Intro to Contractarianism
Contractarianism is an ethical theory based on the idea that right and wrong depend on Rousseau's "social contract"--agreements between people and societies about shared values and rules. Like Kolhberg's Stage 5, Rousseau argues that the ethical person lives according to their social contract. Consequently, the argument has the same problem--what if the social contract was unfair? James Rawl, influenced by Kant's Deontology and egoism, he came up with a theory with ethics as fairness. This value, for Rawls, was key to the social contract and a fair society. Because no one, if they had the power to choose, would want to live in an unfair society unless it benefits them.
Rawls proposed a thought experiment. The goal was a fair social contract. Before a society can exist, people will gather to discuss the things they want which Rawls enumerates four: rights and liberties, powers and opportunities, income and wealth, and self-respect. For this dicussion to work Rawls assumes two things about humans: people are egoists--they want things that benefits them the most-- and they are under the influence of the veil of ignorance where you don't know anything about yourself so you can't ask for benefits that would benefit you (gender, income level, political party, ethinic group, disabilities, etc). Additionally, Rawl's Contractarianism has three more principles: The Equal Liberties--people have as many rights and freedoms as they want as long as those don't fringing on others--and Equal Opportunities Principle--people need to have equal and fair opportunities to improve their life situation--and the Difference Principle--when things can't be fair, the ones who should be the benefitted are less advantaged people. Rawls argues that with these principles and ideas, the most rational thing to do is to agree on policies that are fair to everyone so if when they enter the society and fall into a less priviledged group, they wouldn't have much of a disadvantage over others.
Despite the positive reception, some critics believe Rawls failed in his quest to balance self-interest and fairness. Furthermore, rational contractors are an ideal. Many people choose unfair deals for many reasons and people and can in irrational ways.