Getting the Baseline Right—or—Why I’m Right and Everyone Else is Wrong, in each of the Two Senses of ‘Why’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2016

PAUL VIMINITZ
PAUL VIMINITZ*
Affiliation:
University of Lethbridge
*
*<[email protected]>
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Abstract

My fellow contractarians and I are of a mind that it would be irrational to comply with a distribution of the cooperative dividend that worsens one’s condition. But worse than what? According to David Gauthier et al., it’s non-interaction, i.e., what would be the case were the negotiators never to have met. I argue that it’s what would be the case in the absence of their coming to an agreement. As it turns out, this distinction can be, and often is, a matter of life and death.

Mes collègues partisans du contractarianisme et moi sommes d’avis qu’il serait irrationnel de se soumettre à une distribution de la dividendecoopérative qui empirerait sa propre condition. Mais par rapport à quoi peut-on dire que cette condition serait «pire»? Selon David Gauthier et al., elle serait pire que la non-interaction, c’est-à-dire ce qui se produirait si les négociateurs ne s’étaient jamais rencontrés. Je soutiens plutôt qu’elle serait pire que le cas où ils ne seraient pas parvenus à une entente. Il se trouve que cette distinction peut être, et est souvent, une question de vie ou de mort.

Keywords

baseliningcontractarianismParetoworseningHobbesLockeGauthierself-effacement
Type
Special Topic: Gauthier’s Contractarian Project
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 55 , Issue 4 , December 2016 , pp. 739 - 757
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Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 2016 

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